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Trump breaks ice with China’s Xi in letter seeking ‘constructive’ ties

By Ben Blanchard and Eric Walsh

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has broken the ice with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a letter that said he looked forward to working with him to develop relations, although the pair haven’t spoken directly since Trump took office.

The letter thanked Xi for his congratulatory note on Trump’s inauguration and wished the Chinese people a prosperous Lunar New Year of the Rooster, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday.

“President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China,” it said.

China said on Thursday it attached great importance to China-U.S. ties.

“We highly appreciate President Trump’s holiday greetings to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing.

Asked whether it was a snub that Trump had held calls with many other world leaders as president, but not Xi, Lu said: “This kind of remark is meaningless.”

He reiterated that China and the U.S. had maintained “close communication” since Trump took office and that cooperation was the “only correct choice”.

“China is willing to work with the United States in adhering to the principles of non-confrontation, mutual respect and mutual benefit to promote cooperation, control disputes, and on a healthy and stable foundation, promote greater development in China-U.S. ties,” Lu said.

Trump and Xi have yet to speak directly since Trump took office on Jan. 20, although they did talk soon after Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November.

Diplomatic sources in Beijing say China has been nervous about Xi being left humiliated in the event a call with Trump goes wrong and the details are leaked to the U.S. media.

Last week, U.S. ties with staunch ally Australia became strained after the Washington Post published details about an acrimonious phone call between Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. [nL4N1FN0JR]

“That is the last thing China wants,” a source familiar with China’s thinking on relations with the United States told Reuters. “It would be incredibly embarrassing for President Xi and for Chinese people, who value the concept of face.”

A senior non-U.S. Western diplomat said China was unlikely to be in a rush to set up such a call.

“These things need to happen in a very controlled environment for China, and China can’t guarantee that with the unpredictable Trump,” the diplomat said.

“Trump also seems too distracted with other issues at the moment to give too much attention to China.”

TAIWAN, YUAN IN FOCUS

There are a number of contentious areas where China fears Trump could go off script, the diplomat said, pointing in particular to the issue of self-ruled Taiwan, as well as trade.

Trump upset China in December by taking a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. China considers Taiwan a wayward province with no right to formal diplomatic relations with any other country.

Trump has also threatened to slap tariffs on Chinese imports, accusing Beijing of devaluing its yuan currency and stealing U.S. jobs.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China should not be allowed access to islands it has built in the disputed South China Sea. The White House also vowed to defend “international territories” in the strategic waterway.

China has repeatedly said it has smooth contacts with the Trump team. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said last week the two countries were remaining “in close touch”.

That contact has been led by China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister.

Yang told Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor, last week that China hopes it can work with the United States to manage and control disputes and sensitive problems. [nL4N1FO364]

The source familiar with China’s thinking said Trump’s administration was “very clear” about China’s position on Taiwan. Trump has yet to mention Taiwan since he took office.

Chinese state media has wondered whether Trump has a China policy at all.

On Thursday, the widely read Global Times tabloid, published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, noted that Trump had not immediately confronted China as had been expected because he had realized upsetting Beijing would backfire badly.

“He has probably realized that real tough action against China would result in a complex chain reaction, even beyond his control,” the paper said in an editorial.

Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s elite Renmin University, said the letter suggested the new U.S. administration wanted to signal the importance it attached to the U.S.-China relationship without risking being confronted on specific issues.

“Trump has sent many messages that makes the world confused, like on the South China Sea and ‘One China’ policy, so if he makes a phone call President Xi will ask ‘what do you mean?’,” Wang said. “He wants to avoid this so he just sends a letter for the first step.”

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Eric Walsh in WASHINGTON; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom and Michael Martina; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

Eight countries sign up to counter Trump’s global anti-abortion move

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Eight countries have joined an initiative to raise millions of dollars to replace shortfalls caused by President Donald Trump’s ban on U.S.-funded groups around the world providing information on abortion, Sweden’s deputy prime minister said.

Isabella Lovin told Reuters a conference would be held on March 2 in Brussels to kick-start the funding initiative to help non-governmental organizations whose family planning projects could be affected.

The Netherlands announced in January the launch of a global fund to help women access abortion services, saying Trump’s “global gag rule” would cause a funding shortfall of $600 million over the next four years.

Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxemburg, Finland, Canada and Cape Verde have all lent their support, Lovin said.

“(The gag order) could be so dangerous for so many women,” said Lovin who posed for a photograph this month with seven other female officials signing an environmental bill, in what was seen a response to a photograph of Trump signing the gag order in the White House with five male advisors.

The global gag rule, which affects U.S. non-governmental organizations working abroad, is one that incoming presidents have used to signal their positions on abortion rights. It was created under U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Trump signed it at a ceremony in the White House on his fourth day in office. Barack Obama lifted the gag rule in 2009 when he took office.

“If women don’t have control over their bodies and their own fate it can have very serious consequences for global goals of gender rights and global poverty eradication,” Lovin said.

(Reporting by Alistair Scrutton; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Islamic State links to Philippine militants ‘very strong’: minister

By Martin Petty and Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines is certain of “very strong” links between Islamic State and home-grown militants and is concerned about regional repercussions from tension between China and the new U.S. administration, Manila’s defense minister said on Thursday.

Intelligence from various sources had shown Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines had been communicating with Islamic State, and funds were being transferred via mechanisms commonly used by Filipino workers in the Middle East, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told Reuters.

“Before, what we suspected was the ISIS group would come here but now we are certain that the connections are very strong between home-grown terrorists here and ISIS in the Middle East,” he said in an interview, referring to Islamic State.

“Also there’s quite an amount of money being sent here from the Middle East.”

He said communications via social media, telephone and text messages had been intercepted and funds were being transferred that were difficult to detect due to the large numbers of Filipinos who regularly remit income from places like Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states.

He said there was no indication governments of those countries were involved.

The Philippines did not consider ties with longtime ally the United States to be strained, he said, despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s fierce rebukes of Washington.

Some statements about China by advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump were “very troubling”, he said, adding that an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the United States would make U.S. troops based temporarily in the Philippines “magnets for retaliation” if things turned hostile.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

“We are concerned if war breaks out and it is near us we will be involved whether we like it or not,” he said, adding that if a conflict looked likely, the Philippines would consider scrapping the EDCA, to avoid a repeat of World War Two, when his country was badly affected.

There were no signs of any new Chinese reclamation in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, he said, and he had been given assurances repeatedly by China’s ambassador that it would not do any dredging in the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

Despite warming ties with Beijing, the Philippines still “would like to know more the thinking of China” regarding its end-game in building artificial islands equipped with military hardware, he said.

The Philippines was in no rush to pressure China to abide by last year’s ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which largely rejected Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea.

After the Philippines won the award, the United States had wanted it to push China to comply, Lorenzana said, but it had offered no guarantees of support.

“If we assert our right, our award, it was never going to do any good for us,” he said. “Would the Americans have backed us?”

He said internal security threats were growing and his ministry would next year request a doubling of its budget, or more, to address them.

The army’s involvement in Duterte’s war on drugs, following his decision to suspend police from the campaign, would be limited to assisting the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on a case-by-case basis in hostile situations.

“They go there if they are asked by PDEA and they need firepower, then we will assist, that’s our job, that’s all,” he said.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

Tillerson stresses cooperation in calls with Australia, Japan, South Korea

By David Brunnstrom and Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has underscored Washington’s intent to strengthen ties with Australia, Japan and South Korea, the State Department said on Tuesday, a move aimed at reassuring allies unnerved by the campaign rhetoric of new President Donald Trump.

In separate calls with counterparts from the three long-time allies, they agreed to work closely to tackle threats from North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and increased tensions in the East and South China seas, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said,

“Secretary Tillerson reiterated the Administration’s intent to strengthen our military alliances, our economic partnerships, and our diplomatic cooperation,” he said in a statement.

Tillerson expressed interest in early meetings with his counterparts “and expressed his deep respect for their nations’ contributions to regional security, global prosperity, democratic institutions, and the rule of law,” it said.

The calls come at a time of raised concerns in the Asia-Pacific about Trump’s attitude to the region.

During his election campaign, Trump appeared to question U.S. alliances with Tokyo and Seoul and complained that they were not sharing enough of the cost of the U.S. security umbrella. Trump has also criticized Japan’s trade policies as damaging to U.S. jobs.

