Tag Archives: President Trump

South Korea switches off propaganda broadcasts, Moon upbeat on North Korea nuclear halt

People walk past a street monitor showing North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in a news report about North Korea's announcement, in Tokyo, Japan, April 21, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea halted the propaganda broadcasts it blares across the border with North Korea on Monday, aiming to set a positive tone ahead of the first summit in a decade between their leaders as the U.S. president cautioned the nuclear crisis was far from resolved.

The gesture came after North Korea said on Saturday it would immediately suspend nuclear and missile tests, scrap its nuclear test site and instead pursue economic growth and peace, a declaration welcomed be world leaders.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is due to hold a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-In at the border truce village of Panmunjom on Friday, and is expected to meet with President Donald Trump in late May or early June.

“North Korea’s decision to freeze its nuclear program is a significant decision for the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in a regular meeting at the Blue House on Monday.

“It is a green light that raises the chances of positive outcomes at the North’s summits with South Korea and the United States. If North Korea goes the path of complete denuclearization starting from this, then a bright future for North Korea can be guaranteed.”

South Korea’s propaganda broadcasts, which include a mix of news, Korean pop songs, an criticism of the North Korean regime, were stopped at midnight, the defense ministry in Seoul said. It didn’t specify if they would resume after the Kim-Moon summit.

“We hope this decision will lead both Koreas to stop mutual criticism and propaganda against each other and also contribute in creating peace and a new beginning,” the South Korean defense ministry said.

It marks the first time in more than two years that the South’s broadcasts have fallen silent. North Korea has its own propaganda loudspeakers at the border, but a defense ministry official said he could not verify that they had also stopped.

CAUTION

The two Koreas agreed to a schedule for Friday’s summit in working-level talks on Monday, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said, adding North Korea had agreed to allow South Korean reporters in its part of the Joint Security Area at the border to cover the event.

Preparations for the talks will include a rehearsal by officials from both countries at the border truce village of Panmunjom on Wednesday, the Blue House said.

The inter-Korean talks and the expected Kim-Trump summit have raised hopes of an easing in tensions that reached a crescendo last year amid a flurry of North Korean missile tests and its largest nuclear test.

Trump initially welcomed Pyongyang’s statement it would halt nuclear and missile tests, but he sounded more cautious on Sunday.

“We are a long way from conclusion on North Korea, maybe things will work out, and maybe they won’t – only time will tell,” Trump said on Twitter.

Still, the shares of South Korean companies with business links to North Korea rallied after Pyongyang’s weekend announcement.

Shares of Good People and Shinwon Corp, which used to operate factories in North Korea’s Kaesong industrial region near the border, rose 8 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

China, North Korea’s main ally, welcomed the North Korean announcement.

The Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, told reporters on Monday that North Korea’s announcement at the weekend was “great news”.

“We cannot let any noise damage the continued improvements in the situation on the peninsula and cannot allow anything to interfere in or obstruct the talks process between the parties,” Wang said, after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Beijing.

Editorials in Chinese state-run media were tempered with notes of caution.

The China Daily, the official English-languages newspaper of the Chinese government, said the pledges conveyed the message that Kim will sit down for talks as the leader of a legitimate nuclear power.

“Negotiations about actual nuclear disarmament will likely prove arduous given such weapons are critical to Pyongyang’s sense of security. It will require ironclad security guarantees if it is to relinquish them.”

The Global Times, a hawkish tabloid newspaper run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said all parties “should cherish this hard-won state of affairs” and continue to make efforts toward peace and denuclearization.

“Washington should not regard North Korea’s halt to nuclear and missile tests as a result of its maximum pressure,” the Global Times wrote.

“It must be attributed to multiple factors, one of which is that Pyongyang has mastered certain advanced nuclear technologies and successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of more than 10,000 km.”

The United States, through the United Nations, has pursued a series of ever-tightening sanctions on North Korea aimed at cutting its access to foreign currency.

Customs data on Monday showed China’s imports from North Korea fell sharply in the first three months of the year, and exports also dropped, compared with a year earlier.

Tourism, dominated by Chinese visitors, remains a key export earner for North Korea. China’s foreign ministry said on Monday that 32 Chinese tourists and four North Koreans had died in a major bus accident in North Korea, with two Chinese nationals seriously injured and left in critical condition.

(Reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL and Doina Chiacu in WASHINGTON. Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and David Morgan in WASHINGTON, John Ruwich in SHANGHAI, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, Cynthia Kim and Heekyong Yang in SEOUL. Editing by Lincoln Feast, Michael Perry and Neil Fullick)

Trump says ‘big price to pay’ for Syria chemical attack

A child cries as they have their face wiped following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters on April 8, 2018. White Helmets/Reuters TV via REUTERS

By Dahlia Nehme and Roberta Rampton

BEIRUT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Sunday there would be a “big price to pay” after aid groups said dozens of people were killed by poison gas in a besieged rebel-held town in Syria, an attack the opposition blamed on Syrian government forces.

As international officials worked to try to confirm the chemical attack which happened late on Saturday in the town of Douma, Trump took the rare step of directly criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin in connection with the incident.

With tension running high, Syrian state television later issued a report of a suspected U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base, prompting a swift U.S. denial of any such attack.

The Syrian state denied government forces had launched any chemical assault. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally, called the reports fake.

Trump threatened action, although it was unclear what he had in mind. Last year, he authorized a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base days after a sarin gas attack on civilians.

“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The Russian Foreign Ministry warned against military action on the basis of “invented and fabricated excuses.”

The medical relief organization Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and the civil defense service, which operates in rebel-held areas, said in a joint statement 49 people died in the attack.

“Yesterday reports emerged of yet another chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime,” said the Syrian Negotiation Committee, a political opposition group.

U.S. government sources said Washington’s assessment was that chemical weapons were used in a besieged rebel-held town in Syria, but they are still evaluating details.

The European Union also said evidence pointed to the use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces.

A European diplomat said Western allies would work on building a dossier based on photos, videos, witness testimony and satellite images of Syrian flights and helicopters. However gaining access to samples on the ground would be difficult.

The U.N. Security Council will meet twice on Monday following rival requests by Russia and the United States.

U.N. war crimes investigators had previously documented 33 chemical attacks in Syria, attributing 27 to the Assad government, which has repeatedly denied using the weapons.

Russia has repeatedly blocked efforts to hold Syria accountable both at the U.N. and OPCW.

‘HORRIBLE’ IMAGES

In the early hours of Monday, Syrian state television reported loud explosions heard near the T-4 airfield in the city of Homs in what it said was a suspected U.S. missile strike. The report ignited a storm of messages on Twitter.

The Pentagon denied any such attack.

“At this time, the Department of Defense is not conducting air strikes in Syria,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

“However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable.”

Last week, Trump said he wanted to bring home the 2,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Syria working to help fight Islamic State militants. His advisers have urged him to wait to ensure the militants are defeated and to prevent Assad’s ally Iran from gaining a foothold.

Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said Assad was “emboldened” after Trump’s remarks and said the U.S. president now needed to respond decisively.

Tom Bossert, Trump’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” the White House would not rule out launching another missile attack and called photos of the incident “horrible.”

One video of the new attack shared by activists showed bodies of about a dozen children, women and men, some with foam at the mouth. “Douma city, April 7 … there is a strong smell here,” a voice can be heard saying.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

Last year, one factor in Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was televised images of dead children.

Two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Trump would likely await a conclusive “high confidence” intelligence assessment that the government used chemical weapons.

The presence of Russian forces at a number of Syrian military bases complicates the process of picking targets for any strike, said one official.

While some in the administration believe Russian forces should not be considered immune to attack because of Moscow’s support for Assad, officials said Putin would see any loss of Russian lives or equipment as a deliberate escalation, and likely would respond by increasing support for Assad, or retaliating in other ways.

NEW TEAM AT WHITE HOUSE

Trump had a previously scheduled meeting at the White House on Monday with senior military leaders. He has shaken up his core national security team, replacing national security adviser H.R. McMaster with John Bolton, a hard-charging former U.N. ambassador, who officially begins on Monday.

Bolton last year praised Trump’s missile response, though he has generally focused more on Iran as a bigger security threat.

Top White House officials were uncertain what advice Bolton may have given Trump about Syria, said a U.S. official.

