Month: October 2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted a senior White House envoy on Tuesday as the U.S. affirmed President Donald Trump’s intention to exit a landmark nuclear treaty amid charges of violating the agreement.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton’s meeting with the Russian leader capped two days of talks with senior Kremlin officials aimed at paving the way for the United States’ withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

The deal, brokered between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, required the elimination of all short- and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles in Europe — then divided by the world’s two great superpowers.

For now, the U.S. has yet to formally exit the agreement. Yet Bolton left no doubt that the move was imminent.

“The INF is ignored and outmoded,” said Bolton. “It’s a Cold War treaty for a multipolar world.” 

President Trump has justified the withdrawal by pointing to a recent history of Russian transgressions — a charge Moscow has repeatedly levied against Washington. 

“Russia has not, unfortunately, honored the agreement,” said Mr. Trump, in comments at a political rally over the weekend. “So we’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out.”

“Until people come to their senses — we have more money than anybody else, by far,” added the American leader. 

Bolton echoed that rationale before reporters again in Moscow. 

“This question of Russian violations is long and deep,” said Bolton, noting that Russian violations had dated back to the Obama administration. 

“The threat is not America’s INF withdrawal from the treaty. The threat is Russian missiles already deployed.”

Arms race 2.0?

From President Putin on down, Kremlin officials have repeatedly warned any new U.S. arms deployments that result from the treaty’s collapse will be met in kind.

Such exchanges have unnerved key European allies — including Germany and France — who fear a return to the days of the Cold War when Europe served as a nuclear sparring ground between the world’s two superpowers.

Other American allies, such as Poland and England, have voiced support for the move. 

Yet behind the U.S. decision: the growing military capabilities of nations not included in the INF — such as China and Iran. 

“One-third to one-half of Chinese missiles today would violate the INF,” argued Bolton. 

“Exactly one country is constrained by the INF treaty: the United States.”

Thou doth protest too much?

In Moscow, debate has centered on whether the Kremlin tacitly achieved its aim — or doom — by prompting the U.S. withdrawal of a treaty in lieu of NATO’s subsequent expansion into Eastern Europe.

“For Russia, it’s beneficial to have in its arsenal a class of nuclear and strategic weapons to combat regional threats without the distraction of the limitations of the strategic arsenal aimed at the USA,” argues independent analyst Vladimir Frolov in the online publication Republic. 

“It’s a big diplomatic accomplishment for Vladimir Putin,” he added. 

“It’s sad to watch,” countered opposition activist Vladimir Milov in a Facebook post. “Trillions and trillions will be thrown to the wind.”

“The decades-old system of global security is being destroyed before our eyes, and will not be easy to resuscitate.” 

Either way, the Kremlin seemed eager to embrace Bolton’s visit — the second in the past 4 months — as a willingness to engage despite ongoing allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. 

“We barely respond to any of your steps but they keep on coming,” said President Putin, joking to Bolton before cameras at the Kremlin in a reference to U.S.-Russian tit-for-tat sanctions over ongoing allegations of election meddling.

In turn, Bolton argued Russia’s actions had not changed the outcome of the 2016 race. Rather they’d made it all but impossible for progress in U.S.-Russian relations. 

The two sides, noted Bolton, did make progress on reinstating cooperative efforts relative to terrorism, Syria, and North Korea. And, President Trump had accepted Putin’s offer to meet on the sidelines of the upcoming celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the armistice marking the end of World War I in Paris in November. 

But much hinges on how the U.S. views Russian cyber activities ahead of an already charged political season when Americans head to the polls November 6th for midterm elections. 

Depending on how things go, warned Bolton, the U.S. position could change “with a keystroke.” 
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King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands highlighted the “shadow of uncertainty” hanging over Dutch nationals living in Britain due to Brexit in an address to the British parliament on Tuesday during a two-day state visit.

The king used a speech to lawmakers and diplomats in one of parliament’s grandest halls to express his regret over Britain’s decision to leave the European Union next year – a body he said was flawed, but which had also made great achievements.

“It truly saddens us to see a close partner leave. But of course we respect your country’s choice,” he said.

Reaching a deal and predicting the consequences of Brexit was a highly complex task, he said, adding that the 150,000 Dutch nationals living in Britain and 50,000 British nationals living in the Netherlands deserved special attention.

“Many of them have lived and worked here for many years. They feel at home in their local community and their contribution to society is valued,” he said.

“Yet these individuals now live under the shadow of uncertainty about their future status. I understand how difficult this is for them and I trust this uncertainty will be resolved.”

