တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးသည်ဂရိနိုင်ငံ၌ဂရိဝန်ကြီးချုပ်၊နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးတို့နှင့်တွေ့ဆုံရန်ဆွေးနွေးခဲ့ခြင်း

    တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီး မက်ဗ်လက်ကာဗူဆိုဂလူ (Mevlut Cavusoglu) သည် မေလ ၃၁ ရက်တွင် ဂရိသို့သွားရောက်၍ ဂရိဝန်ကြီးချုပ် ကရီယာကော့ မစ်ဆိုတားကစ် (Kyriakos Mitsotakis) အပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီး နီကိုးစ် ဒန်ဒီရက်စ် (Nikos Dendias) တို့နှင့် တွေ့ဆုံရန်စီစဉ်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ ကာဗူဆိုဂလူသည် ဇွန်လ ၁၄ ရက်တွင် ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်မည့် မြောက်အတ္တလန္တိတ်စာချုပ်ဝင်နိုင်ငံများအဖွဲ့ (NATO) ထိပ်သီးဆွေးနွေးပွဲအတွင်း ဂရိဝန်ကြီးချုပ်နှင့် တူရကီသမ္မတတို့အကြား သီးခြားတွေ့ဆုံမှုတစ်ရပ်ပြုလုပ်နိုင်ရေး ကြိုတင်ပြင်ဆင်ရန်အတွက် ဂရိသို့ အထက်ပါ အတိုင်း ခရီးစဉ်သွားရောက်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ယခင်က ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ တူရကီ နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် ကာဗူဆိုဂလူ၏ ဂရိခရီးစဉ်မတိုင်မီ ဂရိနိုင်ငံရှိ မွတ်စလင် လူနည်းစုများနှင့်ပတ်သက်သည့်ထုတ်ပြန်ချက်အပေါ် ဂရိနိုင်ငံက အပြင်းအထန် ရှုတ်ချခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။

ဆိုက်ပရပ်စ်အာဏာရပါတီသည် အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲတွင် အနိုင်ရရှိခဲ့ခြင်း

Xinhua; May-31(Mon)

    ဆိုက်ပရပ်စ်နိုင်ငံတွင် အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲကို အာဏာရဒီမိုကရက်တစ် စုရုံးခြင်း (Democratic Rally- DISY) ပါတီဦးဆောင်၍ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ မေလ ၃၀ ရက်၌ ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ အဆိုပါရွေးကောက်ပွဲတွင် ယခင်ထက် မဲပေးသည့် ရာခိုင်နှုန်းအရေအတွက် သိသိသာသာလျော့ကျခဲ့ပြီး DISY ပါတီအနေဖြင့် မဲအားလုံး၏ ၂၇.၇၇ ရာခိုင်နှုန်း၊ လက်ဝဲယိမ်းအလုပ်သမားတိုးတက်ရေးပါတီ (Progressive Party of Working People-AKEL) အနေဖြင့် ၂၂.၃၂ ရာခိုင်နှုန်း အသီးသီးရရှိခဲ့ကြောင်း ရွေးကောက်ပွဲကော်မရှင်အကြီးအကဲက မဲအားလုံးကိုရေတွက်ပြီးနောက် ထုတ်ပြန် ကြေညာခဲ့ပါသည်။ DISY ပါတီသည် လွှတ်တော်အမတ် ၅၆ နေရာ ရှိသည့်အနက် ယခင်အနိုင်ရရှိထားသည့် အမတ် ၁၈ နေရာအား ဆက်လက်ထိန်းသိမ်းနိုင်မည့်အပြင် ၂၀၁၆ ခုနှစ်တွင်ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သော ရွေးကောက်ပွဲထက် အမတ် ၁ နေရာပို၍ရရှိရန် ခန့်မှန်းထားပါသည်။ ၂၀၁၆ ခုနှစ်တွင်ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည့် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲမဲပေးမှု အရေအတွက်နှင့် နှိုင်းယှဉ်ပါက DISY ပါတီအနေဖြင့် ၂.၉ ရာခိုင်နှုန်း၊ AKEL ပါတီ အနေဖြင့် ၃.၃ ရာခိုင်နှုန်း အသီးသီးလျော့ကျခဲ့ပါသည်။

    AKEL ပါတီသည် ဆန္ဒမဲပေးသူများအား လက်ခံယုံကြည်လာစေရန် လုပ်ဆောင် နိုင်စွမ်းမရှိသဖြင့် ပါတီအားထောက်ခံသည့် မဲအရေအတွက်သည် တစ်နှစ်ထက် တစ်နှစ်လျော့ကျလျက်ရှိကြောင်း ပါတီ၏အတွင်းရေးမှူးချုပ် အန်ရိုစ်ကေရီအန်နော့ (Antros Kyprianou) က ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ အဆိုပါရွေးကောက်ပွဲသို့ ပါတီပေါင်း ၁၅ ခုမှ ကိုယ်စားလှယ်လောင်း ၆၅၀ ဦး ဝင်ရောက်ယှဉ်ပြိုင်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ ယခုနှစ်တွင် ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည့်ရွေးကောက်ပွဲသို့ ဝင်ရောက်ယှဉ်ပြိုင်ခဲ့သည့် ပါတီအရေအတွက်နှင့် ကိုယ်စားလှယ်လောင်း အရေအတွက်သည် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲတစ်လျှောက် အများဆုံး အရေအတွက်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ဆိုက်ပရပ်စ်နိုင်ငံ၏ သမ္မတအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးစနစ်အရ အာဏာရ ပါတီသည် လွှတ်တော်အတွင်း အမတ်နေရာအများစုမရရှိခြင်းသည် အစိုးရအဖွဲ့၏ တည်ငြိမ်မှုကို သက်ရောက်မှုမရှိနိုင်သော်လည်း သမ္မတ နီကိုးစ်အက်နာစတာဆီရာဒစ် (Nicos Anastasiades) အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံစီးပွားရေးအား ကောင်းမွန်စွာပြန်လည် လုပ်ဆောင်နိုင်စေရန်အတွက် ပါတီငယ်များနှင့် မဟာမိတ်ဖွဲ့ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။

ဆိုက်ပရပ်စ်နိုင်ငံတွင်လွှတ်တော်ရွေးကောက်ပွဲပြုလုပ်ကျင်းပခဲ့ခြင်း

        ဆိုက်ပရပ်စ်နိုင်ငံတွင် မေလ ၃၀ ရက်က လွှတ်တော်ရွေးကောက်ပွဲများ ပြုလုပ် ကျင်းပခဲ့ရာ နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီ ၁၅ ခုမှ ကိုယ်စားလှယ်လောင်း ၆၅၈ ဦးဝင်ရောက်ယှဉ်ပြိုင် ခဲ့ပါသည်။ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲအတွက် နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝန်း မဲရုံပေါင်း ၁,၁၆၆ ရုံ ဖွင့်လှစ်ထားရှိပြီး နံနက် ၇ နာရီမှ ညနေ ၆ နာရီထိ မဲပေးနိုင်ရန်သတ်မှတ်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ ယှဉ်ပြိုင်ခဲ့သည့် ကိုယ်စားလှယ်လောင်းများအနက် ၁၆၀ ဦးမှာအမျိုးသမီးများဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ဆိုက်ပရပ်စ် လွှတ်တော်၌ သာမန်အားဖြင့် အမတ်နေရာ ၈၀ ရှိသော်လည်း အမတ်နေရာ ၅၆ နေရာ ကိုသာ ဆိုက်ပရပ်စ်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်လောင်းများက ဝင်ရောက်ယှဉ်ပြိုင်ခွင့်ရှိပါသည်။ ကျန်ရှိ သည့် အမတ်နေရာ ၂၄ နေရာကို တူရကီလူမျိုးများအတွက် သီးခြားထားရှိသော်လည်း ၁၉၆၄ ခုနှစ်မှစ၍ ယခုထက်တိုင် လစ်လပ်လျက်ရှိကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။

တူရကီနှင့်အမေရိကန်နိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာဆွေးနွေးမှုများကိုတာဝန်ရှိသူများမှပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ခြင်း

    တူရကီနှင့် အမေရိကန်တို့မှ တာဝန်ရှိသူများသည် မေလ ၂၉ ရက်တွင် အစ္စတန်ဘူလ်မြို့၌ နှစ်နိုင်ငံဆက်ဆံရေးဆိုင်ရာကိစ္စရပ်များနှင့် ဒေသတွင်းကိစ္စရပ်များ နှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ ဆွေးနွေးမှုများပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ တူရကီသမ္မတ၏ ပြောရေးဆိုခွင့်ရှိသူ အီဘရာဟင်ခါလင် (Ibrahim Kalin) နှင့် အမေရိကန်လက်ထောက်နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီး ဝင်ဒီရှာမန် (Wendy Sherman) တို့သည် ဇွန်လ ၁၄ ရက်၌ ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်မည့် နေတိုး အဖွဲ့ ထိပ်သီးအစည်းအဝေးအစီအစဉ်များနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ ဆွေးနွေးပြောဆိုခဲ့ကြပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် နေတိုးအဖွဲ့ထိပ်သီးအစည်းအဝေးတွင် တူရကီသမ္မတနှင့် အမေရိကန်သမ္မတတို့ သီးခြားတွေ့ဆုံနိုင်မည့် အလားအလာများနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍လည်း

Cyprus election: far-right party linked to Greek neo-Nazis doubles vote share

Sun 30 May 2021

A far-right party with links to Greece’s defunct neo-Nazi Golden Dawn has doubled its support in Cyprus after widespread disaffection over corruption scandals dominated elections for a new parliament on Sunday.

