PARIS — Germany “would not stand in the way” if Poland or other allies asked for permission to send their German-built Leopard tanks to Ukraine, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Sunday.
The remarks by the Green politician, who was interviewed by French TV LCI on the sidelines of a Franco-German summit in Paris, came in response to comments by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who has raised pressure on Berlin in recent days by saying that Poland is willing to supply Kyiv with Leopard tanks, which would require German approval.
Baerbock, however, stressed that “we have not been asked so far” by Poland for such permission. “If we were asked, we would not stand in the way,” she added.
German officials have gotten increasingly frustrated in recent days by what they perceive as a “media blame-game” by Poland, as Warsaw has repeatedly suggested that Germany was hampering plans to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine, although it appears that the necessary request for export permission has not been made yet.
Germany is, however, still dragging its feet when it comes to the bigger question of whether it would be willing to send its own Leopard tanks to Ukraine, for example as part of a broader coalition with Poland and other countries like Finland and Denmark.
Pressed on that point during a press conference in Paris on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz avoided giving a clear answer, stressing instead that Berlin had never ceased supporting Ukraine with weapons deliveries and took its decisions in cooperation with its allies.
Poland’s Morawiecki said on Sunday that his country was ready to build a “smaller coalition” for sending tanks to Ukraine without Germany.
Baerbock’s comments are therefore also raising the pressure on Scholz to take a clearer position on the tank issue — at least when it comes to granting export permissions to other countries.
After Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, also from the Greens, said earlier that Germany “should not stand in the way” of permitting such deliveries, the foreign minister’s even more definitive statement makes it even harder for Scholz to take a different position.
Ukraine has been appealing to Germany and other Western nations to supply modern Western-made battle tanks in order to fend off an expected Russian spring offensive.
PARIS — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz raised optimism on Sunday that the EU and the U.S. can reach a trade truce in the coming months to prevent discrimination against European companies due to American subsidies.
Speaking at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron following a joint Franco-German Cabinet meeting in Paris, Scholz said he was “confident” that the EU and the U.S. could reach an agreement “within the first quarter of this year” to address measures under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act that Europe fears would siphon investments in key technologies away the Continent.
“My impression is that there is a great understanding in the U.S. [of the concerns raised in the EU],” the chancellor said.
Macron told reporters that he and Scholz supported attempts by the European Commission to negotiate exemptions from the U.S. law to avoid discrimination against EU companies.
The fresh optimism came as both leaders adopted a joint statement in which they called for loosening EU state aid rules to boost home-grown green industries — in a response to the U.S. law. The text said the EU needed “ambitious” measures to increase the bloc’s economic competitiveness, such as “simplified and streamlined procedures for state aid” that would allow pumping more money into strategic industries.
The joint statement also stressed the need to create “sufficient funding.” But in a win for Berlin, which has been reluctant to talk about new EU debt, the text says that the bloc should first make “full use of the available funding and financial instruments.” The statement also includes an unspecific reference about the need to create “solidarity measures.”
EU leaders will meet early next month to discuss Europe’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Franco-German proposal to soften state aid rules.
The relationship between Scholz and Macron hit a low in recent months when the French president canceled a planned joint Cabinet meeting in October over disagreements on energy, finance and defense. But the two leaders have since found common ground over responding to the green subsidies in Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act. Macron said that Paris and Berlin had worked in recent weeks to “synchronize” their visions for Europe.
“We need the greatest convergence possible to help Europe to move forward,” he said.
But there was little convergence on how to respond to Ukraine’s repeated requests for Germany and France to deliver battle tanks amid fears there could be a renewed Russian offensive in the spring.
Asked whether France would send Leclerc tanks to Ukraine, Macron said the request was being considered and there was work to be done on this issue in the “days and weeks to come.”
Scholz evaded a question on whether Germany would send Leopard 2 tanks, stressing that Berlin had never ceased supporting Ukraine with weapons deliveries and took its decisions in cooperation with its allies.
“We have to fear that this war will go on for a very long time,” the chancellor said.
Reconciliation, for past and present
The German chancellor and his Cabinet were in Paris on Sunday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Elysée treaty, which marked a reconciliation between France and Germany after World War II. The celebrations, first at the Sorbonne University and later at the Elysée Palace, were also a moment for the two leaders to put their recent disagreements aside.
Paris and Berlin have been at odds in recent months not only over defense, energy and finance policy, but also Scholz’s controversial €200 billion package for energy price relief, which was announced last fall without previously involving the French government. These tensions culminated in Macron snubbing Scholz by canceling, in an unprecedented manner, a planned press conference with the German leader in October.
At the Sorbonne, Scholz admitted relations between the two countries were often turbulent.
“The Franco-German engine isn’t always an engine that purrs softly; it’s also a well-oiled machine that can be noisy when it is looking for compromises,” he said.
Macron said France and Germany needed to show “fresh ambition” at a time when “history is becoming unhinged again,” in a reference to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Because we have cleared a path towards reconciliation, France and Germany must become pioneers for the relaunch of Europe” in areas such as energy, innovation, technology, artificial intelligence and diplomacy, he said.
On defense, Paris and Berlin announced that Franco-German battalions would be deployed to Romania and Lithuania to reinforce NATO’s eastern front.
The leaders also welcomed “with satisfaction” recent progress on their joint fighter jet project, FCAS, and said they wanted to progress on their Franco-German tank project, according to the joint statement.
The joint declaration also said that both countries are open to the long-term project of EU treaty changes, and that in the shorter term they want to overcome “deadlocks” in the Council of the EU by switching to qualified majority voting on foreign policy and taxation.
BELFAST — A top-level British diplomatic mission designed to soothe tensions over the Northern Ireland trade protocol instead opened new divisions Wednesday when the leader of Sinn Féin was unexpectedly barred.
U.K. government officials offered conflicting explanations for blocking Mary Lou McDonald from the Northern Ireland Office meeting with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. He had traveled to Belfast to brief local party leaders on Monday’s breakthrough with the European Commission on making post-Brexit trade arrangements work better in what remains the most bitterly divided corner of the U.K.
McDonald’s exclusion triggered a boycott of the meeting by Sinn Féin, the largest party in the mothballed Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as its moderate competitor for Irish nationalist votes, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). It propelled the Belfast talks to the top of an Irish news agenda bored stiff by the long-running Brexit protocol dispute — and played straight into the hands of Sinn Féin, which lost no time in denouncing perfidious Albion.
“Apart from this being utterly bizarre, I mean beyond bizarre, it’s extremely unhelpful,” McDonald said nearby the Northern Ireland Office headquarters in central Belfast, where Cleverly hosted the talks attended by only three of the five parties from Northern Ireland’s collapsed power-sharing government.
“It’s a bad message and a bad signal if the British Tories are now behaving in this petulant fashion and saying that they would seek to exclude people from the very necessary work that needs now to be done,” McDonald said.
British government officials initially defended McDonald’s exclusion on the grounds that she is not an elected member of the Stormont assembly — a condition not cited or enforced on many similar political gatherings dating back to McDonald’s February 2018 elevation to the Sinn Féin leadership.
McDonald represents central Dublin in the Republic of Ireland parliament, reflecting Sinn Féin’s status as the only major political party contesting elections in both parts of Ireland. Since 2020 she has led the parliamentary opposition to the coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and Foreign Minister Micheál Martin.
An explanation circulated by the Northern Ireland Office to journalists said its meeting invite had specified attendance by Michelle O’Neill, McDonald’s party deputy and the senior Sinn Féin politician north of the border.
O’Neill and McDonald had planned to attend together, as has been common. Both similarly plan to meet Varadkar and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer when they make separate visits Thursday to Belfast.
“The leader of Sinn Féin in the [Northern Ireland] Assembly was invited and remains invited. Her attendance is a matter for Sinn Féin. But she was not excluded,” the U.K. government said, referring to O’Neill.
Others quickly pointed out an evident contradiction. Leaders of two other parties — the Democratic Unionists’ Jeffrey Donaldson and the SDLP’s Colum Eastwood — had been invited, even though they, just like McDonald, have no role at Stormont.
Cleverly’s office circulated a second explanation citing a different protocol — diplomatic protocol — as the real reason not to permit McDonald through the door.
Those officials cited Ireland’s December 17 Cabinet reshuffle in which Martin replaced Simon Coveney as foreign minister. This meant, they said, Cleverly needed to hold a face-to-face meeting with Martin before he could do the same with opposition leader McDonald.
Irish nationalist and center-ground politicians dismissed both explanations. They noted that U.K. government leaders already have met dozens of times with Martin, who served as prime minister for the first half of Ireland’s planned five-year government.
In Dublin, senior officials also questioned the U.K.’s stated rationale.
“I’d like to think we wouldn’t be quite so stupid as to offer this insult up on a plate to Sinn Féin. It seems such an obvious point to make, but the parties in Northern Ireland should be free to choose who represents them at any table. This is normally never an issue. This shouldn’t be made an issue,” one official told POLITICO. “Citing the rules of diplomacy for this move boggles the mind.”
Cleverly and Chris Heaton-Harris, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland who also took part in Wednesday’s meeting, declined comment.
Donaldson — whose party is blocking the operation of the Stormont assembly and formation of a new cross-community government in protest against the trade protocol — said he wouldn’t comment on whether it had been right or wrong to exclude McDonald.
But he said Cleverly and Heaton-Harris had reassured him in the behind-closed-doors meeting that any agreement on reforming the trade protocol must meet his party’s core demands. These include an end to any EU controls on British goods arriving at local ports that are destined to remain within Northern Ireland.
“They recognize that a deal with the EU that doesn’t work for unionists just isn’t going to fly,” Donaldson said.
CANBERRA, Australia — The first visit by an Australian foreign minister to China in four years is raising hopes that Australia will make progress on ending trade sanctions and freeing two Australian citizens detained in China.
But Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong cautioned on Tuesday before leaving that some of the thorny issues between the countries will take time to resolve.
Still, diplomacy experts welcomed the visit as a positive move following years of frosty relations.
Wong will meet with her counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing this week as Australia and China mark 50 years of diplomatic relations. The visit will include a new round of talks on foreign and strategic issues after the talks were suspended in 2018.
“There has been a lot of speculation in the last 24 hours or more about what will happen,” Wong told reporters. “I will say this: the expectation should be that we will have a meeting, and that dialogue itself is essential to stabilizing the relationship. Many of the hard issues in the relationship will take time to resolve in our interests.”
She said she didn’t want to speculate on outcomes because it could have an impact on Australia’s leverage in the talks.
“In relation to consular cases, to save you asking the question, obviously I will be raising consular cases, as I always do, just as I will continue to advocate for the trade impediments to be lifted,” Wong said.
Australia has been pushing for the release of spy novelist Yang Hengjun, who China accused of espionage, and journalist Cheng Lei, who China accused of sharing state secrets.
China does not recognize dual citizenship and Chinese-born defendants such as Yang and Cheng are often not afforded the same treatment as other foreign nationals, particularly when facing espionage charges.
Wong’s trip signals a continued thaw in relations between the two nations since Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won an election victory in May, replacing the more conservative Scott Morrison in the top role.
Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit last month in Bali, the first such formal meeting between the leaders of the two nations in six years.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China hopes the visit will build on the momentum toward improved ties established at the Bali summit.
China hopes the two countries will “push bilateral relations back to the right track and achieve sustainable development,” Mao said at a daily briefing this week.
Relations between Australia and China have been poor for several years after China imposed trade barriers and refused high-level exchanges in response to Australia enacting rules targeting foreign interference in its domestic politics and calling for an independent inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jennifer Hsu, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute think tank, said the resumption of diplomatic dialogue was a welcome development.
She said she could “see the wheels starting to move with regards to a number of issues pertaining to Australia and China.”
“It would be great if a breakthrough happens but these things take time,” Hsu said.
She noted that China could reap some economic benefit from relaxing its trade sanctions on Australian goods.
DUBLIN — U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday appointed the late Robert Kennedy’s grandson Joe to be the next U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland, setting the stage for an increased American focus on the divided U.K. region in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of its troubled Good Friday peace agreement.
After the news of his appointment — first reported by POLITICO — Joe Kennedy III pledged to “reaffirm U.S. commitment to Northern Ireland and to promote economic prosperity and opportunity for all its people.”
Kennedy previously served as a Massachusetts congressman before losing a Senate bid in 2020. In his new role, he will have, in historical terms, big shoes to fill. The 1998 Good Friday deal was overseen by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the first and by far most important U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland. Mitchell was appointed by Bill Clinton, the only U.S. president to adopt a hands-on interest in ending a three-decade conflict that left more than 3,600 dead.
American envoys have wielded progressively less influence since the days of President George W. Bush, when his State Department appointees Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss focused on pushing the outlawed Irish Republican Army to disarm and renounce violence and its allied Sinn Féin party to accept the lawful authority of Northern Ireland’s police force.
Those once unthinkable moves, achieved in 2005 and 2007 respectively, paved the way for the revival of a power-sharing government uniting British unionists and Irish nationalists — a core goal of the Good Friday accord that once again has collapsed amid Brexit-driven divisions.
But Barack Obama’s envoy, former Senator Gary Hart, and Donald Trump’s man, former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, both came and went without recording any tangible gains. The position has been idle for nearly two years, during which the breakdown-prone Northern Ireland Executive has fallen apart again.
U.S. officials briefed that Kennedy would avoid the political stalemate and focus on economic matters, particularly the prospect of wooing more U.S. corporate investment and jobs to Northern Ireland.
That was also the initial line taken when Clinton — facing British opposition to any direct U.S. intervention within a part of the United Kingdom — first appointed Mitchell to a Belfast role in December 1994. Gradually, Mitchell won enough cross-community trust to become the chairman of the talks, a role that required disciplined and patient diplomacy, including for years after the Good Friday breakthrough.
Officially, all sides welcomed the much-leaked news of Kennedy’s appointment, which is widely seen in Washington circles as a Biden effort to give Kennedy a new political platform following his failed Senate bid.
“The U.S. has been pivotal in supporting peace, stability and prosperity for Northern Ireland. We will continue working together to make Northern Ireland a great place to live, work and do business,” said Chris Heaton-Harris, Britain’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland. “I look forward to welcoming Joe to Belfast in the near future.”
Behind the scenes, some in unionist and British government circles said the Biden administration hadn’t learned a key lesson from the high-profile triumph of Mitchell and low-key effectiveness of the Bush-era envoys — to avoid appointing figures firmly rooted in Irish America and the Catholic side of the traditional divide.
“We seem to be getting one of these classic Irish-American envoys who has no idea what we’re about — that we’re British, not Irish,” one unionist politician involved in the Good Friday negotiations told POLITICO. “We will be polite, even if we have to grit our teeth at times.”
Northern Ireland’s main pro-Brexit party, the Democratic Unionists, offered no comment. The party, which spent a decade opposing the Good Friday deal, has refused to revive power-sharing since May’s Northern Ireland Assembly election, which left them trailing Sinn Féin for the first time.
DUP leaders insist their veto on cooperation has nothing to do with this election setback and everything to do with the post-Brexit trade protocol, which keeps Northern Ireland subject to EU goods rules and makes it harder to receive shipments from Britain. The party recently denounced a visiting U.S. congressional delegation as biased against them.
Unsurprisingly, Sinn Féin and the Irish government offered fulsome praise for Biden’s appointment of a Kennedy.
“I want to thank President Biden and his administration for this appointment. It is a clear demonstration of the president’s direct engagement with Ireland as well as the enduring U.S. commitment to supporting peace in, and building the prosperity of, Northern Ireland,” said Micheál Martin who, until this past weekend, was Ireland’s prime minister. He has just been appointed foreign minister — responsible for leading diplomatic efforts in Northern Ireland — as part of his government’s coalition agreement in Dublin.
“Joe Kennedy has a strong record in promoting the interests of the north and I look forward to working with him,” said Sinn Féin’s would-be first minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill.
The DUP’s moderate rival for unionist votes, Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie, said his community needed to keep an open mind and see Kennedy’s arrival as an opportunity, not a threat.
“Unionism has suffered from not engaging fully with the U.S.A. and this has been something my party has been keen to rebalance,” said Beattie, who welcomed Kennedy’s stated “focus on economic ties.”
PARIS — When French President Emmanuel Macron’s party lost its absolute majority in parliament six months ago, many wondered what the setback would mean for an ambitious, here-to-disrupt-the-status-quo leader whose first term was defined by a top-down style of management.
It turns out Macron 2.0 is a man about globe, pitching “strategic intimacy” to world leaders, as he leaves domestic politics to his chief lieutenant and concentrates on his preferred sphere: international diplomacy.
The Frenchman’s past “intimate” moves have been well-documented: affectionate hugging with Angela Merkel, knuckle-crunching handshakes with Donald Trump, and serial bromancing with the likes ofJustin Trudeau and Rishi Sunak. Now in his second term, the French president appears to be making a move on — quite literally — the world.
Since his reelection, Macron has been hopping from one official visit to another: in Algeria one day to restore relations with a former colony, in Bangkok another to woo Asian nations, and in Washington most recently to shore up the relationship with Washington. The globetrotting head of state has drawn criticism in the French press that he is deserting the home front.
“He is everywhere, follows everything, but he’s mostly elsewhere,” quipped a French minister speaking anonymously.
“[But] he’s been on the job for five years now, does he really need to follow the minutiae of every project? And the international pressure is very strong. Nothing is going well in the world,” the minister added.
Before COVID-19 struck, Macron’s first term was marked by a brisk schedule of reforms, including a liberalization of the job market aimed at making France more competitive. The French president was hoping to continue in the same pragmatic vein during his second term, focusing on industrial policy and reforming France’s pensions system. While he hasn’t abandoned these goals, the failure to win a parliamentary majority in June has forced him to slow down on the domestic agenda.
Foreign policy in France has always been the guarded remit of the president, but Macron is trying to flip political necessity into opportunity, delegating the tedium and messiness of French parliamentary politics to his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
There are few areas of global diplomacy where the president hasn’t pitched a French initiative in recent months — whether it’s food security in Africa, multilateralism in Asia or boosting civilian resilience in Ukraine. Despite some foreign policy missteps in his first term including the backing of strongman Khalifa Haftar in the Libyan civil war, Macron is now a veteran statesman, eagerly taking advantage of Europe’s leaderless landscape to hog the international stage.
The French president’s full pivot to global diplomacy in his weakened second term at home is reminiscent of past leaders confronting turmoil on the domestic front.
“The Jupiterian period is over. He’s got no majority,” said Cyrille Bret, researcher for the Jacques Delors Institute. “So now he is suffering from the Clinton-second-mandate-syndrome, who after the impeachment attempts over the Lewinsky [inquiry], turned to the international scene, trying to resolve issues in the Balkans, the Middle East and in China.”
But even as Macron embraces the wide world, the pitfalls ahead are numerous. Photo ops with world leaders haven’t done much to slow the erosion of his approval ratings at home. With a recession looming in Europe and discontent over inflation and energy woes, Macron’s margins of maneuver are limited, and trouble at home might ultimately need his attention.
Man about globe
The French president first used the words “strategic intimacy” in October, when he told European leaders gathered in Prague they needed to work on “a strategic conversation” to overcome divisions and start new projects.
If the thought of 44 European leaders cozying up wasn’t bewildering enough, Macron double-downed this month and called for “more strategic intimacy” with the U.S.
It’s not entirely clear what kind of transatlantic liaison he was gunning for, but it certainly included a good dose of tough love. Arriving in Washington, Macron called an American multi-billion package of green subsidies “super aggressive.” (He nonetheless received red carpet treatment at the White House, with Joe Biden calling him “his friend” and even “his closer” — the man who helps him bring deals over the finish line — even if he didn’t actually obtain any concessions from the U.S. president.)
Some of Macron’s success in taking center stage is, of course, due to France’s historical assets: a permanent seat on theU.N. Security Council, a nuclear capacity, a history of military interventions and global diplomacy.
But for the Americans, Macron is also the last dancing partner left in a fast-emptying ballroom across the pond. The U.K. is still embroiled in its own internal affairs and has lost some influence after Brexit, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hasn’t filled the space left by Merkel’s departure.
While Macron’s abstract and at times convoluted speeches may not be to everyone’s liking, at least he has got something to say.
“[The Americans] are looking for someone to engage with and there’s a lack of alternatives,” said Sophia Besch, European affairs expert at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “Macron is the last one standing. There’s his enthusiasm, and at the same time he is disruptive for a leader and not always an easy partner.”
“He can count on some reluctant admirers in Washington for his energy,” she said.
The French touch
In his diplomatic endeavors, Macron likes a good surprise.
“Emmanuel Macron doesn’t like working bottom-up, where the political link is lost,” said one French diplomat. “He enjoys surprising people and marking political coups.”
“The [French bureaucracy] doesn’t really like that,” the diplomat added. “We prefer things that are all neat and tidy.”
Conjuring up new ideas — such as the European Political Community — that haven’t quite filtered through the layers of bureaucracy is one of Macron’s ways of pushing the envelope. The newly christened group’s first summit was ultimately hailed as a success, having marked the return of the U.K. to a European forum and displaying the Continent’s unity in the face of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
It’s a technique that forces the hand of other participants but sometimes undermines the credibility of his initiatives, and raises questions about what has really been confirmed. Launching the European Political Community may have been a success; announcing a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the U.S. president a couple of days before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine less so. (The summit, obviously, never took place.)
Macron’s diplomatic frenzy has also raised speculation that he is already gunning for a top international job for when he leaves the Elysée palace. Macron cannot run for a third term, and speculation is already running high in France on what the hyperactive president will do next.
The question at the heart of Macron’s second term is whether his attempts to be everything and everywhere — combined with his stubborn dedication to controversial ideas — is what will ultimately trip him up.
Even as Macron’s U.S. visit was hailed a success, with him saying France and the US were “fully aligned” on Russia, he sparked controversy on his return when he told a French TV channel that Russia should be offered “security guarantees” in the event of negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine.
“That comment fell out of the line in relation to the coordinated message from Macron and Biden, which was that nothing should be done about Ukraine without Ukraine’s [approval],” said Besch.
Macron says he wants France to be an “exemplary” NATO member, but he still wants France to act as a “balancing power” that does not completely close the door on Russia. It’s a stance that may help France build partnerships with more neutral states across the world, but it does nothing to mend the rift with eastern EU member states.
For the man about globe who presents himself as the champion of European interests, that’s an uncomfortable place to be in.
When it comes to “strategic intimacy,” it’s possible to have too many partners.
Elisa Bertholomey and Eddy Wax contributed to reporting.
MADRID — Spanish security forces are investigating a spate of letter bombs sent to political, military and diplomatic targets.
Devices were sent to the U.S. embassy and the prime minister’s office, as well as four other destinations, triggering a security alert.
On Thursday, security personnel at the U.S. embassy in central Madrid discovered an incendiary device sent by mail. The surrounding area was cordoned off as police entered the building. Nobody was hurt as the device was deactivated.
The nature of the targets of the packages has raised suggestions of a link with Russia. Spain has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and on November 19, the defense ministry announced it was about to send a new shipment of military aid to the country to help it repel Russian forces.
The National Court has opened an investigation into possible terrorism-related crimes and public buildings have been put on alert, although the terrorist threat level has not been changed.
The first bomb was reported on Wednesday when a member of staff at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid was injured as the contents of the package he had opened ignited. He received medical attention for hand injuries but was not hospitalized. He was the only person injured by the devices.
The package had been addressed to the Ukrainian ambassador, Sergi Pohoreltsev. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba ordered tightened security at all his country’s embassies.
Pohoreltsev seemed to hint at possible Russian involvement, saying: “We know that our enemy is a terrorist state and we can expect anything.”
However, the Russian embassy in Madrid said it condemned “any terrorist threat or act, particularly against an embassy.”
The spate of attacks had actually begun even earlier than the embassy incident: It emerged that a letter bomb had been sent to the office of the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, where it was deactivated, on November 24.
