Ankara tense ahead of Biden’s expected recognition of Armenian Genocide  

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Soldiers stand over skulls of Armenian victims of Ottoman violence on the Caucasus front during the World War I in 1915. (Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute photo via AFP)
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Updated 23 April 2021
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Ankara tense ahead of Biden’s expected recognition of Armenian Genocide  

  • Biden, who put human rights at the center of his presidential agenda, promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide during his campaign
  • Previous US presidents avoided using the word genocide when commemorating the mass killings, falling victim to realpolitik to avoid destroying America’s relationship with a NATO ally

ANKARA: Tensions between Washington and Ankara may be further strained on Saturday when US President Joe Biden is expected to become the first US leader to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915 onward.

The massacre of around 1.5 million Armenians in the early 20th century was formally recognized as genocide by the US Senate in 2019, but then-President Donald Trump did not follow suit. 

April 24 is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, and ahead of Saturday’s annual commemoration, this much-anticipated move is now a major concern for Ankara, and likely to inflame an already tense relationship. Turkey denies any historical connection with the atrocities, since they took place during wartime in the Ottoman period. 

Biden, who put human rights at the center of his presidential agenda, promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide during his campaign. Vice-President Kamala Harris hails from California, where more than 200,000 Armenians currently reside. Forty US lawmakers, led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, recently sent a letter to Biden urging him to follow through on his promise. 

The fact that a scheduled phone call between Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been delayed until after Saturday has been taken by many as a sign that Biden will recognize the genocide and trigger outrage in Ankara.

Previous US presidents avoided using the word genocide when commemorating the mass killings, falling victim to realpolitik to avoid destroying America’s relationship with a NATO ally.  

On April 20, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said any official recognition by Biden of the mass killings of Armenians during Ottoman times as genocide will seriously undermine the relationship between the two countries. “If the US wants to worsen ties, the decision is theirs,” he said. 

Turkey and the US have been at loggerheads over several issues in recent years, including Turkey’s acquisition of Russian-made S-400 missile systems and its worsening human rights record, with several US nationals being arrested on terror-related charges. 

“Not only is anti-Erdogan feeling in Washington intense — especially in congress — but the previous willingness to make concessions to Erdogan because of Turkey’s NATO membership seems to have now disappeared,” Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of Teneo Intelligence, said on Thursday.

“Relations between Turkey and the US have been on a steady downward trajectory for almost 10 years. The possible recognition of the Armenian genocide will exacerbate discomfort amid continuing friction in US-Turkey relations, but will not constitute a breaking point,” he continued.  

Biden’s anticipated declaration is expected to inspire dozens of other countries to follow suit. Currently, more than 30 countries have recognized the mass killings of Armenians as genocide. 

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, believes Biden’s intention to recognize the Armenian Genocide highlights the changing attitudes in the US establishment toward Turkey, with both Democrats and Republicans now pressuring Biden to acknowledge the genocide. 

“It is not the first time that a US president has come to office with a campaign promise to recognize the Armenian Genocide. But, once they come to office, they immediately face a barrage of US government officials and agencies insisting that (the need to maintain) US-Turkish ties outweighs any campaign promise,” he told Arab News. “But that is not the case this year.” 

According to Cagaptay, there are currently very few US government departments that are well-disposed toward Turkey. 

“Contrary to the past — when it was its biggest fan — the Pentagon is arguably now Turkey’s main adversary in Washington. Congress wants to punish not only Erdogan, but also Turkey. It wants tough language and tough measures against Turkey. Biden will (recognize the genocide),” he said. 


‘What wrong did he do?’ Gaza family mourn three-year-old shot dead

Updated 4 sec ago
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‘What wrong did he do?’ Gaza family mourn three-year-old shot dead

  • “There’s no hope or peace.”