The National Popular Front (Elam) garnered 6.8% of the vote, narrowly replacing the Movement of Social Democrats (Edek) as the fourth biggest political force in the island’s Greek Cypriot party system for the first time in 45 years.

“A neo-Nazi party is the clear winner of today’s election, securing two more seats in the 56-member house,” said Christophoros Christophorou, an analyst specialising in electoral behaviour. “It has benefited from a xenophobic climate exacerbated by the high rate of arrivals of undocumented migrants and a government that has often adopted its own racist narrative.”

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The EU’s most easterly member state, Cyprus has the highest per capita number of first-time asylum seekers in the 27-member bloc.

The vote had been contested by 659 candidates from a record 15 political groups as anger mounted among Greek Cypriots over revelations of malpractice in the highest echelons of power.

“Corruption has led to an unprecedented alienation of voters,” Christophorou added. “Fifteen percent of the electorate will not be represented because they voted for smaller parties that failed to cross the threshold and enter parliament.”

At 66%, voter turnout was also low, a sign of the apathy that many had predicted would also prevail as a result of disillusionment with mainstream parties.

Elam’s showing marked a clear victory for a party whose affiliation with the now outlawed Golden Dawn had done little to dent its appeal for a nationalist-minded constituency also enraged by reports of corruption among elected officials.

In power since 2013, President Nicos Anastasiades’ administration has been badly hit by allegations of corruption linked mostly to a controversial cash-for-passports scheme that has helped transform the seashore city of Limassol with gargantuan apartment blocks built with the sole purpose of luring investors.

In a rare display of public opprobrium that has not gone unnoticed by Turkish Cypriots in the island’s breakaway north, Greek Cypriots have held mass demonstrations to deplore corruption and demand a solution to Cyprus’s division. The 74-year-old president has robustly rejected any accusations of wrongdoing.

With almost 100% of the vote counted, Anastasiades’ rightwing Democratic Rally (DYSI) clinched 27.8% of the vote, followed by the leftwing Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), polling at 22.3%; the Democratic party (Diko) at 11.3%; and Edek at 6.7%. Democratic Front (DIPA), a group of Diko dissidents, also managed to enter the house after winning 6.1% of the vote.

The Green party, which had been predicted to improve its performance, won 4.4% of the vote, a drop of 0.4 percentage points on 2016.

Elam’s ability to emerge as an anti-establishment force despite Cyprus’s mainstream DYSI and AKEL parties retaining their position as the island’s two largest political groups is likely to make the quest to end the country’s division harder.

The nationalists reject any notion of reuniting Cyprus – split along ethnic lines since a coup aimed at union with Greece prompted Turkey to invade in 1974 – as a bizonal, bicommunal federation, the position long held by the Greek Cypriot side.

Anastasiades has also faced criticism from those who want a settlement, with many accusing him of missing the opportunity to come to an agreement when the pro-solution Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı was in power. The moderate was ousted by a hardliner last year who may well exploit Sunday’s electoral result to press the case for a two-state solution.

Nicos Trimikliniotis, professor of sociology at the University of Nicosia, said Elam’s rise was testimony to the tolerance the extremists had been granted by an administration that often needed the party’s support to pass legislation.

“By allowing the neo-Nazi Elam to operate as a reserve force, the government has helped undermine the democratic fabric of society and trust in institutions,” he said. “Elam has played a destructive role in shifting the rhetoric more to the right and enabling public discourse to become more racist and anti-immigrant at a time when ever more asylum seekers are arriving on Cyprus.”

The party is led by Christos Christou, a 40-year-old former bouncer who previously lived in Athens, where he was a member of Golden Dawn and had close ties to its now imprisoned chief, Nikos Michaloliakos. Unlike the mainland Greek group, however, whose entire leadership was jailed after it was judged to be a criminal organisation last year, Elam has not been accused of attacking migrants or embracing tactics of blind violence.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/30/far-right-cyprus-election-parliament

 

Voters head to polls in Cyprus parliamentary election

30 May 2021
Cyprus voters went to the polls Sunday for parliamentary elections amid simmering public anger over the “golden passports” corruption scandal on the Mediterranean island.

More than 10 political parties or formations are seeking 56 seats in a vote that will likely not produce an absolute majority. Elections are held every five years, and political parties are anxious to avoid a repeat of 2016 when one in three registered voters abstained.
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Some 558,000 people are eligible to vote, and polling stations close at 15:00 GMT.

Casting his ballot, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades urged citizens to “abandon the couch” and vote so they won’t “give others the right to decide for them”.

Among the parties projected to make gains is the far-right ELAM party, whose strong showing in the previous election five years ago surprised many.

Ultra-nationalists looking to exploit the anti-establishment mood have played on concerns over migration, another hot-button issue for the European Union’s most easterly member state.

As usual, the election will be limited to government-held areas, excluding the northern third of the island where a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state holds sway.

“There is a very unhappy electorate fed up with the political elite and parliament,” said Hubert Faustmann, professor of history and political science at the University of Nicosia.

“People are fed up with corruption in public life.”

Last November, Cyprus dropped its controversial passport-for-investment scheme after Al Jazeera aired a documentary showing reporters posing as fixers for a Chinese businessman seeking a Cyprus passport despite having a criminal record.Parliament was at the centre of the furore after speaker Demetris Syllouris and an opposition MP were secretly filmed allegedly trying to facilitate the passport for the fugitive investor.

They later resigned, although both insisted they were innocent of any wrongdoing.

The other issue is migration as Cyprus has the highest per capita number of first-time asylum seekers in the 27-member bloc, according to the Eurostat statistics agency.

The government has said Cyprus is in a “state of emergency” because of migrant streams from war-torn Syria and elsewhere.
Decades-old division

Unusually for Cyprus, the decades-old division between the island’s Greek and Turkish communities has played little part in this year’s election campaign.

The last round of UN-backed reunification talks collapsed in acrimony in 2017 and a UN summit in Geneva last month failed to reach an agreement on resuming talks.

The conservative DISY party is expected to remain the largest in parliament but again without a majority, forcing President Nicos Anastasiades to continue to rule through a minority government.

Cyprus has an executive system of government with the president elected separately, but the vote will gauge the popularity of Anastasiades whose term expires in 2023.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/30/voters-head-to-polls-in-cyprus-parliamentary-election

Turkey says outstanding issues with Greece should be solved bilaterally

 30.05.2021

Greece should avoid using the EU as a trump card against Turkey and embrace the current positive momentum, Turkey's foreign minister said on Sunday.

"Only Turkey and Greece can solve the outstanding problems, not the EU," Mevlut Cavusoglu said in an interview to Greek daily To Vima.

The foreign minister is on a two-day visit to Greece, with meetings scheduled in Western Thrace and Athens.

Cavusoglu expressed his satisfaction at reviving most of the channels for dialogue.

He said that he is always optimistic about good neighborly relations between Turkey and Greece.

"As two neighbors, we are destined to live in the same geography. Therefore, we should define our relationship with cooperation rather than conflict. It is in our hands to determine our destiny and the way forward," he said.

He stressed the talks he holds in Greece will serve to prepare the ground for a meeting to be held at the NATO Summit between Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and drew attention to the importance of sustainable constructive dialogue in bilateral relations.

The minister said that Turkey is ready to discuss any controversial issue with Greece.

"However, Greece should give up the 'Map of Seville'. Neither the US nor the EU endorses this map. I must reiterate that it is a mistake made by the Greeks to think that Turkey will be limited to the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts only."

Under the so-called Seville map the small Greek islands near the Turkish shore are seen as having huge continental shelves, supposedly superseding the shelf of the large Turkish mainland.

It represents Greek and Greek Cypriots' maximalist maritime jurisdiction claims in the Eastern Mediterranean, which has no legal validity, and was declared legally invalid both by the US and EU.

'Political will on EU side'

Cavusoglu underlined that his country is willing to develop a trust-based positive agenda in Turkey-EU relations.

"Yes, there are grounds for such an agenda. We see political will on the EU side, with the exception of some member states that tend to abuse membership solidarity and veto power," he asserted.

Noting that this momentum should not be lost, Cavusoglu said: "The positive agenda should be based on concrete and meaningful steps that are mutually agreed upon."

Pointing to the need to adopt a more holistic geopolitical perspective on this issue, he said that Turkey's accession to the EU is the "most important geopolitical investment" that the EU can make for Europe and beyond.

