A picture of a smiling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flanked by EU President Donald Tusk and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker adorned much of Turkey’s pro-government media this week.

“Erdogan got his picture of his handshake in Brussels, which is really only what he wanted,” said political science professor Cengiz Aktar, “because he is looking for legitimacy in his new position as strongman of Turkey.”

Erdogan’s narrow referendum victory extending his presidential powers remains mired in vote-rigging allegations. EU leaders, unlike U.S. President Donald Trump, had refrained from endorsing his success.

During the referendum campaign, Turkey’s relations with the EU plummeted, with Erdogan describing some EU members as behaving like Nazis because they refused to allow Turkish ministers to campaign among Turkish diaspora voters.

“The pictures that emerged with Juncker and Tusk suggest a reduction of tensions and a more relaxed atmosphere,” said Semih Idiz, political columnist of the Al Monitor website. But Idiz played down any talk of any new rapprochement in relations.

“Bottom line is nether side wants to go to some kind of nasty severance of ties or divorce. There are too many issues that require cooperation. I think they will muddle through, and I think that is the message that came out. Although both sides had theirs, in terms of issues that are important, the main thing is that they are not going to escalate tensions,” said Idiz.

“We discussed the need to cooperate,” Tusk said following the meeting in a tweet.

Turkey plays its part

Monday’s suicide bombing of a pop concert in Manchester, England, served as a reminder of Turkey’s importance in countering terrorism, with a Turkish official confirming the suspected bomber had traveled through Turkey to Britain. With Turkey bordering Syria and Iraq, Europe’s security forces depend heavily on Ankara in sharing intelligence and monitoring those traveling to Europe.

The EU is also dependent on Ankara to continue to honor last March’s agreement to stem the flood of refugees and migrants into Europe. “This is perhaps one of the few and certainly important pieces of leverage Ankara has over Brussels,” said Sinan Ulgen, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institute in Brussels. “We have been hearing from Ankara over the past few months that if the EU does not fulfill its end of the bargain and does not deliver on visa freedom, even under current circumstances Turkey will not continue with the refugee deal.”

Before leaving for Brussels, Erdogan pointedly reminded the EU of its commitments. “We don’t aim to break away from the EU, but the EU shall take its responsibilities, too. The EU cannot see Turkey [as] a beggar. It does not have such a right,” he said.

Turkey crackdown to continue

Brussels insists any visa free travel is dependent on Ankara’s narrowing of its legal definition of terrorism to harmonize it with EU law. Tens of thousands of people in Turkey have been prosecuted for terrorism offenses in a crackdown since last July’s failed coup.

But Erdogan has ruled out any letup in the crackdown, or lifting of emergency rule introduced after the coup. On Friday, Ankara’s governor, under emergency powers, issued a decree imposing a night curfew on any acts of protests, including chanting or playing music, or issuing of press statements.

Tensions with Washington could also be a factor in Ankara’s wanting to avoid a collapse in EU ties. Trump’s decision to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters, considered by Ankara as terrorists, in their fight against Islamic State has strained bilateral ties. Those strains weren’t alleviated by Erdogan’s visit this month to Washington.
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U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande says she will return to Manchester, England, to play a benefit show to raise money for the 22 victims and families of this week’s terrorist attack.

Grande had just finished her show Monday night when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the crowded lobby of the Manchester Arena. She was unharmed, although deeply shaken by the attack, and canceled her concert dates for the next two weeks.

No date has yet been set for the benefit concert, which Grande announced in a letter posted on Twitter Friday:

“Our response [to the bombing] must be to come closer together, to help each other, to love more, to sing louder, and to live more kindly and generously than we did before. I’ll be returning to the incredibly brave city of Manchester to spend some time with my fans and to have a benefit concert in honor of and to raise money for the victims and their families.”

She said she would share details of the concert as soon as they are confirmed.

Grande is expected to resume the European portion of her world tour next month, with shows in France, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

Manchester native Salman Abedi, 22, killed himself in the Manchester attack, detonating a bomb filled with nuts and bolts that he carried in a backpack. In addition to the 22 dead, at least 116 children and adults were wounded.

Many of the victims were young girls, who make up a large part of Grande’s fan base. Others were parents who had gone to arena to meet their children after the concert. The youngest victim was 8 years old.

British authorities detained eight people in connection with the attack, and Abedi’s father and a brother, who live in Tripoli, Libya, were taken into custody there. Details on how they may be tied to the bombing have not been released.
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How to stop people who are determined to kill and maim is again the focus of debate in Britain following the Manchester bombing, the worst terrorist attack in the country in more than a decade.

