Tag Archives: Europe

Homegrown attacks rising worry in U.S. as Islamic State weakens abroad

Homegrown attacks rising worry in U.S. as Islamic State weakens abroad

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The online video’s message was clear: Supporters of Islamic State who could not travel overseas to join the militant group should carry out attacks wherever they were in the United States or Europe.

Bangladeshi immigrant Akayed Ullah, 27, followed those instructions on Monday when he tried to set off a homemade bomb in one of New York’s busiest commuter hubs, in an attack that illustrates the difficulty of stopping “do-it-yourself” attacks by radicals who act alone.

While harder to stop than attacks coordinated by multiple people – whose communications may be more easily monitored by law enforcement or intelligence agencies – they also tend to do less damage. Ullah was the person most seriously wounded when his bomb ignited but did not detonate in an underground passageway linking the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the Times Square subway statin; three others sustained lesser injuries.

“They tend to be less organized and less deadly,” said Seamus Hughes, a former adviser at the U.S. government’s National Counterterrorism Center. “That’s because you’re dealing with more, for lack of a better word, amateurs.”

The do-it-yourself style of attack is on the rise in the United States, according to research by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, where Hughes is deputy director.

The United States has seen 19 attacks perpetrated by Islamic State-inspired people since the group declared a “caliphate” in June 2014 after capturing broad swaths of Iraq and Syria. Of those, 12 occurred in 2016 and 2017, almost twice as many as in the two preceding years.

“You’re going to see continued numbers of plots and, unfortunately, attacks,” Hughes said.

Ullah began immersing himself in Islamic State propaganda as early as 2014, three years after he arrived in the United States as a legal immigrant, according to federal prosecutors who charged him with terrorism offenses. They said in court papers that Ullah’s computer records showed that he viewed ISIS videos urging supporters of the group to launch attacks where they lived.

Experts said the success of Western allies in retaking most of Islamic State’s territory could inspire more attacks out of anger or vengeance.

“No group has been as successful at drawing people into its perverse ideology as ISIS,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said in congressional testimony last week. “Through the internet, terrorists overseas now have access into our local communities to target and recruit our citizens.”

National security analysts generally divide such perpetrators into three broad categories.

Some attackers act at the direction of a group, like the Islamic State-backed militants who carried out coordinated attacks in Paris in 2015, killing 130; others have some limited contact with an organization but act largely on their own. A third type has no communication with a group but engage in violence after being radicalized by online propaganda.

It is easier for trained, battle-hardened ISIS fighters to travel from the Middle East to Europe than for them to reach the United States. That helps explain why U.S. attacks have largely been the work of “self-made” terrorists, said Brandeis University professor and radicalization expert Jytte Klausen.

“In these recent cases, we’ve seen very few indications that there was any type of direct training,” Klausen said.

Self-directed perpetrators are the hardest for investigators to identify. Their ranks appear to include Ullah, as well as two other recent New York attackers: Ahmad Rahimi, the man who injured 30 with a homemade bomb in Manhattan in September 2016, and Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight by speeding a rental truck down a bike lane in October.

While that type of attacker typically is less destructive, there are important exceptions. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 people, and Omar Mateen gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando last year.

“A single individual or two can still create a lot of damage,” said Max Abrahms, a professor at Northeastern University who studies terrorism. “But they’re not able to wage sustained terrorist campaigns.”

(This story has been refiled to restore dropped word “as” in 6th paragraph)

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

Britons can change terms of Brexit to diverge from EU: pro-Brexit minister Gove

Britons can change terms of Brexit to diverge from EU: pro-Brexit minister Gove

By Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) – British voters will be able to change the terms of the country’s relationship with the European Union after leaving the bloc if they don’t like the final Brexit deal, senior cabinet minister and pro-Brexit lawmaker Michael Gove said on Saturday.

Britain and the EU achieved “sufficient progress” in Brexit negotiations on Friday to allow them to move on to discussing future trade ties, in a move welcomed by Gove and other Brexit supporters in Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party.

However, while Gove, who is Britain’s environment minister, reiterated his support for May, he gave succour to critics of the deal by saying that if Britons were dissatisfied with the terms of Brexit, future governments could change it.

“The British people will be in control. By the time of the next election, EU law and any new treaty with the EU will cease to have primacy or direct effect in UK law,” Gove wrote in a column in the Daily Telegraph.

