Tag: Politics
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Moscow lashes out at Washington for charging Russians with violating Syria sanctions
Kremlin officials on Wednesday lashed out at the Justice Department’s move to charge Russians with violating U.S. sanctions on Syria, calling it an act of “political blindness” and hostility.
Kremlin officials on Wednesday lashed out at the Justice Department’s move to charge Russians with violating U.S. sanctions on Syria, calling it an act of “political blindness” and hostility.
On Tuesday at federal court in Washington, DOJ officials indicted five Russian employees of a Crimean-based shipping company, Sovfracht, for allegedly money laundering and supplying jet fuel to Syria — a violation of U.S. sanctions. Three Syrians were also charged.
On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry responded by saying: “Washington has again demonstrated its political blindness by accusing the staff of Sovfracht public joint stock company of shipping aviation fuel to Syria.”
According to the Russian state new service Tass, foreign ministry officials denied the fuel was bound for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and was instead “intended for units of Russia’s Aerospace Force, which are helping to fight terrorist groupings on Syrian soil.”
Syria has endured seven years of horrendous civil war. For the past three, Russia’s air force has flown missions in support of the Assad regime — which requested help in the fall of 2015 when almost collapsed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long called the assistance to Assad an operation against the Islamic State. Western military observers, however, have noted that Russians planes still target territory long abandoned by the Islamic State.
“The new anti-Russian statement is a new confirmation that the US … does not want in any way to learn the lessons of history and again, as we have already noted, is looking for an enemy in areas other than where it is actually present,” the foreign ministry added.
Along with the charges, the eight also face large fines. According to reports on Tuesday, the defendants had not yet entered a plea and face up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
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Mike Pompeo says Donald Trump ‘unambiguous’ with Kim Jong-un on conditions for freezing drills
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered the first snapshot of a possible timeline for North Korean denuclearization Wednesday, saying the U.S. wants Pyongyang to show clear evidence of major disarmamen
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered the first snapshot of a possible timeline for North Korean denuclearization Wednesday, saying the U.S. wants Pyongyang to show clear evidence of major disarmament steps before President Trump’s term in office ends in January 2021.
Mr. Pompeo also asserted that Mr. Trump was “unambiguous” about the conditions of freezing U.S.-South Korea military drills during the historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that was held in Singapore on Tuesday.
The secretary of state, who made the assertions during a visit Wednesday to South Korea, said Mr. Trump’s vow to freeze U.S.-South Korean military drills is contingent on Pyongyang’s commitment to positive denuclearization negotiations.
After signing a joint statement at the Singapore summit on the broad goal of ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons, Mr. Trump revealed he had promised to Mr. Kim that the military drills, which the president referred to as “war games,” would be halted.
Pyongyang has has long lamented the joint drills, characterizing them as practice for an invasion of North Korea.
Mr. Pompeo said Wednesday that he was present when Mr. Trump discussed the matter with Mr. Kim. The secretary of state said Mr. Trump “made very clear” to the North Korean leader that the condition for freezing the drills was that good-faith talks continue, The Associated Press reported.
He added that if the U.S. concludes that discussions with North Korea are no longer are in good faith, the freeze “will no longer be in effect.”
Mr. Trump was “unambiguous” in conveying the message to Mr. Kim, Mr. Pompeo said.
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Putin’s spokesman extends World Cup invitation to Donald Trump
President Trump is welcomed to attend the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday.
President Trump is welcomed to attend the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would be glad to see all guests here in Moscow and certainly this concerns the guests from the United States at the highest level,” Mr. Peskov told reporters after being asked whether Mr. Trump would be invited to attend the international soccer tournament starting this week, Russian media reported.
The White House did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
The month-long 2018 World Cup is scheduled to start this Thursday at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, and 11 cities across Russia are slated to host matches before the tournament concludes July 15.
The U.S. national team failed to secure a place in the World Cup with its loss last October to Trinidad and Tobago in a qualifying round.
Foreign leaders currently expected to attend World Cup games include top officials from countries including Armenia, Lebanon, Panama, Paraguay and Saudi Arabia, among others, Russia’s state-owned TASS newswire reported Wednesday.
Mr. Trump has not traveled to Russia since before taking office in January 2017, and any visit is likely to pique the interest of special counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director appointed by the Department of Justice to investigate the 2016 U.S. presidential election and particularly any ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Investigations aside, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this year that Mr. Trump has nonetheless expressed an interest in visiting his Kremlin counterpart abroad.