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: Gazan mother Amal Abu Shalouf ran her hand over her son’s face and hair, a brief farewell before a man abruptly sealed the body bag carrying the three-year-old who was killed just hours earlier on Tuesday.
“Amir, my love, my dear!” cried his mother, struggling to cross the crowded courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, where several bodies lay in white plastic shrouds.
According to the civil defense agency, at least nine people were killed on Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip as Israeli forces carried out military operations, more than 20 months into the war triggered by Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel.
Contacted by AFP, the military did not respond to a request for comment about Amir Abu Shalouf’s death.
At the hospital, a man carried the boy’s body in his arms through a crowd of dozens of mourners.
“I swear, I can’t take it,” his teenage brother, Ahmad Abu Shalouf, said, his face covered in tears.
“What wrong did he do?” said another brother, Mohammad Abu Shalouf. “An innocent little boy, sitting inside his tent, and a bullet struck him in the back.”
Mohammad said he had “found him shot in the back” as he returned to the tent that has become the family’s home in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area near Khan Yunis that is now a massive encampment for displaced Palestinians.
The devastating war has created dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned that the entire population is at risk of famine.
The grieving mother, comforted by relatives, said her young son had been begging for food in recent days and dreaming of a piece of meat.
“There is no food, no water, no clothing,” said Amal, who has eight children to take care of.
Amal said she too was injured in the pre-dawn incident that killed her son.
“I heard something fall next to my foot while I was sitting and baking, and suddenly felt something hit me. I started screaming,” she said.
Outside the tent at the time, she said she tried crawling and reaching for other family members.
“Then I heard my daughter screaming from inside the tent...  found them holding my son, his abdomen and back covered in blood.”
A group of men formed lines to recite a prayer for the dead, their words almost drowned out by the noise of Israeli drones flying overhead.
In the second row, Ahmad Abu Shalouf held his hands over his stomach in prayer, unable to hold back a stream of tears.
Similar scenes played out at the hospital courtyard again and again over several hours, as the day’s dead were mourned.
At one point, an emaciated man collapsed in front of the shrouded bodies.
One mourner pressed his head against one of the bodies, carried on a stretcher at the start of a funeral procession, before being helped up by others.
At a distance, a group of women supported Umm Mohammad Shahwan, a grieving mother, with all of them in tears.
“We need the war to end,” said Amal Abu Shalouf.
In Gaza, she lamented, “there’s no hope or peace.”


Syria rescuers say two killed in drone strikes on northwest

Updated 15 min 53 sec ago
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Syria rescuers say two killed in drone strikes on northwest

  • During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh

DAMASCUS: Two people were killed in separate drone strikes Tuesday on a car and a motorcycle in the northwestern bastion of the Islamist former rebels who now head the Syrian government, rescuers said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the twin drone strikes in the Idlib region but a US-led coalition in Syria has carried out past strikes on terrorists in the area.
Earlier this year, the United States said it killed several commanders of Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Hurras Al-Din in the area.
The group had recently announced it was breaking up on the orders of the interim government set up by the rebels after their overthrow of Bashar Assad in December.
US troops are deployed in Syria as part of a US-led coalition to fight the Daesh group.
When contacted by AFP, a US defense official said they were aware of the reports but had “nothing to provide” at the time.
During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh.
 

 


Gaza-bound activist convoy enters Libya from Tunisia

Updated 47 min 29 sec ago
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Gaza-bound activist convoy enters Libya from Tunisia

  • Convoy members were heard chanting “Resistance, resistance” and “To Gaza we go by the millions” in a video posted on the organizing group’s official Facebook page

