Category Archives: US foreign policy

Saudi crown prince wanted to go after Jamal Khashoggi ‘with a bullet’ – report

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US media quotes intelligence sources who intercepted a conversation between Mohammed bin Salman and an aide in 2017

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi “with a bullet” a year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, according to a US media report.

US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s 33-year-old de facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant he planned to shoot him, according to the New York Times ($).

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US troops do not have permission to ‘watch Iran’, says Baghdad

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Comments come after Donald Trump suggested US forces in Iraq were monitoring activity in Iran

Iraq’s president has hit back at comments made by Donald Trump, saying that the US president did not ask Iraq’s permission for US troops stationed there to “watch Iran”.

A day after Trump said US soldiers in Iraq would be tasked with monitoring Iran, Barham Salih told reporters at a forum in Baghdad that the US military presence in the country was the result of a bilateral agreement with the specific goal of fighting terrorism.

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Venezuela’s Maduro ‘leaves voicemail’ for rival Guaidó – video

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In interview with reporter, embattled president gives two messages. In the first, he tells Donald Trump he will leave the White House ‘stained with blood’ if he pursues a military intervention in Venezuela. In the second, after the reporter calls Juan Guaidó’s phone and it goes to voicemail, Maduro tells his challenger he ‘should stop this coup-mongering strategy’

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Russia follows US in suspending nuclear deal

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Moscow announces move after US said on Friday it would withdraw from INF nuclear treaty

Vladimir Putin has said Russia will suspend its involvement in a cold war-era nuclear pact, following a similar decision by the US, and begin developing new nuclear-capable missiles banned by the treaty.

The move came a day after Donald Trump confirmed the US would exit the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty. The US had complained for several years that a Russian cruise missile violated the treaty, a claim that Russia has denied.

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‘Divide and conquer’: China puts the pressure on US allies

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Criticism of Canada’s case against Meng Wanzhou seen as part of attempt to isolate US

As tensions between China and the US mount over trade and the extradition of a senior Huawei executive, Beijing has reserved its most colourful language for America’s allies.

On Tuesday, China’s ministry of foreign affairs called on Canada to “stop pulling chestnuts out of the fire for the US” after the unsealing of a 13-count indictment against the Huawei chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December. An editorial in the state-run Global Times put it more bluntly: “You cannot live the life of a whore and expect a monument to your chastity … If Canada insists on wrong practice, it must pay for it.”

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America’s Kurdish allies risk being wiped out – by Nato | David Graeber

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Turkey is seen as the Kurds’ mortal enemy but it uses German tanks and British helicopters: this is an international outrage

Remember those plucky Kurdish forces who so heroically defended the Syrian city of Kobane from Isis? They risk being wiped out by Nato.

The autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Northeast Syria, which includes Kobane, faces invasion. A Nato army is amassing on the border, marshaling all the overwhelming firepower and high-tech equipment that only the most advanced military forces can deploy. The commander in chief of those forces says he wants to return Rojava to its “rightful owners” who, he believes, are Arabs, not Kurds.

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Trump steps up Maduro pressure with sanctions against Venezuelan oil giant

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  • Sanctions on $7bn in assets intended to boost Guaidó
  • John Bolton keen to counter ‘penetration’ from Cuba and Iran

The Trump administration has tightened the screws on Venezuela’s embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, announcing sanctions against the country’s state-owned oil giant PDVSA in what the US national security adviser admitted was partly an attempt to counter strategic threats from Cuba and Iran.

Related: Juan Guaidó: Venezuela has chance to leave chaos behind

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US framework deal with Taliban raises hope of Afghan peace

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US troops would withdraw from Afghanistan within 18 months of full agreement

US and Taliban officials have agreed in principle to the framework of a deal that could pave the way for peace talks in Kabul and ultimately the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the country’s 17-year conflict.

Under the terms of the draft framework, the insurgents would promise to stop Afghan territory being used by terrorists. The US special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, confirmed the existence of the draft in an interview with the New York Times (NYT).

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Trump lifts sanctions on firms linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska

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  • Democrats in Congress opposed move to lift restrictions
  • Deripaska is ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin

The Trump administration has lifted sanctions on three companies, including the aluminum giant Rusal, linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Democrats had led a push in Congress to continue the restrictions.

Related: 'Sex trainer' who said she could prove Russia meddled in US election freed

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US-Taliban talks offer glimmer of hope on path to Afghan peace

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Insurgents demonstrate their commitment by naming top commander as chief negotiator

Taliban and US negotiators have reportedly agreed parts of a potential peace deal a day after the Afghan insurgents signalled their commitment to talks by naming one of their most senior commanders as chief negotiator.

News of progress in the Qatar talks, and the appointment of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, appeared to offer for the first time in nearly two decades a glimmer of real hope for a path to peace in Afghanistan.

