Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel will not tolerate “distortion of the truth, rewriting history, and denial of the Holocaust.”

Netanyahu was speaking out against a proposed law in Poland imposing fines and jail time on anyone who refers to the Nazi genocide of Jews as being a Polish crime, or the Nazi death camps as Polish death camps.

Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the Polish ambassador Sunday to express its objections.

Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial also warned against trying to change history.

“Restrictions on statements by scholars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion,” it said in a statement.

Some experts fear the new Polish law could also mean jail for Holocaust survivors when talking about their ordeals.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, recognizing the extreme sensitivity of the law, promised Sunday to give it a “careful analysis” before signing it if it passes the Polish senate.

Poland was home to one of the world’s most thriving Jewish populations before Nazi Germany invaded in 1939. It murdered about 3 million Jews in death camps set up in Poland, including such chilling places as Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Holocaust survivors who returned to Poland after the war found themselves victims of further anti-Semitism. Some historians say many Poles collaborated with the Nazis in persecuting Jews.

Poland regards itself as having itself been a victim of Nazi terror and resents being blamed for crimes carried out by Hitler and his gang of murderers.

On Sunday, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki tweeted a metaphor comparing Jews and Poles in pre-war Poland.

“A gang of professional thugs enters a two-family house,” he wrote. “They kill the first family almost entirely. They kill the parents of the second, torturing the kids. They loot and raze the house. Could one in good conscience say that the second family is guilty for the murder of the first?”
…

Several thousand people braved sub-zero temperatures in cities across Russia to protest what they say is a lack of competition ahead of March presidential elections all but guaranteed to extend Vladimir Putin’s grip on power through 2024.

The rallies were part of a nationwide “Voters Strike” called by opposition leader and erstwhile presidential candidate Alexey Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who has been blocked from participating in the elections over legal problems widely seen as manufactured to keep him out of the race.

“We demand a real contest. Even many supporters of Putin say ‘why wouldn’t he participate in a competitive election?’” said Vladimir Milov, a Navalny campaign adviser, in an interview with VOA at the Moscow rally.  

“They believe Putin can beat Navalny, and we believe Navalny can beat Putin,” he added.  

“That’s what elections are all about.”

Yet Sunday’s protests reflected a realization among Navalny’s camp that such a direct contest will not take place. 

Barred from participating by Russia’s courts and state election commission, Navalny’s campaign has shifted to calls to boycott the election — arguing low voter turnout nationwide will take the shine off a Putin victory and high voter approval ratings that, they argue, are inflated by state manipulation. 

“We are not going to take part in this election,” said Vladislav Sovostin, a small business owner, as the crowd shouted “Strike! Strike!” “Boycott!” and “These Aren’t Elections!” 

“We are going to monitor the vote and not allow them to falsify the election for Putin,” he added.

Arrests

Organizers argued that protests took place in over 100 cities across the country — with several approved in advance by authorities.  Notable exceptions were Russia’s two main cities — Moscow and St. Petersburg — where police and interior ministry troop presence were heavy and authorities threatened arrests. 

OVD-Info, a civic police monitoring group, reported 340 people had been detained nationwide.

Many of those included Navalny surrogates and campaign volunteers in cities such as Tomsk, a Siberian university town where the local independent TV-2 channel reported 10 arrests. 

In Moscow, police also stormed Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, where an online video feed of the day’s events was shut down after police broke through office doors with a chainsaw. 

 

​

Navalny, too, had little opportunity to take part in the event he organized.

Video published online (LINK https://twitter.com/navalny/status/957581631921033216)  showed police roughly dragging him into a police van almost as soon as he arrived on Moscow’s central Tverskaya Street.  

“I’ve been detained. That doesn’t matter,” he posted minutes later on Twitter.  “Come to Tverskaya. You’re not coming out for me, but for yourself and your future.”

Generational shifts

Once again, the faces of younger Russians — many in their teens and early 20s who have grown up under Putin’s rule — were prominent at rallies across the country. 

