BERLIN

Germany’s foreign minister is scheduled to travel to Israel and the West Bank for political talks late Wednesday night amid the escalating Gaza conflict.

“I am planning to travel to Israel for talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah later tonight,” Heiko Maas told reporters in Berlin.

According to a Foreign Ministry statement, Maas will meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi, and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

In Ramallah he is slated to meet with Mohammad Shtayyeh, the Palestinian Authority prime minister.

Talks will focus on the current escalation in the Middle East and international efforts to end the violence.

Germany is a staunch ally of Israel and has repeatedly supported Tel Aviv’s military aggression on Gaza, claiming that Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.

Meanwhile, a German Foreign Ministry spokesperson has called for a cease-fire in the Gaza conflict amid the mounting death toll, especially among Palestinian civilians.

“We are trying to get both sides to first have a truce and then a cease-fire,” Andrea Sasse told reporters.

Despite the growing violence – now in its tenth day – diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire have failed to make much progress.

The US continues to block the UN Security Council from issuing a joint statement urging an end to the hostilities, telling diplomats that a public statement would not help calm the tensions.

Berlin has repeatedly ruled out direct talks with the Palestinian group Hamas, which governs the Gaza strip.

At least 227 Palestinians, including 64 children, have been killed in Israeli military airstrikes on Gaza since the latest violence erupted on May 10. About 1,620 Palestinians have been injured.

Twelve people in Israel have died, while nearly 300 Israelis have been wounded, according to local media reports.

Source: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-foreign-minister-due-in-israel-palestine/2247510

The post German foreign minister due in Israel, Palestine first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Joe Biden knows Iran better than any American President since its 1979 revolution. He has personally dealt with its top officials—a few of them for decades. “When I was Iran’s representative to the U.N., I had several meetings with Biden,” the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, acknowledged after the U.S. election, in an interview with Entekhab, a Tehran publication. The two aren’t exactly friends. Their meetings “can be described as professional relations based on mutual respect,” Zarif said. But Biden does have the Iranian’s personal e-mail address, as well as his cell-phone number.

As one of his first acts on foreign policy, Biden wants to renew diplomacy with the Islamic Republic—and reёnter the nuclear accord that President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. “If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations,” Biden wrote, in an essay for CNN, in September. Yet the President-elect already faces a minefield over basic issues—such as, what exactly is “compliance”? Who moves first? And how? And what about all those other flashpoints not in the 2015 accord—Iran’s growing array of missiles, its proxy militias and political meddling, which have extended Tehran’s influence across the Middle East, and the regime’s flagrant human-rights abuses?

During the transition, interested parties in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East have been posturing behind the scenes in ways that already complicate the Biden team’s thinking about how to reëngage. I’ve heard from all sides—unsolicited. “This is the silly, screwy period because everyone is trying to communicate through the press or interlocutors,” a former diplomat involved in the nuclear deal told me. Meanwhile, Trump appears determined to sabotage Biden’s plans, adding layers of military and economic obstacles. In December, the Trump Administration issued new sanctions, the latest of more than a thousand. Trump also discussed U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s main nuclear installation, at Natanz. And, since November 21st, U.S. B-52 bombers have flown three show-of-force missions—thirty-six-hour flights from as far away as Louisiana and North Dakota—around the perimeter of Iranian air space. Just before Christmas, Trump again put Tehran on notice, accusing Iranian proxies of firing rockets at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. “Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible,” he tweeted. “Think it over.”

After Biden is inaugurated, he will have only a sliver of time—six to eight weeks—to jump-start the process before the political calendar in Iran threatens to derail potential diplomacy over the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A. On March 20th, Iran marks Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on the vernal equinox, and the whole country shuts down for two weeks. After the holiday, Iran’s Presidential campaign begins, culminating in a mid-June election. President Hassan Rouhani, who charted a new course by proposing diplomacy with the United States, in 2013, is not eligible to run; Iran has two-term limits. New U.S.-Iran diplomacy could become the top election issue and impact its outcome, the Tehran University political scientist Nasser Hadian told me. “If we have a very quick comeback to the J.C.P.O.A., the chances of reformists or moderates winning the next election in June is going to be very good,” Hadian said.

