Month: April 2018

Britain’s interior minister has resigned after Prime Minister Theresa May’s government faced criticism for its treatment of some long-term Caribbean residents who were wrongly labeled illegal immigrants, a government official said.

A spokesman for May was not immediately available for comment but a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed a BBC report that Home Secretary Amber Rudd had resigned.

For two weeks, British ministers have been struggling to explain why some descendants of the so-called “Windrush generation,” invited to Britain to plug labor shortfalls between 1948 and 1971, had been labeled as illegal immigrants.

The Windrush scandal overshadowed the Commonwealth summit in London and has raised questions about Theresa May’s six-year stint as interior minister before she became prime minister in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Rudd had faced repeated calls from the opposition Labor Party to resign after she gave contradictory statements about meeting targets for deportations.

May apologized to the black community on Thursday in a letter to The Voice, Britain’s national Afro-Caribbean newspaper.

“We have let you down and I am deeply sorry,” she said. “But apologies alone are not good enough. We must urgently right this historic wrong.”

 
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A court in Iraq has sentenced 19 Russian women to life in prison for joining the Islamic State terrorist group.

The Central Criminal Court in Baghdad, which deals with terrorism cases, also sentenced six women from Azerbaijan and four from Tajikistan to life in prison on Sunday on the same charge.

Most of the defendants told the court they had been brought to Iraq against their will from Turkey by IS fighters.

Earlier this month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said between 50 and 70 “Russian-speaking women” were being held in Iraq, along with more than 100 of their children.

IS took over nearly one third of Iraq in a blistering 2014 offensive, seizing control of the country’s second largest city, Mosul, among others.

Baghdad declared military victory over the jihadists in December, after expelling them from all urban centers.

Experts estimate that Iraq is holding 20,000 people in jail over suspected IS membership. There is no official figure.

Iraqi courts have sentenced to death a total of more than 300 people, including dozens of foreigners, for belonging to IS.

 
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A mystery is brewing at the White House about what happened to the oak tree President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron planted there last week.

The sapling was a gift from Macron on the occasion of his state visit.

News photographers snapped away Monday as Trump and Macron shoveled dirt onto the tree during a ceremonial planting on the South Lawn. By the end of the week, the tree was gone from the lawn. A pale patch of grass was left in its place.

The White House hasn’t offered an explanation.

The oak sprouted at a World War I battle site that became part of U.S. Marine Corps legend.

About 2,000 U.S. troops died in the June 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood, fighting a German offensive.

 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she and the leaders of France and Britain are ready to push back if the Trump administration does not permanently exempt the European Union from new import taxes on aluminum and steel imports.

Merkel said in a statement that she spoke with President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday and Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday after returning from Friday talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Merkel says the three leaders “agreed that the U.S. ought not to take any trade measures against the European Union,” which is “resolved to defend its interests within the multilateral trade framework.” The chancellor’s statement did not outline specific steps the 28-nation EU might take.

The EU’s temporary exemption from the tariffs expires Tuesday.
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Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport was temporarily closed early Sunday as a large power outage hit all operations at one of Europe’s busiest airports.

Authorities closed roads to Schiphol and stopped train traffic to the airport around 0300 GMT to “ensure the safety of travelers,” the airport said, as check-in procedures had become impossible and the airport’s main halls overflowed with waiting passengers.

Roads to the airport were reopened around 0430 GMT, as power was restored, but the disruption of services would have “severe consequences for air traffic during the day,” airport spokesman Jacco Bartels said.

This would also affect flights to Amsterdam at other airports, as Schiphol would be able to handle only 10 arriving planes per hour on Sunday morning, with priority given to the large number of flights waiting to leave the airport, Bartels said.

Schiphol is the third-busiest airport in Europe in numbers of travelers, after London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
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Tens of thousands of people have marched in northern Spain for a third consecutive day to protest the acquittal of five men on gang rape charges.

Local police in Pamplona estimated the size of the crowd at Saturday’s march at 35,000.

An 18-year-old woman was attacked during the city’s famed San Fermin bull-running festival in 2016.

