Tag Archives: U.N

Death toll from Somalia bomb attacks tops 300

A general view shows the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 14, 2017.

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – More than 300 people died after twin bomb explosions in Mogadishu, an official said on Monday, as locals packed hospitals in search of friends and relatives caught up in Somalia’s deadliest attack in a decade.

The death toll has steadily risen since Saturday, when the blasts – for which no organization had claimed responsibility by Monday morning – struck at two busy junctions in the heart of the city.

“We have confirmed 300 people died in the blast. The death toll will still be higher because some people are still missing,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the city’s ambulance service, told Reuters on Monday.

Aden Nur, a doctor at the city’s Madina hospital, said they had recorded 258 deaths while Ahmed Ali, a nurse at the nearby Osman Fiqi hospital, told Reuters five bodies had been sent there.

Nur said 160 of the bodies could not be recognized. “(They)were buried by the government yesterday. The others were buried by their relatives. Over a hundred injured were also brought here,” he told Reuters at the hospital.

Some of the injured were being evacuated by air to Turkey for treatment, officials said.

Locals visiting their injured relatives or collecting their bodies filled every available space in Madina hospital.

“My last time to speak with my brother was some minutes before the blast occurred. By then he told me, he was on the way to meet and was passing at K5,” Halima Nur, a local mother, told Reuters, referring to one of the junctions that was struck.

“I am afraid he was among the unrecognized charred bodies that were buried yesterday. I have no hope of getting him alive or dead. But I cannot go home.”

Somali government forces and civilians gather at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 15,

Somali government forces and civilians gather at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 15, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

DEADLIEST SINCE INSURGENCY BEGAN

Saturday bomb attacks were the deadliest since Islamist militant group al Shabaab began an insurgency in 2007.

Neither it nor any other group had claimed responsibility, but al Shabaab, which is allied to al Qaeda, stages regular attacks in the capital and other parts of the country.

The group is waging an insurgency against Somalia’s U.N.-backed government and its African Union allies in a bid to impose its own strict interpretation of Islam.

The militants were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 and have been steadily losing territory since then to the combined forces of AU peacekeepers and Somali security forces.

But Al Shabaab retains the capacity to mount large, complex bomb attacks. Over the past three years, the number of civilians killed by insurgent bombings has steadily climbed as al Shabaab increases the size of its bombs.

Some of those seriously injured in Saturday’s bombing were moved by ambulance to the airport on Monday morning to be flown to Turkey for further treatment, Nur added.

Workers unloaded boxes of medicine and other medical supplies from a Turkish military plane parked on the tarmac, while Turkish medical teams attended to the cases of injuries moved from the hospital for evacuation.

 

 

 

(Writing by Duncan Miriri; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

Russian-North Korea projects foundering because of missile tests

A guard walks along a platform past signs, which read "Russia" (L) and "DPRK"(Democratic People's Republic of Korea), at the border crossing between Russia and North Korea in the settlement of Tumangan, North Korea July 18, 2014.

By Polina Nikolskaya and Katya Golubkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Commercial ventures planned between Russia and North Korea three years ago are not being implemented because of Pyongyang’s missile testing program, the Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East, Alexander Galushka, said.

Russia has been under international scrutiny over North Korea because it has taken a more doveish approach to Pyongyang than Washington, and Russian trade with North Korea increased sharply at the start of this year.

The United States government earlier this month imposed new North Korea-related sanctions that targeted Russian firms and individuals for, it alleged, supporting Pyongyang’s weapons programs and providing oil.

However Galushka, in an interview with Reuters, said Moscow was faithfully implementing the international sanctions regime on North Korea, and held up the stalled bilateral projects as an indication that Pyongyang was paying an economic price for its weapons program.

“Russia has not violated, does not violate and will not work outside the framework (of the resolution) that was accepted by the U.N. Security Council,” said Galushka, who also heads a Russia-North Korean Intergovernmental Commission.

Russian businesses discussed a number of projects with North Korea in 2014. But then North Korea conducted military tests, including some involving nuclear weapons, and the projects became difficult to implement, Galushka said.

One such project, called “Pobeda”, or “Victory,” would have involved Russian investments and supplies that could be exchanged for access to Korean natural resources.

“We told our North Korean partners more than once … that it hampers a lot, makes it impossible, it restricts things, it causes fear,” Galushka said, referring to the weapons testing.

Another joint project between the two countries is a railway link with North Korea, from the Russian eastern border town of Khasan to Korea’s Rajin.

