Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected allegations of Russian interference in last year’s U.S. presidential election and said opponents of U.S. President Donald Trump spread the accusations to undermine his legitimacy.

Speaking at his annual marathon news conference in Moscow, Putin expressed hope that U.S.-Russia relations will normalize.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Putin ordered a campaign meant to influence the U.S. vote with a preference for Trump to defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Trump has said his campaign did not collude with Russia.

Putin said Thursday that Russia is worried about the United States pulling out of arms control agreements, while his country will continue to abide by the pacts.He also said Russia’s military will develop as it needs to without getting into an arms race with the United States.

On North Korea, Putin said a use of force by the United States would have “catastrophic consequences.”He said Russia does not accept North Korea’s nuclear status and blamed the United States for provoking North Korea to develop its nuclear program.

A week after the International Olympic Committee ruled Russian athletes cannot compete under the country’s flag at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Putin said the ban is politically motivated.

The Russian leader told reporters the country should have a more competitive political system and that when he runs for re-election next year he will do so as an independent candidate instead of under the United Russia party.

Putin has served as either prime minister or president of Russia since 1999 and announced last week his plan to run for re-election for a term that would run through 2024.He is widely expected to win.

He said the government needs to focus on health care, education and infrastructure development.He said opposition parties lack a strong candidate to go against him in the elections.

Opponents have accused Putin of using law enforcement and the judicial system to stymie rivals.
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An international landmine watchdog says new uses of the weapon are “extremely rare” but that fighting in Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine and Yemen has led to a second consecutive year of high casualties.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines said in an annual report Thursday there were 8,605 casualties, including 2,089 deaths, from mines in 2016. That includes improvised explosive devices and unexploded ordnance that are triggered like mines.

Of those casualties, 78 percent were civilians, and the total included the most child casualties ever recorded. They took place in 52 countries.

“A few intense conflicts, where utter disregard for civilian safety persists, have resulted in very high numbers of mine casualties for the second year in a row,” said Loren Persi, casualties and victim assistance editor of Landmine Monitor. “This shows the need for all countries to join the Mine Ban Treaty and for increased levels of assistance to mine victims.”

​1999 international treaty

Under a 1999 international treaty, countries agree to not use or produce antipersonnel mines, to destroy their existing stockpiles, provide assistance to mine victims and clear their territory of mines within 10 years of joining the pact.

On Wednesday, the ICBL welcomed Sri Lanka as the 163rd country to be fully bound by the treaty and said it hopes others in the region will join as well.

Thursday’s report said Myanmar and Syria had the only government forces that actively planted mines during the past year. Neither is a party to the mine ban treaty.

The report cites 61 states and areas contaminated with mines as of November, and while 33 of those are a part of the treaty, only Chile, Mauritania, Peru and the Democratic Republic of Congo are on track to meet their deadline for clearing territory of mines.

Algeria and Mozambique completed their clearing operations during 2017. Worldwide, the report says a total of 170 square kilometers was cleared during 2016, and the vast majority of that work took place in Afghanistan, Croatia, Iraq and Cambodia.

Much work yet to be done

Still, large areas of mine contamination are believed to exist in a number of countries. Those include Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Croatia, Iraq, Thailand and Turkey.

International efforts linked to the treaty also extend to assisting victims, educating people about the risks of mines, destroying stockpiles and monitoring mine use. The report says monetary contributions rose sharply in 2016 to $480 million to support that work.
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Revenge is sweet for the makers of France’s traditional “calisson” candies, who have won a months-long legal battle with a businessman who trademarked the product’s name in China.

The lozenge-shaped sweets, made of a mixture of candied fruit and ground almonds topped with icing, are widely enjoyed in France’s southern Aix-en-Provence region.

Their makers were none too pleased when Chinese entrepreneur Ye Chunlin spotted a sweet opportunity in 2015 to register the “Calisson d’Aix” name for use at home, as well as its Mandarin equivalent, “kalisong”.

The trademark was set to be valid until 2026, sparking angst among Provence’s sweetmakers who worried Ye’s move could have barred them from entering the huge Chinese market.

But China’s copyright office rejected Ye’s claim to the brand name in a decision seen by AFP on Wednesday, which said his request to use the label “could confuse consumers on the origin of the products”.

Laure Pierrisnard, head of the union of calisson makers in Aix, hailed the news as “a real victory”.

The union has fought the case for months in the name of 12 sweetmakers, accusing Ye of “opportunism.”