The five men, whose members named their WhatsApp group “The Pack,” were convicted Thursday on a lesser felony of sexual abuse and sentenced to nine years each in prison. Lawyers say the victim is appealing.

The court’s decision has also prompted thousands of women to share their experiences of abuse on Twitter under the hashtag #cuentalo, Spanish for #tell it.

The Spanish government has announced plans to convene discussions on possible legal reforms.
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Law enforcement authorities in the United States, European Union and Canada this week began a joint cybercampaign against Islamic State online communication channels that will “severely disrupt” the group’s propaganda machine, the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol said.

The multinational action, led by Belgian federal prosecutors, was launched  Wednesday and Thursday and targeted IS media outlets, including Amaq news, al-Bayan radio, Halumu and Nashir news.

IS’s Amaq news agency is believed to be a major propaganda outlet for the terror group. The group relies on the outlet to spread propaganda in several languages, including English and French. Amaq has broadcast claims of responsibility for deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Barcelona.

“With this groundbreaking operation we have punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe,” Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol, said in a statement released Friday.

“I applaud the determined and innovative work by Europol and its partners to target a major part of the international terrorist threat prevalent in Europe today,” he added.

Earlier efforts

This is not the first time Western countries joined forces to crack down on IS propaganda capabilities. A coordinated effort in August 2016 hit Amaq’s mobile application and web infrastructure. Another multinational operation led by Spanish Guardia Civil in June 2017 against the outlet helped authorities identify radicalized individuals in over 100 countries around the world.

Europol claimed the two-day effort this week led to the seizure of digital evidence by law enforcement authorities and compromised IS broadcast capabilities and materials.

Europol authorities said the data retrieved as a result of the crackdown would be used to identify the administrators behind IS media outlets.

In a separate statement, Belgian police said the operation also aimed to seize and shut down computer servers used to spread terror propaganda in Europe.

Over the years, IS has weaponized the internet to radicalize, recuit and inspire acts of terrorism in the West and around the world.

The group’s ability to produce and distribute new propaganda has been significantly diminished since it lost nearly 98 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, and social media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter increased their efforts to remove radical content from the internet. 

VOA Turkish service’s Arzu Cakir contributed to this report from Paris. 
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that airstrikes on Syria, conducted by the U.S., Britain, and France on April 14, were a violation of international law and indicated that the Western powers were trying to destroy the peace process.

Lavrov, speaking after meeting in Moscow with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts, said such “attempts to … destabilize the situation” encourage the extremists in Syria to go on with their armed struggle.

Lavrov and his counterparts said they agreed that Syria’s territorial integrity should be preserved, while accusing the United States of plans to “reformat” the Middle East and divide Syria into parts.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif said there was no military solution to the Syrian crisis. He also said that Iran condemned the use of chemical weapons and hoped that the investigation of an alleged Syrian attack on its own people would uncover the truth. He also said anyone who supported Iraq when it used chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s had no right to criticize Syria today.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country, too, supported Syrian territorial integrity and, with allies Iran and Russia, hoped ultimately to find a political solution to the crisis. He said “some groups” had tried to undermine that work, and he urged all parties to contribute to the peace process instead.
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Standing alongside Germany’s chancellor, U.S. President Donald Trump emphasized on Friday that Iran would not be permitted to build a nuclear arsenal, even if a deal intended to prevent that scenario collapsed. 

“They’re not going to be doing nuclear weapons. You can bank on it,” Trump told reporters. 

Asked about possible actions, including use of force, that he could take if Iran restarted its nuclear weapons program, if the deal made in 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was abandoned, the president replied: “I don’t talk about whether or not I’d use military force.” 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, appearing with Trump at the news conference following their Friday meetings, described the JCPOA as “anything but perfect,” adding, “It will not solve all the problems of Iran.” 

She described it as one piece to limit Iran’s bad actions, while saying Berlin considered it of “prime importance” to contain threats from Iran as it exerts geopolitical influence in Syria, which has been racked by years of civil war. 

Merkel said her government would continue very close discussions with the United States as the president neared a decision on the Iranian nuclear accord, signed by Iran with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

The Trump administration is required to recertify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is complying with the deal. The next deadline is May 12. 