It is operating but below its potential. The link could work at a capacity of 4 million tonnes a year, officials have said previously, but now it only carries around 1.5 million tonnes of coal per year, according to Galushka.

UN sanctions also prohibit countries from increasing the current numbers of North Korean laborers working in their territories.

According to Galushka, around 40,000 employees from North Korea worked in Russia. Mainly they are engaged in timber processing and construction.

Russian business is interested in access to the North Korea workforce, Galushka said, but the numbers will stay in line with what the sanctions permit.

He said 40,000 workers from North Korea “is a balance formed in the economy, neither more nor less.”

Bilateral trade between the two countries has been decreasing for the last four years, from $112.7 million in 2013 to $76.9 million in 2016, according to Russian Federal Customs Service statistics.

But it more than doubled to $31.4 million in the first quarter of 2017 in year-on-year terms. Most of Russia’s exports to North Korea are oil, coal and refined products.

Asked to explain why trade was rising if political issues were hurting commercial projects, a spokeswoman for Galushka’s ministry said in an email: “According to the latest data, there was an objective increase due to exports to North Korea, primarily oil products. But the export of oil does not violate the agreements of the UN countries in any way.”

The interview with Galushka took place before the U.S. imposed the sanctions targeting Russian entities and individuals for trading with North Korea.

Galushka’s ministry referred questions about the new sanctions to the Russian foreign ministry.

Maria Zakharova, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, told reporters Washington’s unilateral sanctions worsened tensions on the Korean peninsula, and that Russia is fulfilling its international obligations in full.

 

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

 

China issues order to implement U.N. sanctions on North Korea

A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Commerce Ministry issued a ban effective from Tuesday on several imports from North Korea, including coal, iron ore, lead concentrates and ore, lead and seafood, a move that is in line with U.N. sanctions announced this month.

Beijing issued the banning order on Monday.

U.N. sanctions must be implemented 30 days after the resolution was approved in a vote on Aug. 6.

The Chinese government said any cargoes already on their way to China would be cleared by customs as usual before the U.N. sanctions deadline.

 

(Reporting by Josephine Mason; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Edmund Blair)

 

Pence warns North Korea of U.S. resolve shown in Syria, Afghan strikes

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence looks toward the north from an observation post inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea,

By Roberta Rampton and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence put North Korea on notice on Monday, warning that recent U.S. strikes in Syria and Afghanistan showed that the resolve of President Donald Trump should not be tested.

Pence and South Korean acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn, speaking a day after a failed missile test by the North and two days after a huge display of missiles in Pyongyang, also said they would strengthen anti-North Korea defences by moving ahead with the early deployment of the THAAD missile-defence system.

Pence is on the first stop of a four-nation Asia tour intended to show America’s allies, and remind its adversaries, that the Trump administration was not turning its back on the increasingly volatile region.

“Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan,” Pence said in a joint appearance with Hwang.

“North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region,” Pence said.

The U.S. Navy this month struck a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles after a chemical weapons attack. On Thursday, the U.S. military said it had dropped “the mother of all bombs”, the largest non-nuclear device it has ever unleashed in combat, on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in Afghanistan.

North Korea’s KCNA news agency on Monday carried a letter from leader Kim Jong Un to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad marking the 70th anniversary of Syria’s independence.

“I express again a strong support and alliance to the Syrian government and its people for its work of justice, condemning the United States’ recent violent invasive act against your country,” Kim said.

On a visit to the border between North and South Korea earlier in the day, Pence, whose father served in the 1950-53 Korean War, said the United States would stand by its “iron-clad alliance” with South Korea.

“All options are on the table to achieve the objectives and ensure the stability of the people of this country,” he told reporters as tinny propaganda music floated across from the North Korean side of the so-called demilitarized zone (DMZ).

“There was a period of strategic patience but the era of strategic patience is over.”

ECONOMIC TALKS

Pence is expected to discuss rising tension on the Korean peninsula with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday when he travels to Tokyo to kick off economic talks with Finance Minister Taro Aso.

Pence will meet business leaders in Seoul before departing – a “listening session” he will reprise at other stops on his tour in Tokyo, Jakarta and Sydney.

His economic discussions will be closely watched to see how hard a line Washington is prepared to take on trade. Trump campaigned for office on an “America First” platform, and has vowed to narrow big trade deficits with nations like China, Germany and Japan.