More recently ties with Australia were strained after details of an acrimonious phone call between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull emerged and the former described a deal between the two nations on refugee resettlement as “dumb.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is due to visit Washington for a two-day summit with Trump from Friday that is expected to focus on security ties in the face of a rising China and trade.

Earlier on Tuesday, Japan’s Kyodo news agency quoted Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida as saying that Tillerson had confirmed that a long-standing commitment by Washington to defend Japanese territory applies to the Senkakus, a group of small islands that China claims and calls the Diaoyus.

The State Department declined to comment on the Kyodo report but U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reaffirmed America’s commitment to its mutual defense treaty with Japan on Friday when he met Abe in Tokyo and in a call with Abe in late January. Trump said the U.S. security commitment was “ironclad.

Turnbull’s leadership was questioned after he was berated by Trump and an opinion poll published on Monday showed support for his coalition had slipped to its lowest level since he took power 17 months ago and that his Liberal-National coalition would easily fall if an election were held now.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and David Brunnstrom; editing by Diane Craft, Bernard Orr)

Iran leader rebuffs Trump’s warning on missiles

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

DUBAI (Reuters) – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Donald Trump’s warning to Iran to stop its missile tests, saying the new U.S. president had shown the “real face” of American corruption.

In his first speech since Trump’s inauguration, Iran’s supreme leader called on Iranians to respond to Trump’s “threats” on Feb. 10, the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. Trump had tried but failed to frighten Iranians, Khamenei said.

“We are thankful to (Trump) for making our life easy as he showed the real face of America,” Khamenei told a meeting of military commanders in Tehran, according to his website.

The White House has said the last week’s missile test was not a direct breach of Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers, but that it “violates the spirit of that”..

In remarks published on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran would not agree to renegotiate its nuclear agreement.

“I believe Trump will push for renegotiation. But Iran and European countries will not accept that,” Mohammad Javad Zarif told Ettelaat newspaper. “We will have difficult days ahead.”

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to tear up the nuclear deal. While his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has not called for an outright rejection of the accord, he has suggested a “full review” of it.

The supreme leader, Iran’s top authority, also said Trump has “confirmed what we have been saying for more than 30 years about the political, economic, moral and social corruption in the U.S. ruling system.”

Trump responded to a Jan. 29 Iranian missile test by saying “Iran is playing with fire” and slapping fresh sanctions on individuals and entities, some of them linked to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

“No enemy can paralyze the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said. “(Trump) says ‘you should be afraid of me’. No! The Iranian people will respond to his words on Feb. 10 and will show their stance against such threats.”

A U.N. Security Council resolution underpinning the pact urges Iran to refrain from testing missiles designed to be able to carry nuclear warheads, but imposes no obligation.

Under the accord, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for relief from some U.S., European and U.N. economic sanctions. Critics of Iran said the deal emboldened Tehran to increase its involvement in wars in Arab countries, a charge Tehran denies.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that, in contrast to Trump’s view, the nuclear deal was a “win-win” accord, and could be used as a stepping stone to defuse tension in the region.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Writing by William Maclean; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Merkel urges Putin to help end violence in eastern Ukraine

BERLIN (Reuters) – German leader Angela Merkel urged Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a telephone call on Tuesday to use his influence on separatists in eastern Ukraine to stop the violence there, and the two agreed on the need for new ceasefire efforts, a German government spokesman said.

Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists have both blamed each other for the latest flare-up in a conflict that has killed some 10,000 people since April 2014.

“The German Chancellor and the Russian President agreed that new efforts must be made to secure a ceasefire and asked foreign ministers and their advisers to remain in close contact,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have long tried to broker an end to the conflict but the two-year-old Minsk peace deal has merely locked the two sides in a stalemate.

The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia. Ukraine and NATO accuse the Kremlin of fuelling the conflict by supporting separatists with troops and weapons – a charge it denies.

The Kremlin, in its description of the Merkel-Putin call, said “serious concerns were expressed in connection with the escalation of the armed conflict resulting in human losses”.

