Tag Archives: NATO

Greek court blocks last extradition request for Turkish soldiers

FILE PHOTO - Four of the eight Turkish soldiers (C), who fled to Greece in a helicopter and requested political asylum after a failed military coup against the government, line up as they are escorted by police officers at the Supreme Court in Athens, Greece, January 13, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis/File Photo

ATHENS (Reuters) – A Greek court on Thursday blocked a second extradition request by Turkey for the final two of eight soldiers who fled to Greece in July following a failed coup attempt, court officials said.

The decision is likely to anger Ankara, which alleges the men were involved in efforts to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan and has repeatedly demanded they be sent back.

Turkey had issued a second extradition request for the men, which it has branded traitors, in January after Greece’s top court ruled against extraditing all eight.

The drawn-out case has highlighted often strained relations between Greece and Turkey, NATO allies which remain at odds over issues from territorial disputes to ethnically-split Cyprus.

Turkey has previously threatened measures including scrapping a bilateral migration deal with Greece if the men are not returned

The three majors, three captains and two sergeant-majors landed a helicopter in Greece on July 16 and sought asylum, saying they feared for their lives in Turkey where authorities have purged large numbers from the military and civil service.

They are to be held in detention until their asylum applications are processed.

Addressing the court on Thursday, the prosecutor acknowledged the ruling “may cause discomfort” in Turkey but said the reasons for rejection had not changed since January.

“Has torture stopped? Persecutions?” he asked. “If it looks itself in the mirror, modern Turkey will understand why one denial comes after another — not only from Greece but also from other countries — for the release of alleged coup plotters.”

(Reporting by Constantinos Georgizas; Writing by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Ralph Boulton)

Estonia says Russia may put troops in Belarus to challenge NATO

FILE PHOTO: Estonia’s Defence Minister Margus Tsahkna speaks during the official ceremony welcoming the deployment of a multi-national NATO battalion in Tapa, Estonia, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

By Robin Emmott

VALETTA (Reuters) – Estonia’s defense minister said on Thursday that Russia may use large-scale military exercises to move thousands of troops permanently into Belarus later this year in a warning to NATO.

Russia and Belarus aim to hold joint war games in September that some North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies believe could number more than 100,000 troops and involve nuclear weapons training, the biggest such exercise since 2013.

Defence Minister Margus Tsahkna said Estonia and other NATO governments had intelligence suggesting Moscow may leave Russian soldiers in Belarus once the so-called Zapad 2017 exercises are over, also pointing to public data of Russian railway traffic to Belarus.

Tsahkna cited plans to send 4,000 railway carriages to Belarus to transport Russian troops and gear there, possibly to set up a military outpost in its closest ally.

“For Russian troops going to Belarus, it is a one-way ticket,” Tsahkna told Reuters in an interview in Malta.

“This is not my personal opinion, we are analyzing very deeply how Russia is preparing for the Zapad exercises,” he said before a meeting of EU defense ministers.

Russia’s Defence Ministry did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the subject.

Moscow denies any plans to threaten NATO and says it is the U.S.-led alliance that is risking stability in eastern Europe. The Kremlin has not said how many troops will take part in Zapad 2017.

“We see what they are doing on the other side of the EU-NATO border. Troops may remain there after Zapad,” Tsahkna said, saying that Tallinn had shared its concerns with Baltic and NATO allies. He put the number of potential troops in the thousands.

Such a move could see Russian troops on the border with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia just as the U.S.-led NATO alliance stations multinational battalions in the Baltic region in response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.

“QUESTION OF TRUST”

The scale of this year’s Zapad exercises, which date from Soviet times when they were first used to test new weapon systems, is one of NATO’s most pressing concerns, as diplomats say the war games are no simple military drill.

Previous large-scale exercises in 2013 employed special forces training, longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that were later used in Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and in its intervention in Syria, NATO diplomats said.

Russia, bridling at NATO’s expansion eastwards into its old Soviet sphere of influence, says its exercises are a response to NATO’s 4,000-strong new deterrent force in the Baltics and Poland that will begin to rotate through the region from June.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in January the scenario for the Zapad 2017 exercises would “take into account the situation linked to increased NATO activity along the borders of the Union state,” Russian media cited, in a reference to the union of Russia and Belarus.