It is not uncommon for Western brands to try to crack the Chinese market only to find that their name or trademark has been registered by a local company.

An enterprising Chinese businessman in 2007 registered the brand name “IPHONE” for use in leather products, to the great displeasure of Apple, which lost a court case against him.

The courts similarly backed a Chinese company that wanted to use the name of sneaker brand New Balance.

Ye, who is from the eastern province of Zhejiang, did not respond to the French sweetmakers’ objections to Chinese authorities.

But he insisted in late 2016 that he acted in good faith, telling AFP he was “a salesman who does business within the rules.”

As far as French producers are aware, calissons have never rolled off a factory line in China.

Some makers, dreaming of the international success enjoyed by their rival the macaron, are seeking to expand abroad, including to the enticing Chinese market.

The Roy Rene chain – owned by Olivier Baussan, the entrepreneur behind Province’s best known brand internationally, L’Occitane cosmetics — has stores in Miami and Canada, and is eyeing Dubai.

The company says it has been contacted by several investors over the course of the Chinese court case seeking to bring the sweets to China.

The affair has also re-energized makers of the dainty candies in their bid for special European status as a product that comes specifically from Provence.

Beijing has already recognized the status of 10 such European foods, including France’s Comte and Roquefort cheeses and Italy’s Parma ham, as well as 45 different wines from Bordeaux.

Aix-en-Provence produces about 800 tons of calissons every year.

 
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European Union leaders will grapple Thursday with one of the most divisive issues ever to face the 28-nation bloc; how to collectively share responsibility for the tens of thousands of people arriving on Europe’s southern shores in search of a better life.

Ahead of an EU summit in Brussels, fresh tensions have surfaced over the perceived need for national refugee quotas. So far, solidarity with front-line nations Greece and Italy, where the refugees land, has been limited. A mandatory quota scheme was opposed mainly by eastern European nations — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

For Europe, the political crisis over migrants is existential, despite the fact that migrant arrivals have dropped dramatically this year.

As hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees trekked northward from Greece in 2015, some EU nations erected fences, launched police crackdowns and closed borders, forcing migrants onto their neighbors. ID checks were reintroduced in parts of Europe’s passport-free travel area, hampering trade, business and tourism.

That fueled anti-immigrant parties and the far-right made significant political inroads.

“The migration crisis was a kind of character test for the EU,” Roderick Parkes, senior analyst at the EU’s Institute for Security Studies, wrote Wednesday.

It has tested the EU’s “capacity to lead in the field of refugee reception, to seize the economic opportunities of immigration and to share the burden borne by Turkey, Lebanon or Kenya by resettling refugees. And the EU failed the test, on all counts,” he wrote.

At the center of Europe’s migrant malaise are refugee quotas. In response to the arrival of more than 1 million migrants in 2015, EU nations voted by a large majority to share 160,000 of those fleeing conflict or persecution to help ease the burden on overwhelmed Greece and Italy.

Hungary challenged the quotas at Europe’s top court but lost.

In an effort to clear the air, EU Council President Donald Tusk, who will chair the two-day summit in Brussels, has put the issue at the top of the agenda. But in branding the scheme ineffective, he has angered Europe’s top migration official and lawmakers involved in drawing it up.

“The issue of mandatory quotas has proven to be highly divisive and the approach has received disproportionate attention in light of its impact on the ground; in this sense it has turned out to be ineffective,” Tusk wrote to the EU leaders.

But EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos slammed the note as “unacceptable. It is anti-European and it denies, it ignores, all the work we have done during the past years.”

“This paper is undermining one of the main pillars of the European project; the principle of solidarity. Europe without solidarity cannot exist,” he said. “It is a duty — moral and legal — to protect refugees.”

Greens lawmaker Ska Keller said “Tusk is undermining the prospects of a solidarity-based refugee policy in Europe” and that “without a fair redistribution of refugees, European asylum policy will remain vulnerable to crisis.”

The European Commission says 32,000 people from the asylum scheme have found homes. But that figure — less than a quarter of the original target — masks the legal challenges, abuses and suffering as thousands of migrants and refugees have languished in the Greek islands.

The main reason for the drop in migrant numbers is the EU’s agreement with Turkey, which saw the bloc mobilize its financial might to convince Ankara to stop Syrian refugees from crossing the sea to nearby Greece and to take back thousands already there.

