Free Republic

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has formalized two major energy agreements with U.S. firms HKN Energy and WesternZagros in Washington, D.C., Kurdish media reported on Monday, in deals valued at a combined $110 billion, despite a legal showdown with the federal government of Iraq over control of the country’s oil exports... ...The deals were formalized during KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani's official visit to the United States this week... ...Washington has been advocating for the resumption of Kurdish oil exports, which have been stalled since March 2023 due to legal disputes and pipeline shutdowns. Washington's push aims...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the Syrian transitional authority may be weeks away from potential collapse and full-scale civil war, defending US President Donald Trump's decision to lift Syria sanctions and to engage with the Damascus government. "It is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up," Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Donald Trump has said his administration is now exploring the possibility of normalising relations with Syria - his comments coming shortly after he met Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family. The extraordinary encounter, unthinkable just months ago, was short but significant. "I think he has got the potential," Trump remarked after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian fighter formerly linked to Al-Qaeda. The $10m US bounty on his head was only lifted in December. Video footage of their conversation in a lavish Saudi royal palace showed...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump urged Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords in a previously unplanned meeting on Wednesday, one day after lifting all sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Gulf Cooperation Council gathering in Riyadh, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoning into the conversation. Syria currently doesn’t recognize Israel’s statehood, and the Abraham Accords were just one of Trump’s requests to Syria in an effort to normalize relations. Trump also told the Syrian leader to make all foreign terrorists leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help...

...The Turkish foreign ministry called on both parties to "exercise common sense and refrain from unilateral actions."They added, "We expect that measures will be taken to reduce tensions in the region as soon as possible and that the necessary mechanisms, including in the field of counter-terrorism, will be put in place to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. We also support Pakistan's call for an investigation into the 22 April terrorist attack."...Azerbaijan also issued a statement soon after the attack, condemning violence against Pakistan.In their statement they said, "The Republic of Azerbaijan expresses its concern over the further escalation of...

Transcript linked to video, chock full of on-scene video footage.

A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court. Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed. “We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding...

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding...

On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding Fathers drew inspiration from Greek philosophers and statesmen to form the...

The man who took Turkey from a secular nation to an Islamist one may finally have driven his people to take extreme measures against him. Last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s Islamist president, arrested a political rival. That sparked several days of protest, and, today, it’s seemingly culminated with protestors invading the presidential palace. The big question is whether this ends with a brutal response or the end of Erdoğan’s reign. Obviously, I have no answer to that question, but I can provide a little, very superficial background to help make some sense of what’s happening in Turkey today. Today’s...

Protests have erupted across Turkey against Erdogan’s oppressive Islamist government. Footage of massive protests, after Erdogan imprisoned his opposition candidate. EU is actually stepping in. Transcript linked below video.

Imamoglu, the popular 53-year-old mayor, was seen as the next opposition party candidate for the Turkish presidency and was expected to be nominated on Sunday. Charges for the arrest, which Imamoglu and his party reject, include terrorism and organized crime. In a statement, Imamoglu's Republican People's Party flatly rejected the charges against the Istanbul mayor, calling the move a coup. The Turkish lira fell to a record low against the dollar and the country's benchmark stock index dropped by as much as 7% following the surprise arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — a rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and a popular figure, had basked in the glow of what he often jokingly dubbed his political miracle — the only person to have beaten Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party in not one, but three local elections. On Wednesday, dozens of police officers raided his residence around dawn and detained him for questioning as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. Many see the arrest as part of a broader campaign to undermine the mayor and eliminate a key challenger to Erdogan before the next presidential elections. The...

Residents of the Greek island of Samos strongly opposed a proposition by the Greek Migration ministry to build a new refugee camp on their island. The residents gave a thundering “no” to the proposal. The heads of the local community in Mitilinious called an open community on the village square to discuss building a new refugee camp on the grounds of a local army camp. The local Syriza MP was invited to the gathering but he never appeared. Mr Michalis Aggelopoulos, declared their opposition on behalf of the local community, and their heads, including the mayor. Their opinion was cheered...

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the closure of the U.S. military base in Alexandroupoli, Greece, according to the Greek newspaper Dimokratia. However, the reports remain unconfirmed by Greek defense officials. The reported decision from Trump may indicate a shift in U.S. military strategy in the region against Russia and has reportedly raised concerns among Greek officials. US military base in Alexandroupoli and Türkiye’s concerns. The U.S. base in the region was a major source of tension between the U.S. and Türkiye. However, U.S. officials repeatedly reassured Türkiye that the U.S. forces’ deployment in the area was not against the...

This week the European Union is expected to announce a complete import ban on Russian oil. Hungary, in its first real act of defiance, is threatening to veto this; Germany, after some hemming and hawing, has finally decided it can survive such a ban. Assuming Hungary’s objections are eventually overcome, at first blush this looks like yet another energy “own goal” by the people obsessed with soccer. The U.S. has already issued this ban. Because European industry is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas, the conventional wisdom is that the EU Commission is just petulant and incompetent. Are they...

The Russia Hoax was never about Russia. It was always a cover story to unleash a legal assault on Team Trump, the sole aim of which was to look for, and create, secondary crimes (e.g., decades-old loan applications [Paul Manafort], a misremembered timeline [George Papadopoulos], raiding the son of a top-tier target [Michael Flynn] to compel a guilty plea, or the ever-reliable "lying" charge [Roger Stone]). That's it in the shell of a nut. A single sentence. And guess what: that single sentence is the current legal strategy for the Democrats, the Deep State, and the NeverTrump Republicans for the...

Confused about Putin's motives? Look at Ukraine Eighteen months ago, when Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, confusion prevailed in the West. Today, as Russia sends troops, armor, and aircraft to Syria, we are once again perplexed. On Monday President Vladimir Putin provided the explanation: Russia’s intervention is aimed to defeat ISIS and reduce the flow of refugees to Europe. A review of the last major Russian intervention, in Ukraine, might help us to evaluate this claim. The superficial links between the two conflicts are obvious. For the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, a ceasefire is holding. This has allowed...

The Russians called the EU’s bluff by pulling out of the project instead of accepting the EU’s conditions and are cutting deals with China and Turkey instead.By Alexander Mercouris ~ Russia Insider The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully. In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s. Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe....

Netanyahu: ‘Hamas are the new Nazis’. "The core of new antisemitism is the attempt to ... undermine [Israel's] right to self-defense," Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said. JNS Staff. (Jan. 27, 2025 / JNS). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called on the “civilized” world to up its effort to combat Jew-hatred, while labeling the Hamas terror group the “new Nazis.” “On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I call on all civilized nations to confront antisemitism wherever it appears—on college campuses, city streets or international forums like the [International Criminal Court],” Netanyahu tweeted. “Founded in the shadow of the Holocaust, the...