Oruc Reis vessel activities

Cavusoglu highlighted that Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis carries out its activities at locations within the continental shelf of Turkey.

"We are determined to protect the rights of both Turkey and Turkish Cypriots in the face of the unilateral and maximalist claims of Greece and Greek Cypriots."

Recalling their calls for dialogue to alleviate the tense situation in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cavusoglu emphasized that these calls were ignored by Greece.

Ankara has sent several drill ships to explore for energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean, asserting its own rights in the region, as well as those of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Turkey, which has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, has rejected maritime boundary claims of Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration and stressed that the excessive claims violate the sovereign rights of both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.

Noting that the Turkey-Libya agreement on maritime boundaries signed in 2019 was signed by two sovereign states based on international law, Cavusoglu stressed that this agreement was also approved by the Libyan Government of National Accord.

In November 2019, Turkey and Libya signed pacts on security cooperation and maritime boundaries. Turkey has also aided Libya's UN-recognized government against attacks by militias loyal to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar.

Aegean Sea

Cavusoglu stated that they respect the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the sovereign rights of each country.

"The Aegean Sea has its own features. The delimitation of the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone are not the only problems between the two countries. The reality is that in a theoretical situation where we would only confine the continental shelf and the EEZ, we would not be able to solve all the outstanding problems and we would continue to have problems. That's what we want to avoid," he said.

He went on to say that the breadth of territorial waters in the Aegean is a prominent issue, adding that Turkey does not categorically reject territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles "where conditions allow."

The Black Sea or the Ionian Sea is an example of such an approach, he said.

"However, with 12 nautical miles of territorial waters in the Aegean Sea, freedom of navigation will be seriously affected from the outset. We cannot allow such an extension.

"The dispute over the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty and the 1947 Peace Treaty over the legal status of islands, islets and reefs and demilitarized Greek islands cannot be isolated or ignored," he added.

"As I said, our ultimate goal is to solve all the problems with Greece and not just save the day, but reach a permanent solution."

Cyprus issue

Speaking on the Cyprus issue, Cavusoglu said that the vision of the Turkish side is to establish a working relationship between the two states on the Island on the basis of sovereign equality and equal international status.

"We should all learn from the failures of the past. Insisting on old UN Security Council resolutions can only get us into a vicious circle," he said.

He stressed that therefore the parties need to "chart a new path forward" with a realistic, constructive and open-minded approach.

Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long struggle between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the UN to achieve a comprehensive settlement.

The island has been divided since 1964, when ethnic attacks forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety. In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aiming at Greece’s annexation led to Turkey’s military intervention as a guarantor power. The TRNC was founded in 1983.

The Greek Cypriot administration, backed by Greece, became a member of the EU in 2004, although most Greek Cypriots rejected a UN settlement plan in a referendum that year, which had envisaged a reunited Cyprus joining the EU.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/turkey-says-outstanding-issues-with-greece-should-be-solved-bilaterally/2258854

 

Cyprus’ conservatives cling to top spot as far right surges in parliament vote

 The far-right Elam party made the most substantial gains, doubling its support.

May 30, 2021 9:50 pm

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Cyprus’ ruling center-right Democratic Rally clung to its top spot in Sunday’s parliamentary election, but lost significant ground amid voter discontent over corruption scandals that fueled the rise of a far-right rival.

According to official results with all votes counted, the Democratic Rally, also known as Disy, secured 27.8 percent compared to 30.7 percent in the 2016 election — the party’s worst result in 40 years.

The main opposition, the communist Akel party, was also weakened, winning 22.3 percent, down from 25.7 percent in 2016, while the centrist Diko party came in third at 11.3 percent compared to 14.5 percent in 2016.

The far-right Elam made the most substantial gains, jumping to fourth place with 6.8 percent from seventh in 2016 and doubling its support. The socialist Edek party came in fifth place with 6.7 percent, the centrists Democratic Front in sixth and the Greens in seventh place.

“We will roll up our sleeves and we continue,” Disy’s leader, Averof Neofytou, wrote on Twitter. “In the Democratic Rally, we will start working from the next day. I warmly thank our fellow citizens who trusted us once again. They withstood the intensity of the pre-election period. They recognized our effort.”

Andros Kyprianou, secretary general of Akel, said he was ready to take responsibility for his party’s poor results, saying they had “failed to convince, mainly that we are not all the same. The result is not what we expected.”

The election campaign was marred by corruption allegations, most prominently related to the country’s so-called “golden visa” cash-for-passports scheme. The government suspended it last November after Al Jazeera reported that high-ranking Cypriot officials, politicians, lawyers and developers were willing to help convicted criminals obtain citizenship through the scheme. The parliament speaker from Disy resigned after being implicated in the report, though he denied wrongdoing.

“The election process is dominated by the corruption scandals and the aftermath of the controversial passport for investment program,” said Gregoris Ioannou, a political sociologist and research fellow at the University of Glasgow. He also pointed to turnout falling from 66.7 percent in 2016 to 63.9 percent on Sunday. “Dissatisfaction is evident in the decline in support for big parties and high abstention rate. There is also growing anger regarding the handling of the pandemic, as the management was considered in several cases authoritarian.”

The result will not impact the composition of the government, which is determined by the executive, but is seen as a test of the administration’s popularity ahead of a presidential election in 2023. President Nicos Anastasiades is serving his second, five-year term and has previously said he won’t run for a third.

Sunday’s results will, however, likely make it harder for Anastasiades to pass legislation as his Disy party is expected to have 17 lawmakers in the country’s 56-seat parliament, down by one, while smaller parties gained more seats. A record of 658 candidates representing 15 parties ran in the election with a voting population of around 550,000.

Anastasiades was already having a hard time winning support in the fragmented parliament, which rejected his annual budget in December — a first for any government — before a deal was ultimately reached in January.

“I call on the patriotism that distinguishes, or must distinguish every political force, in order to respond to the mandate of the people, putting aside pre-election intentions,” Anastasiades told reporters late on Sunday. “I am determined to move in this direction. I intend to invite the leaders of the parties of the new parliament so that we can jointly seek with consensus and conciliation the roadmap for the future of our country.”

Elam is an offshoot of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, whose leaders were last year found guilty of running a criminal organization and sentenced to several years in prison. 

“Disy is losing many voters to Elam,” said Ioannou. “The far-right party managed not to be identified greatly with Golden Dawn and has not suffered damage, quite the opposite.”

The decades-old question of reunification with the island’s Turkish north — whose statehood is recognized only by Ankara — was not a major topic in the election campaign. A recent U.N.-backed summit between leaders from the island failed to find enough common ground to resume formal talks on a settlement.

https://www.politico.eu/article/cyprus-ruling-conservatives-center-right-democratic-rally-parliamentary-election/

 

တူရကီနိုင်ငံတွင်တွေ့ရှိသည့်ရေနံသိုက် ၃ ခုမှ ရေနံတူးဖော်မှုများလုပ်ဆောင်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ခြင်း

        တူရကီနိုင်ငံအနေဖြင့် ဒီယာဘာကီရာ (Diyarbakia) နှင့် ကာကလာရီလီ (Kirklareli) စီရင်စုတို့၌ အသစ်တွေ့ရှိသည့် ရေနံသိုက် ၃ ခုမှ ရေနံတူးဖော်မှုများ လုပ်ဆောင်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း တူရကီစွမ်းအင်ဝန်ကြီး ဖာတက်ခ်ဒွန်မက်ခ် (Fatih Donmez) က မေလ ၂၇ ရက်တွင် ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ တူရကီသည် ပင်လယ်နက် အတွင်း သဘာဝဓာတ်ငွေ့ ၄၀၅ ဘီလီယံကုဗမီတာ တွေ့ရှိပြီးနောက် နိုင်ငံအတွင်း နောက်ထပ်ရေနံသိုက် ၃ ခု ထပ်မံတွေ့ရှိခဲ့ခြင်းဖြစ်ကြောင်း ၎င်းက ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ ၎င်းရေနံသိုက် ၃ ခုသည် နေ့စဉ်ရေနံစည်ပေါင်း ၆,၈၀၀ ကုဗမီတာ ထုတ်လုပ်နိုင် မည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၎င်းအပြင် တူရကီနိုင်ငံ၏ နေ့စဉ်ပျှမ်းမျှရေနံထုတ်လုပ်မှုမှာ ရေနံစည်ပေါင်း ၆၁,၀၀၀ ကျော်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း သမ္မတ ရီဆက်တေရစ်အာဒိုဂန် (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) က မေလ ၂၇ ရက်တွင် ပြောကြားခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။

တူရကီနိုင်ငံအနေဖြင့် လက်တင်အမေရိက၊ ကာရေဘီယံနိုင်ငံများနှင့် ဆက်ဆံရေးကို ဆက်လက်ထိန်းသိမ်းသွားမည်ဆိုခြင်း

Anadolu Agency; May-27(Thu)