Spurred by that success, the EU is leveraging its considerable development aid as it draws up other outsourcing arrangements, mostly with Libya’s poor neighbors to stop Africans unlikely to qualify for asylum from heading there to take treacherous sea journeys to Italy.

Tusk wants Thursday’s summit discussions to promote mutual understanding about the migration challenges that the EU’s neighbors face. He also wants the leaders to endorse plans to make migration a part of the EU’s long-term budget, rather than rely on ad-hoc contributions.

No concrete decisions will be made Thursday. The future of mandatory refugee quotas for nations should be made clearer next June.

“It is important to look at what has — and what has not — worked over the past two years, and draw the necessary lessons,” Tusk wrote. “The migration challenge is here to stay.”
…

A prosecutor urged United Nations judges Wednesday to overturn the acquittals of a prominent Serbian ultranationalist on atrocity charges, saying that failure to do so would inflict lasting damage to the legacy of a groundbreaking war crimes tribunal.

Prosecutor Mathias Marcussen told a five-judge appeals panel that the 2016 acquittals of Vojislav Seselj on nine war crimes and crimes against humanity charges were so deeply flawed that they must be reversed or a new trial ordered.

“Justice has not been done,” Marcussen said. He argued that the three-judge trial bench that found Seselj not guilty at the end of his marathon trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia made critical errors of fact and law and failed to properly evaluate all the evidence.

At trial, prosecutors accused Seselj of crimes including persecution, murder and torture and demanded a 28-year sentence for his support of Serb paramilitaries during the region’s bitter, bloody wars in the early 1990s. Prosecutors argue that Seselj’s actions were part of a plan to drive Croats and Muslims out of large areas of Croatia and Bosnia that leaders in Belgrade considered Serb territory.

Marcussen said that allowing Seselj’s acquittals to stand would be “not only an affront to the victims of the alleged crimes, it would also seriously undermine the credibility” of the tribunal and the institution called the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals which has been established to deal with appeals and other legal issues left pending when ad hoc tribunals like the Yugoslav court close their doors for good.

A tribunal that prosecuted cases arising from Rwanda’s genocide has already closed and the Yugoslav tribunal formally shuts down at the end of December. Seselj’s appeal is being handled by the new mechanism.

Seselj, who is a Serbian lawmaker, did not attend Wednesday’s hearing. Judges gave him 10 days to respond in writing after he receives a transcript of the hearing in his native language.

Trial judges acquitted Seselj in a majority decision, saying there was insufficient evidence linking him to crimes. One of the three judges dissented, saying the acquittals ignored international law and the tribunal’s own jurisprudence.

Among the trial chamber’s most controversial findings was that operations in which non-Serbs were bussed out of territory were a “humanitarian mission” and not illegal deportations.

Marcussen called the finding, “an insult to the victims and witnesses who testified” at trial.

Presiding Judge Theodor Meron said the appeals panel would issue a ruling, “in due course.”
…

Ruined houses, shell craters and deserted streets — this is a typical scene in the Oktyabrsky district of Donetsk, the largest city of Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebel region that bears the same name.

The self-styled Donetsk and next-door Luhansk “people’s republics” broke away from central rule in 2014 after months of violent street protests in Kyiv toppled Ukraine’s Moscow-leaning president and propelled pro-Western nationalists to power.

In this calm suburb of Donetsk, many people stood aloof of politics. But then fierce clashes broke out between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian separatists for control over the nearby Donetsk Airport.

A glistening air hub of steel and glass, specially built for the UEFA Euro 2012 soccer tournament, for which Donetsk was a venue, the local airport was leveled to the ground, and many of the buildings in Oktyabrsky shared its fate.

Restored water and electricity supplies to local homes, with some households enjoying even gas supplies and heating, give a slight relief to some of the lucky locals as winter cold starts to bite.

“I try to keep away from politics. I only care about my family,” said Marina, 30. The woman, her husband and three children, one of whom is seriously ill, lost their house in 2014 when an artillery shell hit it.

“With no money, we were left in the street, with absolutely nothing. Everything burned, nothing was left … even spoons and forks were gone,” she said.

Her family changed several apartments, moving from one friend to another, before deciding that they would restore their house, using the bricks that had remained intact to build new walls. But they fast ran out of cash to buy construction materials.

Gunshots, explosions

The fragile cease-fire agreed upon in 2015 is often shattered by outbursts of gunfire and explosions of shells.