Earlier, the king and Queen Maxima were formally welcomed by Queen Elizabeth with a Guard of Honor before taking a state carriage procession along the Mall in London to lunch at Buckingham Palace.

The Dutch royals were also visiting the grave of William III and Mary II of England, the Anglo-Dutch couple who ruled Britain at the end of the 17th Century, and were also due to lay a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey.

After his address to parliament the king was scheduled to take afternoon tea with Elizabeth’s heir Charles at his official Clarence House residence.

Elizabeth was later hosting the Dutch royals at a banquet to celebrate the first UK state visit by Dutch monarchy for 36 years.

Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus visited Britain in 1982, while Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip paid a state visit to Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 1958.
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A man who swore allegiance to the Islamic State militant group before killing four foreign cyclists in ex-Soviet Tajikistan went on trial Tuesday in a process closed to the public.

Tajikistan’s Supreme Court spokesperson told AFP Tuesday the trial for the “brutal murder of four foreign cyclists” had begun in the suspect’s high-security detention center.

Hussein Abdusamadov, 33, already confessed to killing American cycling tourists Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin, Dutch citizen Rene Wokke and Swiss citizen Markus Hummel in July.

The victims were struck by a car as they cycled back from the remote Pamir Highway, a popular route among adventure tourists, before being set upon with knives and firearms.

Four of Abdusamadov’s accomplices were killed by police during a manhunt.

A video of the five men pledging allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released by an official IS media channel.

Tajik authorities have so far ignored the video evidence, instead blaming a former opposition party – the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan – that was banned by the government in 2015.

The fact the trial is closed has raised concerns about due process in a country with a poor record on political freedoms and human rights.

Abdusamadov implicated the IRPT as the ultimate organizer of the attack in a televised confession, but critics say the government is using the case to tar the opposition.

A dozen senior members of the IRPT are serving long sentences up to life on charges government critics say are trumped up.

In addition to Abdusamadov, 16 other people stand accused of not offering information to the authorities that could have prevented the attack, a source in the police told AFP.

 
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The United States has launched a cyber campaign aimed at Russian operatives in an effort to curb misinformation ahead of the November 6 congressional elections, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, in what it said was the first known such operation to protect American elections.

The Times, citing unnamed defense officials briefed on the operation, said the U.S. Cyber Command, the military’s cyber warfare division, was using direct messages to target individuals behind influence campaigns in an effort to deter them from spreading propaganda and fake information.

While the United States was not directly threatening any individuals, its previous sanctions and indictments could help deter the Russian operatives once they realized they had been identified, according to the Times report.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Kremlin-backed entities meddled in the 2016 presidential election campaign to try to boost Republican candidate Donald Trump, an accusation Moscow has repeatedly denied. Intelligence officials have said that Moscow remains a threat to U.S.

elections.

On Friday, the U.S. government unveiled what one official said was the first criminal charges linked to attempted interference in next month’s midterm elections. Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, a 44-year-old Russian national, was charged with playing a key financial role in a Kremlin-backed plan to conduct “information warfare” against the United States, including ongoing attempts to influence American voters.

The Times said the protective operation included missions taken in recent days, but has been limited in part to prevent Moscow from escalating its response beyond election-related actions that could target the U.S. power grid or other targets.

U.S. Cyber Command has also sent teams to Europe in an effort to help allies fight Russian intrusions, officials told the Times.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the Times report, and representatives for the Pentagon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, in Moscow for meetings this week, told Russian officials on Monday that its election meddling sowed distrust.

More than a dozen Russians and three Russian entities have been indicted as part of a U.S. investigation into the 2016 interference and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign, including 12 Russian intelligence officers and a St. Petersburg-based group known for its trolling on social media.

Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion.
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U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton says he told Russian officials that its meddling in the 2016 election did not affect the outcome but instead created distrust.

“The important thing is that the desire for interfering in our affairs itself arouses distrust in Russian people, in Russia. And I think it should not be tolerated. It should not be acceptable,” Bolton said Monday on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Bolton is in Moscow for talks with Russian leaders on President Donald Trump’s intention to pull the United States out of a 1987 arms control agreement.

Before joining the White House, Bolton called Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election an “act of war.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian election interference and allegations of collusion with the Trump campaign — allegations both Trump and Russia deny.

The U.S. has charged a number of Russian citizens and agents with election meddling.

Last week, the Justice Department charged a Russian woman with “information warfare” for managing the finances of an internet company looking to interfere in next month’s midterm elections.

The company is owned by a business executive with alleged ties to President Vladimir Putin.