        တူရကီနိုင်ငံသည် အချို့သော လက်တင်အမေရိကနိုင်ငံများဖြစ်သည့် ကော်စတာရီကာ၊ အယ်လ်ဆာဗေးဒိုး၊ ဂွာတီမာလာ၊ မက္ကဆီကို၊ ပနားမားနှင့် ပီရူးနိုင်ငံ တို့၏ လွတ်လပ်ရေးရရှိခဲ့သည့် နှစ်(၂၀၀)ပြည့် အထိမ်းအမှတ်အဖြစ် ယဉ်ကျေးမှုနှင့် ပညာရေးဆိုင်ရာလှုပ်ရှားမှုများတွင် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားရန် စီစဉ်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက မေလ ၂၇ ရက်တွင် ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ဘရာဇီးလ်နိုင်ငံ၌ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်၌လည်းကောင်း၊ တူရကီနိုင်ငံ၌ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်၌လည်းကောင်း ပြည့်မြောက်မည့် နှစ်(၁၀၀)ပြည့် လွတ်လပ်ရေးနေ့အထိမ်းအမှတ်အခမ်းအနားကိုလည်း ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထည့်သွင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာနမှ ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များနှင့် အဆိုပါ လက်တင်အမေရိကဒေသနိုင်ငံများ၏ သံတမန်အကြီးအကဲများသည် တူရကီနိုင်ငံရှိ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ဂူဗိမာန်တွင် အောက်မေ့ဖွယ်အခမ်းအနားနှင့်အတူ ၎င်းတို့နိုင်ငံများ၏အထိမ်းအမှတ် အခမ်းအနား များအား စတင်ကျင်းပခဲ့ကြကြောင်း တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့ ပါသည်။

    တူရကီနိုင်ငံအနေဖြင့် လက်တင်အမေရိကဒေသတွင်းနိုင်ငံများနှင့် သံတမန်ရေး၊ နိုင်ငံရေး၊ စီးပွားရေးနှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဆိုင်ရာ ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်မှုများမှာ နှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ ကြာမြင့်လျက်ရှိပြီဖြစ်ကြောင်း အလေးပေးဖော်ပြခဲ့ပါသည်။ ပြီးခဲ့သည့် ဆယ်စုနှစ် ၂ ခု အတွင်း တူရကီ၏ လက်တင်အမေရိကဒေသနိုင်ငံများအပေါ် နေရပ်ဒေသကျော် ကူညီ ထောက်ပံ့ရေးမူဝါဒကြောင့် ၎င်းတို့၏နိုင်ငံများအကြား ဆက်ဆံရေးမှာ ခိုင်မာအားကောင်း၍ တိုးတက်မှုများရှိခဲ့ပြီး တူရကီ၏ မဟာဗျူဟာမြောက်ကဏ္ဍတစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်လာခဲ့ပါသည်။ လက်ရှိအချိန်တွင် အဆိုပါနိုင်ငံများနှင့်ဆက်ဆံရေး ခိုင်မာအားကောင်းမှုကိုအခြေခံ၍ ထပ်မံပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းဖြင့် တိုးတက်မှု၏အလားအလာများကို မြှင့်တင်ဆောင်ရွက် သွားရမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်းကိုလည်း တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက မှတ်ချက်ပြုပြောကြား ခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။

တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီး ဂရိနိုင်ငံမြောက်ပိုင်း ကဗလာမြို့သို့ချစ်ကြည်ရေးသွားရောက်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ခြင်း

        တူရကီဒုတိယနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီး ဆီဒတ်အိုနယ်လ် (Sedat Onal) သည် မေလ ၂၉ ရက်တွင် ဂရိနိုင်ငံမြောက်ပိုင်း ကဗလာ (Kavala) မြို့သို့ ချစ်ကြည်ရေးခရီး သွားရောက်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက မေလ ၂၆ ရက်တွင်‌ ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ အိုနယ်လ်သည် ၎င်းချစ်ကြည်ရေးခရီးစဉ်အတွင်း ဂရိဒုတိယ နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီး ကိုစတာစ်ဖရာဂိုဂျီယာနစ်(Kostas Fragogiannis) နှင့် တွေ့ဆုံသွား မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း တူရကီနိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ပြောကြားထားပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ၎င်းတွေ့ဆုံမှုအတွင်း နှစ်နိုင်ငံအကြားရှိ ပင်လယ်ရေကြောင်းနယ်နိမိတ်ကန့်သတ်ရေး အပါအဝင် ဆိုက်ပရပ်အရေးကိစ္စနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ ဆွေးနွေးမှုများပြုလုပ်သွားမည်ဖြစ် ကြောင်း အဆိုပါဌာန၏ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်အရ သိရှိရပါသည်။

တူရကီနှင့် အမေရိကန်သမ္မတတို့သည် နေတိုးထိပ်သီးအစည်းအဝေးအတွင်း သီးခြားတွေ့ဆုံသွားမည်ဆိုခြင်း

Anadolu Agency;May-27(Thu)

        တူရကီသမ္မတ ရီဆက်တေရစ်အာဒိုဂန် (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) က ၎င်းအနေဖြင့် အမေရိကန်သမ္မတ ဂျိုးဘိုင်ဒင် (Joe Biden) နှင့် လာမည့်ဇွန်လ ၁၄ ရက် တွင်ကျင်းပမည့် နေတိုးထိပ်သီးအစည်းအဝေးအတွင်း သီးခြားတွေ့ဆုံဆွေးနွေးမှု ပြုလုပ်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ပြီး အဆိုပါတွေ့ဆုံဆွေးနွေးမှုမှတစ်ဆင့် နှစ်နိုင်ငံဆက်ဆံရေးတွင် ကောင်းမွန်သည့်အလားအလာအသစ်များ ပြန်လည်စတင်လာနိုင်ကြောင်း မေလ ၂၆ ရက် တွင် ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ အမေရိကန်နှင့် တူရကီနိုင်ငံတို့သည် သဘောထားကွဲလွဲ မှုများကိုကျော်လွှားနိုင်ခဲ့ပြီး ရေရှည်ခိုင်မာအားကောင်းသည့် မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေး ရရှိစေရန်အတွက် အလေးထားဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိကြောင်း အာဒိုဂန်က ပြောကြားခဲ့ ပါသည်။ အဆိုပါတွေ့ဆုံမှုသည် တူရကီနိုင်ငံမှ ရုရှားထုတ် S-400 လေကြောင်းရန် ကာကွယ်ရေးစနစ်များဝယ်ယူမှုနှင့် အမေရိကန်ကျောထောက်ခံပြု ကာ့ဒ်စစ်သွေးကြွ အဖွဲ့ဝင်များ၏ ကိစ္စရပ်များအပါအဝင် နှစ်နိုင်ငံဆက်ဆံရေးတင်းမာမှု မြင့်တက်ခဲ့ပြီး နောက် ပထမဆုံးအကြိမ် ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာခဲ့ခြင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။

    အမေရိကန်နှင့် တူရကီနိုင်ငံတို့သည် လစ်ဗျားနှင့် ဆီးရီးယားအရေး၊ အကြမ်းဖက် ဝါဒတိုက်ဖျက်ရေး၊ ကုန်သွယ်ရေးနှင့်ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှု စသည့်ကဏ္ဍတို့၌ ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်မှု များလုပ်ဆောင်ရန်အတွက် ကောင်းမွန်သည့်အလားအလာများရှိကြောင်း အာဒိုဂန်က ထည့်သွင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် နှစ်နိုင်ငံအကြား ဆက်ဆံရေးတိုးတက်လာစေရန် အတွက် အမေရိကန်နိုင်ငံအတွင်း ရပ်တည်လှုပ်ရှားဆောင်ရွက်နေသည့် ဂူလန်လှုပ်ရှားမှု (Gulen movement) များနှင့် တူရကီအစိုးရက အကြမ်းဖက်အဖွဲ့အဖြစ်ကြေညာထား သည့် ကာဒ့်အလုပ်သမားပါတီ (Kurdistan Worker’s Party-PKK) အား ထောက်ခံ နေမှုဆိုင်ရာကိစ္စရပ်များအား နှစ်နိုင်ငံအကြား ဆွေးနွေးသွားရမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် တူရကီနိုင်ငံအနေဖြင့် ၎င်း၏မိတ်ဖက်နိုင်ငံများနှင့် မကြာခဏ သဘောထားကွဲလွဲမှု များရှိခဲ့သော်လည်း ပြဿနာရပ်များအားကျော်လွားနိုင်ရန် ကိုင်တွယ်ဖြေရှင်းနိုင်ခဲ့ ကြောင်း အာဒိုဂန်က ပြောကြားခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။

Meeting with Biden to be 'harbinger of new era' in relations: Erdoğan

 26.5.2021

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said late Wednesday that he believes his first in-person meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden next month will mark the beginning of a new era.

“I believe that our meeting with Mr. Biden at the NATO summit will be the harbinger of a new era,” Erdoğan said in a televised address while holding a roundtable call with a group of executives from large U.S. companies.

The videoconference was held to discuss reforms and investing in Turkey as well as highlight the growing cooperation between the two countries.