For Biden, there’s also a scientific urgency. When he and Barack Obama left the White House, in 2017, the “breakout” time for Iran to build a bomb was well over a year. Several safeguards had been put in place under the nuclear deal, which was brokered, in 2015, by the world’s six major powers, during intense diplomacy that featured pen-tossing, hair-pulling, shouting, a broken leg, and other dramas. The agreement was not foolproof; it involved unpopular compromises. But it provided for unprecedented human and high-tech inspections, as well as limits on the hardware and fuel needed to assemble the world’s deadliest weapon. It also forced Tehran to destroy some of its nuclear infrastructure, limit uranium enrichment, and reduce its stockpile—with the implicit threat that the world would jointly punish the Islamic Republic, through global economic sanctions or war, if it violated the terms.

When Donald Trump leaves office this month, Tehran will need only three months to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb, according to a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Iran’s weapon capabilities and existing stockpile of low-enriched uranium are now greater. Its research-and-development program—simply put, what it knows, and can’t now unknow—is more advanced. And the world has not stood together since Trump abandoned the accord, in 2018, to pursue a bigger deal that also covers the four other flashpoints. Trump failed—just as he failed to limit North Korea’s nuclear program, negotiate arms control with Russia, contain China’s economic and territorial ambitions, support Venezuela’s democratic opposition, and get Mexico to pay for a wall.

Even with a new President, however, U.S.-Iran diplomacy will still be defined by decades of mutual wariness. Long haunted by the 1979 seizure of its embassy and fifty-two hostages, Washington has been reluctant to trust Tehran’s overtures. Iran is, in turn, suspicious of American outreach, given U.S. support for Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, in the nineteen-eighties, including intelligence that Iraq used to deploy chemical weapons and kill tens of thousands of Iranians. Biden may feel that he can make a fresh start, but Rouhani’s team has been stewing for four years over the costs of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign—and his dismissal of the boldest Iranian diplomacy in four decades. U.S. sanctions slashed Tehran’s oil exports at one point last spring by more than ninety percent, and targeted everything from the Supreme Leader’s office to the Revolutionary Guards and the Central Bank. Iran claims that the sanctions have caused two hundred and fifty billion dollars in economic losses since 2018.

For Biden, the initial step is straightforward. After the Inauguration, he or his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, can relay their intentions through Iran’s U.N. mission or directly to its foreign ministry, Richard Nephew, a former member of the U.S. negotiating team who is now at Columbia University, told me. But it will not be a “one-and-done” scenario, Nephew said, and success will require a lot more than diplomatic Band-Aids. Biden and the Iranians “have said fundamentally similar things—compliance for compliance,” Jarrett Blanc, the State Department coördinator on implementation of the Iran nuclear deal during the Obama Administration, said. “But they will first have to figure out what compliance means. It’s not dead obvious.”

Iran claims that the U.S. has to act first—since it withdrew from the deal—and do more than offer promises. “Go back to full compliance, normalize Iran’s economic relations with the rest of the world, stop making new conditions, stop making outrageous demands,” Zarif said, at the Mediterranean Dialogues, in early December. “And as soon as you come back to the letter of the J.C.P.O.A., let alone its spirit, we will immediately do that.” In a statement to the United Nations on December 22nd, Iran formally gave notice that it would roll back its breaches “as soon as all JCPOA participants start implementing their commitments unconditionally, effectively and in full.” Biden can lift sanctions with three executive orders, Zarif told an Iranian newspaper.

In broad terms, Biden wants Iran to roll back its recent breaches, especially on uranium enrichment. Iran, in turn, wants U.S. sanctions lifted so that it can sell more oil, tap into its financial assets frozen abroad, and revive an ailing economy also hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Tehran claims that it demonstrated restraint after Trump withdrew from the deal; it honored all its obligations for more than a year, as verified repeatedly in inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. After Trump began a rapid-fire sequence of tough economic sanctions and demanded new negotiations, Tehran responded with gradual breaches in a tit-for-tat strategy to pressure Washington. “Because the J.C.P.O.A. was negotiated based on mutual mistrust, we put in place a mechanism that if one side does not live up to its obligations, the other side can in fact reduce its commitments or withdraw altogether,” Zarif said in December. Iran has also responded to covert operations against its program. After the nuclear facility at Natanz was hit by a mysterious explosion, in July, which Tehran claimed was sabotage, Iran began building a new facility deep in the mountains—safer from aerial assault—to produce centrifuges.