“If the British people dislike the arrangement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.”

Britain is due to exit the EU in March 2019. The next election is not scheduled until 2022, though there has been speculation in British media that it could come earlier, given May’s lack of a parliamentary majority and deep divisions within her party about Brexit.

Some eurosceptic voices outside the government have said that May has betrayed British “leave” voters and given in to EU demands with the agreement.

TOUGH WEEK

It has been a tough week for May after Northern Ireland’s small Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – whose support she needs in parliament – unexpectedly blocked an initial deal on Monday, leaving Britain and the EU scrambling to find wording acceptable to all sides ahead of next week’s summit of EU leaders.

While agreement was eventually reached on Friday, Gove said that all UK proposals were provisional on a final deal being done, and even then, that arrangement could be revisited by future governments.

Matthew Parris, an anti-Brexit columnist and former Conservative lawmaker, told BBC radio that Gove might envisage a situation in which he would be spearheading a new approach to Brexit.

But Gove, who was briefly in the running to lead the party last year, praised May on Saturday, and said the deal was a result of her “tenacity and skill”.

Fellow pro-Brexit cabinet colleague Andrea Leadsom defended his comments, saying it did not imply that May would be replaced before the next election.

“It’s simply the case that in taking back control (from Brussels)… it will be for the voters to determine what future governments do,” Leadsom told BBC radio. “I think it is a statement of the obvious.”

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Gareth Jones)

European states push U.S. for detailed Middle East peace proposals

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Italy called on the United States on Friday to put forward detailed proposals for peace between Israel and the Palestinians and described as “unhelpful” a decision by President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump’s reversal of decades of U.S. policy on Wednesday sparked a Palestinian “day of rage” on Friday. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated, scores were hurt and at least one was killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

Amid anger in the Arab world and concern among Washington’s Western allies, the United Nations Security Council met on Friday at the request of eight of the 15 members – Britain, France, Sweden, Bolivia, Uruguay, Italy, Senegal and Egypt.

In a joint statement after the meeting, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Italy said the U.S. decision, which includes plans to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, was “unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region.”

“We stand ready to contribute to all credible efforts to restart the peace process, on the basis of internationally agreed parameters, leading to a two-State solution,” they said. “We encourage the U.S. Administration to now bring forward detailed proposals for an Israel-Palestinian settlement.”

Egypt’s U.N. Ambassador Amr Aboulatta said the U.S. decision would have “a grave, negative impact” on the peace process.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the Washington has credibility as a mediator with both Israel and the Palestinians and accused the United Nations of damaging rather than advancing peace prospects with unfair attacks on Israel.

“Israel will never be, and should never be, bullied into an agreement by the United Nations, or by any collection of countries that have proven their disregard for Israel’s security,” Haley said.

ESCALATION RISK

Haley said Trump was committed to the peace process and that the United States had not taken a position on Jerusalem’s borders or boundaries and was not advocating any changes to the arrangements at the holy sites.

“Our actions are intended to help advance the cause of peace,” she said. “We believe we might be closer to that goal than ever before.”

Earlier on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during a news conference in Paris that any final decision on the status of Jerusalem would depend on negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

United Nations Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov warned there was a risk of violent escalation.

“There is a serious risk today that we may see a chain of unilateral actions, which can only push us further away from achieving our shared goal of peace,” Mladenov told the U.N. Security Council.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future independent state of their own.

Most countries consider East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East War, to be occupied territory, including the Old City, home to sites considered holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in December last year “underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.”

That resolution was approved with 14 votes in favor and an abstention by former U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, which defied heavy pressure from long-time ally Israel and Trump, who was then president-elect, for Washington to wield its veto.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Frances Kerry and James Dalgleish)

Catalan separatists march in Brussels

Catalan separatists march in Brussels

By Clement Rossignol

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Nearly 50,000 people marched through Brussels’ European quarter on Thursday in support of Catalan independence and the region’s president, who has avoided arrest in Spain by taking refuge in Belgium.

Before Carles Puigdemont addressed the crowd, many draped in Catalan flags, police estimated its size at 45,000. There were chants of “Puigdemont, President” from a generally good-natured throng, many of whom had traveled from Spain for the occasion.

Some carried placards criticizing the European Union for not pressuring Madrid. One sign showed the face of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker with the question: “Democracy? Some defend it when it suits them. Shame on them.”