The exercises, to be held simultaneously on military training grounds in Russia and Belarus, aim to focus on joint planning, command tactics and joint troop formations, he said.

“In the future we plan to strengthen the practical nature of such exercises, taking into account the emerging foreign policy realities,” Shoigu added, in an apparent reference to the expansion of NATO, which is soon to include Montenegro.

The U.S. Army’s top European commander has called on Russia to open its exercises to observers to calm Baltic concerns.

Asked about Moscow’s possible motives for leaving troops in Belarus, Tsahkna said it was likely about President Vladimir Putin’s image as a strong leader at home, as well as cementing ties with Belarus, which was alarmed by the Crimea annexation.

“Russia has presidential elections next year and Putin needs to show strength to the Russian people,” Tsahkna said. “It’s also a question of trust with Belarus.”

The West has sought to improve ties with Belarus over the past two years, lifting some sanctions in an overture to the country’s President Alexander Lukashenko, the man the West calls Europe’s “last dictator.”

But Belarus remains Russia’s ally and a member of Putin’s Eurasian trade bloc. Belarus Defence Minister Andrei Ravkov has echoed Russia’s position that NATO is a threat, also accusing Ukraine of raising tensions by aligning itself with the West.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Turkey says European rights court has no jurisdiction over referendum

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his deputies Bulent Arinc (not pictured) and Bekir Bozdag (R), speaks during a news conference at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul in this June 3, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Stringer/Files

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s justice minister said on Thursday that any opposition challenge to a referendum that expanded President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers would be rejected by the constitutional court, and Europe’s human rights court had no jurisdiction on the matter.

The main opposition CHP party said on Wednesday it was considering taking its appeal for the referendum to be annulled to Turkey’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights after the country’s electoral authority rejected challenges by the CHP and two other parties.

“If the opposition takes the appeal to the Constitutional Court, the court has no other option than to reject it,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told television news channel A Haber.

“It can also apply to the ECHR, but it cannot achieve a result there either, because the agreements Turkey signed do not give parties the right to apply.”

Bozdag also reiterated government criticism of a report by European election observers who said the referendum, carried out under emergency law, took place on an “unlevel playing field”.

The observers said a last-minute decision by election authorities to allow unstamped ballots to be counted “undermined an important safeguard and contradicted the law which explicitly states that such ballots should be considered invalid”.

Bozdag said the report lacked fairness and objectivity. “Those who prepared this report are partial,” he said.

Sunday’s referendum narrowly backed the largest overhaul of Turkey’s political system since the founding of the republic nearly a century ago, giving Erdogan sweeping authority over the NATO member-state.

But the tight result of a highly charged campaign laid bare divisions and triggered challenges from the opposition over its legitimacy.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Trevelyan)

Monitors criticize Turkey referendum; Erdogan denounces ‘crusader mentality’

Supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan celebrate in Istanbul.

By Gulsen Solaker and Daren Butler

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A defiant Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan denounced the West’s “crusader mentality” on Monday after European monitors criticized a referendum to grant him sweeping new powers, which he won with a narrow victory laying bare the nation’s divisions.

Supporters thronged the streets honking horns and waving flags, while opponents banged pots and pans in protest in their homes into the early morning. The main opposition party rejected the result and called for the vote to be annulled.

Election authorities said preliminary results showed 51.4 percent of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic.

Erdogan says concentrating power in the hands of the president is vital to prevent instability. But the narrowness of his victory could have the opposite effect: adding to volatility in a country that has lately survived an attempted coup, attacks by Islamists, a Kurdish insurgency, civil unrest and war across its Syrian border.

The result laid bare the deep divide between the urban middle classes who see their future as part of a European mainstream, and the pious rural poor who favor Erdogan’s strong hand. Erdogan made clear his intention to steer the country away from Europe, announcing plans to seek to restore the death penalty, which would effectively end Turkey’s decades-long quest to join the EU.