“The authorities are used to thinking that Russians will just sit quietly and wait for change. Well, our generation won’t wait. We want a better life,” says Ivan Savin, a high school student who attended the rally.

He also admitted to telling his parents he was “out with friends” for the day rather than out protesting the Russian president. 

“Only because they’ll worry and think I’ll get arrested.” 

His classmate, Valerie Koltsov, added that other friends felt the same.

“I know a lot of people who don’t come because it really does scare them. They think they’ll get fined for not doing what the government tells them.”

Turnout tactics

Indeed, turnout was smaller than previous Navalny-led protests from the past year, when tens of thousands of Russians came out to protest alleged corruption at the highest levels of government.

Few doubt that Navalny’s message — fueled by an effective social media campaign — has connected well beyond Moscow and into the regions. 

But Sunday’s smaller numbers, despite temperatures as low as -40C in Siberia, were all but certain to fuel debate in opposition circles over the wisdom of Navalny’s call for a nationwide boycott of the vote.

The tactic, critics point out, demands widespread participation or risks simply increasing Putin’s margin of victory. 

Ksenia Sobchak, a television star-turned-opposition figure whose own presidential bid has been tacitly endorsed by the Kremlin, is among those calling on anti-Putin forces to register their dissatisfaction by supporting her “Against All” candidacy at the ballot box rather than on the streets. 

Navalny’s supporters have largely derided Sobchak’s campaign as a Kremlin ploy to legitimize the vote. 

Yet Ludmilla Sidodova, a pensioner at the Moscow rally who was a veteran of the massive pro-democratic movement of the late-Soviet period, argued it would simply take a wider movement if Russians hoped to evoke real change.

She was among hundreds of thousands who once had demanded change, and suggested a new generation could learn from that history.  

“I wish they’d understand that we did what we could. Maybe it wasn’t always enough. But now it depends on them,” Sidodova said.  “Whatever life they decide they want is the life they’ll have.”
…

Ingvar Kamprad, who founded Sweden’s IKEA furniture brand and transformed it into a worldwide business empire, has died at the age of 91.

Kamprad died Saturday of pneumonia in the southern Swedish region of Smaland where he grew up on a farm, and with some modest financial help from his father, starting selling pens, picture frames, typewriters and other goods. It was the start of what became IKEA, now with 403 stores across the globe, 190,000 employees and $47 billion in annual sales.

His brand became synonymous with the simplicity of Scandinavian design, modest pricing, flat-pack boxing and do-it-yourself assembly for consumers. It turned Kamprad into an entrepreneur with a reported net worth of $46 billion. The company name was an acronym of his initials, the name of his farm, Elmtaryd, and his town of origin, Agunnaryd.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said Kamprad “was a unique entrepreneur who had a big impact on Swedish business and who made home design a possibility for the many, not just the few.” King Carl XVI Gustaf called Kamprad a “true entrepreneur” who “brought Sweden out to the world.”

Kamprad’s life was not without controversy, however.

He faced sharp criticism for his ties to the Nazi youth movement in the 1940s. While Sweden was neutral during the war, its Nazi party remained active after the war. Kamprad said he stopped attending its meetings in 1948, later attributing his involvement to the “folly of youth,” and calling it “the greatest mistake of my life.”

While he eventually returned to Sweden, Kamprad fled his homeland’s high-tax structure for Denmark in 1973 and later moved to Switzerland in search of even lower taxes.

The European Commission last year launched an investigation into ways IKEA allegedly used a Dutch subsidiary to avoid taxes, with the Green Party contending the company avoided $1.2 billion in European Union taxes between 2009 and 2014. The Consortium of Investigative Journalists identified IKEA in 2014 as one of the giant multinationals that moved money to tax havens to avoid taxes.

Kamprad was known for his frugality, buying his clothes at thrift shops, driving an aging Volvo and bringing his lunch to work.
…

Key Republicans voiced strong support Sunday for special counsel Robert Mueller’s handling of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but split on whether Congress needs to approve legislation to block President Donald Trump from firing Mueller.

Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine, breaking with some of their Republican colleagues in Congress, stated in separate Sunday news shows that they support legislation, mostly favored by Democratic lawmakers, to require a judicial review if Trump were to attempt to dismiss Mueller.

Two prominent Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives — Kevin McCarthy of California and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina — both said they approve of Mueller’s performance in the ongoing criminal investigation. But McCarthy said he sees no need to enact a law to prevent Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mueller’s fate is at the forefront of the Russia investigation after news accounts surfaced in recent days that Trump ordered White House lawyer Don McGahn to fire Mueller last June. but backed off after McGahn threatened to quit over the would-be ouster.

Trump has denied on several occasions in recent months that he had even thought about firing Mueller and branded last week’s story, first reported by The New York Times, as “fake news,” his favorite censure for stories he does not like.

Graham said he would be glad to pass legislation to prevent Trump from trying to oust Mueller, who is in the midst of negotiations with Trump’s lawyers over terms of Trump’s possible testimony under oath about the Russian election interference and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI director James Comey, who at the time was heading the law enforcement agency’s Russia probe before Mueller took it over.

But Graham said regardless of whether legislation is approved or not, “I see no evidence that President Trump wants to fire Mr. Mueller now. It’s pretty clear to me that everybody at the White House knows that it would be the end of President Trump’s presidency if he fired Mr. Mueller.”

Gowdy said he supports Mueller’s handling of the probe “100 percent, particularly if he’s given the time, the resources and the independence to do his job.”

Trump last week reiterated his long-standing contention that there was “no collusion” between him and Russian interests to help him defeat his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and also said there was “no obstruction” of the investigation. He attributed his actions in trying to limit the investigation to “fighting back.”

He said he is looking forward to testifying before Mueller’s lawyers and would do it under oath. But his lawyers subsequently said discussions with Mueller’s team are still ongoing about the terms of any interview of Trump and what topics would be discussed.

Comey, in notes he compiled from several meetings with Trump, says that the president urged him to drop his investigation of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired by Trump after less than a month on the job for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington in the weeks before Trump assumed power. Trump has denied Comey’s account of their talks.

Trump, who unsuccessfully asked Comey for a loyalty pledge, dismissed him in May. A day later, Trump told Russian officials in a White House meeting he had relieved himself of “great pressure,” describing Comey as “crazy, a real nut job.” A few days later, Trump told Lester Holt of NBC News that he ousted Comey because of “this Russia thing,” saying the investigation was “a hoax” perpetrated by Democrats to explain his upset election victory.

White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told Fox News he knows that Trump is “frustrated” by the investigation, that “millions of dollars have been spent with no evidence of collusion.”

 
…

Jordan’s king affirmed his support Sunday for establishing a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, highlighting his differences with the Trump administration on a central issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

Abdullah II spoke at the start of a meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who also expressed concern about President Donald Trump’s recognition last month of contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

 

“I think there are very good reasons to question the theory that unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would contribute to the consolidation of peace in the Middle East,” Steinmeier was quoted as telling the Jordanian daily Al-Ghad in an interview published Sunday.

 

One of the pillars of Germany’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is the need to preserve the status of holy sites and to negotiate the final status of Jerusalem within the framework of the two-state solution,” Steinmeier, a former foreign minister, told Al-Ghad.

 

Jordan’s monarch serves as custodian of a major Muslim shrine in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the kingdom’s Hashemite dynasty derives much of its political legitimacy from its special role in Jerusalem. Jordan is also home to a large Palestinian population.

 

“I think our views on Palestine and Jerusalem are well known to you,” the king told the German president Sunday. “We do believe in a two-state solution, with [east] Jerusalem as a capital for the Palestinians.”

 

At the same time, Jordan is a staunch U.S. ally and a major recipient of U.S. economic and military aid.

 

Abdullah has stopped short of siding with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who said after Trump’s dramatic policy shift on Jerusalem that Washington can no longer serve as the sole mediator between Israelis and Palestinians.

 

The king received U.S. Vice President Mike Pence last week, and has said the U.S. remains an indispensable broker.

 

Trump raised new concerns last week when he said at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that he had taken Jerusalem “off the table.”

