Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated his demand for a safe zone in Syria exclusively under Turkish armed forces control; however, the Turkish plans, which already face growing regional opposition, threaten to be complicated by Washington’s partial reversal of a decision to militarily pull out of Syria. 

In a television interview on Sunday, Erdogan outlined the need for a 30-kilometer-deep safe zone. The president said the Turkish frontier needed protection from the “terrorist” threat posed by the Syrian Kurdish militia, the YPG. 

“It will be unacceptable for us if the safe zone would be shaped in a way that contradicts with our own strategic understanding,” he said. “If there will be a safe zone on my border, it has to be under our control.”

Ankara says the YPG is linked to a decades-long Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

Speaking at a campaign rally, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar declared that all military preparations had been completed and were “just waiting for an order from our president.” 

Analysts say the timing of the Syrian operation was dependent on the withdrawal of around 2,000 U.S. forces from Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out had been widely interpreted as a “green light” for Ankara to attack the YPG.

Trump on Friday announced that at least 200 troops would remain in Syria. Analysts say the decision could jeopardize Ankara’s plan to intervene in Syria, along with threatening to reopen new tensions with the U.S., a NATO ally. U.S. forces are working closely with the YPG in the war against Islamic State, much to Ankara’s anger.

Erdogan has refrained from criticizing Trump’s latest move. On Sunday, Erdogan described as a ”positive relationship” his dealings with his U.S. counterpart and said they have agreed to meet face-to-face in April. 

Ankara has been careful not to directly attack Trump, despite strained bilateral relations over a myriad of reasons, instead blaming his surrounding ministers and advisers. 

Turkish pro-government media are already touting that the U.S. and Turkish presidents could yet find common ground on Syria.

“After all, the proposed safe zone creates a window of opportunity for Turkey and the U.S. to find a way out of a particularly tense episode in their relations,” wrote columnist Burhanettin Duran in the Daily Sabah. Duran also heads SETA, a Turkish research group with close ties to the government.

Ankara’s possible orientation toward Washington comes as it finds itself increasingly at odds with Tehran and Moscow. 

“Turkey is definitely the top loser in Syria,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar. “Turkey is finding itself increasingly excluded, especially after Sochi.”

Erdogan reportedly failed to sell his “safe zone” plan to his Iranian and Russian counterparts at this month’s summit at the Russian Sochi resort. Even though Ankara is backing the Syrian rebel opposition, it has been recently working closely to end the civil war with Tehran and Moscow, the Damascus government’s main backers.

With Turkish military forces already occupying a broad swath of Syria, analysts suggest Moscow and Tehran are wary of Turkey expanding its control of Syrian territory. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed resurrecting the 1998 Adana Agreement between Damascus and Ankara that allows Turkey to carry out cross-border operations, with Syria’s permission.

“Russia could indeed back Ankara’s undertaking a cross-border operation in the region,” said Sinan Ulgen, head of the Istanbul-based Edam research group, “providing Ankara gets the assent of the (Damascus) regime, and that has proven to be a stumbling block,” Ulgen said.

Turkey severed diplomatic relations with Syria at the beginning of the civil war, although Erdogan acknowledged “low level” communications at an intelligence level are continuing between the countries.

However, even if Ankara restored full diplomatic relations with Syria, Damascus strongly opposes any Turkish intervention.

“Turkey has the new ambition to occupy other people’s land,” said Bouthaina Shaaban, a senior adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad. “I think we are facing Erdogan, who has dreams of reinvigorating and recreating the Ottoman Empire,” added Shaaban, speaking at a conference in Moscow this month. 

Analysts say there are widespread concerns across the Arab world over Turkish forces’ holding of Syrian territory, given Turkey’s imperial past.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is proposing a new initiative in which Russian police would secure Turkey’s Syrian border.

“We have experience in combining cease-fire agreements, safety measures and the creation of de-escalation zones with the roll out of the Russian military police,” said, Lavrov.