“We proceed from the fact that the U.S. president in a telephone conversation … made such an invitation, said he would be glad to see (Putin) in the White House, would then be glad to meet on a reciprocal visit,” Mr. Lavrov wrote on the foreign ministry’s website in April.
“He returned to this topic a couple of times, so we let our American colleagues know that we do not want to impose, but we also do not want to be impolite, and that considering that President Trump made this proposal, we proceed from the position that he will make it concrete.”
World Cup officials separately announced Wednesday that the 2026 World Cup will be held at venues in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
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North Korea praises Donald Trump’s ‘enthusiasm’ after historic summit
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is praising President Trump’s “realistic” approach to negotiations with Pyongyang, North Korea’s leading state-run newspaper reported Wednesday after the landmark summi
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is praising President Trump’s “realistic” approach to negotiations with Pyongyang, North Korea’s leading state-run newspaper reported Wednesday after the landmark summit between the two leaders.
Mr. Kim “highly praised the president’s will and enthusiasm to resolve matters in a realistic way through dialogue and negotiations, away from the hostility-woven past,” the newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported in extensive coverage of the summit.
The paper also reported that Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump “gladly accepted each other’s invitation” to visit Pyongyang and Washington, respectively, in follow-up meetings from the denuclearization summit.
At their meeting in Singapore, Mr. Kim pledged the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, although the agreement lacks details of how that could be achieved.
The coverage in the state-run paper, including 33 images of Mr. Trump, Mr. Kim and others at the summit, praised the “will of the top leaders of the two countries to put an end to the extreme hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S.”
According to a summary in NK News, the coverage in North Korea highlighted Mr. Trump’s promise to end joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, but didn’t mention Mr. Kim’s promise to destroy a major missile-engine test site in North Korea.
Mr. Trump, who returned to the White House Wednesday morning, said as a result of the summit, “everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office.”
“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” he tweeted. “Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”
Democrats are scoffing at the president’s assessment.
“This is truly delusional,” tweeted Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat. “It [North Korea] has same arsenal today as 48 hours ago. Does he really think his big photo-op ended the [North Korea‘s] nuclear program? Hope does not equal reality.”
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Trump-Kim nuclear summit praised, but big questions loom
NEWS ANALYSIS: The Singapore summit of President Trump and Kim Jong-un projected potent images of peace and diplomacy between two leaders who traded nuclear war threats just a year ago, but the output
NEWS ANALYSIS:
The Singapore summit of President Trump and Kim Jong-un projected potent images of peace and diplomacy between two leaders who traded nuclear war threats just a year ago, but the output generated a large wave of initial skepticism that the U.S. side got any tangible or permanent concession from the North Korean dictator on Tuesday.
Foreign policy analysts said North Korea and its closest allies, China and Russia, scored a diplomatic victory in Singapore and that the meeting legitimized Mr. Kim, a human rights abuser with a spot on America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Mr. Kim, in the two leaders’ joint statement, committed only to “work toward” the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” — a promise Mr. Kim made to South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April. In addition to sitting down with Mr. Kim, Mr. Trump revealed after the meeting broke up that he agreed to freeze U.S.-South Korean military drills, a promise that was bolstered by the president’s unscripted comments on wanting to “bring home” the 32,000 U.S. troops from the peninsula.
Such a development, analysts say, would play directly into China’s hand at a moment when Beijing is expanding its military operations across the region. China had been strongly pushing the “freeze-for-freeze” formula — a halt to North Korean nuclear tests and activities in exchange for a halt to U.S.-South Korean military exercises — long before Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump met this week.
Liberal critics quickly claimed Mr. Trump gave away too much too fast without demanding more specific language from Mr. Kim on denuclearization. Language pushed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a “complete, verified, irreversible” end to the North’s nuclear and missile programs was notably absent from the public accord.
But Michael Pillsbury, the Mandarin-speaking security consultant who worked closely with nearly every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon, took a more optimistic posture, arguing that the focus should be on how the summit represented the start of a potentially game-changing geopolitical shift and an unprecedented U.S.-Chinese policy coordination toward North Korea.
“President Trump has not given much credit to China yet, but I believe he will do so later …,” Mr. Pillsbury said. “China not only provided the Air China aircraft [that delivered Mr. Kim to Singapore], Beijing did not respond to American threats last year to attack the North’s nuclear facilities.”