However, two officials said Trump has been adamant about withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria, despite warnings about the consequences from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other military officials.

SHELTERING IN BASEMENTS

The Ghouta offensive has been one of the deadliest in Syria’s seven-year-long war, killing more than 1,600 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The monitoring group said it could not confirm whether chemical weapons had been used in the attack on Saturday.

Medical relief organization SAMS said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six, and a second attack with “mixed agents”, including nerve agents, had hit a nearby building.

Basel Termanini, the U.S.-based vice president of SAMS, told Reuters another 35 people, most of them women and children, had been killed at a nearby apartment building.

SAMS and the civil defense said medical centers had taken in more than 500 people suffering breathing difficulties, frothing from the mouth and smelling of chlorine.

Tawfik Chamaa, a Geneva-based Syrian doctor with the Syria-focused Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), a network of Syrian doctors, said 150 people were confirmed dead and the number was growing. “The majority were civilians, women and children trapped in underground shelters,” he told Reuters.

Douma is in the eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. Assad has won back control of nearly all of eastern Ghouta from rebel groups in a Russian-backed military campaign that began in February, leaving just Douma in rebel hands.

Facing defeat, rebel groups elsewhere in eastern Ghouta have left. Until now, the prominent insurgent group Jaish al-Islam has rejected that option, but the attack led the group to finally give in to the government’s demand to leave.

There was no immediate comment from the group.

Taking Douma would seal Assad’s biggest victory since 2016, and underline his unassailable position in the war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it mushroomed from protests against his rule in 2011.

(Reporting by Dahlia Nehme and Tom Perry in Beirut, Mustafa Hashem in Cairo, Roberta Rampton, John Walcott, Mark Hosenball, Matt Spetalnick, Michelle Price and Sarah Lynch in Washington, Michelle Nichols in New York, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Anthony Deutsch in Amstersdam, John Irish in Paris, and Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Writing by Tom Perry, Roberta Rampton and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Adrian Croft, James Dalgleish and David Gregorio)

U.S. imposes major sanctions on Russian oligarchs, officials

FILE PHOTO: Russian tycoon and President of RUSAL Oleg Deripaska listens during the "Regions in Transformation: Eurasia" event in Davos, Switzerland January 22, 2015. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo

By Lesley Wroughton and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States imposed major sanctions on Friday against 24 Russians, striking at allies of President Vladimir Putin in one of Washington’s most aggressive moves to punish Moscow for what it called a range of “malign activity,” including alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

The action, taken under pressure from the U.S. Congress, freezes the U.S. assets of “oligarchs” such as aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of Putin, and lawmaker Suleiman Kerimov, whose family controls Russia’s largest gold producer, Polyus.

The sanctions are largely a reply to what U.S. intelligence agencies say was Russian interference in the presidential election, although the Treasury Department painted them as a response to a series of adversarial actions by Moscow.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been under fire for not taking strong action against Russia after a series of diplomatic disputes reminiscent of the Cold War era and the sanctions could complicate his hopes for good relations with Putin.

The sanctions are aimed at seven Russian oligarchs and 12 companies they own or control, plus 17 senior Russian government officials. They freeze the U.S. assets of the people and companies named and forbid Americans in general from doing business with them.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said, however, Moscow’s contacts with the U.S. government would not be brought to an end by the sanctions. Russia denies interfering in the U.S. election.

They could hurt the Russian economy, especially the aluminum, financial and energy sectors, and are a clear message to Putin and his inner circle of U.S. displeasure.

In announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a statement, “The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government elites.”

He said Moscow “engages in a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine, supplying the Assad regime with material and weaponry as they bomb their own civilians, attempting to subvert Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities.”

Shares in Russian aluminum producer Rusal were down 2.2 percent on Moscow’s exchange after the company was named on the sanctions list.

Russian state companies under the U.S. sanctions will receive additional government support, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said, according to Interfax.

MUELLER INVESTIGATION

U.S. intelligence agencies last year accused Russia of using hacking and disseminating false information and propaganda to disrupt the 2016 elections and eventually try to ensure Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump’s election campaign colluded with Russia, something that Trump denies. Mueller has indicted 13 Russians and three organizations in his probe.

Elizabeth Rosenberg, a former senior U.S. Treasury Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, said the sanctions were significant, although there is more to do.

