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Multi-nation talks on the prospects for Afghan security and national reconciliation, the third such round since December, began Friday in Moscow.

Eleven countries are taking part in discussions, including Afghanistan, China, Iran, Pakistan and India. Former Soviet Central Asian states have been invited to attend for the first time.

The United States was also invited to the Moscow talks but Washington didn’t attend, saying it was not informed of the agenda beforehand and was unclear of the meeting’s motives.

Just days after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s frosty reception by the Kremlin, which refused to stop support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the two countries are also at odds on how to fight the Islamic State group in Afghanistan.

Russia’s increasingly assertive foreign policy in Syria and Afghanistan is clashing with U.S. goals, but analysts say both countries are needed for a negotiated peace.

“I think it’s clear to, even to [the] Trump administration, that without cooperation and collaboration of Russia, it’s impossible to move forward or to achieve any meaningful result — be it on Syria or be it in Afghanistan,” Victor Mizin, of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told VOA.

But others have stressed that this collaboration is possible even if the U.S. and Russia remain firm on some of their respective positions.

“There is certainly always room for cooperation both in Syria and Afghanistan,” Dmitry Verkhoturov, of the Center on Modern Afghanistan Research, told VOA. “But from my viewpoint, the key factor of this cooperation is that both sides, Russia and the U.S., should mutually recognize the right for an independent opinion, independent position, and an independent policy.”

Charles Kupchan, former senior director for European Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council in the Obama administration, says the Trump White House is still finding it’s footing in regard to Russian relations.

“I don’t think that there is a single point of view in the White House — in fact, one senses they are still finding their way through the woods. And whether it is on Russia or Syria or Arab-Israeli issues, different days bring different policy statements,” he told VOA’s Russian Service. “On the Russia account, I do think there has been a sobering up, in the sense that as a candidate and as an early president, I think [President Donald] Trump had a somewhat naive view about how easy it would be to reset the relationship with Russia. That he felt he could go in there as a businessman and sit down shoulder-to-shoulder with President [Vladimir] Putin and resolve everything.”

Having spent three years as a special assistant to the former U.S. president, Kupchan said stabilizing Russian ties is a notoriously difficult undertaking.

“Having worked with Russians on Ukraine and other issues, it’s tough going, and I think what the Trump administration is finding is simply that: It’s tough to find common ground with the Kremlin, and that the road ahead is likely to be one of differences of opinion rather than a reset that leads to a lasting rapprochement.”

Thursday, the U.S. dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on a reported Islamic State militant complex in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar.

Misha Gutkin of VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
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Turkey says it may re-evaluate or suspend all migrant agreements with the European Union if it does not receive a positive response from the bloc on visa-free travel for Turks.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said during an interview with broadcaster A Haber Friday the migrant deal and visa liberalization were a package, and therefore it was Turkey’s right to re-evaluate or suspend those if one element was not fulfilled.

Cavusoglu also said Turkey had no issues with Russia at present and would strengthen cooperation on a cease-fire and political solution in Syria, after a chemical attack blamed on Syrian government forces killed about 100 civilians in rebel-held Idlib province.

The attack prompted the United States to launch dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean on a Syrian air base.

The strike, the first direct U.S. action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and President Donald Trump’s biggest military decision since taking office, marked a dramatic escalation in U.S. involvement in Syria’s six-year war.

 
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International organizations are demanding Russia investigate the abduction, detention and killing of gay and bisexual men in the country’s southern republic of Chechnya.

United Nations human rights experts on Thursday called on Russian authorities to “put an end to the persecution of people perceived to be gay or bisexual in the Chechen Republic who are living in a climate of fear fueled by homophobic speeches by local authorities.”

“It is crucial that reports of abductions, unlawful detentions, torture, beatings and killings of men perceived to be gay or bisexual are investigated thoroughly,” they added.

The appeals follow reports in the respected Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta that police in the predominantly Muslim republic of Chechnya have rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and that at least three of them have been killed.

Chechen authorities have denied the reports, while a spokesman for leader Ramzan Kadyrov insisted there were no gay people in Chechnya.

“Nobody can detain or harass anyone who is simply not present in the republic,” Alvi Karimov told the Interfax news agency. “If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them since their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.”

Separately, the director of the human rights office at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Michael Georg Link, said Thursday that Moscow must “urgently investigate the alleged disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment” of gay men in Chechnya.

Novaya Gazeta also reported this month that Chechen authorities are running secret prisons, branded “concentration camps,” in the town of Argun where men suspected of being gay are kept and tortured.

After two separatist wars in the 1990s, predominantly Muslim Chechnya became increasingly conservative under late President Akhmat Kadyrov and then his son Ramzan.
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As the United States and Russia clash on Syria, another war-torn nation could play out as a renewed theater for the U.S.-Russia rivalry: Afghanistan.