More than 8,000 private homes and more than 2,000 apartment houses were badly damaged in Donetsk, according to data provided by its administration. Most of these homes are uninhabitable and cannot be rebuilt.

Sixty-four temporary shelters for those who lost their homes in the war have been organized in various parts of Donetsk, a city of about 1 million residents.

Sometimes, student hostels accommodate the homeless. They include Alexandra Nikolayevna, 68, who survives with her several grandchildren at “University Hostel No. 4” mainly because of handouts of humanitarian aid.

The fourth year of this ordeal has failed to shatter her political views. “We must be only with Russia, we only hope for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to take us under his wing,” she said. “Anyway, everyone says it’s Russian land.”

The feeling of relative normalcy that prevails in most parts of Donetsk, dissipates when you realize the city center is just slightly more than 10 kilometers (6.3 miles) from the front line.

The war is felt in the volatile rates of several currencies circulating in the city, in low wages, and in the poor quality of local food.

And it is felt in the families who lost loved ones in the war that has claimed more than 10,000 lives so far.
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Russia’s Olympic Committee agreed on Tuesday to support its athletes who choose to compete in next year’s Winter Games in South Korea as neutrals following a ban on the Russian national team.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week banned Russia from the Games, due to take place in Pyeongchang in February, for what it called “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system.

But it left the door open for Russian athletes with a clean history of non-doping to be invited to compete as neutrals under an Olympic flag, not a Russian one.

President Vladimir Putin said last week Russia would not prevent its athletes from competing, dismissing calls by some for a boycott, and a Russian Olympic official said on Monday most Russian athletes still wanted to attend.

The Russian committee (ROC) agreed on its position at a meeting on Tuesday attended by sporting figures including the national men’s hockey team, figure skaters, speed skaters and the presidents of winter sports federations.

“All the participants were of the same opinion — our sportsmen need to go to Korea, need to compete, achieve victory for the glory of Russia, for the glory of our motherland,” ROC President Alexander Zhukov said.

Zhukov said Russia would do its best to support Russian athletes competing under a neutral flag and hold serious talks with the IOC in the near future to discuss the problems and practicalities of the arrangement.

He did not say what form this support would take.

“Russian sportsmen have stated their readiness to take part in the Olympic Games, despite the difficult conditions and decision of the IOC, which is undoubtedly unfair in many ways,” he said.

Zhukov added that Russia would also support the athletes who had decided not to compete in Pyeongchang.

Senior Russian Olympic official Vitaly Smirnov, who heads Russia’s state-backed anti-doping commission, said the country had made the “right decision” not to boycott.

“A boycott is not a solution,” Smirnov said. “That [would mean] new sanctions and problems for our athletes.”

In recent weeks, more than 30 Russian athletes who competed at the 2014 Sochi Games have been banned for life from the Olympics for allegedly breaching anti-doping rules.

And the IOC slapped lifetime bans on six Russian female ice hockey players a few hours after the Russian announcement Tuesday.

Russian authorities have vehemently denied any state support for doping and have pledged to cooperate with international sports bodies to counter the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs.

Russia’s athletics federation, paralympic committee and anti-doping agency RUSADA remain suspended over doping scandals.

‘Olympic Athlete from Russia’

Sitting in the front row of the Russian Olympic Committee auditorium ahead of the meeting, hockey star Ilya Kovalchuk said he would not mind competing at the Games as an “Olympic Athlete from Russia,” the term the IOC uses to designate the Russians who will go to Pyeongchang.

“We are athletes from Russia, after all,” Kovalchuk told reporters. “They took the flag away but they can’t take away our honor and our conscience.”

Kovalchuk, one of the first to call for athletes to compete in Pyeongchang after the IOC ban, thanked authorities for taking the opinions of athletes into consideration.

“Thank you for having heard us, for having believed us,” Kovalchuk said. “I think that every athlete who takes part in the Olympic Games in Pyeonchang will do everything possible.”

Olympic fencer Sofya Velikaya, chair of the ROC’s athletes commission, called on the Russian public to respect athletes’ decisions to go to Pyeongchang amid concerns that some could be branded traitors for agreeing to compete without the country’s flag.

“The athletes will show their love for their motherland and their patriotism through their results, through their accomplishments and medals,” Velikaya said.
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Congress will allow the deadline on reimposing sanctions on Iran to pass this week, congressional and White House aides said Tuesday, leaving a pact between world powers and Tehran intact at least temporarily.