Kiev is nervous that U.S. President Donald Trump will shift the political balance in Russia’s favour and that he may consider lifting sanctions against Moscow.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine broke out a month after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014. The statement from Merkel’s spokesman made no mention of Crimea, although the Chancellor does regularly repeat sharp criticism of the annexation.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Paul Carrel and Mark Trevelyan)

China, United States cannot afford conflict: Chinese foreign minister

Chinese Foreign minister speaking on how U.S. and China need to work together

By Colin Packham

SYDNEY (Reuters) – There would be no winner from conflict between China and the United States, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Tuesday, seeking to dampen tension between the two nations that flared after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Relations between China and United States have soured after Trump upset Beijing in December by taking a telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and threatened to impose tariffs on Chinese imports.

China considers Taiwan a wayward province, with no right to formal diplomatic relations with any other country.

But China is committed to peace, Wang said, after meeting Australia’s Foreign Minister Julia Bishop.

“There cannot be conflict between China and the United States, as both sides will lose and both sides cannot afford that,” he told reporters in the Australian capital of Canberra.

While seeking to reduce tension, Wang called on global leaders to reject protectionism, which Trump has backed with his “America First” economic plans.

“It is important to firmly commit to an open world economy,” Wang added. “It is important to steer economic globalisation towards greater inclusiveness, broader shared benefit in a more sustainable way.”

Just days ahead of Trump taking office, Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Switzerland as the keynote speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, offering a vigorous defence of globalisation and signalling Beijing’s desire to play a bigger role on the world stage.

Wang said that China does not want to lead or replace anyone, and that as its national strength is still limited it must focus on its own development, according to comments carried on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website.

“We must remain clear headed about the various comments demanding China play a ‘leadership role’,” Wang said.

While Trump’s trade policies have spurred concern the United States is entering a period of economic protectionism, China has previously accused Australia of adopting a similar practice by blocking the sale of major assets to Chinese interests.

Bishop urged China to consider joining a pan-Pacific trade pact abandoned last month by Trump, who has said he prefers bilateral deals.

“I want to encourage China to consider the agreement,” Bishop said, referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

As China called on nations to be open to offshore investment, Wang said Beijing would link its “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) policy with Australia’s plan to develop its remote northern region.

The programme announced by Xi in 2013 envisages investments by China in infrastructure projects, including railways and power grids in central, west and southern Asia, as well as Africa and Europe.

Australia has ambitious plans to develop its Northern Territory, a frontier region with little infrastructure, but efforts have largely stalled for lack of investment.

(This story has been refiled to replace “influence” with “national strength” in ninth paragraph, adds dropped word in first paragraph.)

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Pritha Sarkar)

Netanyahu, Trump align on Iran ahead of Israeli leader’s visit

By Jeffrey Heller and Matt Spetalnick

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Seizing on an Iranian missile test, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new U.S. President Donald Trump are nearing common ground on a tougher U.S. policy towards Tehran ahead of their first face-to-face talks at the White House.

But people familiar with the Trump administration’s thinking say that its evolving strategy is likely to be aimed not at “dismantling” Iran’s July 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers – as presidential candidate Trump sometimes advocated – but tightening its enforcement and pressuring the Islamic Republic into renegotiating key provisions.

Options, they say, would include wider scrutiny of Iran’s compliance by the U.N. nuclear watchdog (IAEA), including access to Iranian military sites, and removing “sunset” terms that allow some curbs on Iranian nuclear activity to start expiring in 10 years and lift other limits after 15 years.

In a shift of position for Netanyahu, all signs in Israel point to him being on board with the emerging U.S. plan. Two years ago, he infuriated the Obama White House by addressing the U.S. Congress to rally hawkish opposition to a budding Iran pact he condemned as a “historic mistake” that should be torn up.

As Trump and Netanyahu prepare for their Feb. 15 meeting, focus has shifted to Iran’s ballistic missile test last week.

The White House said the missile launch was not a direct breach of the nuclear deal but “violates the spirit of that”. Trump responded by slapping fresh sanctions on individuals and entities, some of them linked to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

A U.N. Security Council resolution underpinning the nuclear pact urges Iran to refrain from testing missiles designed to be able to carry nuclear warheads, but imposes no obligation.

However, Trump tweeted, “Iran is playing with fire” and “they don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!” Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, said Washington was putting Tehran on notice over its “destabilising activity”. Netanyahu “appreciated” the comments.

Tehran bristled, warning that “roaring missiles” would fall on its enemies if its security is threatened. It also said its military would never initiate a war.

MEETING OF MINDS OVER MISSILE TEST

Beyond the rhetoric, the missile test gave the new Republican president and the conservative Israeli leader – who had an often acrimonious relationship with Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama – an early chance to show they are on the same page in seeking to restrain Iranian military ambitions.

Netanyahu wrote on Facebook last week: “At my upcoming meeting with President Trump in Washington, I intend to raise the renewal of sanctions against Iran in this context and in other contexts. Iranian aggression must not go unanswered.”

In London for talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday, Netanyahu said “responsible” nations should follow Trump’s imposition of new sanctions as Iran remained a deadly menace to Israel and “threatens the world”.

Netanyahu also said Washington should lead the way, with Israel and Britain, in “setting clear boundaries” for Tehran.

But he stopped short of any call to cancel the nuclear accord. Israeli officials privately acknowledged that he would not advocate ripping up a deal that has been emphatically reaffirmed by the other big power signatories – Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – since Trump’s election victory.

Russia said on Monday it disagreed with Trump’s assessment of Iran as “the number one terrorist state” and a Russian diplomat said any move to rework the nuclear pact would inflame Middle East tensions. “Don’t try to fix what is not broken,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

Iran has ruled out reworking the deal, and Trump’s stance could weaken the hand of pragmatists in Tehran who have been willing to negotiate a detente with the West after decades of volatile confrontation, a former senior Iranian official said.

Under the accord, Tehran received relief from global economic sanctions and in return committed to capping its uranium enrichment well below the level needed for bomb-grade material, cutting the number of its centrifuge enrichment machines by two-thirds, reducing its enriched uranium stockpile and submitting to a more intrusive IAEA inspections regime.

Diplomats close to the IAEA consider the deal a success so far, voicing little concern with overall Iranian compliance – despite Netanyahu’s insistence that it will only pave the Islamic Republic’s path towards nuclear weapons once major restrictions expire 15 years after its signing.

PRESSURE POINTS OTHER THAN SCRAPPING DEAL

With German, French and British firms busy cultivating new business with Iran, Washington’s peers in the six-power group almost surely would rebuff any U.S. thrust to reopen the deal.

Daniel Shapiro, who recently ended his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Israel under Obama, told Reuters he would be surprised if Trump and Netanyahu “determined so early in the time working together that they would rather scrap that agreement than try to enforce it in a tough manner and put other pressures unrelated to that deal on the Iranians”.

Some foreign policy experts say U.S. efforts to tighten the screws on Iran could seek to goad it into ditching the nuclear accord in hopes that Tehran – and not Washington – would then have to shoulder international blame for its collapse.

According to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, an Israeli intelligence assessment recently presented to Netanyahu said revoking the pact would be an error, causing a chasm between Washington and other signatories like Russia and China.

Amos Yadlin, former head of Israeli military intelligence, said there were many areas outside the deal where pressure could be applied on Iran to change what he called its negative behavior of “subversiveness, supporting terrorism”.

But beyond new sanctions and sharpened rhetoric, analysts say, it is unclear how far Trump could go. Arguments for restraint would include the risk of military escalation in the Gulf, out of which 40 percent of the world’s seaborne crude oil is shipped, and strong European support for the nuclear deal.

Though the new U.S. strategy is in the early stages of development, the Trump administration, the sources say, is considering a range of measures, including seeking “zero tolerance” for any Iranian violations.

Trump’s aides accused the Obama administration of turning a blind eye to some alleged Iranian infractions to avoid anything that would undermine confidence in the integrity of the deal. Obama administration officials denied being “soft” on Iran.

Other U.S. strategy options, the sources say, include sanctioning Iranian industries that aid missile development and designating as a terrorist group the Revolutionary Guards, accused by U.S. officials of fuelling Middle East proxy wars. That designation could also dissuade foreign investment in Iran because the Guards oversee a sprawling business empire there.

The administration, one source said, is counting on the Europeans to eventually get on board since their companies might think twice about closing major deals in Iran for fear new “secondary” U.S. sanctions would penalize them too.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and Luke Baker in Jerusalem, Jonathan Landay in Washington, Francois Murphy and Shadia Nasralla in Vienna, Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, Andrew Osborn and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Israel’s Netanyahu urges Britain to join Iran sanctions

By Michael Holden and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged “responsible nations” to join new sanctions against Iran on Monday during a visit to London, but Britain defended a nuclear deal sealed between major powers and Tehran.

Ahead of his talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Netanyahu said other nations should follow new U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposition of sanctions against Iran following a ballistic missile test.

“Iran seeks to annihilate Israel. It seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it threatens the West, it threatens the world. And it offers provocation after provocation,” Netanyahu told May ahead of their meeting.

“That’s why I welcome President Trump’s assistance of new sanctions against Iran. I think other nations should follow suit, certainly responsible nations. I’d like to talk to you about how we can ensure that Iran’s aggression does not go unanswered.”

May’s spokeswoman said the British leader had repeated her backing for the nuclear deal with Tehran – which is strongly opposed by both Netanyahu and Trump – but said there was a need to “rigorously monitor” Iran’s behavior.

“The prime minister made clear that we support the deal on nuclear that was agreed,” the spokeswoman told reporters, when asked whether Britain was considering joining new sanctions.

“What happens now is that (the nuclear deal) needs to be properly enforced, and we also need to be alert to Iran’s pattern of destabilizing activity in the region.”

Earlier the spokeswoman said May would also tell Netanyahu that continued Israeli settlement activity in occupied lands captured in the 1967 Middle East War on which the Palestinians hope to create independent state undermined trust in the region.

“STRONG AND CLOSE ALLY OF ISRAEL”

Despite their differences, London has adopted a more positive approach to Israel since May became leader after last year’s vote to leave the European Union, echoing the more sympathetic tone set by Trump, with whom Britain wishes to secure a post-Brexit trade deal.

May told Netanyahu that Britain was a “strong and close friend of Israel”, and highlighted their co-operation in science, trade and security.

They agreed to set up a working group to develop trade ties both before and after Brexit, the spokeswoman said.

Last month Britain said it had reservations about a French-organized Middle East peace conference in Paris and did not back the final communique by 70 countries which reaffirmed that only a two-state solution could resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its stance angered many EU members.

In December, Britain also scolded then U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for a speech criticizing Israeli policy.

Netanyahu’s talks on Monday got off to an awkward start as he arrived before May was at her official Downing Street residence to greet him. Having entered her office alone, he came back outside minutes later for the customary handshake.

Small groups of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters gathered outside Downing Street and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, said May’s stance on settlements was not good enough.

“Theresa May must make clear to the Israeli prime minister that the British government will stand unequivocally behind the rights of the Palestinian people,” said Corbyn, who once described members of Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah as friends in comments he later said he regretted.

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Kremlin says it wants apology from Fox News over Putin comments

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Monday it wanted an apology from Fox News over what it said were “unacceptable” comments one of the channel’s presenters made about Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump.

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly described Putin as “a killer” in the interview with Trump as he tried to press the U.S. president to explain more fully why he respected his Russian counterpart. O’Reilly did not say who he thought Putin had killed.

“We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting, and honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

Fox News and O’Reilly did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Trump’s views on Putin are closely scrutinized in the United States where U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Moscow of having sponsored computer hacking to help Trump win office, and critics say he is too complimentary about the Russian leader.

Trump, when commenting on the allegations against Putin in the same interview, questioned how “innocent” the United States itself was, saying it had made a lot of its own mistakes. That irritated some Congressional Republicans who said there was no comparison between how Russian and U.S. politicians behaved.

Putin, in his 17th year of dominating the Russian political landscape, is accused by some Kremlin critics of ordering the killing of opponents. Putin and the Kremlin have repeatedly rejected those allegations as politically-motivated and false.

Trump, who has said he wants to try to mend battered U.S.-Russia ties and hopes he can get along with Putin, was asked a question about some of those allegations by Fox Business before he won the White House.

In January last year, after a British judge ruled that Putin had “probably” authorized the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, Trump said he saw no evidence the Russian president was guilty.

“First of all, he says he didn’t do it. Many people say it wasn’t him. So who knows who did it?” Trump said.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova/Andrew Osborn; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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