Thursday, U.S. forces dropped what was being called the largest non-nuclear bomb on a reported Islamic State militant complex in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar.

The U.S. strike came a day before Russia is to host multi-nation talks on prospects for Afghan security and national reconciliation, the third such round since December.

Eleven countries are set to take part in Friday’s discussions in Moscow, including Afghanistan, China, Iran, Pakistan and India. Former Soviet Central Asian states have been invited to attend for the first time.

The Afghan Taliban said Thursday that they would not take part.

“We cannot call these negotiations [in Moscow] as a dialogue for the restoration of peace in Afghanistan,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA. “This meeting stems from political agendas of the countries who are organizing it. This has really nothing to do with us, nor do we support it.”

The spokesman reiterated insurgents’ traditional stance that U.S.-led foreign troops would have to leave Afghanistan before any conflict resolution talks could be initiated.

The United States was also invited to the Moscow talks, but Washington declined, saying it had not been informed of the agenda beforehand and was unclear about the meeting’s motives.

Undermining NATO

American military officials suspect Russia’s so-called Afghan peace diplomacy is aimed at undermining NATO and have accused Moscow of arming the Taliban.

“I think it is fair to assume they may be providing some sort of support to [the Taliban], in terms of weapons or other things that may be there,” U.S. Central Command Chief General Joseph Votel told members of the House Armed Services Committee in March. He said he thought Russia was “attempting to be an influential party in this part of the world.”

For its part, Moscow has denied that it is supporting the Afghan Taliban.

“These fabrications are designed, as we have repeatedly underlined, to justify the failure of the U.S. military and politicians in the Afghan campaign.There is no other explanation,” said Zamir Kabulov, the Kremlin’s special envoy to Afghanistan.

In a separate statement Thursday, the Taliban also denied receiving military aid from Russia, though the group defended “political understanding” with Afghanistan’s neighbors and regional countries.

Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said reports of Moscow supporting the Taliban were not new.

“The official Russian position on the Taliban is that they see it as a group that could help fight ISIS, but this is something that even some Taliban spokesmen have denied, since ISIS and the Taliban reached an understanding about a year ago,” Borshchevskaya said.

Putin’s motive

She said that if the allegations of Russian support for the Taliban were true, Russian President Vladimir Putin was most likely motivated by his desire to undermine the West.

“Certainly one motivation could be taking advantage of regional chaos, and to assert Russia’s influence at the expense of the U.S., taking advantage of a U.S. retreat from the Middle East and elsewhere and [to] undermine NATO and the U.S.” Borshchevskaya said, “This has been Putin’s pattern.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has made few public statements on Afghanistan, and his administration is still weighing whether to deploy more American troops to try to reverse the course of the war.

Thursday’s strike in Nangarhar marked a major step by the Trump administration in Afghanistan, in which there has been a U.S. military presence since 2001.

During a March 31 NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reaffirmed U.S. support for the alliance’s mission in Afghanistan.

“NATO’s work in Afghanistan remains critical. The United States is committed to the Resolute Support Mission and to our support for Afghan forces,” Tillerson said.

Some 13,000 NATO troops, including 8,400 Americans, are part of the support mission, tasked with training Afghanistan’s 300,000-member national security and defense forces.

Michael Kugelman, South Asia expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, said he expected continuity in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan between the Obama and Trump administrations.

“The statement made by Tillerson at a recent NATO meeting could well have been uttered by an Obama official,” Kugelman said. “The focus on training, advising and assisting and the call for reconciliation mirror exactly the Obama administration’s priorities.”

More troops

But the South Asia analyst noted one important policy difference: U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan.

“Obama was an anti-war president who was never comfortable keeping large numbers of troops in Afghanistan. Trump is unlikely to be as constrained,” Kugelman said.

“Look for Trump to send in several thousand more troops,” he said. “This is a request that the generals in Afghanistan have made for years, and Trump is more likely to defer to the U.S. military’s wishes on this than Obama was.”

As for Russian involvement in Afghanistan following the former Soviet Union’s occupation of the South Asian country from 1979 to 1989, Kugelman said that even if Russia were engaging the Taliban to undercut U.S. influence,  the two nations ultimately hope for the same outcome in Afghanistan.

“The ironic thing is that Washington and Moscow both want the same endgame in Afghanistan — an end to the war, preferably through a reconciliation process — but they simply can’t get on the same page about how to proceed,” Kugelman said.
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Polish leaders welcomed a new multinational NATO battalion to Poland on Thursday, with the president calling it “a historic moment for my country.”

The near-permanent deployment of a NATO battalion under U.S. command marks the first time NATO troops have been placed so close to Russian territory, a step the Kremlin denounces as a threat to its own security.

