Category: Politics

ATHENS: Bulgaria is considering signing a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine, following the recent trend observed among many European countries, said a report on Monday. 'Bulgaria is discussing the signing of a bilateral security agreement, but it must first be approved by the National Assembly," said Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, according to public broadcaster Radio Bulgaria. He said that Bulgarian government and the parliamentary majority have been working to ensure maximum political, military, diplomatic, humanitarian and material support for Ukraine. Zelenskyy, for his part, thanked Bulgaria for its support and revealed that Ukraine was interested in joint production in the defense sector, which he said would provide both jobs for Bulgaria and meet needs of Ukraine. According to Radio Bulgaria, the meeting also addressed the enhancement of bilateral cooperation in the energy, infrastructure, and logistics sector s. Zelenskyy said last Wednesday that his country is preparing for new security agreements with its partners. The conflict with Russia entered its third year on Saturday. Since the start of the year, Ukraine has signed 10-year security agreements with the UK, France, Denmark, Italy, Canada and Germany to deepen defense cooperation and support for the country. The agreements follow a G7 declaration at a NATO summit last July that it is launching negotiations with Kyiv to formalize its "enduring support" for Ukraine through "bilateral security commitments and arrangement.' Source: Anadolu Agency

PRETORIA: Trade and investments between Trkiye and South Africa are booming with an increase reported annually, Trkiye's ambassador to Pretoria said Monday. 'The total volume of Turkish investments in South Africa is $32 million. In 2022, it was $31 million, which is an increase,' Aysegul Kandas told Anadolu in an interview at her office in the capital Pretoria. She said South Africa's investments in Trkiye were $217 million in 2022 but the amount increased to $274 million by the end of 2023. Kandas said between 60-70 Turkish companies had set up businesses in South Africa, operating in various sectors including textiles and food. She said one of the biggest Turkish investors is Arcelik, a major small household appliances producer in Trkiye that owns the well-known South African appliance brand DEFY, generating jobs for 2,700 people and contributing to South African exports to the Southern African Development Community bloc of 16 countries. Turkish defense giant Aselsan is another big investor that manag es its sub-Saharan Africa operations through its subsidiary in South Africa. She said Turkish entrepreneurs have also set up stores dealing in clothing, food, carpets, and furniture, among others. Kandas said there are currently over 65 South African companies operating in Trkiye with the largest being Met Air. She said the volume of trade between Trkiye and South Africa was $2 billion in 2021 and close to $3 billion in 2022 but decreased slightly in 2023 (over $1.95 billion) but they are working to increase it for the benefit of the two countries. - Diplomatic relations Kandas said last year Trkiye's former foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited South Africa at the invitation of his counterpart Naledi Pandor. Cavusoglu visited Cape Town to open the new consulate general and also held political consultations with Pandor. He also opened the Maarif Turkish Studies Center at the University of Pretoria Pandor also visited Trkiye for the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in 2022 and she is expected to attend this year as well in March to speak at a panel. She is also expected to meet Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Kandas also said they expect President Cyril Ramaphosa to visit Trkiye, which follows President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's official visit to South Africa in 2018. 'We would like to hold the first meeting of the Binational Commission established between our countries in Trkiye hopefully at the level of deputy president or president. This will propel our bilateral relations which have been flourishing during the last 2 years since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic,' she said. Source: Anadolu Agency

DOHA: Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held talks with Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh on Monday to discuss efforts to reach a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. The discussions dwelt on Palestinian developments and Qatari efforts to reach an immediate and durable cease-fire in Gaza, the Emiri Diwan said in a statement. Sheikh Tamim reiterated Qatar's 'unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their just cause and the significance of the Palestinian unity to regain their legitimate rights, primarily the right to establish their independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,' the statement said. According to a Hamas statement, Haniyeh said his group showed flexibility and positively responded to efforts by mediators to end the Israeli war on Gaza. 'Hamas sees that the Israeli enemy is stalling, something the group will not accept in any way,' he added. The Hamas leader called for halting Israeli 'massacres' against Palestinian children, women and civilians, t he statement said. An Israeli delegation is scheduled to arrive in the Qatari capital, Doha, later Monday for talks on a possible hostage-prisoner swap deal with Hamas. Qatar, along with Egypt and the US, is mediating between Hamas and Israel to put an end to a deadly Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7. Hamas is believed to be holding more than 130 Israeli hostages following its cross-border attack on Oct. 7, while Israel holds at least 8,800 Palestinians in its prisons, according to official sources from both parties. The Palestinian group demands an end to Israel's ongoing onslaught on Gaza in return for any hostage deal. A previous deal in November saw the release of 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners in exchange for 240 Palestinians, including 71 women and 169 children. Nearly 29,800 Palestinians have been killed and over 70,000 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7 amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been kil led. The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN. Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza. Source: Anadolu Agency

