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Zarrab trial in U.S. is a ‘clear plot against Turkey’, government says

Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab (2nd R) sits with lawyers Erich Ferrari (L), Marc Agnifilo, and Benjamin Brafman (R) as he appears in Manhattan federal court in New York, U.S., April 24, 2017.

ANKARA (Reuters) – A U.S. court case against a wealthy Turkish gold trader is a “clear plot against Turkey” that lacks any legal basis, Ankara’s government spokesman said on Monday, ratcheting up rhetoric ahead of a trial that has strained diplomatic relations.

Bekir Bozdag also told a news conference that the U.S. case was aimed at harming economic relations between Turkey, Iran and Russia. He said U.S. authorities were putting pressure on defendants, including the gold trader Reza Zarrab, to make accusations against Turkey.

“The Zarrab case is a clear plot against Turkey, a political case and lacking any legal basis,” Bozdag told a news conference following a cabinet meeting.

“The Zarrab case aims to damage Turkey’s ties with Iran, Russia and other countries. Those who are carrying out the Zarrab case through defendants are very clearly using pressure… They are forcing them to (make) accusations that are against Turkey.”

Zarrab, together with alleged co-conspirators, has been charged with handling hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran’s government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015, in a scheme to avoid U.S. sanctions on Iran. He has pleaded not guilty and is due to go on trial in New York on Nov. 27.

Ankara says the case is based on fabricated documents. Turkish authorities opened an investigation into the U.S. prosecutors who brought charges against Zarrab, state media said on Saturday, citing the allegations that it was based on fabricated documents.

Under a previous Turkish investigation that became public in 2013, Turkish prosecutors accused Zarrab and high-ranking Turkish officials of involvement in facilitating Iranian money transfers via gold smuggling, leaked documents at the time showed.

President Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, cast that investigation as a coup attempt orchestrated by his political enemies. Several Turkish prosecutors were removed from the case, police investigators were reassigned, and the investigation was later dropped.

Erdogan, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, has said U.S. prosecutors have shown “ulterior motives” by including references to him and his wife in court papers relating to the trial in New York.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun, Ezgi Erkoyun and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Russia, China, others boycott U.S. meeting at U.N. on Venezuela

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Russia, China, Egypt and Bolivia boycotted an informal public United Nations Security Council meeting on Venezuela on Monday organized by the United States, saying the 15-member body should not be involved in the situation.

“The issue is about meddling with the internal domestic affairs of Venezuela,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters, adding that he hoped the country could settle its issues peacefully without any external interference.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the meeting: “The fact that the (Venezuelan) government would go so far as to try and get people not to show up to a meeting is guilt. And that’s unfortunate.”

Venezuela is suffering from a harsh economic crisis and President Nicolas Maduro’s government has clamped down on the opposition, jailing or otherwise barring from office many dissenting leaders and activists.

Dozens of people have died in violence since the opposition began a sustained wave of protests in April. Met by rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas fired by the National Guard, the protesters say the crisis demands an early presidential election that they are sure Maduro would lose.

His popularity has been pounded lower by triple-digit inflation and acute food and medicine shortages.

“We received pressure from regional partners not to have this meeting,” Haley said. “This goal is not to degrade anyone. This is not to humiliate a region. This is only to lift up the region.”

Uruguay’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Luis Bermudez attended the U.N. meeting, but said his country did not believe the situation in Venezuela was a threat to international peace and security.

Venezuela’s U.N. Ambassador Rafael Dario Ramirez spoke to reporters as the meeting was being held, flanked by Nebenzia, Chinese Deputy U.N. Ambassador Wu Haitao and Bolivian U.N. Ambassador Sacha Sergio Llorentty Soliz.

“The meeting is a hostile and clearly interfering act of the United States that undermines the principle of sovereignty of a member state of the U.N.,” Ramirez said. “We condemn this act of political manipulation.”

European Union foreign ministers approved economic sanctions, including an arms embargo, on Venezuela on Monday, saying regional elections last month marred by reported irregularities had deepened the country’s crisis.

The United States has also imposed targeted sanctions on top Venezuelan officials.