The potential problems go deeper. Biden is under pressure to maintain Trump’s sanctions as leverage to win concessions—to expand the original nuclear deal as well as to negotiate new accords on the other flashpoints. For six months, there’s been talk among diplomats and foreign-policy pundits about a “J.C.P.O.A.-Plus,” which would amend the nuclear deal, notably the sunset clauses stipulating when Iran can resume aspects of its various weapons programs. (The sunset clause that limited Tehran’s ability to buy conventional arms for its aging arsenal expired in October. Other limitations on the nuclear program expire gradually over the next twenty years, although the deal stipulates that Iran will never build a bomb and will permanently allow inspections of declared and undeclared suspect sites.)

On December 21st, Britain, France, and Germany—which co-sponsored the original pact—added to the confusion when they warned that “just a commitment” to the deal was not enough. “We are standing at a crossroads today,” the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, said. “To make possible a rapprochement under Biden, there must be no more tactical maneuvers of the kind we have seen plenty of in recent times—they would do nothing but further undermine the agreement,” he added. “The opportunity that is now being offered—this last window of opportunity—must not be squandered.”

Iran was outraged. “Renegotiation is out of the question,” Zarif tweeted, on December 21st. Hadian, the Tehran University political scientist, who is close to top Iranian officials, told me, “The expectation of the Rouhani government is a quick return—not one word less and not one word more, not J.C.P.O.A.-Plus, not J.C.P.O.A. 2.0.”

Iran has also proffered ideas of its own that throw a spanner in the diplomatic works. It proposed that Washington lift sanctions without signing on to the original deal again. Zarif said that Biden could, instead, acknowledge U.S. commitments under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which was passed unanimously, in 2015, as a global endorsement of the accord. If Biden formally reёnters the accord, Tehran is nervous about what rights that gives any future U.S. President, notably the ability to demand that the whole world impose “snapback” sanctions.

The deal allows any one of the six powers that negotiated the deal—Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the U.S.—to call for “snapback” sanctions if it believes Iran is cheating; the other five countries automatically have to comply. The Trump Administration invoked “snapback” sanctions in September, but, because the U.S. had previously withdrawn from the deal, the other parties refused to comply. “We don’t know who is going to be President four years from now,” Hadian told me. “So we don’t want the U.S. to have the right to ‘snapback.’ ” Iran’s new position, a person familiar with Biden’s thinking told me, “adds confusion when the benefit of what Biden proposes is clarity. The Iranians are hurting their own case. It’s a bizarre interpretation and will slow everything down.”

The assassination, in November, of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, further complicates the future. Iran blamed Israel. Tehran vowed to retaliate. Last month, the State Department withdrew some U.S. diplomats from neighboring Iraq, for fear that they could be targets. “No matter what happens between now and January 20th, Biden is determined to reëngage, with one caveat, which is that Iran could take actions which would make that commitment very difficult to adhere to,” the person familiar with Biden’s thinking told me. Endangering American lives would make Biden’s return to diplomacy “difficult if not impossible.” Biden’s first responsibility will be to “defend Americans and do what he can to help America’s allies.”

Iran’s parliament, however, did retaliate. On December 2nd, it hastily passed a law that required the government to immediately begin enriching uranium to a higher grade, closer to the level needed to fuel a weapon. It also requires that Rouhani suspend international inspections if U.S. sanctions are not lifted by mid-February. On January 2nd, Iran invoked a military analogy to describe its readiness to increase enrichment to twenty percent. “We are like soldiers, and our fingers are on the triggers,” Ali Akbar Salehi, the M.I.T.-educated head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said, on national television. “The commander should command and we shoot. We are ready for this and will produce as soon as possible.” The move is still reversible if Biden acts before the sixty-day deadline. And uranium needs to be enriched to ninety percent to build a bomb.

“If, within two weeks of being President—between January 20th and no later than mid-February—Biden at least verbally says that he’s going back to the J.C.P.O.A., then Rouhani will be in a position to unconditionally return to the deal and outmaneuver everybody in Iran,” Hadian told me. “But if Biden doesn’t act, then all of Iran’s major factions will push for Iran to increase all aspects of its nuclear program, including enriching uranium to twenty percent.”

Even if Biden’s team gets an early agreement on “compliance for compliance,” the new Administration may not be able to negotiate much more until after a new Iranian President is inaugurated, in August. And then the issues only get more complex. The Pentagon is increasingly worried about Iran’s missile program, which has been pivotal to both offensive and defensive capabilities since the country’s air force was decimated during the long war with Iraq. “Over the last four years, Iran has continued to build ballistic missiles even while they’ve been under significant economic pressure,” General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr., the head of U.S. Central Command, told me.