Gloria Cot, a clerk from Barcelona who had just arrived in by coach, said: “Brussels is a kind of a loudspeaker for us.

“It is a loudspeaker so that people can know that we really don’t have a 100 percent democracy in Spain and that Catalonia has always been subjected to problems with Spain.”

Nuria Salvat, a student from Tarragona in Catalonia, said she had come to demand freedom for “political prisoners” – members of Puigdemont’s administration held in jail in Spain – and to support Puigdemont himself, who faces jail if he returns.

“Spain,” she said, “has always treated us very badly.”

A short distance away in the EU executive’s headquarters, Juncker’s deputy Frans Timmermans told reporters he welcomed the “very positive atmosphere” of the demonstration, which took place as campaigning has got under way for a Catalan election which Madrid hopes can end the deadlock created by its refusal to recognize an independence vote Puigdemont held in September.

But, the former Dutch foreign minister said, there was no change to Commission policy that the dispute with the Barcelona authorities, now removed from office, remains an internal one in which the EU has no need to intervene because Spain’s democratic constitution is functioning in line with EU values.

Accusing Puigdemont and his allies of undermining the rule of law by choosing to ignore a Spanish constitutional ban on secession rather than trying to change the constitution, Timmermans said they were jeopardizing basic freedoms and noted there had been big rallies in Spain on both sides of the debate.

“If you do not agree with law, you can organize yourselves to change the law or the constitution,” he said. “What is not permissible under the rule of law is to just ignore the law.”

(Additional reporting and writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Millions of insecure gadgets exposed in European cities: report

Millions of insecure gadgets exposed in European cities: report

LONDON (Reuters) – A year after a wave of denial-of-service attacks knocked out major websites around the world, millions of unsecured printers, network gear and webcams remain undefended against attack across major European cities, a report published on Tuesday said.

Computer security company Trend Micro <4704.T> said that Berlin has more than 2.8 million insecure devices, followed closely by London with more than 2.5 million exposed gadgets. Among the top 10 capitals, Rome was lowest with nearly 300,000 visible unsecured devices, the researchers said.

The study was based on calculating the number of exposed devices in major European cities using Shodan, a search engine that helps to identify internet-linked equipment.

Trend Micro said that electronics users must take responsibility for managing their own internet-connected devices because of the failure by many gadget manufacturers to build in up-front security by default in their products.

The warning comes one year after a wave of attacks using so-called botnets of infected devices caused outages on popular websites and knocked 900,000 Deutsche Telekom <DTEGn.DE> users off the internet. (http://reut.rs/2BjdRII)

Computer experts say the failure to patch millions of insecure devices after last year’s Mirai denial-of-service attacks means it is only a question of time before further broad-based outages occur.

Research company Gartner recently forecast that there would be 8.4 billion connected products or devices in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and expects the number to triple by 2020. (https://goo.gl/thR54Q)

(Reporting by Jamillah Knowles; Editing by Eric Auchard and David Goodman)

EU to sign joint defense pact in show of post-Brexit unity

EU to sign joint defense pact in show of post-Brexit unity

By Andrea Shalal and Robin Emmott

BERLIN/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – At least 20 countries in the European Union will sign up to a new defense pact next week, promoted by France and Germany, to fund and develop joint military hardware in a show of unity following Britain’s decision to quit the bloc.

After years of spending cutbacks in Europe and a heavy reliance on the United States through the NATO alliance, France and Germany hope the accord, to be signed on Nov. 13 in Brussels, will tie nations into tighter defense collaboration covering troops and weapons.

The Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO, could be the biggest leap in EU defense policy in decades and may go some way to matching the bloc’s economic and trade prowess with a more powerful military.

But differences remain between Paris and Berlin over what countries legally bound by the pact should do, EU diplomats said.

France wanted a core group of governments to bring money and military assets to PESCO as well as a willingness to intervene abroad. Germany has sought to broaden the pact to make it inclusive, which some experts say could make it less effective.

“This has to bring about a higher level of commitment if it is going to work,” said a EU official, describing PESCO as a ‘defense marriage’. “The EU already has plenty of forums for discussion,” the official said.

So far France, Germany, Italy, Spain and around 16 other EU countries have pledged to join the pact, which could formally be launched when EU leaders meet in December. Some other members, including Denmark, Portugal, Malta and Ireland, have yet to commit themselves publicly.