The U.N. Security Council also met behind closed doors in May, at Washington’s request, to discuss the crisis in Venezuela.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

U.S. would welcome new EU sanctions on Iran: official

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Any move by the European Union to impose new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and alleged involvement in Middle East conflicts would be “interesting and helpful”, a U.S. administration official said on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has taken a more hawkish line on Iran than predecessor Barack Obama, has said Tehran’s missile program should be curbed and wants to punish Tehran over its role in Yemen and Syria.

Trump has also dealt a blow to an international 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program by disavowing Iran’s compliance with its terms. The U.S. Congress now has until mid-December to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran that had been lifted in exchange for it limiting its nuclear activity.

But the EU, which normally coordinates closely with Washington on international sanctions, has been lobbying hard to preserve the nuclear accord, saying it should be kept separate from missile and regional security matters.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron mooted the possibility of fresh sanctions, saying he was “very concerned” about Iran’s missile program following the firing of a missile from Yemen into Saudi Arabia.

“It would certainly be a very interesting and probably helpful move on the part of the EU,” the U.S. administration official told reporters in Brussels when asked if Washington wanted the EU to pursue fresh restrictions on Iran.

The missile fired into Saudi Arabia from Yemen on Nov. 4 was intercepted near Riyadh airport and there were no casualties. Saudi Arabia, which intervened against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen’s war in 2015, accuses the Islamic Republic of supplying missiles and other weaponry to the Houthis.

Tehran denies this and it also rejected Macron’s remarks, saying its missile program was solely defensive and not linked to the nuclear pact, which European powers, Russia and China – the other parties to the 2015 deal – say is vital to containing Middle East tensions.

EU WARY OF NEW SANCTIONS ON IRAN

And there is no consensus in the EU, where imposing any sanctions requires the unanimity of all 28 member states, on any new punitive measures, a fact made clear by the bloc’s top diplomat after chairing foreign minister talks on Monday.

“We didn’t discuss, not today, not last week (and) I don’t foresee any discussion also in the future, further sanctions from the EU side on Iran,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters when asked about Macron’s comments.

“Ballistic missiles are not in the scope of the (nuclear deal),” she said. “This is a discussion and a proposal that was never raised at our table in these recent months and I don’t foresee this happening in the near future.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia are locked in a struggle for Middle East predominance. Their rivalry flared again earlier this month with the resignation of Saudi-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who blamed an alleged assassination plot against him and accused Tehran and its heavily armed Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing conflict in the Arab world.

The U.S. administration official declined to say what the Congress might do in the wake of Trump’s action but said any new U.S. sanctions would be targeted narrowly at people and entities involved directly in the areas of concern.

“We should expect to see a continued use of the U.S. sanctions tool in the areas such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, support for terrorist organizations and the deterioration of human rights inside Iran.”

The U.S. official also said the West should keep up pressure on Russia as long as it does not reverse its 2015 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine or implement its side of a peace deal for Ukraine’s east, gripped by a Moscow-backed insurgency.

The EU’s own economic sanctions on Moscow, which restrict business with the Russian energy, defense and financial sectors, are currently in place until the end of January 2018.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S sanctions North Koreans for ‘flagrant’ rights abuse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on seven North Korean individuals and three entities for “flagrant” human rights abuses, including killings, torture, forced labor and the hunting down of asylum seekers abroad.

“Today’s sanctions target the North Korean military and regime officials,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “We also are targeting North Korean financial facilitators who attempt to keep the regime afloat with foreign currency earned through forced labor operations.”

Among those sanctioned were the director and the deputy director of the Military Security Command, the first vice minister of the Ministry of People’s Security and the labor minister. North Korea’s consul general in Shenyang, China, and a diplomat at its embassy in Vietnam were also sanctioned.

“We are especially concerned with the North Korean military, which operates as secret police, punishing all forms of dissent,” the statement said.

“Further, the military operates outside of North Korea to hunt down asylum seekers, and brutally detains and forcibly returns North Korean citizens.”

The Treasury statement charged that Ku Sung Sop, the consul general in Shenyang, and Kim Min Chol, the diplomat in Vietnam, had participated in the forced repatriation of North Korean asylum seekers.

Scott Busby, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, told a news briefing that Ku’s case had been raised with China.

