Category Archives: Turkey

Syrian airstrikes in Idlib leave at least 18 dead despite ceasefire

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Children and rescue workers among those killed after market and industrial zone hit

At least 18 civilians have been killed in airstrikes as an offensive by Bashar al-Assad’s forces presses ahead, burying a supposed ceasefire in Syria’s last opposition-held province.

Airstrikes carried out by the Syrian air force and its Russian allies hit a market and industrial zone in Idlib city in a ferocious attack on Wednesday, destroying several buildings and setting cars on fire, leaving the torched corpses of motorists trapped inside.

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Libyan warlord Haftar leaves Moscow without signing ceasefire deal

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General had been in Russian capital seeking deal with head of Libya’s UN-recognised government

Libya’s eastern strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar has left Moscow without signing a ceasefire agreement to end nine months of fighting in the country, leaving the future of a fragile truce uncertain..

The commander’s abrupt departure in the early hours of Tuesday was a setback for an international diplomatic push in recent days, though Moscow insisted it would continue mediation efforts.

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Libya ceasefire in doubt as rival forces accuse each other of breaches

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Warring sides also plan to deploy more troops despite Russian-Turkish brokered deal

A Russian-Turkish brokered ceasefire between the two warring groups in Libya was struggling to take hold in Tripoli as both sides accused the other of breaches and laid out plans to mobilise more forces.

In a breakthrough on Saturday, both sides in the civil war – the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli, and the Libyan National Army (LNA) forces led from the east of Libya by Gen Khalifa Haftar – agreed to a ceasefire proposed last week by Russia and Turkey.

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Confusion clouds international efforts to reach Libya ceasefire

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Erdoğan and Putin make call for ceasefire, as Italian PM hosts Libyan factions in Rome

An unprecedented drive involving Europe, Russia and Turkey has been launched to broker a Libyan ceasefire, and end the risk of the country collapsing into total all-out war.

However, it is unclear to which extent the joint Russian-Turkish call for a ceasefire by 12 January should be seen as complementary or in competition to an intensified Italian-led European push to end the fighting.

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Dozens killed in bombing of military academy in Libya

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The Tripoli-based government’s training centre came under attack from rebels as regional tension grows over civil war

At least 28 people have been killed in an attack on a military academy in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the government’s health minister said.

Tripoli, which is under the control of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), is facing an offensive by Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) that began in April.

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Turkish MPs pass bill to send troops to support Libyan government

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Move meant as deterrent to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar raises fears of escalation in violence

Turkey’s parliament has approved by a large majority a bill that allows troops to be deployed to Libya in support of the Tripoli-based government in the country’s worsening civil war.

The vote, taken during a special sitting, comes amid fears that the threat of Turkish intervention, in addition to that by other regional competitors, could intensify violence in Libya. MPs voted 325-184 in favour of the deployment.

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Field of broken dreams: football’s slave trade – photo essay

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All they want is to do is play professionally, but for many young hopefuls from Africa their expensive journey to Turkey ends in exploitation

• Photographs by Italo Rondinella

For months, Yves Kibendo woke up every morning at 6am. He would leave his house in an ancient area of Istanbul, returning late in the evening, after working for 12 hours in a textile factory.

He was paid under the table, or sometimes not at all.

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The power behind the thrones: 10 political movers and shakers who will shape 2020

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Some are trusted aides, others are fixers who work in the shadows. Often unelected and unaccountable, they all have the ear of national leaders

The role of Dominic Cummings in plotting and facilitating Boris Johnson’s drive for power has focused attention on the influence exerted by behind-the-scenes advisers and confidants who have the ear of prominent politicians.

Powerful men and women around the world all have personal counsellors, trusted aides and backroom mentors. Then there are the “insiders” – string-pullers, fixers and manipulators with ambitions of their own. Few become well-known, although Cummings’s notoriety is by no means exceptional.

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Erdoğan arrives in Tunisia for surprise talks with president

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Turkish leader’s visit comes as Ankara moves to strike deals with Mediterranean nations

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has arrived in Tunisia on a surprise visit for talks with his Tunisian counterpart, his office has said.

The visit, the first by a head of state since the Tunisian presidential elections in the autumn, comes as Turkey has ramped up efforts to strike deals with nations on the Mediterranean, where Ankara has been at odds with Greece over resources off the coast of the divided island of Cyprus.

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UN special rapporteur condemns Jamal Khashoggi verdict as ‘whitewash’ – video

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Agnès Callamard, a UN special rapporteur who led an inquiry into Saudi reporter’s killing but was barred from secretive trial, says ruling that crime was spontaneous rather than premeditated means system that allowed murder to happen remains untouched.

A court exonerated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s inner circle of involvement in the murder at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in October 2018 which plunged the kingdom into a diplomatic crisis

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‘Mockery of justice’ after Saudis convict eight over Khashoggi killing

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Court exonerates crown prince’s inner circle of involvement in murder of dissident journalist

Saudi Arabia has been accused of engaging in a mockery of justice by shielding the alleged masterminds of the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, after a court effectively exonerated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s inner circle of involvement in the murder.

