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Tag Archives: United States
Erdogan says U.S.-led coalition gives support to terrorist groups in Syria
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he has evidence that U.S.-led coalition forces give support to terrorist groups including the Islamic State and Kurdish militant groups YPG and PYD, he said on Tuesday.
“They were accusing us of supporting Daesh (Islamic State),” he told a press conference in Ankara.
“Now they give support to terrorist groups including Daesh, YPG, PYD. It’s very clear. We have confirmed evidence, with pictures, photos and videos,” he said.
(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Russia calls U.S. move to better arm Syrian rebels a ‘hostile act’
By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Tuesday that a U.S. decision to ease restrictions on arming Syrian rebels had opened the way for deliveries of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, a move it said would directly threaten Russian forces in Syria.
Moscow last year launched a campaign of airstrikes in Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad and his forces retake territory lost to rebels, some of whom are supported by the United States.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the policy change easing restrictions on weapons supplies had been set out in a new U.S. defence spending bill and that Moscow regarded the step as a hostile act.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who has been sharply critical of Russia’s intervention in Syria, signed the annual defence policy bill into law last week.
“Washington has placed its bets on supplying military aid to anti-government forces who don’t differ than much from bloodthirsty head choppers. Now, the possibility of supplying them with weapons, including mobile anti-aircraft complexes, has been written into this new bill,” Zakharova said in a statement.
“In the administration of B. Obama they must understand that any weapons handed over will quickly end up in the hands of jihadists,” she added, saying that perhaps that was what the White House was counting on happening.
The U.S. decision was a direct threat to the Russian air force, to other Russian military personnel, and to Russia’s embassy in Damascus, said Zakharova.
“We therefore view the step as a hostile act.
Zakharova accused the Obama administration of trying to “put a mine” under the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump by attempting to get it to continue what she called Washington’s “anti-Russian line.”
The Obama administration has in recent weeks expanded the list of Russians affected by U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine.
Trump, during his election campaign, said he was keen to try to improve relations with Moscow and spoke positively about President Vladimir Putin’s leadership skills.
A back-and-forth exchange between Trump and Putin over nuclear weapons last week tested the Republican’s promises to improve relations with Russia however.
The Obama administration and U.S. intelligence officials have accused Russia of trying to interfere with the U.S. election by hacking Democratic Party accounts.
“The current occupants of the White House imagined that they could pressure Russia,” said Zakharova. “Let’s hope that those who replace them will be wiser.”
(Additional reporting by Peter Hobson in Moscow and Tom Perry in Beirut; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
Netanyahu seeks to rally Israelis around him in anti-Obama assault
By Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Benjamin Netanyahu has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Obama administration over what he condemned as its “shameful” decision not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement-building.
But with the clock ticking down on Barack Obama’s presidency, a possibly more amenable Republican Donald Trump waiting in the wings and a $38 billion U.S. military aid package to Israel a done deal, it’s all a calculated risk for the four-term, right-wing Israeli prime minister.
Netanyahu, after what critics are calling a stinging defeat on the international stage, is already maneuvering to mine deep-seated feelings among many Israelis that their country and its policies toward the Palestinians are overly criticized in a world where deadlier conflicts rage.
He has tried to rally Israelis around him by attempting to portray the anti-settlement resolution as a challenge to Israel’s claimed sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.
That was hammered home with an unscheduled Hanukkah holiday visit to the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, which is located in Jerusalem’s Old City in the eastern sector captured along with the West Bank in a 1967 war.
That all of Jerusalem is their country’s capital is a consensus view among Israelis, including those who otherwise have doubts about the wisdom of Netanyahu’s support for settlements on the West Bank.
Palestinians claim eastern Jerusalem as their capital, and Washington has in the past accepted an international view that the city’s status must be determined at future peace talks. But Trump has promised to reverse decades of U.S. policy by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
“I did not plan to be here this evening but in light of the U.N. resolution I thought that there was no better place to light the second Hanukkah candle than the Western Wall,” Netanyahu said during the event.
“I ask those same countries that wish us a Happy Hanukkah how they could vote for a U.N. resolution which says that this place, in which we are now celebrating Hanukkah, is occupied territory?”
Some 570,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as part of a future state.
At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu brushed aside a White House denial and again accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians in the U.N. move against the settlements, which are considered illegal by most countries and described as illegitimate by Washington.
Disputing this, Israel cites biblical, historical and political links to the West Bank and Jerusalem, as well as security concerns.
The diplomatic drama unfolded over the Christmas holiday, with twists and turns unusual even for the serpentine path followed by Netanyahu’s relationship with a Democratic president who opposes settlement building.
