THE HAGUE, June 30 -- The meeting that Queen Máxima had during the G20 with the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has come to criticize her. Agnes Callamard, who was investigating the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi for the UN, said he was confident that the prince had raised the issue of extrajudicial execution. "I trust that you have insisted on justice." The point now is that Máxima had not done that. She is a special advocate for the UN for inclusive financing (microcredit in developing countries). Among other things, they discussed the economic position improvement of women in Saudi Arabia, in preparation for the next G20 in Saudi Arabia. The murder of the columnist Washington Post in the Saudi consulate in Instanbul remained undiscussed. That is not good, according to Callamard, for whom silence equals complicity. "Credible evidence" about responsibility The Callamard UN investigation revealed that there is "credible evidence" that Bin Salman was responsible for the murder. Kashoggi, columnist from The Washington Post, was stunned with an injection during a visit to the consulate and killed with a plastic bag over his head. The body of the Saudi dissident, presumably cut to pieces, was never recovered. A critical response was received in the Lower House, including by D66, SP. "Is it really true that she did not talk about the murder of journalist Khashoggi?" Says MP Karabulut. "Incomprehensible." She wants to talk to Minister Blok (Foreign Affairs) about the meeting on Monday. The VVD also sees it differently. Member of Parliament Sven Koopmans is "proud that our queen is having difficult diplomatic talks." "The inclusive financing envoy dares to have a difficult conversation here about women's rights with someone far away from her."
The RVD said it was customary for the queen to have a conversation with the host of the next G20 summit, which is Saudi Arabia. "The conversation between Queen Maxima and Prince Mohammed bin Salman was conducted under the responsibility of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as usual in international performances by members of the Royal House," Algemeen Dagblad cited the RVD. "The cabinet was aware of the conversation."
US President Donald Trump also faced questions about his sit-down with Bin Salman at the G20 in Japan, his first face-to-face meeting since the US intelligence community concluded that the crown prince directed the killing of the Washington Post columnist. Trump, who called Bin Salman his "friend", has long sought to minimise the crown prince's role in the killing and has been reluctant to criticise the killing of the critic. Trump views the kingdom as the lynchpin of his Middle East strategy to counter Iran. At the news conference on Saturday, Trump was asked by a reporter if he agreed it was "despicable" for a government to kill a journalist. Trump replied: "Yes, I do. I think it's horrible. Or anybody else, by the way. And if you look at Saudi Arabia, you see what's happening, thirteen people, or so, have been prosecuted. Others are being prosecuted. They've taken it very, very seriously. And they will continue to." Callamard said the ongoing trial in Saudi Arabia was not carried out in "good faith". "Overall it does not meet international standards," she said. Only 11 out of 15 operatives who were at the consulate were being indicted, but their names and their charges have not been made public, said Callamard. She said the chain of command's responsibility was not being investigated and the trial's proceedings were contradicting the statements made by the public prosecutor. "For those who want to see a proper criminal trial taking place, an official request should be undertaken by the UN secretary-general upon the request of at least one member state," she said.
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“The 657-page indictment against Osman Kavala, Yiğit Aksakoğlu and 14 others does not contain a single shred of evidence that they were in any way involved in criminal activity, let alone conspiring to overthrow the government. Instead it is absurdly attempting to portray routine civil society activities as crimes. “This trial is nothing more than an egregious attempt to silence some of Turkey’s most prominent civil society figures. Osman Kavala and Yiğit Aksakoğlu must be immediately released and the absurd charges against all 16 of them must be dropped.”