The meeting included officials from Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft, Kellogg, PepsiCo, Cisco, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson, according to a video aired on Turkish TV.

Erdoğan thanked the companies that believed in Turkey and requested the U.S. corporate executives improve ties with the country.

“We value our long-standing, rooted and multidimensional alliance with the U.S.,” Erdoğan said.

“Although there are differences of ideas from time to time, our partnership and alliance have managed to overcome all kinds of predicaments.”

In their first phone call since the American president assumed office in January, Erdoğan and Biden last month agreed to meet on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels on June 14.

“From Syria to Libya, and from fighting against terrorism to energy, and from trade to investments, we have a serious potential of cooperation with the U.S.,” the president said.

Ankara and Washington disagree on a number of issues that have further strained bilateral ties; from Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems to U.S. support for the YPG terrorist group, as well as the U.S. refusal to extradite Fetullah Gülen, leader of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).

The purchase of the Russian-made systems in 2019 prompted the Donald Trump administration to remove Turkey from a consortium producing F-35 fighter jets.

The U.S. argued that the system was incompatible with NATO systems and could potentially be used by Russia to covertly obtain classified information on the F-35 jets.

Turkey, however, insists that the S-400 would not be integrated into NATO systems and would not pose a threat to the alliance.

Washington in December decided to impose sanctions on Turkey over the purchase.

It marked the first time a NATO member state has been sanctioned for buying Russian arms.

Economic cooperation mechanisms

Erdoğan stressed that Turkey has exerted its full efforts to ensure the politics do not damage trade.

He emphasized that Turkey and the U.S. should bring to life mechanisms for economic strategy and partnership, stressing the aim to bring the annual volume of trade between the two countries up to $100 billion (TL 845.63 billion).

“To achieve our goal of $100 billion in trade volume, we need a sincere, respectful, approach based on common interests and values,” the president said.

Turkey-U.S. trade reached about $21 billion in 2019 and the NATO allies have said they aim to lift that to $100 billion.

Bilateral trade has been on a steady rise over the last several years, and even the coronavirus pandemic could not prevent the volume from exceeding $20 billion in 2020.

More than 1,700 American firms with total assets of $31.2 billion operate in Turkey and provide employment to 78,000 people.

“The total amount of U.S. investments in Turkey has reached $13 billion,” the president said.

Simplifying incentive system

By simplifying the incentive system, he said the country would make it easier for investors to take advantage of incentives.

“We pay special attention to projects that will accelerate the technological transformation of our country, create employment and make a positive contribution to our current account balance,” Erdoğan said.

He added they would soon be unveiling an international foreign direct investment strategy document, without providing further details.

“I believe we will make Turkey... a base for production and technology,“ the president noted.

'Act more constructively'

Erdoğan went on to say he expects the U.S. to be more constructive, adding that U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel remain a problem.

He also cited Turkey’s exclusion from the generalized system of preferences and anti-dumping measures for export products, stressing that these “do not suit us.”

“We expect the U.S. to act more constructively on these issues.”

He suggested the two countries could cooperate in Syria and Libya as well as in the field of energy.

Erdoğan also commented on the Turkish economy as well as the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

Normalization in June

“We aim for normalization by running an intensive COVID-19 vaccination campaign in June,” he noted.

Turkey on May 17 started a gradual normalization process after a 17-day full lockdown that brought infections in the country down significantly.

Until June 1, weeknight curfews from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. remain in place as well as a nationwide weekend lockdown.

The country has so far administered over 28.38 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines after a mass inoculation campaign began on Jan. 14, according to the Health Ministry data on Wednesday.

Strong first-quarter growth

Erdoğan said that preliminary figures indicate that the gross domestic product (GDP) data, which will be announced next week, will showcase strong economic growth in the first quarter of 2021.

The economy grew 1.8% last year, one of only a few globally to avoid a contraction in 2020 despite the pandemic.

A Reuters poll on Wednesday said the economy should expand by 5.5% this year after 6.7% estimated growth in the first quarter, returning to trend after lockdowns were careful to avoid key sectors.

Finance Minister Lütfi Elvan has predicted a growth of 5.5% to 6% in the first quarter.

Forecasts from 13 economists in the Reuters poll ranged from 4.5% to 7% for the full-year, while the median estimate was up from 4.5% in a February poll. For the first quarter, forecasts from 14 economists ranged from 5% to 7.5%.

While Turkey imposed new coronavirus measures at the end of last year that hit some services, they did not impede manufacturing and other sectors and most were lifted in March.

Economic activity is expected to slow in the second quarter due to tighter financial conditions and a full lockdown imposed in the first half of May.

But the current April-June quarter is expected to log double-digit GDP growth due to the so-called base effect.

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/meeting-with-biden-to-be-harbinger-of-new-era-in-relations-erdogan

တရုတ်သည် မွန်တီနီဂရိုးနှင့် မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေး တိုးမြှင့်လုပ်ဆောင်မည်ဆိုခြင်း

 း

              Xinhua; May-27(Thu)

              တရုတ်အနေဖြင့် မွန်တီနီဂရိုးနိုင်ငံနှင့် မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေး တိုးမြှင့်လုပ်ဆောင် သွားရန် ဆန္ဒရှိကြောင်းနှင့် ၎င်းတို့အကြား ခိုင်မာအားကောင်းသည့် နိုင်ငံရေးဆိုင်ရာ အပြန်အလှန် ယုံကြည်မှုများတည်ဆောက်နိုင်ရန် လက်တွဲလုပ်ဆောင်သွားမည်ဖြစ် ကြောင်း တရုတ်သမ္မတ ရှီကျင့်ဖျင် (Xi Jinping) က မေလ ၂၆ ရက်တွင် ပြောကြား ခဲ့ပါသည်။ သမ္မတ ရှီကျင့်ဖျင်သည် မွန်တီနီဂရိုးသမ္မတ မီလိုဒိဂျူကာနိုဗင့် (Milo Djukanovic) နှင့် တယ်လီဖုန်းမှတစ်ဆင့် ဆက်သွယ်ဆွေးနွေးမှုများပြုလုပ်စဉ်အတွင်း အထက်ပါအတိုင်း ပြောကြားခဲ့ခြင်းဖြစ်ပြီး နှစ်နိုင်ငံအကြား အပြုသဘောဆောင်သော ကဏ္ဍစုံပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်မှုများအား အလေးထားလုပ်ဆောင်သွားရန် အသင့်ဖြစ်နေပြီး ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထည့်သွင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ တရုတ်နှင့် မွန်တီနီဂရိုးတို့အနေဖြင့် မိတ်ဖက် ဆက်ဆံရေး စတင်တည်ဆောက်ချိန်မှစတင်၍ နှစ်နိုင်ငံဘုံအကျိုးစီးပွားနှင့် အခြား ကိစ္စရပ်များအား အလေးထားလုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိပြီး အပြန်အလှန်ကူညီထောက်ပံ့မှု များလုပ်ဆောင်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ရှီကျင့်ဖျင်က ထပ်လောင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။

              တရုတ်နှင့် မွန်တီနီဂရိုး တို့သည် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံ၏ ဗဟိုနှင့် အရှေ့ဥရောပနိုင်ငံ များအကြား ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်မှု (Central and Eastern European countries-CEECs) နှင့် ရပ်ဝန်းနှင့်လမ်းကြောင်းစီမံကိန်း (Belt and Road Initiative) ဆိုင်ရာ လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်များတွင် အပြုသဘောဆောင်သော ရလဒ်များရရှိခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်သည်ဟု ရှီကျင့်ဖျင်က ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ၎င်းတို့နှစ်နိုင်ငံသည် Covid-19 ကပ်ရောဂါကူးစက်ပျံ့နှံ့မှု များဖြစ်ပေါ်နေစဉ် ကာလများ၌ အပြန်အလှန်ကူညီထောက်ပံ့မှုများပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ပြီး ရောဂါ ကာကွယ်ရေးနှင့် ထိန်းချုပ်ရေးဆိုင်ရာကဏ္ဍရပ်များတွင် ကောင်းမွန်သောပူးပေါင်း ဆောင်ရွက်မှုများ လုပ်ဆောင်နိုင်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ တရုတ်နှင့် မွန်တီနီဂရိုး တို့အနေဖြင့် ကဏ္ဍစုံညှိနှိုင်းဆွေးနွေးမှုများကို အနီးကပ်လုပ်ဆောင်သွားသင့်ကြောင်း နှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ တရားမျှတမှုများကို ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ရန် အတူတကွလက်တွဲ လုပ်ဆောင်သွားသင့်သည်ဟု သမ္မတ ရှီကျင့်ဖျင်က ပြောကြားခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။        