“The crusader mentality in the West and its servants at home have attacked us,” he told flag-waving supporters on arrival in the capital Ankara where he was due to chair a cabinet meeting, in response to the monitors’ assessment.

In the bluntest criticism of a Turkish election by European monitors in memory, a mission of observers from the 47-member Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights body, said the referendum was an uneven contest. Support for a “Yes” vote dominated campaign coverage, and the arrests of journalists and closure of media outlets prevented other views from being heard, the monitors said.

“In general, the referendum did not live up to Council of Europe standards. The legal framework was inadequate for the holding of a genuinely democratic process,” said Cezar Florin Preda, head of the delegation.

While the monitors had no information of actual fraud, a last-minute decision by electoral authorities to allow unstamped ballots to be counted undermined an important safeguard and contradicted electoral law, they said.

DIVISIONS

The bitter campaigning and narrow “Yes” vote exposed deep divisions in Turkey, with the country’s three main cities and mainly Kurdish southeast likely to have voted “No”. Official results are due to be announced in the next 12 days.

Erdogan, a populist with a background in once-banned Islamist parties, has ruled since 2003 with no real rival, while his country emerged as one of the fastest-growing industrial powers in both Europe and the Middle East.

He has also been at the center of global affairs, commanding NATO’s second-biggest military on the border of Middle East war zones, taking in millions of Syrian refugees and controlling their further flow into Europe.

Critics accuse him of steering Turkey towards one-man rule. The two largest opposition parties both challenged Sunday’s referendum, saying it was deeply flawed.

The pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party said it presented complaints about unstamped ballots affecting 3 million voters, more than twice the margin of Erdogan’s victory.

The main secularist opposition People’s Republican Party said it was still unclear how many votes were affected.

“This is why the only decision that will end debate about the legitimacy (of the vote) and ease the people’s legal concerns is the annulment of this election,” deputy party chairman Bulent Tezcan said.

Tezcan said he would if necessary go to Turkey’s constitutional court – one of the institutions that Erdogan would gain firm control over under the constitutional changes, through the appointment of its members.

“ERDOGAN’S RESPONSIBILITY”

The president survived a coup attempt last year and responded with a crackdown, jailing 47,000 people and sacking or suspending more than 120,000 from government jobs such as schoolteachers, soldiers, police, judges or other professionals.

The changes could keep him in power until 2029 or beyond, making him easily the most important figure in Turkish history since state founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk built a modern nation from the ashes of the Ottoman empire after World War One.

Germany, host to some 4 million Turks, said it was up to Erdogan himself to heal the rifts that the vote had exposed.

“The tight referendum result shows how deeply divided Turkish society is, and that means a big responsibility for the Turkish leadership and for President Erdogan personally,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in a joint statement.

Relations with Europe were strained during the referendum campaign when Germany and the Netherlands barred Turkish ministers from holding rallies. Erdogan provoked a stern German response by comparing those limits to the actions of the Nazis.

Thousands of Erdogan supporters waved flags and blasted horns into the early hours on Monday in celebration of a man who they say has transformed the quality of life for millions of pious Turks marginalized for decades by the secular elite.

There were scattered protests against the result, but these were more sporadic. In some affluent, secular neighborhoods, opponents stayed indoors, banging pots and pans, a sign of dissent that became widespread during anti-Erdogan protests in 2013, when the police crushed demonstrations against him.

The result triggered a two percent rally in the Turkish lira from its close last week.

Under the changes, most of which will only come into effect after the next elections due in 2019, the president will appoint the cabinet and an undefined number of vice-presidents, and be able to select and remove senior civil servants without parliamentary approval.

There has been some speculation that Erdogan could call new elections so that his new powers could take effect right away. However, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told Reuters there was no such plan, and the elections would still be held in 2019.

