Free Republic

Last Monday I pointed out that China’s foreign minister Qin Gang had suddenly vanished and hadn’t been seen in three weeks. Officially, he was said to be ill but unofficially there rumors that he’d done something potentially embarrassing to the party. Today, Qin was officially removed from his post and replaced, once again suggesting that whatever led to his disappearance was seen as a career-ending mistake.Mr. Qin was abruptly removed as foreign minister on Tuesday after having disappeared from public view for 30 days. The move ended the career of a diplomat who had leaped to the top as one...

The lengthy absence from public view of China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang has sparked furious online speculation, while once again highlighting China's secrecy. The 57-year-old has not been seen in public for 23 days - his last reported engagements were on 25 June. Appointed to his post last December, Mr Qin was seen as a trusted aide of Chinese President Xi Jinping. As one of the best known faces of the Chinese government, Mr Qin's prolonged absence has not only been scrutinised by diplomats and China watchers, but also ordinary Chinese people. When asked about his whereabouts on Monday, Foreign...

We now know the name of the Chinese defector who has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a few months and what his position within the Chinese military and government was, among other details.Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at Spy Talk reported on the “rumor,” and gave the name and background of the rumored defector:Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei (董经纬) defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.Dong is, or was, a longtime official...

On Sunday, news broke that a private interview that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had with an economist had been leaked to a London-based Persian news service, which then shared it with the New York Times. There are several interesting points to the conversation, with two of the most striking being (a) Javid’s acknowledging that Trump’s decision to assassinate Qassim Suleimani was a powerful strike against Iran and (b) a reminder of why the Biden administration is making a terrible mistake when it politicizes the American military.Regarding General Suleimani, Zarif effectively says that Trump could scarcely have come up...

Senator Tom Cotton was roundly ridiculed and branded a conspiracy theorist for saying that the Wuhan coronavirus may have come from a lab. There was an immediate false equivalence that he was accusing China of releasing an engineered bioweapon. That was never what he said, so we lived through weeks of China’s preferred “bat soup” story that insisted the virus came from a wet market. Then last week, something strange happened. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on China to outlaw wet markets to protect global health. These types of markets where wild animals are kept in close proximity to...

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday Foreign Minister Winston Peters would travel to Turkey to “confront” comments made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the killing of at least 50 people at mosques in Christchurch, Reuters reported.Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday after a lone gunman opened fire at the two mosques during Friday prayers.Erdoğan — who is seeking to drum up support for his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) in March 31 local elections — said Turkey would make the suspected attacker pay if New Zealand...

During John Kerry's endeavors to save the JCPOA (the Iran deal) in 2018, his main point to Mohammad Javad Zarif (Rouhani's foreign minister in the last five years) was the importance of the Islamic Republic's patience until 2020, "when the Trump administration will be gone," or an earlier ousting through impeachment. If you read all the op-eds and editorials in the Islamic regime's propaganda machine, they also asked people to be patient and wait until Trump is ousted or defeated and sanctions will be over. Democrats who want Trump out of White House have not been alone. Their Islamist allies...

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with Mike Pompeo, his US counterpart, in Brussels last week on the sidelines of a NATO ministerial gathering in the hope of opening a new and more positive chapter in Turkish-US ties. There was little to suggest, however, that Cavusoglu’s first contact with the new secretary of state resulted in major breakthroughs with regard to the many problems besetting Turkish-American ties. To the contrary, the readout of the meeting from the US side, and the remarks by Cavusoglu after the meeting, showed that differences remain, even if they are being contained as a result...

Candidate Donald Trump said of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, “This corruption and collusion is just one more reason why I will ask my attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor.” He later upped the ante with the declaration, “She has to go to jail.” Now, it appears that the Trump State Department is working to keep the e-mails secret. On May 5, Judicial Watch issued a press release announcing that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the U.S. Department of State to turn over to the watchdog organization "eight identical paragraphs" of previously redact material in two September 13,...

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu have talked on the phone, diplomatic sources told state-run Anadolu Agency on March 19.  The two foreign policy chiefs have discussed the preparations for an upcoming meeting of the Global Coalition working to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which will be attended by the foreign ministers and senior leaders of the full coalition, now at 68 members. While this meeting will be held at the Department of State in Washington D.C. on March 22, it will be the first time since the establishment...