On Thursday, Netanyahu successfully lobbied Egypt, which proposed the draft resolution, to withdraw it – enlisting the help of President-elect Trump to persuade Cairo to drop the bid.
But the Israeli leader was ultimately outmaneuvered at the United Nations, where New Zealand, Venezuela, Senegal and Malaysia, resubmitted the proposal a day later.
It passed 14-0, with an abstention from the United States, withholding Washington’s traditional use of its veto to protect Israel at the world body in what was widely seen as a parting shot by Obama against Netanyahu and his settlement policy.
ACCELERATED CONSTRUCTION
A U.S. official said key to Washington’s decision was concern that Israel would continue to accelerate settlement construction in occupied territory and put a two-state solution of the conflict with the Palestinians at risk.
The resolution adopted on Friday at the U.N. changes nothing on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians and likely will be all but ignored by the incoming Trump administration.
However, Israeli officials fear it could spur further Palestinian moves against Israel in international forums.
“The Obama administration made a shameful, underhanded move,” Netanyahu said after the vote. It was some of the sharpest criticism he has voiced against Obama, who got off on the wrong foot with Israelis when he skipped their country during a Middle East visit after first taking office in 2009.
In a further display of anger, Netanyahu summoned the U.S. ambassador to meet him during a day of reprimands delivered at the Foreign Ministry to envoys of the 10 countries with embassies in Israel among the 14 that backed the resolution.
Netanyahu, who is vying with the ultranationalist Jewish Home Party in his governing coalition for right-wing voters, also took aim at what has become a favorite target – an Israeli media he has been painting as left-wing and unpatriotic.
“Leftist political parties and TV commentators have been rubbing their hands in glee over the anti-Israeli decision at the United Nations, almost like the Palestinian Authority and Hamas,” Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page.
But more trouble for the Israeli leader could be ahead at a planned 70-nation, French-hosted conference on Middle East peace due to convene in Paris on Jan. 15, five days before Obama hands over to Trump.
“(Netanyahu) fears there is a U.S.-French move brewing before January 20th, possibly a declarative step at the French peace convention,” said an Israeli official who attended an Israeli security cabinet session on Sunday.
(Editing by Peter Graff)
FBI warns of possible Islamic State-inspired attacks in U.S.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. federal authorities cautioned local law enforcement on Friday to be aware that supporters of Islamic State have been calling for their sympathizers to attack holiday gatherings in the United States, including churches, a law enforcement official said.
The warning, issued in a bulletin to local law enforcement, said there were no known specific, credible threats.
The notice from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security was issued out of an abundance of caution after a publicly available list of U.S. churches was published on pro-Islamic State websites.
“The FBI is aware of the recent link published online that urges attacks against U.S. churches. As with similar threats, the FBI is tracking this matter while we investigate its credibility,” the FBI said in a statement.
Islamic State sympathizers “continue aspirational calls for attacks on holiday gatherings, including targeting churches,” CNN quoted the bulletin as saying. The notice describes different signs of suspicious activity for which police should be alert, it said.
(Reporting by David Alexander; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Sandra Maler)
U.S. senator threatens to curb aid over U.N. resolution on Israel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. senator who oversees the United States’ UN funding threatened on Friday to pull financial support for the international body if it moves forward with a vote on a resolution over Israeli settlements, and for any nation that backs the measure.
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who oversees the Senate subcommittee that controls such assistance, said in a statement: “If the United Nations moves forward with the ill-conceived resolution, I will work to form a bipartisan coalition to suspend or significantly reduce United States assistance to the United Nations.”
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Eric Walsh)
Highlights: Russian President Putin’s end-of-year news conference
MOSCOW (Reuters) – The following are highlights from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual end-of-year news conference.
ON U.S. POLITICS
“The party that is called the Democrats has clearly forgotten the original meaning of that name.”
“The use of administrative resources (by the Democrats) is absolutely shameless.”
“Outstanding figures in American history from the ranks of the Democratic Party would likely be turning in their graves. Roosevelt certainly would be.”
“They (the Democrats) are losing on all fronts and looking elsewhere for things to blame. In my view this, how shall I say it, degrades their own dignity. You have to know how to lose with dignity.”
ON WHAT HE WOULD ASK DONALD TRUMP
“It’s hard to say. The U.S. President-elect should first have the opportunity to form his team in an orderly way. Without that, simply having unprepared meetings is not productive. What will the questions be? Questions about the normalization of our relations. Mr Trump did after all say during the election campaign that he thought it right to normalize U.S.-Russia links and said it would not get worse. Because they cannot get any worse, I agree with him on that. We’ll think together about how to make the situation better.”