 

U.S. officials have stressed repeatedly that the Jerusalem recognition has no impact on negotiations over the borders or sovereignty of the holy city.

 

Trump also told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the global summit that Israel had “won” on the matter but would have to make concessions to the Palestinians in any eventual talks.

 

Steinmeier is on a four-day visit to Jordan and Lebanon.

 

On Monday, he is to visit the Azraq camp for Syrian refugees in northern Jordan and a nearby air base by the same name where some 300 German troops are stationed as part of the U.S.-led international military campaign against Islamic State group extremists in Jordan.

 

Germany, which has absorbed hundreds of thousands of Syrian war refugees, has stepped up efforts in recent years to help improve conditions for refugees in regional host countries.

 

About 660,000 registered Syrian refugees live in Jordan, though Jordanian authorities say the actual number is double that.

 

Germany has given 595 million euros ($740 million) in bilateral humanitarian and development aid to Jordan in 2017, up from 470 million euros ($584 million) in 2016, embassy officials said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming he would take a “tougher” attitude toward Brexit negotiations with the European Union than the approach now being used by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Without providing specifics, Trump says in an ITV interview to be broadcast Sunday night that he would have used different tactics.

“Would it be the way I negotiate? No, I wouldn’t negotiate it the way it’s [being] negotiated… I would have had a different attitude,” he said. “I would have said that the European Union is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be.”

Britain is preparing to leave 28-nation bloc in March 2019. The complex negotiations have moved slowly and May’s Cabinet seems deeply divided over how best to separate.

In the interview with Piers Morgan, Trump says he looks forward to visiting Britain – where he has been invited sometime for a state visit to be hosted by Queen Elizabeth II – and apologizes for retweeting videos by a far-right group in Britain, which exacerbated tensions with May and drew complaints in Parliament.He also said Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle look like a “lovely couple” but he doesn’t know if he’s been invited to their May 19 nuptials at Windsor Castle. Trump was unperturbed when told that Markle backed his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 U.S. election and has described him as “divisive.”

 

“Well, I still hope they’re happy,” he says.

Trump also says his administration might not withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate accord if terms more favorable to the United States are reached, in part because he likes French President Emmanuel Macron, a driving force behind implementing the accord.

The interview was conducted Thursday during Trump’s visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

 

The guest list for Harry and Markle’s wedding has not been made public and the prince’s press team said invitations have not been sent out yet.

 

The British press has been filled with speculation that Harry and Markle might snub Trump and invite former U.S. President Barack Obama instead. Obama gave Harry a rare interview last year that was broadcast on the BBC.

Trump, in contrast, has angered many in Britain with his crackdown on immigration and his climate change policies.

Yet during the ITV interview, he seemed open to revisiting his pledge to withdraw from Paris climate accord, in which nations set their own goals to reduce the emissions of heat-trapping gases. Because of legal technicalities, America can’t get out of the pact until November 2020.

“If somebody said, `Go back into the Paris accord,’ it would have to be a completely different deal, because we had a horrible deal,” Trump said.

 

“Would I go back in? Yeah, I’d go back in. I like, as you know, I like Emmanuel [Macron]. I would love to, but it’s got to be a good deal for the United States,” he added.

Trump also said the Earth’s climate has been cooling as well as warming and asserted that ice caps have not been shrinking as predicted.

Scientists, however, report that the world hasn’t been cooling except for normal day-to-day weather variations; it has been warming instead. And there have been far more records for shrinking polar ice than growing ice, despite what the president claimed.
…

A leading separatist lawmaker says that Catalonia’s fugitive ex-president Carles Puigdemont will request permission from a Spanish judge to attend a parliamentary session to form a new regional government.

Josep Rull told Catalunya Radio Sunday that Puigdemont will ask for judicial authorization to attend Tuesday’s investiture debate in Barcelona during the next 24 hours.

Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled on Saturday that Puigdemont must be present at the parliament to be chosen as the region’s chief. It also said that he must ask for a judge’s permission to do so.

