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On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016: […] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from...

BRUSSELS (AFP-Jiji) — The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Saturday asked Turkey to forgo any unilateral military action in Syria, where Ankara has threatened a fresh offensive against a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia. “The statements of a possible Turkish military operation in northeast Syria are a source of concern,” Federica Mogherini said in a statement. “We share the goal of ending violence, defeating terrorism and promoting stability in Syria and the wider region. We expect the Turkish authorities therefore to refrain from any unilateral action likely to undermine the efforts of the Counter-Daesh Coalition or to risk further instability in...

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Nouri Mahmoud, a spokesperson for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), has accused Turkey of sending sleeper cells to areas held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).In an interview with Kurdistan24 last week, Mahmoud said Turkey directly supports all “jihadi groups.”  The spokesperson was referring to when the so-called Islamic State (IS) controlled Jarabulus and Tal Abyad, “when the borders were open and oil deals ongoing.”However, after the SDF controlled areas from IS in Tal Abyad, Manbij, Raqqa, and now also Deir al-Zor, Turkey, “through its intelligence, started to send infiltrators to Syria,” he added.“When we talk...

OSLO (AFP) - Yazidi activist Nadia Murad, a survivor of sex slavery by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), implored the global community to help free hundreds of women and girls still held by the militants in her Nobel acceptance speech on Monday (Dec 10), saying the world must protect her people. "The protection of the Yazidis and all vulnerable communities around the world is the responsibility of the international community," Ms Murad told the ceremony in Oslo.The 25-year-old shares the Nobel Peace Prize with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, who has spent more than two decades treating appalling...

UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet criticises the Danish government’s plan to place criminal migrants on a deserted island. According to her, it is not good to stigmatise migrants in this way.About a week ago Denmark’s Finance Minister Kristian Jensen announced that criminal foreigners in the future will be placed on an uninhabited island in anticipation of expulsion.After the island has been cleared of swine fever. The migrants will be allowed to leave the island during the day but must stay there at night. The decision was taken in conjunction with budget negotiations with the Danish People’s party. “Hooray!”, wrote...

ISTANBUL- A crackdown on political dissent in Turkey is widening to participants in a major civic unrest 5-years ago. Prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for a prominent actor, a leading journalist/civil society activists.The arrests are in connection with the 2013 protests known as Gezi. The unrest began over plans to turn Gezi Park in central Istanbul into a shopping mall. The protests quickly transformed into broader demonstrations opposing the government and, in particular, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At its peak, the unrest saw millions of people take to the streets across the country.For Erdogan, who is now president, the...

The General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, said that Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), consisting of all components of the Syrian people, are "the only ones capable of defeating the largest terrorist organization in the Middle East." He said they had a long way to stay in Syria, and we have no specific time how long we will stay in Syria. 09 Dec 2018, Sun - 10:42 NEWS DESKThe Washington Post conducted a lengthy interview with General and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford on several issues including US military excellence and fierce competition with...

House Lawmakers on Saturday released the transcript of former FBI Director James Comey’s closed-door testimony, just 1-day after being questioned about the FBI’s decisions related to Hillary Clinton's email server and the 2016 presidential election.House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight/Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-SC, published the 235-page transcript as a part of an agreement with Comey. He initially challenged the subpoena to appear before the committee and instead pressed for a public hearing out of concerns his comments would be selectively leaked and taken out of context.The details of the transcript revealed that Comey...

Nato's Parliamentary Assembly recently published what some have called a "scathing" report on Turkey. Until now, Nato had given almost no input on the country's deterioration in human rights and rule of law, despite Turkey being one of its largest member states.The report mentioned the impact of emergency rule, elimination of independent media, and related concerns. But it left unmentioned other grave violations - namely, the fate of the thousands of people falsely imprisoned in the post-coup crackdown - including officials of Nato itself. One such Nato official is Cafer Topkaya, a Turkish man who was serving in Belgium at...

Around 1000 people participated in the 3-hour-long event outside the Swedish Parliament on Sunday. Several speakers participated, including Sweden’s most active and well-known journalist and freedom fighter Katerina Janouch, Reader in Business Administration Jan Tullberg, and lecturer and writer Lennart Matikainen.Janouch stated that Sweden has gone from being a model country to a country that doesn’t care about its own citizens. “The billions flow and no one is held accountable. Sweden is run by a bunch of imposters who abuse their power and don’t care about our well-being.”“Criticism of mass migration may be silenced by the agreement. We must stand...