In October, Trump declined to certify that Iran was complying with the nuclear agreement reached among Tehran, the United States and others in 2015. His decision triggered a 60-day window for Congress to decide whether to bring back sanctions on Iran.

Congressional leaders have announced no plans to introduce a resolution to reimpose sanctions before Wednesday’s deadline, and aides say lawmakers will let the deadline pass without action.

By doing that, Congress passes the ball back to Trump, who must decide in mid-January whether he wants to issue a waiver to keep old sanctions from being imposed on Iran.

If Trump doesn’t issue the waiver, the nuclear deal would collapse. That course is opposed by European allies, Russia and China, the other parties to the accord, under which Iran got sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear ambitions.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and denies it has aimed to build an atomic bomb. It has said it will stick to the accord as long as the other signatories respect it, but will “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out.

A senior administration official said Tuesday that the White House planned on leaving the sanctions issue to Congress for the moment and was not asking for sanctions to be reimposed.

Efforts to find common ground with Europe on the Iran deal were complicated again last week, when Trump announced Washington would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with international consensus.

‘Worst deal ever’

Trump has called the Iran pact the “worst deal ever” and has threatened to pull the United States out of it.

His fellow Republicans control both chambers of Congress but their Senate majority is so small that they need some Democratic support to advance most legislation. Senate Democrats, even those who opposed it two years ago, do not want to tear up the nuclear accord.

Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declined to say whether he thought Trump would carry through on a threat to tear up the nuclear pact in January if Congress did not pass legislation to further clamp down on Iran.

Corker told reporters he and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland met national security adviser H.R. McMaster last week to see “if there’s language that fits the bill here within Congress but also … keeps [the Europeans] at the table with us and not feeling like we’ve gone off in a different direction.”

Corker declined to elaborate on specifics of the discussions.

Trump threatened to withdraw from the nuclear agreement if lawmakers did not toughen it by amending the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, the U.S. law that opened the possibility of bringing sanctions back.

Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel, has said he would not support changes to the nuclear pact that are not supported by Europe.

Democrats also insist that, while sanctions should be imposed over Iran’s ballistic missile program or human rights violations, they must be separate from the nuclear agreement.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting an international summit Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of the Paris climate agreement, hoping to inject the pact with new energy after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from it.

The accord reached two years ago set goals for slowing the rate of climate change by reducing the emissions that contribute to melting Arctic ice, increasing sea levels and changing weather patterns across the globe.

While some critics have questioned whether the summit will accomplish more than drawing attention to France’s media-savvy president, celebrities, corporations, environmental groups and others are preparing to make a string of announcements there.

The issues expected to come up at the event range from research to corporate pledges.

Green cash

Poor countries are waiting to hear how the United Nations’ goal of raising $100 billion dollars for climate-related measures will be achieved by 2020.

The target was set in 2009, but commitments so far from rich nations only will cover about two-thirds of the fund.

The money is intended to help developing countries invest in green energy projects and avoid the path taken by wealthy countries decades earlier that saw massive growth in the use of fossil fuels.

Scientists say ending fossil fuel use, also known as `decarbonization,’ needs to happen worldwide by 2050, but poor countries only would be able to reach the goal with financial help.

Climate campaigner Mohamed Adow of the group Christian Aid says one important step would be for the World Bank, which is co-hosting Tuesday’s meeting, to switch its investments from fossil fuels to renewable energy in developing countries.

Corporate Commitment

Dozens of companies have signed a joint call for governments to maintain momentum on implementing the Paris accord and set long-term strategies for cutting carbon emissions.

The companies _ including insurer Allianz, tire maker Michelin and consumer goods giant Unilever _ said Monday they are committed to a greener economy that includes imposing levies on carbon emissions.

Allianz CEO Oliver Baete said in the statement that “business requires stable regulatory frameworks and an adequate price on carbon.”

Financial institutions such as Allianz also want greater transparency on climate-related data to help them make sound investment decisions, Baete said.

New research

The Paris summit takes place while the American Geophysical Union is holding its fall meeting in New Orleans.

Scientists are expected to present new research on climate changes and ways to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F.)

Separately, Microsoft says it will let researchers use its artificial intelligence technology to monitor and model the planet’s climate.

The technology giant says its commitment _ worth about $10 million a year _ could also help companies use vast amounts of data to reduce carbon emissions, by reducing waste, making power grids more efficient and improving weather predictions.

Star scientists

Macron has invited U.S.-based climate scientists to apply for generous grants and relocate to France, a direct response to Trump’s rejection of the Paris accord.