BEN GUERDANE, Tunisia: Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists taking part in a convoy crossed the Tunisian border on Tuesday into Libya, aiming to keep heading eastwards until they break Israel’s blockade on the Palestinian territory, organizers said.
This comes after Israel intercepted an aid ship attempting to breach its blockade on Gaza, which was carrying 12 people, including campaigner Greta Thunberg and European parliament member Franco-Palestinian Rima Hassan.
The “Soumoud” convoy, meaning “steadfastness” in Arabic, set off from Tunis on Monday morning, spokesman Ghassen Henchiri told Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM.
He said it includes 14 buses and around 100 other vehicles, carrying hundreds of people.
Convoy members were heard chanting “Resistance, resistance” and “To Gaza we go by the millions” in a video posted on the organizing group’s official Facebook page.
Henchiri also told Jawhara FM radio channel the convoy plans to remain in Libya for “three or four days at most” before crossing into Egypt and continuing on to Rafah.
Organizers have said Egyptian authorities have not yet provided passage to enter the country, but Henchiri said the convoy received “reassuring” information.
Organizers said the convoy was not bringing aid into Gaza, but rather aimed at carrying out a “symbolic act” by breaking the blockade on the territory described by the United Nations as “the hungriest place on Earth.”
Algerian, Mauritanian, Moroccan and Libyan activists were also among the group, which is set to travel along the Libyan coast.
After 21 months of war, Israel is facing mounting international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.
The Madleen aid boat, which set sail for Gaza from Italy on June 1, was halted by Israeli forces on Monday and towed to the port of Ashdod.
The 12 people on board were then transferred to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the foreign ministry said, adding that Thunberg had been deported.
Five French activists were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily.
 

 


Algeria man’s self-immolation investigated as ‘terrorism’

A general view shows the Justice Ministry in the Algerian capital, Algiers. (AFP file photo)
Updated 53 min 45 sec ago
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Algeria man’s self-immolation investigated as ‘terrorism’

  • The charges include “endangering the lives and physical safety of others” and “publishing and promoting false and malicious news”

ALGIERS: Algerian authorities have launched a counterterrorism investigation after a man had set himself on fire, an act investigators suspect was part of coordinated plot with links abroad, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Faouzi Zegout was injured as a result of the self-immolation on June 1 outside the justice ministry to protest a case he was involved in.
A video of the incident in the capital Algiers circulated on social media, showing Zegout saying he had done it “because of a judge... who arbitrarily threatened me with a 10-year prison sentence.”
At an Algiers court on Tuesday, a prosecutor said that five people had been detained in the case, without specifying whether Zegout was one of them.
One of the five has been released under judicial supervision, and the case has been transferred to a counterterrorism division, the court heard.
According to the prosecutor, investigators had found that the act was orchestrated by an “organized criminal group” with suspected ties abroad.
The prosecutor said the group had allegedly plotted the act and assigned roles, including filming and publishing the self-immolation online, to “disturb public order and disrupt institutions.”
The charges include “endangering the lives and physical safety of others” and “publishing and promoting false and malicious news.”
The person who filmed the incident had “communicated with people abroad,” had “multiple bank accounts” and “received money transfers from people,” the prosecutor said, without specifying when the alleged transfers had occurred or who made them.
Zegout has said that he recently appeared in court for launching a fundraiser without official authorization to help cover medical costs for sick people.
A court in Frenda, his hometown about 340 kilometers (200 miles) west of Algiers, was scheduled to deliver its decision the same day he set himself on fire.
 


Israel cancels waiver allowing Israeli and Palestinian banks to work together

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israel cancels waiver allowing Israeli and Palestinian banks to work together

JERUSALEM: Israel canceled a waiver on Tuesday that had allowed Israeli banks to work with Palestinian ones, threatening to paralyze Palestinian financial institutions, Israel’s finance ministry said in a statement.
“Against the backdrop of the Palestinian Authority’s delegitimization campaign against the State of Israel internationally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has instructed Accountant General CPA Yahli Rotenberg to cancel the indemnity provided to correspondent banks dealing with banks operating in Palestinian Authority territories,” the ministry said.
Smotrich had threatened in May 2024 to cut the vital connection between Israel and Palestinian banks in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for the recognition of the State of Palestine by three European countries.
The Palestinian financial and banking system is dependent on the regular renewal of the Israeli waiver.
It protects Israeli banks from potential legal action relating to transactions with their Palestinian counterparts, for instance in relation to financing terror.
In July, G7 countries urged Israel to “take necessary action” to ensure the continuity of Palestinian financial systems.
It came after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that “to cut Palestinian banks from Israeli counterparts would create a humanitarian crisis.”
The overwhelming majority of exchanges in the West Bank are in shekels, Israel’s national currency, because the Palestinian Authority does not have a central bank that would allow it to print its own currency.