Background Osman Kavala and Yiğit Aksakoğlu have been in pre-trial detention in the Silivri High Security Prison near Istanbul since 1 November 2017 and 17 November 2018 respectively. On 19 February 2019, the prosecution finally submitted an indictment against Osman Kavala, Yiğit Aksakoğlu and 14 others on the allegation of 'attempting to overthrow the government of the Turkish republic or to prevent it from performing its duties’. Istanbul Heavy Penal Court No. 30 accepted this indictment on 4 March 2019. The first hearing in the case is scheduled to take place on 24 and 25 June 2019 at Silivri prison, where Amnesty International representatives will be present. A much larger group of civil society figures continue to be investigated under the auspices of the same investigation ISTANBUL, June 24 -- In a major blow to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem Imamoglu has declared victory in the rerun of Istanbul's mayoral election, after initial results showed he was set for a clear win. Imamoglu had won 54 percent of votes with almost all of the ballot boxes opened on Sunday, with the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) candidate trailing on 45 percent and conceding defeat. Imamoglu promised a "new beginning" for Turkey's largest city and commercial hub. "You have protected the reputation of democracy in Turkey," he told supporters. His opponent, former Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, conceded defeat after initial results showed he was set to lose by a decisive margin. "According to the result as of now, my competitor Ekrem Imamoglu is leading the race. I congratulate him and wish him good luck," Yildirim said. CHP's projected win in the Istanbul election ends the 17-year rule by the AK Party in the metropolis. The Istanbul mayoral election was first held on March 31, when Imamoglu secured 48.8 percent of the vote, while the AK Party's Yildirim held 48.55 percent, granting Imamoglu the title of mayor with a razor-thin margin. The AK Party proceeded to file an "extraordinary objection" to the results, leading the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) to annul the results and schedule Sunday's rerun. SOCHI, June 20 -- The United States is escalating the situation around Iran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday, commenting on Washington’s decision to dispatch additional Patriot surface-to-air missile systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft to the Middle East. "We have spoken on many occasions that this reflects the policy towards deliberately escalating the situation. We have no doubts that the US political and military leadership is not stopping at any actions whatsoever in order to maximally complicate the situation and, most importantly, increase pressure on Iran. This fully contradicts our understanding of what has to be done in such situations, namely, to double diplomatic and political efforts to stabilize the situation and reduce tension, create pre-requisites for implementing a whole range of ideas that were also put forward by Russia, which stands for developing a system of collective security, strengthening confidence-building measures in the Persian Gulf region and establishing direct contacts between countries of that region," the high-ranking Russian diplomat stressed, responding to a questions. Otherwise, the region may plunge into a new conflict, which is "completely inadmissible, considering the grave consequences of such a scenario," Ryabkov said. "There is still time to stop and come to senses and prevent further sliding into uncontrolled confrontation. Unfortunately, our calls and our logic to this effect, apparently, fail to meet understanding in the United States and they do not listen to us but still I think that an overwhelming majority of members of the international community share this approach and proceed from the fact that there is no alternative to it," the Russian deputy foreign minister said. The US Defense Department announced on Wednesday that it was dispatching additional Patriot surface-to-air missile systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft to the Middle East for gathering intelligence data. As the Pentagon stated, this will be done as part of the decision announced on Monday to dispatch 1,000 US military personnel to the region due to the situation around Iran. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo earlier stated the United States was considering all options to counter Iran in the region. He let it know that the US administration would not request legislators’ approval for possible military operations against Tehran, arguing this was required to defend American interests. CAIRO, June 18 -- Egypt's former President Mohamed Morsi was buried on Tuesday in eastern Cairo, his son said, a day after he collapsed in court and died shortly after. Morsi was buried early in the morning alongside other senior figures of the Muslim Brotherhood, his son, Ahmed Morsi, said on his Facebook page. The burial was attended by members of the family in Cairo's Madinat Nasr after authorities refused to grant permission for a burial in Morsi's home province of Sharqiya in the Nile Delta, Ahmed Morsi said. "We washed his noble body at Tora prison hospital, read prayers for him at the prison hospital ... and the burial was at the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guides," Ahmed wrote. Morsi's lawyer, Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud, confirmed the burial took place early on Tuesday. Morsi, who was a leading figure in the Brotherhood, became Egypt's first democratically elected president in 2012, one year after the Arab Spring uprising saw the end of