“I’m impressed by how aggressive this is,” she said. “I thought it would be serious and this is certainly a very serious statement of U.S. policy.

“I would hasten to say that Russia hawks may welcome this but wouldn’t find it satisfying. And by no means would this be the sum total of what the U.S. government should do to advance its concerns.”

Trump has faced fierce criticism – including from fellow Republicans – for doing too little to punish Russia for the election meddling, aggression in Ukraine, and support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war.

He angered many members of Congress by failing for months to implement sanctions on Russia that lawmakers passed nearly unanimously last year.

But pressure for the United States to take action against Russia, especially from U.S. lawmakers, has been increasing.

Putin’s government has been blamed for the poisoning of a former Russian double agent living in Britain last month and the United States and several European states announced plans to expel more than 100 Russian diplomats in response.

In February, the White House blamed Russia for the international “NotPetya” cyber attack, which has been called the most destructive and costly in history.

On March 15, the Trump administration said it would impose sanctions on 19 people and five entities, including Russian intelligence services, for cyber attacks stretching back at least two years.

Friday’s sanctions were authorized by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, known as CAATSA, which Trump reluctantly signed into law in August.

Chris Painter, the former top cyber diplomat at the U.S. State Department, said the latest sanctions are unlikely to deter the Kremlin unless Trump formally condemns Putin.

Painter, who left government last year, criticized Trump’s rhetoric toward Putin – including a congratulatory call last month when Putin won another presidential term in a widely criticized election.

“We need the head of our country saying, ‘This is not going to happen,'” Painter said. “That’s a critical piece.”

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Tim Ahmann and Susan Heavey; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Bill Trott)

Trump threatens aid for Honduras, other nations over ‘caravan’

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for the Easter service at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 1, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Tuesday U.S. foreign aid to Honduras and other countries was at risk unless they stop a so-called caravan of more than 1,200 Central American migrants headed to the U.S. border with Mexico.

Trump’s latest salvo against the migrants’ journey comes as the president has stepped up his immigration rhetoric in recent days and his administration has moved to further crack down on people who are in the United States illegally.

The migrants’ 2,000-mile (3,200-km) journey from the Mexico-Guatemalan border is expected to end at the U.S. border. Mexico’s government has said such caravans of mostly Central Americans, including many escaping violence in Honduras, have occurred since 2010.

Trump has already blasted Mexico and threatened to upend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) over the caravan, and on Tuesday also raised the prospect of withholding U.S. assistance. The current trip has also put pressure on Mexican authorities ahead of the July 1 presidential election there.

“The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our ‘Weak Laws’ Border, had better be stopped before it gets there. Cash cow NAFTA is in play, as is foreign aid to Honduras and the countries that allow this to happen. Congress MUST ACT NOW!” Trump wrote in an early morning post on Twitter.

On Monday, the Republican president railed against Democrats over immigration and again pressed U.S. lawmakers to pass legislation to build his long-promised border wall between the United States and Mexico.

Despite months of efforts, no immigration deal has emerged in the Republican-led Congress, where lawmakers are not expected to pass much major legislation ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.

(Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Trump Cabinet officials to visit Puerto Rico to assess recovery

Trump Cabinet officials to visit Puerto Rico to assess recovery

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet are set to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday to assess the U.S. territory’s rebuilding in the three months since Hurricane Maria devastated homes, businesses and the power grid.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson will travel to Puerto Rico, where about a third of the island’s 3.4 million residents are still without power, hundreds remain in shelters, and thousands have fled to the U.S. mainland.

The visit comes as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday were planning to unveil a disaster aid package totaling $81 billion, according to a senior congressional aide. Some of that aid would go to Puerto Rico, but also to states like Texas and Florida that were hit by other hurricanes and to California, which is grappling with wild fires.

Even before Maria savaged Puerto Rico, the island was contending with $72 billion in debt. Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello has asked the federal government for a total of $94.4 billion in aid, including $31.1 billion for housing and $17.8 billion to rebuild its ruined power grid.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has so far approved more than $660 million in aid for individuals in Puerto Rico as well as more than $450 million in public assistance.