Puigdemont fled Spain after Catalonia’s parliament made an unsuccessful declaration of independence on Oct. 27 in violation of Spain’s Constitution.

He is wanted in Spain on possible rebellion and sedition charges and is likely to be arrested if he returns.
…

Hundreds of supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny began a nationwide day of protest against the authorities Sunday, calling on voters to boycott what they said was a rigged presidential election March 18.

Beneath bright blue skies, hundreds of young people gathered in the main square of the port of Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. Speakers called the election, which polls show incumbent Vladimir Putin should easily win, a farce.

“I will go to the elections when there’s a choice,” read one placard in Vladivostok, a reference to the fact that Navalny has been barred from running over what he says is a trumped up suspended prison sentence. “Putin is gobbling up Russia’s future,” read another.

Other protests took place in Novosibirsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Magadan, Kemerovo and Yakutsk. Navalny’s supporters said they expected thousands of people to take part in similar demonstrations in 118 towns and cities.

“Your own life is at stake,” Navalny, who organized the boycott protests, said in a pre-protest video. “How many more years to do you want to live with these thieves, bigots and creeps?”

​Navalny office invaded

In Moscow, where a protest is expected later Sunday, police forced their way into Navalny’s office and started questioning and searching people, citing reports of a bomb, an online feed run by Navalny’s supporters showed.

Police shut down a TV studio at the office that had been broadcasting online news bulletins, but another studio in a different location continued to operate.

Police detained six of Navalny’s supporters at the Moscow studio and around 16 protesters in other parts of Russia, OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said.

It was unclear where Navalny was, but a group of police officers was stationed near his home. Navalny said he planned to attend the Moscow protest later Sunday.

Possible violence

Police warned beforehand they would harshly suppress any illegal protest activity and authorities refused to authorize events in Moscow and St Petersburg, the country’s two biggest cities, raising the possibility of possible violence.

Navalny, a lawyer who has campaigned against official corruption, was barred from running in the election by the central election commission in December over what he said was a trumped up suspended prison sentence.

The United States and the EU criticized the decision.

Putin, who has dominated the Russian political landscape for the past 18 years, described U.S. criticism of the election’s commission’s decision as crude interference in Russia’s internal affairs and suggested Navalny was Washington’s pick for the presidency.

Polls show Navalny had scant chance of beating Putin, but Navalny says the system is rigged against political opponents like himself, which makes polls meaningless.

While there is little suspense about the outcome of the election, there is keen interest in voter turnout as media reports say the Kremlin wants to ensure Putin is re-elected on a turnout of around 70 percent or more as it sees high turnout as lending him greater legitimacy.

Though Navalny can’t run against Putin and says he knows Putin will be re-elected, his spoiler campaign is aimed at lowering voter turnout to try to take the shine off a Putin win.
…

Spain’s top court said Saturday that Catalonia’s fugitive ex-president must return to the country and be present in the regional parliament to receive the authority to form a new government.

The Constitutional Court ruled that a session of Catalonia’s parliament scheduled for Tuesday would be suspended if former leader Carles Puigdemont tries to be re-elected without being physically present in the chamber.

The court also said that Puigdemont must seek judicial authorization to attend the session.

Catalonia’s separatist lawmakers have been considering voting Puigdemont back in as regional chief without him returning from Belgium, weighing options that included another parliament member standing in for him or him addressing the lawmakers via video.

The separatist leader fled Spain after the regional parliament made an unsuccessful declaration of independence on Oct. 27 in violation of Spain’s Constitution. He is wanted in Spain on possible rebellion and sedition charges and is likely to be arrested if he returns.

The court also ruled that neither Puigdemont nor the four other former members of his Cabinet who also fled to Belgium to avoid a judicial summons three months ago could delegate their vote for Tuesday’s session in another candidate.

The court included a warning to the speaker of the Catalan parliament and the other members of his board that they would be breaking the law if they disobey the rulings.

It is still unclear whether the separatist majority in Catalonia’s parliament will heed the court’s ban on voting Puigdemont back into power unless he is there.

Nor is it a sure bet that Puigdemont won’t try to avoid police and return to the parliament come Tuesday, even if it would likely lead to his arrest either before or after the debate. 

The independence declaration in October brought to a head Spain’s worst political crisis in decades. Spain responded by invoking special powers allowing it to fire the regional government, dissolve Catalonia’s parliament and call fresh regional elections in December.

Contrary to the Spanish government’s wishes, separatist parties regained a slim majority, keeping the conflict alive and rallying secessionists around the call to bring back Puigdemont.

Polls consistently show that most Catalans want the right to decide the region’s future, but are evenly divided over splitting from Spain.
…

Russians unhappy with the prospect of six more years under President Vladimir Putin are expected to protest nationwide on Sunday, backing Alexei Navalny’s call for an election boycott amid warnings from authorities that they will be tough on demonstrators deemed to have broken the law.

Navalny, an anti-corruption crusader and opposition leader, called for the boycott after being barred from the March 18 presidential election because of a financial-crimes conviction that he and his supporters contend was Kremlin-engineered retribution. He has dismissed the vote as the “reappointment” of Putin, who has been president or prime minister since 1999.

With the Kremlin controlling the levers of political power nationwide after years of steps to suppress dissent and marginalize political opponents, it is virtually certain that the election will hand Putin a new six-year term. Political commentators say Putin, 65, is eager for a high turnout to strengthen his mandate in what could be his last stint in the Kremlin, as he would be constitutionally barred from seeking a third straight term in 2024. 

Rivals criticized

Navalny has accused the rest of the field of presidential hopefuls of playing into Putin’s hands and aiding what he says is a Kremlin bid to portray the vote as a legitimate, competitive contest. 

The planned rallies come days after a Moscow court ordered the closure of a foundation crucial to the presidential campaign Navalny has sought to conduct, and as reports of police searches of his campaign offices and harassment of his supporters mount.

On Friday, Russia’s Supreme Court revealed that it had declined Navalny’s appeal to be allowed to run for president.

On Thursday, police issued a stern warning to anti-government protesters. At a meeting with top Moscow police officials, First Deputy Interior Minister Aleksandr Gorovoi said that police would respect the right of citizens to hold public gatherings, as provided by the constitution and other legislation — but emphasized they would “absolutely toughly … prevent violations of these laws.”

In Moscow, Navalny has called on demonstrators to gather on a central street despite city authorities’ refusal to grant permission for a rally there, setting the stage for a potential confrontation. 

In a blog post on Saturday, Navalny urged people to come to the rallies on Sunday, writing that “to stay at home is to send them [those in power] the signal: ‘I’m ready to endure this for another six years.’ ” 

He also wrote that in 80 percent of cases, authorities have granted permission for rallies at the requested sites for Sunday, but not in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Past crackdowns

Police have repeatedly cracked down on demonstrations organized by Navalny in the past. More than 1,000 people were detained in Moscow alone on March 26, 2017, when Navalny organized protests in some 100 cities nationwide. Law enforcement authorities also cracked down hard at a protest in May 2012, the day before Putin returned to the Kremlin for his current term after a stint as prime minister.

Navalny appeared this week at a European Court of Human Rights hearing in his case against Russia over repeated incidents in which he has been detained and jailed.

Days before the police warning, a Moscow district court ruled on January 22 that the foundation Navalny and his allies have used to rent premises and pay salaries at campaign headquarters should be shut down. Navalny’s campaign chief, Leonid Volkov, described the ruling as absurd and vowed to appeal.

That ruling came days after the Constitutional Court refused to review a complaint from Navalny regarding the Central Election Commission’s decision in December to bar him from the presidential election. 

Navalny supporters have complained of a surge in harassment by the state in recent weeks, saying police have searched offices and seized pamphlets calling for an election boycott.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Russia of using energy as a “political tool” in Europe as he held talks with his counterpart Saturday in Warsaw, Poland.

At a news conference with Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz following the discussions, Tillerson said the U.S. is opposed to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, a proposed project that would connect Russia and Germany. Some Eastern European countries are also against the pipeline, which would give Russia a larger share of the natural gas market.

“Like Poland, the United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” Tillerson said. “We see it as undermining Europe’s overall energy security and stability and it provides Russia yet another tool to politicize energy as a political tool.”

Tillerson’s visit to Poland comes at a time when the U.S. is boosting exports of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to central Europe and taking on Russia’s stronghold on energy supplies.

Senior U.S. officials have said Washington will help European nations diversify their energy supply so they will not be solely dependent on Russia.

 

On June 7, 2017, the first U.S. LNG shipment to Central Europe arrived in Poland. The State Department said at that time Washington “has worked closely with European partners to diversify European energy supplies through new sources of natural gas.”

Talks between Tillerson and Czaputowicz were held before Tillerson placed a wreath and made remarks at the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Monument to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Tillerson said the genocide that occurred at German concentration camps in Poland must never be repeated.

“On this occasion it reminds us that we can never, we can never, be indifferent to the face of evil. The Western alliance which emerged from World War Two has committed itself to ensuring the security of all, that this would never happen again.”

Tillerson’s trip to Poland is aimed at strengthening Washington’s “strategic partnership” with Warsaw in meetings with Polish leaders, with security ties and energy cooperation high on the agenda.

 

Tillerson also met Saturday with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Law and Justice Party Leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, before wrapping up his European trip and returning to Washington.

 
…

The United Nations says it will participate in the Russian-sponsored Syrian peace meeting at the Black Sea resort of Sochi next week now that some of its concerns have been allayed.  The U.N. has just wrapped up two days of U.N.-mediated peace talks with Syrian government and opposition delegations in Vienna.

The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres has decided to send his special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to the Sochi meeting, which opens Monday.  De Mistura said a Russian statement persuaded the secretary-general that the U.N. should participate in the so-called Black Sea Peace Congress.  

“I took note of the statement by the Russian Federation that the outcome of the congress would be brought to Geneva as a contribution to the intra-Syrian talks process under the auspices of the U.N.”  

Gutteres said he was confident the congress in Sochi will be an important contribution to a revived intra-Syrian talks process mediated by the U.N. in Geneva.

Critics of the Sochi Congress, which is backed by Turkey and Iran, accuse Russia of trying to hijack the Syrian peace process from the United Nations and come up with a result that favors the government of Bashar al-Assad.  Syria’s opposition group agrees and says it will boycott the Sochi meeting.

De Mistura says the only sustainable solution to the Syrian crisis is through an inclusive Syria-led political process.

“The ultimate goal of a constitutional process is to enable the Syrian people to freely and independently determine their own future in U.N.-supervised parliamentary and presidential elections meeting the requirements laid out in resolution 2254,” de Mistura said.

Security Council resolution 2254 sets out the U.N.’s road map for peace in Syria.  Under the mandate, de Mistura notes a new constitution will be drawn up in Geneva under the auspices of the so-called Geneva process.

 
…

A defiant Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Friday that he’s prepared to risk confrontation with the United States over Turkey’s military incursion into northern Syria, vowing to next target a Kurdish-held town where U.S. Special Forces are stationed.

Speaking to members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, a belligerent Erdogan shrugged off U.S. calls for Turkey to limit the incursion launched a week ago, saying the next town to be targeted after the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, where Turkish tanks have been grinding through winter mud, will be Manbij, raising the possibility of American troops being drawn inadvertently into the bruising fight between Turks and Syrian Kurds.

The Reuters news agency reports that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Saturday the United States needs to withdraw from northern Syria’s Manbij region immediately, suggesting that an attack might be imminent.

 

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed concerns in a phone call with Erdogan about the Turkish offensive aimed at ousting Kurdish militiamen the U.S. sees as allies in the battle against the Islamic State terror group. Trump urged him to limit the incursion and to avoid civilian casualties. The U.S. president, though, acknowledged Turkey’s legitimate security concerns, according to Turkish officials, who say that Trump asked Erdogan “not to criticize the U.S.”