But Trump has also shown he is willing to link trade to other issues, saying he would cut a better trade deal with China if it exerts influence on North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Trump acknowledged on Sunday that the softer line he had taken on China’s management of its currency was linked to its help on North Korea.

The United States, its allies and China are working on a range of responses to North Korea’s latest failed ballistic missile test, Trump’s national security adviser said on Sunday, citing what he called an international consensus to act.

China has spoken out against the North’s weapons tests and has supported U.N. sanctions. It has repeatedly called for talks while appearing increasingly frustrated with the North.

But Pence and Hwang said they were troubled by retaliatory economic moves by China against the deployment in South Korea of a U.S. anti-missile system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD).

South Korea, which accuses China or discriminating against some South Korean companies working in China, and the United States say the sole purpose of THAAD is to guard against North Korean missiles.

China says its powerful radar can penetrate its territory and undermine its security and spoke out against it again on Monday.

‘RECKLESS’

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing the situation on the Korean peninsula was “highly sensitive, complicated and high risk”, adding all sides should “avoid taking provocative actions that pour oil on the fire”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow could not accept North Korea’s “reckless nuclear actions” but the United States should not take unilateral action against it.

Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, indicated on Sunday that Trump was not considering military action against North Korea for now, even as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier strike group was heading for the region.

“It’s time for us to undertake all actions we can, short of a military option, to try to resolve this peacefully,” he said on ABC’s “This Week” programme.

The Trump administration is focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including an oil embargo, a global ban on its airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang.

Tensions have risen as Trump takes a hard rhetorical line with Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes seen by Washington as a direct threat.

China says the crisis is between the United States and North Korea. Lu said China efforts to help achieve denuclearization were clear, adding: “China is not the initiator of the Korean peninsula nuclear issue.”

China banned imports of North Korean coal on Feb. 26, cutting off its most important export and Chinese media has raised the possibility of restricting oil shipments to the North if it unleashed more provocations.

Pyongyang has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions, and has said it has developed and would launch a missile that can strike the U.S. mainland.

U.S. officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim and James Pearson in SEOUL, Daniel Trotta in NEW YORK, Lucia Mutikani and Caren Bohan in WASHINGTON and Michael Martina in BEIJING:; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Paul Tait and Robert Birsel)

Syria talks may surprise by meeting the low bar of expectations

General view at the start of a meeting between UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, 2nd R, and Syrian government delegation during Syria peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland February 28, 2017. REUTERS/Xu Jinquan/Pool

By Tom Miles, John Irish and Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – No breakthrough was promised at Syria peace talks in Geneva, and no breakthrough has occurred. But as the first U.N.-led talks in almost a year neared their end on Friday, neither side has walked away and both claim small wins.

Russia, seen as holding the balance of power, has met both sides behind the scenes, and Western diplomats expect the talks to conclude later on Friday with an “agreed agenda” and a plan for a return to the Swiss city later this month.

In eight days of talks, the warring sides have not negotiated face-to-face, but haggled over the agenda with U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura, who wants to discuss a new constitution, elections and reformed governance.

As the text was still being finalised, the opposition met de Mistura to ensure the process would focus squarely on “political transition”, Western diplomats said.

Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Ja’afari wants “counter-terrorism” to be included on the agenda.

“There is movement from both sides. The difficulty is that the opposition wants to be sure how the question of terrorism will be dealt with and in what order,” one diplomat said.

“They need language that ensures the process is not hijacked by the government to distract from political transition. De Mistura has to ensure that both sides don’t feel trapped.”

The scope of the negotiation is much narrower than a year ago, when de Mistura also had to hear demands for a ceasefire and release of prisoners. A shaky ceasefire has been in place since December and separate talks in Kazakhstan, sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran, are dealing with military matters.

Past peace efforts have failed, often as a fractured opposition succumbed to pressure from events on the battlefield, having failed to penetrate Ja’afari’s steely intransigence.

The latest round rode out the fallout from a militant attack on two security offices in the city of Homs last Saturday that killed dozens and which de Mistura said was a deliberate attempt to derail the talks.

FINAL SPRINT

A Western diplomat said agreement was near but it was the “final sprint and it can still derail”.

“I think the regime would do anything to get out of it as long as they can blame the other side like they tried yesterday (Thursday),” he said.

Russian diplomats met representatives of Syrian armed groups late on Thursday, diplomats and opposition sources said, the second contact in days between Moscow and the opposition, whom Assad’s government regards as terrorists.