Erdogan served as prime minister from 2003 until 2014, when rules were changed to hold direct elections for the office of president, previously a ceremonial role elected by parliament. Since becoming the first directly elected president, he has set about making the post more important, along the lines of the executive presidencies of France, Russia or the United States.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux in Istanbul and Ankara; Writing by Daren Butler, David Dolan and Dominic Evans; Editing by Peter Graff)

NATO deploys troops to Poland while concerns about country’s army rise

U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for U.S.-led NATO troops at polygon near Orzysz, Poland, April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

By Lidia Kelly

ORZYSZ, Poland (Reuters) – Poland on Thursday welcomed the first U.S. troops in a multi-national force which is being posted across the Baltic region to counter potential threats from Russia.

More than 1,100 soldiers — 900 U.S. troops as well as 150 British and 120 Romanians — are to be deployed in Orzysz, about 57 km (35 miles) south of Russia’s Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has stationed nuclear-capable missiles and an S-400 air missile defense system.

Three other formations are due to become operational by June across the region.

“Deploying of these troops to Poland is a clear demonstration of NATO’s unity and resolve and sends a clear message to any potential aggressor,” NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, said at a welcoming ceremony for the first arrivals at Orzysz, 220 km (140 miles) northeast of the capital Warsaw.

Poland, alarmed by Russia’s assertiveness on NATO’s eastern flank, has lobbied hard for the stationing of NATO troops on its soil, especially since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Polish President Andrzej Duda called the deployment a historic moment “awaited for by generations”.

The troops’ move in Orzysz takes place as U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have changed his previously critical views of NATO and soured his attitude toward Moscow.

While running for president, Trump dismissed the alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia.

But on Wednesday, he lavished praise on NATO and said the relationship with Russia may be at an all-time low.

“I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer obsolete,” Trump said as he stood at a news conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the White House.

OFFICERS RESIGN

Poland’s ruling conservatives, the Law and Justice party (PiS) allied with Duda, have signaled plans to raise funds to modernize and increase the size of its military, even though Warsaw is already among NATO’s top spenders.

But the Polish armed forces have other problems.

Nearly 30 top of its top generals and more than 200 colonels — a quarter and a sixth of the army’s total — have resigned over the last year, citing in part disagreements with Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz over personnel and other decisions.

The military has also seen potential procurement delays after Macierewicz canceled a multi-billion-dollar deal with Airbus Helicopters (AIR.PA) last year.

General Miroslaw Rozanski, a former senior commander, said in February he could not accept certain defense ministry decisions.

“We were implementing NATO decisions. Minister Macierewicz would agree with my proposals and then different decisions would be taken,” he said then.

The Defence Ministry says the officers’ departures amount to only a fraction more than in previous years. It has said, however, the army should be purged of commanders who began their service before the collapse of communist rule in 1989.

In response to Reuters’ request for a comment, a NATO official said it was up to the allies to decide how they structure their armed forces.

“What is important to NATO is that the armed forces of allies meet their capability targets, that they can operate with each other and that they have the right equipment to meet today’s security challenges,” the official said.

Polish sources said NATO, focusing on its troubled relations with the new U.S. president and Moscow, has adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude toward Warsaw.

“We are indeed the trouble makers,” a Polish government source told Reuters. “But because we fulfil all the obligations…because in the end we deliver, we are not the biggest problem right now. So, NATO has indeed adopted a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude toward us.”

But Daniel Keohane, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH university in Zurich, said Poland’s relations within the alliance could suffer.

“While this should not in principle weaken Poland’s position within NATO, if these generals are resigning for political reasons, and a perception of an ongoing politicization of the Polish army emerges, this could cause worry in other NATO capitals,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Marcin Goettig and Pawel Sobczak in Warsaw; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Angus MacSwan)

In historic referendum, Turkey’s Erdogan faces his biggest test

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets his supporters during an event ahead of the constitutional referendum in Istanbul, Turkey April 12, 2017. Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Much like the vast mosque he has commissioned atop one of Istanbul’s highest hills, President Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters hope a referendum on Sunday will be a crowning achievement in his drive to reshape Turkey.

The vote, in which millions of Turks will decide whether to replace their parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency, may bring the biggest change in their system of governance since the modern Turkish republic was founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago.

The outcome will have repercussions beyond Turkish shores.