He said it was up to China how to react, but the range of possibilities included expelling him from the country.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China does not approve of countries using their own domestic law to enact unilateral sanctions outside of the United Nations framework.

“We will maintain normal exchanges and cooperation with North Korea on the basis of complying with U.N. resolutions,” he told a daily news briefing, without elaborating.

Busby said North Korean government violations included extrajudicial killings, torture, rape and forced abortions and the aim of the sanctions was to send a message, especially to prison camp managers and mid-level officials, that individuals would be held accountable.

The U.S. administration has sought to restrict the income North Korea receives from its export of labor as part of efforts to choke off funds helping to finance the country’s nuclear and missile programs, which Pyongyang says are aimed at developing weapons capable of hitting the United States.

North Korea routinely denies widespread allegations of rights abuses.

The Treasury statement said the Ch’olhyo’n Overseas Construction Company, which was sanctioned along with the Military Security Command and the External Construction Bureau, had operated in Algeria and was reported to earn foreign currency for North Korea.

“Employees of Ch’olhyo’n are kept in slave-like conditions, including having salaries and passports withheld by (North Korean) security officials assigned as site supervisors, meager food rations, poor living conditions, and severe restrictions on their freedom of movement,” the Treasury statement said.

It said the External Construction Bureau had operated in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Tom Brown)

U.S. says it is considering sanctions over Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is taking steps and considering a range of further actions over Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority, including targeted sanctions under its Global Magnitsky law, the State Department said on Monday.

“We express our gravest concern with recent events in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and the violent, traumatic abuses Rohingya and other communities have endured,” it said in a statement.

It added: “It is imperative that any individuals or entities responsible for atrocities, including non-state actors and vigilantes, be held accountable.”

Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in large numbers since late August when Rohingya insurgent attacks sparked a ferocious military response, with the fleeing people accusing security forces of arson, killings and rape.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday the United States held Myanmar’s military leadership responsible for its crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Tillerson stopped short of saying whether the United States would take any action against Myanmar’s military leaders over an offensive that has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims out of the country, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh.

The State Department made the announcement ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s maiden visit to the region early next month when he will attend a summit of ASEAN countries, including Myanmar, in Manila.

It marked the strongest U.S. response so far to the months-long Rohingya crisis but came short of applying the most drastic tools at Washington’s disposal such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration.

Critics have accused the Trump administration of acting too slowly and timidly in response to the Rohingya crisis.

The State Department said on Monday: “We are exploring accountability mechanisms available under U.S. law, including Global Magnitsky targeted sanctions.”

Measures already taken include ending travel waivers for current and former members of the military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and barring units and officers in northern Rakhine state from U.S. assistance, it said.

“We have rescinded invitations for senior Burmese security forces to attend U.S.-sponsored events; we are working with international partners to urge that Burma enables unhindered access to relevant areas for the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission, international humanitarian organizations, and media,” the statement said.

In addition, Washington is “consulting with allies and partners on accountability options at the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, and other appropriate venues,” it said.

AIMED AT TOP GENERALS?

Interviews with more than a dozen diplomats and government officials based in Washington, Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, and Europe have revealed that punitive measures aimed specifically at top generals were among a range of options being discussed in response to the Rohingya crisis.

Such measures could include the possibility of imposing asset freezes and prohibiting American citizens from doing business with them.

Washington has worked hard to establish close ties with Myanmar’s civilian-led government led by Nobel laureate and former dissident Aung San Suu Kyi in the face of competition from strategic rival China.

Forty-three U.S. lawmakers urged the Trump administration to reimpose U.S. travel bans on Myanmar’s military leaders and prepare targeted sanctions against those responsible for the crackdown.

The Magnitsky Act, originally passed in 2012, imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials linked to the 2009 death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian whistleblower. It has since been expanded to become the Global Magnitsky Act, which could be used against the generals in Myanmar.

(Reporting by Eric Walsh and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney)

EU leaders talk up Iran nuclear deal hoping to save it from Trump

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders on Thursday reaffirmed their full commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, hoping that the U.S. Congress would not let it collapse despite relentless criticism by President Donald Trump.

