Category: Євросоюз

Turkey does not stand together with any country on Syria and its policy in the region is different from that of Iran, Russia and the United States, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Monday. Speaking to reporters in Qatar, Bozdag, the government spokesman, also said Turkey did not hesitate to work together with any country who defended “correct principles” on Syria. His comments were in response to a reporter’s question about an earlier remark from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said Turkey’s support of missile strikes against Syria showed it had “separated” from Russia. …

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The United Nations Security Council has condemned in “the strongest terms” a deadly extremist attack Saturday on a U.N. military camp in northern Mali.  A U.N. peacekeeper from Burkina Faso was killed in the attack on the camp in Timbuktu, and a number of people were wounded, including seven French soldiers.  The Associated Press reports 15 of the attackers were killed in a counterattack.  The French army said the assault was “particularly sophisticated and underhanded,” with some of the assailants entering the camp disguised as peacekeepers with the U.N. mission, known as MINUSMA. MINUSMA head Mahamat Saleh Annadif said in …

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Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has promised to diversify his nation’s economy and address the needs of its increasingly young population. Mike O’Sullivan reports on the heir-apparent to the Saudi throne’s multination charm offensive in Europe and the United States, which recently wrapped up in Spain. …

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Hundreds of thousands of Catalan separatists rallied in downtown Barcelona on Sunday to demand the release of high-profile secessionist leaders being held in pre-trial detention. Protesters waved Catalan separatist flags behind a huge banner that read “for rights and liberties, for democracy and unity, we want them back home!” The demonstration was organized by two pro-independence grassroots groups, the National Catalan Assembly and Omnium, whose presidents are among the nine separatists in prison awaiting trial for their roles in last year’s failed breakaway bid by the northeastern Spanish region. The regional chapters of Spain’s two leading labor unions, along with …

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France is urging Russia to join in renewed peace efforts after Western missile strikes on Syria aimed at punishing Bashar Assad for an alleged chemical attack, while the Syrian leader was said to have appeared unfazed Sunday in a meeting with Russian politicians.   The U.S., France and Britain launched dozens of airstrikes early Saturday at sites they said were linked to a chemical weapons program. Assad and his close ally, Russia, have denied government forces ever used such weapons.   Russian politicians who met with Assad on Sunday said he was in high spirits, while Assad was quoted in …

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Pope Francis called on world leaders on Sunday to renew efforts to bring peace to Syria, saying he was deeply troubled by their failure to agree on a joint plan to end the bloodshed. “I appeal again to all the political leaders, so that justice and peace prevail,” he said in his weekly address to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “I am deeply disturbed by the current world situation, in which, despite the tools available to the international community, it is difficult to agree on a common action in favorof peace in Syria and other regions of the …

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Britain’s foreign secretary says there are no plans to launch additional military strikes against Syria but his country and its allies will consider further action if Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad uses chemical weapons against his people in the future. “There is no proposal on the table at the moment for further attacks because so far, thank heavens, the Assad regime have not been so foolish as to launch another chemical weapons attack,” Boris Johnson told the BBC. The U.S., France and Britain launched the strikes early Saturday morning, firing 105 missiles at three Syrian chemical weapons facilities — one in …

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Estonia’s largest political party has chosen a new leader, its third one in four years, as it seeks to restore popularity and mend its tarnished image among voters ahead of a parliamentary election next year.  Delegates for the center-right Reform Party voted Saturday to elect Kaja Kallas. The 40-year-old lawyer and lawmaker at the European Parliament will be the first female leader of a major political party in the Baltic country. Previous Chairman Hanno Pevkur said in December that he would step down after less than a year in the post. Kallas is the daughter of former Prime Minister Siim …

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Thousands of Hungarians protested Saturday in Budapest against what organizers said was an unfair election system that gave Prime Minister Viktor Orban another landslide victory at the polls after a “hate campaign” against immigrants. Orban won a third straight term in the April 8 elections after his anti-immigration campaign message secured a strong majority for his ruling Fidesz party in parliament, granting him two-thirds of seats based on preliminary results. In a Facebook post before the rally, organizers called for a recount, a free media, a new election law, and more efficient co-operation among opposition parties instead of the bickering seen in the run-up to the vote. Fidesz received …

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U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone to the leaders of Britain and France about the joint air strikes the three nations launched on Syria Saturday morning.  The White House said Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron in separate phone calls. The three world leaders each affirmed that that the air strikes were “successful and necessary” to deter Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from further use of chemical weapons on the Syrian people. Earlier, U.S. President Trump commended Britain and France for the joint air strikes with a tweet that said, “A perfectly executed …