Ankara has not so far commented on Lavrov’s proposal. Analysis point out that Ankara is likely to be less than enthusiastic, given Moscow has close ties to the YPG and is seeking to coax the militia into a deal with Damascus. 

Given Turkey’s increasingly isolated position on Syria, Ulgen said, Ankara will need to tread carefully over its safe zone plans.

“Essentially, Ankara does not want to undermine the productive political dialogue with Moscow and find itself totally isolated, given that the (Syrian) regime is against this operation, Iran is against this operation, Moscow is against this operation. If Ankara goes purely unilaterally, it will find Russia challenging its actions,” Ulgen said.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared war on inflation after food prices in the country soared by 30 percent after last year’s collapse of the Turkish currency. In a bid aimed at securing his political future, Erdogan is taking radical measures to curb price increases after accusing food sellers of excessively hiking food prices. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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The famed annual Venice Carnival is in full swing with revelers donning beautiful costumes and extraordinary masks. The masks range from historical classics, to modern, original creations. VOAs Deborah Block takes us to a shop in the city of canals that makes intricate masks by hand.
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The international arms control system is facing collapse, the United Nations chief said Monday, as he urged Russia and the US to stop the imminent demise of a crucial nuclear treaty.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres used an address to the UN’s Conference on Disarmament to warn that one of the cornerstones of diplomatic achievement over the last half century — arms control — was in “grave danger.”

“I will be blunt. Key components of the international arms control architecture are collapsing,” Guterres said.

The United States has already begun the process of withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, in response to Moscow’s deployment of the 9M729 missile, prompting Russia to announce its own withdrawal.

“We simply cannot afford to return to the unrestrained nuclear competition of the darkest days of the Cold War,” Guterres said.

“I call on the parties to the INF Treaty to use the time remaining to engage in sincere dialogue on the various issues that have been raised,” he added. “It is very important that this treaty be preserved.”

The collapse of the 1987 treaty, which banned ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers, has sparked fears of a new arms race in Europe.

The US withdrawal is not set to take effect until August, giving a six-month window to save the treaty, but few expect this to happen and NATO has warned the world should ready itself for the pact’s scrapping.
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Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier came under fire over a congratulatory telegram sent to Iran on the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, with a Jewish community leader on Monday joining a chorus of criticism.

Taking aim at Steinmeier for failing to include criticisms of the Islamic regime in the message, Josef Schuster, who heads Germany’s Central Council of Jews, said that “routine diplomacy appears to have overtaken critical thinking”.

“It is incomprehensible that sensitivity was missing in the topic of Iran in the president’s office,” Schuster told Bild daily.

“If it was necessary to send congratulations on this anniversary, then the president should have at least found some clear words criticizing the regime,” he added.

Human Rights Watch’s director for Germany, Wenzel Michalski, has also called the message “shocking.”

The foreign policy chief of the business-friendly FDP party, Frank Mueller-Rosentritt, said the telegram must have felt like a “resounding slap in the face for our friends in Israel who are exposed to constant threats of annihilation by Iran”.

The telegram has not been made public by the president’s office. But Bild last week quoted excerpts of the message, which it said included Steinmeier’s promise to do all in his power to implement the nuclear deal on limiting Tehran’s atomic program.

The newspaper said however that there was no mention of Tehran’s backing of Hamas and Hezbollah in the message.

At the government’s weekly briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said there had been a “misunderstanding.”

“To our knowledge, the president did not send congratulations for the anniversary of the Islamic revolution. His congratulations were on the occasion of Iran’s national day celebrations. Both days fall on the same day.

“It is common practice for states that have diplomatic relations to send congratulations on national day celebrations,” Breul said on Friday.
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A comedian who is leading Ukraine’s presidential election race has urged his supporters to propose candidates for top government jobs.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who plays the nation’s president in a popular TV series, called on his backers to suggest candidates for prime minister, foreign and defense ministers and other top officials. Zelenskiy said in a video message Monday that Ukrainians have grown sick of presidents naming their friends to key positions.

