Day: January 10, 2022

At least five PKK suspects were arrested in Istanbul in simultaneous counter-terror operations, according to Turkish security sources on Monday.

The anti-terrorism unit of Istanbul police launched the operations to arrest suspects who were accused of making fake passports for members of the PKK/KCK terror group, said a source who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Police teams also seized digital material along with organizational documents during the operations that took place on Dec. 31 and Jan. 5 in Istanbul.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the US and EU – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is the PKK’s Syrian offshoot.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The talks started between US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov at the US mission to the UN office in Geneva.

“The U.S. will listen to Russia’s concerns and share our own, but we have been clear we will not discuss European security without our Allies and partners,” Sherman said on Twitter.

The US has described talks as an “extraordinary meeting” of the two nuclear powers’ Strategic Stability Dialogue (SSD).

Both countries have said they will speak to the media after their meeting.

Among the issues expected to be discussed included Russian troops near Ukraine’s border, NATO’s eastward expansion, nuclear weapons control, cybercrime, and other bilateral matters.

Sherman and Ryabkov had also met on Sunday in Geneva to prepare for the meeting.

“The Deputy Secretary and Deputy Foreign Minister discussed the bilateral topics both sides would address during the extraordinary meeting of the Strategic Stability Dialogue (SSD) January 10,” said the US in a statement.

‘Commitment to diplomacy’

Sherman stressed the US commitment to diplomacy and “the international principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the freedom of sovereign nations to choose their own alliances.”

“The United States will discuss certain bilateral issues with Russia at the SSD but will not discuss European security without our European Allies and partners,” said the statement.

Sherman said some subjects would only arise at the NATO-Russia Council meeting in Brussels on Jan. 12 and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Permanent Council meeting in Vienna the day after.

Russia had said it will seek firm legal guarantees for the non-expansion of NATO to the east and the non-deployment of weapons systems threatening Russia at the country’s borders.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on NATO to start talks seeking to provide Moscow with reliable, legally binding, and long-term security guarantees.

The US also released the transcript of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s appearance on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” which aired earlier on Sunday on ABC TV regarding Russia’s buildup of troops on the Ukrainian border in which America had offered two paths.

“One is through diplomacy and dialogue; the other is through deterrence and massive consequences for Russia if it renews its aggression against Ukraine,” said Blinken.

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin had met in Geneva on June 16, and the two leaders decided to continue dialogue to resolve issues that could cause conflict.

Source: Anadolu Agency

A British citizen who was kept in custody and tortured at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center by the US government in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks says he is still struggling for justice.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Moazzam Begg, one of the directors of the London-based advocacy group CAGE, said: “We’ve been campaigning since the beginning against Guantanamo and also the Islamophobic policies that exist within the Western world.”

Begg, who was detained in Islamabad, Pakistan on Jan. 31, 2002, said he “tried to seek accountability” after his unjustified detention of two years at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and through the police by giving evidence about the role of British intelligence in torture, which is a crime.

He said that after giving evidence at a war crimes tribunal and meetings with ministers of the UK government, he “sat with people who have ordered … an inquiry into the role of the British in torture.”

“And every single step of the way, we find that the governments of the United States of America and all of its allies that were involved in torture are above the law,” Begg said.

“None of them are accountable for their role in the war crimes, in the war on terror.”

Begg said his attempt was a legal case “against those who were involved in torture.”

He said British police visited the US, Guantanamo, and Libya for investigations, but “every time they found that the governments of Britain, America, and elsewhere would not cooperate with the police investigation.”

“And so, that again, tells me that the government is above the law.”

Begg said there are still 39 prisoners who are in custody without indictment at the detention camp.

“American President George (W) Bush opened the place, but he also released … over 500 prisoners,” he said, adding that his successor Barack Obama failed to keep his promise to close the center and to prosecute those who were involved in torture.

Quoting former President Donald Trump as saying “I believe torture works,” Begg said: “Imagine if somebody of any other country said ‘I believe torture works, and I will torture prisoners,’ and then for somebody to say ‘I will torture American prisoners,’ what the world would think.”

Begg said US President Joe Biden has been in power for one year and has so far released one prisoner only.

“And that is a Moroccan prisoner called Abdul Latif Nasir.”

Bitter memories

Begg still remembers how he was detained and started his two-year-long journey of custody, torture, and rendition at the hands of the US government.

He said that on Jan. 31, 2002, “unidentified individuals who stormed into my house put a gun to my head, tied my hands behind my back, put a hood over my head, and carried me off into the back of a vehicle. There, I realized that these are CIA agents with the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).”

“And they threatened to send me to Guantanamo. At first, they sent me to a series of secret detention sites, first in Pakistan and then into American custody, where they took me to Kandahar prison, then Bagram prison, where I stayed for about one year, and then eventually to Guantanamo, where I would remain for another two years, after which I was released without charge or trial.”

Torture and killings

Begg told Anadolu Agency that he “witnessed and endured many types of abuses myself, but the worst thing that I saw was a prisoner. He was brought to the front of me. His hands were tied to the top of the cage-like this, and he was suspended. He had, placed over his head, a sack and he was kicked repeatedly. And eventually, he was killed.”

“This is a death that the Americans have accepted. And the reason why they killed him was that they found it amusing that every time they kicked him on his leg, he said ‘Allah, Allah,’ so they kicked him so that he could say ‘Allah, Allah,’ and he did that. Over 100 times he was kicked on his leg.”

Remembering another beating to death of a separate prisoner after he tried to escape, Begg said they were “innocent prisoners, they were never charged with any crime.”

“So watching the abuse and the murder of these prisoners has been something that has remained with me all of this time.”