Despite those contacts, Russia accused the main opposition of trying to sabotage the talks by refusing to unite with two smaller dissident groups which have no military muscle but have Moscow’s blessing as opposition voices.

Jihad Makdissi, head of the dissident “Cairo group” at the talks, said he met de Mistura on Friday. He said he expected an agreement on the agenda, format and date for a next round of talks, but that the U.N. envoy would clarify later.

Creating a unified opposition delegation is seen as the key to holding face-to-face talks. But a second Western diplomat said Russia’s push to unify the opposition was an underhand tactic.

“Russia is trying to do that to destabilize the talks. They insist on the opposition becoming one. This is a tactic to weaken the process. I hope that Staffan can push back on it.

A new round of Astana talks is due on March 14, and Russian officials have said the Geneva negotiations could resume on March 20.

(Editing by Richard Lough)

U.S. backed Iraqi forces battle their way toward Mosul airport

By Stephen Kalin and Maher Chmaytelli

SOUTH OF MOSUL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Iraqi forces fought Islamic State fighters on Monday to clear the way to Mosul’s airport, on the second day of a ground offensive on the jihadists’ remaining stronghold in the western side of the city.

Federal police and elite interior ministry units known as Rapid Response are leading the charge toward the airport, located on the southern limit of the Mosul, trying to dislodge the militants from the nearby hilltop village of Albu Saif.

The Iraqi forces plan is to turn the airport into a close support base for the onslaught into western Mosul itself.

Islamic State militants are essentially under siege in western Mosul, along with an estimated 750,000 civilians, after they were forced out of the eastern part of the city in the first phase of an offensive that concluded last month, after 100 days of fighting.

“They are striking and engaging our forces and pulling back toward Mosul,” Major Mortada Ali Abd of the Rapid Response units told a Reuters correspondent south of Mosul. “God willing Albu Saif will be fully liberated today.”

Elite Counter-Terrrorism Service units headed to frontlines around the western side of Mosul, a city that is divided into two halves by the Tigris River.

Helicopters were strafing the Albu Saif hill to clear it of snipers, while machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades could be heard. The advancing forces also disabled a car bomb – used by the militants to obstruct attacking forces.

The Iraqi forces have been advancing so far in sparsely populated areas and there were no families seen escaping. The fighting will get tougher as they get nearer to the city itself and the risk greater for civilians.

Up to 400,000 civilians could be displaced by the offensive as residents of western Mosul suffer food and fuel shortages and markets are closed, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande told Reuters on Saturday.

Commanders expect the battle to be more difficult than in the east of the city, which Iraqi forces took control of last month after three months of fighting. Tanks and armored vehicles cannot pass through its narrow alleyways.

The militants have developed a network of passageways and tunnels to enable them to hide and fight among civilians, disappear after hit-and-run operations and track government troop movements, according to residents.

Western Mosul contains the old city center, with its ancient souks, government administrative buildings, and the mosque from which Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his self-styled caliphate over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014.

The city is the largest urban center captured by Islamic State in both countries.

The U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, has said he believes U.S.-backed forces will recapture both of Islamic State’s major strongholds – Mosul and the city of Raqqa in Syria – within the next six months.

Islamic State was thought to have up to 6,000 fighters in Mosul when the government’s offensive started in mid-October. Of those, more than 1,000 have been killed, according to Iraqi estimates.

The remainder now face a 100,000-strong force made up of Iraqi armed forces, including elite paratroopers and police, Kurdish forces and Iranian-trained Shi’ite paramilitary groups.

The westward road that links the city to Syria was cut in November by the Shi’ite paramilitary known as Popular Mobilization forces. The militants are in charge of the road that links Mosul to Tal Afar, a town they control 60 km (40 miles) to the west.

CIVILIAN LIVES

Coalition aircraft and artillery have continued to bombard targets in the west during the break that followed the taking ofeastern Mosul.

The United States, which has deployed more than 5,000 troops in the fighting, leads an international coalition providing key air and ground support, including artillery fire, to the Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in Baghdad on Monday on an unannounced visit to assess the war operations.

“The coalition forces are in support of this operation and we will continue … with the accelerated effort to destroy ISIS,” he said, using an acronym for the militant group.

Mattis also said the U.S. military was not in Iraq to seize the country’s oil, distancing himself from remarks by President Donald Trump.

A U.S. serviceman died on Monday in a non-combat related incident outside the Iraqi city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the U.S.-led coalition said, giving no further details.

Islamic State imposed a radical version of Islam in Mosul, banning cigarettes, televisions and radios, and forcing men to grow beards and women to cover from head to toe. Citizens who failed to comply risked death.