But Polish President Andrzej Duda said the deployment, to Poles, stands as a symbol of liberation and inclusion in the Western democratic world.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that generations of Poles have waited for this moment since the end of the Second World War,” Duda said in the northeastern town of Orzysz as he addressed the troops and the U.S. and British ambassadors.

The battalion of about 1,000 troops is led by the United States, but includes troops from Britain and Romania. Croatian troops are expected to join later.

Their base of operations, Orzysz, is 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border with Kaliningrad, a Russian territory on the Baltic Sea separated from the Russian mainland.

While NATO has held exercises in the region in past years, the deployment marks the alliance’s first continuous troop presence in the area that was considered by defense experts as vulnerable.

Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said the NATO presence guarantees the security of NATO’s eastern flank.

The NATO deployment is separate from a U.S. battalion of 3,500 troops that arrived in Poland earlier this year and which is headquartered in southwestern Poland, near the German border.

Both missions are responses to calls for greater U.S. and NATO protection by a region fearful after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its support for a rebel insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
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Polls showed France’s presidential election campaign tightening further on Wednesday as financial markets fretted about the rising popularity of a far-left candidate who wants to put France’s European Union membership to a vote.

Investors have long been anxious about election frontrunner Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, who has promised a referendum on whether to quit the EU and ditch the euro.

She has been joined on the list of investors’ concerns by far-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has surged in the polls after strong performances in two candidates’ debates.

The Communist-backed Melenchon also wants a referendum on EU membership after an attempt to renegotiate the EU treaties.

Fillon stable in poll

The latest Ifop-Fiducial poll on Wednesday showed Le Pen winning 23.5 percent in the April 23 first round, one point ahead of centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Both Le Pen and Macron’s support dipped by half a point from Tuesday while conservative Francois Fillon was stable on 19 percent and Melenchon unchanged on 18.5 percent.

The top two candidates go through to a run-off on May 7, where polls say Macron would easily beat Le Pen.

Traders cited the French election, as well as U.S. relations with Syria and North Korea, as reasons why investors switched to safe assets, such as gold or U.S. Treasuries, on Wednesday.

“Risk sentiment is not strong at the moment because of tensions in North Korea and also risk of a … rising Melenchon,” said Nomura currency strategist Yujiro Goto in London.

German foray

Concern about a Le Pen victory, which would put further pressure on the EU after Britain’s decision to leave the bloc, led to an unusual foray into French politics by Germany, France’s traditional partner at the heart of the EU.

“We need a pro-European France,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in Berlin.

“I hope Le Pen does not become French president,” he added.

Outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande is also concerned about Melenchon’s rising popularity, according to Le Monde newspaper, and this has fed speculation he could endorse Macron as the best hope to win rather than official Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon, who is doing poorly in the polls.

Hollande won’t offer support yet 

In an interview with Le Point magazine published on Wednesday, Hollande kept silent about his choice, saying he would endorse a candidate before the second round of the election.

But he spoke highly of the decision by Macron, a former economy minister in his government, to launch a new party, saying “I think politics needs renewal” and he spoke out against demagoguery.

“There is a danger in simplifications and falsifications which make people look at the … speaker rather than the content of what he is saying,” he said.

Hollande, an unpopular president who did not seek a second term, said ruling parties should not hold primary elections in future, because it was impossible to be president and candidate at the same time.

‘The French Chavez’

The conservative Le Figaro newspaper called Melenchon “the French Chavez,” alleging in a front-page story that his plans were inspired by the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Melenchon mocked his new notoriety in a blog on his website.

“They announce that my winning the election would bring nuclear winter, a plague of frogs, Red Army tanks and the landing of the Venezuelans,” he said.
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There are only two options on the ballot – “yes” or “no” – but tens of millions of Turks will cast their votes in a referendum on Sunday with a myriad of motives.

The referendum could bring about the biggest change to Turkey’s system of governance since the founding of the modern republic almost a century ago, replacing its parliamentary system with an executive presidency.

The question on the ballot paper may be about the constitution, but looming large is the figure of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who could win sweeping powers and stay in office until 2029 if the changes are approved.

Polls show a close race, with a slight lead for “yes.” But the vote may yield surprises.

‘I want a democracy’

“I’m a patriot,” said Cengiz Topcu, 57, a fisherman in Rize on the Black Sea coast, Erdogan’s ancestral home town where his supporters are among the most fervent.

But Topcu is voting “no.”

“In the past, Erdogan was a good man but then he changed for the worse. I want a democracy: not the rule of one man,” he told Reuters in his boat.

The proposed changes, Erdogan and his supporters say, will make Turkey stronger at a time when the country faces security threats from both Islamist and Kurdish militants.

Violence has flared in the largely Kurdish southeast since the collapse of a cease-fire between the state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in 2015, and parts of the region have long been strongholds of opposition to Erdogan.

But Hikmet Gunduz, 52, a street vendor in the main regional city of Diyarbakir, hopes his “yes” vote will help bring peace.