China had also agreed to the tougher “maximum pressure” sanctions championed by Mr. Trump, he said, suggesting that Beijing even played a critical behind-the-scenes role in orchestrating direct diplomatic engagement between Washington and Pyongyang. What President Trump has done, Mr. Pillsbury said, is accept a “double freeze” that China has promoted over the past year with public and private assertions that “the best deal can only be a freeze on all U.S. military exercises to be synchronized with a freeze on [North Korean] missile and nuclear testing.”
Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, who served as a top U.S. negotiator with Pyongyang before the last attempt at diplomacy broke down in 2009, said the current status quo is better than the insult-trading, “fire and fury” rhetoric of last year. “I think we’re in a good place, certainly compared to eight months ago,” he said.
But several conservative analysts offered a harsher take.
“All the initial benefits were pocketed by Pyongyang — and all the initial concessions were offered by Washington,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, an economist and Asia specialist at the American Enterprise Institute.
“America and her allies must now move into damage control and salvage mode.”
Others predicted it will be difficult for the Trump administration to maintain broad U.N. Security Council sanctions pressure on North Korea, with both South Korea and China eager to re-establish economic links with the North currently blocked by international sanctions.
Beijing was already showing signs Tuesday of wanting to walk back U.N. sanctions. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters that “China has consistently held that sanctions are not the goal in themselves” and that “the Security Council’s actions should support and conform to the efforts of current diplomatic talks towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.”
Srinivasan Sitaraman, a political scientist at Clark University in Massachusetts, said the impetus of Chinese support for Washington’s sanctions campaign may already be lost. “I doubt Russia or China will go along with the U.S. to maintain the maximum pressure policy going forward,” he told The Washington Times.
If North Korea did well, China may have done even better from the summit.
“Napoleon had this saying that, ‘When your enemies are making a mistake, get out of their way,’ and I think on a strategic level that’s how Beijing is viewing this,” said Michael J. Green, a Center for Strategic International Studies analyst, who once served as Asian affairs director on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council.
Republican lawmakers remained wary as well, given that Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, committed far more explicitly back in 2005 to “abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs,” only to renege on the promise.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, Texas Republican, said that while it’s “perfectly reasonable to hope that we are seeing the beginning of a process that will lead to a complete, permanent, verifiable end to North Korea’s nuclear capabilities,” it is “also perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of North Korea’s intentions, given its history of broken agreements.”
“The key going forward will be North Korea’s actions, not their promises,” Mr. Thornberry said. “In the meantime, it is essential to maintain economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and above all to continue strengthening our military capability to defend ourselves and our allies.”
Patrick Cronin, the top Asia security analyst at the Center for a New American Security, was one of a number of analysts who said it was far too soon to judge the success or failure of the Singapore summit. “The coming few months will give us a better indication as to whether [this] was an expensive photo opportunity or a positive breakthrough,” he said.
“The good news is that longtime adversaries have shown that they can talk, and now the White House has a channel with the top leader in Pyongyang,” Mr. Cronin told The Times. “The bad news is that the hard decisions now need to be made on a relatively tight timeline.”
Mr. Trump emphasized that the summit was only the start of a much deeper process to include specific talks on denuclearization “very, very quickly,” with Mr. Pompeo leading the charge and National Security Adviser John R. Bolton closely involved.
The challenge ahead is likely to center on how patient the two aides, who have both espoused hawkish views toward North Korea in the past, will be if Pyongyang wavers going forward. One source close to the White House who spoke on the condition of anonymity said a battle is already unfolding within the administration over how aggressively to proceed with Mr. Kim.
The fight finds Mr. Bolton, who wants a bare-knuckle posture and short deadlines for the delivery of proof of denuclearization, pitted against acting Assistant Secretary of State for Asia Susan Thornton, who has advocated behind the scenes for a softer and more gradual approach.
If criticism of Mr. Trump’s handling of the Singapore summit mounts during the coming days, said the source, Mr. Bolton and others, including National Security Council Asia Director Matthew Pottinger, are likely to try to “blame the negative optics on Thornton” and push her out of the administration.
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Kim Jong-un accepts Donald Trump’s invite to Washington, North Korea state media says
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has accepted President Trump’s invitation to visit Washington, North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday night.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has accepted President Trump’s invitation to visit Washington, North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday night.