Capturing Mosul would effectively end the Sunni group’s ambitions for territorial rule in Iraq. The militants are expected to continue to wage an insurgency, however, carrying out suicide bombings and inspiring lone-wolf actions abroad.

About 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive in October, U.N. officials say. Medical and humanitarian agencies estimate the total number of dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

“This is the grim choice for children in western Mosul right now: bombs, crossfire and hunger if they stay – or execution and snipers if they try to run,” Save the Children said, adding that children make up about half the population trapped in the city.

The involvement of many local and foreign players with diverging interests in the war, heightens the risk that they could clash between themselves after Islamic State is defeated.

Influential Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is openly hostile to Washington’s policies in the Middle East, on Monday said U.S. troops should leave as soon as Mosul is captured.

”The Iraqi government has to demand that all occupying and so-called friendly forces leave Iraq in order to preserve the prestige and the sovereignty of the state,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Baghdad and Isabel Coles in Erbil; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Israel postpones vote on new East Jerusalem homes before Kerry speech

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel pulled back from approving hundreds of new homes for Israelis in annexed East Jerusalem on Wednesday before a speech in which the U.S. Secretary of State was to give further voice to international opposition to settlement building.

The projects, in areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians seek as part of a future state, are part of building activity the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to on Friday in a resolution made possible by a U.S. abstention.

John Kerry will discuss Washington’s withholding of its veto when he delivers a speech at the State Department at 11 a.m. ET (1600 GMT) laying out his vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a senior State Department official told reporters on Tuesday.

With applications for 492 building permits in the urban settlements of Ramot and Ramat Shlomo on its agenda, members of Jerusalem city hall’s Planning and Building committee said a planned vote was cancelled at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request.

The panel’s chairman, Meir Turgeman, said at the session that Netanyahu was concerned approval would have given Kerry “ammunition before the speech”.

A spokesman for the Israeli leader declined immediate comment.

Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on Israel “to take the high ground and declare a cessation of settlement activities, including East Jerusalem, so we can give the peace process the chance it deserves by the resumption of meaningful negotiations”.

“SHAMEFUL”

Washington’s move at the United Nations broke a longstanding policy of diplomatic shielding of Israel by the United States. Condemned by Israel as “shameful”, it was widely seen as a parting shot by President Barack Obama against Netanyahu and his pro-settlement policies.

The two leaders have had a rocky relationship, divided over the decades-old Israeli policy of building Jewish settlements in occupied territory as well as on how to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

Washington considers the settlement activity illegitimate and most countries view it as an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees, citing a biblical, historical and political connection to the land – which the Palestinians also claim – as well as security interests.

Some 570,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem amid mounting international concern that a two-state solution to the dispute is in jeopardy, with peace talks stalled since 2014.

“The prime minister said that while he supports construction in Jerusalem, we don’t have to inflame the situation any further,” Hanan Rubin, a member of the Jerusalem municipal committee told Reuters, citing Kerry’s upcoming speech.

The panel meets regularly and the building projects could come up for a vote at a future session.

Since learning last week of Kerry’s planned speech, Israeli officials have been concerned he might use the address to lay out parameters for a Middle East peace deal.

Netanyahu’s aides are confident Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration will likely ignore any Obama principles and pay no heed to the U.N. resolution. But they fear Kerry’s remarks will put Israel on the defensive and prompt other countries to apply pressure.

Trump tweeted his opposition to the U.S. decision to withhold a veto and lobbied Egypt, an original sponsor of the resolution, to drop plans to bring it to a vote last Thursday.

He has pledged to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its capital – a status that is not recognised internationally. And he has appointed his lawyer, who has raised funds for a major Jewish settlement in the West Bank, as the new ambassador.

“Who’s Obama? He’s history,” Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev said on Army Radio on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; editing by John Stonestreet)

United Nations envoy says Idlib could become the next Aleppo

Evacuees from the Shi'ite Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya ride a bus at insurgent-held al-Rashideen in Aleppo province, Syria

By Stephanie Nebehay and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

GENEVA/AMMAN (Reuters) – A senior United Nations official warned on Thursday that thousands of people evacuated from rebel-held areas of Aleppo after a crushing government offensive could suffer the same fate in their new place of refuge outside the city.

U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said a cessation of hostilities across Syria was vital if another battle like the bloody fight for Aleppo was to be avoided.