The U.S. president repeatedly has heaped scorn on the agreement, referring to it as a “disgrace,” “stupid” and the “worst deal ever negotiated.” 

Following a meeting Friday of foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters in Brussels that “absent a substantial fix, absent overcoming the flaws of the deal,” the U.S. president “is unlikely to stay in that deal.” Earlier in the week, French President Emmanuel Macron said in Washington that he did not believe he had been able to persuade Trump not to abandon the nuclear agreement. 

Asked by journalists whether he thought the U.S. president would walk away from the pact, Macron replied, “That’s my bet.” 

Macron was seen by many as the foreign leader most likely to be able to change Trump’s mind because of the warm relationship between the two. 

Trump on Friday greeted Merkel under the West Wing entry portico with a kiss on both cheeks and a handshake in the Oval Office, more affection than during Merkel’s initial White House visit 13 months ago when he appeared to refuse to shake her hand in the Oval Office. 

Merkel’s relationship with Trump remains icy, according to The Washington Post, quoting a person who was in the room when the president was with Macron on Tuesday when Trump reportedly said he was “not looking forward to Merkel coming.”

According to Peter Rashish, senior fellow and director of the geoeconomics program at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, “there was always going to be a division of labor between Macron and Merkel with Trump.”

Rashish, a former vice president for Europe at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, noted that while “Macron is a gifted public performer, Merkel thrives in close-range, behind-the-scenes meetings. The cordial tone of the press conference suggests she was able to find a way to engage Trump in a way that could bear fruit further down the line.”

Alongside Trump, during several events Friday at the White House when reporters were in the room, Merkel remained mostly stone-faced. But there were a couple of flashes of puzzlement during their joint news conference when Trump made off-the-cuff remarks in his trademark fashion. 

Trump and Merkel acknowledged they discussed other difficult matters, including the level of funding for NATO and trade tariffs. 

“We had an exchange of views,” she said when asked about steel tariffs Trump is poised to impose on European exports. “The decision lies with the president.” 

While Trump emphasized the need to bring down the EU trade surplus with the United States, the president also said he wanted to deepen economic ties with Europe, which observers saw as something new. 

Merkel on Friday restated her interest in a U.S.-EU free-trade agreement.

“Put those two ideas together and you could imagine down the road the resumption of some version of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with a more Trumpian stamp,” Rashish told VOA. 
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The Syrian civil war has been a catalyst for Russian-Turkish rapprochement, much to the concern of Turkey’s NATO partners. This, coupled with Ankara’s current strained relations with its traditional Western allies, is raising the prospect of a nonaligned Turkey.

Foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Russia are meeting Saturday in Moscow under the auspices of the so-called Astana process that’s aimed at resolving the Syrian civil war.

Ahead of the meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A myriad of differences continue to strain ties between the two NATO allies.

Speaking to reporters, Cavusoglu dismissed a threat from some U.S. lawmakers that additional measures might be taken against Turkey in light of its prosecution of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson on terrorism charges.

Countermeasures

“I have openly told him [Pompeo] that sanctions should not be on the agenda,” he said. “These would trigger countersteps from us that would not be in our interests,” Cavusoglu said.

Washington also threatened further sanctions over Ankara’s planned purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system.

“The S-400 sale is done,” added Cavusoglu. “We can only talk about what we can do with the U.S. in the subsequent process.”

Washington has indicated sanctions could be triggered when the missiles are actually delivered to Turkey. Moscow has already announced it is working to bring forward the delivery date to next year, from the originally planned 2020.

A picture of the ​Iranian, Russian and Turkish presidents at an Ankara summit on Syria this month exemplified Western concerns of Turkey’s eastern drift.

But a top Turkish presidential adviser sought to put a different spin on the image. “To me, that photo-op underlines the strategic importance of Turkey and shows its rise in foreign policy. This is not a shift of axis,” international relations head Ayse Sozen Usluer said in an interview with the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper Friday.

In the same interview, Usluer suggested critics of Ankara’s Moscow rapprochement were trapped in the past.

“For the last 10 to 15 years in particular, Turkey has not felt the need to choose between the West and the East, or between the U.S. and Russia,” he said. “Turkey no longer sees its foreign policy within the framework of the Cold War or East versus West alliances.”