The French president was announcing the first grant winners on Monday. Overall, the French government and research institutions plan to fund about 50 projects with 60 million euros ($70 million)
…

In their third meeting in a month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Ankara. The talks primarily focused on Syria, but Putin’s visit coincides with U.S.-Turkish relations, reeling from a crisis sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“Regarding Jerusalem, I have observed that we share common opinions with Mr. Putin, and we’ve come to an agreement that we will sustain our decisiveness in this matter,” Erdogan said in a joint press statement with Putin, referring to the Russian president as his “dear friend.”

“The resolution by the U.S. to move the American embassy to Jerusalem is far from helping the settlement of the situation in the Middle East,” Putin said. “It is destabilizing the already complicated situation in the region, which is difficult as it is today.”

In a move that will add to Washington’s unease over Ankara’s warming relationship with Moscow, the Turkish president announced that a controversial purchase of a Russian missile system should be finalized this week. NATO strongly opposes the sale, claiming it is incompatible with its systems.

Putin’s visit is just the latest move in what some analysts call a careful and well-played strategy by Russia of building influence and sowing discord amongst its rivals. Before meeting Erdogan, Putin met with another U.S. ally, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in Cairo. Prior to the meeting with Putin, Erdogan ratcheted up his rhetoric over Trump’s Jerusalem move.

“With their decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the United States has become a partner in the bloodshed,” Erdogan said. 

Throughout the year, Turkish-Russian relations have blossomed as U.S.-Turkish ties have plummeted. The latest meeting between Putin and Erdogan is the eighth this year. The two leaders are increasingly cooperating over Syria. Monday’s talks focused on the planned Syrian National Congress on National Dialogue, an event Moscow hopes will bring together the Syrian government and the opposition. Putin said the Congress would address the adoption of a constitution, the parameters of a future Syrian statehood, and the organization of elections under the control of the United Nations.

Even though Moscow and Ankara back opposing sides in the Syrian civil war, analysts say that with the war approaching an endgame, both sides have something to gain in cooperation.

Putin has successfully exploited Ankara’s anger and mistrust over Washington’s backing of the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia in its war against the Islamic State. Ankara calls the YPG terrorists, claiming they are linked to a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey.

But Moscow, too, has been backing the YPG and its political wing, the PYD. Putin is pressing for the YPG to be included in meetings to end the cvil war, which Ankara bitterly opposes. Last week, images appeared of Russian and YPG forces openly collaborating in a military operation against the Islamic State.

“We’ve seen Ankara critical of the photo of Russian military representatives and the YPG,” said analyst Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels. “But this cannot be compared to the policy of the U.S., which is providing heavy weapons to the YPG.” 

Turkish-Russian relations could be further boosted by Putin’s announcement of the partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria. 

“Ankara would look at this as an opportunity to expand its influence across the border,” said Ulgen. 

Turkish forces remain massed on the border of the YPG-controlled Syrian Afrin enclave.

“As things stand, Afrin remains under Russian protection. But if indeed Russia were to pull back its troops, this would certainly give more room to Turkey to contemplate military action against Afrin,” Ulgen predicted.

Putin may be wary of abandoning the Syrian Kurdish militia, which Moscow has been developing ties with over several years. Analysts point out that the powerful militia could be useful in helping protect Moscow’s interests in the region from other potential regional rivals, including Turkey and Iran, especially as it winds down much of its military presence in Syria. But such a move would likely test Moscow’s currently successful balancing act —managing its conflicting policies in Syria.
…

Free-trade talks between the European Union and South American trade bloc Mercosur still face hurdles over beef and ethanol, and an expected deal announcement this week might not happen, officials involved in negotiations said on Monday.

Mercosur diplomats involved in the talks on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization minister’s meeting in Buenos Aires said EU officials had not presented improved offers on EU tariff-free imports of South American beef and ethanol as promised.

“Basically, they want us to show our cards before they show theirs,” a senior diplomat from a Mercosur country told Reuters, asking not to be named due to the sensitive stage of the negotiations.

Resistance by some EU member states to agricultural imports, such as Ireland and France, has delayed negotiation of the free trade agreement with Mercosur that seeks to liberalize trade and investment, services and access to public procurement.

Brazilian President Michel Temer, speaking to reporters after attending the opening of the WTO meeting on Sunday, said an announcement of the framework political agreement for the

EU-Mercosur deal might have to wait until Dec. 21, when the bloc’s presidents meet in Brasilia.