ANKARA : Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz will travel to the UK on Monday to attend meetings with investors. On the first day of his contacts, Yilmaz will meet with Trkiye's Ambassador Osman Koray Ertas in London, as well as Turkish business representatives, at the envoy's residence, according to the vice president's press office. Separate meetings with British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development President Odile Renaud Basso, and representatives of the Turkish Cypriot Community are expected Tuesday. He is also slated to attend a high-level round table organized by the Confederation of British Industry. Yilmaz, who will meet with representatives of the Turkish community at the Yunus Emre Institute Turkish Cultural Center, will hold a meeting with investors at the London Stock Exchange for talks on investment opportunities in Trkiye. Presidential Investment Office President Ahmet Burak Daglioglu will be accompanying Yilmaz. Source: Anadolu Agency

BERLIN: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was forced to cut short her tour of a waterworks facility in southern Ukraine after the spotting of a Russian drone, German media reported Sunday. Baerbock had been visiting the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv when members of the delegation were asked to promptly return to armored vehicles in Baerbock's convoy after a Russian drone was sighted flying over the facility, German news agency dpa quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesperson as saying on the sidelines of the visit. The drone had initially followed Baerbock's convoy, but then turned away. A short time after the minister's departure, air raid sirens went off in the Mykolaiv region. On Saturday evening, Baerbock had to go to a shelter in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa after another alarm triggered at 9.48 p.m. local time (1948GMT). While the alert was canceled about 20 minutes later, Baerbock remained in the shelter of her hotel together with members of her delegation and other guests, according to dpa. Sources from the German delegation said it was a missile alarm that had sounded, and that an explosion was later heard in the Odesa region, though it was unclear whether or not Ukrainian air defenses succeeded in blocking the projectile. Details on possible damage or victims remain unknown. Two Russian drone attacks left reportedly a total of four dead and several injured in Odesa city shortly before Baerbock's visit. Source: Anadolu Agency BELGRADE: In London on Monday, the territorial dispute between Kosovo - a sovereign state since 2008 - and Serbia - which calls Kosovo its own territory - broke out into full view. The dispute began at a panel organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), when Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said Kosovo is an internal part of Serbia, calling it by its pre-2008 name, "Kosovo and Metohija." But Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti shot back: "The name of my country is the Republic of Kosovo, not Kosovo and Metohija.' He added that Kosovo is recognized as an independent country by three of its four neighboring countries and 117 countries around the world, including 22 EU members and 26 NATO countries as well as Trkiye and the United States. In response Brnabic claimed that "such a statement does not correspond to reality." Before Kosovo's independence, Kosovo and Metohija was an autonomous province in southernmost Serbia. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, wit h most UN member states including the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Trkiye recognizing it as an autonomous country. Serbia, however, still considers Kosovo its territory. The last two years have seen tensions and violence flare along the countries' shared border, with Serbian troops last fall amassing at the frontier with Kosovo before pulling back. Source: Anadolu Agency

BERLIN: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was forced to cut short her tour of a waterworks facility in southern Ukraine after the spotting of a Russian drone, German media reported Sunday. Baerbock had been visiting the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv when members of the delegation were asked to promptly return to armored vehicles in Baerbock's convoy after a Russian drone was sighted flying over the facility, German news agency dpa quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesperson as saying on the sidelines of the visit. The drone had initially followed Baerbock's convoy, but then turned away. A short time after the minister's departure, air raid sirens went off in the Mykolaiv region. On Saturday evening, Baerbock had to go to a shelter in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa after another alarm triggered at 9.48 p.m. local time (1948GMT). While the alert was canceled about 20 minutes later, Baerbock remained in the shelter of her hotel together with members of her delegation and other guests, according to dpa. Sources from the German delegation said it was a missile alarm that had sounded, and that an explosion was later heard in the Odesa region, though it was unclear whether or not Ukrainian air defenses succeeded in blocking the projectile. Details on possible damage or victims remain unknown. Two Russian drone attacks left reportedly a total of four dead and several injured in Odesa city shortly before Baerbock's visit. Source: Anadolu Agency