(Graphic – Turkey’s referendum: a simple vote but a close race: http://tmsnrt.rs/2pyhiFR)

Never in recent times has Turkey, one of only two Muslim members of the NATO military alliance, been so central to world affairs, from the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, to Europe’s migrant crisis and Ankara’s shifting allegiances with Moscow and Washington.

The campaign has split the country of 80 million down the middle, its divisions spilling over to the large Turkish diaspora in Europe. Erdogan has accused European leaders of acting like Nazis for banning rallies on security grounds, while his opponents overseas say they have been spied on.

Erdogan’s fervent supporters see his drive for greater powers as the just reward for a leader who has put Islamist values back at the core of public life, championed the pious working classes and delivered airports, hospitals and schools.

Opponents fear a lurch toward authoritarianism under a president they see as addicted to power and intolerant of dissent, chipping away at the secular foundations laid by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and taking it ever further from Western values on democracy and free speech.

“Within the past 15 years he has achieved everything once considered impossible, unthinkable for Turks, be it bridges, undersea tunnels, roads, airports,” said Ergin Kulunk, 65, a civil engineer who heads an Istanbul mosque association that is financing the new mosque on the city’s Camlica Hill.

“The biggest quality of the Chief is that he touches people. I saw him at a recent gathering literally shaking almost 1,000 hands. He’s not doing that for politics. It comes from the heart,” he said, as Erdogan’s voice boomed from a television in the corner, broadcasting one of his daily campaign rallies.

In Kulunk’s office on Camlica Hill, once a hunting ground for the Ottoman well-to-do and now a popular viewing point, a signed picture of Erdogan hung on the wall next to portraits of Ataturk and Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid.

But for Erdogan’s opponents – including secularist liberals, left-leaning Kurds and even some nationalists – his tightening grip poses an almost existential threat.

“He’s trying to destroy the republic and the legacy of Ataturk,” said Nurten Kayacan, 61, a housewife from the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, attending a small “No” rally at an Istanbul ferry port.

“If the ‘Yes’ vote wins, we’re headed to chaos. He will be the president of only half of the country,” she said.

“ONE-MAN SYSTEM”

Erdogan assumed the presidency, then a largely ceremonial position, in 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister, and has since continued to dominate politics by force of personality, making no secret of his ambition for greater powers.

He has ridden a wave of patriotism since an abortive coup in July, casting Turkey as at peril from a cocktail of outside forces and in need of strong leadership to see off threats from Islamic State, Kurdish militants, the enemies within who tried to oust him and their foreign backers.

A poll two weeks after the attempted putsch showed him with two-thirds approval, his highest ever, but more recent surveys suggest a much closer race. A narrow majority of Turks will vote “Yes”, two opinion polls suggested on Thursday, putting his support at only a little over 51 percent.

Pollsters acknowledge there may be a hidden “No” vote, whose numbers are hard to assess, among traditional supporters of the ruling AK Party concerned about Erdogan’s authoritarian instincts, particularly after more than 120,000 civil servants were sacked or suspended since the failed coup.

Etyen Mahcupyan, a one-time chief adviser to former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a key figure in the AKP, wrote in the Karar newspaper on Thursday that he would be voting “No”.

“The (proposed) model will cause great harm in the medium term to conservatives and Turkey,” he wrote, saying the changes would usher in a “one-man system” open to abuse. “Every AKP member must vigorously stand up for the protection of the party and for its capacity and potential to govern.”

Erdogan’s supporters reject such charges, saying the 18 constitutional amendments being put to a simple “Yes/No” vote contain sufficient checks and balances, such as the provision that a new presidential election would be triggered should the president dissolve parliament.

Erdogan has focused in recent campaign events on trying to ridicule the leader of the main secularist CHP opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, playing videos of his gaffes in the apparent hope that voter patterns will reflect the last national election in November 2015, when AKP dominated the electoral map.

Such populist tactics have won him boisterous applause from those who revere him. But he has spent less time on the details of the proposed constitutional reforms.

“Eighty percent of voters in Turkey vote according to ideology. That is, they will cast their votes in this referendum without knowing its content,” said Murat Gezici, head of the Gezici polling company.

“If ‘Yes’ emerges victorious, they’ll only find out what they said yes to by experience. Only then will they face the problems,” he said in his Istanbul office.

(Additional reporting by Umit Bektas, Melih Aslan and Daren Butler; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Germany balks at Tillerson demand for more European NATO spending

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Lesley Wroughton and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany said on Friday that NATO’s agreed target spend of two percent of members’ yearly economic output was neither “reachable nor desirable”, countering Washington’s demands that European partners comply and quickly.

The United States provides nearly 70 percent of NATO’s budget and is demanding that all allies make clear progress toward the agreed target this year. Only four European NATO members – Estonia, Greece, Poland and Britain – have done so.

“Two percent would mean military expenses of some 70 billion euros. I don’t know any German politician who would claim that is reachable nor desirable,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the first NATO meeting attended by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson, however, reiterated Washington’s demands and said the U.S. will push that agenda when NATO leaders meet on May 25 for the first top-level summit of the alliance. U.S. President Donald Trump will attend that meeting.

“Our goal should be to agree at the May Leaders meeting that by the end of the year all Allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how…the pledge will be fulfilled,” Tillerson said.

“Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. governments commitment.”

In Berlin, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government was committed to increasing defense spending and would continue to do so “because we know it is necessary and makes sense to further strengthen our armed forces”.

Members have until 2024 to comply with the spending target.

Tillerson did however offer assurances of Washington’s commitment to NATO, softening Trump’s stance.

Trump has criticized NATO as “obsolete” and suggested Washington’s security guarantees for European allies could be conditional on them spending more on their own defense. He has also said he wants NATO to do more to fight terrorism.

“The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense,” Tillerson said at the meeting in Brussels. “We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said ties between European NATO members and the United States were “rock solid”.

He said the ministers would discuss “fair burden sharing to keep the trans-atlantic bond strong” and “stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism”.

Stoltenberg confirmed ministers would discuss national defense spending plans on Friday as the bloc seeks to respond to the new, harsher tone from across the Atlantic, which has galvanized European NATO allies.

Though Washington has also offered reassurances, Tillerson’s initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers reopened questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to the alliance.

The meeting was later rescheduled and Tillerson was attending on Friday, though has not scheduled meetings with individual countries as is customary by the secretary of state during such a meeting.

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Tillerson seeks to keep focus on Islamic State in delicate Turkey visit

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, accompanied by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu (3rd R), meets with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (3rd L) in Ankara. Hakan Goktepe/Prime Minister's Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

By Lesley Wroughton

ANKARA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held talks with Turkey’s leaders on Thursday in a one-day visit to a NATO ally crucial to the fight against Islamic State but increasingly at odds with Washington and its European partners.

Tillerson held a closed-door meeting with President Tayyip Erdogan at which he was expected to discuss the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State, including the planned offensive against its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, where Turkey has been angered by U.S. support for Kurdish militia fighters.

He earlier met Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and discussed efforts to defeat Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, Yildirim’s office said. A U.S. State Department official said Tillerson had emphasized Turkey’s “important role” in regional security.

Erdogan has been incensed by Washington’s readiness to work with the Kurdish YPG militia in the fight against Islamic State. Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of PKK militants who have fought a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey and are deemed a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.

U.S.-Turkish relations have also been strained by the continued presence in the United States of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Erdogan for a failed coup last July and whom Ankara wants extradited.

Ties soured under former U.S. President Barack Obama and officials in Ankara have been hoping for a reset under President Donald Trump. But there have been few signs of improvement.

Tillerson’s visit comes less than three weeks ahead of a referendum at which Erdogan is seeking constitutional change to boost his powers, a move which his opponents and some European allies fear will bring increasing authoritarianism.

Senior U.S. officials have said Tillerson will not meet the Turkish opposition during the visit, a sign that he will seek to avoid discussion of domestic issues while trying to keep the focus on the fight against Islamic State.

