Turkey
Turkey arrests youth activist, drawing European protest
Turkey has arrested an LGBTQ+ youth activist over criticism he made abroad at Europe's main rights body about the repression of opponents by President Tayyip Erdogan's government.
Turkey said on Sunday it had killed 23 Kurdish militants in northern Syria, the latest in a series of strikes against them which have continued since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last month.
A fighter from the YPG © Mena Today
Turkey said on Sunday it had killed 23 Kurdish militants in northern Syria, the latest in a series of strikes against them which have continued since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last month.
The defence ministry said the militants belonged to the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
Turkey regards the PKK and YPG to be identical, while the United States views them as separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.
Turkey has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, expressing hope that Trump would revise the policy of the previous administration of President Joe Biden.
Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in December.
Turkey has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF - a U.S.-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG - must disarm or face military intervention.
Under the Biden administration the United States has had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.
Reporting by Daren Butler
Turkey has arrested an LGBTQ+ youth activist over criticism he made abroad at Europe's main rights body about the repression of opponents by President Tayyip Erdogan's government.
Syria signed 12 investment deals worth $14 billion on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, including infrastructure, transportation and real estate projects aimed at reviving the war-damaged economy.
Lebanon's cabinet on Tuesday tasked the army with drawing up a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms by the end of the year, a challenge to Hezbollah, which has rejected calls to disarm since last year's devastating war with Israel.
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