But the bloc, reluctant to isolate itself completely from Washington, is also stepping up criticism of Iran’s ballistic missile program and its role in what the West sees as fomenting instability in the Middle East.

Trump last week adopted a harsh new approach to Iran by refusing to certify its compliance with the nuclear deal, struck with the United States and five other powers including Britain, France and Germany after more than a decade of diplomacy.

“We fully stay committed to the complete implementation by all sides of the Iranian nuclear deal. We see this as a key security interest for the European Union and the region,” said the bloc’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini.

The EU leaders’ joint statement, agreed after talks in Brussels on Thursday, “reaffirms full commitment to the Iran nuclear deal”.

The bloc has been stepping up efforts to save the deal, saying it was crucial to regional and global security, and it has appealed to the U.S. Congress not to let it fall.

Trump has given Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran, lifted under the pact in exchange for the scaling down of a program the West fears was aimed at building a nuclear bomb, something Tehran denies.

The EU leaders also highlighted the need to protect their companies and investors dealing with Iran from any adverse effects should Washington reinstate the sanctions, officials said.

Should Trump walk away from the deal, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Iran would “shred” it.

The bloc sees the agreement as a chief international success of recent years, and fears tearing it apart would hurt its credibility as well as harming diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions around a nuclear stand-off with North Korea.

In outlining his tougher stance, Trump said Tehran must also be held accountable for advancing its ballistic missile program and its regional political role.

“We will defend the nuclear deal and stand by the nuclear deal and implement the nuclear deal. But we also don’t want to be standing on a completely opposing side to the U.S.,” an EU official said.

“If they withdraw, we would be left in a rather interesting company with China and Russia. So there may be an issue of separating the nuclear deal from the ballistic program and Iran’s regional role, sending signals on the latter two.”

Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Thursday the ballistic missile program would accelerate despite U.S. and EU pressure to suspend it, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

The EU, which has expressed “concerns related to ballistic missiles and increasing tensions” in the Middle East, has said these issues should be discussed without direct links to the nuclear deal.

“They were never very fond of the nuclear deal in the first place but now the situation has changed a lot. Both many Democrats as well as some Republicans feel like they need to play a more active role on foreign policy to restrain the president,” the official said.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by John Stonestreet, Toni Reinhold)

Venezuela vote dispute escalates foreign sanctions threat

Venezuelan citizens wait in line at a polling station during a nationwide election for new governors in Caracas, Venezuela. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

By Alexandra Ulmer and Deisy Buitrago

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition cried foul on Monday over the ruling socialists’ win in gubernatorial elections, raising the threat of more foreign sanctions following the vote in what the United States called “an authoritarian dictatorship.”

President Nicolas Maduro’s candidates took 17 governorships, versus five for the opposition, in Sunday’s nationwide poll, according to the pro-government electoral board.

The socialists’ strong showing came despite devastating food shortages, triple-digit inflation, and a collapsing currency. Polls had suggested the opposition would easily win a majority.

Dismayed leaders of the Democratic Unity coalition demanded an audit after citing a litany of abuses, including multiple voting, state food handouts on the day of the poll, forced attendance at gunpoint and suspicious phone and power outages.

The opposition fell short of offering detailed evidence of outright fraud, however, and there were no conventional foreign observer missions to verify claims of vote-rigging.

“This is a process of electoral fraud without precedent in our history,” said opposition spokesman Angel Oropeza. An estimated 1 million voters were blocked from voting, he said, referring to claims the election board skewed results by relocating hundreds of polling places away from opposition strongholds.

Many dispirited opposition supporters now see foreign pressure as their only real hope of hurting Maduro ahead of next year’s presidential vote.

The United States condemned the elections as neither free nor fair and vowed to keep up pressure on Maduro for the erosion of democracy in the South American OPEC nation.

“As long as the Maduro regime conducts itself as an authoritarian dictatorship, we will work with members of the international community and bring the full weight of American economic and diplomatic power to bear in support of the Venezuelan people as they seek to restore their democracy,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions on Maduro and top officials, including election board head Tibisay Lucena. Washington has also struck at the government’s ability to raise more funds via foreign debt.