သုံးသပ်ချက်

              တရုတ်နှင့် ဥရောပနိုင်ငံတို့အကြား မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေးသည် ကနဦးတွင် အမေရိကန်ကဲ့သို့ ဦးစားပေးခံရသည့် ဆက်ဆံရေးမျိုး မရှိခဲ့သော်လည်း စီးပွားရေး အင်အားကြီးမားလာမှုနှင့်အတူ  နီးကပ်သောဆက်ဆံရေးများ ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာခဲ့ပါသည်။ တရုတ်နိုင်ငံ၏ စီးပွားရေးအင်အားကြီးထွားမှုသည် များစွာသော ဥရောပနိုင်ငံများကို စွဲဆောင်စည်းရုံးလာနိုင်လာခဲ့ပြီး တရုတ်နိုင်ငံမှ စီးပွားရေးလုပ်ငန်းရှင်များသည်လည်း ဥရောပနိုင်ငံများတွင် ရင်းနှီးမြုပ်နှံမှုများပြုလုပ်ရန် ဥရောပနိုင်ငံများသို့ ဦးတည် လာခဲ့ပါသည်။  ထို့နောက် တရုတ်သည် ၎င်း၏ ဩဇာလွှမ်းမိုးမှုများကို ဥရောပဘက်ထိ ဖြန့်ကျက်နိုင်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းလာပြီး ထိုင်ဝမ်အပါအဝင် အခြားကိစ္စရပ်များ၌ ဥရောပ နိုင်ငံများ၏ ထောက်ခံမှုများရရှိရန်အတွက် ဒေသတွင်း နိုင်ငံများနှင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအရ ခိုင်မာအားကောင်းသည့် မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေး တည်ထောက်နိုင်ရန် လုပ်ဆောင်လာခဲ့ ပါသည်။ ထို့နောက် တရုတ်သမ္မတ ရှီကျင့်ဖျင်သည် ၎င်း၏ နိုင်ငံခြားရေးမူဝါဒများအား အကောင်အထည်ဖော်သည့်အနေဖြင့် မွန်တီနီဂရိုးသမ္မတ မီလိုဒိဂျူကာနိုဗင့် (Milo Djukanovic) နှင့် တယ်လီဖုန်းမှတစ်ဆင့် ဆက်သွယ်ဆွေးနွေးမှုများပြုလုပ်၍ နှစ်နိုင်ငံ မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေးလုပ်ငန်းများ တိုးချဲ့လုပ်ဆောင်သွားရန် ပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ တရုတ်နှင့် မွန်တီနီဂရိုးနိုင်ငံတို့သည် ၂၀၀၆ ခုနှစ်တွင် မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေးကို စတင် တည်ထောင်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ အဆိုပါမိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေး စတင်ချိန်မှစတင်၍ ၎င်းတို့သည် နှစ်နိုင်ငံ ဘုံအကျိုးစီးပွားနှင့် အခြားကိစ္စရပ်များအား အလေးထားလုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိပြီး အပြန်အလှန် ကူညီထောက်ပံ့မှုများ လုပ်ဆောင်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ရှီကျင့်ဖျင်က အဆိုပါ ဆွေးနွေးမှုအတွင်း ထပ်လောင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် နှစ်နိုင်ငံအကြား ကဏ္ဍစုံ ညှိနှိုင်းဆွေးနွေးမှုများကို အနီးကပ်လုပ်ဆောင်သွားသင့်ကြောင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ တရားမျှတမှုများကို ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ရန် အတူတကွ လက်တွဲလုပ်ဆောင်သွား သင့်သည်ဟု ရှီကျင့်ဖျင်က ထပ်လောင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ တရုတ်နှင့် မွန်ဂိုနီကရိုးနိုင်ငံတို့အကြား မိတ်ဖက်ဆက်ဆံရေးသည် နိုင်ငံရေး၊ စီးပွားရေးမှတဆင့် စစ်ဘက်ကဏ္ဍများတွင်ပါ လက်တွဲလုပ်ဆောင်လာနိုင်ဖွယ်ရှိပြီး တရုတ်အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံတစ်နိုင်ငံ၏ အဓိကမဏ္ဍိုင်တစ်ခုဖြစ်သော စီးပွားရေးလုပ်ငန်းများ ချဲ့ထွင်ရန်နှင့် နိုင်ငံရေး ဗျူဟာအသစ်များ လုပ်ဆောင်ရန်အတွက် ဥရောပနိုင်ငံများနှင့် ပူးပေါင်း ဆောင်ရွက်မှုများ ပိုမိုလုပ်ဆောင်လာနိုင်ဖွယ်ရှိကြောင်း သုံးသပ်တင်ပြအပ်ပါသည်။

 

Armenia's parliament takes step to trigger snap election - report

 May 10, 202111:02 PM +0630

Armenia's parliament failed to elect a prime minister for the second time on Monday, triggering its own dissolution in a final step towards an early election likely in June, Russia's TASS news agency reported citing a livestream from parliament.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was swept to power in pro-democracy protests in 2018, resigned last month to run in an early election after facing criticism over his handling of last year’s conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey Grateful to Russia for Agreement on Sputnik V Deliveries, Health Minister Says

 27.05.2021Get short URL

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ANKARA (Sputnik) – Turkish Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca has expressed gratitude to Russia for the agreement on deliveries of the Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19.

"Since the start of the development of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, we have been in contact concerning its deliveries. Now we have a signed agreement on the deliveries ... of this vaccine. I thank the Russian authorities for the support linked to this agreement," Koca told reporters on Wednesday.

He added that Turkey had signed deals to receive 270 million doses of various vaccines against COVID-19, which is three times more than the country's population.

Turkey authorized the emergency use of the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus in late April.

Sputnik V is the world's first registered coronavirus vaccine. Its efficacy stands at 97.6%, based on the latest analysis of data on the post-vaccination infection percentage among several million vaccinated Russians. It is higher than the 91.6% efficacy shown in an interim analysis from the trial published in The Lancet in early February.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202105271083004458-turkey-grateful-to-russia-for-agreement-on-sputnik-v-deliveries-health-minister-says/

အမေရိကန်နှင့်ဂရိတပ်ဖွဲ့များပါဝင်သော ပူးတွဲစစ်ရေးလေ့ကျင့်ခန်းများ ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ပြီးနောက်ဆုံးအဆင့်လေ့ကျင့်ခန်းများအား အဆုံးသတ်လေ့ကျင့်ခဲ့ကြောင်း

        အမေရိကန်နှင့် ဂရိတပ်ဖွဲ့များပါဝင်သော ပူးတွဲစစ်ရေးလေ့ကျင့်ခန်းအား ဂရိနိုင်ငံမြောက်ပိုင်းရှိ ဆန်သီမြို့ (Xanthi) အနီးတွင် မေလတတိယပတ်အတွင်း ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ပြီး မေလ ၂၅ ရက်တွင် နောက်ဆုံးအဆင့် လေ့ကျင့်ခန်းအား အဆုံးသတ်လေ့ကျင့်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ အဆိုပါ အမေရိကန်-ဂရိ ကြည်းတပ်လေ့ကျင့်ခန်း (၂၁ ရာစု ရုတ်ခြည်းတုံ့ပြန်မှုလေ့ကျင့်ခန်း) သည် ကြီးမားသည့် ဥရောပခံတပ် ၂၀၂၁ အမည်ရှိ အမေရိကန်-ဥရောပ ပူးတွဲစစ်ရေးလေ့ကျင့်ခန်း (Defender-Europe 2021) ၏ အစိတ်အပိုင်းတစ်ခုဖြစ်ပြီး ကျည်စစ်ကျည်မှန်ဖြင့်လေ့ကျင့်သည့် တပ်မဟာအဆင့် လက်တွေ့လေ့ကျင့်ခန်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၎င်းလေ့ကျင့်ခန်းတွင် ဗြိတိန်နိုင်ငံက အုပ်ချုပ် ထောက်ပံ့မှုအပိုင်းမှ ပါဝင်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ အမေရိကန်-ဥရောပ ပူးတွဲစစ်ရေးလေ့ကျင့်ခန်းကို ဘော်လကန်ဒေသတွင်းနိုင်ငံများနှင့် ဟန်ဂေရီနိုင်ငံတို့တွင် လုပ်ဆောင်ခဲ့ပြီး မြောက်အတ္တလန္တိတ်စစ်စာချုပ် (NATO) မှတစ်ဆင့် ဥရောပနိုင်ငံများ၏ လုံခြုံမှုကို အာမခံကြောင်း ပြသသည့်လေ့ကျင့်ခန်းအဖြစ် တွေ့ရှိရပါသည်။

Turkey detains 7 HTS/Nusra Front-linked terrorists in Ankara

 26.5.2021

Turkish security forces detained seven Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-linked terrorists in the capital Ankara, reports said Wednesday.

The arrests came after warrants were issued for 11 suspects who are members of "armed terror group al-Nusra/Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Front," the prosecutor's office in Ankara said in a statement.

The operation launched by anti-terror teams of local police to nab the suspects was conducted simultaneously and it is ongoing to arrest the remaining ones.

Turkey designated the HTS, formally the Nusra Front, as a terrorist group in August 2018.

The HTS is the most powerful terrorist alliance in Idlib, the last major opposition-controlled enclave outside Bashar Assad’s control in Syria.