At least 34,000 people, both civilians and fighters, had been evacuated from east Aleppo in a week-long operation, the latest U.N. figures show.

“Many of them have gone to Idlib, which could be in theory the next Aleppo,” de Mistura warned in Geneva.

Thousands of refugees from Aleppo were ferried to Idlib, arousing fears that the rebel-held city in northwestern Syria could be next. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has declared that the war is far from over and that his armed forces would march on other rebel-held areas.

Evacuees from Aleppo had expressed concerns about being taken to Idlib and a senior European diplomat said earlier this month that this would suit Russia, Assad’s main military backer, as it would put “all their rotten eggs in one basket”.

Assad said that regaining full control of Aleppo was a victory shared by his Russian and Iranian allies.

The last group of civilians and rebels holed up in a small enclave was expected to leave in the next 24 hours, with the Syrian army and its allies seizing all of the city, delivering the biggest prize of the nearly six-year war to Assad.

In comments after meeting a senior Iranian delegation, Assad said his battlefield successes were a “basic step on the road to ending terrorism in the whole of Syria and creating the right circumstances for a solution to end the war”.

Russia’s air force conducted hundreds of raids that pulverized rebel-held parts of Aleppo while Iranian-backed militias, led by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, poured thousands of fighters to fight rebels into the city.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday that Russian air strikes in Syria had killed 35,000 rebel fighters and halted a chain of revolutions in the Middle East.

Speaking at a gathering of senior military officials that appeared designed to showcase Russia’s military achievements, Shoigu said Moscow’s intervention had prevented the collapse of the Syrian state.

LAST STAGES

More fighters were evacuated overnight from east Aleppo to opposition-held areas under an agreement between the warring sides, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“In one of the last stages of the evacuation, more than 4,000 fighters were evacuated in private cars, vans, and pick-ups from eastern Aleppo to western rural Aleppo,” ICRC spokeswoman Krista Armstrong said.

This brought to around 34,000 the total number of people evacuated from the district over the past week in an operation hampered by heavy snow and wind, she said.

“The evacuation will continue for the entire day and night and most probably tomorrow (Friday). Thousands are still expected to be evacuated,” Armstrong said.

“Most are heading towards camps, or to their relatives, or shelter locations,” said Ahmad al-Dbis, a medical aid worker heading a team evacuating patients from Aleppo. “The humanitarian situation in northern Syria is very difficult, because the area is already densely populated since it has people displaced from all over Syria.”

Those leaving Aleppo are not only going to Idlib, the name of a city and province southwest of Aleppo, but to villages in the countryside in Aleppo province that lies west and north of the city and has also been heavily bombed.

Ahmed Kara Ali, spokesman for Ahrar al Sham, a rebel group that is involved in departure negotiations, told Reuters “large numbers” were left but it was difficult to estimate how many remained, beyond it being in the thousands.

Hundreds of other people are also still being evacuated from two villages besieged by rebels near Idlib and taken to government lines in Aleppo, part of the deal that has allowed insurgents to withdraw from the city carrying light weapons.

HEAVY SNOW

Another rebel official said a heavy snow storm that hit northern Syria and the sheer numbers of civilians still remaining were among the factors behind the delay in the mass evacuation.

“The numbers of civilians, their cars alongside and of course the weather all are making the evacuation slow,” Munir al-Sayal, head of the political wing of Ahrar al Sham, said, adding he expected the operation to be completed on Thursday.

The tiny pocket they are fleeing is all that remains of a rebel sector that covered nearly half the city before being besieged in the summer, the cue for intense air strikes that reduced swathes of it to rubble. As the months of bombardment wore on, rescue and health services collapsed.

The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been devastated during the war which has killed more than 300,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.

ASSAD’S FUTURE

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of Russia's General Staff Valery Gerasimov attend a meeting with top military officials at the Defence Ministry in Moscow, Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov attend a meeting with top military officials at the Defence Ministry in Moscow, Russia December 22, 2016. Sputnik/Kremlin/Alexei Nikolskyi via REUTERS

Russia is not discussing the future of Assad in its talks with Iran and Turkey, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

The foreign and defense ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday and agreed to help broker a new peace deal for Syria.

De Mistura said that cessation of hostilities across Syria was a “priority” and having “regional players like Turkey, Russia and Iran talk to each other is a good thing”.

Quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin, de Mistura said talks expected to be held in Kazakhstan were “not considered a competition, it is complementary and a support to the preparation of the U.N. role (in Syrian peace talks) on 8 Feb.”