But his trip has been further clouded by the arrest in New York on Monday of an executive of Turkey’s state-run Halkbank <HALKB.IS>, who is accused of conspiring in a multi-year scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Shortly after Tillerson’s arrival in Ankara, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told broadcaster A Haber that the arrest was a “completely political move” designed to tarnish Turkey and Erdogan, and questioned the evidence in the case.

Tillerson is expected to say the arrest of Halkbank deputy General Manager Mehmet Hakan Atilla is a matter for the U.S. justice authorities and not political. He is hoping his visit can focus instead on the campaign to retake Raqqa.

U.S. officials say Tillerson, who has said the number one priority in Syria for President Donald Trump’s administration is defeating Islamic State, will emphasize the importance of Kurdish YPG forces in the Raqqa offensive.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Ralph Boulton)

NATO to spend 3 billion euros on satellite, cyber defenses

FILE PHOTO - A NATO flag flies at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, March 2, 2014. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO plans to spend 3 billion euros ($3.24 billion) to upgrade its satellite and computer technology over the next three years as the Western military alliance adapts to new threats, a senior official said.

Seeking to deter hackers, and other threats including Iranian missiles, the investments underscore NATO’s recognition that conflicts are increasingly fought on computer networks as well as in the air, on land and at sea.

A senior official at the NATO Communications and Information Agency said the plans include a 1.7-billion-euro investment in satellite communications to better support troops and ships deployed across the alliance, as well as aiding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

It was not immediately clear if NATO allies would fund a new military communications satellite to be launched into space or if an increase in broadband capacity could be gained from existing U.S. and other allied satellites.

Non-NATO member Japan launched its first military communications satellite in January.

The proposals, for which some funding must still be approved by NATO governments, also envisage spending about 800 million euros on the computer systems that help command air and missile defenses, said the official, who declined to be named.

Seventy-one million euros will go to improving the protection of NATO’s 32 main locations from cyber attacks.

NATO says it has seen a five-fold increase in suspicious events on its networks in the past three years, while Russian group APT28 is blamed by Western intelligence for the hacking of the U.S. Democratic Party during last year’s U.S. election.

NATO officials have told Reuters they suspect Russia sponsors attacks against their networks before major summits.

Another 180 million euros are to be spent to provide more secure mobile communications for alliance soldiers in the field.

NATO will present its needs in detail at a conference in Ottawa in April and then begin launching the bidding process.

It is likely to attract major Western defense contracts including Airbus Group, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp, the official said, in part because “there cannot be content that does not come from NATO nations.”

NATO rules prohibit Russian or Chinese suppliers unless there is a specific need that allied companies cannot provide.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Russia may be helping supply Taliban insurgents: U.S. general

Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti speaks during a news conference in Tallinn, Estonia, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. general in Europe said on Thursday that he had seen Russian influence on Afghan Taliban insurgents growing and raised the possibility that Moscow was helping supply the militants, whose reach is expanding in southern Afghanistan.

“I’ve seen the influence of Russia of late – increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban,” Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

He did not elaborate on what kinds of supplies might be headed to the Taliban or how direct Russia’s role might be.

Moscow has been critical of the United States over its handling of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union fought a bloody and disastrous war of its own in the 1980s.

But Russian officials have denied they provide aid to the insurgents, who are contesting large swaths of territory and inflicting heavy casualties, and say their limited contacts are aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

According to U.S. estimates, government forces control less than 60 percent of Afghanistan, with almost half the country either contested or under control of the insurgents, who are seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

Underlying the insurgents’ growing strength, Taliban fighters have captured the strategic district of Sangin in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials said on Thursday.

The top U.S. commander in the country, General John Nicholson, said last month that Afghanistan was in a “stalemate” and that thousands more international troops would be needed to boost the existing NATO-led training and advisory mission.

Scaparrotti said the stakes were high. More than 1,800 American troops have been killed in fighting since the war began in 2001.

“NATO and the United States, in my view, must win in Afghanistan,” he said.

Taliban officials have told Reuters that the group has had significant contacts with Moscow since at least 2007, adding that Russian involvement did not extend beyond “moral and political support.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)