But it was clear that Britain, which intends to leave the bloc following the Brexit referendum of June 2016, would not participate, officials said. Britain has long sought to block EU defense cooperation, fearing it could result in an EU army.

French diplomats said the pact would have several areas where EU governments would agree to work together and pledge funds, including EU military operations, investment and acquiring defense capabilities together as a group.

A German official said the initiative won momentum from French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a European intervention force in September and U.S. President Donald Trump’s insistence that Europe do more for its security.

Proposals for PESCO include work on a European medical command and a network of logistic hubs in Europe, creation of a crisis response center, and joint training of military officers.

A key goal is to reduce the numbers of weapons systems and prevent duplication to save money and improve joint operations.

It could also serve as an umbrella for projects such as a Franco-German initiative to design a new fighter jet, and existing bilateral military cooperation agreements, such as the close ties between Germany and the Netherlands.

MILITARY “SCHENGEN”

Efforts under the pact will be closely coordinated with the U.S.-led NATO alliance to ensure transparency and avoid any redundancies, the German official said.

One area where NATO and EU officials see common ground is in the need for a military zone for free movement of troops and equipment, loosely based on the EU’s passport-free travel “Schengen” zone.

“I welcome integration to the maximum extent practical. We obviously want to avoid duplication and maximize transparency,” U.S. Air Force General Tod Wolters, NATO Allied Air Commander, told Reuters.

Under the plans, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would focus on collective defense, while PESCO would ensure a quicker and more efficient EU response to events like the 2014 Ebola crisis in Africa, the official said.

“This will not happen in competition with NATO,” the German official said.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Robin Emmott; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Peter Graff)

Catalonia declares independence from Spain, direct Madrid rule looms

Catalonia declares independence from Spain, direct Madrid rule looms

By Sam Edwards and Julien Toyer

BARCELONA/MADRID (Reuters) – Catalonia’s parliament declared independence from Spain on Friday in defiance of the Madrid government, which at the same time was preparing to impose direct rule over the region.

Although the declaration was in effect a symbolic gesture as it will not be accepted by Spain or the international community, the moves by both sides take Spain’s worst political crisis in four decades to a new level.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy immediately called for calm and said the rule of law would be restored.

The motion passed in the regional parliament in Barcelona — which was boycotted by opposition parties — said Catalonia constituted an independent, sovereign and social democratic state. It called on other countries and institutions to recognize it.

It also said it wanted to open talks with Madrid to collaborate on setting up the new republic.

“It is not going to be easy, it is not going to be free, it is not going to change in a day. But there is no alternative to a process towards the Catalan Republic,” lawmaker Marta Rovira of the Junts pel Si pro-independence alliance said in a debate leading to the vote.

After the debate, lawmakers from members of three main national parties — the People’s Party, the Socialists and Ciudadanos, walked out.

Members of the pro-independence parties and the far-left Podemos then voted in 70-10 in favour in a secret ballot aimed at hindering any attempt by the central government to lay criminal charges on them.

Spanish shares and bonds were sold off when the result of the vote was announced.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont left the chamber to shouts of “President!”.

Meanwhile in Madrid the upper house of Spain’s parliament, the Senate, was due to approve Article 155, the law that allowing the central government to take over the autonomous region.

“Exceptional measures should only be adopted when no other remedy is possible,” Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in an address to the Senate. “In my opinion there is no alternative. The only thing that can be done and should be done is to accept and comply with the law.”

The Catalan leadership was ignoring the law and making a mockery of democracy, he said.

“We are facing a challenge unprecedented in our recent history,” said Rajoy, who has staked out an uncompromising position against Catalonia’s campaign to break away from Spain.

After the Senate vote, Rajoy was expected to convene his cabinet to adopt the first measures to govern Catalonia directly. This could include sacking the Barcelona government and assuming direct supervision of Catalan police forces.

But how direct rule would work on the ground – including the reaction of civil servants and the police – is uncertain.

Some independence supporters have promised to mount a campaign of civil disobedience, which could lead to direct confrontation with security forces.

The crisis developed after an independence referendum on Oct. 1 was declared illegal by Madrid. Although it endorsed independence, it drew only a 43 percent turnout as Catalans who oppose independence largely boycotted it.

WORRIED, NERVOUS

In Barcelona, crowds of independence supporters were swelling on downtown streets, shouting “Liberty” in the Catalan language and singing traditional Catalan songs.

“I’m worried, I’m nervous like everybody. But freedom is never free,” said Jaume Moline, 50, musician.

Montserrat Rectoret, a 61-year-old historian, said: “I am emotional because Catalonia has struggled for 40 years to be independent and finally I can see it.”

The crisis has split Catalonia and caused deep resentment around Spain – national flags now hang from many balconies in the capital in an expression of unity.

It has also prompted a flight of business from the wealthy northeastern region and alarmed European leaders who fear the crisis could fan separatist sentiment around the continent.

Catalonia is one of Spain’s most prosperous regions and already has a high degree of autonomy. But it has a litany of historic grievances, exacerbated during the 1939-1975 Franco dictatorship, when its culture and politics were suppressed.

(Reporting by Paul Day and Julien Toyer, writing by Angus MacSwan, editing by Mark Heinrich)

EU leaders talk up Iran nuclear deal hoping to save it from Trump

EU leaders talk up Iran nuclear deal hoping to save it from Trump

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders on Thursday reaffirmed their full commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, hoping that the U.S. Congress would not let it collapse despite relentless criticism by President Donald Trump.

But the bloc, reluctant to isolate itself completely from Washington, is also stepping up criticism of Iran’s ballistic missile program and its role in what the West sees as fomenting instability in the Middle East.

Trump last week adopted a harsh new approach to Iran by refusing to certify its compliance with the nuclear deal, struck with the United States and five other powers including Britain, France and Germany after more than a decade of diplomacy.

“We fully stay committed to the complete implementation by all sides of the Iranian nuclear deal. We see this as a key security interest for the European Union and the region,” said the bloc’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini.

The EU leaders’ joint statement, agreed after talks in Brussels on Thursday, “reaffirms full commitment to the Iran nuclear deal”.

The bloc has been stepping up efforts to save the deal, saying it was crucial to regional and global security, and it has appealed to the U.S. Congress not to let it fall.

Trump has given Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran, lifted under the pact in exchange for the scaling down of a program the West fears was aimed at building a nuclear bomb, something Tehran denies.

The EU leaders also highlighted the need to protect their companies and investors dealing with Iran from any adverse effects should Washington reinstate the sanctions, officials said.

Should Trump walk away from the deal, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Iran would “shred” it.

The bloc sees the agreement as a chief international success of recent years, and fears tearing it apart would hurt its credibility as well as harming diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions around a nuclear stand-off with North Korea.

In outlining his tougher stance, Trump said Tehran must also be held accountable for advancing its ballistic missile program and its regional political role.

“We will defend the nuclear deal and stand by the nuclear deal and implement the nuclear deal. But we also don’t want to be standing on a completely opposing side to the U.S.,” an EU official said.

“If they withdraw, we would be left in a rather interesting company with China and Russia. So there may be an issue of separating the nuclear deal from the ballistic program and Iran’s regional role, sending signals on the latter two.”

Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Thursday the ballistic missile program would accelerate despite U.S. and EU pressure to suspend it, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

The EU, which has expressed “concerns related to ballistic missiles and increasing tensions” in the Middle East, has said these issues should be discussed without direct links to the nuclear deal.

“They were never very fond of the nuclear deal in the first place but now the situation has changed a lot. Both many Democrats as well as some Republicans feel like they need to play a more active role on foreign policy to restrain the president,” the official said.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by John Stonestreet, Toni Reinhold)

Britain’s May urges EU to break deadlock in Brexit talks

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May (C) attends the EU summit in Brussels, Belgium October 19, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Elizabeth Piper and Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May urged the European Union on Thursday to break the deadlock and move forward with Brexit talks, asking the bloc’s leaders to respond with “urgency” on easing the fears of their citizens living in Britain.

Arriving at a two-day summit in Brussels with other EU leaders, May sought to lower any remaining expectation that she could win a breakthrough in the talks to unravel more than 40 years of union. Instead, she turned the focus to making progress in the coming weeks, particularly on citizens’ rights.

Weakened by losing her Conservative Party’s majority in a June election and failing to rally support at an ill-fated party conference, May cannot move on the EU’s insistence on increasing her pay offer for the divorce agreement.

She is hamstrung by demands in her own party for her to walk away unless the EU agrees to moving the talks forward to discuss trade, and Germany which does not want to be left with a large bill when Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019.

“We’ll … be looking at the concrete progress that has been made in our exit negotiations and setting out ambitious plans for the weeks ahead. I particularly, for example, want to see an urgency in reaching an agreement on citizens’ rights,” May told reporters.

But she avoided questions about increasing the amount Britain is willing to pay when it leaves the EU, instead referring back to a speech last month in Italy when she outlined an offer of around 20 billion euros ($24 billion) to try to improve the tone.

“That speech … set out that ambitious vision and I look forward to us being able to progress that in the weeks ahead,” she said.

Without a new offer on the money, May has attempted to change the focus by offering concessions on the protection of the rights of around 3 million EU citizens living in Britain, promising to make it as easy as possible for them to stay.

On her Facebook page, May wrote that “we are in touching distance of agreement” and asked the EU to show the “flexibility and creativity” to secure a deal in the coming weeks.

While welcome, this is unlikely to alter the outcome of the Brussels summit, where on Friday morning, when May has left, the bloc is expected to say the Brexit talks had not yet made enough progress for them to open the post-Brexit trade negotiations.

CHANGE OF TACK

That lack of movement has increased the pressure on May from her own party, particularly a small number of Brexit campaigners who have long said that the prime minister should walk away from the talks if the EU did not move them forward.

In an open letter to May on Thursday, pro-Brexit lawmakers and business people said that unless the talks moved to trade, Britain should signal it is ready to be subject to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules from March 30, 2019, when Brexit takes effect.

The government says it does not want to crash out of the EU and is working to secure a deal. But comments that ministers are planning for the possibility of a no deal have been pounced on by the Britain’s main opposition Labour Party.

Jeremy Corbyn, whose party has matched and sometimes beats May’s Conservatives in the opinion polls, arrived in Brussels on Thursday to meet EU lawmakers to try to break “the Brexit logjam” created by what he called government “bungling”.

Seen as having little chance of becoming prime minister last year, Corbyn is now being listened to in Brussels and was due to meet the bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and other officials on Thursday.

Recognising May’s position at home, EU leaders are expected to make a “gesture” by telling EU staff to prepare for talks on a transition period needed to ease uncertainty for business. But they warn there is still a lot to be done.

“We have to work really hard between October and December to finalise this so-called first phase and to start negotiating on our future relationship with the UK,” Donald Tusk, the chairman of EU leaders, said on Wednesday.

($1 = 0.8454 euros)

(additional reporting by William James and Estelle Shirbon in London, Philip Blenkinsop and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Editing by Alison Williams)

EU to ban business ties with Pyongyang over nuclear tests

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspects the January 18 General Machine Plant in Pyongyang, North Korea in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 10, 2016. KCNA/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. SOUTH KOREA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN SOUTH KOREA.

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union is set to agree on Monday to ban business ties with North Korea, part of a new package of sanctions to isolate Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

The practical impact of the moves is likely to be mostly symbolic: Brussels will impose an oil embargo and a ban on EU investment, but it sells no crude to North Korea and European companies have no substantial investments there.

North Korean workers in the EU, of which Brussels estimates there are about 400 mainly in Poland, will face a lower limit on the amount for money they can send home and their work visas will not be renewed once they expire.

The measures to be agreed by EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg go further than the latest round of multi-lateral sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.

“The North Koreans appear to be uninterested in having the EU get involved as a peace mediator,” said an EU diplomat. “The North Koreans want direct talks with the United States, but President (Donald) Trump has ruled that out,” the diplomat said.

The sanctions will add three more top North Korean officials and six businesses to a blacklist banning them from travel to the EU and freezing their assets. That will take the total of those sanctioned by the EU to 41 individuals and 10 companies, a senior EU official said. Separately, U.N. sanctions target 63 people and 53 companies and institutions.

“We have in place everything that we possibly could do to try to get the DPRK to change their behavior,” the EU official said, using North Korea’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Although the EU does not export crude to North Korea, its aim is to push other countries to ban oil exports, either unilaterally or at the United Nations. The U.N. Security Council last month capped North Korean imports of crude oil, but China and Russia resisted an outright ban.

Diplomats said that if Pyongyang launches more missiles, the EU could consider imposing sanctions on non-EU firms doing business with Pyongyang, as the United States has done.

However, such “secondary sanctions” need clear evidence to avoid legal challenges and the bloc is reluctant to anger China, a top trading partner, by targeting Chinese people and firms.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Peter Graff)