“I like President Erdogan’s character. He is a bit angry and a bit authoritarian but his heart is full of love.”

Freedoms

Erdogan, arguably modern Turkey’s most popular but divisive politician, has long cast himself as the champion of ordinary, pious Turks exploited by a secular elite.

Although a majority Muslim country, Turkey is officially secular and the headscarf was long banned in the civil service and in universities until Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party overturned that restriction.

Aynur Sullu, a 49-year-old hotel owner in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, a bastion of the secularist opposition, said she planned to vote “yes,” dismissing suggestions that Erdogan’s Islamist ideals were encroaching on people’s private lives.

“Anyone can drink raki or swim with a bikini freely,” she said, referring to the alcoholic drink favored by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern secular republic. “Also, now women with headscarves have freedom.”

Businesswoman Dilsat Gulsevim Arinc, however, said Erdogan was acting like a sultan and hoped her “no” vote would help teach him a “useful lesson”.

“He is too authoritarian,” said the 68-year-old cafe owner in Cesme, an Aegean resort town. “If things go on like this, I think Turkey will be finished in the next 10 years.”
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Hungary denied Wednesday that a new education law was aimed at shutting down a university founded by U.S. financier George Soros, and suggested a possible compromise in a dispute that has drawn protests at home and criticism from Washington.

Central European University (CEU) found itself in the eye of a political storm after Hungary’s parliament passed the law last week setting tougher conditions for the awarding of licenses to foreign-based universities.

Critics said the new terms would hurt academic freedoms and were especially aimed at CEU, founded by the Hungarian-born Soros after the collapse of Communism and considered a bastion of independent scholarship in the region.

In an apparent change of tack, Education Secretary Laszlo Palkovics said CEU could continue to operate if it delivered its teaching and issued its degrees through its existing Hungarian sister school.

“We never wanted to close down CEU,” Palkovics told news website HVG.hu. “The question is whether CEU insists on having a license in Hungary or having courses in Hungary honored with a CEU degree … [CEU’s own] license has little significance.”

Despite this, thousands of Hungarians protested in central Budapest against what they said was a crackdown on free thought and education.

They filled the capital’s Heroes’ Square and formed a heart shape and the word “CIVIL.” It was the fourth major street demonstration in the last two weeks as the government faces growing resistance a year before elections are due.

“They have pressed ahead since 2010 with new moves every day that hurt democracy in some way,” Robert Ferenczi, a 55 year-old protester from Budapest, told Reuters.

Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the government would not suspend the disputed law, but added: “We are going to have talks with everyone; if the Soros university is driven by good intentions, it will be able to solve the problem.”

CEU itself was taken by surprise at Palkovics’ comments, according to an emailed statement.

“The solution evoked by State Secretary Palkovics in the press does not appear to be legally and operationally coherent and certain,” it said. “CEU has not been approached directly by Secretary Palkovics with this information.”

“Exchanges in the press are no substitute for sustained direct contact on a confidential basis. We look to the Hungarian government to initiate negotiations with CEU so that we can resolve this and go back to work, with our academic freedom secured, without limits or duration.”

The dispute over the university has come to symbolize rival visions of Hungary’s future. Soros, whose ideal of an “open society” is squarely at odds with Orban’s “illiberal democracy, ” has often been vilified by the prime minister.

Domestic protest, foreign concern

The law stipulated that the CEU must open a branch in its home state of New York alongside its campus in Budapest and secure a bilateral agreement of support from the U.S. government.

Both of those conditions would have been prohibitive by a deadline of January 2018, and CEU rejected them from the start.

The United States asked Hungary to suspend the implementation of the law, and the European Union on Wednesday threatened Orban with legal action for moves that it saw as undemocratic.

“Taken cumulatively, the overall situation in Hungary is a cause of concern,” European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans said.

Analyst Zoltan Novak at the Centre for Fair Political Analysis said the government now appeared to have performed a U-turn.

“Calling it ‘Soros University’ for weeks was a clear way for the government to designate an enemy and attack,” Novak said. “Now they made the education secretary bring up a policy argument to back out, containing the political fallout.”

Novak said Orban, who faces elections in April 2018, may have miscalculated the resistance the CEU law could provoke, especially from Washington.
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A British parliamentary report has raised the possibility that the voter registration site used in the run-up to the June referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union may have been attacked by foreign powers.

Parliament’s Public Administration Committee said Wednesday it “does not rule out the possibility” that a foreign cyberattack may have caused the website to crash on June 7.

The report mentions Russia and China as possibly being involved but says it has no proof of foreign intervention targeting the site.

Officials initially blamed the crash on a surge in voter demand following a debate.

The committee concludes the referendum was in general well run but calls for greater emphasis on cyber security in the future.

Britain voted on June 23 to leave the EU bloc.