Worst memory

Begg said probably the worst thing that happened to him was in Bagram.

“I heard the sound of a woman screaming in the next cell, which they led me to believe was my wife being tortured,” he said.

“They brought pictures of my family, my children in front of me, while my hands were tied behind my back to my legs, and they said: ‘Well, where are your children? Where’s your wife? What do you think happens to them?

“Now, by Allah’s Mercy, (she) wasn’t my wife, but it was somebody else’s wife. It was somebody else’s daughter, it was somebody’s sister. They had a woman in that prison. I know that for a fact, and still I’m trying to discover who that woman was.”

An American project

“Well, let’s remember one thing. Guantanamo is an American project. It’s Republican. It’s Democrat. It’s Black. It’s white. It’s East Coast. It’s West Coast,” Begg said.

He explained his ordeal as he was detained in 2002.

“Two soldiers sat on top of me, one on my head, one on my back. They took out a knife and they slipped off my clothes with a knife and I could feel the cold steel against my skin. And then they dragged me in the mud, screaming and shouting, spitting in my face, spitting on my body, spitting on other prisoners, kicking me, punching me, bringing dogs, and then photographing me in this state, and then shaving my beard off, shaving my hair off, and then interrogating me naked, shivering in the cold.

“And (through) all of this, they were saying: ‘This is our right to do this.’ And I started to remind myself that America has a very brutal history against weaker nations, and I had to remind myself of history, that they may say one thing, but they do quite the other.”

‘Notorious site’

Rights group Amnesty International described the 20th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo as “an anniversary that should never have been reached.”

“Since the Bush administration, there has been agreement among national security experts and across the political spectrum that the Guantanamo prison — a notorious site of torture and unjustifiable indefinite detention — should be closed,” Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA’s director of Security with Human Rights, said in a statement.

“President Biden must uphold his commitment to close Guantanamo once and for all,” she said.

“The longer the prison remains in use, the longer it continues to undermine US credibility globally on human rights.”

Source: Anadolu Agency

The NATO chief said on Monday that the military bloc aimed at agreeing with Russia on a series of negotiations as it was “not realistic” to expect all conflicts to be solved at once during this week’s talks with Moscow.

“It’s not realistic to expect that when we have finished meetings that are all scheduled (for this week), all problems will be solved,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of this week’s key diplomatic events between NATO allies and Russia.

“I really hope that there is a real will on both sides (…) to engage in the process that can prevent new armed conflicts in Europe. Therefore, we are aiming for an agreement on a way forward, a process, a series of meetings,” he added.

Stoltenberg spoke at a joint news conference with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna before the extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission.

Stefanishyna praised the allies’ decision on negotiating with Ukraine ahead of Wednesday’s NATO-Russia Council, calling it a “strong demonstration” of the principle that “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

“We will listen to Russia’s concerns, but any meaningful dialogue should also address our concerns about Russia’s actions, and it must take place in consultation with Ukraine as we are doing today,” Stoltenberg noted.

On Monday and Tuesday, US and Russian delegations led by US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov are set to meet in Geneva.

The NATO-Russia Council will convene on Wednesday, for the first time since NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Moscow in 2014 because of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.

On Thursday, Russia will hold talks with Ukraine, Germany, and France as part of the so-called “Normandy format” to ensure the implementation of the Minsk peace agreements.

Last year was marked by high tensions between NATO and Russia over spying allegations and Russia’s continued military buildup in and around Ukraine.

Russia handed two draft agreements on European security guarantees to the US and NATO last month.

Source: Anadolu Agency

An indigenous Lenca group leader was assassinated in western Honduras late Sunday, Spanish news agency EFE reported.

Pablo Isabel Hernandez was assassinated in the town of San Marcos de Caiquin, said Bertha Oliva, coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras.

Oliva said they are shocked by Hernandez’s murder, who was a human rights defender and involved in education and environmental projects important to the Lenca community, a Mesoamerican indigenous people of southwestern Honduras and eastern El Salvador in Central America.

She said the Lenca leader had repeatedly claimed he was a target of threats, with his most recent complaint being filed on March 16 last year “for defending human rights, water, and land.”

Oliva urged Honduran authorities to investigate the tragic incident, and punish those guilty of his murder.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Ukraine on Monday called on Germany to unblock arms sales to the country to deter Russia from a renewed attack.

Speaking to local media, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk warned that his country faces the real threat of an invasion from Russia.

“In order to prevent (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s imminent attack … Kyiv expects massive military support from Germany,” he told the Funke media group.

Melnyk said Germany bears the same historical responsibility for Ukraine as it does for Israel, due to the crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II.

“We expect the German government to abandon this blocking attitude – which is morally absolutely reprehensible – and urgently provide the defensive weapons Ukraine needs,” he said.

Despite its strong political and economic support for Ukraine, Germany has so far opposed weapons sales to Ukraine, and also blocked arms supplies to the country via NATO’s procurement agency.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly said the weapons to be purchased via NATO are exclusively defensive tools to protect the county from aggression.

A German government spokesperson said on Monday that Berlin remains committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will continue its efforts for a political solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

“The federal government believes that the conflict there can only be resolved by diplomatic means and politically, not militarily,” deputy government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann told a news conference in Berlin.

She said recent developments will be discussed this week during US-Russia talks in Geneva on Monday, followed by NATO-Russia Council on Wednesday, and a meeting of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) planned for Thursday.

Russia has recently amassed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine’s eastern border, prompting fears that Kremlin could be planning another military offensive against its ex-Soviet neighbor.

NATO allies accuse Russia of trying to destabilize the country by providing military support to separatist forces in Ukraine’s eastern regions.

Source: Anadolu Agency