The gruesome killing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 stunned Saudi Arabia’s western allies, plunging the kingdom into its worst diplomatic crisis since the 9/11 attacks.

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Ferrero Rocher chocolates may be tainted by child labour

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Ferrero says it has ‘zero tolerance’ for human rights abuses amid claims hazelnut pickers as young as 11 may be part of supply chain

The hazelnuts inside millions of Ferrero Rocher chocolates sold across Europe this Christmas may have been picked by children working in farms in Turkey, according to human rights campaigners.

Ferrero, the world’s third largest chocolate company, is struggling to address concerns that multiple farms where it sources hazelnuts for its chocolate products may use child labour.

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Ilhan Omar writes to US Syria envoy over Turkish white phosphorus allegations

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Congresswoman calls on US Syria envoy to give full briefing on October incident in border town

Four US congressional Democrats have written to Donald Trump’s Syria envoy asking him to spell out what information the US has about the alleged use of white phosphorus by Turkey against Syrian Kurdish civilians in October.

Ilhan Omar and three of her colleagues in the House of Representatives called on Jim Jeffrey to provide a full briefing – in private if necessary – into whether it believes the incident during the Turkish invasion two months ago amounts to a war crime.

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Greece says it’s ‘reached limit’ as arrivals of refugees show no sign of slowing

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EU must share responsibility for influx, says Greece, as it forms controversial plans to build ‘prison’ camps for migrants

Sometimes en masse, sometimes alone they keep on arriving: in rickety boats carrying men, women and children looking for a freedom they hope Europe will offer.

Despite winter’s limited daylight and whiplash-heavy storms and rains, the number of asylum seekers landing on Greek shores shows no sign of abating. Not since Europe’s historic agreement with Turkey to curb migrant flows at the height of Syria’s civil war in March 2016 have arrivals been so high.

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Turkey renews military pledge to Libya as threat of Mediterranean war grows

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Ankara ready to defend government in Tripoli in latest policy to inflame tensions with US, EU, Greece and Middle East countries

The threat of a military clash in the Mediterranean has drawn nearer following talks in which Turkey has underlined its willingness to send troops to Libya to defend the country’s UN-recognised government.

Such a move would risk a direct military confrontation with General Khalifa Haftar, the eastern Libyan military warlord who is thought to be planning a decisive assault on the government of national accord in Tripoli, or GNA. Either the UAE or Egypt, which are supporting Haftar’s forces, might also become involved.

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Birth of boy sparks renewed calls to rescue Australians in Syria’s squalid al-Hawl camp

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Brutal winter, poor healthcare and limited food raises fears for welfare of infant, born to Sydney woman Rayan Hamdoush

An Australian woman has given birth to a baby boy in the al-Hawl camp in Syria, prompting revived calls for Australia to rescue 67 nationals still held in the camp.

Rayan Hamdoush, 24, from western Sydney, was pregnant when she entered al-Hawl. She gave birth to the boy on 30 November. The boy’s father, Samer Hajj Obeid, also from Sydney, is missing.

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Libya arms embargo being systematically violated by UN states

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Jordan, Turkey and UAE singled out for ‘routinely and blatantly’ supplying weapons

UN member states have systematically violated a Libyan arms embargo, according to a long-awaited UN report due to be published on Monday that will identify Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as the main culprits.

The report is expected to say these three countries “routinely and sometimes blatantly supplied weapons with little effort to disguise the source”. It is also likely to link the UAE to a bombing of a detention centre that has been described as a war crime.

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How does Nato look at the age of 70? It’s complicated

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Squabbling, a spreading focus and Trump raise doubts about the effectiveness of the alliance

Seventy years after Nato was founded to protect western Europe from Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, the military alliance returned this week to its first home in London to discuss an increasingly sprawling set of goals while bickering leaders competed to see who could offer the most contentious soundbite.

Normally this is an arena that would be dominated by Donald Trump, although this time he was somewhat upstaged by Emmanuel Macron, whose pre-summit declaration that the organisation had become “brain dead” obliged Trump to describe his French counterpart’s comments as “very, very nasty”.

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Macron clashes with both Erdoğan and Trump at Nato summit

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French president is rebuked by Trump over Nato criticism after row with Turkey about Kurds

Nato disunity was on full display on the opening day of the alliance’s summit in London as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, accused Turkey of colluding with Islamic State proxies while Donald Trump described Macron’s criticisms of Nato’s “brain death” as insulting and “very, very nasty”.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for his part threatened again to veto Nato’s defence plan for the Baltics unless Nato endorsed its own assessment that Syrian Kurdish fighters on Turkey’s borders were terrorists, a definition that Macron and the Pentagon rejected.

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Macron defends ‘brain-dead Nato’ remarks as summit approaches

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French president says comments ‘a necessary wake-up call’ and criticises Turkey

Emmanuel Macron has said his claim this month that Nato was “brain-dead” was a necessary wake-up call before a summit in London next week at which he will urge members of the alliance to take a greater interest in its southern flank, including the fight against terrorism in the Sahel.

The French president defended his comments in Paris alongside the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who had previously warned Macron not to expect that a European defence formation could replace the Nato transatlantic structure.

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