The report came on the heels of the two leaders met for the first time in Singapore Tuesday for an historic summit on eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Mr. Trump had said he intended to invite Mr. Kim to visit the White House.
At the summit, the two leaders signed a two-page document committing Mr. Kim to denuclearization, while Mr. Trump agreed to provide security guarantees for North Korea.
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Saudi-led forces begin assault on Yemen port city of Hodeida
A Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s exiled government began an assault Wednesday on the port city of Hodeida, the main entry for food into a country already on the brink of famine, raising warnings
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s exiled government began an assault Wednesday on the port city of Hodeida, the main entry for food into a country already on the brink of famine, raising warnings from aid agencies that Yemen’s humanitarian disaster could deepen.
The assault on the Red Sea port aims to drive out Iranian-aligned Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies, who have held Hodeida since 2015, and a victory could be a major shift in a war that has been stalemated. But it could bring the first major street-to-street fighting for the coalition, a potentially dragged out battle deadly for combatants and civilians alike.
The fear is that a protracted fight could force a shutdown of Hodeida’s port at a time when a halt in aid risks tipping millions into starvation. Some 70 percent of Yemen’s food enters the country via the port, as well as the bulk of humanitarian aid and fuel supplies. Around two-thirds of the country’s population of 27 million relies on aid and 8.4 million are even worse off, at risk of starving already.
Before dawn Wednesday, convoys of vehicles appeared to be heading toward the rebel-held city, according to videos posted on social media. The sound of heavy, sustained gunfire clearly could be heard in the background.
Saudi-owned satellite news channels and later state media announced the battle had begun, citing military sources. They also reported coalition airstrikes and shelling by naval ships.
The initial battle plan appeared to involve a pincer movement. Some 2,000 troops who crossed the Red Sea from an Emirati naval base in the African nation of Eritrea landed west of the city with plans to seize Hodeida’s port, Yemeni security officials said.
Emirati forces with Yemeni troops moved in from the south near Hodeida’s airport, while others sought to cut off Houthi supply lines to the east, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to brief journalists.
Yemen’s exiled government “has exhausted all peaceful and political means to remove the Houthi militia from the port of Hodeida,” it said in a statement. “Liberation of the port of Hodeida is a milestone in our struggle to regain Yemen from the militias.”
The Houthi-run Al Masirah satellite news channel later acknowledged the offensive, claiming rebel forces hit a Saudi coalition ship near Hodeida with two missiles. Houthi forces have fired missiles at ships previously.
“The targeted ship was carrying troops prepared for a landing on the coast of Hodeida,” the channel said.
The Saudi-led coalition did not immediately acknowledge the incident. The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, whose area of responsibility includes the Red Sea, referred questions to the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Forces loyal to Yemen’s exiled government and irregular fighters led by Emirati troops had neared Hodeida in recent days. The port is some 150 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital held by the Houthis since they swept into the city in September 2014. The Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015 and has received logistical support from the U.S.
Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash earlier told French newspaper Le Figaro the deadline for a withdrawal from Hodeida by the Houthis expired early Wednesday morning.
The United Nations and other aid groups already had pulled their international staff from Hodeida ahead of the rumored assault.
However, so far, the port remains open, with supplies arriving. Several ships arrived in the past days, including oil tankers, and there has been no word from the coalition or U.N. to stop work, according to a senior port official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
“If this vital route for supplying food, fuel and medicine is blocked, the result will be more hunger, more people without health care and more families burying their loved ones,” Oxfam’s country director in Yemen, Muhsin Siddiquey, warned last week.
Over 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, which has displaced 2 million more and helped spawn a cholera epidemic. The Saudi-led coalition has been criticized for its airstrikes killing civilians. Meanwhile, the U.N. and Western nations say Iran has supplied the Houthis with weapons from assault rifles up to the ballistic missiles they have fired deep into Saudi Arabia, including at the capital, Riyadh.
The war has also pushed Yemen into near famine. The coalition has blockaded most ports, letting supplies into Hodeida in coordination with the U.N. A Saudi-led airstrike in 2015 destroyed cranes at Hodeida. The United Nations in January shipped in mobile cranes to help unload ships there. The air campaign and fighting has also disrupted supply lines and caused an economic crisis that made food too expensive for many to buy.
