Month: January 2022

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will speak over phone with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, Moscow announced on Monday.

“No face-to-face meeting is planned for now. A telephone conversation between Lavrov and Blinken will take place on Tuesday,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.

Last week, Lavrov announced new Russian-US contacts about Moscow’s proposal on security guarantees.

Last December, Russia presented to the US and NATO its proposal on providing security guarantees in Europe that takes into account Moscow’s interests.

On Jan. 26, after a series of talks, the US and NATO handed their written responses to Russia’s demands.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The African Union announced on Monday that it has suspended Burkina Faso from all activities of the 55-member continental body following a recent military coup that toppled the government led by President Roch Marc Christian Kabor.

The bloc’s powerful Peace and Security Council, which has the legal authority to suspend countries involved in unconstitutional power grabs, declared on Twitter that Burkina Faso’s participation in all activities had been revoked until the constitutional order is restored.

“Council decides in line w/ the relevant AU instruments (AU Constitutive Act; AUPSC Protocol; African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance), to suspend the participation of #BurkinaFaso in all AU activities until the effective restoration of constitutional order in the country,” the union said on Twitter.

Following the coup last Monday, another major West African regional bloc also removed Burkina Faso from its governing organizations.

Kabore was detained on Monday and later forced to resign.

Since the takeover by the military, which calls itself the Patriotic Movement for Liberation and Restoration, those close to the deposed president have been arrested.

Media reports said the president of the National Assembly, Alassane Bala Sakande, Prime Minister Lassina Zerbo, and other high-ranking members of Kabore’s government have been barred from leaving their homes.

The military junta led by Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba pledged that it would propose a return to constitutional order “within a reasonable time frame.”

However, the military rulers have not yet set a timetable for the return to civilian rule.

African armed forces have recently returned to the continent’s politics, flaunting weapons and overthrowing civilian governments in Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan, Chad, and Guinea, raising fears that the continent’s two decades of democratic progress may be undone.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Cuba has called on the US to drop the six-decade-old embargo on trade as the world has been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is cruel and inhumane that, in the midst of the worst health crisis in modern history, the United States government continues to be obsessed with the idea of suffocating the Cuban people,” the Cuban Foreign Ministry said on Twitter on Sunday, sharing a photo collage of 11 former US presidents who kept the blockade in place.

Cuba’s official news agency Prensa Latina also reported that people inside and outside the Caribbean country are calling for the end of the economic, commercial, and financial US sanctions.

“The economic US blockade has punished several Cuban generations for over 60 years. It has been tightened with special cruelty since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a vile and unforgettable crime,” Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said on Twitter.

The US maintains a comprehensive economic embargo on Cuba since February 1962, when then US President John F. Kennedy proclaimed an embargo on trade between the two countries.

While the embargo was loosened in 2000 to allow for food and humanitarian goods to be sent to Cuba, it has largely remained intact. It prohibits most American business with Cuba, exposing US corporations to potential sanctions should they do business with the Cold War rival.

Last year, the UN General Assembly reiterated its call for the US to end its embargo on Cuba, the latest in a long-standing series of annual votes insisting the Cold War-era measure be halted.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The European Union has well prepared the sanctions against Russia in case of aggression against Ukraine, but the bloc prefers to solve the conflict through dialogue, an official said on Monday.

“Even though we are prepared with deterrence and the restrictive measures, we are really focusing on the diplomatic track trying to make Russia to de-escalate” in the conflict with Ukraine, Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for the EU’s diplomatic service, told reporters at the daily news briefing of the European Commission.

Stano explained that the bloc prepared restrictive measures if “dialogue and diplomacy failed.”

He said that “the work is so much advanced already,” but reminded the “the scope and the type” of EU sanctions will depend on Russia’s actions.

Stano asserted that the EU would first consult the US, Canada, and NATO before taking a decision on sanctions.

At the same time, he reiterated the remarks of Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, warning Russia of “serious political consequences and massive economic costs” if it applies further aggression against Ukraine.

The US, with its European allies, has been warning that Russia is setting the stage for an invasion of Ukraine and has pre-positioned over 100,000 troops on its border with the former Soviet republic alongside significant artillery and tank deployments.

Moscow has denied preparing for a military offensive, saying its troops are there for regular exercises.

Last December, Russia presented to the US and NATO its proposal for providing security guarantees in Europe that takes into account the country’s interests.

In a written response to those demands, Washington expressed its commitment to uphold NATO’s “open door policy.” But Moscow said the response contains “no positive reaction” to its main demand of blocking Ukraine from joining NATO.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Yousuf Raza Gilani, the opposition leader in Pakistan’s upper house of parliament, resigned on Monday, three days after the opposition’s defeat on a key financial bill.

Gilani, a former prime minister and a central leader of the center-left Pakistan People’s Party, made the announcement in his speech during the Senate session.

He was among several opposition lawmakers who remained absent from the crucial Senate session summoned for voting on the State Bank of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill 2021 on Jan. 28.

His absence resulted in a surprise victory for the government in the opposition-dominated 100-member house by a single vote, which was cast by the chairman after a draw. Both sides had got 42 votes each.

Some opposition senators accused Gilani, who served as the premier from 2008 to 2012, and other absentees of indirectly supporting the bill aimed at fulfilling some major demands by the International Monetary Fund for release of the fourth tranche of a $6 billion bailout package.

Gilani rejected the allegations, saying that the government summoned the session in a hurry. He also accused Senate chairman Sadiq Sanjrani of partiality during the session wherein the bill was passed.

Opposition has called the bill, which will make the central bank fully autonomous, a “financial surrender.”

Earlier, the Finance (Supplementary) Bill 2021, also known as the “mini-budget,” was passed to meet the IMF’s conditions.

Source: Anadolu Agency

US on Monday condemned the Iranian-backed Yemen-based Houthis’ missile attack on Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“We condemn the latest Houthi missile attack on Abu Dhabi,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price said on Twitter.

“While Israel’s president is visiting the UAE to build bridges and promote stability across the region, the Houthis continue to launch attacks that threaten civilians,” Price wrote.

The UAE’s “air defense intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi terrorist group towards the country,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

No damage was caused by the attack, the ministry said.

It added that debris fell in an unpopulated area and there were no casualties.

The attack came on the same night that Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on his first official visit to the UAE as the country’s head of state.

Herzog will not interrupt his visit, presidential spokesperson Eylon Levy told Anadolu Agency, adding “the visit is expected to continue as planned.”

Yemen has been engulfed by violence and instability since 2014, when Iran-aligned Houthi rebels captured much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

A Saudi-led coalition aimed at reinstating the Yemeni government has worsened the humanitarian situation.

Source: Anadolu Agency