 
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that his government has had a lot of questions about what he said were ambiguous and contradictory ideas coming from the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Lavrov spoke at the start of a meeting in Moscow with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, adding that it is important for Russia to understand U.S. intentions.

Lavrov also referenced last week’s U.S. strike on a Syrian airbase, which came in response to a chemical weapons attack, calling the U.S. response “troubling.”

Tillerson was more brief in his opening statement, but like Lavrov, he said that Wednesday’s talks were happening at an important time and would include a frank discussion of their differences and mutual interests.

The top U.S. diplomat said the lines of communication between the two countries “shall always remain open.” He said he wants to understand why certain areas of sharp differences exist and the prospects for narrowing those divides.

Tillerson arrived in Russia with less ammunition than Washington and London had hoped he would have in his bid to convince Russia to abandon its support for Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

But he does have a tough ultimatum in hand, following reports quoting unidentified senior U.S. officials as saying that Russia had prior knowledge of the attack that killed scores of people including women and children.

G7 ministers meeting Tuesday in the Italian city of Lucca failed to agree on targeted sanctions against the Russian and Syrian military, arguing that an investigation would first have to confirm who in Syria used chemical weapons against civilians in the country last week.

“We cannot let this happen again,” Tillerson told reporters before flying to Moscow. “We want to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people. Russia can be a part of that future and play an important role,” he said. “Or Russia can maintain its alliance with this group, which we believe is not going to serve Russia’s interests longer term.”

The chemical attack prompted a world outcry and a U.S. missile attack that marked a turning point in the Trump administration’s approach to the seven-year-old conflict.

U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May had agreed to press Russia to distance itself from Assad following the chemical attack by imposing targeted sanctions, but Germany and Italy, both leading G-7 nations, disagreed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “must not be pushed into a corner,” said Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said Tuesday.

For his part, Putin called Tuesday for a U.N. probe of last week’s attack. Without elaborating, he also said Russia has received intelligence about planned “provocations” using chemical weapons that would put the blame on the Syrian government.

The G7 ministers’ decision in Italy means the prospect of sanctions is dim. The process of launching an investigation would be long and complex, requiring a U.N. resolution and an agreement by the Assad government for weapons inspectors to access sites in territory under Assad’s control before establishing who was responsible and whether there was Russian complicity.

As the ground rapidly shifted regarding the U.S. approach to Syria, Tillerson made it clear that Washington hopes Assad will not be part of Syria’s future. He told the foreign ministers in Lucca U.S. missile strikes were necessary as a matter of U.S. national security, and indicated the Trump administration may not be done with Assad.

“We do not want the regime’s uncontrolled stockpile of chemical weapons to fall into the hands of ISIS or other terrorist groups who could, and want, to attack the United States or our allies. Nor can we accept the normalization of the use of chemical weapons by other actors or countries in Syria or elsewhere,” Tillerson said.
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Strolling down the quayside in Izmir, a liberal bastion on Turkey’s Aegean Coast, Kubilay Mutlu and his Street Orchestra sing of “the naked emperor” and the collapse of sultanates in a bid to rally “no” voters ahead of Sunday’s historic referendum.

With mainstream media saturated by pro-government campaigning ahead of the vote on broadening President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers, those opposed to the changes are seeking alternative channels to get their message across.

“No” supporters have complained of threats and bans from the authorities, and a report by one non-governmental group said television coverage of the “yes” campaign had been ten times more extensive than that of the opposition.

“What we want to stress, despite the pessimistic picture, is that ‘no’ is a very important option. Let’s use our right to object,” said Mutlu, whose band, made up of teachers and students from a local university, put their song “One ‘no’ is enough” on video-sharing site YouTube.

Referendum to be decided Sunday

Sunday’s referendum will decide on the biggest change in Turkey’s system of governance since the foundation of the modern republic almost a century ago, potentially replacing its parliamentary system with an executive presidency.

Erdogan and his supporters say the change is needed to give Turkey stronger leadership at a time of turbulence. Opponents fear increasingly authoritarian rule from a president they cast as a would-be sultan who brooks little dissent.

The vote is being held under a state of emergency imposed after a failed military coup nine months ago, meaning there are “substantive” limitations on freedom of expression and assembly, according to the Venice Commission, a panel of legal experts at the Council of Europe.

Turkey has purged more than 113,000 people from the police, judiciary, military and elsewhere since the coup attempt, and has closed more than 130 media outlets, raising concerns among Western allies about deteriorating rights and freedoms.

Many opposition leaders jailed

The leaders of the pro-Kurdish opposition HDP, parliament’s third-largest party, have been jailed over alleged links to Kurdish militants along with a dozen of its MPs and thousands of its other members. The HDP opposes the constitutional changes.

“The extremely unfavorable environment for journalism and the increasingly impoverished and one-sided public debate that prevail in Turkey at this point question the very possibility of holding a meaningful, inclusive democratic referendum campaign,” the Venice Commission said last month.