The U.N. says some 600,000 people live in and around Hodeida, and “as many as 250,000 people may lose everything – even their lives” in the assault. Already, Yemeni security officials said some were fleeing the fighting.
“We hear sounds of explosions. We are concerned about missiles and shells. Some workers have left to their villages for fear of the war,” said Mohammed, a Hodeida resident who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals.
Aid workers had similar fears.
“We have had more than 30 airstrikes within 30 minutes this morning around the city. Some civilians are entrapped, others forced from their homes,” said Jolien Veldwijk, the acting country director of the aid group CARE International, which works in Hodeida. “We thought it could not get any worse, but unfortunately we were wrong.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had said that U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths was in “intense negotiations” in an attempt to avoid a military confrontation. However, Griffiths’ recent appointment as envoy and his push for new negotiations may have encouraged the Saudi-led coalition to strengthen its hand ahead of any peace talks with the Houthis.
The attack also comes as Washington has been focused on President Donald Trump’s recent summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A statement from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday he spoke with Emirati officials and “made clear our desire to address their security concerns while preserving the free flow of humanitarian aid and life-saving commercial imports.”
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Monday acknowledged the U.S. continues to provide support to the Saudi-led coalition.
“It’s providing any intel, or anything we can give to show no-fire areas where there are civilians, where there’s mosques, hospitals, that sort of thing – (and) aerial refueling, so nobody feels like I’ve got to drop the bomb and get back now,” he said.
It wasn’t immediately clear what specific American support the coalition was receiving Wednesday.
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Associated Press writers Ahmed al-Haj in Sanaa, Yemen; Maggie Michael in Aden, Yemen; and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
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The Latest: Aid group refuses migrants from US Navy ship
The Latest on the flow of migrants into Europe (all times local):
CATANIA, Sicily (AP) – The Latest on the flow of migrants into Europe (all times local):
10:05 p.m.
A German humanitarian group says it is declining to take aboard 41 migrants rescued by a U.S. Navy ship because Italy has refused to assign the group’s ship a port where it can dock.
Sea Watch, whose rescue vessel is operating off Libya’s northern coast, said the migrants were picked up by the Navy after their rubber dinghy sank and at least 12 people died. The group said Wednesday the survivors need immediate care on land.
The group cited Italy’s recent refusal to let another group’s rescue ship dock as the reason it was not taking on the passengers the U.S. Navy ship Trenton rescued Tuesday.
Sea Watch confirmed it had space on board its ship and food for 41 passengers, “but that without an assigned place of safety, Sea-Watch 3 isn’t in a position to carry out a transfer” of migrants from the Trenton.
The U.S. Sixth Fleet says it is coordinating with its partners on where the migrants will go.
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6:10 p.m.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is heading for a showdown with her conservative allies in a dispute over whether to turn back some refugees at the border.
Horst Seehofer, who heads the Bavaria-only sister party to Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, made the proposal as part of a 63-point plan to crack down on illegal migration.
As interior minister, Seehofer oversees border control and migration, and his party is under pressure to take a hard line ahead of state elections in Bavaria this fall.
Seehofer told reporters Wednesday that he wants an agreement this week, and backed the idea of an Italian-Austrian-German “axis” to tackle illegal migration.
Speaking at a separate event, Merkel said she wants a “solution for all of Europe” rather than one that works only for some countries.
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3:10 p.m.
Italy’s finance minister has canceled a planned meeting in Paris with his French counterpart after the two countries clashed over Italy’s decision to refuse entry to a migrant rescue ship.
The office of Finance Minister Giovanni Tria confirmed Wednesday’s meeting with Bruno Le Maire had been scrapped. Le Maire’s office confirmed the cancellation. No reason was given by either office.
But earlier, Italy’s foreign ministry warned that relations had been compromised by France’s public criticism that Italy’s decision to refuse entry to the migrant ship Aquarius had been “cynical” and irresponsible.
Italy summoned the French ambassador to protest and demanded an official apology.
Italy has defended its decision to refuse the Aquarius and its 600 passengers entry. Spain has offered to take it in and the ship is currently on the days long voyage to Valencia.
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2:15 p.m.
The U.N. refugee agency chief says a bitter dispute over which European country should take in a rescue boat carrying hundreds of migrants in the Mediterranean is “profoundly shameful” for the European Union.