The woman, Elena Khusyaynova, said Monday she is “shocked” by the charges against her. She calls herself a “simple Russian woman” who does not speak English.
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A Russian woman accused by the U.S. of helping oversee a social media effort to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections mocked the accusations Monday, saying that they made her feel proud.

Justice Department prosecutors alleged Friday that Elena Khusyaynova helped manage the finances of the same social media troll farm that was indicted earlier this year by special counsel Robert Mueller. The troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, is one of a web of companies allegedly controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with reported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Khusyaynova responded Monday in a video on the internet news site Federal News Agency, reportedly also linked to Prigozhin. She said she was bewildered by the allegations that she could have influenced the U.S. elections even though she is just a simple bookkeeper who doesn’t speak English.

Justice Department prosecutors claimed that Khusyaynova, of St. Petersburg, ran the finances for a hidden but powerful Russian social media effort aimed at spreading distrust for American political candidates and causing divisions on hot-button social issues like immigration and gun control. It marked the first federal case alleging foreign interference in the 2018 midterm elections.

“I was surprised and shocked, but then my heart filled with pride,” Khusyaynova said. “It turns out that a simple Russian woman could help citizens of a superpower elect their president. Dear people of the world! Let’s all help the American people elect such politicians who would behave in a humane way and lead our planet to peace and goodness. Let’s all wish America to become a great and peaceful country again!”
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U.S. media reports say CIA director Gina Haspel is traveling to Istanbul to meet with Turkish officials who are investigating the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Sources told news outlets that Haspel departed Monday for Turkey to work on the investigation into Khashoggi’s death.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that he has “top intelligence people in Turkey,” but did not give further details. Trump said he is still not satisfied with the explanation he has heard about Khashoggi’s death, but said “we’re going to get to the bottom of it.” 

The president said he had spoken with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler — since Khashoggi’s death. He said he will know more about the death once U.S. teams investigating the killing return to Washington from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

In another development Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met Saudi Arabia’s embattled crown prince in Riyadh. The Saudi Foreign Ministry posted a photograph of the meeting on its Twitter account.

Mnuchin canceled his plans to attend a three-day investment conference hosted by Saudi Arabia beginning Tuesday, but said he would meet the Saudi crown prince to discuss counterterrorism efforts. 

New surveillance video released Monday from Istanbul appears to show a Saudi agent wearing Khashoggi’s clothing and leaving Riyadh’s consulate on Oct. 2, an apparent attempt to cover up his killing by showing he had left the diplomatic outpost alive.

The video was taken by Turkish law enforcement and shown Monday on CNN, suggesting Saudi agents used a body double in an effort to conceal the killing. 

The video surfaced as Saudi officials offered yet another explanation for the death of the 59-year-old Saudi journalist who had been living in the U.S. in self-imposed exile while he wrote columns for The Washington Post that were critical of the Saudi crown prince and Riyadh’s involvement in the conflict in Yemen. 

The Saudis at first said Khashoggi had left the consulate and that they did not know his whereabouts. Later, they said he died in a fistfight after an argument inside the consulate. Now, the Saudis are saying Khashoggi died in a chokehold to prevent him from leaving the consulate to call for help. 

It is not known what happened to Khashoggi’s remains, although Turkish officials say he was tortured, decapitated and then dismembered. One Saudi official told ABC News that Khashoggi’s body was given to a “local cooperator” in Istanbul for disposal, but Saudi officials have said they do not know what happened to his remains.

In Washington, White House adviser Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, told CNN the U.S. is still in a “fact-finding” phase in trying to determine exactly what happened to Khashoggi. 

“We’re getting facts in from multiple places,” Kushner said. He said that Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will then decide how to respond to Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is vowing to reveal details about the case in a Tuesday speech to his parliament.
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Norwegian resistance fighter Joachim Ronneberg, whose bravery helped keep Nazi Germany from building nuclear weapons, has died at 99.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg called him one of the country’s heroes and possibly the last of the World War II resistance fighters.

Ronneberg fled Norway when the Nazis invaded in 1940. He trained with the Norwegian resistance in Britain and returned behind enemy lines.

Ronneberg led Operation Gunnerside — the 1943 secret mission that blew up a German plant producing heavy water, a necessary component in early nuclear research.

The Nazis were working on building nuclear weapons and may have developed a bomb to use on New York or London if the plant had not been destroyed and Hitler defeated in 1945.

Ronneberg’s story was dramatized in the 1965 film The Heroes of Telemark.