Nielsen and Carson will receive detailed briefings on rebuilding efforts and see how federal aid is helping residents to recover, a DHS official said.

Nielsen, who oversees FEMA, and Rossello are slated to hold a news conference.

The visit comes as Congress prepares to vote on a tax overhaul bill that Puerto Rican officials have said they fear will hurt the commonwealth’s pharmaceutical manufacturing sector – the cornerstone of the island’s economy – at a time when Puerto Rico can least afford to lose jobs and tax revenue.

Puerto Rico’s government has said 64 people died because of the hurricane, but after multiple media estimates of dramatically higher figures, Rossello on Monday ordered an official review of the death toll.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Congress secures tax deal, Trump backs 21-percent corporate rate

Congress secures tax deal, Trump backs 21-percent corporate rate

By David Morgan and Amanda Becker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republicans have reached a deal on final tax legislation, the U.S. Senate’s top Republican tax writer said on Wednesday, with President Donald Trump saying he would back a sharply lowered corporate tax rate of 21 percent.

The 21 percent rate would be slightly above a proposed 20-percent rate that Trump supported earlier, but still far below the present headline rate of 35 percent, a deep tax cut that U.S. corporations have been seeking for years.

As they finalized the biggest tax overhaul in 30 years, Republicans for weeks wavered on slashing the top income tax rate for the rich, but finally agreed to do it, despite Democrats’ criticism that the bill favors the wealthy and corporations, while offering little to the middle class.

The emerging congressional agreement includes a 21-percent corporate rate; a top individual income tax rate of 37 percent, down from the current 39.6 percent level; and a $10,000 cap on deducting state and local property or income tax payments, said sources familiar with the negotiations.

Although the president said a “final number” on the corporate rate had not been set, the Senate and House of Representatives were hurtling toward an agreement that would clear the way for final votes in both chambers next week.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good deal,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch told reporters as he prepared to join other Republicans for lunch with Trump.

Hatch’s remarks appeared to reinforce expectations that a final vote could begin in the Senate as early as Monday. Further details of the agreed legislation were not yet available.

Republicans have been urgently trying to finalize details of their bill without increasing its estimated impact on the federal deficit. As drafted, it is expected to add as much as $1.5 trillion to the $20-trillion national debt over 10 years.

At a tax event held by Democrats, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said the Republican bill, if enacted, would cause interest rates to rise, meaning the benefits of a lower corporate tax rate would be “completely washed out.”

Stock markets have rallied for months in anticipation of lower taxes for businesses. The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average Index <.DJI> was up 0.5 percent at 24,628 in afternoon trading.

“The market is trading at all-time highs, its run-up has been really in anticipation of tax reform,” said Ken Polcari, NYSE floor division director at O’Neil Securities in New York.

CORKER UNDECIDED

Republican Senator Bob Corker, a fiscal hawk, on Wednesday said he was undecided on whether to support the bill. He told reporters: “My deficit concerns have not been alleviated.”

Asked at the lunch by reporters if he would sign a bill with a 21-percent corporate tax rate, Trump said: “I would … It’s very important for the country to get a vote next week.”

With their defeat on Tuesday in an Alabama special Senate election, Republicans were under increased pressure to complete their tax overhaul before Christmas and before a new Democratic Alabama senator can be formally seated in the Senate.

Democrat Doug Jones’ capture of the Alabama Senate seat came hours ahead of the final tax agreement being hammered out.

When Jones, who upset Republican Roy Moore in the deeply conservative Southern state, arrives in Washington, the Republicans’ already slim Senate majority will narrow to 51-49, further complicating Trump’s legislative agenda.

Fast action by Republicans on taxes would prevent Jones from upsetting the expected vote tallies on this bill since he will not likely be seated until late December or early January.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called on Republicans to delay a vote on overhauling the tax code for the first time in 30 years until Jones can be seated, but that was unlikely.

A one-percentage-point change in the corporate rate would give tax writers about $100 billion of revenues over a decade that could be used in many ways. One could be to repeal a federal tax on inheritances paid by wealthy Americans. Another might be to end the corporate alternative minimum tax.

Some Republicans also wanted a slightly higher corporate rate to pay for a higher child tax credit. Lawmakers had also debated capping a popular individual deduction for mortgage interest at $750,000 in home loan value, instead of $1 million.