Filippo Grandi railed against the dispute involving France, Italy, Malta and Spain over the Aquarius, which is carrying some 629 migrants who left from Libya.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Grandi said the EU can expect more such incidents in coming weeks as long as it remains divided on its policies toward migrants and refugees.
Spain offered to take in the Aquarius after Italy and Malta refused to do so. French President Emmanuel Macron criticized the Italian government’s refusal.
Grandi said closing ports wrongly threatens “rescue at sea” – a requirement under international law – but said Italy’s reasoning was “something that we need to listen to.”
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2 p.m.
France’s foreign ministry spokeswoman says France is fully aware of the burden weighing on Italy amid the migrant crisis, and of the efforts made by the country.
Agnes von der Muhll says “none of the comments by French authorities have questioned this, nor the need for a close coordination between Europeans”, in a written statement Wednesday.
She wouldn’t comment any further on the decision of Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi to summon the French ambassador on Wednesday following comments by the French president on Italy’s refusal to allow a ship carrying rescued migrants to dock.
French President Emmanuel Macron is to meet with new Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Friday in Paris.
Migrant-related issues will be at the heart of the discussions and France hopes to maintain a “close dialogue” with its neighbor, the statement says.
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1:35 p.m.
The leader of Austria and Germany’s conservative interior minister say their countries will cooperate with Italy to tackle the problem of illegal migration.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said an “axis of the willing” between Rome, Vienna and Berlin makes sense because the countries form one of the main travel routes into Europe for migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean.
Kurz told reporters in Berlin that a growing number of European governments agree on the need to curb uncontrolled migration and crack down on people trafficking.
Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, said he spoke Tuesday to his Italian counterpart, adding that the three countries would press ahead on the issue.
Seehofer has taken a tough line on immigration that’s put him at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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1:15 p.m.
Italy’s foreign ministry says French criticism of its handling of the migrant ship Aquarius is “unacceptable,” and is compromising their diplomatic relations.
The ministry issued a statement after Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi summoned the French ambassador to complain on Wednesday. The French charge d’affairs, Claire Anne Raulin, represented France as the ambassador was out of Rome.
In the statement, Italy said France could have made its views privately, and considered the public complaints by President Emmanuel Macron “unacceptable” and “unjustified.” Macron had said Italy had been cynical and irresponsible for having denied entry to the Aquarius, a rescue vessel with more than 600 migrants onboard.
The ministry said: “Such declarations are compromising relations between Italy and France.” It added that Italy was waiting for French to take action to “heal the situation that has been created.”
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11:40 a.m.
Italy is challenging France to take in the migrants it promised to under an EU agreement, and has accused France of turning back some 10,000 migrants at Italy’s northern border.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini blasted the French critique of its handling of the Aquarius migrant ship standoff during a speech to Parliament on Wednesday. Salvini demanded an apology after French President Emmanuel Macron accused Italy of cynical, irresponsible behavior by refusing to let the Aquarius dock in an Italian port.
Salvini said France had committed to accepting 9,816 migrants under a 2015 EU redistribution scheme to relieve front-line countries of the pressure of asylum-seekers. The scheme has never gotten off the ground.
Salvini said in three years, France has accepted only 640 people. “So I ask President Macron to pass from words to action and tomorrow morning welcome the 9,816 France promised to welcome as a sign of concrete generosity and not just words.”
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10:45 a.m.
The co-founder of the SOS Mediterranee charity says three ships carrying 629 migrants are expected to arrive around Saturday night at the Spanish port of Valencia, depending on weather conditions.
Sophie Beau said Wednesday in a news conference in Marseille, France, “it’s a relief for everyone, our teams and of course above all for the survivors to know that they are finally allowed to head to a safe port in Europe.”
Beau said while the rescue ship the association operates, the Aquarius, is travelling the 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to Spain, new victims “are dying under our eyes.”
She called on European countries to set up a fleet to save human lives in the Mediterranean Sea.
Spain offered to welcome migrants aboard the Aquarius rescue ship after Italy and Malta refused to take them in.
Italy sent two ships operated by the Italian navy and coast guard to take on some of the migrant passengers and escort the ship on the voyage.
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10:40 a.m.
Italy’s coast guard says its ship Diciotti has brought 932 migrants to shore in Catania, Sicily, as a diplomatic standoff continues over Italy’s refusal to let another rescue ship dock.
The Diciotti was also carrying the corpses of two people who died during their voyage, a woman and a teenage boy.