 

Opinion polls have shown Zelenskiy ahead of incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the runup to the March 31 vote.

 

Zelenskiy’s popularity has been driven both by his TV star status and by public dismay with current leaders. Ukraine has seen economic troubles and a sharp drop in living standards after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

 
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Thousands gathered in central Moscow on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov’s murder.

Although the events were approved by Moscow authorities, police limited access to the northern edge of the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge just outside the Kremlin, where for years a makeshift memorial comprising of plaques, photos, flowers and candles has marked the spot of the 55-year-old’s assassination by gunshot.

It was on the evening of February 27, 2015, when Nemtsov was walking across the bridge when a car stopped alongside him. A gunman emerged from the vehicle and fired multiple shots from a range of several feet, striking Nemtsov in the head, heart, liver and stomach, killing him instantly.

The attack come just hours after the activist had publicly called for a rally to protest Russia’s war in Ukraine. In the days leading up to his assassination, he had said he was preparing to release a damning report entitled “Putin. War” that would undercut Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial that the Kremlin had troops on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

In the center of Moscow, as in other cities across Russia, thousands took to the streets with placards in Russian and English with statements such as “Killed for freedom,” “Are you going to kill us too?” and “Putin is a liar.” Although five men were convicted of Nemtsov’s killing, supporters say those who commissioned the hit have evaded justice.

According to Evan Gershkovich of The Moscow Times, many placards visible at the rally touched on a litany of grievances frequently invoked by the Russia’s anti-Kremlin community — from a 2018 movie theater blaze that killed scores of Siberian children to arrests over political commentary on social media threads. 

“For many demonstrators, the rally … was ultimately less about [Nemtsov’s] death as much as it was about keeping his spirit of opposition alive,” he wrote.

“This is a march in opposition to Vladimir Putin,” one of the event’s organizers, politician Ilya Yashin, said in a video prior to the march. “This is a march for a free and democratic Russia.”

According to the “White counter,” an independent activists group that specializes in assessing rally turnout, the Moscow event drew and estimated 10,600 people

Moscow police reported about 6,000 participants.

The march route, which was coordinated with city officials, didn’t include a stop at Nemtsov’s memorial, but participants planned on walking there to deposit flowers after the rally concluded. They were met by steel slat barriers and police officers, some donning riot gear, who said access to the bridge was restricted.

Attempting to approach the bridge from Red Square, one VOA reporter was told access to the bridge was closed. When asked why the bridge was blocked, the officer gestured to step back. “Be on your way,” he said, point away from the bridge.

Riot control vehicles were visible in an area alongside the bridge.

“For some reason, they decided to make access to the bridge as difficult as possible,” said one protester named Vladimir, who has attended a number of annual Nemtsov memorial rallies. “Maybe they did it hoping that people won’t reach the place. But who wants to come will come. The state, apparently, has decided people will suffer before coming and pay their respect to Boris Nemtsov.”

“At first, we tried to reach the bridge from one entrance. It was closed. Then we tried to go through another one,” added Vladimir, who withheld his last name. “It’s not the first year they are doing this. It’s been expected, there’s nothing new.”

Andrew, who hadn’t planned on attempting to reach the site of the memorial in order to lay flowers there,  made a last-minute effort — and with success.

“[Police] a little bit fenced the place around, and I asked, ‘can I pass?’, and they said ‘yes, you can.’ And then the next behind me tried to pass through, too, but they said, “the passageway is closed.’

“It’s somehow a bit incomprehensible,” Andrew added. “A week ago, I was here, and I could pass. They don’t want people to come here. They’re ruining the memorial here every time flowers are laid. They are afraid.”

Later in the afternoon, police opened one point of access to the memorial — this time from Red Square, where marchers could walk through a gangway cordoned by crowd-control fencing with officers regulating pedestrian access in a seemingly arbitrary way.