NEW DELHI — So far this month, India’s foreign minister has saved thousands of stranded Indian workers in Saudi Arabia — and helped a woman replace her lost passport so she could go on her honeymoon. Since she took on the job two years ago, Sushma Swaraj, 64, has carved out an unlikely role for herself as a crusading Supermom of State, solving the problems of distressed Indians around the world who send her their concerns via Twitter. Working late into the night at home, Swaraj tweets back, calling them “my child” and assuring them that help is on the...

Egypt’s foreign minister paid a rare visit to Israel on Sunday, saying that his country remains a “steadfast and unwavering” supporter of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians but warning that conditions for achieving that are deteriorating. Sameh Shoukry’s trip was the first official visit to Israel since 2007 and reflected the strong but low-profile ties that have developed between the two countries in recent years. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Shoukry’s visit was aimed at reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. …

In a lengthy May 26 article, Jodi Rudoren, the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, goes apoplectic over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s selection of Dore Gold to run Israel’s foreign ministry. The headline and the lead paragraph immediately signal to readers that Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, is disastrous for Israel’s diplomacy –“Netanyahu Appoints Hawkish Ally to Run foreign policy” – buttressed by Rudoren’s own depiction of Gold as a Bibi confidant who is “hawkish on Iran and the Palestinian issue.”

Asked about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian leaders, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that "in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy. It is very interesting that while negotiations are still in progress and while no agreement has been reached, some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history. This indicates that like Netanyahu, who considers peace as an existential threat, some are opposed to any agreement, regardless of its content....

European Union leaders on Saturday picked Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, to become the 28-nation bloc’s top diplomat for the next five years. The decision comes as the crisis at the EU’s eastern border pitting Ukraine against Russia poses one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for the bloc in decades. […] Mogherini, a 41-year-old center-left politician, has been Italy’s foreign minister only since February, drawing criticism that she lacks experience. A first attempt to secure Mogherini’s nomination in June failed amid resistance from eastern European leaders. …

Inflammatory language: Nina Shtanski, foreign minister of Transdniestria The glamorous foreign minister of a breakaway region of Moldova is calling on Vladimir Putin to make her country his next conquest in eastern Europe. Few may have heard of Transdniestria, the unofficial and fictitious-sounding statelet whose head of international relations is 36-year-old Nina Shtanski. However, senior Western figures are alarmed that following the annexation of Crimea it is step two in a Kremlin masterplan to redraw the frontiers of Europe. This top diplomat in staunchly pro-Russian Transdniestria, who has a penchant for revealing black dresses, is gushing in her praise of...

Jordan’s Foreign Minister said Sunday that he was against recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, the Jordanian website Ammon News reports. The minister, Nasser Judeh, also rejected the idea of Jordan being an alternative home for Palestinian Arabs. …

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned on Thursday that the economic crisis in Europe could still prove “dangerous” for the EU by encouraging political forces hostile to the bloc. Steinmeier also dismissed euroskeptics, who have gained political ground over the EU debt crisis, as “brainless”. “I am concerned about the situation in our union,” he told Ta Nea daily ahead of visit to Greece. “The crisis in public finances is not over yet… the economic crisis could activate centrifugal political forces that could prove dangerous to the European Union as a whole.” …

Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa defects Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister, last night defected from Col Muammar Gaddafi's government after flying to Britain, telling officials he was "no longer willing" to serve the regime. By Andy Bloxham, and Damien McElroy 11:11PM BST 30 Mar 2011 Mr Koussa flew from Tunisia, where he had been on a diplomatic mission, and landed at Farnborough airport before being shuttled to London for immediate talks with high-ranking Foreign Office officials. Mr Koussa was one of the leading figures in Col Gaddafi's government and one of the architects of Libya's recent rehabilitation in the...

November 26, 2009 Baroness Ashton denies taking funds for CND from Soviet Union Baroness Ashton of Upholland’s past came back to haunt her yesterday when the European Union’s new foreign affairs chief was forced to deny taking funds from the Soviet Union during her days as treasurer for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Lady Ashton, a surprise choice for her post, was challenged to deny that she had contact with Russian sources while she was in charge of its accounts at the height of the Cold War. The Times has learnt that concerns about her CND involvement are felt across...