Thirteen of the passengers disembarking in Catania are pregnant and 208 are minors. The passengers hailed from Eritrea, Sudan, Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea.
During the voyage to Sicily, four pregnant women and a man suffering from fever were evacuated urgently and taken to hospitals.
The Aquarius migrant ship operated by SOS Mediterranee has been refused entry to Italian ports. It is now heading to Spain.
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9:25 a.m.
Italy has summoned the French ambassador for consultations after French President Emmanuel Macron criticized what he called Italy’s cynicism and irresponsibility in turning away a migrant rescue ship with more than 600 people aboard.
A statement from the foreign ministry said the ambassador had been summoned Wednesday morning “following the statements given in Paris yesterday about the Aquarius.”
Macron’s office said Tuesday that France doesn’t want to “start a precedent” that would allow some European countries to breach international laws and rely on other EU member states to take in migrants.
Spain has agreed to accept the Aquarius in its port in Valencia.
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9:15 a.m.
An Italian coast guard vessel has docked in Sicily with more than 900 migrants aboard, evidence that Italy’s new anti-migrant government is still taking in some asylum-seekers but is forcing the rest of Europe to accept others.
Crew aboard the Diciotti began disembarking passengers in Catania’s port early Wednesday. At the same time, the Aquarius vessel of the aid group SOS Mediterranee continued its days long westward voyage to Spain, where it was rerouted after Italy and Malta refused it entry.
The fates of the two ships are evidence of the policy shift by Italy’s new populist government: refuse entry to rescue ships of European-flagged aid groups, but allow Italian maritime vessels in its ports.
The shift has heightened tensions in Europe, with France accusing Italy of “cynical” and irresponsible behavior.
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Trump tags US media as nation’s ‘biggest enemy’ after summit
President Donald Trump challenged skeptical media coverage of his historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un on Wednesday, declaring that “Fake News” is the nation’s “biggest enemy.”
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump challenged skeptical media coverage of his historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un on Wednesday, declaring that “Fake News” is the nation’s “biggest enemy.”
The president’s tweet, delivered a few hours after Air Force One touched down outside Washington, was reminiscent of his February 2017 Twitter rebuke in which he called several leading news outlets “the enemy of the American people.”
Trump has sought to portray his unprecedented meeting with Kim as a significant accomplishment that has made the world less vulnerable to the North’s nuclear arsenal. Critics say that his agreement with the North lacks specific restraints on Kim’s government and that he offered to end joint military exercises with South Korea with little in return.
The president tweeted after returning from his Singapore summit that “the Fake News, especially NBC and CNN,” are “fighting hard to downplay the deal with North Korea.” He added: “500 days ago they would have ‘begged’ for this deal-looked like war would break out.”
“Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools!” Trump tweeted.
The president also asserted that after his initial round of talks with Kim, there is “no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” Trump’s claim is dubious given that independent experts estimate Pyongyang has enough fissile material for 20 to 60 bombs.
The tweet followed a New York Times story on the Trump administration’s lack of scientific expertise, the president’s questioning of the honesty of the American media at an international summit in Canada and his dismissal of diplomatic expertise in favor of using a “touch” and “feel” approach in his talks with Kim.
Trump has bristled against questions over his decision to meet with Kim, whose country is estimated to have 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners. The president has dubbed his detractors “haters & losers.”
“It’s a mistake to see attacks on the media as separate from those things,” said Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor. “It’s the erosion of the common world of fact. If we can’t agree on what the facts are, if there are no facts because they are in endless dispute, there is no accountability.”
Rosen noted that international summits were often venues for the U.S. president and American journalists to insist on joint news conferences with autocratic leaders or strongmen and their accompanying press corps, a form of soft diplomacy that demonstrated America’s commitment to democratic institutions such as freedom of the press.
While Trump held a news conference at the G-7 summit in Quebec last week, he told reporters during one exchange that he “came up with the term fake news” because many journalists who cover him are “very dishonest.” In response to a journalist representing CNN, Trump criticized the premise of the reporter’s question and then criticized “fake news CNN” as “the worst.”
“Anybody who can exert a factual check on the president, saying ‘Wait a minute, that’s not what happened,’ is to be dismissed, attacked, delegitimized, pushed aside and turned into a hate object,” Rosen said.
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On Twitter, follow Ken Thomas at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC