WASHINGTON: The US could soon freeze preparations for delivering F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, officials told Reuters, in what would be the strongest signal yet by Washington that Ankara cannot have both the advanced aircraft and Russia’s S-400 air defense system.
The US is nearing an inflection point in a years-long standoff with Turkey, a NATO ally, after so far failing to sway President Tayyip Erdogan that buying a Russian air defense system would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft.
“The S-400 is a computer. The F-35 is a computer. You don’t hook your computer to your adversary’s computer and that’s basically what we would be doing,” Katie Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told Reuters.
While no decision has been made yet, US officials confirmed that Washington was considering halting steps now underway to ready Turkey to receive the F-35, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp.
“There (are) decisions that come up constantly about things being delivered in anticipation of them eventually taking custody of the planes,” said Wheelbarger. “So there’s a lot of things in train that can be paused to send signals to them (that we’re serious),” she added.
However, another US official said one of the measures the US was looking at was alternatives to an engine depot in Turkey, without giving more details. The official said any potential alternatives would likely be somewhere in Western Europe. Turkey is home to an F-35 engine overhaul depot in the western city of Eskisehir.
If Turkey was removed from the F-35 program, it would be the most serious crisis in the relationship between the two allies in decades, according to Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“This (the F-35 standoff) is really a symptom, not a cause of the problem between the two countries,” Aliriza said.
Many US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, worry that Turkey is drifting away from NATO and watch improving relations between Ankara and Moscow with concern. The prospect of Russian contractors or officials on Turkish bases that also are home to the F-35 is unfathomable to many US officials.
The tensions could further escalate. If Ankara goes ahead with the Russian deal, Turkey also could face US sanctions.
Despite US hopes that Turkey may still forgo the S-400, experts say Erdogan may have already backed himself into a rhetorical corner. He has repeatedly said he would not reverse course on the S-400, saying earlier in March: “Nobody should ask us to lick up what we spat.”
A decision to drop Turkey from the F-35 program would have broader repercussions, since Ankara helps manufacture parts for the aircraft, including components of the landing gear, cockpit displays and aircraft engines.
US may soon pause preparations for delivering F-35s to Turkey
US may soon pause preparations for delivering F-35s to Turkey
UAE announces $544m for repairs after record rains
- Wednesday's announcement comes more than a week after the unprecedented deluge lashed the desert country
- “The situation was unprecedented in its severity but we are a country that learns from every experience,” Sheikh Mohammed said
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates announced $544 million to repair the homes of Emirati families on Wednesday after last week’s record rains caused widespread flooding and brought the Gulf state to a standstill.
“We learned great lessons in dealing with severe rains,” said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum after a cabinet meeting, adding that ministers approved “two billion dirhams to deal with damage to the homes of citizens.”
Wednesday’s announcement comes more than a week after the unprecedented deluge lashed the desert country, where it turned streets into rivers and hobbled Dubai airport, the world’s busiest for international passengers.
“A ministerial committee was assigned to follow up on this file... and disburse compensation in cooperation with the rest of the federal and local authorities,” said Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the ruler of Dubai, which was one of the worst hit of the UAE’s seven sheikhdoms.
The rainfall was the UAE’s heaviest since records began 75 years ago.
Cabinet ministers also formed a second committee to log infrastructure damage and propose solutions, Sheikh Mohammed said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“The situation was unprecedented in its severity but we are a country that learns from every experience,” he said.
The storm, which dumped up to two years’ worth of rain on the UAE, had subsided by last Wednesday.
But Dubai faced severe disruption for days later, with water-clogged roads and flooded homes.
Dubai airport canceled 2,155 flights, diverted 115 and did not return to full capacity until Tuesday.
Israeli army strikes 40 Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon
- Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army
- Israel says 11 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed on its side of the border
Beirut: The Israeli army said Wednesday it struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon as near-daily exchanges of fire rage on the border between the two countries.
“A short while ago, IDF (army) fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets” around Aita Al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry, the army said in a statement.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said it fired a fresh barrage of rockets across the border earlier in the day after a strike blamed on Israel killed two civilians.
The group had already fired rockets at northern Israel late on Tuesday “in response” to the civilian deaths.
Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army since its ally Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.
It has stepped up its rocket fire on Israeli military bases in recent days.
Hezbollah fighters fired “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at a border village in northern Israel “as part of the response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on... civilian homes,” the group said in a statement.
On Tuesday, rescue teams said an Israeli strike on a house in the southern village of Hanin killed a woman in her fifties and a girl from the same family.
Since October 7, at least 380 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 72 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 11 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Tunisia law professors call for release of detained opposition figures
- Since a flurry of arrests in February 2023, around 40 critics of President Kais Saied have been facing charges of “conspiracy against the state“
- Eight of the critics have been detained since, and have yet to see trial
TUNIS: More than 30 Tunisian law professors on Wednesday called for the release of several political opposition figures arrested last year, pointing out that the 14-month legal limit for pre-trial detention had passed.
Since a flurry of arrests in February 2023, around 40 critics of President Kais Saied have been facing charges of “conspiracy against the state.”
Eight of the critics have been detained since, and have yet to see trial.
They were expected to be released earlier this month after their detention was extended twice — four months each time — following an initial six-month stint, their lawyers said.
Yet all eight remain in detention after a court hearing on their case was put off until May 2.
This means they have been detained for more than 14 months without trial, which is the limit under Tunisian law.
“Keeping them in prison beyond the period of preventive detention is a violation (of Tunisian law),” read a statement signed by 33 law professors, including three deans.
The professors said the eight must be released, accusing the Tunisian authorities of putting them in what they called “forced detention.”
The country’s anti-terrorism court is investigating the political opponents for trying to “change the nature of the state” under Tunisia’s penal code.
In a letter addressed to President Saied last month, rights group Amnesty International called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of the detainees.
“I call on you to cease your targeted arrests of critics for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression,” the letter read.
Saied, a former law professor, has ruled by decree since orchestrating a sweeping power grab in July 2021 in Tunisia, which saw the onset of what came to be known as the Arab Spring a decade earlier.
The eight detainees include former Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party figure Abdelhamid Jelassi, co-founder of the left-wing National Salvation Front coalition Jawhar Ben Mbarek and political activist Khayam Turki.
After the wave of arrests last year, the United Nations voiced alarm over “the deepening crackdown against perceived political opponents and civil society in Tunisia, including attacks on the independence of the judiciary.”
Critics have denounced Saied’s crackdown on opponents, accusing him of exploiting Tunisia’s judiciary as the country prepares for presidential elections set to take place later this year.
Turkish minister warns pro-Kurdish party it could face moves to ban it
- “In the past, closure cases were opened against parties for supporting terrorism,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters in Ankara
- “Therefore, we say that if the DEM Party follows the same path, then it will face the same treatment”
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s justice minister warned the country’s main pro-Kurdish DEM party on Wednesday that it would face the risk of legal action, and even a closure case like its predecessor, if it did not distance itself from Kurdish militants.
DEM, parliament’s third largest party, was established last year as a successor to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is facing the prospect of closure over alleged militant links in a court case following a years-long crackdown.
“In the past, closure cases were opened against parties for supporting terrorism,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters in Ankara, noting that some parties had been banned and that other cases were ongoing.
“Therefore, we say that if the DEM Party follows the same path, then it will face the same treatment,” he said. “We say keep your distance from terrorism if you do not want to face such a legal process.”
Another court had been expected to announce a verdict this month in a case trying jailed former HDP leaders and officials over 2014 protests triggered by a Daesh attack on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani. That verdict was postponed.
“They should not wag their fingers at us. I repeat, the policy of closure, blackmail and threats is over,” DEM Party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan said on Wednesday in the wake of a call from a government ally to ban the DEM Party.
Critics say Turkish courts are under the influence of the government and President Tayyip Erdogan, which he and his AK Party (AKP) deny.
Both prosecutors and the government accuse the HDP of ties to the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is deemed a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and European Union. The HDP denies having any connections with terrorism.
The PKK launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. A peace process between Ankara and the PKK fell apart in 2015 and in a subsequent crackdown on the HDP thousands of its officials and members have been arrested and jailed.
UAE, Bahrain call for joint work to contain tensions threatening regional stability
- During a meeting in Abu Dhabi, the ministers discussed the fraternal relations between UAE and Bahrain
DUBAI: UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan received his Bahraini counterpart Dr. Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed welcomed the Bahraini Foreign Minister, and during the meeting held at the ministry’s headquarters in Abu Dhabi, they discussed the fraternal relations between the two countries, and ways to enhance Emirati-Bahraini cooperation at various levels, WAM reported.
Sheikh Abdullah stressed during the meeting that the UAE and Bahrain are linked by historical relations that are becoming more established, developed and growing, and that they also constitute an important tributary to joint Gulf and Arab work.
He also stressed that the current challenges facing the region require intensifying cooperation, coordination and joint work to contain all tensions that threaten its stability, security and safety of its people.
