Category Archives: US foreign policy

US to give Palestinians $5m in coronavirus aid – 1% of what Trump cut

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President accused of damaging Palestinian ability to cope with pandemic by cutting funding

The United States has announced it will give $5m to the Palestinians to help them fight the coronavirus epidemic, roughly 1% of the amount Washington provided a year before Donald Trump cut almost all aid.

The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a former Trump bankruptcy lawyer, announced the aid package on Twitter, saying he was “very pleased” the US would provide money for Palestinian hospitals and households.

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Iranian boats come ‘dangerously’ close to US navy warships

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  • IRGC navy boats condemned for ‘harassing approaches’
  • US officials say 11 small boats circled six US warships

Iranian navy vessels came within 10 yards of American warships in the Persian Gulf in what the US navy described as a series of “dangerous and harassing approaches”.

The close encounters on Wednesday and the aggressive tactics pursued by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy, visible from photos and video released by the US Fifth Fleet, represent a blow to the Trump administration’s claims to have “restored deterrence” in its relations with Iran.

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Trump administration determined to exit treaty reducing risk of war

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Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper agreed to proceed with US withdrawal of Open Skies Treaty despite pandemic, sources say

The Trump administration is determined to withdraw from a 28-year-old treaty intended to reduce the risk of an accidental war between the west and Russia by allowing reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, which has put off a full national security council (NSC) meeting on the Open Skies Treaty (OST), the secretary of defence, Mark Esper, and secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have agreed to proceed with a US exit, according to two sources familiar with administration planning.

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Iran hits back after Trump claims it is planning Iraq attacks

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US president accuses Tehran or its proxies of planning ‘sneak’ assault on US bases

Iran’s military and diplomatic leadership has hit back at Donald Trump’s claims that its proxies were planning a sneak attack on US bases in Iraq, claiming Tehran only ever acts in self-defence and has no proxies in Iraq, only allies.

The US and Iran are already at loggerheads over the impact of US sanctions on Tehran’s ability to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and the threat of a military attack on the US is likely to widen the dispute. The Iranian army chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri, said the recent spate of attacks on US bases in Iraq were nothing to do with Iran, but were “a natural response by the Iraqi people”. He said US forces were being closely monitored minute by minute and any US attack would produce the most severe response.

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US calls on Maduro and Guaidó to stand down in Venezuela transition plan

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  • Plan includes five-member council and sanctions relief
  • Sceptics see little incentive for government leaders

The US has proposed a political transition plan for Venezuela, offering to lift sanctions if the president, Nicolás Maduro, and his opponent, Juan Guaidó, step aside and pass power to an interim government made up of their supporters.

Related: Coronavirus live news: rise in Italy, US and France deaths takes global confirmed toll past 40,000

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US newspapers appeal to China not to expel their reporters

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Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post use open letter to urge reversal of decision

Publishers of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have pleaded with the Chinese government not to expel their reporters, in an open letter published on Tuesday.

Earlier this month at least 13 journalists from the three major US news organisations were ordered to leave China in response to what the government said was “unreasonable oppression” of Chinese journalists in the US.

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Afghanistan: bomb attack kills three as Taliban ends partial truce

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  • Motorcycle with bomb explodes during football match
  • Taliban’s week-long ‘reduction of violence’ expired on Saturday

Three people have been killed and 11 injured in a motorcycle bomb attack at a football match in eastern Afghanistan, as the Taliban announced an end to a partial truce two days after signing a deal with the US.

The Taliban had agreed to a week-long “reduction of violence” as a confidence-building measure ahead of the agreement signed on Saturday, in which the US pledged that all foreign forces would leave Afghanistan within 14 months, if the Taliban sat down for talks on Afghanistan’s future with government representatives.

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Mike Pompeo hails Taliban agreement as Trump allies voice concerns

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Lindsey Graham said he is ‘very suspect of the Taliban’ while John Bolton said signing the agreement is an ‘unacceptable risk’

In Doha on Saturday US secretary of state Mike Pompeo hailed the “historic talks” which led to the signing of an agreement with the Taliban which will see the US begin to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after more than 18 years of war.

But at home in Washington, the deal was not greeted with universal enthusiasm even by allies of Donald Trump such as Lindsey Graham or former aides, among them the former national security adviser John Bolton.

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US and Taliban sign deal to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan

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  • US troops could leave Afghanistan within 14 months
  • Taliban agree to peace talks with other Afghans

The US and the Taliban have signed a landmark peace agreement after nearly 20 years of war that could result in American troops leaving Afghanistan within 14 months.

The deal also paves the way for talks between Afghans to end one of the longest-running conflicts in the world.

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US and Taliban sign deal to withdraw troops from Afghanistan – video

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The US and the Taliban have signed a peace agreement aimed at ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan. 

According to the agreement, the US will start withdrawing thousands of troops in exchange for Taliban commitments to prevent Afghanistan from being a launchpad for terrorist attacks

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Trump sings Modi’s praises at massive rally in India – video

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On a two-day visit to India, the US president addressed more than 100,000 people at a massive public rally in Gujarat.

During his speech in Narendra Modi’s home state, Donald Trump said the US and India would shortly announce an ‘incredible’ trade deal, but repeated the line that the Indian PM was a ‘very tough negotiator’. He praised his achievements with the Indian economy and lifting people out of poverty, while Modi said the two countries had a ‘far greater and closer relationship than ever before’.

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Trump reportedly calls John Bolton a ‘traitor’ and wants to block his book

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  • President said book shouldn’t be published before election
  • Key impeachment witness Marie Yovanovitch to release memoir

John Bolton is “a traitor” and his book should not be published before the election in November, Donald Trump reportedly told aides and media figures.

The president’s views on news of a book deal for Marie Yovanovitch, another key figure in the Ukraine scandal which led to Trump’s impeachment, were not immediately clear.

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Pompeo touts partial ceasefire with Taliban in push for election-year troop reduction

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US secretary of state calls for significant drop in violence before formal peace talks can begin

Mike Pompeo has hailed “a pretty important breakthrough” in Afghan peace talks, as officials confirmed that the Taliban had agreed to a partial week-long ceasefire as a precursor to broader peace talks and the withdrawal of at least some US troops.

But the US secretary of state said that Washington still wanted to see a significant reduction in violence before formal negotiations could begin. “If we can get there – if we can hold that posture for a while – then we’ll be able to begin the real, serious discussion which is all the Afghans sitting at a table,” Pompeo said on Thursday.

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Tunisia to shelve plan for UN vote on Trump’s Middle East plan

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Security council vote was seen as test of support for deal and of Britain’s relations with US

Arab plans for a UN security council vote on Tuesday designed to show international opposition to Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan are expected to be shelved after the US and the UK raised separate objections to the draft text.

In what was being seen as a key test of the diplomatic support for Trump’s “ultimate deal”, Tunisia, with Arab League and Palestinian support, had tabled a resolution saying it breached basic undertakings to the Palestinian people.

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Alexander Vindman lawyer attacks Trump over ‘obviously false statements’

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  • Impeachment witness Vindman fired from White House job
  • David Pressman backs client and decries Trump ‘intimidation’

The lawyer for Lt Col Alexander Vindman condemned Donald Trump on Saturday for making “obviously false statements” about the decorated military veteran, after the president defended sacking him through several critical tweets.

Related: 'Real power is fear': what Machiavelli tells us about Trump in 2020

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Inquiry strikes blow to Russian denials of Syria chemical attack

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UN watchdog’s investigation rebuts claims it manipulated evidence of Douma incident

A Russia-led campaign that claimed the UN weapons watchdog had manipulated evidence of a Syrian government chemical weapons attack has been dealt a blow by an official inquiry showing that two former employees hailed as whistleblowers had little direct access to the evidence and inflated their role.

The independent inquiry commissioned by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) shows that one of the two had never been on the team investigating the April 2018 attack in Douma and the other was only on the team for a brief period.

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Jared Kushner insists Middle East peace plan is ‘a real effort to break logjam’

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  • Kushner hopes Palestinians ‘read’ the Middle East peace plan
  • Mahmoud Abbas cuts ties with US and Israel after rejecting plan

Though the Palestinian Authority has cut ties with the US and Israel over the Trump administration’s plan for Middle East peace, its author has insisted his plan is not dead yet.

Related: What we Palestinians think does not matter – all that matters is Israel | Diana Buttu

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Libya’s bloodshed will continue unless foreign powers stop backing Khalifa Haftar | Frederic Wehrey

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Support from the Emirates, Russia and the US is empowering the military strongman and worsening Libyans’ suffering

In Abu Grein, on Libya’s frontline, the militiamen’s scars read like a rollcall of the wars that have roiled the country since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. One of the fighters, a truck driver named Muhammad, removes his cap to reveal a balding pate etched with shrapnel gashes. “From Da’ish,” he says, referring to a 2016 battle he fought against Islamic State in the Libyan city of Sirte.

Now, he says, yet another foe has captured Sirte: rebel militias under the command of a 76-year-old aspiring strongman named Khalifa Haftar. Last Sunday, these militias attacked Muhammad and his men, killing 11 of them, ignoring a shaky truce in a long-running war that started last April with a blitz on the Libyan capital by Haftar’s forces.

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Palestinians cut ties with Israel and US after rejecting Trump peace plan

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  • Mahmoud Abbas addresses Arab League in Cairo
  • Trump and Netanyahu presented peace plan last month

The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the US and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a Middle East peace plan presented by Donald Trump, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said on Saturday.

Related: Trump's foreign policy is cynical and self-interested. His 'peace plan' is no exception | Michael H Fuchs

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Trump appears to confirm killing of al-Qaida leader in Yemen

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  • New York Times reports Qassim al-Rimi of AQAP believed dead
  • President retweets intelligence analyst and reporter

Donald Trump appeared on Saturday to confirm the death of Qassim al-Rimi, the leader of an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen, through a series of tweets.

Related: Yemeni terror chief warns US: 'Your security has broken away'

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