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman, Peter Hobson in Moscow, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Ellen Francis in Beirut, writing by Peter Millership and Giles Elgood)

Turkmenistan’s president must renounce torture:

President of Turkmenistan Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov walks past an honour guard before a ceremony to welcome Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in the capital Ashgabat, Turkmenistan,

GENEVA (Reuters) – Turkmenistan must renounce torture, a U.N. body said on Wednesday, accusing the country of systematic abuse, including rape and beating in jail, and political disappearances.

“The Committee (against Torture) is seriously concerned at consistent allegations of widespread torture and ill-treatment, including severe beatings, of persons deprived of their liberty, especially at the moment of apprehension and during pretrial detention, mainly in order to extract confessions,” it said.

The body called on President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to make “a public statement affirming unambiguously that torture will not be tolerated”, adding that nobody had been prosecuted for torture, despite widely publicized cases.

Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry and its diplomats in Geneva could not be reached for comment.

Earlier on Wednesday, the ministry said the government was working closely with international human rights bodies and was improving its legal framework, including the prison system.

Turkmenistan reportedly holds 90 people in long-term detention, amounting to enforced disappearance, the panel of 10 independent rights experts said. They were particularly concerned about the whereabouts of people convicted in relation to an assassination attempt on a former president in 2002.

A former foreign minister, Boris Shikhmuradov, and a former ambassador, Batyr Berdiev, disappeared in 2002, committee member Felice Gaer told a news conference and there had been no information about what happened to them.

Turkmenistan has failed to investigate the abduction of Atymurad Annamuradov, who was beaten to death in retaliation for the work of his brother, Chary Annamuradov, a journalist. Three other brothers also died in suspicious circumstances, the committee said.

Many prisoners had reportedly died because of conditions at Ovadan-Depe jail, and inmates with infectious diseases were held with healthy prisoners, only getting hospitalized “when they are close to death or through bribing the relevant officials”, the committee said.

Political prisoners were detained in psychiatric hospitals, and there were reports of abuse including sexual violence and rape by prison staff, resulting in several suicides, it said.

Turkmenistan does not allow independent organizations such as the Red Cross to monitor detention facilities, nor does it allow U.N. rights experts to investigate in the country.

The Foreign Ministry said diplomats from Europe, the United States, the OSCE and the United Nations visited a juvenile correctional facility on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, Stephanie Nebehay and Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

After failed coup, what sort of Turkey does Erdogan want?

A supporter holds a flag depicting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a pro-government demonstration in Ankara, Turkey,

By Luke Baker

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Looking across Istanbul’s skyline, it is impossible not to be struck by the array of red-and-white, star-and-crescent flags fluttering from buildings, monuments, bridges and flagpoles.

Patriotism in Turkey has always been strong, but in the wake of July’s failed coup by members of the military, President Tayyip Erdogan has tapped freely into the populist, banner-draped fervor to remould the nation in his image.

The questions are, what sort of Turkey does Erdogan want, and what steps will this powerful and sometimes unpredictable leader take to achieve his vision?

The answers could have far-reaching implications for the global role played by the Muslim-majority NATO member, whose assistance is seen in the West as vital in the war against Islamic State and in tackling the migrant crisis.

At one level, diplomats and analysts say, Erdogan has made his aims perfectly clear. In the three months since the coup attempt, authorities have suspended or dismissed 100,000 civil servants, judges, lecturers, military personnel and police – purging some of the most established pillars of society.

Anyone with suspected links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Erdogan accuses of masterminding the putsch, is a possible target. Gulen has denied plotting against the state and any involvement in the coup.

More than 30,000 people have been arrested. Five percent of the entire police force has been removed from duty. Whole ministerial departments have been shut down.

Some Western allies fear creeping authoritarianism and a shift toward a political model built around a strong leader and dominant single party but lacking checks and balances in Turkey, whose size, military power and location between Europe, the Middle East and Asia give it significant strategic clout.

“He wants a Turkey where he is the undisputed, unchallenged decider without the constraints of a normal democratic system,” said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Ankara and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute.

“He won’t overturn the constitution or get rid of democracy, but he wants to render the opposition incapable of challenging him and to exercise clear power over them,” he told Reuters.

By contrast, Erdogan’s loyal supporters see him as the champion of the pious masses, forging a proud and independent nation that will not be dictated to by outside powers.

The president and his aides bristle at the notion he is dictatorial. They point to his succession of election victories, first as leader of the ruling AK Party, and then in Turkey’s first popular presidential election in 2014.