President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. He was deposed in July 2013 following mass protests and a military coup led by Egypt's current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, after which he was immediately arrested. He had been in detention ever since. The Brotherhood, which has since been outlawed, said Morsi's death was a "full-fledged murder" and called on Egyptians to gather for a mass funeral. In a statement on its website, the Brotherhood also called for crowds to gather outside Egyptian embassies around the world. ANKARA, June 17 -- The supplies of Russia’s S-400 missile defense systems to Ankara will begin in the first half of July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters after returning from the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. "We discussed with Russia the S-400 issue, this is a closed chapter. There haven’t been any problems. I think the supplies will begin in the first half of July," Erdogan said, according to the NTV TV channel. Ankara is not planning to give up its S-400 contract, Erdogan stressed. "We have put our signature, we will fulfill what we have started. As part of the loan, Russia gave us various benefits and granted a loan with such interest rates which do not exist on the international market," he explained. Turkey’s National Defense Ministry is preparing a reply to a letter sent by Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Washington’s decision to suspend Turkey’s participation in a program on training Turkish pilots in the US on the F-35 bombers in the wake of the S-400 deal. "Very soon, maybe even this week the letter will be sent to [the US side]," Erdogan said. S-400 deal The first reports that Russia and Turkey were in talks on the S-400 supplies emerged in November 2016. Moscow confirmed that the contract had been signed in September 2017. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said back then that the deployment of S-400 systems would begin in October 2019. According to Sergei Chemezov, the director general of Russia’s Rostec state corporation, the contract’s price tag is $2.5 bln. Turkey is the first NATO member state to buy these missile systems from Russia. The US has been vigorously trying to stonewall the S-400 deal. Earlier Washington warned Ankara that should the deal with Russia be implemented, the US would not supply its F-35 fighter-bombers to Turkey. The S-400 Triumf is the most advanced long-range air defense missile system that went into service in Russia in 2007. It is designed to destroy aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles, including medium-range missiles, and can also be used against ground installations. The S-400 can engage targets at a distance of 400 km and at an altitude of up to 30 km. ANKARA, June 10 -- Turkey criticized Iceland on Monday over "disrespectful" treatment of its national football team at the capital Reykjavik airport. Turkey's Foreign Ministry issued a diplomatic note to Iceland via the Norwegian embassy to protest the "disrespectful" and "violent" behaviors against Turkish footballers during the passport control and demanded extra security measures for the players. Turkey's national football team arrived in Iceland late Sunday for UEFA EURO 2020 qualifications. The team was kept waiting for around three hours at passport control on Sunday night and their bags were repeatedly searched, reported state-run Anadolu Agency. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in his Twitter the treatment at the Iceland airport was "unacceptable" on diplomatic and humanitarian levels. Presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin condemned the incident. Fahrettin Altun, communications director at the Turkish presidency, also said the treatment was "not in line with diplomatic courtesy or sportsmanlike conduct." Turkey will play Iceland for UEFA EURO 2020 qualifications Group H match on Tuesday. ANKARA, June 8 -- The Pentagon announced in a letter that it would halt F-35 fighter jet training for Turkish pilots over Ankara's purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Saturday. In a letter to his Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, U.S. acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said that all Turkish pilots in the program must leave the country by July 31 and the training for new pilots will be suspended. Turkish Defense Ministry also confirmed the letter in a statement on Saturday, saying that the Pentagon expected to address security concerns over the S-400 deal. Shanahan expressed his expectation to find a solution to the existing problems between the two countries in the framework of the strategic partnership and to maintain comprehensive security cooperation, the ministry said. The U.S. repeatedly warned that it will cut off Ankara's purchase of F-35 fighter jets if the Turkish government goes ahead with plans to buy Russian S-400 air defense system, triggering a heated dispute between the two NATO allies. Washington has already suspended deliveries of parts and services related to Turkey's receipt of the multi-million-dollar jets. However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday reaffirmed his resolve to buy S-400 system despite threatened sanctions from the United States. ISTANBUL, June 8 -- German footballer Mesut Ozil has tied the knot, with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as his best man. The Turkish-German midfielder married his fiance, actress and model Amine Gulse, on Friday at a ceremony along the Bosporus in Istanbul that was attended by many statesmen and celebrities. Photos of the wedding showed a smiling Erdogan and his wife Emine standing next to the couple as their marriage was formalised. Ozil and Gulse, who was crowned Miss Turkey in 2014, also made a hefty donation to the Turkish Red Crescent to provide a meal to some 15,000 Syrian refugees. Controversy Ozil announced in March this year that he had asked Erdogan to be his best man. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff was part of a chorus of criticism of the invitation. Helge Braun of Germany's leading party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told Bild newspaper at the time that it "makes one sad" that Ozil would make such a move despite having been sharply criticised by the German public over his first meeting with Erdogan. The footballer whipped up a political storm when he was pictured alongside Erdogan in May 2018. Criticism intensified after Germany crashed out of the first round of the World Cup in Russia. Ozil's resignation After the summer defeat, Ozil posted a lengthy statement announcing his resignationfrom the national team and accusing German football officials of racism. Ozil, who now plays for Arsenal, had made 92 appearances for Germany and played a key role in their 2014 World Cup victory. He said he was being blamed for Germany's disappointing World Cup performance. Ozil also said the German Football Association head, Reinhard Grindel, failed to support him when he received hate mail, threatening phone calls, and racist comments on social media after Germany left the World Cup. "I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose," Ozil said, adding that despite his successful history with the team, the way he was treated made him "no longer want to wear the German national team shirt". Without Ozil, Germany started their UEFA Nations League journey with three consecutive bad results. They drew with France 0-0 at home, were defeated by the Netherlands 3-0 and by France 1-2 in an away match. Germany also lost six of their last 10 matches and were relegated to League B in the UEFA Nations League. Erdogan often attends marriages of Turkish celebrities, whom he particularly seeks out during election campaigns. His presence at Ozil's marriage comes ahead of a mayoral election in Istanbul on June 23, required after the original voting in March was annulled following a narrow victory for the main opposition Republican People's Party. THE HAGUE, April 2 -- Party of the Unity politician Arnold van Doorn demands that the Dutch government opens a beach area which should be “halal”. According to Van Doorn the Dutch beach needs to have a non-degenerative area for Muslims where people are not allowed to walk naked, since Muslims feel “unpleasant with scantily clad, ugly people”. Muslims don’t feel at home on most beaches, he says. “Not only Muslims, but also many other residents feel uncomfortable with the appearance of very scantily dressed and often anesthetically designed beachgoers”, he writes to the city council of The Hague. “In addition, women in particular indicate that they are increasingly confronted with unwanted allusions and advances by people of the opposite sex during beach visits.” He believes that The Hague should therefore consider whether it is possible to designate part of the beach for Muslims. After all, there is also a nudist beach for a small group of enthusiasts, so why not design a part of the beach for the Muslim community, Van Doorn argues. Halal beach resorts already exist in seaside resorts in Turkey and Indonesia, among others. On halal beaches, Muslims could enjoy the sun according to their religious regulations. For example, men and women sunbathe separately on Lombok. Van Doorn came to the Party for Freedom (Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party) in 2010 in the city council of The Hague, and in 2013 – after coverting to Islam – he switched to the Islamic Party for Unity. In 2016 he received a work sentence for selling drugs to minors and the possession of a prohibited alarm gun. Halal refers to what is permissible or lawful in traditional Islamic law. In the Quran, the word halal is contrasted with haram (forbidden). ISTANBUL, April 1 -- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development (AK) Party and the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) have both said they narrowly won Istanbul's mayoral elections on Sunday. Speaking to reporters in Istanbul, CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, citing his party's data, said he had won by nearly 28,000 votes. Minutes later, the AK Party provicial head in Istanbul said his party's candidate, Binali Yildirim, had won by around 4,000 votes. In Ankara, preliminary results showed that Nation Alliance candidate Mansur Yavas had garnered 50.6 percent, with 92 percent of the votes counted. He was followed by Mehmet Ozhaseki, the People's Alliance nominee in the capital, with 47.2 percent. In the third-largest city, Izmir, the Nation Alliance candidate Mustafa Tunc Soyer was in the lead with 58.1 percent. Nihat Zeybekci, the candidate of Erdogan's bloc, had 38.5 percent. Nationwide, with 91.7 percent of the provincial votes counted, the People's Alliance, which is comprised of the AK Party and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP),had secured 51.7 percent of the votes. It was followed by Nation Alliance, a coalition made up by the centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP) and the right-wing Good Party, with 37.6 percent. Erdogan vows economic reforms The polls posed a major challenge for Erdogan given a backdrop of high inflation and rising unemployment sparked by a major currency crisis last year. Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul, Erdogan on Sunday acknowledged that his party had lost control in a number of cities, and pledged that he would focus on carrying out economic reforms. Erdogan, who was elected last year as the country's first executive president, said the next polls would be held in June 2023, adding that Turkey would carefully implement a "strong economic programme" without compromising on free-market rules. Murat Yetkin, a Turkish political analyst, told that if "the Erdogan-led AK Party-MHP alliance loses Istanbul [along with Ankara] as well, that means loss of control over five major cities in Turkey." "Even if Istanbul, with 11 million voters, is won with a few thousand votes, it will be perceived as a major loss," he said. "The results also show that the executive presidential system, which was designed to avoid coalitions, has led to a de facto coalition, since the AK Party cannot maintain majority without its symbiotic partnership with MHP." Ozgur Dilber, a CHP volunteer, said the results showed that the AK Party's popularity was waning - even if Erdogan's bloc won in Istanbul. "To me, the results are a proof that the number of voters who want change is increasing," he said outside the party's election monitoring office. DAMASCUS, March 23 -- U.S.-backed forces said they had captured Islamic State's last shred of territory in eastern Syria at Baghouz on Saturday, ending the group's self-proclaimed caliphate after years of fighting. "Baghouz has been liberated. The military victory against Daesh has been accomplished," Mustafa Bali, a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman, wrote on Twitter, declaring the "total elimination of (the) so-called caliphate". However, a Reuters journalist at Baghouz said there were still some sounds of shooting and mortar fire. The final battle lasted weeks as huge numbers of civilians poured out, and for many Kurdish fighters in the SDF, victory was sweeter as it coincided with their "Now Ruz" new year. Though the defeat of Islamic State in Baghouz ends the group's grip over the jihadist quasi-state straddling Syria and Iraq that it declared in 2014, it remains a threat. Some of its fighters still hold out in Syria's remote central desert and in Iraqi cities they have slipped into the shadows, staging sudden shootings or kidnappings and awaiting a chance to rise again. The United States believes the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is in Iraq. He stood at the pulpit of the great medieval mosque in Mosul in 2014 to declare himself caliph, sovereign over all Muslims. Further afield, jihadists in Afghanistan, Nigeria and elsewhere have shown no sign of recanting their allegiance to Islamic State, and intelligence services say its devotees in the West might plot new attacks. Still, the fall of Baghouz is a big milestone in a fight against the jihadist group waged by numerous local and global forces - some of them sworn enemies - over more than four years. It also marks a big moment in Syria's eight-year war, wiping out the territory of one of the main contestants, with the rest split between President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey-backed rebels and the Kurdish-led SDF. Assad and his Iranian allies have sworn to recapture all Syria, and Turkey has threatened to drive out the SDF, which it sees as a terrorist group, by force. The continued presence of U.S. troops in northeast Syria might avert this. Islamic State originated as an al Qaeda faction in Iraq, but it took advantage of Syria's civil war to seize land there and split from the global jihadist organisation. In 2014, it suddenly grabbed Iraq's Mosul, one of the region's great historic cities, as well as Syria's Raqqa, and swathes of land each side of the border. It declared an end to modern countries and called on supporters to leave their homes and join the jihadist utopia it claimed to be erecting, trumpeting its currency, flag, passports and military parades. Oil production, extortion and stolen antiquities financed its agenda, which included slaughtering some minorities, public slave auctions of captured women, grotesque punishments for minor crimes and the choreographed killing of hostages. Those excesses brought an array of forces against it, forcing it from Mosul and Raqqa in a year of heavy defeats in 2017 and driving it, eventually, down the Euphrates to Baghouz. Over the past two months some 60,000 people poured out of that dwindling enclave, fleeing SDF bombardment and a shortage of food so severe that some said they were reduced to cooking grass. Intense air strikes throughout the campaign have levelled entire districts and rights groups have said they killed many civilians, allegations the coalition has often disputed. A mass grave the SDF discovered last month showed there were other dangers in the enclave, though it has released no details on the identities of the victims or how they died. Civilians made up more than half the people leaving Baghouz, the SDF said, including Islamic State victims such as women from the Iraqi Yazidi sect whom the jihadists had sexually enslaved. Thousands of the group's unbending supporters also abandoned the enclave while still vowing their allegiance to a ruined caliphate and showing no remorse for its victims. At displacement camps in northeast Syria where they were sent by the SDF, the hardliners, including many foreign women who came to Syria and Iraq to marry jihadists, had to be kept away from other, often traumatized, residents. Their fate has befuddled foreign governments, who see them as a security threat and are loath to accede to SDF entreaties to take them back home. As the fighting progressed, the convoys of trucks from Baghouz started to include hundreds, and then thousands, of surrendering jihadist fighters, many hobbling from their wounds. The SDF said it captured hundreds more in recent