Turkish officials have said international observers are free to monitor all aspects of the referendum and have repeatedly rejected the notion that the media is muzzled, saying that outlets shut down in the purges were closed on terrorism-related charges, not for their journalism.

Erdogan was quoted in February as saying there was more press freedom in Turkey than in many Western countries.

Dominating the airwaves

A stream of music videos exhorting people to vote “no” have emerged on social media, as opposition politicians complain that the playing field ahead of the vote is far from level.

In one such video, which has had close to 400,000 views on YouTube, a women’s group appeals to listeners to use “power of laughter” in a song entitled “ha ha ha, hayir,” a play on the Turkish word for “no.”

“They have the media, meeting halls, municipalities and resources in their hands. But stubbornly we try to touch people on the streets, through social media,” Dilara Yucetepe, who was part of the project, told Reuters.

Another “no” video draws on imagery from anti-government demonstrations in 2013, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in what grew from a protest against the redevelopment of an Istanbul park into a broad show of defiance.

Opposition leader interviewed

State broadcaster TRT interviewed Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition CHP, on Friday evening and was set to interview a spokesman for the HDP on Tuesday, a development the party described on its Twitter feed as “seemingly unbelievable.”

Such appearances are relatively rare, all but drowned out by the multiple speeches each day by Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and others broadcast live on all the major networks.

According to a report by the Unity for Democracy (DIB), an opposition-affiliated organization, live television broadcasts from March 1-20 period dedicated 169 hours to Erdogan, 301.5 hours to the ruling AK Party and 15.5 hours to the nationalist MHP, which supports the “yes” campaign.

The CHP had 45.5 hours of coverage while the HDP had none, the report said. A Turkish court last week banned the HDP’s “no” campaign song on the grounds that it contravened the constitution and fomented hatred.

In a report published on the party’s website, CHP lawmaker Necati Yilmaz said “no” campaigners had faced 143 incidents of pressure, threats and bans by the end of March.

“While the state’s resources and financial power are being used to boost the ‘yes’ vote, its legal, administrative and security forces are used to clamp down on ‘no,’” he said.
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President Donald Trump gave his official approval Tuesday for Montenegro to join NATO, marking another step forward in the tiny Baltic country’s quest for NATO acceptance.

The White House says Trump looks forward to meeting with Montenegro and other NATO leaders next month in Brussels to welcome the 29th member of the alliance.

The White House statement said Montenegro’s accession will signal other countries seeking to join NATO that “the door to membership in the Euro-Atlantic community of nations remains open and that countries in the Western Balkans are free to choose their own future.”

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly last month to support Montenegro’s NATO bid.

Trump is scheduled to meet Wednesday with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House.

As recently as January, Trump called NATO “obsolete” because it had not defended against terrorist attacks. He also complained other NATO countries are not paying their fair share for defense.

“A lot of these countries are not paying what they are supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump told The Times of London.  “With that being said, NATO is very important to me.  There are five countries that are paying what they are supposed to. Five. It is not much.”

Russia has described Montenegro’s NATO membership as a “provocation” due to the country’s geographical proximity to Russia. The Kremlin has long seen the Balkans as inside its “sphere of influence.”
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A refugee camp in northern France burned down Monday night after a massive brawl involving more than 150 migrants broke out between rival groups of Kurds and Afghans, French authorities said.

The fire destroyed most of the Grande-Synthe migrant camp near Dunkirk and the fighting left several people injured, according to the regional prefect, Michel Lalande.

As many as 1,600 migrants were living in the camp at the time of the fire, many of whom lost all the meager possessions they had, Lalande said.

Around 500 migrants were taken to nearby gymnasiums, but the rest are unaccounted for, Lalande and Damien Careme, mayor of Grande-Synthe, told reporters Tuesday.

“There is nothing left but a heap of ashes,” Lalande said. “It will be impossible to put the huts back where they were before.”

Grande-Synthe was set up last year by the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders and housed mostly Kurdish refugees. Its population swelled in October after the notorious Calais refugee camp, located about 25 miles away, was shuttered and destroyed.

A large number of migrants arrived from Afghanistan recently, further increasing the camp population.

Corenne Torre, head of the group’s French operation, told the Associated Press that authorities are scrambling to find the unaccounted-for migrants.

“We just don’t know where they are,” she said, adding that some could be hiding in fear of authorities or fear of rival gangs at the camp.

Investigators are still trying to determine the exact cause of the fire, though Lalande and Careme said authorities believe it was set intentionally as part of Monday night’s brawl.

Torre said 10 migrants went to the hospital with injuries sustained during the fire. At least six migrants were wounded during the brawl, three of whom suffered stab wounds. Another migrant was left in critical condition after being hit by a car outside the camp.