OTTOMAN PRIDE

But Erdogan’s ambitions likely go further than taking back control and projecting authority.

While the 62-year-old may have no desire to recreate the Ottoman empire, political analysts and diplomats say he wants to draw on that sense of greatness to craft a Turkey that bestrides the world, respected and perhaps a little feared by neighbors and peers.

In speeches and comments before and since the failed putsch, Erdogan has frequently referenced the Ottoman period, when Turkey’s forefathers held territory stretching from southeast Europe to the Caucasus, North Africa and Iraq.

He often laments the concessions made by Turkish leaders after World War One, with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne that brought modern Turkey into being in 1923, as if to suggest only he can restore the nation’s illustrious past.

“What you’re witnessing in Turkey is tied up with an almost constant desire to reclaim the heritage of the Ottoman empire, which was of course a polyglot, multi-ethnic entity,” said Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“In almost every one of Erdogan’s speeches there are these themes: You can be proud you are a Turk, proud that you are a Muslim, we have influence in our region and beyond. The expression ‘Great Turkey’ is used almost all the time.”

In August, with great symbolism and fanfare, Erdogan inaugurated a new bridge over the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia. The span, the third over the strait, was named after a 16th-century Ottoman ruler, Yavuz Sultan Selim. “Be proud of your power, Turkey,” announced adverts on television.

At the U.N. General Assembly in September, the most high-profile speech Erdogan has made abroad since the failed coup, he expanded on two of his favorite themes: how Turkey helps the oppressed and serves as a role model in the Muslim world, and how power at the United Nations is too narrowly held.

“The world is greater than five,” he said, referring to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. “A Security Council that does not represent the entire world can never serve to re-establish peace and justice around the world.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan attend Democracy and Martyrs Rally, organized by him and supported by ruling AK Party (AKP), oppositions Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to protest against last month's failed military coup attempt, in Istanbul, Turkey

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan attend Democracy and Martyrs Rally, organized by him and supported by ruling AK Party (AKP), oppositions Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to protest against last month’s failed military coup attempt, in Istanbul, Turkey, August 7, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal/File Photo

‘CRITICAL JUNCTURE’

Since coming to power in 2003, first as prime minister and then as president, Erdogan has overseen a period of rapid economic growth and increased regional influence.

While he may have no territorial ambitions, Turkey does have troops in northern Syria, is training militias in Iraq – to the growing concern of the government in Baghdad – and has hopes of turning itself into a regional energy hub, a crossroads between Russia, Iran and the East Mediterranean.

“He’s trying to exercise influence in the region by dint of Turkey’s large and powerful economy and its claim to be an Islamic power,” said Jeffrey. “There is a bit of going back to Ottoman times and going back to Turkish dominance of the region – he wants a more Islamic alternative to the West.”

It appears a popular formula. A poll in late July, two weeks after the coup attempt, showed Erdogan with two-thirds approval among Turkey’s 78 million people, his highest rating ever.

Yet in striving for that more self-confident and perhaps more feared Turkey, Erdogan has at times walked a thin line, straining ties with the European Union and the wider West, which are wary of what they see as his creeping authoritarianism.

Turkey’s $720 billion economy is fueled in large part by trade and investment with Europe. Its working week runs from Monday to Friday to align with business in London and New York, not the rest of the Muslim world. In theory, Turkey still plans to join the European Union and is a central player in NATO.

The country’s annual average growth rate has been tapering, to around 3 percent from 5 percent, and there is a need for a new impetus to bring unemployment down among millions of younger Turks. That requires staying open to the West.

Andrew Duff, a former member of the European Parliament who was vice-chairman of the Turkey-EU joint parliamentary committee, sees Erdogan as “entirely fickle” regarding Europe and focused for now on exploiting Islam and nationalism.

“I’m afraid this is only going to get worse,” said Duff, who has been accused by Turkish authorities of being a “Gulenist”, a charge he dismisses with a laugh. “I’m sure Erdogan’s aim is to remain in power at least until 2023, the centenary of the founding of the republic.”

Duff does not think Erdogan will pivot to the East permanently. But for now, Europe, NATO and the West find themselves with a volatile partner.

“From the historical point of view, it’s fascinating because Turkey is really poised,” said Aliriza. “Whether it continues to look to its nation-state past and its opening to the West, or a hoped-for glorious future in which Turkey will draw closer to its brethren in the East. It’s at a critical juncture.”

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Pravin Char)