The European Union could also take measures against Maduro, who was narrowly elected to replace the late leader Hugo Chavez in 2013.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has also branded Venezuela a dictatorship, expressed concern at claims of “serious irregularities” and “lack of transparency” in the gubernatorial vote.

“France deplores this situation and is working with its EU partners to examine appropriate measures to help resolve the serious crisis,” the French foreign ministry said.

POOR TURNOUT

Venezuela’s government, which insisted in advance of Sunday’s vote that it would demonstrate its commitment to democracy, still retains significant support in poorer, rural settings. And it seems unlikely that supporters of the elite-led opposition, which has struggled to capitalize on discontent over the economy, will return to the streets en masse after months of grueling protests earlier this year.

The protests failed to pressure the government into holding an early presidential election, freeing scores of jailed activists or accepting foreign humanitarian aid.

At least 125 people died, while thousands were injured and arrested in violence.

“Obviously, this was a brutal fraud,” said David Osorio, 21, who lost an eye when he was hit by a gas cannister in the clashes. “But I don’t know if going back to the streets is best … because the same will happen and many are simply not willing.”

A few hundred opposition protesters massed in front of the electoral council in the southern Bolivar state, where results were still not given by Monday evening. The National Guard used tear gas to scatter the crowd, according to a Reuters witness.

Various opposition leaders acknowledged disillusionment and people staying home had played a big role.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” legislator Jose Guerra said, noting record turnout of 74 percent in a 2015 congress vote, which the opposition won, versus 61 percent on Sunday.

Flanked by his powerful wife, soldiers, and red-shirted party members, a jubilant Maduro painted the opposition as sore losers. “When they lose they cry fraud. When they win they shout ‘Down with Maduro,'” said Maduro, 54.

The opposition pocketed governorships including the turbulent Andean states of Merida and Tachira and the oil-producing region of Zulia.

The government, which had previously controlled 20 governorships, took states across Venezuela’s languid plains and steamy Caribbean coast. It won back populous Miranda state, which includes part of the capital Caracas, and also won in Barinas, Chavez’s home state, where his younger brother retained the top job.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne, Andreina Aponte, Diego Ore, Eyanir Chinea, Corina Pons, Girish Gupta in Caracas, Isaac Urrutia in Maracaibo, William Urdaneta in Ciudad Guayana and Arshad Mohammed in Washington D.C.; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Tom Brown)

As sanctions bite, North Korean workers leave Chinese border hub

: A North Korean waitress cleans the floor of a North Korean restaurant in Dandong, Liaoning province, China, September 12, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo

By Philip Wen

DANDONG, China (Reuters) – North Korean workers have begun to leave the Chinese border city of Dandong, following the latest round of sanctions seeking to restrict Pyongyang’s ability to earn foreign currency income, local businesses and traders say.

Almost 100,000 overseas workers, based predominantly in China and Russia, funnel some $500 million in wages a year to help finance the North Korean regime, the U.S. government says.

Dandong, a city of 800,000 along the Yalu river that defines the border with North Korea, is home to many restaurants and hotels that hire North Korean waitresses and musicians. Their colorful song and dance performances are a tourist attraction.

Thousands of predominantly female workers are also employed by Chinese-owned garment and electronics factories in Dandong, with a significant proportion of their wages going straight to the North Korean state.

The Wing Cafe used to advertise its “beautiful North Korean” waitresses on its shopfront by the Yalu. The sign is now gone, and cafe staff said the waitresses had returned home in recent weeks after their visas expired.

“There have been changes in government policy,” the manager of another restaurant said. “It’s not convenient to say more.”

Recent videos circulating on Chinese social media appear to show hundreds of North Korean women waiting in line to clear immigration at Dandong’s border gate. A Reuters reporter saw a group of around 50 North Korean women waiting to cross the border on Friday morning.

HARDER TO SMUGGLE, TOO

Four traders, who deal in goods ranging from iron ore and seafood to ginseng and alcohol, told Reuters the sanctions had all but crippled the usual trade.

More stringent customs checks and patrols by Chinese border police have also made it harder to smuggle goods across the border, according to the traders, who declined to be named due to the subject’s sensitivity.