Usluer’s comments coincided with pro-government media political commentators increasingly promoting the idea of a nonaligned Turkey.

“Pro-government commentators are saying India, Egypt, even Cyprus did this before. Why can’t we do it now?” said political commentator Semih Idiz of the Al-Monitor website.

“I don’t see this as realistic,” he said. Governments’ policies “are determined by the geography they find themselves in. I don’t think Turkey is in a situation or place in the world that it can be a nonaligned country.”

Challenging proposition

Turkey borders Iran, Iraq and Syria, and for the nearly three decades, conflicts have raged along on its southern border. Analysts suggest pursuing an increasingly independent diplomatic role will be challenging.

But Turkey’s geography also gives it leverage.

“We call it balance-of-power policy, like in the 19th century. Turkey can play the mediation between the rival counties,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. “But we can never abandon our international alliances. We have always had alliances with our allies. We were never alone, back to World War II and the Crimean War of the 19th century.”

The current situation may well suit Moscow.

“For Russia, the target is not to fully disrupt U.S.-Turkish relations, but to keep this relationship weak,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served in Iraq and Washington. But given that Ankara and Moscow are on opposing sides in the Syrian civil war and remain regional rivals, Selcen suggested Turkey would have to eventually return to its Western allies.

“Anyone looking at the map, even with no knowledge of history, can come up with the conclusion, yes, Turkey should have rational relations with Moscow and Tehran,” said Selcen. “But it cannot extend beyond a certain operational or tactical basis, given the long-term contradictory goals of those powers, especially in Syria.”
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A top U.S. official said Friday that NATO foreign ministers would refuse to “return to business as usual with Russia” until Moscow “withdraws forces and support for proxies in the Donbas, and returns control of Crimea to Ukraine.”

The unusually pointed demand, tweeted by State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, coincided with newly confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s arrival in Brussels for Friday’s ministerial meeting — a powerful message to send to NATO allies for his first day on the job.

“I hopped straight on a plane and came straight here,” Pompeo told the ministerial. “There’s good reason for that. The work that’s being done here today is invaluable and our objectives are important and this mission means a lot to the United States of America.”

Tweeting throughout the initial phase of the Brussels visit, Nauert reiterated those talking points, calling NATO “more relevant than any time since the Cold War,” and that today’s focus was squarely on “Russia’s continued aggression and ability to threaten, coerce, undermine and invade its neighbors.”

She also tweeted that 22 Ukrainian soldiers had been wounded in last 48 hours in eastern Ukraine, the highest number since July, adding that “Russia-led forces have intensified artillery attacks on Ukrainians defending their country. Russia must end its aggression and fully implement the Minsk agreements.”

Neal Walker, chief of the U.N. humanitarian mission to Ukraine, told VOA’s Ukrainian service that they were recording 40,000 cease-fire violations each month.

“As you can imagine, this isn’t really a cease-fire,” he said. “This is a hot conflict that has a huge impact on people’s lives.”

UN Says Enormous Humanitarian Funding Restraints in Ukraine

NATO-Russia tension

Analysts say Pompeo has good reason to hit the ground running, with increased tensions between NATO and Russia likely to top the agenda. 

Pompeo and the other NATO foreign ministers will most likely focus on how to counter Russian cyberattacks and other interference in Western democracies, as well as Moscow’s role in protecting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

During his first year in office, U.S. President Donald Trump criticized alliance allies for not spending enough on defense, calling it unfair to taxpayers in the United States. The president, however, did reaffirm support for NATO while urging allies to pay their fair share.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and other leaders in Brussels said they appreciated Pompeo’s quick action to attend Friday’s talks.

“I feel that that’s a great expression of the importance of the alliance and the importance we attach to the alliance, and I very much look forward to talking with you, on the need to adapt NATO to a more demanding security environment,” the secretary-general told Pompeo.

As of publication time, Russia’s Foreign Ministry had not yet responded to Nauert’s tweets or Pompeo’s visit with NATO ministers.

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian service. VOA’s Cindy Saine contributed original reporting.
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