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Russia’s foreign minister says Moscow has received a document from a Swiss lab that analyzed the samples in the nerve agent poisoning of an ex-Russian spy, which points at a Western-designed nerve agent as a likely cause. Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that Moscow received the confidential information from the laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland, that analyzed samples from the site of the March 4 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury. He said the analysis was done at the request of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The OPCW’s report confirmed British …

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On Syrian state TV, President Bashar al-Assad strolls into his office carrying a briefcase around 9 a.m. Saturday, only hours after Western missiles rained down on suspected chemical weapons sites in Damascus and Homs. They labeled the video on Twitter, “a morning of steadfastness.”    But with the Middle East once again skirting the brink of an all out war between world powers, the region is anything but unwavering, with mounting fears that the attacks could cause dangerous ripple effects.   Some analysts are urging restraint, saying the consequences of escalation could be disastrous.   “A large part of the …

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Moments after President Donald Trump concluded his seven-minute broadcast Friday announcing the start of precision airstrikes on Syrian government facilities associated with the development of chemical weapons, loud explosions shook Damascus. Among the sites struck in a coordinated operation by U.S., French and British forces shortly before dawn prayers was a scientific research center on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, a chemical weapons storage facility near Homs and a nearby command post, the Pentagon said. There were also reports by political activists that the Syrian Army’s 4th Armored Division, an elite formation commanded by President Bashar al-Assad’s brother, Maher …

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Western warplanes and naval vessels fired a barrage of missiles at three Syrian chemical weapons sites, the opening salvo in what could be a sustained campaign against the government of President Bashar al-Assad and his supporters. U.S. military officials said the bombardment, a coordinated effort involving both Britain and France, began at 9 p.m. EDT Friday and rained down more than 100 cruise missiles on Syrian facilities in the capital, Damascus, and the city of Homs. “Right now, this is a one-time shot,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Pentagon reporters late Friday, cautioning more strikes could be in the …

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The United States, Britain and France, launched military airstrikes in Syria that targeted a scientific research center, a chemical weapons storage facility and another storage facility that also included an important command post. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said the “decisive” efforts were intended to send a “clear message” to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for its suspected chemical attack against civilians last week and to deter him from doing it again. Mattis said at a briefing at the Pentagon late Friday that the targets were selected to inflict “long-term degradation” and “maximum damage” to Syria’s stockpile of …

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U.S. officials are expressing “high confidence” that Syria carried out last week’s chemical weapons attack in Douma, promising the West will respond and that all options remain on the table. Despite tweets from U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this week suggesting a missile strike might be imminent, the White House, State Department and Pentagon have been cautious in their language, emphasizing the need to forge an airtight case against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. By late Friday, there were indications such a case was coming together. “We have a very high confidence that Syria was responsible,” White House press …

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Russia’s intelligence agencies spied on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia for at least five years before they were attacked with a nerve agent in March, the national security adviser to Britain’s prime minister said. Mark Sedwill said in a letter to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday that email accounts of Yulia had been targeted in 2013 by cyber-specialists from Russia’s GRU military intelligence service. Sedwill also said in the letter, which was published by the government, that it was “highly likely that the Russian intelligence services view at least some of its defectors as …

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The United States and its European allies on Thursday discussed ways to effectively stop Syria’s government from using chemical weapons to kill rebels and civilians opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more. …

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to arrest an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor if she conducts activities in his country, arguing it was no longer an ICC member so the court had no right to do any investigating. Striking out at what he said was an international effort to paint him as a “ruthless and heartless violator of human rights,” Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s Rome Statute a month ago and promised to continue his crackdown on drugs, in which thousands have been killed. ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in February announced the start of a preliminary examination …

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Ukraine this week dismissed as unacceptable a natural gas transit proposal by Russian energy giant Gazprom. Kyiv’s move will further complicate efforts by Western European governments to persuade their Central European counterparts to withdraw objections to Nord Stream 2, a Kremlin-favored pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea to deliver gas from Russia to Germany without transiting Ukraine and Poland. The politics of Nord Stream 2 have become increasingly tangled amid heightened tensions between Europe and Russia. Suspicions are growing that the Kremlin wants to develop the new pipeline to reduce the importance of the one running through Ukraine — …

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