Ronneberg later became a journalist and rarely talked about his wartime experiences except to warn younger generations of the dangers of totalitarian governments.

 
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The killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul is unlikely to halt Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power, but could cause irreparable harm to relations with Western governments and businesses, potentially endangering his ambitious reform plans.

International outrage over Khashoggi’s Oct. 2 slaying at the hands of Saudi officials, under still-disputed circumstances, has marked the greatest crisis in the 33-year-old’s rapid rise, already tarnished by a catastrophic war in Yemen and a sweeping roundup of Saudi businessmen and activists.

The prince had hoped to galvanize world support for his efforts to revamp the country’s oil-dependent economy, but now the monarchy faces possible sanctions over the killing. Saudi Arabia has threatened to retaliate against any punitive action, but analysts say that wielding its main weapon — oil production — could backfire, putting the prince’s economic goals even further out of reach.

“The issue now is how Western governments coordinate a response and to what extent they wish to escalate this in a coordinated fashion,” said Michael Stephens, a senior research fellow who focuses on the Mideast at London’s Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.

“Would financial sanctions be considered sufficient as to have sent a message to Saudi Arabia that this will never happen again?” Stephens added. “Some may feel this is inadequate, while others, like the Americans, may feel this is going too far.”

Senior aides close to the prince have been fired over Khashoggi’s killing, and 18 suspects have been arrested. But the prince himself, protected by his 82-year-old father, King Salman, has been tapped to lead a panel to reform the kingdom’s intelligence services, a sign he will remain next in line to the throne.

The king has the authority to change the line of succession — as he did when he appointed his son crown prince in the first place, upending the previous royal consensus.

But any direct challenge to Prince Mohammed’s succession “may be destabilizing for the kingdom as a whole,” said Cinzia Bianco, a London-based analyst for Gulf State Analytics. “Being young and being so close to his father, there is a chance that his behavior can be constrained with the influence of his father and other actors around the world,” Bianco said.

That only holds as long as King Salman remains in power. If Prince Mohammed ascends the throne, he could be in power for decades, longer than any other royal since the country’s founding in 1932, including its first monarch, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.

The firing and arrests announced by the kingdom appear to be at least an acknowledgement by the royal family of how serious the crisis has become.

“While it might be too early to evaluate the reaction of the international community, these moves might be read as a serious initial signal that the Saudi leadership is course correcting,” wrote Ayham Kamel, the head of Mideast and North Africa research at the Eurasia Group.

“Despite speculation that the crisis spells the end of Mohammad bin Salman, the recent announcements prove that the king still believes that the current line of succession is suitable.”

The Saudis’ greatest concern is the United States, a crucial military ally against archrival Iran and a key source of the kind of foreign investment they will need to reform the economy. A strong American response could encourage other Western countries to follow suit, further amplifying the crisis.

President Donald Trump has thus far sent mixed signals, vowing “severe punishment” over the death of the Washington Post columnist but saying he doesn’t want to imperil American arms sales to the kingdom.

Trump chose Saudi Arabia as his first overseas trip as president, and his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has developed close ties with Prince Mohammed, apparently seeing him as an ally in advancing his yet-to-be-released peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

But even if the Saudis keep Trump on their side, they could face a reckoning from the U.S. Congress, where Republicans and Democrats alike have expressed outrage over the killing. Some have suggested using the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act, which makes it possible to impose entry bans and targeted sanctions on individuals for committing human rights violations or acts of significant corruption.

Saudi Arabia last week threatened “greater action” if faced with sanctions. While no official has explained what that would entail, the general manager of a Saudi-owned satellite news channel suggested it could include weaponizing the kingdom’s oil production.

Forty-five years ago, Saudi Arabia joined other OPEC nations in an oil embargo over the 1973 Mideast war in retaliation for American military support for Israel. Gas prices soared, straining the U.S. economy.

But it’s unclear whether such a move would work in today’s economy. Saudi Arabia has been trying to claw back global market share, especially as Iran faces new U.S. oil sanctions beginning in November. Slashing oil exports would drain revenues needed for Prince Mohammed’s plans to diversify the economy, while a spike in oil prices could revive the U.S. shale industry and lead other countries to boost production.

“The Saudis have been very helpful by accelerating oil production, especially as sanctions on Iran ramp up,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “It would be very foolish of Saudi Arabia to forfeit the trust of the oil market earned over decades by injecting politics into their oil policy.”
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U.S. lawmakers of both political parties remain incredulous of Saudi Arabia’s explanation for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared at the kingdom’s consulate in Turkey nearly three weeks ago. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports from Washington.
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