ON DONALD TRUMP AND THE MILITARY
“In the course of his election campaign he (Trump) spoke about the necessity of strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and strengthening the armed forces. There’s nothing unusual here. To be honest, I’m a bit surprised by the words of certain other official representatives of the current administration who have for some reason set about proving that the armed forces of the United States are the most powerful in the world. No-one disputed that.”
“If anyone is unleashing an arms race it’s not us … We will never spend resources on an arms race that we can’t afford.”
ON PARTICIPATION IN ELECTIONS IN 2018
“When the time is ripe (I’ll say). I will look at what is happening in the country and in the world, and based on the results of what we have done and what we can do the decision will be made on whether I will participate in upcoming elections for the Russian president.”
ON THE ECONOMY
“(Economic) growth is happening thanks to certain sectors of the economy – machine building, chemicals, manufacturing and agriculture.”
“We saw some economic growth in November … This year we will probably have minus 0.5-0.6 percent (economic growth).”
ON INFLATION
“This year (inflation) will be significantly less than 6 percent … most likely in the region of 5.5 percent – this is a record low inflation rate, and gives us cause to expect that we will be able to reach our target and very soon get to inflation of 5 percent and then 4 percent.”
ON THE BUDGET DEFICIT
“The budget deficit will be a bit bigger .. 3.7 percent. In my view this is an absolutely acceptable amount because, among other reasons, we have preserved a positive external trade balance – more than 70 billion dollars (and) we have preserved our reserves … the central bank’s gold and forex reserves have even grown, and are now a little over 385 (billion dollars). Judging by that measure everything is fine. It’s a good safety margin.”
ON OPEC AND OIL PRICES
“We think that in the second half of 2017 the surplus of oil in the market will disappear and the oil price will stabilize. We are counting on a stabilization (of prices) at today’s level.”
“It (Russian oil production cuts agreed with OPEC) will be a smooth reduction that will hardly affect our overall output. This is perfectly acceptable to us, and we are counting on a rise in prices, which has already happened … a difference in the oil price of $10 will mean extra revenues to the budget of 1.75 trillion rubles ($28.65 billion) and an extra 750 billion rubles of income for oil companies, despite lower output. So at the end of the day everyone ends up winning.”
ON DOPING
“In this area transparency is absolutely essential … Undoubtedly there is a certain political element in all these issues. Sport should be cleansed, along with culture, of any sort of politics. Sport and culture are things that should unite people and not divide them.”
ON UKRAINE AND CRIMEA
“I am sure that sooner or later there will be a normalization of relations with Ukraine, and it (a bridge between Russian and Crimea) will be very beneficial to the development of Russia-Ukraine relations and future commercial and humanitarian links.”
ON PENSIONS
“All the necessary money is in place next year so we can from Feb.1 increase pensions in line with the rate of inflation in 2016.”
ON ALEPPO
“The president of Turkey and the leaders of Iran (also) played a huge role in this (managing the situation around Aleppo). I don’t know if this will sound immodest, but without our participation it would have been impossible.”
($1 = 61.0790 rubles)
(Reporting by Moscow Newsroom)
U.N. council members meeting to decide on push to end settlements
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Four U.N. Security Council members met on Friday to decide whether to vote on a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements after Egypt withdrew the measure under pressure from Israel and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
The 15-member council had been due to vote on Thursday afternoon and Western officials said the United States had intended to allow the draft resolution to be adopted, a major reversal of U.S. practice of protecting Israel from action.
New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal, who were co-sponsors of the draft resolution, told Egypt on Thursday night that if Cairo did not clarify its position, then they reserved the right to “proceed to put it to vote ASAP.”
Security Council member Egypt has since officially withdrawn the text, which it had worked on with the Palestinians, allowing those four countries to call for a vote, diplomats said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump had both called for the United States to veto the draft resolution.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said the Republican president-elect had spoken with both Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi about the proposed Security Council action.
“He put out a statement about the Egyptian motion that was going to happen at the U.N. It was revoked,” Spicer said on NBC’s “Today” program on Friday. “President al-Sisi called, Prime Minister Netanyahu called. He is getting results, whether it’s is domestically or abroad.”
The draft resolution would demand Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” and said the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”
A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Russia, Britain or China to be adopted.
The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in a 1967 war. Most countries and the United Nations view Israeli West Bank settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Israel disputes that settlements are illegal and says their final status should be determined in any future talks on Palestinian statehood. The last round of U.S.-led peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014.
(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bill Trott)
Trump, Netanyahu urge Obama to veto U.N. resolution on settlements
By Jeffrey Heller and Michelle Nichols
JERUSALEM/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump echoed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in urging the Obama administration on Thursday to veto a U.N. Security Council draft resolution that calls for an immediate halt to settlement building on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Netanyahu took to Twitter in the dead of night in Israel to make the appeal, in a sign of concern that President Barack Obama might take a parting shot at a policy he has long opposed and at a right-wing Israeli leader with whom he has had a rocky relationship.