Several prominent opposition politicians, including Alexei Navalny, attended the march.

Reports on Ekho Moskvy radio said similar rallies were being held in at least 20 Russian cities. In St. Petersburg, radio reports said, municipal officials denied permits for several memorial events.

Pete Cobus contributed reporting from Moscow. Some information from Reuters.
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A poster at the National Rally’s headquarters outside Paris shows a smiling Marine Le Pen standing alongside Italy’s interior minister and League leader Matteo Salvini. “Everywhere in Europe,” reads the tagline, “our ideas are coming to power.”

The message is more than aspirational. As campaigning heats up for May European Parliament elections, experts predict the two far-right leaders and those of other nationalist movements may score strongly, with potentially sweeping consequences for the European Union.

“Complacency will be very dangerous with these elections,” said analyst Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, who estimates that “anti-European” parties could grab up to one-third or more of the vote. “The idea of change, that the political system is broken, is a very powerful one among European voters.”

Le Pen also sees a potential sea change, calling the upcoming vote a “historic turning point.”

“The European Union is dead,” the National Rally leader said during a recent interview with Anglophone journalists. “Long live Europe.”

If she proves right, the elections will consolidate a trend that has put Euro-skeptics into governments in Hungary, Italy, Austria and Poland, further weakening a union already shaken by internal divisions and Britain’s upcoming departure.

In France, the National Rally has rebounded from a stinging defeat in presidential and parliamentary elections two years ago, to become the country’s leading opposition force. Since taking control of the party her father founded in the 1970s, 50-year-old Le Pen has fundamentally revamped its pugnacious image and rhetoric — including a name tweak last year from its original moniker, the National Front.

From outsider to almost-mainstream

From once-shunned political outsider, the National Rally is now almost mainstream, surfing on the implosion of France’s center-right and center-left in 2017, and a shift in voter support to the political margins.

In a nod to its success, the conservative Les Republicains party has controversially borrowed some of its hardline rhetoric, notably on immigration.

Le Pen has also capitalized on the plummeting support for President Emmanuel Macron and his reformist agenda, seen with the weeks of “yellow vest” protests.

“Instead of offering an alternative to chaos,” she said of the president, “the French got both chaos and Macron.”

For the EU elections, she has tapped 23-year-old loyalist Jordan Bardella to head the party’s list and bolster its appeal to younger voters. Recent polls have shown the National Rally neck-and-neck with Macron’s Republic on the Move, although a survey released Friday found slipping support for the Le Pen’s party.

Still, it has traditionally fared well in EU Parliament elections, coming in first in the last 2014 vote, with nearly a quarter of the vote. Today, Le Pen is banking on a broader win.

“I think Europe is moving toward the return of nation-states, and we’re part of this great political movement supporting this,” she said. “Our goal is to turn the EU into a cooperation among nations, and not this kind of European super state.”

Eroding support for pro-EU parties

An EU Parliament forecast released last week appears to bolster her prediction. While parliament’s top two blocs, the Christian Democrats and Socialists will retain their primacy, it finds their overall share of membership and support is expected to erode.

Meanwhile, nationalist parties including Italy’s League and Le Pen’s National Rally are expected to grow sizably, with the latter predicted to gain six parliamentary seats to reach 21 in total.

Launching their European parliament campaign in Rome last October, Le Pen and Italy’s Salvini predicted a win by nationalist parties would bring “common sense” to Europe, and blasted key EU officials, including European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, as “enemies of the people.”  

Like other European populist leaders, both have sought counsel from Steve Bannon, an EU skeptic and former political advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, who founded a Brussels-based initiative called The Movement.

Europe’s populists are riding on citizen ambivalence and outright antipathy to a bloc many consider too soft on immigration and overly focused on bureaucracy. Recent Eurobarometer surveys show that while two-thirds of Europeans believe their country has benefited from being part of the EU — a 35-year high — only four in 10 have a positive image or trust in it.