A spokeswoman for the Argentine Foreign Ministry said agreement on the conclusion of the negotiations that have gone on for almost two decades could still be reached by Wednesday in Buenos Aires or, if not, next week in Brazil.

Besides disagreement over the tonnage of beef that EU countries would allow in each year free of tariffs, EU diplomats have said rules of origin still have to be included in the provisional political accord.

Brazil has said that can be worked out in the coming months before a final agreement is signed sometime in mid-2018. Brazil’s foreign ministry played down the hurdles to a deal.

“There is very little left to negotiate and they are not fundamental issues,” said an official, who requested anonymity. “There will be a deal and it will be announced when it is struck, here or in Brasilia.”

Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay are pushing for an improvement on the EU offer of tariff-free imports for 70,000 tons a year of beef and 600,000 tons of ethanol a year.

They complain that it is lower than the 100,000-tons beef offer the EU made in 2004, though EU negotiators say Europeans eat less meat today.

The Irish Farmers Association has called the deal “toxic” and opposes any increase.

 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin, making his second visit to Egypt in as many years, held talks Monday with his Egyptian counterpart on their countries’ rapidly expanding ties.

Egypt’s general-turned-president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, has visited Russia three times since the ouster of his Islamist predecessor in 2013. After taking office, el-Sissi has bought billions of dollars’ worth of Russian weapons, including fighter jets and assault helicopters.

The two countries are also in the late stages of negotiations over the construction by a Russian company of Egypt’s first nuclear energy reactor.

Also, Russia last month approved a draft agreement with Egypt to allow Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases, a deal that would mark a significant leap in bilateral ties and evidence of Moscow’s expanding military role in a turbulent Middle East. That deal, if it goes through, will likely irk the United States, until now a top Egypt military ally.

Putin flew to Cairo after a brief and previously unannounced visit to a Russian military air base in Syria. The air base has served as the main foothold for the air campaign Russia has waged since September 2015 in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad against armed groups opposed to his rule.

El-Sissi met Putin at Cairo’s international airport and the two leaders later went straight to the presidential Ittahidyah palace in Cairo’s upscale Heliopolis suburb where talks got underway.

Egypt’s currently close ties with Russia harken back to the 1950s and 1960s, when Cairo became Moscow’s closest Arab ally during the peak years of the Cold War.

Egypt changed allies in the 1970s under the late President Anwar Sadat, who replaced Moscow with Washington as his country’s chief economic and military backer following the signing of a U.S.-sponsored peace treaty with Israel. Egypt has since become a major recipient of U.S. economic and military aid.

In what would have been unthinkable during the Cold War, Egypt has under el-Sissi been able to maintain close ties with both Russia and the United States.

Egypt, however, has not been able thus far to persuade Russia to resume its flights to Egypt, suspended since October 2015 when a suspected bomb brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board. Egypt has since spent millions of dollars to upgrade security at its airports and undergone numerous checks by Russian experts to ascertain the level of security at the facilities.

The suspension of Russian flights has dealt a devastating blow to Egypt’s vital tourism industry. Britain, another major source of visitors, has since the Russian airliner’s crash also suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, a Red Sea resort in Sinai from which the Russian airliner took off shortly before it crashed.

“Your Excellency: When will Russian tourism return to Egypt?” read the front-page banner headline in a Cairo daily loyal to the government, in both Arabic and Russian.

There have been speculations that el-Sissi and Putin might during the visit finalize and announce a deal on the construction of the nuclear reactor on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast after months of wrangling over technical and financial details.

Egypt and Russia have already initialed an agreement for a $25 billion Russian loan to finance the construction.

Egypt has quietly supported Russia’s military involvement in the Syrian civil war, a policy that had clashed with the position taken by Saudi Arabia, Cairo’s chief ally and financial backer. The Saudis, however, have gradually softened their opposition to Russian involvement there and taken a host of steps to thaw decades of frosty relations with Moscow.

Both the Saudis and Egyptians, according to analysts, are now hoping that Russia’s presence in Syria would curtail the growing influence there of Shiite, non-Arab Iran, whose expanding leverage in the region has been a source of alarm to both Cairo and Riyadh.

Egypt, meanwhile, has been raising its own profile in Syria, negotiating local cease-fires between government and opposition forces with the blessing of both Damascus and Moscow.

 
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