After the fall of Aleppo in November 2016, dozens of opposition groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and the HTS, squeezed into Idlib.

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/war-on-terror/turkey-detains-7-htsnusra-front-linked-terrorists-in-ankara

Turkey detains 8 PKK/KCK-linked suspects in anti-terror raids

 26.5.2021

Turkish security forces detained eight PKK-linked suspects as part of an operation into the terrorist group’s umbrella body, reports said Wednesday.

Police launched raids against the suspects in Ankara-based operations carried out in three other provinces, including Istanbul, Van and Tunceli.

The operation was conducted to find members of the KCK, which serves as an umbrella body of PKK terrorist group and its Syrian and Iranian offshoots PYD and PJAK, in addition to various armed, youth and women’s organizations.

The suspects received training at the terrorist group’s headquarters in Mount Qandil, northern Iraq, which lasted from 30 to 45 days, Demirören News Agency (DHA) said.

They were carrying out activities under KCK’s so-called “Public Health Committee,” which included disseminating terrorist propaganda in communities and among women, with the goal to ultimately recruit more terrorists, according to a confession by one of the suspects.

One of the detained suspects had also treated terrorists during the Oct. 6-8 incidents in 2014 and other incidents during 2015.

The violence during Oct. 6-8 incidents killed two police officers and 35 people while injuring 435 civilians and 326 police officers. Most of the civilians who were killed were actually PKK supporters, who were attacked by HÜDA-PAR followers.

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/war-on-terror/turkey-detains-8-pkkkck-linked-suspects-in-anti-terror-raids

 

Turkish, US officials to hold political talks in Ankara

 May 26, 2021

Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Önal is scheduled to meet with his U.S. counterpart in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, according to an official statement Wednesday.

Önal and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will hold political consultations, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Sherman’s visit comes as part of a diplomatic tour that includes countries in Europe and Southeast Asia.

The two senior officials are expected to address Turkey-U.S. relations as well as regional and international matters during the meeting.

Sherman will “engage with government officials and civil society,” the State Department said in a statement on Friday.

“Deputy Secretary Sherman will underscore the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship as we work together with our NATO ally to confront mutual challenges, and discuss areas of concern,” it added.

Following Turkey, Sherman will depart for Southeast Asia where she will visit Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand before traveling to the U.S. state of Hawaii.

In Southeast Asia Sherman will “reaffirm the United States’ commitment to ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) centrality and address a range of bilateral and regional issues, including efforts to urge the Burmese military to cease violence, release all those unjustly detained and restore Burma (Myanmar) to the path of democracy,” the State Department said.

In Hawaii, she will meet with United States Indo-Pacific Command to discuss strategy in the region.https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/turkish-us-officials-to-hold-political-talks-in-ankara

 

23 Parties, 4 Blocs Apply to Run in Snap Parliamentary Elections

 

Published on 26 May 2021

YEREVAN — Twenty-three political parties and four alliances have applied to run in Armenia’s upcoming snap parliamentary elections.

They all submitted the lists of their election candidates and other registration documents to the Central Election Commission (CEC) by Wednesday’s legal deadline for such applications.

The CEC has five days to process the applications. It has rarely barred candidates from participating in elections in the past.

Political forces will be vying for at least 101 seats in Armenia’s new parliament that will be elected on June 20 under the system of proportional representation.

Under Armenian law, the parties need to win at least 5 percent of the vote in order to be represented in the National Assembly. The vote threshold for blocs is set at 7 percent.

Only three groups — the ruling My Step bloc and the opposition Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Bright Armenia (LHK) parties — cleared these thresholds in the last general elections held in December 2018. My Step, which mostly comprises members of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, won 70 percent of the vote at the time.

 

4 Alliances:
“Armenia” Alliance
“Free Homeland” Alliance
“I have the Honor” Alliance
Shirinyan-Babajanyan Alliance of Democrats

27 Parties:
Civil Contract Party
Fair Armenia Party
Republic Party
Pan-Armenian National Statehood Party
Prosperous Armenia Party
Armenian Homeland Party
National Agenda Party
Christian-Democratic Party
European Party of Armenia
Citizen’s Decision Social Democratic Party
Our Home is Armenia Party
National-Democratic Pole Party
United Homeland Party
5165 National Conservative Movement Party
Bright Armenia Party
Rise (Verelq) Party
Freedom Party
Liberal Party
Armenian National Congress Party
Sovereign Armenia Party
Awakening National Christian Party
Democratic Party of Armenia
Armenian Eagles United Armenia Party

https://massispost.com/2021/05/23-parties-4-blocs-apply-to-run-in-snap-parliamentary-elections/

Turkey Divestment Bill Receives Overwhelming Support from the California State Senate

 

Published on 26 May 2021

SACRAMENTO — Senate Bill 457, a measure introduced by Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D – La Canada Flintridge) and Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk (R – Santa Clarita), passed the Senate Floor 35-0. The bill requires the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) and the State Teachers’ Retirement System (STRS) Boards of Administration to allow school districts and cities to opt out of investment vehicles issued or owned by the Republic of Turkey.

“SB 457 would impose much needed economic consequences on a regime that continues to engage in an ongoing campaign of genocide denial,” stated Senator Portantino. “Public employees in my district who are members of CalSTRS and CalPERS are descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors and had to relive the intergenerational trauma during the recent Artsakh war, in which Turkey was heavily involved. I believe divesting from Turkey sends a strong message to the world that California does not do business with genocidal regimes and countries with a history of civil and human rights abuses. It is consistent with our basic humanitarian principles,” he added.

The State of California has a long history of divesting from countries that violate human rights. In 1986, Governor George Deukmejian condemned South Africa’s apartheid policy by signing California’s divestiture law, aimed at pressuring the government to end its system of racial segregation. In 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a Sudan divestment bill due to the ongoing genocide in the Darfur. And the University of California system successfully divested from Turkey in 2017.

In addition to its ongoing campaign of denial of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey provided strong military support to Azerbaijan in the 2020 Artsakh war, transported thousands of mercenaries from Syria to support Azerbaijan against Armenian citizens, and continues to support Azerbaijan’s refusal to return prisoners of war to Armenia. Furthermore, Turkey withdrew from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention.

“SB 457 sends a message to the Turkish government that silence is not an option and until the Turkish government acknowledges its shameful history, California will stand in solidarity with our Armenian brothers and sisters,” said Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk. “I look forward to the day when this important bill becomes law.”

Senator Portantino drafted SB 457 after discussing with Glendale City Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian the initiative he brought forth to the Glendale City Council to divest investment dollars from the Republic of Turkey.

“I commend the Senate for getting this done,” stated Councilmember Kassakhian. “Many efforts are being made towards this goal but with other versions of divestment facing challenges this year, the passage of SB 457 is even more significant and is a testament to the leadership of Senators Wilk and Portantino.”

https://massispost.com/2021/05/turkey-divestment-bill-receives-overwhelming-support-from-the-california-state-senate/

Polish, Czech leaders seek to resolve coal mine dispute By MONIKA SCISLOWSKAMay 25, 2021

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The government leaders of Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic held intensive talks Tuesday in an attempt to solve a years-long dispute that resurfaced recently over a Polish coal mine .

The Czech government says the brown coal Turow mine, located in southwestern Poland, near the Czech and German borders, is draining groundwater from communities and causing other environmental harm to Czech citizens.

It took the case to the top European Union court, which last week issued a temporary injunction ordering Poland to immediately halt coal extraction at the site pending the court’s full ruling.

But Polish authorities are defying the order, saying they cannot close the mine because doing so would lead to power cuts for millions of Poles, suspend the operation of industrial plants and eliminate tens of thousands of jobs. The mine directly fuels a power plant that produces up to 7% of Poland’s energy.

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The dispute underlines coal’s potential as an irritant in relations among EU nations as the bloc seeks to reach an ambitious goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050. Poland has made some progress toward developing green energy and closing coal mines, but the process has been slow and hampered by the country’s historic dependence on coal to heat homes and power industry.

The Polish government recently extended the license for extraction of coal at Turow until 2044. Czech officials say Poland did that without consulting them or without assessing the environmental impact, a claim the Polish government denies.

The Polish decision to keep extracting beyond 2030 also means that the region around Turow will lose out on its share of the EU’s multibillion-euro “Just Transition” fund, aimed at supporting communities which transition from coal to green energy.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis discussed the Turow issue during an EU summit in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday, and other officials from their governments were negotiating elsewhere.

“There’s no deal done yet (with the Polish side), but I expect to have it soon,” Babis said Tuesday.

He insisted that, even then, the lawsuit will not be withdrawn, as hoped for by Poland.

Speaking at Turow, Poland’s minister for state assets, Jacek Sasin, said Tuesday that a framework for an agreement has been worked out to address Prague’s concerns and to secure joint funds for local environmental needs.

Media reports said Poland would invest some 45 million euros ($56 million) into environmental protection there and speed up construction of a drainage screen.

Sasin stressed there was “no talk of closing operations at Turow mine,” arguing that carrying out the EU court’s order would be a “disastrous blow for Poland’s energy, for Poland’s economy.”