Riot police intervened in the brawl, which led to further fighting between migrants and authorities.

Migrants have gathered for decades along the coast in northern France, with hopes of reaching Britain.

The Grande-Synthe camp has seen several violent incidents in recent months, with the most recent coming last week when migrants tried to block traffic and climb onto vehicles on a nearby highway.
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Two world champions are among seven Russian athletes who were approved by track and field’s governing body on Tuesday to compete internationally while their country remains banned for doping.

The IAAF so far has approved 10 Russians this year to compete as neutrals.

The new list includes 110-meter hurdler Sergei Shubenkov and high jumper Maria Kuchina. Both won gold medals at the 2015 world championships in Beijing and could now defend their titles in London in August.

Russia was banned from the track at last year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but two athletes had been approved to compete: middle-distance runner Yulia Stepanova, a key whistleblower of Russia’s doping program, and long jumper Darya Klishina, the only Russian who took part on the track in Rio.

To be approved, athletes must show an IAAF doping review panel they have been adequately tested for drugs over a lengthy period by non-Russian agencies.

However, the IAAF said the athletes are still “subject to acceptance of their entries by individual meeting organizers,” such as the Diamond League series. The 14-meet circuit opens on May 5 in Doha, Qatar.

Shubenkov is set to be in demand as the reigning world champion, worlds bronze medalist in 2013 and two-time European champion.

Shubenkov and Kuchina, a past world and European indoor champion, were unable to compete at the world indoors in Serbia last month while their cases were under review.

“There can be no time constraints on a process which has been established to safeguard the rights and aspirations of the world’s clean athletes and is about rebuilding confidence in competition,” IAAF President Sebastian Coe said in a statement.

Kuchina is set to compete as Maria Lasitskene after getting married.

The IAAF said the other approved athletes are: high jumper Daniil Tsyplakov, who placed fifth at the 2015 worlds, pole vaulters Illia Mudrov and Olga Mullina, and race walkers Sergey Shirobokov and Yana Smerdova.

The IAAF previously cleared three Russians to compete as neutrals – pole vaulter Anzhelika Sidorova, sprinter Kristina Sivakova and hammer thrower Alexei Sokirsky.

The names of 17 athletes whose applications were rejected this year by the review panel have not been published, the IAAF said, adding it had received about 100 applications. Only 38 of those were endorsed by the Russian track federation, which remains suspended by the IAAF.
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God comes first in this mountaintop village on Turkey’s Black Sea, the saying goes. Then, according to adoring villagers, comes local boy Recep Tayyip Erdogan, today one of the most transformational, polarizing figures in modern Turkish history.

Nestled among tea plantations, the village of Dumankaya in the rugged province of Rize oozes the fervent loyalty that has propelled Erdogan, 63, to one electoral triumph after another since he took power as prime minister in 2003.

Now the Turkish president is hoping that pious Muslim bedrocks of support like Dumankaya will help deliver him another win, this time in Turkey’s April 16 referendum. The vote could extend Erdogan’s rule for many years and, in his opponents’ view, further erode Turkey’s challenged democracy.

For many Turks, Sunday’s vote on whether to expand the powers of the Turkish presidency is not a dry constitutional matter. For people on both sides of the political divide, it’s all about the outsized ambitions of one man, Erdogan.

Fisherman Birol Bahtiyar, wearing a cap emblazoned with a “Yes” slogan, dismissed suggestions by opponents that the referendum was a power-grab by Erdogan or that he was leading Turkey into a one-man regime.

“In the past 14 years, Turkey stepped into a new age,” said the 49-year-old as he and his friends fixed their nets at Rize’s harbor. “I will vote yes because I trust him. There is no such thing as a one-man rule. We still have an assembly, a parliament. We have confidence [in the proposed system].”

The constitutional amendments would shift Turkey’s system from a parliamentary to a presidential system, in one of the most radical political changes since the Turkish republic was established in 1923. Opponents fear that the changes will give the president near-absolute powers with little oversight, turning the NATO country that once vied for European Union membership into an authoritarian state.

For ‘the people’

But for the socially conservative and pious residents of Rize, such arguments ring hollow. To them, the region’s most famous son is a reformist leader who has brought unprecedented economic growth and prosperity to Turkey and provided improved health care, education and large infrastructure projects.

In Erdogan — whose parents and siblings were born in Dumankaya (Smoky Rock in English for the fog that frequently hangs over it) — they see a local who has given a greater voice to the pious — who felt marginalized under previous governments, which enforced secular laws barring Islamic headscarves in schools and public offices.

They believe Erdogan — who has ruled Turkey for over a decade, first as prime minister and as president since 2014 — is a strong leader who has provided political stability, ending the political squabbles that plagued Turkey in the 1990s.

Voters in Rize have backed Erdogan by a wide margin in a long string of election victories and promise to do so again on April 16. They support his ambition to turn Turkey into one of the world’s top powers by 2023, when the country marks its centenary.