Secretary of State for Security Rafael Pérez said that the substance contained in the package sent to the prime minister’s office was “a compound or an ingredient with similar characteristics to material used for fireworks.”
El País newspaper published a photo of the package sent to the prime minister, which was made of cardboard, measured 10 cm by 18 cm and was addressed by hand. It had been sent via ordinary mail.
Another was sent to the office of Defense Minister Margarita Robles, where it was also deactivated on Thursday.
Just hours earlier, police had also deactivated a device sent to a weapons manufacturer, Instalaza, based in the northeastern city of Zaragoza. Instalaza has reportedly supplied grenade launchers to the Spanish government, which have been shipped to Ukraine as military aid. The military base of Torrejón de Ardoz, on the outskirts of Madrid, was also targeted.
Pérez said there appeared to be similarities between the separate packages, all of which were believed to have been sent from inside Spain. Spanish media, citing security sources, said that opening the packages ignites the device, which then generates a flame rather than a blast.
Robles, who was in Odesa to meet her Ukrainian counterpart when the news emerged, said Spain reiterated its commitment to Ukraine and its people.
KYIV — In Crimea, the war is drawing ever closer, and nerves are on edge.
In conversations via secure communications, people in Crimea describe growing tension across the Black Sea peninsula as they increasingly expect the advent of direct hostilities. They say saboteur and partisan groups are now readying in the territory, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Frustration and panic are surging, over everything from conscription to runaway prices. One person told of anger over an inability to secure hospital places thanks to the numbers of Russian wounded brought in from the fronts, while another said that the fretful Russian elite were trying to sell their glitzy holiday homes, but were finding no buyers.
When Vladimir Putin launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine in February, few people expected Ukrainian forces would nine months later be threatening to reclaim Crimea. That no longer feels like a military impossibility, however, after Kyiv’s well-organized troops showed that they could drive out Russian forces in offensive operations around Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine and Kherson in the south.
Tamila Tasheva, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s permanent representative in Crimea, has high hopes the peninsula will end up back in Ukrainian hands. “Yes, of course, it is entirely possible we will get Crimea back,” she told POLITICO.
“Our goal is the return of all our territory, which of course includes Crimea,” she said in her office in Kyiv. A 37-year-old Crimean Tatar, whose family lives on the peninsula, Tasheva is busy preparing plans for what happens after Crimea is “de-occupied” and is drafting a legal framework to cope with complex issues of transitional justice that will arise. She says while Kyiv would prefer the peninsula to be handed back without a fight, “a military way may be the only solution.”
“The situation is very different now from 2014. We have a lot of communication with people in Crimea and they’re increasingly angered by the high food prices and shortages in drugs and medicines,” she said. “And there’s been an increase in anti-war protests, especially since the start of conscription and partial mobilization.”
When asked about people forming anti-Russian partisan groups, she simply commented: “Of course they are.” The difference between 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and now comes down to the fact, she argues, that Ukraine has a strong army and a determined leadership and that is affecting and fortifying people’s thinking in Crimea.
Against the occupiers
For Putin, Crimea has long been a sacred cause — he called it an “inseparable part of Russia” — and that led many in the West to fear it could be a strategic red line. That sense was hardly helped by nuclear saber-rattler-in-chief, former President Dmitry Medvedev, who issued ominous warnings about any attack on Crimea. “Judgment Day will come very fast and hard. It will be very difficult to take cover,” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, said earlier this year in comments reported by the TASS news agency.
Tensions ratcheted up dramatically, however, after the explosion on October 8 that damaged the Kerch Bridge, a vital supply line between Russia and Crimea.
People pose in front of a postage stamp showing an artist’s impression of the Kerch bridge on fire | Ed Ram/Getty Images
People in Crimea say the Russians are jittery and on the hunt for pro-Ukrainian sympathizers, fearing more acts of sabotage. Kyiv has never formally claimed responsibility for what was most likely a truck bombing. The people POLITICO talked with can’t be named for their own safety, but they included businessmen, lawyers and IT workers.
“There was panic afterwards,” said one IT worker. “Since then, officers and soldiers have been moving their families back to Russia. And the rich have been trying to sell their properties worth $500,000 to a million, but the market is dead,” he added.
“Because of the sanctions, a lot of people have lost their jobs and prices for everything, food especially, have skyrocketed and there isn’t much choice available either. If you were making a $1,000 a month before February, now you need to be around $3,000 to be where you were, and how are you going to do that with the tourism industry dead,” he said. Locals are fuming that they can’t receive medical attention because the peninsula’s hospitals are full of Russian soldiers wounded in the fighting in Kherson and Donetsk.
With the situation worsening, more partisan cells are forming, they say. “My group of patriots know each other well: We studied and worked together for years and trust each other — we are preparing, and we understand secrecy will determine the effectiveness of our actions,” said a former banker, who claimed to be leading a seven-man cell.
Inspired by the Kerch Bridge blast, his cell is planning to sabotage military facilities using rudimentary explosives made from ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel.
“There are many provocateurs around and the Russians are anxious, so we’re vigilant. We know other partisan groups, but we don’t actively communicate for security reasons,” he said. “We’ve a deal with a police chief who understands Russia is losing and is worried — he’ll give us key to his arsenal when needed with our promise that we will put in a good word for him later,” he added.
Whether such cells represent any kind of serious threat remains to be seen and POLITICO can’t verify the claims of would-be saboteurs, but retired U.S. General Ben Hodges, a former commanding general of the United States Army Europe, says he had expected partisan cells to form, encouraged by Kyiv and otherwise.
“I would have assumed this. Both locals as well as saboteurs who have been infiltrated into Crimea. Remember the Ukrainians, of course, did this to the German Wehrmacht throughout World War II. There’s a tradition of sabotage and insurgency,” he said.
“I would hate to be a Russian truck driver on a convoy somewhere, anywhere in the area these days. I think when it does come time for decisive action, it will be a combination of local partisans and infiltrated saboteurs,” he added.
‘Crimea is Ukraine’
Ukraine’s recent victories in northeastern and southern Ukraine are fueling confident talk in Kyiv about Crimea, and since Russian forces retreated from Kherson city, 130 kilometers from the northernmost part of the peninsula, the chorus has only been growing louder, as more of the peninsula comes into rocket and missile range of the Ukrainians.
After seizing Crimea, the Kremlin harbored ambitions to turn it into another glittering seaside Sochi — or showcase it as a Black Sea rival to France’s Côte d’Azur. Construction of condos started apace with plans to make Sevastopol a major Russian cultural center. A new opera house, museum and ballet academy were to be completed next year. Around 800,000 Russians may have moved to the peninsula since 2014. The war has ruined construction schedules.
People take part in celebrations marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in Simferopol on March 18, 2022 | Stringer/AFP via Getty Images
Top Ukrainian officials have been taunting Russia, saying Crimea will soon be under Ukrainian control — by year’s end even or early next year. Zelenskyy has returned repeatedly to the theme: in October telling European and American parliamentary leaders: “We will definitely liberate Crimea.” His top adviser, Andriy Yermak, told POLITICO during the Halifax International Security Forum earlier this month: “I am sure that the campaign to return Crimea will take place.”
Ukrainian officials told POLITICO that Western European leaders had been the most jittery about pushing on to Crimea. America’s top general, Mark Milley, chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has cast doubt about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim the peninsula militarily, suggesting it would be overreach. At a Pentagon press conference on November 16, he said: “The probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they defined, or what they claim as Crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon, is not high, militarily.”
But the White House hasn’t walked back President Joe Biden’s February 26 remarks when he made Washington’s position clear: “We reaffirm a simple truth: Crimea is Ukraine.”
Raising the pressure
Ukrainian forces have been increasing the tempo of military activity in and near Crimea using both aerial and innovative marine drones to swarm and strike in October and last Tuesday Russian warships stationed at Sevastopol, the home base of the Russian navy in the Black Sea. The Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said in a social media post after Tuesday’s attack that a couple of drones had been intercepted, later adding another three had been downed by Russian warships.
Kyiv has not commented on that attack, but last week, Ukraine’s top security official confirmed Israeli press reports that 10 Iranian military advisers in Crimea were killed by Ukrainian drones. “You shouldn’t be where you shouldn’t be,” said Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s defense council, in an interview with the Guardian. The Ukrainians say Iranian technicians and operators have been assisting the Russians with the Shahed-136 armed drones supplied by Tehran.
The attacks appear to be unnerving the Russian military — especially those carried out by maritime drones. The October attack involved half a dozen radio-operated marine drones equipped with jet-ski engines. Some of the nearly six-meter-long drones are thought to have damaged two ships, a minesweeper and more importantly the Admiral Makarov, a frigate. On November 18, the Ukrainians repeated the exercise further afield with an attack on warships in the port at Novorossiysk, a Black Sea city in southern Russia.
One Crimea resident told POLITICO that the drone strikes appear to have forced Russian naval commanders to rethink the positioning of their ships. “A group of Russian warships were until recently regularly off the coast near my house. I used to watch them and if they fired missiles, I’d contact my family in various cities in Ukraine to warn them rockets were on their way. But now the warships have moved away, they were too vulnerable where they were.” he said.
The Russians are fortifying their defenses, especially in the Dzhankois’kyi district, the northern part of the Crimean steppe near Syvash Bay, according to Andrii Chernyak of the main intelligence directorate of the ministry of defense of Ukraine.
Hodges, the former general, disagrees with General Milley and says an offensive “is possible and I believe they will be working to be in place to begin this in a deliberate way as early as January.”
“Between now and then, they will continue to isolate Crimea by going after the Kerch Bridge again and also the land bridge that originates in Rostov and runs along the northern coast of the Sea of Azov down through Mariupol and Melitopol and on to the peninsula. The Ukrainians are going to be looking to pound away at the bridge and the land link, a form of eighteenth-century siege tactics,” he added.
Those siege tactics, he says, will be accompanied by daring use of high-tech weapons. “The U.S. navy has put a lot of development effort into unmanned maritime systems and to see what the Ukrainians have been doing with swarm attacks by drones has really impressed me,” he said.
The Ukrainians, he predicts, will attempt “to fight their way across the isthmus when the conditions are right,” adding: “This is going to come down to a test of will and a test of logistics.”
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. special envoy for Syria warned Tuesday that the current military escalation in Syria is dangerous for civilians and regional stability, and he urged Turkey and Kurdish-led forces in the north to de-escalate immediately and restore the relative calm that has prevailed for the last three years.
Geir Pedersen told the Security Council that the U.N.’s call for maximum restraint and de-escalation also applies to other areas in Syria. He pointed to the upsurge in truce violations in the last rebel-held stronghold in northwest Idlib, airstrikes attributed to Israel in Damascus, Homs, Hama and Latakia, as well as reported airstrikes on the Syria-Iraq border and security incidents and fresh military clashes in the south.
In northwest Idlib, he said, government airstrikes have killed and injured civilians who fled fighting during the nearly 12-year war and now live in camps. He said the attacks destroyed their tents and displaced hundreds of families.
The al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, the most powerful militant group in Idlib, reportedly attacked government forces and government-controlled areas with civilian casualties, he added.
But Pedersen said his major concern now is the slow increase in mutual strikes between the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force in Syria, and Turkey and armed opposition groups across northern Syria, with violence spilling into Turkish territory.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to order a land invasion of northern Syria targeting Kurdish groups following a Nov. 3, explosion in Istanbul that killed six people and wounded dozens, and the government has launched a barrage of airstrikes on suspected militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq in retaliation.
The Kurdish groups have denied involvement in the bombing and say Turkish strikes have killed civilians and threatened the fight against the Islamic State group. But Pedersen cited reports of Syrian Democratic Forces attacks on Turkish forces including inside Turkish territory.
The U.N. envoy said he came to New York to warn the Security Council of “the dangers of military escalation” taking place and of his fear of what a major military operation would mean for Syrian civilian and for wider regional security.
“And I equally fear a scenario where the situation escalates in part because there is today no serious effort to resolve the conflict politically,” Pedersen said.
He expressed concern that the committee comprising government, opposition and civil society representatives that is supposed to revise Syria’s constitution has not met for six months and reiterated his call for a meeting in Geneva in January.
Russia had raised issues over Geneva as the venue, which Pedersen said were “comprehensively addressed” by Swiss authorities, but Moscow has now raised another issue — which he refused to disclose.
“It is now the question of political will from Russia to move on or not to move on,” the U.N. envoy told reporters later. “And as I said to the council, the longer it takes before we meet again, the more problematic it will be. So, I really hope I will get some positive news on this.”
Pedersen said there is a way forward in the weeks ahead: stop the military escalation, renew cross-border aid deliveries to northwest Idlib which expire in January, resume constitutional committee meetings, prioritize work on Syrians detained and missing, and identify and implement step-for-step confidence-building measures.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia hinted at Moscow’s concerns, saying decisions on further inter-Syrian dialogue in the constitutional committee “should be made by the Syrians themselves without external interference.”
To that end, he said, Russia welcomes Pedersen’s contacts with Damascus and the opposition, but not his “step-by-step initiative,” saying this is not part of the special envoy’s mandate.
Nebenzia called the overall situation in Syria tense, with terrorist threats persisting, and the north, northeast and south “exposed to illegal foreign military presence while the humanitarian and socioeconomic situation keeps deteriorating.” He blamed U.S. and European sanctions for making the situation worse.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the council in a video briefing that the gap between the needs of Syrians and available funding keeps growing.
“The trend is clear: more people need our support each year to survive,” he said. “We expect to see a surge in the number of people needing humanitarian assistance from 14.6 million this year to over 15 million in 2023.”
NEW DELHI — Israel’s envoy to India on Tuesday denounced a filmmaker from his country after he called a blockbuster Bollywood film on disputed Kashmir a “propaganda” and “vulgar movie” at a film festival, stoking a debate about recent history that fuels the ongoing conflict.
Naor Gilon, Israel’s ambassador to India, said he was “extremely hurt” by comments made by filmmaker Nadav Lapid in which he said the movie “The Kashmir Files” was unworthy of being screened at the highly acclaimed International Film Festival of India. The event, organized by the Indian government in western Goa state, ended Monday.
“The Kashmir Files” was released in March to a roaring success and is largely set in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when attacks and threats by militants led to the migration of most Kashmiri Hindus from the Muslim-majority disputed region. Many film critics and Kashmiri Muslims have called the film hateful propaganda, while its fans and proponents, including India’s many federal government ministers, see it as essential viewing of the plight of Kashmiri Hindus, locally called Pandits.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the territory in full. In 1989, tens of thousands of mostly Kashmiri Muslims rose up against Indian rule, leading to a protracted armed conflict in the region.
On Tuesday, Gilon tweeted at Lapid, saying: “YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED.”
“I’m no film expert but I do know that it’s insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India because many of the involved are still around and still paying a price,” Gilon tweeted. He also accused Lapid of inflicting damage on the growing relationship between India and Israel.
The festival jury has distanced itself from Lapid’s remarks and called them his “personal opinion.” An internationally acclaimed director, Lapid’s movies “Synonyms” and “Ahad’s Knee” have won awards at major festivals.
At the time of its release, “The Kashmir Files” was endorsed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and promoted by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party by offering it tax breaks in some states governed by it.
The film, however, set off heated debates. Its supporters praised it for speaking the truth about Kashmiri Hindus, while critics said the film was aimed to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments at a time when calls for violence against India’s minority Muslims have increased.
Nonetheless, the film was a blockbuster. Made on a budget of $2 million, it has earned more than $43 million so far, making it one of India’s highest-grossing films this year.
The filmmakers of “The Kashmir Files” have repeatedly said it exposes what they call the “genocide” inflicted on the region’s Hindus and likened it to Hollywood’s ″Schindler’s List″ that tells the story of the Holocaust. But many critics, including some of Bollywood’s top directors, have called it divisive, full of factual inaccuracies and provocative.
Hindus lived mostly peacefully alongside Muslims for centuries across the Himalayan region of Kashmir. In the late 1980s, when Kashmir turned into a battleground, attacks and threats by militants led to the departure of most Kashmiri Hindus, who identified with India’s rule, Many believed that the rebellion was also aimed at wiping them out. It reduced the Hindus from an estimated 200,000 to a tiny minority of about 5,000 in the Kashmir Valley.
Most of the region’s Muslims, long resentful of Indian rule, deny that Hindus were systematically targeted, and say India helped them to move out in order to cast Kashmir’s freedom struggle as Islamic extremism.
According to official data, over 200 Kashmiri Hindus were killed in the last three decades of the region’s conflict. Some Hindu groups put the number much higher.
Tensions in Kashmir returned in 2019, when India’s Hindu nationalist government stripped the region’s semi-autonomy, split it into two federal territories administered by New Delhi and imposed a clampdown on free speech accompanied by widespread arrests. Kashmir has since witnessed a spate of targeted killings, including that of Hindus. Police blame anti-India rebels for the killings.
On Tuesday, “The Kashmir Files” actor Anupam Kher, who plays a protagonist, called the criticism of the film “preplanned.”
“If the Holocaust is right, then the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is also right,” Kher said in a video posted on Twitter.
“The Kashmir Files” is directed by Vivek Agnihotri, whose previous film “The Tashkent Files” alleged a conspiracy in the death of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. The film was heavily criticized for presenting unproven conspiracy theories as facts.
BUCHAREST — NATO returns on Tuesday to the scene of one of its most controversial decisions, intent on repeating its vow that Ukraine — now suffering through the 10th month of a war against Russia — will join the world’s biggest military alliance one day.
NATO foreign ministers will gather for two days at the Palace of the Parliament in the Romanian capital Bucharest. It was there in April 2008 that U.S. President George W. Bush persuaded his allies to open NATO’s door to Ukraine and Georgia, over vehement Russian objections.
“NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO,” the leaders said in a statement. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was at the summit, described this as “a direct threat” to Russia’s security.
About four months later, Russian forces invaded Georgia.
Some experts describe the decision in Bucharest as a massive error that left Russia feeling cornered by a seemingly ever-expanding NATO. NATO counters that it doesn’t pressgang countries into joining, and that some requested membership to seek protection from Russia — as Finland and Sweden are doing now.
More than 14 years on, NATO will pledge this week to support Ukraine long-term as it defends itself against Russian aerial, missile and ground attacks — many of which have struck power grids and other civilian infrastructure, depriving millions of people of electricity and heating.
In a press conference Monday in Bucharest after a meeting with Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg highlighted the importance of investing in defense “as we face our greatest security crisis in a generation.”
“We cannot let Putin win,” he said. “This would show authoritarian leaders around the world that they can achieve their goals by using military force — and make the world a more dangerous place for all of us. It is in our own security interests to support Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg noted Russia’s recent bombardment of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, saying Putin “is trying to use winter as a weapon of war against Ukraine” and that “we need to be prepared for more attacks.”
North Macedonia and Montenegro have joined the U.S.-led alliance in recent years. With this, Stoltenberg said last week before travelling to Bucharest, “we have demonstrated that NATO’s door is open and that it is for NATO allies and aspirant countries to decide on membership. This is also the message to Ukraine.”
This gathering in Bucharest is likely to see NATO make fresh pledges of non-lethal support to Ukraine: fuel, electricity generators, medical supplies, winter equipment and drone jamming devices.
Individual allies are also likely to announce fresh supplies of military equipment for Ukraine — chiefly the air defense systems that Kyiv so desperately seeks to protect its skies. NATO as an organization will not offer such supplies, to avoid being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia.
But the ministers, along with their Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, will also look further afield.
“Over the longer term we will help Ukraine transition from Soviet-era equipment to modern NATO standards, doctrine and training,” Stoltenberg said last week. This will not only improve Ukraine’s armed forces and help them to better integrate, it will also meet some of the conditions for membership.
That said, Ukraine will not join NATO anytime soon. With the Crimean Peninsula annexed, and Russian troops and pro-Moscow separatists holding parts of the south and east, it’s not clear what Ukraine’s borders would even look like.
Many of the 30 allies believe the focus now must be uniquely on defeating Russia.
“What we have seen in the last months is that President Putin made a big strategic mistake,” Stoltenberg said. “He underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian armed forces, and the Ukrainian political leadership.”
But even as economic pressure — high electricity and gas prices, plus inflation, all exacerbated by the war — mounts on many allies, Stoltenberg would not press Ukraine to enter into peace talks, and indeed NATO and European diplomats say that Putin does not appear willing to come to the table.
“The war will end at some stage at the negotiating table,” Stoltenberg said Monday. “But the outcome of those negotiations are totally dependent on the situation on the battlefield,” adding “it would be a tragedy for (the) Ukrainian people if President Putin wins.”
The foreign ministers of Bosnia, Georgia and Moldova — three partners that NATO says are under increasing Russian pressure — will also be in Bucharest. Stoltenberg said NATO would “take further steps to help them protect their independence, and strengthen their ability to defend themselves.
ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani Taliban on Monday ended a monthslong cease-fire with the government in Islamabad, ordering its fighters to resume attacks across the country, where scores of deadly attacks have been blamed on the insurgent group.
In a statement, the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan said it decided to end the 5-month-old cease-fire after Pakistan’s army stepped up operations against them in former northwestern tribal areas and elsewhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.
Pakistan and the TTP had agreed to an indefinite cease-fire in May after talks in Afghanistan’s capital.
There was no immediate comment from the government or the military.
The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan more than a year ago as the U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened TTP, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
Monday’s announcement was a setback to efforts made by the Afghan Taliban since earlier this year to facilitate a peace agreement aimed at ending the violence. The latest development comes months after the Afghan Taliban started hosting negotiations in the capital Kabul between the TTP and representatives from the Pakistan government and security forces.
It also comes a day before Pakistan’s outgoing army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa — who had approved the controversial cease-fire with TTP in May — is to retire after completing his six-year extended term.
Bajwa will hand over command of the military to the newly appointed army chief Gen. Asim Munir at a ceremony in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Tuesday amid tight security because of fears of violence.
Gen. Bajwa during his tenure carried out a series of military operations against TTP before agreeing to the peace talks with the militant, who have waged an insurgency in Pakistan for 14 years. The TTP has been fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members who are in government custody, and a reduction of Pakistan’s military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.
During the talks, Pakistan had asked TTP to disband.
Pakistan also wanted the insurgents to accept its constitution and sever all ties with the Islamic State group, another Sunni militant group with a regional affiliate that is active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
However, both sides apparently stuck to their positions since the peace talks began.
In a separate statement, the TTP claimed that it targeted a vehicle carrying Pakistani troops in the district of North Waziristan near the Afghan border, causing casualties. There was no confirmation of the attack from the military and the statement did not provide details.
The Pakistani Taliban have for years used Afghanistan’s rugged border regions for hideouts and for staging cross-border attacks into Pakistan.
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s shift to nuclear-powered submarines will assure its South Pacific neighbors of its commitment to regional security, Britain’s Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific said Monday.
Australia will announce in March what type of submarine powered with U.S. nuclear technology it wants to build under a deal with the United States and Britain revealed in September last year.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan said she expects the three nations to work closely together to deliver a fleet of eight submarines.
“It’s going to be a really exciting project and really importantly will assure, I think, not only for Australia, but for the Indo-Pacific region, for those Pacific islands that assurance that Australia’s commitment to their security is unassailable,” Trevelyan told the National Press Club.
The previous Australian government infuriated French President Emmanuel Macron by canceling a contract for a French-built fleet of 12 conventionally-powered submarines worth 90 billion Australian dollars ($66 billion). It opted instead for nuclear-powered versions.
This month, Macron described Australia going nuclear as a “confrontation with China.”
Trevelyan said she disagreed with Macron’s stance that Australia should have stayed with the French contract.
“The Pacific is a big place. Having nuclear-powered submarines means you can go further for longer, it’s a practical question,” Trevelyan said.
“The French navy has nuclear-powered submarines. What they were proposing to build for (Australia), diesel submarines, is not what the French use,” she added.
Australia’s government, elected in May after nine years in opposition, has been trying to build closer relations with its neighbors in a region where China is exerting more influence.
The government has accused the previous leadership of Australia’s worst foreign policy failure in the Pacific since World War II with China’s signing of a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April.
That accord has raised fears that a Chinese naval base might be established in the South Pacific.
WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s government says an anti-missile system which Germany offered to send to Poland should instead go to Ukraine, a proposal that is a likely non-starter for Berlin because it would significantly ratchet up NATO involvement in Ukraine.
Poland’s surprising response to Berlin’s offer was welcomed by Ukraine, which is desperate to protect its airspace as barrage upon barrage of Russian missiles have knocked out power across the country.
But Germany’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht stressed that use of NATO defense systems outside its territory needs to be agreed by all member states.
“It is important to us that Poland can rely on allies to stand by each other, even in difficult times, and especially Poland in its exposed position,” Lambrecht told reporters in Berlin.
“That’s why we have offered to support air policing and Patriots, but these Patriots are part of an integrated air defense of NATO, that is, they are intended for NATO territory,” the minister said. “If they are used outside the NATO area, then it has to be agreed with NATO and with the allies beforehand.”
In Poland, critics of the populist ruling party accused it of sacrificing the country’s security with a war next door in Ukraine for the sake of a domestic political struggle which exploits anti-German sentiment for short-term gain.
The Rzeczpospolita daily called the new proposal by Poland’s leaders “shocking,” arguing that it would require sending German soldiers operating the system to Ukraine, and “that, in turn, would involve NATO in a direct clash with Russia, something the alliance has been trying to avoid from the beginning.”
“This proposal affects Poland’s credibility and, worst of all, its security. The Germans get a clear signal that we do not want their help, so the defense potential of the Polish sky will be lower,” deputy editor Michal Szuldrzynski wrote. “In the worst war in Europe since 1945, this is an unforgivable mistake.”
Poland’s populist ruling party, facing elections next fall with its popularity dented by 18% inflation, has been ratcheting up its anti-German messaging, long a staple of the party’s campaign rhetoric. Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has also been trying to link his domestic opponents, particularly Donald Tusk, a former European Union leader, to Germany, saying Sunday that if Tusk’s party wins next year, Poland would find itself “under the German boot.”
When Germany recently offered Warsaw Eurofighter planes and Patriot air defense missile batteries, Poland’s Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak initially said it was an offer he would accept with “satisfaction.” The offer came after two men were killed when an apparently stray Ukrainian defense projectile fell in Poland near the border with Ukraine on Nov. 15.
But Poland’s tune changed after Kaczynski gave an interview to the state news agency PAP on Wednesday, saying that the offer is “interesting,” but that “it would be best for Poland’s security if Germany handed the equipment to the Ukrainians.”
Since then, both Blaszczak and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki have repeated the position of Kaczynski, the country’s most powerful leader.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, NATO beefed up its defenses along its eastern flank, including Poland, while Warsaw has worked to strengthen the nation’s own military with massive armaments purchases.
NATO deployed U.S. Patriot batteries to Poland, and German Patriot batteries to Slovakia, as well as a French equivalent system to Romania.
NATO’s policy is to not get directly involved in the war and to deploy the batteries only to protect member countries.
Tapping into anti-German feelings has long been a political strategy to win votes in Poland. Older Poles still carry the trauma of the atrocities inflicted on Poland by Germany during World War II. With the election campaigning underway, Poland has been demanding $1.3 trillion in wartime reparations from Germany — a bill Berlin says it won’t pay.
Kaczynski also blames Germany for supporting EU efforts to defend the rule of law in Poland and reverse changes to the judiciary, by withholding funding.
Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created new strains. Poland was long a critic of Germany’s gas deals with Russia and has also been critical of Berlin’s initial hesitancy to arm Ukraine.
In Poland, some critics pointed out that the government was not only refusing higher military protection but also turning its back on critical EU funding, billions of euros that have been held up by the government’s refusal to follow EU guidelines on safeguarding the independence of judges.
Marcin Kierwinski of the opposition Civic Platform party said Kaczynski “has gone mad” for “rejecting” the Patriot missiles and EU funding “during war and crisis.”
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Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
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Follow all AP stories about the impact of the war in Ukraine at
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she no longer saw any possibility of influencing Russian President Vladimir Putin toward the end of her term in office.
In an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, Merkel talked about her final encounters with Putin, saying that throughout her farewell visit to Moscow in August 2021 she felt “in terms of power politics, you’re done,” adding that “for Putin, only power counts.”
She cited the fact that Putin brought Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov along to this last visit as another sign of her crumbling power, as previously they met “often in private,” she said.
Merkel also said that the conflict in Ukraine “didn’t come as a surprise” as she said by 2021 the Minsk agreement, which was struck in 2015 aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, was “hollowed out.”
According to Merkel, she unsuccessfully tried to set up “an independent European discussion format with Putin” in the summer of 2021 together with French President Emmanuel Macron, but realized that she no longer had the clout to assert herself in the European Council either, with the end of her time in office looming.
Merkel also defended herself, saying that together with then-U.S. President Barack Obama, “we tried everything after Russia’s annexation of Crimea [in 2014] to prevent further incursions by Russia into Ukraine and coordinated our sanctions in detail.”
The remarks come soon after she was publicly criticized by former Bundestag president and CDU party colleague Wolfgang Schäuble for not acknowledging mistakes in her Russia policy over the past 16 years.
Germany’s dependence on Russian gas deliveries grew continuously under Merkel’s leadership in the years prior to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
PRISTINA, Kosovo — The European Union’s top diplomat on Wednesday said Kosovo and Serbia have reached a deal on a dispute over vehicle number plates, defusing rising tensions between the two Western Balkan neighbors.
EU high representative Josep Borrell posted in his social media page that Kosovo’s and Serbia’s negotiators “have agreed to avoid further escalation and to fully concentrate on the proposal on normalization of their relations.” Serbia will stop issuing license plates with Kosovo cities’ denominations and Kosovo would cease further actions on the re-registration of vehicles.
Talks will continue on the subsequent steps.
Earlier this week Borrell had failed to convince Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti to reach a deal, further raising concerns about the escalating tensions between the former war foes.
Kurti blamed Borrell for focusing solely on the license plates instead of the full normalization of ties between the neighbors.
Vucic said Kurti was responsible for the failure of the meeting.
The EU-backed Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, which is aimed at normalizing relations between the neighbors and former foes in the Western Balkans, has been at a virtual standstill for years. The EU warned Serbia and Kosovo last week that they are on the edge of a precipice and must resolve their dispute or face the prospect of a return to their violent past.
Long-simmering tensions between Serbia and its former province mounted again in recent weeks over the Kosovo government’s decision to ban Serbian-issued license plates, matching Serbia’s earlier ban on Kosovo license plates.
Under the ban, about 6,300 ethnic Serbs owning cars with number plates deemed to be illegal in Kosovo were to be warned until Monday, which was postponed with 48 hours after U.S. embassy’s intervention. Then Kosovo authorities would fine them for the following two months. Until April 21 they would only be permitted to drive with temporary local plates and not allowed to drive after that date.
On Nov. 5, Serb lawmakers, prosecutors and police officers in Kosovo’s northern Mitrovica region resigned over the move.
The issue of Kosovo’s independence sparked a 1998-99 war in which about 13,000 people died. Serbia launched a brutal crackdown to curb a separatist rebellion by the territory’s ethnic Albanians. NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 to end the war.
Kosovo unilaterally broke away from Serbia in 2008. The Serbian government, with support from China and Russia, has refused to acknowledge Kosovo’s statehood. The United States and most of its European allies recognize Kosovo as an independent country.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the NATO-led mission in Kosovo, known as KFOR, “remains vigilant.”
Facebook, or as we’re supposed to call them now Meta, announced earlier today that their CICERO artificial intelligence has achieved “human-level performance” in the board game Diplomacy, which is notable for the fact that’s a game built on human interaction, not moves and manoeuvres (like, say, chess).
Here’s a quite frankly distressing trailer:
CICERO: The first AI to play Diplomacy at a human level | Meta AI
If you’ve never played Diplomacy, and so are maybe wondering what the big deal is, it’s a board game first released in the 1950s that is played mostly by people just sitting around a table (or breaking off into rooms) and negotiating stuff. There are no dice or cards affecting play; everything is determined by humans communicating with other humans.
So for an AI’s creators to say that it is playing at a “human level” in a game like this is a pretty bold claim! One that Meta backs up by saying that CICERO is actually operating on two different levels, one crunching the progress and status of the game, the other trying to communicate with human levels in a way we would understand and interact with.
Meta have roped in “Diplomacy World Champion” Andrew Goff to support their claims, who says “A lot of human players will soften their approach or they’ll start getting motivated by revenge and CICERO never does that. It just plays the situation as it sees it. So it’s ruthless in executing to its strategy, but it’s not ruthless in a way that annoys or frustrates other players.”
That sounds optimal, but as Goff says, maybe too optimal. Which reflects that while CICERO is playing well enough to keep up with humans, it’s far from perfect. As Meta themselves say in a blog post, CICERO “sometimes generates inconsistent dialogue that can undermine its objectives”, and my own criticism would be that every example they provide of its communication (like the one below) makes it look like a psychopathic office worker terrified that if they don’t end every sentence with !!! you’ll think they’re a terrible person.
Image: Meta
Of course the ultimate goal with this program isn’t to win board games. It’s simply using Diplomacy as a “sandbox” for “advancing human-AI interaction”:
While CICERO is only capable of playing Diplomacy, the technology behind this achievement is relevant to many real world applications. Controlling natural language generation via planning and RL, could, for example, ease communication barriers between humans and AI-powered agents. For instance, today’s AI assistants excel at simple question-answering tasks, like telling you the weather, but what if they could maintain a long-term conversation with the goal of teaching you a new skill? Alternatively, imagine a video game in which the non player characters (NPCs) could plan and converse like people do — understanding your motivations and adapting the conversation accordingly — to help you on your quest of storming the castle.
I may not be a billionaire Facebook executive, but instead of spending all this time and money making AI assistants better, something nobody outside of AI research and company expenditure seems to care about, could we not just…hire humans I can speak to instead?
SEOUL, South Korea — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned the United States on Tuesday that it would face “a more fatal security crisis” as Washington pushes for U.N. condemnation of the North’s recent intercontinental ballistic missile test.
Kim Yo Jong’s warning came hours after U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. will circulate a proposed presidential statement condemning North Korea’s banned missile launches and other destabilizing activities. After the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield also read a statement by 14 countries which supported action to limit North Korea’s advancement of its weapons programs.
Kim Yo Jong, who is widely considered North Korea’s second most powerful person after her brother, lambasted the United States for issuing what she called “a disgusting joint statement together with such rabbles as Britain, France, Australia, Japan and South Korea.”
Kim compared the United States to “a barking dog seized with fear.” She said North Korea would consider the U.S.-led statement “a wanton violation of our sovereignty and a grave political provocation.”
“The U.S. should be mindful that no matter how desperately it may seek to disarm (North Korea), it can never deprive (North Korea) of its right to self-defense and that the more hell-bent it gets on the anti-(North Korea) acts, it will face a more fatal security crisis,” she said in a statement carried by state media.
Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting was convened in response to North Korea’s ICBM launch on Friday, which was part of a provocative run of missile tests this year that experts say is designed to modernize its nuclear arsenal and increase its leverage in future diplomacy. Friday’s test involved its most powerful Hwasong-17 missile, and some experts say the successful steep-angle launch proved its potential to strike anywhere in the U.S. mainland if it’s fired at a standard trajectory.
During the Security Council meeting, the United States and its allies strongly criticized the ICBM launch and called for action to limit North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. But Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, opposed any new pressure and sanctions on North Korea. In May, the two countries vetoed a U.S.-led attempt to toughen sanctions on North Korea over its earlier ballistic missile tests, which are prohibited by U.N. Security Council resolutions.
North Korea has said its testing activities are legitimate exercises of its right to self defense in response to regular military drills between the United States and South Korea which it views as an invasion rehearsal. Washington and Seoul officials say the exercises are defensive in nature.
Kim Yo Jong said the fact that North Korea’s ICBM launch was discussed at the Security Council is “evidently the application of double-standards” by the U.N. body because it “turned blind eyes” to the U.S.-South Korean military drills and arms buildups targeting North Korea. She said North Korea will take “the toughest counteraction to the last” to protect its national security.
On Monday, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, called U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “a puppet of the United States.”
There are concerns that North Korea may soon conduct its first nuclear test in five years.
The status of North Korea’s nuclear capability remains shrouded in secrecy. Some analysts say North Korea already has nuclear-armed missiles that can strike both the U.S. mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan, but others say the North is still years away from possessing such missiles.
UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. and its Western allies clashed with Russia at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday over responsibility for a deadly missile strike in Poland near the Ukrainian border, an event the U.N. political chief called “a frightening reminder of the absolute need to prevent any further escalation” of the nine-month war in Ukraine.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council: “This tragedy would never have happened but for Russia’s needless invasion of Ukraine and its recent missile assaults against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia countered, accusing Ukraine and Poland of trying “to provoke a direct clash between Russia and NATO.”
The U.S. and Albania had called for a council update on the situation in Ukraine last week, and the meeting was dominated by Tuesday’s missile strike in Poland that killed two farm workers.
Nebenzia pointed to statements by Ukraine’s president and Polish officials initially indicating Russia was responsible. NATO’s chief and Poland’s president said Wednesday there is no indication it was a deliberate attack, and was likely a Soviet-era projectile launched by Ukraine as it was fending off Russian missiles and drones that savaged its power grid and hit residential buildings.
U.N. Undersecretary-General for political affairs Rosemary DiCarlo told the council that it was Russia’s “most intense bombardments” since its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, and the impact “can only worsen during the coming winter months.”
She reiterated that attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law, noted that “heavy battles” are continuing in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk and told council members “there is no end in sight to the war.” She also warned that “as long as it continues, the risks of potentially catastrophic spillover remain all too real.”
Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. envoy, called the barrage of more than 90 missiles that rained down on Kyiv and other cities and targets devastating civilian infrastructure “a deliberate tactic” by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He seems to have decided that if he can’t seize Ukraine by force, he will try to freeze the country into submission,” she said.
Poland’s U.N. Ambassador Krzysztof Szczerski told the council “those innocent people would not have been killed if there had been no Russian war against Ukraine.” And Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said: “We should be clear that this is a tragedy that indisputably stems from Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion. And it’s inhumane assault on civilians across Ukraine.
But Russia’s Nebenzia said he wanted to remind those blaming Russia that what Moscow calls its “special military operation” wouldn’t have been needed if the Minsk agreements after the upheaval in Ukraine in 2014 that called for a degree of self-rule for the Russian-backed separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east had been fulfilled, and hadn’t led to an eight-year war.
Addressing the West, Nebenzia also said there would be no military action “if you had not interfered and did not supply Ukraine with weapons and ammunition” and encouraged Ukraine “to strive for peace on realistic terms rather than fuel its feverish fantasies about the possibility of victory over Russia, for the sake of which the Zelenskyy regime is senselessly throwing tens of thousands of its soldiers into the meat grinder.”
As for the missile attacks, Nebenzia said, “If you reacted to the terrorist actions of the Ukrainian special forces against Russia, we would not be forced to conduct precision strikes on infrastructure.”
“But since you’re acting as you’re acting, while the Kyiv regime is taking credit for non-existent military prowess, we are forced to achieve the goals set for the special military operation by weakening the military potential of Ukraine,” he said.
Britain’s Woodward strongly disagreed, telling the council, “We are in no doubt that Ukraine will prevail in the face of Russia’s aggression.”
Pointing to the Russian withdrawal from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, she said, “The liberation of Kherson shows the strength, courage and determination of the Ukrainian people to defend their right to sovereign equality and territorial integrity guaranteed under the U.N. Charter.”
“It is and remains a war of choice, a pure act of unprovoked aggression and the attempt to grab territory. This war must end not expand, and Russia started it, Russia must put an end to it,” Hoxha said.