If Trump can sign a tax bill by the end of the year, it would be the first major legislative victory for him and the Republicans since they took control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in January.

After his lunch with Republican lawmakers, Trump will speak on tax legislation alongside five middle class families who would benefit, senior administration officials said.

He wants to try to counter claims that the Republican tax plan would largely benefit corporations and the wealthy.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office have both said wealthier taxpayers would gain disproportionately from the Republican proposals.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland, Susan Cornwell, Richard Cowan, Makini Brice and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and James Dalgleish)

U.S. Congress to let Iran deadline pass, leave decision to Trump

U.S. Congress to let Iran deadline pass, leave decision to Trump

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress will allow a deadline on reimposing sanctions on Iran to pass this week, congressional and White House aides said on Tuesday, leaving a pact between world powers and Tehran intact at least temporarily.

In October, Trump declined to certify that Iran was complying with the nuclear agreement reached among Tehran, the United States and others in 2015. His decision triggered a 60-day window for Congress to decide whether to bring back sanctions on Iran.

Congressional leaders have announced no plans to introduce a resolution to reimpose sanctions before Wednesday’s deadline and aides say lawmakers will let the deadline pass without action.

By doing that, Congress passes the ball back to Trump, who must decide in mid-January if he wants to continue to waive energy sanctions on Iran.

Trump’s failure to do so would blow apart the deal, a course opposed by European allies, Russia and China, the other parties to the accord, under which Iran got sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear ambitions.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and denies it has aimed to build an atomic bomb. It has said it will stick to the accord as long as the other signatories respect it, but will “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the administration was not asking for sanctions to be reimposed. “The administration continues to make encouraging progress with Congress to fix the U.S.–Iran deal and address long-term proliferation issues,” she told a daily press briefing.

Efforts to find common ground with Europe on the Iran deal were complicated again last week, when Trump announced Washington would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with international consensus.

Trump has called the Iran pact the “worst deal ever” and has threatened to pull the United States out of it.

His fellow Republicans control both chambers of Congress but their Senate majority is so small that they need some Democratic support to advance most legislation. Senate Democrats, even those who opposed it two years ago, do not want to tear up the nuclear accord.

Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declined to say whether he thought Trump would carry through on a threat to tear up the nuclear pact in January if Congress does not pass legislation to further clamp down on Iran.

Corker told reporters he and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin met national security adviser H.R. McMaster last week to see “if there’s language that fits the bill here within Congress but also … keeps them (the Europeans) at the table with us and not feeling like we’ve gone off in a different direction.”

Corker declined to elaborate on specifics of the discussions.

Trump threatened to withdraw from the nuclear agreement if lawmakers did not toughen it by amending the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, the U.S. law that opened the possibility of bringing sanctions back.

Cardin, the senior Democrat on the Senate foreign relations panel, has said he would not support changes to the nuclear pact that are not supported by Europe.

Democrats also insist that while sanctions should be imposed over Iran’s ballistic missiles program or human rights violations, they must be separate from the nuclear agreement.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

Palestinian leader says Trump’s Jerusalem ‘crime’ prevents U.S. peace role

Palestinian leader says Trump's Jerusalem 'crime' prevents U.S. peace role

By Ali Kucukgocmen

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Muslim leaders on Wednesday that a U.S. decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was a crime which showed that Washington should no longer play a role in Middle East peace talks.

Addressing an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders in Turkey, Abbas said President Donald Trump was giving Jerusalem away as if it were an American city.

“Jerusalem is and always will be the capital of Palestine,” he said, adding Trump’s decision was “the greatest crime” and a violation of international law.

Wednesday’s summit was hosted by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan who has bitterly criticized the United States, a NATO ally, for its stance on Jerusalem.

“I invite all countries supporting international law to recognise Jerusalem as the occupied capital of Palestine. We cannot be late any more,” Erdogan told leaders and ministers from more than 50 Muslim countries.

He described Trump’s decision last week as a reward for Israeli actions including occupation, settlement construction, land seizure and “disproportionate violence and murder”.

“Israel is an occupying state (and) Israel is a terror state,” he said.

Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam’s third holiest site and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in an action not recognised internationally.

Ahead of the meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Muslim nations should urge the world to recognise East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state within its pre-1967 borders.

He said this week Turkey was not seeking sanctions in response to the U.S. move, but wanted the summit to issue a strong rejection of the U.S. decision.

U.S. ‘BIAS’

The Trump administration says it remains committed to reaching peace between Israel and the Palestinians and its decision does not affect Jerusalem’s future borders or status.

It says any credible future peace deal will place the Israeli capital in Jerusalem, and ditching old policies is needed to revive a peace process frozen since 2014.

Abbas told the leaders in Istanbul that Washington could no longer be an honest broker.

“It will be unacceptable for it to have a role in the political process any longer since it is biased in favour of Israel,” he said. “This is our position and we hope you support us in this.”

Trump’s declaration has been applauded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Washington had an irreplaceable part to play in the region.

“There is no substitute to the role that the United States plays in leading the peace process,” he said at a Hanukkah holiday candle lighting ceremony on Tuesday.

King Abdullah of Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel more than 20 years ago, told the Istanbul summit that he rejected any attempt to change the status quo of Jerusalem and its holy sites.

Abdullah’s Hashemite dynasty is custodian of Jerusalem’s Muslim sites, making Amman sensitive to any changes in the city.

Iran, locked in a regional rivalry with Saudi Arabia, said the Muslim world should overcome internal problems through dialogue so it could unite against Israel.

Tehran has repeatedly called for the destruction of the Israeli state and backs several militant groups in their fight against it.

“America is only seeking to secure the maximum interests of the Zionists and it has no respect for the legitimate rights of Palestinians,” President Hassan Rouhani told the summit.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Parisa Hafezi in Istanbul, John Davison and Nadine Awadalla in Cairo and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Catherine Evans, William Maclean)

Trump’s Jerusalem move will hasten Israel’s destruction: Iran

Trump's Jerusalem move will hasten Israel's destruction: Iran

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital will hasten the country’s destruction, Iran’s defense minister said on Monday, while a top Revolutionary Guards commander phoned two Palestinian armed groups and pledged support for them.

Leaders of Iran, where opposition to Israel and support for the Palestinian cause has been central to foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution, have denounced last week’s announcement by the U.S. president, including a plan to move the U.S. embassy to the city.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

“(Trump’s) step will hasten the destruction of the Zionist regime and will double the unity of Muslims,” Iran’s defense minister, Brigadier General Amir Hatami, said on Monday, according to state media.

The army’s chief of staff, General Mohammad Baqeri, said Trump’s “foolish move” could be seen as the beginning of a new intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

Iran has long supported a number of anti-Israeli militant groups, including the military wing of Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which the deputy commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, said was “stronger than the Zionist regime.”

Similarly, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the branch of the Guards that oversees operations outside of Iran’s borders pledged the Islamic Republic’s “complete support for Palestinian Islamic resistance movements” after phone calls with commanders from Islamic Jihad and the Izz al-Deen Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, on Monday according to Sepah News, the news site of the Guards.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday stepped up efforts to rally Middle Eastern countries against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which EU foreign ministers meanwhile declined to support.

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; editing by John Stonestreet)

Two dead in ‘Day of Rage’ over Jerusalem, Palestinian president defiant

Two dead in 'Day of Rage' over Jerusalem, Palestinian president defiant

By Ali Sawafta and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/GAZA (Reuters) – At least two people were killed in clashes with Israeli troops on Friday when thousands of Palestinians demonstrated against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Palestinian president said Washington could no longer be a peace broker.

Across the Arab and Muslim worlds, thousands more protesters took to the streets on the Muslim holy day to express solidarity with the Palestinians and outrage at Trump’s reversal of decades of U.S. policy.

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man near the Gaza border, the first confirmed death in two days of unrest. Scores of people were wounded on the “Day of Rage”. A second person later died of their wounds, a Gaza hospital official said.

The Israeli army said hundreds of Palestinians were rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks at soldiers across the border.

“During the riots IDF soldiers fired selectively towards two main instigators and hits were confirmed,” it said.

More than 80 Palestinians were wounded in the occupied West Bank and Gaza by Israeli live fire and rubber bullets, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service. Dozens more suffered from tear gas inhalation. Thirty-one were wounded on Thursday.