Mehmet Celik, a Dumankaya resident, sees the president as a larger-than-life trail-blazer and fighter against Turkey’s perceived enemies.

“For us, God comes first. Then comes Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” said Celik. “He supports the people and the people support him.”

Two sides to coup

Celik believes Erdogan rescued Turkey from last summer’s failed coup and feels that a strong presidency would protect Turkey from greater calamity. Turkey has blamed the coup on the followers of the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a charge Gulen has denied.

“They [the Gulenists] would have ruined us. If we had fallen into their hands, we would have been destroyed. Why would we not vote ‘Yes?”‘ Celik said. “If our president did not exist, we would have been in a miserable state.”

But critics say Erdogan has used the coup attempt to purge his critics. More than 150,000 people have been taken into custody, fired or forced to retire from Turkey’s armed forces, judiciary, education system and other public institutions since the coup attempt.

Ismail Erdogan, a cousin of Erdogan and the chief administrator of Dumankaya, points at a long list of projects either launched or completed under Erdogan’s rule, including a major coastal highway, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, a hospital.

“He brought infrastructure, natural gas. He is bringing an airport. We had never seen such things. He brought a giant hospital,” Ismail Erdogan said, describing his cousin as a serious child who liked to talk about soccer and commanded respect even at an early age.

Speaking in a recently renovated local government building in Dumankaya, Ismail Erdogan also praised his cousin for standing up to Europe, following a dispute last month over restrictions imposed by the Netherlands and Germany on Turkish ministers holding referendum campaigns there.

“Let’s not [join] the European Union, we don’t need it,” Ismail Erdogan said. “We are self-sufficient.”

Erdogan campaigned in Rize recently to court the votes of his fellow townsmen, symbolically launching the start of construction for an airport that will serve Rize and the neighboring province of Artvin. In a speech laced with nationalist and anti-European rhetoric, Erdogan also promised that the construction of mountain tunnel pass would soon be finished.

Among the crowd of adoring supporters — waving flags and banners emblazoned with the word “Yes” — was 22-year-old religious studies student Leyla Erdeniz. Her affection for Erdogan runs so deep that she moved to Rize to study at the university named after him.

“A ‘Yes’ result will be very beneficial to our country,” the university student said. “There will be no trace left of the old Turkey.”
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The Trump administration must decide by the end of this month whether to grant Belarus continued relief from U.S. economic sanctions despite a stiff government crackdown on street demonstrations last month.

The renewal decision is considered a low-level priority for the administration, which is facing bigger questions about U.S. relations with Russia and China, and with most major diplomatic positions still unfilled.

But whether the United States renews the sanctions relief or instead returns to blacklisting nine major Belarus companies is an early test for the Trump administration on the importance it puts on human rights versus efforts to coax countries in Russia’s orbit to turn to the West.

The sanctions waivers, which began in 2015 and were extended twice last year, were tied to domestic political reforms and intended to encourage Belarus, which has long historical ties to Russia, to move closer to the European Union and the United States.

Now, however, U.S. officials are alarmed by the arrests of hundreds of people last month during an attempt to hold a street protest in the capital Minsk, and concerned if continuing sanctions relief could be seen as ignoring the crackdown.

Belarus authorities last month raided a human rights group’s offices and used violence against peaceful protesters, rights groups say.

“This most recent crackdown sharpened people’s focus,” said a U.S. congressional aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Now there is a real question about whether or not they [the sanctions] should be reimposed.”

April deadline

The decision must be taken by the end of April. If the administration makes no decision, the sanctions will be reimposed.

NATO members, including Poland and the Baltic states, feel threatened by what they see as increased Russian intervention in Europe, including Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

“Belarus is so important from a strategic point of view and it’s so dependent economically on Russia that we are really very concerned,” said Piotr Wilczek, the Polish ambassador to the United States. “Belarus is becoming more and more part of this wider Russian problem we have.”

The Trump administration is inclined to renew the sanctions relief, but likely would wait until the last minute “to make sure they don’t do anything awful,” said a U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

State and Treasury Department officials declined to comment in detail on the Belarus sanctions. The Belarus Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment.

President George W. Bush in 2006 blacklisted top Belarus officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, for undermining the country’s democratic processes or human rights abuses. The United States later added large Belarus companies to the sanctions list.

But in 2015, Lukashenko released political prisoners and indicated he was open to better relations with the West. That October, President Barack Obama temporarily lifted sanctions on nine Belarus companies, including petrochemical conglomerate Belneftekhim and tire manufacturer Belshina.

Now, however, Lukashenko appears to be keeping his country firmly in Moscow’s orbit. In a letter to him last week, four U.S. senators said they were concerned over the crackdown and that he decided to allow Russia to conduct “provocative” military exercises in Belarus later this year.
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