A new German-Franco document that was presented on Thursday, states that EU countries that refuse to take refugees should pay to escape their responsibility, Reuters reports.The measure is seen as a form of “alternative solidarity” in which EU member states pay into the EU’s budget for developmental projects in Africa.The document aims to prevent renewed conflicts over taking migrants. By paying off their responsibility to take migrants, EU rows with countries that don’t want to take migrants or refugees could be prevented. Among other things, the document does say that a situation should be avoided in which all countries prefer...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Monday that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee staff about whether his infamous firm continued to investigate Donald Trump after the 2016 election.In a letter to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), Grassley stated that Simpson told committee staff in 2017 that he stopped probing now-President Trump and his associates’ connections to Russian officials after the 2016 presidential election because he “had no client after the election.”Here’s what committee staff asked Simpson and what the Fusion GPS founder had to say in return last August: When the Committee staff interviewed Glenn Simpson...

ERBIL — US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey urged other countries to share a larger burden in facilitating the conditions for peace in Syria, while floating the idea of the United Nations enforcing a no-fly zone for parts of Syria. "Remember we were present not in northern Iraq but over northern Iraq in Operation Northern Watch for 13 years. That can be a UN force," he said on Tuesday, referring to the joint US-UK-Turkey no-fly zone in the late 1990s that protected Kurdish areas from the air force of Saddam Hussein. Jeffrey briefed reporters in Washington, D.C., after...

The International Forum on Ethnic Cleansing and Demographic Change in Afrin will be launched after a while. In this report, we will show you the participants of the forum and the axes of its first day, which is held at Baylasan Hall in Amouda district, northern Syria. 02 Dec 2018, Sun - 07:15 QAMISHLOUnder the auspices of Rojava Center for Strategic Studies, in the presence of hundreds of local, regional and international political figures and dozens of civil society organizations, the International Forum on Ethnic Cleansing and Demographic Change in Afrin will soon begin.The forum will last for three days...

In an exclusive interview with UN News, Louise Arbour, the UN Special Representative for International Migration, said on Tuesday that the stated intention of several countries (including Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria) to pull out of the Global Compact for migration has seriously affected the spirit of multilateralism. Ms. Arbour pointed out that the text was agreed following extensive negotiations – involving all Member States apart from the United States – that lasted for months, during which each country advanced their own interests and extracted concessions from others, adding: “I think it reflects very poorly on those who...

The Maarif Foundation, which was established by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in 2016, has taken over the management of two schools linked to the Gülen group in Venezuela, the pro-gov’t Sabah daily reported on Saturday.The Foundation has so far taken over at least 78 schools linked to the Gülen group in Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, People’s Republic of the Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Tunisia, Senegal and Chad with their 8,506 students. The foundation has recently signed an agreement to take over Gülen movement schools in Afghanistan, which have more than 8,000 students.The foundation also has opened...

On Thursday, as U.S. President Donald Trump flew to the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires to attend the G20 summit, the White House told its press pool that his scheduled formal meeting at the summit with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, had been rearranged as a short, pull-aside meeting. With little chance that anything of substance will be discussed during such a meeting, this can be taken more or less as a politer alternative to cancelling altogether. No official reason has been given for the change, but events over the last few days give us enough clues to go...

Violence against Border Patrol agents continued to spiral this week with authorities reporting one agent held at gunpoint by an illegal immigrant in California, and two agents in Arizona facing attacks by hand. In the California incident agents responded Monday morning to a report that two illegal immigrants had been detected crossing the border on foot. The first man was apprehended without any problem, but the second, Hector Rodriguez-Chavez, aimed a loaded Star Echeverria pistol at an agent. The agent and Rodriguez struggled for the gun, and even the help of two other agents was not enough to pry the...

The office of TurkeyÂ’s President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan on Wednesday demanded that the countryÂ’s parliament strip immunity from the leaders of the main and Kurdish opposition parties and 19 other lawmakers to pave the way for potential prosecution, Kurdistan 24 reported. The move comes only a week after the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that the pretrial detention former leader of the Kurdish PeoplesÂ’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin DemirtaÅŸ had gone on longer than could be justified. It is also the latest in a far-reaching crackdown on the opposition, the Kurdish movement and civil society that has over...

Recent row during a Turkish parliamentary commission meeting spoke volumes. “We are cleansing everybody,” said the legislative body’s chairman, a member of the Justice and Development Party. “Everybody” means all who disagree with the AKP. “Cleansing” is the pattern established by the party of dismissing “everybody” from state institutions, public office. With Turkey in the third year of the post-coup period, the purge has not slowed. Discontent is being voiced. “Look, esteemed chairman,” roared Kurdish MP Meral Danis Bestas, “when the time comes and when you become subject to criminal charges, I and my friends will not hesitate to come...