“The impact has been huge. Dandong’s economy has always counted on border trade,” said one Chinese trader.

In response to Pyongyang’s sixth and largest nuclear test last month, the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 11 passed a resolution prohibiting the use of North Korean workers, strengthening an Aug. 5 resolution that put a cap on the number of workers allowed overseas.

Successive rounds of U.N. trade sanctions have now banned 90 percent of the North’s $2.7 billion of publicly reported exports.

The Sept. 11 sanctions also ordered the closure of all joint business ventures with North Korea and added textiles to a list of banned exports, which already included coal, iron ore and seafood.

In a statement on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce ordered the implementation of the new sanctions across the country within 120 days.

FORCED TO LEAVE

The sanctions allow workers to serve out existing contracts. Business people in Dandong, through which most of trade between the two countries flows, said contracts could not be renewed and new visas were not being approved.

A Chinese supervisor at a factory making electronic wiring for automobiles said while most of its 300 North Korean workers were on multi-year contracts expiring at different times, those who arrived in Dandong after Aug. 5 had already been forced to leave. He did not say how many.

The sanctions have come as a rude jolt to Dandong businesses and traders who had long rolled with North Korea’s unpredictability but believed their neighbor’s economic reliance on China would keep its belligerence in check.

Dandong is one of the larger cities in Liaoning province, whose rustbelt economy has struggled under national campaigns to curb industrial overcapacity and ease pollution. Liaoning was China’s worst performer in the first half of 2017, registering GDP growth of 2.1 percent, compared with the national rate of 6.9 per cent, according to official statistics.

“The economy hasn’t been doing well here for the past two years,” said one trader. “This is making a bad situation worse.”

(Reporting by Philip Wen; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Turkey threatens retaliation after Iraqi Kurdish independence vote

Kurds celebrate to show their support for the independence referendum in Erbil, Iraq September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

By Maher Chmaytelli

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – The Iraqi government ruled out talks on possible secession for Kurdish-held northern Iraq on Tuesday and Turkey threatened sanctions after a referendum in the region showed strong support for independence.

Initial results of Monday’s vote indicated 72 percent of eligible voters had taken part and an overwhelming majority, possibly over 90 percent, had said “yes”, Kurdish TV channel Rudaw said. Final results are expected by Wednesday.

Celebrations continued until the early hours of Tuesday in Erbil, capital of the Kurdish region, which was lit by fireworks and adorned with Kurdish red-white-green flags. People danced in the squares as convoys of cars drove around honking their horns.

In ethnically mixed Kirkuk, where Arabs and Turkmen opposed the vote, authorities lifted an overnight curfew imposed to maintain control.

In neighboring Iran, which has a large Kurdish minority, thousands of Kurds marched in the streets to show their support for the referendum, defying a show of strength by Tehran which flew fighter jets over their areas.

The referendum has fueled fears of a new regional conflict. Turkey, which has fought a Kurdish insurgency within its borders for decades, reiterated threats of economic and military retaliation.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani says the vote is not binding, but meant to provide a mandate for negotiations with Baghdad and neighboring countries over the peaceful secession of the region from Iraq.

IRAQI OPPOSITION

But Iraq’s opposition to Kurdish independence did not waver.

“We are not ready to discuss or have a dialogue about the results of the referendum because it is unconstitutional,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a speech on Monday night.

The Kurds held the vote despite threats from Baghdad, Iraq’s powerful eastern neighbor Iran, and Turkey, the region’s main link to the outside world.

“This referendum decision, which has been taken without any consultation, is treachery,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, repeating threats to cut off the pipeline that carries hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day from northern Iraq to global markets.

He warned that Iraqi Kurds would go hungry if Turkey imposed sanctions and said military and economic measures could be used against them.

Iraqi Kurds – part of the largest ethnic group left stateless when the Ottoman empire collapsed a century ago – say the referendum acknowledges their contribution in confronting Islamic State after it overwhelmed the Iraqi army in 2014 and seized control of a third of Iraq.

Voters were asked to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question: “Do you want the Kurdistan Region and Kurdistani areas outside the (Kurdistan) Region to become an independent country?”

With 30 million ethnic Kurds scattered across the region, mainly in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, governments fear the spread of separatism to their own Kurdish populations.