Hours later, Trump, posting on Twitter and Facebook, backed fellow conservative Netanyahu on one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the pursuit – effectively stalled since 2014 – of a two-state solution.
“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed,” Trump said.
“As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.
“This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis,” he wrote.
After Trump’s statement, a U.S. administration official said: “We have no comment at this time.”
Egypt circulated the draft on Wednesday evening and the 15-member council is due to vote at 3 p.m. ET (2000 GMT) on Thursday, diplomats said. It was unclear, they said, how the United States, which has protected Israel from U.N. action, would vote.
The resolution would demand Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem”.
The White House declined to comment. Some diplomats hope Obama will allow Security Council action by abstaining on the vote.
Israel’s security cabinet was due to hold a special session at 1500 GMT to discuss the issue. Israeli officials voiced concern that passage of the resolution would embolden the Palestinians to seek international sanctions against Israel.
In Beirut, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters that Paris was looking at the text of the resolution with great interest.
“The continuation of settlements is completely weakening the situation on the ground and creating a lot of tension,” he said. “It is taking away the prospect of a two-state solution. So this could reaffirm our disagreement with this policy.”
OBAMA CRITICAL OF SETTLEMENTS
Obama’s administration has been highly critical of settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. U.S. officials said this month, however, the president was not expected to make major moves on Israeli-Palestinian peace before leaving office.
Tweeting at 3:28 a.m., Netanyahu said the United States “should veto the anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday”.
Israel’s far-right and settler leaders have been buoyed by the election of Trump, the Republican presidential candidate. He has already signaled a possible change in U.S. policy by appointing one his lawyers – a fundraiser for a major Israeli settlement – as Washington’s new ambassador to Israel.
Netanyahu, for whom settlers are a key component of his electoral base, has said his right-wing government has been their greatest ally since the capture of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.
Some legislators in his right-wing Likud party have already suggested Israel declare sovereignty over the West Bank if the United States does not veto the resolution.
That prospect seemed unlikely, but Netanyahu could opt to step up building in settlements as a sign of defiance of Obama and support for settlers.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.
In 2011, the United States vetoed a draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements after the Palestinians refused a compromise offer from Washington.
Israel’s U.N. ambassador Danny Danon said on Israeli Army Radio: “In a few hours we will receive the answer from our American friends.”
“I hope very much it will be the same one we received in 2011 when the version was very similar to the one proposed now and the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, Susan Rice, vetoed it.”
The draft text says the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”.
It expresses grave concern that continuing settlement activities “are dangerously imperilling the viability of a two-state solution”.
The United States says continued Israeli settlement building lacks legitimacy, but has stopped short of adopting the position of many countries that it is illegal under international law. Some 570,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Russia, Britain or China to be adopted.
(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and John Irish travelling with French foreign minister; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Kremlin says almost all dialogue with U.S. frozen: RIA
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday almost all communications channels between Russia and the United States have been frozen but the U.S. State Department disputed that statement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia did not expect the incoming U.S. administration to quickly reject enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that almost all communication with the United States had ceased, according to Russia’s RIA news agency.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump questioned during his election campaign whether the U.S. should protect allies seen as spending too little on defense, raising fears he could withdraw funding for NATO at a time of heightened tensions with Moscow. Russia has said it would take countermeasures in response to any expansion of the 28-member military alliance.
“Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen,” RIA quoted Peskov as saying. “We don’t communicate with one another, or (if we do) we do so minimally.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby quickly rejected Peskov’s statement.
”It’s difficult to know exactly what is meant by this comment, but diplomatic engagement with Russia continues across a wide range of issues,” Kirby said in an emailed statement to Reuters. “That we have significant differences with Moscow on some of these issues is well known, but there hasn’t been a break in dialogue.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone on Tuesday regarding the situation in Syria, Kirby said.
Separately, the Pentagon said it had held a video conference with counterparts at the Russian defense ministry to ensure the two sides’ air operations do not come into conflict with each other in Syria. Such discussions with Russia are held regularly as U.S. warplanes conduct daily air strikes against Islamic State in Syria.
RIA, citing an interview it said Peskov gave to Russia’s Mir TV station, quoted him as saying he did not know whether President Vladimir Putin would seek re-election in 2018.
“Everyone’s heads are aching because of work and with projects and nobody is thinking or talking about elections,” Peskov said.
Most Kremlin-watchers expect Putin to run for the presidency again.
(Reporting by Peter Hobson in Moscow and Yeganeh Torbati and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Richard Chang)