BERLIN: Chancellor Olaf Scholz's co-ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) said on Monday that recognizing a Palestinian state should no longer be a "taboo" in Germany, citing growing international frustration with Israel's military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. 'The recognition of a Palestinian state shouldn't be taboo for us. To escape the spiral of violence, to get out of it, you need two things. First, a cease-fire must be established immediately, followed by the hostages' release. It has to be linked to a political offer that provides security for both sides,' SPD lawmaker and the party's foreign policy spokesman Nils Schmid told the weekly news magazine DER SPIEGEL. 'This should include normalization of Israel's relations with Arab states, but also recognition of a State of Palestine. The final borders have to be clarified during the negotiations, but at the beginning, all parties should recognize what the aim of the negotiations is: a Palestinian state that cannot threaten Israel,' S chmid added. Germany and the EU have long supported a two-state solution in the Mideast, but only as part of a negotiated settlement. With talks long bogged down and Israel's military onslaught on Gaza intensifying, some European countries are openly advocating for the recognition of a Palestinian state sooner. In a related development, Schmid expressed doubts within his party about the proportionality of Israel's deadly military actions in Gaza. 'Doubts about the proportionality of the deployment are growing in the SPD. And, personally, I also have strong doubts about it,' the SPD legislator said. Schmid also warned that a planned Israeli military attack on densely populated Rafah could result in disproportionate killings, given that over a million civilian men, women, and children have sought refuge in the southern Gaza city. There has been mounting international criticism over Israel's onslaught on Gaza as nearly 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have so far been killed in the five-month military actions, with over 70,000 injured. Source: Anadolu Agency

ISTANBUL: Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry renewed on Monday his country's call for a cease-fire in the war-torn Gaza Strip. "The ongoing war in Gaza, which witnessed an official threat to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people, requires all peace forces to work to restore and strengthen the foundations of regional stability in the Middle East,' Shoukry said in a speech to the High-Level Segment (HLS) of 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. In November, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu threatened to strike the Gaza Strip with a 'nuclear bomb' following a Hamas attack on Oct. 7. The top Egyptian diplomat reiterated Cairo's categorical rejection of any attempts to forcibly displace the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. He also called for legally binding security guarantees not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, kill ing more than 29,782 people and causing mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed. The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN. Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza. Source: Anadolu Agency

TORONTO: Trkiye's permanent representative to the UN on Monday emphasized the necessity for a "realistic, sustainable" peace for the war in Ukraine. Speaking at the 78th Session of the General Assembly under the agenda of Ukraine, Sedat Onal said, "It is high time that we focus our efforts on crafting the contours of a realistic, sustainable, and above all, a viable peace." He also urged the international community to "recognize that a peace plan requires the engagement of both sides, in order to achieve progress in the pursuit of diplomacy." As the war in Ukraine entered its third year, Onal said "the human cost and the physical destruction" are soaring day by day "with profound global implications for international peace and security." He further continued on by adding that "a state of relative stalemate prevails on the ground, with no end in sight and little prospect for peace." On Trkiye's position, the envoy affirmed that it "has adopted a consistent position, standing firmly against this war and re jecting the annexation of the Ukrainian territories." "It has supported the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political unity of Ukraine, since the illegal annexation of Crimea." Continuing on by stressing the "call for upholding international law and the founding principles of the UN, as enshrined in its Charter," Onal recalled that Trkiye has "consistently emphasized the need to develop pathways for a diplomatic solution that will be shaped through negotiations." Regarding the Black Sea Initiative, Onal said the stability of the initiative "remains pivotal to avoid further escalation and disruption of the global food market." "Inspired by this initiative, we are now looking into the possibility of a renewed security framework that will enable safe commercial navigation at the Black Sea," he added. Source: Anadolu Agency