Iraqi soldiers joined Turkish troops for military exercises in southeast Turkey on Tuesday near the border with Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Turkey also took the Rudaw TV channel off its satellite service TurkSat, a Turkish broadcasting official told Reuters.

STATE DEPARTMENT

The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply disappointed” by the KRG’s decision to conduct the referendum but added that Washington’s “historic relationship” with the people of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region would not change.

Asked about the referendum, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Monday: “We hope for a unified Iraq to annihilate ISIS (Islamic State) and certainly a unified Iraq to push back on Iran.”

The European Union regretted that the Kurds had failed to heed its call not to hold the referendum and said Iraqi unity remained essential in facing the threat from Islamic State.

The Kremlin signaled its opposition to a Kurdish breakaway in northern Iraq, saying Moscow backed the territorial integrity of countries in the region.

Iran banned flights to and from Kurdistan on Sunday, while Baghdad asked foreign countries to stop oil trading with the Kurdish region and demanded that the KRG hand over control of its international airports and border posts with Iran, Turkey and Syria.

Iranian Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top adviser to the Supreme Leader, called on “the four neighboring countries to block land borders” with the Iraqi Kurdish region, according to state news agency IRNA.

Tehran supports Shi’ite Muslim groups that have ruled or held security and government positions in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Syria, embroiled in a devastating civil war and whose Kurds are pressing ahead with their own self-determination, rejected the referendum.

KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said he hoped to maintain good relations with Turkey. “The referendum does not mean independence will happen tomorrow, nor are we redrawing borders,” he said in Erbil on Monday. “If the ‘yes’ vote wins, we will resolve our issues with Baghdad peacefully.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reiterated London’s opposition to the vote, urging “all sides to refrain from provocative statements and actions in its aftermath.

“The priority must remain the defeat of Daesh and returning stability to liberated areas,” he added, a reference to Islamic State militants who continue to control parts of Iraq and Syria.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in ANKARA and Umit Bektas in HABUR, Turkey; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Giles Elgood)

Canada to impose sanctions on Venezuela’s Maduro and top officials

FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during his weekly broadcast "Los Domingos con Maduro" (The Sundays with Maduro) in Caracas, Venezuela September 17, 2017. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will impose targeted sanctions against 40 Venezuelan senior officials, including President Nicolás Maduro, to punish them for “anti-democratic behavior,” the foreign ministry said on Friday.

Canada’s move, which followed a similar decision by the United States, came after months of protests against Maduro’s government in which at least 125 people have been killed. Critics say he has plunged the nation into its worst-ever economic crisis and brought it to the brink of dictatorship.

“Canada will not stand by silently as the government of Venezuela robs its people of their fundamental democratic rights,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement.

The measures include freezing the assets of the officials and banning Canadians from having any dealings with them.

The actions were “in response to the government of Venezuela’s deepening descent into dictatorship,” Canada said.

There was no immediate reaction from Caracas, where the government established a pro-Maduro legislative superbody that has overruled the country’s opposition-led Congress.

Maduro has said he faces an armed insurrection designed to end socialism in Latin America and let a U.S.-backed business elite get its hands on the OPEC nation’s crude reserves.

The United States imposed sanctions on Maduro in late July and has also targeted around 30 other officials.

The Canadian measures name Maduro, Vice President Tareck El Aissami and 38 other people, including the ministers of defense and the interior as well as several Supreme Court judges.

Canada is a member of the 12-nation Lima Group, which is trying to address the Venezuelan crisis. A government official said Freeland wanted to host a meeting of the group within the next 60 days.

Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, a trade sanctions expert at Toronto law firm LexSage, said although limited in scope, the Canadian measures were symbolic.

“When you join other countries … it makes the message louder,” she said by phone.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday he believed there was a chance for a political solution.

“This is a situation that is obviously untenable. The violence … needs to end and we are looking to be helpful,” he told reporters at the United Nations.

Experts say individual measures have had little or no impact on Maduro’s policies and that broader oil-sector and financial sanctions may be the only way to make the Venezuelan government feel economic pain.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company.

Earlier this month, Spain said it wanted the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Jonathan Oatis)

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