Some critics in Poland said the government has not done enough over the years to alleviate Prague’s concerns about the mine and to prevent the Czechs from seeking the EU court’s injunction.

Meanwhile, Turow miners held a protest Tuesday against the Czech complaint and the court injunction. They drove in dozens of cars with national flags and “Hands Off Turow” stickers on a road leading to the Czech and German borders to slow down traffic.

Poland argues it is not being treated fairly because the Czech Republic and Germany operate a number of lignite mines close to Poland’s borders without facing conflicts.

Some 48% of Poland’s energy comes from hard black coal and 17% from softer and more polluting lignite, or brown coal. Another 25% comes from various renewable sources and biofuels, and 10% comes from gas and other sources. 

https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-government-and-politics-environment-and-nature-8606420dfdcf08947aaefa84f96da553

Belarus: end flow of corrupt money via UK, says Estonia president

 Tue 25 May 2021 17.20 BST

Estonia’s president, Kersti Kaljulaid, has urged the UK to take action to stop anti-democratic regimes such as Belarus siphoning corrupt money through London’s financial centre.

Her plea comes after the EU announced new economic sanctions against Belarus, and punitive measures against its national airline, in response to the hijacking of a Ryanair flight that led to the controversial arrest of the dissident blogger Raman Pratasevich earlier this week.

The president said the sanctions were targeting the “arteries of money” that allowed the Belarusian regime to operate.

She called on the UK government to stand united with the EU and do all it can to oppose anti-democratic governments, such as that being run by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

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“We were not very shy here in Estonia, also after the Salisbury attack, to point out that there is a lot of [this] money in your own country,” the Estonian president told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.

Kaljulaid said she raised the issue of corrupt money from authoritarian regimes entering the UK’s financial system with British officials after the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, which was blamed on agents from Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU.

“We understand there are legal limitations but [be] the strongest you can be, considering that this money is siphoned off from the suffering of the Belarusian people from the regime trampling on their democratic rights.

“I’m quite sure that the UK sees the value of being strong and united here with Europe, as we were in the case of Salisbury.”

The UK authorities said at the time that action would “definitely” be taken, but Kaljulaid said it was not clear whether any changes had been made.

The Queen’s speech earlier this month, which sets out plans for new laws, also lacked any detail about cracking down on corrupt money in the City, or creating a register of who owns UK property through offshore shell companies. That was despite a promise to force property owners to reveal their identities back in 2019.

A spokesperson for the Treasury said: “We’ve taken decisive action to tackle economic crime – introducing a range of powers in recent years including account freezing orders and unexplained wealth orders, establishing a new global anti-corruption sanctions regime, and strengthening anti-money laundering requirements on relevant businesses.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/25/belarus-end-flow-of-corrupt-money-via-uk-says-estonia-president

 

Poland’s resistance leads to EU leaders’ climate battle retreat

 

May 25, 2021 8:20 pm

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The new era of EU climate politics looks a lot like the old one, with Poland standing almost alone at Tuesday's European Council, insisting that current emissions rules are geared toward the rich.

Other EU leaders were reluctant to tangle with the Poles and their allies, agreeing on a bland policy-free final statement rather than engaging with Warsaw’s demands for a greater flow of money and for rich countries to be responsible for a bigger share of the bloc’s 2030 emissions cuts.

The EU has agreed to cut emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and to become climate neutral by mid-century, and now there's a fierce scrap over how those often painful reductions should be apportioned.

“You cannot make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. It is a question of fairness,” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told fellow leaders, according to an official briefed on the conversation, while brandishing a chart he said showed that the bloc’s carbon pricing system unfairly disadvantages Eastern and Southern Europe.

The European Commission is currently drafting a major policy package, called Fit for 55, that's due for release in mid-July. It will redraft a dozen major legislative areas that govern European pollution. 

The leaders’ statement provided little guidance for the Commission, but Council President Charles Michel interpreted that as a vote of confidence and a sign there was a “widely shared commitment to move towards solutions” for lowering emissions.

"We have affirmed our common goals, which are ambitious," he said.

But behind closed doors, the divisions over specific policies were stark. 

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to create a new carbon pricing system for road transport and heating for buildings was backed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But Morawiecki, Slovenia’s Janez Janša, Latvia’s Arturs Kariņš and Luxembourg's Xavier Bettel all raised concerns that it would unfairly impact poorer Europeans.

Morawiecki lobbied for more money to be injected into the EU’s Modernisation Fund, which supports countries with large coal industries or lower GDP to build cleaner infrastructure.

He also pushed for changes to the rules that govern pollution from sectors not covered by the EU Emissions Trading System. Specifically, he wanted to change a rule that factors in the cost-effectiveness of cuts. That shifts the burden of slashing emissions on to poorer countries — for example, it may cost less per ton of CO2 to replace a coal-fired furnace in Bulgaria than it does to roll out electric vehicles in France. Morawiecki wanted only national GDP to be counted, which would push more responsibility onto the richer parts of Europe.

"We can't use the same measure for emissions reduction measures for a building in Sofia and one in Amsterdam," Polish Climate Minister Michał Kurtyka said after the summit. Morawiecki plans to meet von der Leyen in June to continue to discuss the issue.

There were a few rumblings against Poland’s positions, particularly from Merkel. But ultimately there was little stomach for an open fight from other leaders; in December they went head-to-head with Morawiecki in an all-night effort to approve new climate goals for 2030 and 2050.

In a bid to avoid an open fight, language in an earlier draft of the Council conclusions that specified emissions-cutting rules was scrapped from the final version, replaced with a promise to return to the matter.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the conversation should have been first discussed by ministers. Officials wondered out loud why the leaders were being asked to discuss the minutiae of climate policy before the Commission had even drawn up its Fit for 55 proposals or assessed their impacts. 

https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-resistance-climate-battle-european-council-summit/

EU boosts aid for Palestine by nearly $10M

  25.05.2021

In the wake of the devastating bombing by Israel, the European Union is boosting its humanitarian aid to Palestine by €8 million ($9.8 million), the European Commission announced on Tuesday.

The new funding will be dedicated to helping victims of the 11 days of Israeli bombings that started on May 10 and ended last week in a mutual cease-fire.

“Following the announcement of a ceasefire, urgent humanitarian access is now vital, to relieve the suffering of the many innocent victims,” EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic commented on the decision.

“Nothing can bring back the many civilian lives that were taken in this latest conflict,” he said, adding that the bloc was dismayed at the deaths of so many children, including 11 children in Gaza who were benefiting from a trauma care program supported by the EU.

“The EU insists on respect for international humanitarian law and cannot accept that civilians are displaced by force or that their homes and schools are demolished,” added Lenarcic.

The recent addition brings the bloc’s 2021 humanitarian aid budget for Palestine to €34.4 million.

Tensions have been running high since May 4, when an Israeli court ordered the evictions of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

In recent weeks, EU diplomacy has urged both sides to de-escalate tensions and to resume negotiations directed towards a two-state solution.

The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is seen as occupied territory under international law, thus making all Jewish settlements there illegal.

Like Turkey and much of the international community, the EU does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the territories it has occupied since 1967.

The EU has repeatedly called on Israel to end all settlement activity and to dismantle the already existing ones.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/eu-boosts-aid-for-palestine-by-nearly-10m/2254152

 

Turkey detains brother of gang leader after corruption allegations

 May 24, 2021

Turkish police detained the brother of convicted gang leader Sedat Peker on Sunday after Peker said he sent him on a failed mission to kill a Turkish Cypriot journalist 25 years ago on the orders of a former Turkish minister.

Organised crime police detained Atilla Peker and a personal guard at a rented house in the Aegean province of Mugla, broadcaster NTV said.

The reported detention came hours after Sedat Peker, who has released a series of videos filled with accusations against officials and watched by millions of people, said he tasked his brother to kill politician and journalist Kutlu Adali in 1996.

Peker's uncorroborated allegations against politicians stretching back decades have gripped viewers in Turkey, and threatened to tarnish the image of a government already struggling with economic woes and the COVID-19 outbreak.

President Tayyip Erdogan said in response to the videos last week that his government brought peace to Turkey by tackling criminal gangs. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has filed a criminal complaint against Peker and called for him to be charged with slander.

In his latest video released on YouTube on Sunday and already watched by more than 7 million people, Sedat Peker said his brother was unable to carry out the killing, although Adali was shot dead shortly afterwards in July 1996.

A Turkish investigation did not uncover who was responsible, and the European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey in 2005 for a failure to carry out an "adequate and effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing."

Peker said the same former minister who wanted Adali killed was responsible for the killings of another journalist, Ugur Mumcu, and the husband of Pervin Buldan, current co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

Mumcu's family called on Sunday for an investigation. Buldan said her husband had been killed by the state and that those responsible were acquitted, adding that she would seek to have them tried again.

Peker, 49, rose to prominence in the 1990s as a gangland figure and was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2007 for crimes including forming and leading a criminal gang. He has served several jail sentences in Turkey and said last week he is now in Dubai.