weeks who tried to slip through its cordon and escape into Iraq or across the Euphrates and into the Syrian desert. At the end, they were besieged in a tiny camp full of rusting vehicles and makeshift shelters, pinned against the Euphrates and overlooked by hills held by the SDF. Islamic State released video from inside that squalid, shell-pounded enclave, showing its last fighters still shooting at the SDF as smoke billowed overhead. It was an attempt to shape the narrative of its defeat, portraying it as a heroic last stand against overwhelming odds and a call to arms for future jihadists. But in Baghouz in recent weeks long lines of abject, surrendering fighters sat or squatted in a desolate landscape, their dream of world domination in tatters. ANKARA, March 8 -- The process of deploying Russian advanced S-400 air defense missile systems in Turkey will begin in October, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said at a meeting with editors of the Peet Journal on Friday. "The deployment of S-400s will begin in October and the Air Force is studying, in which regions it is better to deploy them," the defense minister said. Turkey’s defense chief reiterated that the acquisition of precisely Russian air defense systems was not "Turkey’s preference but was a forced measure." As Akar stressed, the S-400 surface-to-air missile systems are needed "to protect the country’s population." The Turkish defense minister also said that Ankara and Washington "are continuing their negotiations on the delivery of US Patriot air defense missile systems to the republic." S-400 missile systems for TurkeyIt was reported in November 2016 that Turkey was in talks with Russia on purchasing S-400 air defense missile systems. The contract’s signing was confirmed by the Russian side on September 12, 2017 and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan announced at the time that Turkey had already made an advance payment under the contract. In mid-June 2018, a source in military and diplomatic circles told TASS that Russian defense enterprises had been assigned the task of completing the production of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems in May 2019 for their delivery to Turkey. The S-400 Triumf is the most advanced long-range air defense missile system that went into service in Russia in 2007. It is designed to destroy aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles, including medium-range missiles, and can also be used against ground installations. The S-400 can engage targets at a distance of 400 km and at an altitude of up to 30 km. WASHINGTON, March 5 -- At President Donald Trump's direction, the United States intends to scrap the preferential trade status granted to India and Turkey, the US trade chief's office has said. Washington "intends to terminate India's and Turkey's designations as beneficiary developing countries under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme because they no longer comply with the statutory eligibility criteria," the Office of the US Trade Representative said in a statement on Monday. India has failed to provide assurances that it would allow required market access, while Turkey is "sufficiently economically developed" that it no longer qualifies, the statement said. Under the GSP programme, "certain products" can enter the US duty-free if countries meet eligibility criteria including "providing the US with equitable and reasonable market access". India, however, "has implemented a wide array of trade barriers that create serious negative effects on United States commerce," the statement said. It said Turkey, after being designated a GSP beneficiary in 1975, has meanwhile demonstrated a "higher level of economic development," meaning that it can be "graduated" from the programme. The changes cannot take effect for at least 60 days following the notification of the US Congress as well as the countries affected - a process Trump began on Monday with letters to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the Senate. The change for India came after "intensive engagement" between New Delhi and Washington, Trump wrote in one letter, the text of which was released by the White House. "I will continue to assess whether the government of India is providing equitable and reasonable access to its markets, in accordance with the GSP eligibility criteria," the US president wrote. In his letter on Turkey, Trump said the country's economy "has grown and diversified," and noted that Istanbul has already "graduated from other developed countries' GSP programmes". ANKARA, February 18 -- The US may continue to have a military presence in Syria after the withdrawal of troops, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News circulated on Monday. "Where will they pull out to, will someone else replace them, who will they leave the arms, will their presence continue? When they pull out, their presence will most probably not end, it will continue in some way," Peskov said. "All these questions are on the agenda, the presidents are talking about them. The general attitude is the same, there is no reason for optimism, and uncertainty is troubling. And this situation is not helping the crisis in Syria and hope for a solution at all," the spokesman emphasized. On December 19, 2018, US President Donald Trump said that the United States had defeated ISIS (Islamic State, a terrorist organization banned in Russia) in Syria, which was the only reason for the US troops being there, so all US troops would be pulled out of Syria. According to US officials, the US would withdraw its entire force of 2,000 service members from Syria within 60 to 100 days. |
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