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UK to attend US summit on Iran on condition of Yemen talks

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Jeremy Hunt is first senior European minister to agree to attend controversial meeting

The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has agreed to attend a summit organised by the US in Warsaw originally billed as an alliance to confront Iranian aggression, but only on the condition that the US secretary of state hosts a meeting on Yemen on the summit’s margins.

Hunt is the first senior European minister to declare that he will attend the summit, which starts on 13 February. European diplomats have been reluctant to attend, suspecting that the event is part of a US drive to undermine Europe’s support for the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015.

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Trump has hitched his wagon to regime change in Venezuela – so now what?

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The problem for Juan Guaidó and his foreign backers is how to convert assets abroad to real power inside Venezuela

The day after Donald Trump took the bold step of recognising the Venezuelan opposition leader as the country’s head of state, it is unclear how the administration hopes to turn its intentions into regime change.

After Nicolás Maduro refused to give up the presidency, and the military high command stuck by him, the White House kept up the mantra that “all options are on the table”. But it was far from clear whether any of those options would succeed in transferring real power to Juan Guaidó and the opposition-led national assembly.

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US-Kurdish patrol attacked in Syria as Erdoğan offers to step in

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Turkish president tells Donald Trump he is ready to send troops into US-overseen areas

The threat of a growing security vacuum in Syria as a result of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops has been underlined by an attack on a joint US-Kurdish patrol, which reportedly killed five people and injured at least two American soldiers.

The attack on Monday, in which a suicide bomber drove a car into a checkpoint, emphasised the vulnerability of American troops since the US president declared he was withdrawing 2,000 soldiers from northern Syria on the grounds that Islamic State has been defeated.

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America is retreating from world affairs and circling the wagons…

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For all its rhetoric, the US under Donald Trump is on a clear path of disengagement in international matters

America’s ambivalence about engagement with the world beyond its shores is nothing new. Isolationist instincts are deeply rooted in the national psyche. Large constituencies opposed US involvement in both world wars. Donald Trump’s “America First” campaign was the most recent manifestation of a longstanding desire to avoid the “foreign entanglements” that the first US president, George Washington, warned against in his 1796 farewell address.

Yet, as US power expanded, this yearning for separateness grew increasingly at odds with another national urge – to demonstrate America’s pre-eminence, and propagate its values and interests, through global leadership. This process climaxed in the early 1990s when America’s main rival, the Soviet Union, imploded and the US claimed the mantle of sole superpower.

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US airstrike in Somalia kills 52 al-Shabaab fighters, military says

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  • Africa Command says strike followed attack on Somali forces
  • Extremist group has claimed deadly attack on Kenya hotel

The US military said it carried out an airstrike in Somalia that killed 52 al-Shabaab extremists, in response to an attack on Somali forces.

Related: Al-Shabaab's Nairobi attack is a reminder that tit-for-tat terror never succeeds | Mukoma wa Ngugi

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Trump and Kim Jong-un to meet again at second nuclear summit

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  • Location of summit between leaders to be announced later
  • Decision comes in wake of talks between Trump and envoy

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un will hold a second summit near the end of next month, the White House has announced, after the president held an Oval Office meeting with a North Korean emissary.

Related: Kim Yong-chol: the ultimate North Korean regime insider

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Trump announces huge expansion of US missile defense system

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Arms control experts fear system review, unveiled at Pentagon, could fuel arms race with Russia and China

Donald Trump has announced plans for a huge expansion of US missile defense with aim of destroying enemy missiles “anywhere, anytime, any place”.

The missile defense review, which Trump unveiled on Thursday in a speech at the Pentagon, calls for a major upgrade in land and sea-based missile interceptor systems, as well as the development of a layer of satellite sensors in low orbit that would help track new types of cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) countries like Russia and China are developing.

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US to begin nuclear treaty pullout next month after Russia missile talks fail

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  • Officials reject Russian offer to inspect new missile
  • US says it will suspend observance of INF treaty on 2 February

The US has rejected Moscow’s offer to inspect a new Russian missile suspected of violating a key cold-war era nuclear-weapons treaty, and warned that it would suspend observance of the agreement on 2 February, giving six-month notice of a complete withdrawal.

Related: Top North Korean officials reportedly set for Washington visit

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Turkey will not be intimidated by Trump, says foreign minister

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Ankara hits back after Trump threatened to ‘economically devastate’ it over Syria

Turkey’s foreign minister has hit back at Donald Trump over his threat to economically devastate the country if it follows through on a planned operation against Kurdish forces in northern Syria, saying Ankara will not be intimidated by its Nato ally.

“We have said repeatedly we are not scared of and will not be intimidated by any threats,” said Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in televised remarks from Ankara on Monday, before rebuking the US president for using Twitter for sensitive diplomatic matters.

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