A strong showing by euro-skeptic parties could have significant repercussions for the EU, she said, giving them greater influence and access to key posts, including in the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body.

“The challenge for EU institutions and pro-EU politicians going into this elections, is to find issues on which Europe can deliver that will mobilize voters” such as climate change, she added.

Exploiting weaknesses

Nationalist parties also have weaknesses that pro-European ones can exploit, Dennison said, including differences on how to handle immigration. And while some populist parties are calling for nothing less than the EU’s demise, others want to reform, not break it.

In France, the National Rally’s prospects may be complicated by the yellow vest protest movement. Some yellow vests are eyeing an EU Parliament run, but the movement is leaderless and disorganized, and the idea of turning grassroots action into a political force is controversial.

“The yellow vests present both a threat and an opportunity for Marine Le Pen,” said political scientist Jean Petaux, of Sciences-Po Bordeaux University, “They could offer her party a chance to enlarge its audience as the party that listens to their grievances.”

But a yellow vest list could steal votes from the National Rally, he added.  

In Le Pen’s favor is the traditionally poor turnout for EU elections in France, Petaux said, leading to a potentially significant protest vote.  

“When you have a low turnout,” he said, “it is usually those who are against who mobilize — not those who are for.”
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Pope Francis has compared the sexual abuse of children to human sacrifice.

“I am reminded of the cruel religious practice, once widespread in certain cultures, of sacrificing human beings – frequently children – in pagan rites,” Francis said Sunday.  

He was speaking at the close of the summit of the church’s top bishops and leaders, called to design a plan on how to deal with the predatory priests who have sexually abused children and adults for decades.

AFP, the French news agency, reports that the bishops were given a “roadmap” on how to stop the predatory priests that included “drawing up mandatory codes of conduct for priests, training people to spot abuse, and informing police.”

Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference warned the gathered Catholic clergy and leaders that “We do not have forever, and we dare not fail” as they go back to  their dioceses and navigate dealing with reports of abuse.

“We have shown too little mercy,” Coleridge warned, “and therefore we will receive the same.”

Worldwide sexual abuse by priests

The reports of worldwide sexual abuse by priests have rocked the Roman Catholic Church.  

“We will do all in our power to make sure that the horrors of the past are not repeated,” Coleridge said.

On Saturday, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, in an extraordinary admission, said that “files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created.”

Sister Veronica Openibo, a Nigerian nun, addressed the group Saturday:  “We must acknowledge that our mediocrity, hypocrisy and complacency have brought us to this disgraceful and scandalous place we find ourselves as a Church. We pause to pray, Lord have mercy on us.”

She told the summit; “Too often we want to keep silent until the storm has passed.  This storm will not pass by.  Our credibility is at stake.”
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Poland’s ruling party leader has pledged more social benefits for families with children and for the elderly as he opened the right-wing party’s campaign ahead of key elections this year.

Speaking at a party convention Saturday, Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced an upgrade to the generous social program of his Law and Justice party, a policy that has kept the party on top of the political polls since it won power in 2015.

But opinion polls show the party could lose to a united opposition in the European Parliament election in May and in a vote for Poland’s national parliament in the fall. 

Kaczynski, Poland’s most powerful politician, is also facing recent allegations of soliciting a bribe and unlawful participation in business negotiations.

He urged supporters to rally for the party ahead of the elections. His speech drew applause and chants of “Jaroslaw, Jaroslaw!” from party members.

But it also drew criticism from the opposition and economists about the high cost of his promises, at a time when Poland’s health care and education systems remain strapped.

Kaczynski promised to expand family benefits to cover every child, abolish taxes for young employees and raise payouts for retirees.He promised to restore bus connections among small towns and villages that were canceled years ago as unprofitable.

He said the decisions aim to improve “the quality of life, an increase in our freedom and equality” as Poland tries to catch up with richer Western Europe.