Dramatic escalation

But speaking to AKP members, Erdogan outlined a far more expansive operation than he’s committed to before, indicating his readiness to order Turkish forces, along with thousands of allied Syrian rebels, remnants of the Free Syrian Army that led the fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to drive right across northern Syria all the way to Iraq.

That would mean attacking east of the Euphrates River the Kurdish stronghold of Rojava, which Syrian Kurds hope one day will become their own independent state. It would mark a dramatic escalation of Turkey’s offensive – as well as adding a massive complication in the already complex Syrian conflict.  

“We will rid Manbij of terrorists, as was promised before. Our battles will continue until no terrorist is left right up to our border with Iraq,” Erdogan said.

Turkish officials refer to Kurdish militiamen with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a terrorists. They say the YPG is an affiliate of the Turkey’s own outlawed Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against Ankara.

The Turkish offensive, oddly named Operation Olive Branch, “will continue until it reaches its goals,” Erdogan pledged. He made no reference to the fact that as many as 2,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Manbij or nearby. We will “walk on our road until the end,” Erdogan added.

Turkey shares a 911-kilometer-long border with Syria, around two-thirds of which is under YPG control. Manbij is some 100 km east of the mountainous pocket of Afrin, which has been the focus of the Turkish offensive so far. U.S. troops have been located in Manbij since 2016, when Islamic State militants were driven from the city by the YPG with American assistance.

Kurdish officials say they are ready to deploy militiamen from Rojava to reinforce about 10,000 YPG fighters in the crowded city of Afrin, which would mean weapons, including anti-tank missiles, supplied by Washington for use against jihadist militants being turned instead on the Turks and their Syrian rebel allies.

‘Confusion and conflict’

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington would continue to pursue talks with Turkey and hoped to find a way to create a “security zone” that would meet Turkey’s “legitimate” security interests.” Senior Pentagon officials visited Ankara this week and sought to try establish a clear line between Afrin and other Kurdish-held territory and between different YPG units. Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that “the armed Kurdish groups in Afrin” are not part of the U.S.-backed coalition against Islamic State.

But some analysts say that distinction is false, and former U.S. envoy to Turkey James Jeffrey says there is “confusion and conflict” in Washington about what steps to take.

Gonul Tol, an analyst with the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based policy research organization, says that persuading Erdogan not to move on Manbij will likely prove extremely difficult. He argues one of the driving factors behind the offensive is Erdogan’s goal of “galvanizing [Turkish] nationalists ahead of critical 2019 elections.”

Syrian Kurds have accused both the U.S. and Russia of stepping aside when it comes to Afrin, which has an estimated population of more than 300,000 after having been swelled by refuges from other parts of war-torn Syria. Russian advisers were based in Afrin but were withdrawn by Moscow just days before Operation Olive Branch was launched. Erdogan claimed last week that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have an agreement over the Turkish incursion.

A Kurdish official told al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper, that the Kremlin brokered a meeting between the YPG and the Syrian government 48 hours before the Turkish offensive. He said the Kurds were told to hand over Afrin to President Assad as a way to avoid a Turkish attack and it was when they refused that the Russian military advisers were removed from Afrin.

Russia has been wooing the Kurds but appears now to have chosen the Turks in the conflict with the Kurds. Russian analysts say Turkey is more important in Moscow’s plans for ending the Syria conflict in a way that benefits its ally Assad.

“Afrin’s defenders have a poor hand to play,” according to Aron Lund, an analyst at the Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank. He says that while the Turks risk getting bogged down during the offensive and the YPG could drag out an insurgency, the Syrian Kurds face a powerful foe in Turkey “whose goal is not to win concessions but to destroy it.” Kurdish leaders may have no option but “to negotiate with Moscow and Damascus, self-interested actors whose assistance will come at a steep price, if at all,” he says.

Operation Olive Branch is enjoying widespread public support in Turkey. Three of the country’s four main parties support the incursion amid a media frenzy backing the offensive. Ankara has moved against critics, and dozens who oppose the offensive, including at least five journalists, have been detained. Erdogan has pledged to “crush anyone who opposes our nationalist struggle.”

 
…