ISTANBUL, PARIS: Four Turkish soldiers were killed on Friday in clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) near the border with Iraq, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
Demiroren News Agency said a military base had been attacked in the mountainous Cukurca district of Turkey’s southeastern province of Hakkari, prompting the Turkish military to respond with a “large-scale” military operation.
“As part of ongoing operations on the Turkey-Iraq border, two soldiers were killed in clashes with terrorists despite all efforts to save them,” the ministry said, adding a total of four soldiers were killed and six wounded.
“Terrorists are under intense fire with the air operation and fire support vehicles in the region,” it said.
The PKK, which has waged an insurgency for autonomy in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast since 1984, is deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.
A day earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted representatives of the Kurdish-led force that defeated Daesh extremists in Syria, drawing a sharp rebuke from Turkey’s Foreign Ministry.
Macron assured the Kurdish envoys of French support in their fight against the remaining militants, but Ankara accused the French leader of “seeking to confer artificial legitimacy on a faction of terrorist groups.”
“We condemn the reception by French President Emmanuel Macron of a delegation of so-called ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’ (SDF),” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in the statement.
In late March the US-backed SDF flushed out Daesh militants from their last bastion in Syria but the Kurdish-led force still warns that the militants remain a threat in places.
The SDF is an umbrella Kurdish-Arab force dominated by Kurds from the People’s Protection Units (YPG). It is regarded with huge distrust by neighboring Turkey which sees the YPG as a terror group.
Macron assured the visiting SDF representatives, who were not named, of the “active support of France in the fight against Daesh which continues to be a menace for collective security,” the presidency said in a statement.
Particularly important is the support in the “handling of terrorist fighters held as prisoners along with their families.”
European capitals are keeping a careful eye on the Daesh prisoners held by the SDF after the defeat of the militants, given many are dual nationals.
Macron also vowed that financial support would be allocated to “respond to the humanitarian needs and the socio-economic stabilization of civilian populations in Syria.”
The SDF were the West’s key ally in defeating Daesh and waged the bulk of the fighting on the ground.
But they fear being abandoned by their patrons now Daesh has been beaten, after US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of American forces from Syria.
France’s past contacts with the SDF’s Syrian Kurds had already angered Turkey which regards the YPG as the Syrian branch of the PKK, which has waged a 35-year insurrection against the Turkish state.
Macron on Friday made clear of the importance to Paris of “the security of Turkey and a de-escalation along the Syrian-Turkish border,” the French presidency said.
But Aksoy said Macron’s move did not sit well with the French-Turkish alliance, and warned that “Turkey will not hesitate to take measures deemed necessary to protect its national security.”
Four Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with PKK, says ministry
Four Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with PKK, says ministry
- Macron on Friday made clear of the importance to Paris of “the security of Turkey and a de-escalation along the Syrian-Turkish border,” the French presidency said
South Sudan party partially withdraws from peace process
The fighting around Nasir in Upper Nile state has displaced 50,000 people since late February, according to the UN Humanitarian Coordinator
NAIROBI: A major party in South Sudan’s coalition government said on Tuesday it had suspended its role in a key element of a 2018 peace deal as relations between its leader Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir deteriorate amid clashes and arrests.
The agreement ended a five-year war between forces loyal to Kiir and his rival Machar, who now serves as First Vice President leading the SPLM-IO party. But the two men have a fractious relationship, which has worsened in recent weeks following clashes in the country’s east.
Earlier this month security forces rounded up several SPLM-IO officials, including the petroleum minister and the deputy head of the army, after the White Army ethnic militia forced troops to withdraw from the town of Nasir near the Ethiopian border.
The government has accused the SPLM-IO of links with the White Army, which mostly comprises armed ethnic Nuer youths who fought alongside Machar’s forces in the 2013-2018 war against predominantly ethnic Dinka troops loyal to Kiir. The party denies the allegations.
Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, deputy chairman of the SPLM-IO, said on Tuesday the party would not participate in security arrangements tied to the peace process until the detained officials were released.
“The ongoing political witch-hunts continue to threaten the very essence and the existence of the (peace deal),” Pierino said in a statement.
The fighting around Nasir in Upper Nile state has displaced 50,000 people since late February, of which 10,000 have fled to Ethiopia, according to Anita Kiki Gbeho, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan.
RAMPANT HATE SPEECH
South Sudan’s United Nations peacekeeping chief Nicholas Haysom said he was concerned the country was “on the brink of relapse into civil war.”
“With the proliferation of mis/disinformation in the public domain, hate speech is now rampant, raising concerns that the conflict could assume an ethnic dimension,” he said in a speech to the African Union.
Analysts say the war in neighboring Sudan has also spurred the breakdown of the peace process, with South Sudan’s oil revenues suspended, escalating regional tensions and arms flooding across the border.
“Already we are seeing the initial stages of spillover fighting in Upper Nile from the Sudan war. It will be difficult to prevent those tensions from spreading to (the capital) Juba,” said Alan Boswell from the International Crisis Group.
Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages
- The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu
- “Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire”
JERUSALEM: Relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday of sacrificing their loved ones by carrying out a wave of deadly strikes that threatened a fragile truce.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu and other officials to hear how the remaining hostages would be “protected from the military pressure.”
“Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire, which could sacrifice their family members,” the campaign group said.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s unprecedented October 2023 attack which sparked the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The overngith air strikes were by far the deadliest since a January ceasefire that largely halted the fighting and saw the handover of 33 hostages, both alive and dead, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory said at least 413 people were killed in the strikes.
The forum called on supporters of the hostages to cemonstrate outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem, warning that “military pressure could further endanger their lives and complicate efforts to bring them back safe and sound.”
“The families of the hostages will demand: Stop the killing and disappearance of the hostages now! First, return them — then everything else.”
The return of the hostages is a priority for the majority of Israelis.
“This morning, the moment we realized that we were going back to war, the first thing I thought about was: what about the hostages? This is a death sentence for the hostages, and it’s simply terrible,” said Muriel Aranov, a 62-year-old pensioner living in Tel Aviv.
As protesters headed to Jerusalem, Netanyahu took part in a security assessment with defense officials in Tel Aviv, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, his office said.
An earlier statement from Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”
“We are at an impasse, we have said ‘yes’ more than once to concrete proposals from the US special envoy to extend the ceasefire, and Hamas has said ‘no’,” foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in a briefing.
“From now on, Israel will act against Hamas with increased military intensity,” he added.
Rafah border crossing in Gaza is closed, EU spokesperson says
- EUBAM mission of the European Union has started to put in place emergency procedures
BRUSSELS: The border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah is closed, a spokesperson for the European Commission said on Tuesday.
“The crossing point is closed and the EUBAM mission of the European Union has started to put in place emergency procedures to deal with the situation as it develops,” the spokesperson told reporters in Brussels.
Professor deported from US back in Lebanon: family
- Rasha Alawieh was a kidney transplant specialist and professor at the Ivy League Brown University
- She was detained on Thursday after spending weeks on holiday in Lebanon
BEIRUT: A Lebanese professor is back in her home country after she was expelled from the United States for attending the funeral of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah during a trip to Beirut, her family said Tuesday.
Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at the Ivy League Brown University, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston and deported the following day, US media reported.
A member of Alawieh’s family said that “after she was detained by Homeland Security at Boston airport, she was asked whether she had participated in the funeral of former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah” on February 23.
Alawieh, 34, responded by saying she had joined the many thousands who gathered on the road outside the stadium where the funeral was held, but that she “did not attend the ceremony inside the stadium,” said the family member who did not wish to give their name.
“Pictures were found on her phone of Hezbollah figures” and she was accused of being sympathetic to the group, the family member added.
“Her life’s dream is to return to the United States because her whole future will be at risk.”
She was detained on Thursday after spending weeks on holiday in Lebanon, where she had received a residence visa from the US embassy granted to foreigners with special skills, the family member said.
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday posted on X saying that Alawieh “traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah – a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree.
“Alawieh openly admitted to this... as well as her support of Nasrallah,” it added.
The White House later shared the Homeland Security post with the message “Bye-bye, Rasha.”
Thousands participated in Nasrallah’s funeral in Beirut last month, which came months after he was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut in September.
Iran-backed Hezbollah had delayed the funeral until a ceasefire with Israel and the withdrawal of the majority of Israeli troops from south Lebanon.
World reacts to deadly Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
- Egypt, Russia and Turkey condemn Israel resumption of Gaza strikes
- UN rights chief ‘horrified’ by deadly Israel airstrikes in Gaza
DUBAI: Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, killing more than 320 people, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
The escalation has triggered worldwide condemnation to Israel’s heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January.
United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said: “I am horrified by last night's Israeli airstrikes and shelling in Gaza,” in a statement, adding that “This will add tragedy onto tragedy.”
The United Nations’ Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory urged for the ceasefire in Gaza to be immediately reinstated.
“This is unconscionable. A ceasefire must be reinstated immediately” Muhannad Hadi said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the resumption of “aggression by the occupying forces against Gaza,” including the direct shelling of civilian areas, the Foreign Ministry said.
Turkey also denounced Israel's deadly strikes in Gaza as “a new phase” in its “genocide policy”, saying the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defied humanity through its breach of international law.
“The massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Israel's attacks on Gaza... demonstrates that the Netanyahu government's genocide policy has entered a new phase,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Kremlin said that it was concerned by what it called a large number of civilian casualties after Israel struck Gaza and hoped that peace would return.
“Undoubtedly, it's another deterioration in the situation (in Gaza) and another spiral of escalation that is causing our concern,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“Especially concerning of course are the reports of major casualties among the civilian population,” Peskov added.
The Egyptian foreign ministry called Israel's deadly overnight air strikes on Gaza a “flagrant violation”.
The strikes constitute a “dangerous escalation which threatens to have bring serious consequences for the stability of the region.”
Jordan, which like Egypt neighbours Israel, also condemned the strikes.
Jordan government spokesman Mohammed Momani said: “We have been following since last night Israel's aggressive and barbaric bombing of the Gaza Strip,” underlining “the need to stop this aggression”.
Qatar, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, condemned Israel's strikes on Gaza and said there was a need for talks to resume in order to implement the phases of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