Prime Minister Premier Mateusz Morawiecki estimated the costs of the program at up to 40 billion zlotys (9 billion euros) a year, but said he knows how to finance it.
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Iceland’s whaling industry will be allowed to keep hunting whales for at least another five years, killing up to 2,130 baleen whales under a new quota issued by the government.

The five-year whaling policy was up for renewal when Fisheries Minister Kristjan Juliusson announced this week an annual quota of 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales for the next five years.

While many Icelanders support whale hunting, a growing number of businessmen and politicians are against it because of to the North Atlantic island nation’s dependence on tourism.

Whaling vs. tourism

Whaling, they say, is bad for business and poses a threat to the country’s reputation and the expanding international tourism that has become a mainstay of Iceland’s national economy.

The Icelandic Travel Industry Association issued a statement Friday saying the government was damaging the nation’s “great interests” and the country’s reputation to benefit a small whaling sector that is struggling to sell its products.

“Their market for whale meat is Japan, Norway and the Republic of Palau,” the tourism statement said. “Our market is the entire globe.”

Iceland’s Statistics Agency says tourism accounts for 8.6 percent of Iceland’s economic production. In 2016, tourism produced more revenue than Iceland’s fishing industry for the first time.

Quota never filled 

Iceland has four harpoon-equipped vessels, owned by three shipping companies reported to be running them at a loss or small profit. Last year, the industry killed five minke whales and 145 fin whales, according to the Directorate of Fisheries.

Since commercial whale hunting resumed in Iceland in 2006, whaling companies have never killed their full quota. As a result, it’s considered unlikely that all 2,130 whales will be killed under this policy.

The International Whaling Commission imposed a ban on commercial whaling in the 1980s because of dwindling stocks. Japan in December said it was pulling out of the IWC because of its disagreement with that policy. Iceland is still a member of the IWC.
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On the third day of an unprecedented Vatican summit on clerical sexual abuse, the head of the church in Germany, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, said there was clear evidence that files on abuse were manipulated or had been tampered with.

Marx said the church obscured sexual abuse cases and an African nun told the gathering of world bishops to acknowledge the hypocrisy and complacency that had brought it to this disgraceful and scandalous place.

Marx said there was clear evidence that files on abuse were manipulated or had been tampered with.

After bishops spent two days reflecting on the issues of responsibility and accountability, Cardinal Marx used his speech to call for more “traceability and transparency.” 

“Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created. Instead of the perpetrators, the victims were regulated and silence imposed on them,” he said. “The stipulated procedures and processes for the prosecution of offenses were deliberately not complied with, but instead canceled or overridden. The rights of victims were effectively trampled underfoot, and left to the whims of individuals.”

Marx added, “A full-functional church administration is an important building block in the fight against abuse and in dealing with abuse.”

He called for limiting pontifical secrecy in cases of abuse, releasing more statistics and publishing judicial procedures.

In an earlier speech to the assembled church leaders in the Vatican’s synod hall, a prominent Nigerian nun, Sister Veronica Openibo, said the church’s focus “must not be on fear or disgrace” but rather on its mission “to serve with integrity and justice.”

She said that at the present time the church is in “a state of crisis and shame.”

“We must acknowledge that our mediocrity, hypocrisy and complacency have brought us to this disgraceful and scandalous place we find ourselves as a church,” she said.

She spoke of all the atrocities that have been committed by members of the church and urged transparency saying that the church must no longer hide such events out of fear of making mistakes.

“Too often we want to keep silent until the storm has passed. This storm will not pass by. Our credibility as a church is at stake,” Openibo said.

Abuse survivors and demonstrators, meanwhile, held a demonstration in Rome calling for an end to the silence of the Vatican.

Pope Francis, who has come under intense pressure over the failure to deal with increasing cases of clerical sexual abuse, will close the summit on Sunday with a mass attended by all participants and a final speech.
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