As Friday prayers ended at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, worshippers made their way toward the walled Old City gates, chanting “Jerusalem is ours, Jerusalem is our capital” and “We don’t need empty words, we need stones and Kalashnikovs”. Scuffles broke out between protesters and police.

In Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus, dozens of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers who fired back with tear gas.

In Gaza, controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, calls for worshippers to protest sounded over mosque loudspeakers. Hamas has called for a new Palestinian uprising like the “intifadas” of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, which together saw thousands of Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis killed.

“Whoever moves his embassy to occupied Jerusalem will become an enemy of the Palestinians and a target of Palestinian factions,” said Hamas leader Fathy Hammad as protesters in Gaza burned posters of Trump.

“We declare an intifada until the liberation of Jerusalem and all of Palestine.”

Protests largely died down as night fell. Rocket sirens sounded in southern Israeli towns near the Gaza border, and the Israeli military said it had intercepted one of at least two projectiles fired from Gaza. No casualties were reported.

Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militant group linked to Abbas’s Fatah party, claimed responsibility for firing one of the rockets, and said it was in protest against Trump’s decision.

The military said another rocket hit the Israeli town of Sderot. No casualties were reported.

Israel’s military said that in response to the rocket fire, its aircraft bombed militant targets in Gaza and the Palestinian Health Ministry said at least 25 people were wounded in the strikes, including six children.

The Israeli military said it had carried out the strikes on a militant training camp and on a weapons depot. Witnesses said most of the wounded were residents of a building near the camp.

At the United Nations, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Washington still had credibility as a mediator.

“The United States has credibility with both sides. 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 told the U.N. Security Council.

But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appeared defiant.

“We reject the American decision over Jerusalem. With this position the United States has become no longer qualified to sponsor the peace process,” Abbas said in a statement. He did not elaborate further.

France, Italy, Germany, Britain and Sweden called on the United States to “bring forward detailed proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement”.

“PROMISE FULFILLED”

Trump’s announcement on Wednesday has infuriated the Arab world and upset Western allies. The status of Jerusalem has been one of the biggest obstacles to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians for generations.

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. It includes the Old City, home to sites considered holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

For decades, Washington, like most of the rest of the international community, held back from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying its status should be determined as part of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. No other country has an embassy there.

The Trump administration argues that the peace process has become moribund, and outdated policies need to be jettisoned for the sides in the conflict to make progress.

Trump has also noted that Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton all promised as candidates to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “I fulfilled my campaign promise – others didn’t!” Trump tweeted on Friday with a video montage of campaign speeches on the issue by his three predecessors.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday it would still be up to the Israelis and Palestinians to hammer out all other issues surrounding the city in future talks.

“With respect to the rest of Jerusalem, the president … did not indicate any final status for Jerusalem. He was very clear that the final status, including the borders, would be left to the two parties to negotiate and decide.”

Still, some Muslim countries view the Trump administration’s motives with particular suspicion. As a candidate he proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States, and in office he has tried to block entry by citizens of several Muslim-majority states.

“DEATH TO THE DEVIL”

In Ramallah, the seat of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, the leader’s religious affairs adviser said Trump’s stance was an affront to Islam and Christianity alike.

“America has chosen to elect a president who has put it in enmity with all Muslims and Christians,” said Mahmoud al-Habbash.

In Iran, which has never recognized Israel and supports anti-Israel militants, demonstrators burned pictures of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while chanting “Death to the Devil”.

In Cairo, capital of Egypt, a U.S. ally which has a peace treaty with Israel, hundreds of protesters who had gathered in Al-Azhar mosque and outside in its courtyard chanted “Jerusalem is Arab! O Trump, you madman, the Arab people are everywhere!”

Al Azhar’s Imam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, rejected an invitation to meet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

Large demonstrations also took place in Jordan, Tunisia, Somalia, Yemen, Malaysia and Indonesia, and hundreds protested outside the U.S. embassy in Berlin.

France said the United States had sidelined itself in the Middle East. “The reality is they are alone and isolated on this issue,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

(Additional reporting by Ammar Awad, Omar Fahmy and Maayan Lubell, John Irish in Paris and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and James Dalgleish)