While visiting hospitalized children injured in the attack, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth determinedly stressed Thursday how “everyone is united” in the aftermath of the attack, dubbing the bombing “dreadful, very wicked.”

Not everyone, though, is emphasizing the importance of unity.

Allison Pearson, a columnist with Britain’s biggest-selling broadsheet, the Daily Telegraph, has maintained that the only way to prevent more jihadist killings is by rounding up and interning thousands of terror suspects “now to protect our children.”

In a tweet in the aftermath of the bombing, controversial Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins urged “Western men” to act.

“These are your wives. Your daughters. Your sons,” she wrote. “Stand up. Rise up. Demand action. Do not carry on as normal. Cowed.”

Hopkins, who has 730,000 followers on Twitter, also tweeted the call for a “final solution” to address Islamic terrorism. The tweet prompted London radio station LBC to fire her Friday as a talk-show host. “Final solution” was a phrase used by the Nazis to refer to their campaign to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

Muslims fear a rise in Islamophobia, stoked, they say, by tabloid press commentators like Hopkins.

Fear — and anger

For Britain’s Muslims — especially British-Libyans — the bombing has again raised the specter of being treated differently, of having to look over their shoulders and of being fearful about their future in a country where they were born or that gave them or their families refuge from oppression and intolerance elsewhere. They fear being treated as menacing strangers or potential terrorists in the place they call home.

On Thursday, a crowd paying tribute to the 22 people who were killed in the May 22 bombing at the Ariana Grande concert spontaneously pushed back on talk of retribution and retaliation, picking up the song “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” by the Mancunian rock band Oasis.

But there is anger, and it is being expressed on social media sites and radio talk shows, and in bars and streets, as Britain reels at the slaughter of innocents, prompting some counterterror analysts and civil libertarians to fear that another major bombing could provoke the kind of backlash Islamic State terror strategists hope to engineer.

On Facebook and other social media sites, British-Libyans have been expressing their horror at the attack and denouncing 22-year-old Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber. “Bloody fool! Why would you kill innocents? Can’t believe he was Libyan — it’s bad enough he was a Muslim!” commented a British-Libyan psychologist from the town of Loughborough in the English Midlands.

British-Libyans have also been sharing their fears about what the consequences of the bombing could be for them — especially those living in Manchester, Britain’s largest Libyan community and one of the most closely knit in the country.

“I have mixed Libyan/English heritage and have lived in Manchester my whole life,” posted Fatima Derbi. “I am completely sickened by this!! Unfortunately this may have a negative impact on the 25,000 Libyans living in this city.”

Threats and slurs

Mohamed Shaban, who was born in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, but brought up in London and is now a legal adviser, worries that Abedi will be seen by many Britons as somehow representative of British-Libyans.

“Libyans in the U.K. come in different shades,” Shaban said. “There are those who have excelled in their fields, in medicine, science, law and commerce. Others invest their time and money in charity work, while others have made it as professional footballers at elite English clubs. Unfortunately, one or two have lost their way, and the tragedy is that this abysmal excuse of a human being who mass murdered children at a concert is going to be misdescribed as a representative of all Libyans in the U.K. Sad on so many levels.”

Some Muslims say they are already on the receiving end of threats and slurs. “People will retaliate obviously,” a Manchester Muslim told British broadcaster Channel Four News, adding, “There is a risk. It’s all about ignorance, all about awareness; we need to make sure people are aware of what Islam is really about, because that’s not what our Islam teaches us.”

Some British-Libyans say the onus is on them to be more outspoken in condemnation and much more proactive to argue against those in their own community who are determined to fan the flames of hatred.
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Turkish security forces killed 29 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in an operation in a mountainous area of eastern Turkey’s Agri and Van provinces, the Agri governor’s office said Friday.

Turkey’s army said Thursday three Turkish soldiers and a member of the state-sponsored village guard militia had been killed in the operation, launched in the Tendurek mountain area along the border of the two provinces, near the Iranian border.

A ceasefire between the Turkish state and the militants broke down in July 2015 and the southeast subsequently saw some of the worst violence since the PKK insurgency began in 1984.

More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in the conflict. The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
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On his first NATO summit as U.S. president, Donald Trump lectured NATO leaders for spending what he sees as insufficient money on defense, and said the group should be more focused on terrorism. The president’s remarks came Thursday at a meeting of European leaders in Brussels, as VOA’s Steve Herman reports.
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NATO has moved into brand new, shiny headquarters – projecting a modern, forward looking image that counters the characterization that President Trump and other critics of the alliance have previously made of the organization.  Amid the anxiety felt by some European leaders about the future, some see Thursday’s summit – where discussions were driven largely by the latest spate of terrorist attacks in Europe – as a possibility for a new direction for the alliance. VOA’s Luis Ramirez reports.
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OPEC and other oil nations meeting Thursday appeared set to extend their production cuts in an effort to shore up prices. But the intended impact could be short-lived.

That’s due to U.S. shale producers. With crude prices above $50 a barrel from lows of last year, they are increasingly moving back into the market. Their output already is partially offsetting the cuts, and even more U.S. companies are poised to return if prices rise further.

The upshot is that the price of oil — and derived products like fuel — is unlikely to increase much in coming months, analysts say. That will be welcome news to consumers and energy-hungry businesses worldwide but could continue to strain the budgets of some of the more economically-troubled oil-producing nations, like Venezuela and Brazil.

The latest reductions have been in effect since November, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels a day. Non-OPEC countries led by Russia chipped in with a further 600,000-barrel reduction.

Ahead of the meeting, the organization announced that Equatorial Guinea had joined, expanding OPEC membership to 14.

With the deal due to expire at the end of June, OPEC oil ministers appeared ready to prolong it up to nine months even before they sat down to make a formal decision.

Saudi Oil Minister Khalid A. al-Falih spoke of a “9-month straight” extension going into Thursday’s meeting. Iran’s Bijan Namdar Zanganeh floated possible extensions of three months, six months or even a year and said his country had “no difficulty” with any of the options, while Jabbar Ali Hussein al-Luiebi, his Iraqi counterpart, mentioned “the scenario of a nine-month freeze.”

Al-Falih said that the cuts had achieved a key aim. “Inventories are drawing down,” he told reporters.

But even with the reductions, oil prices have risen less than OPEC hoped for from last year’s levels. At over $50 a barrel, benchmark crude sits substantially below the highs reached in 2014, but is priced high enough to bring back into the market U.S. producers who eased back as prices tumbled last year. U.S. shale production requires a higher price to be profitable.

U.S. output since last year has increased by nearly a million barrels a day to a daily 9 million barrels. That already puts American producers in the league with oil giants Saudi Arabia and Russia and cuts further into OPEC’s past ability to play a role in setting prices and supplies.

More than 400 oil rigs are now working U.S. shale fields — an increase of more than 120 percent compared with a year ago. And U.S. producers are poised to expand more, even if prices tick upward only moderately as a result of an oil-cut extension by OPEC and its partners.

Commerzbank cited data from the U.S. Department of Energy saying U.S. production was roughly 540,000 barrels per day higher in mid-May than at the start of the year.

“This offsets nearly half of OPEC’s production cuts,” it noted.

Even a decision to maintain oil cuts thus is likely to only kick the can down the road from Thursday’s meeting until OPEC ministers convene again late this year. Crude prices are unlikely to rise substantially — and that means the era of windfall profits appears to be over for member nations, at least for now.

While analysts at research firm IHS Markit expect OPEC revenues to rise modestly this year after dropping from their peak of $1.2 trillion in 2012, “the total will be less than half the level of 2012, when prices were more than double current levels.”

 
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British counter-terror officers have been conducting raids and making arrests in the wake of the concert bombing earlier this week that killed 22 people, including children. The raids are reassuring on the one hand, showing the police are moving fast. But they are adding also to a sense of alarm among Manchester residents.

That alarm is slowly morphing into anger as it has emerged British security services missed several opportunities to identify the Manchester suicide bomber, 22-year-old Salman Abedi, as a high-risk militant. Several people have stepped forward — from neighbors to mosque leaders and community workers — to complain about the lack of action by authorities after they reported their worries about him to counter-terror officials.

One community worker says he contacted authorities after Abedi said “being a suicide bomber was OK.”

Another community leader, Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “People in the community expressed concerns about the way this man was behaving and reported it in the right way using the right channels. They did not hear anything since.”

Neither Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5 nor the Manchester police have responded to the claims, but they are likely to be taken up by lawmakers demanding to know why Abedi was seen just as a peripheral figure rather than a threat requiring surveillance and investigation.

British authorities are focusing also on the international connections of the Manchester suicide bomber, who was born in Britain to Libyan parents after they fled to Britain in 1980 to escape the regime of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Libya trip

Abedi travelled back to Manchester last week from Libya after visiting his mother, father, younger brother and a sister, who moved full-time to Libya after Gadhafi’s overthrow. His father, Ramadan, was at one time a member of the anti-Gadhafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, a militant Islamist band that was invited to join al Qaida by Osama bin Laden when its leaders were based in Afghanistan. Western media have taken to describing LIFG as an “al Qaida subsidiary” — a description rejected by former senior leaders, who say they declined bin Laden’s invitation. LIFG subsequently split with some members joining al Qaida.

The whereabouts of Ramadan are currently unknown. On Wednesday night masked gunmen detained him while he was responding to media phone calls. Salman’s younger brother, 20-year-old Hashem was also detained Wednesday night, by an Islamist militia in Tripoli known as the Rada Special Deterrence Force.

A spokesman for the 700-strong militia, a self-appointed vigilante force that has a fearsome reputation for harshness, said Rada had been monitoring Hashem for more than a month on suspicion he had ties with the Islamic State terror group, which has a powerful affiliate in Libya.

In a statement Wednesday, the militia said Hashem had confessed to IS membership, saying his brother, Salman, was a member, too. The militia claimed Hashem admitted he knew in advance about the plans for the Manchester bombing.

But a spokesman for Libyan authorities in Tripoli had a different version, telling British news media Hashem “felt there was something going on there in Manchester and he thought his brother would do something like bombing or attack. So after that, he told us, ‘Having internet, I see the attack in Manchester and I knew that’s my brother.’”

Link to Manchester

A strong Libyan connection to the Manchester bombing is a troubling prospect — not only for the British security services but for their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. If the Manchester bombing was directed by Islamic State’s Libyan affiliate, it would be the first time the group had managed to pull off a terrorist act in Europe using the North African state.

And it raises the possibility of more jihadists with Libyan connections and British passports bringing their fight to Britain and Europe, complicating the challenge European intelligence services already face with hundreds of European-born jihadist returnees from Syria.

But an Italian security official who’s been working on Libyan issues told VOA the government in Rome remains wary of some post-bombing claims being made by the warring parties in Libya, seeing them as agenda-pushing. Midweek the prime minister of one of the rival governments in the country, Abdullah Thinni, who heads a government based in Beida, eastern Libya, said he’d warned the British government it was harboring Libyan terrorists and sought to link the bombing to the Muslim Brotherhood.

No connection so far has been found to the Muslim Brotherhood, say British intelligence officials.

The Libyan connection to the bombing will likely have a major impact on European Union policy-making when it comes to the migrant flow into Europe from Libya. The interior ministers of German and Italy have been urging the EU to set up a mission along Libya’s border with Niger in a bid to stop mainly African migrants from reaching Europe. Italian as well as other European authorities have long worried about jihadists infiltrating southern Europe as migrants, seeding themselves among thousands of sub-Saharan Africans making the Mediterranean crossing from Libya.But there is resistance from some EU member countries to the Italian-German recommendation.

 
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Barack Obama received a rock-star welcome in Berlin as he appeared at a public debate Thursday with Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he praised as one of his “favorite partners” during his presidency.

Security was tight in front of the German capital’s iconic Brandenburg Gate, where Obama and Merkel appeared on a podium before thousands of people attending a gathering marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Police helicopters patrolled the skies and snipers with balaclavas watched the scene from nearby rooftops.

After lauding Merkel as someone who had done “outstanding work,” Obama launched a defense of his own presidency and the values of liberal democracy championed by both leaders.

Citing the rise of nationalism and xenophobia in parts of the world, Obama told the crowd that “we have to push back against those trends that would violate human rights or suppress democracy or restrict individual freedoms.”

In a veiled reference to his successor Donald Trump, Obama also spoke of the need to see development aid and diplomacy as essential aspects of national security policy.

“We can’t isolate ourselves. We can’t hide behind a wall,” he said, to cheers from the audience.

Merkel, who hosted Obama at the same spot four years ago, was due to travel to Brussels later Thursday for a meeting with leaders of fellow NATO member states, including President Trump.

Thursday’s appearance with Obama was criticized by some German opposition politicians as a publicity stunt ahead of September’s general election, in which Merkel aims to win a fourth term.
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A brother and father of the alleged Manchester suicide bomber have been arrested in Libya, according to a spokesman for the country’s anti-terror force.

Security spokesman Ahmed bin Salem said alleged bomber Salman Abedi’s younger brother, Hashim, was arrested in Tripoli Tuesday.

Bin Salem told the Reuters news agency the two brothers had been in contact recently, and Hashim knew of the attack plans.

“We have evidence that he is involved in Daesh (Islamic State) with his brother. We have been following him for more than one month and a half,” he said.

The alleged bomber, Abedi, was born in England to Libyan parents. His father, who lives in Tripoli, has also been detained.

British police said Wednesday it was “clear” the suicide bomber who attacked the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester did not act alone.

“It’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,” Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said during a news conference.

5 arrested

British police have arrested five people in connection with the attack, so far, as they continue to conduct armed raids throughout Manchester.

Greater Manchester Police said the fifth suspect was detained Wednesday evening in Wigan, a town to the west of Manchester.

Officers also arrested three men earlier Wednesday after executing warrants in South Manchester. There was no information about how the five men might be involved in the attack.

British interior minister Amber Rudd said Wednesday the alleged suicide bomber, Abedi, was “known” by British intelligence services before the bombing.

The blast at the conclusion of the concert at Manchester Arena killed 22 people and wounded 59 others. The attacker also died at the site.

Tracking Abedi’s last days

Investigators are now trying to figure out what Abedi was up to in his last days before the attack Monday.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told BFM television on Wednesday that British and French intelligence have information that Abedi had likely traveled to Syria.

According to Collomb, Abedi “grew up in Britain and then suddenly, after a trip to Libya and then likely to Syria, became radicalized and decided to carry out this attack.”

“In any case, the links with Daesh (Islamic State) are proven,” he said.

Islamic State is claiming it was behind the attack, but neither British nor U.S. intelligence have confirmed that.

Terror level raised

Britain raised its terrorism alert level to critical – the highest step – after the blast, signaling that another attack was highly likely and could be imminent.

The change is most visible in the deployment of soldiers to help guard certain areas, including major events such as concerts and football matches, in order to free up police officers.

Hopkins said an off-duty police officer was among those killed in the suicide attack, but it will take up to five days for authorities to identify all the victims.

“Due to number of victims the Home Office post-mortems are likely to take four to five days. After this we will be in a position to formerly name the victims,” he said. “We have spoken to all of the families of those who lay injured in our hospitals.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May said in an address to the nation late Tuesday that authorities will do everything possible to protect the public and asked people to remain vigilant.

Many of the victims of the blast were young girls, with the youngest identified so far being just 8-year-old.

Video from the arena showed the joy in the audience at the end of the concert turning to confusion and then to panic and a scramble to get out of the building as the realization of what just happened spread.

Witness say they saw blood covered bodies on the floor while others, badly wounded, staggered toward the exits of the building.

The scene outside the concert hall was also chaotic, with traffic snarled and parents rushing to the scene.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth held a moment of silence at a garden party at Buckingham Palace. French President Emmanuel Macron signed a condolence book at the British embassy in Paris. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the attack only strengthens Germany’s resolve to work with the British.
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U.S. congressional panels are issuing new subpoenas to Michael Flynn, in an effort to force him to turn over documents and testify about his brief tenure as President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser.

Flynn rebuffed the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this week, refusing to hand over information it had requested about the 24 days he held the key White House post in the first weeks of the Trump administration.  Trump fired him for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the weeks before Trump assumed power.

But the Senate intelligence panel, and its counterpart in the House of Representatives, say they are they are issuing new subpoenas to Flynn.  He is a retired Army general who was one of Trump’s key political surrogates on the campaign trail last year.

“We initially requested his voluntary participation,” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House panel, told reporters Wednesday. “He declined. We are going to be subpoenaing him.”

In refusing to turn over documents to the Senate panel, Flynn invoked his U.S. Constitution Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.  Legal experts say that if he handed over the information to congressional investigators he would risk not being able to claim the same privilege and refuse to testify before congressional panels investigating how Russia meddled in last year’s U.S. election and possible collusion between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials to help Trump win.

One lawmaker, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, told CNN, “I think he’s going to have to tell his story.”

Another senator, Susan Collins of Maine, told VOA, the Senate panel issued a new subpoena for Flynn’s business records.

“It is dubious that a Fifth Amendment claim can be attached to a request for business records, and that is one reason we are pursuing that route,” she said.

Collins said the business records “may indicate payments from the Russian government or affiliated entities.  They may indicate meetings that were held.  We just don’t know.  That’s why we want to examine them.”

Flynn was paid more than $30,000 in recent years to attend Moscow events, including a 2015 dinner celebrating the Kremlin-backed RT television network where he sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and more than $500,000 to represent Turkish interests in the United States.  The Defense Department’s inspector general is investigating whether Flynn sought permission to receive the payments after being specifically warned when he retired from the military to not accept money from foreign governments.

While the congressional panels conduct their probes, Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the country’s top investigative agency, was named last week to head a criminal investigation about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Trump has been dismissive of the various investigations, contending they are a “witch hunt” promoted by opposition Democrats as an excuse to explain his upset of Hillary Clinton.

 
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