WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Turkish counterpart to “pick up the phone and let us know” what the United States can do to help after a huge earthquake hit the country on Monday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
The Biden administration’s top diplomat spoke to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu by phone following the earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people across a swathe of Turkiye and northwest Syria.
“It was so important for the secretary to speak to his foreign minister counterpart, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu, in the first instance to offer condolences and to make clear...that anything Turkiye needed that we could provide, they should pick up the phone and let us know,” Price said.
Blinken asked his senior staff on Monday morning to identify what funding might be available to help Turkiye and NGOs working on the ground in Syria, Price said.
Washington has deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team and is in the process of deploying two urban search and rescue teams from Virginia and California that are expected to comprise 79 people each, the US Agency for International Development said.
The US consulate in the southern Turkish city of Adana would also host others working on rescue efforts, Price added.
Blinken tells Turkiye to ‘let us know’ what US can do after earthquake
https://arab.news/4wzfs
Blinken tells Turkiye to ‘let us know’ what US can do after earthquake
- Blinken asked his senior staff to identify available funding to help Turkiye and NGOs in Syria
Blair pressured UK officials over case against soldiers implicated in death of Iraqi
- Newly released files suggest ex-PM took steps to ensure cases were not heard in civilian court
- Baha Mousa died in British custody in 2003 after numerous assaults by soldiers over 36 hours
LONDON: Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair pressured officials not to let British soldiers be tried in civil courts on charges related to the death of an Iraqi man in 2003, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Baha Mousa died in British Army custody in Basra during the Iraq War, having been repeatedly assaulted by soldiers over a 36-hour period.
Newly released files show that in 2005 Antony Phillipson, Blair’s private secretary for foreign affairs, had written to the prime minister saying the soldiers involved would be court-martialed, but “if the (attorney general) felt that the case were better dealt with in a civil court he could direct accordingly.”
The memo sent to Blair was included in a series of files released to the National Archives in London this week. At the top of the memo, he wrote: “It must not (happen)!”
In other released files, Phillipson told Blair that the attorney general and Ministry of Defence could give details on changes to the law they were proposing at the time so as to avoid claims that British soldiers could not operate in a war zone for fear of prosecution.
In response, Blair said: “We have, in effect, to be in a position where (the) ICC (International Criminal Court) is not involved and neither is CPS (Crown Prosecution Service). That is essential. This has been woefully handled by the MoD.”
In 2005, Cpl Donald Payne was court-martialed, jailed for a year and dismissed from the army for his role in mistreating prisoners in custody, one of whom had been Mousa.
Payne repeatedly assaulted, restrained and hooded detainees, including as part of what he called “the choir,” a process by which he would kick and punch prisoners at intervals so that they made noise he called “music.”
He became the first British soldier convicted of war crimes, admitting to inhumanely treating civilians in violation of the 2001 International Criminal Court Act.