Iran has half a million men and women in uniform; it is the largest military force in the Middle East, and the fourteenth largest in the world. Yet its capabilities are limited. Missiles are “the one thing that allows them to threaten their neighbors,” McKenzie said. “They have no army they can deploy. They have no air force worthy of its name, and they have a very weak and impoverished, fractured navy. But what they do have, what they view as the crown jewel, is their ballistic-missile force.” Iran’s arsenal of missiles is “very good, and they’re getting better,” McKenzie told me. Tehran has shared many of its rockets and missiles—via the Quds Force—with proxy forces in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. “It’s a problem Biden’s going to have to face,” he said.

On the eve of Biden’s Inauguration, the standoff between Washington and Tehran has grown “very tense,” McKenzie added. The dangers were palpable over New Year’s weekend, with the anniversary, on January 3rd, of the U.S. airstrike that killed General Qassem Suleimani, the Quds Force commander responsible for Iran’s military operations and proxies across the Middle East. Suleimani was a hero in Iran; billboards are plastered with his picture, honoring his “martyrdom.” A year ago, Tehran retaliated by firing missiles on an Iraqi military base that housed U.S. troops; more than a hundred Americans suffered brain injuries. The Islamic Republic has long vowed additional revenge. At a commemoration for Suleimani on New Year’s Day, the head of Iran’s judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, warned that his killers would “not be safe on earth.” In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon was concerned that McKenzie (who is viewed as Suleimani’s counterpart in the same theatre of operations) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Mark Milley, could be potential targets.

Any new accord—to limit Iran’s missiles and, potentially in return, the weaponry in rival Arab arsenals—will almost certainly have to include a wider array of countries. Israel and the United Arab Emirates are already lobbying to be included or have a say. Even stickier are the missiles that Iran has provided to proxies. In an end-of-year interview, the Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, said that the Lebanese militia had doubled its stock of precision-guided missiles over the past year. “To develop a conventional missile program is an inherent right of any country under international law, and Iran is no exception,” the Iranian U.N. Ambassador, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, said, on December 22nd. “Iran will not negotiate its legitimate ballistic-missile program.” That divide, General McKenzie said, “appears to be, at least to me, intractable.”

The even harder challenge will be finding ways to address horrific human-rights abuses, which go to the heart of the unique judicial and political systems in the Islamic Republic. After his appointment as Biden’s national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan tweeted scathing criticism of Tehran’s treatment of Ruhollah Zam, an Iranian living in exile who publicized information about the 2017 anti-government protests, on the messaging service Telegram. In 2019, Zam was lured to Iraq, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards kidnapped him and returned him to Iran for trial on charges of “corruption on earth.” He was hanged in December. “Iran’s execution of Ruhollah Zam, a journalist who was denied due process and sentenced for exercising his universal rights, is another horrifying human rights violation by the Iranian regime,” Sullivan tweeted. “We will join our partners in calling out and standing up to Iran’s abuses.” The furor over Zam’s execution reflected the fundamental gap between the United States and Iran under any President. Even with Biden’s commitment to diplomacy, four years may not be enough time to achieve breakthroughs on all the flashpoints between Washington and Tehran.

The post Biden faces a minefield in new diplomacy with Iran first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is meeting his French and British counterparts in Berlin on Monday for talks focussing on the nuclear deal with Iran, a German foreign office spokeswoman said, adding Iran was violating the agreement systematically.

“Together with our partners, we strongly call on Iran to stop violating the deal and return to fulfilling all its nuclear obligations completely,” the spokeswoman said.

(This story has been refiled to add word “deal” to headline)

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Riham Alkousaa)

Source: https://www.metro.us/germany-france-and-britain/

The post Germany, France and Britain to discuss Iran nuclear [deal] on Monday – Germany first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the leaders of the G20 Leaders’ Summit with an introductory video message from his Vahdettin Pavilion, in Istanbul, Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020. Saudi Arabia is hosting the virtual meeting of G-20 leaders on Saturday and Sunday in line with coronavirus restrictions.(Turkish Presidency via AP, Pool) (Photo credit: AP)

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that Turkey sees itself as a part of Europe, but he called on the European Union to “keep your promises” on issues such as the country’s membership bid and refugees.

He spoke before an EU summit due to be held next month. In recent weeks, EU members have raised the prospect of sanctions against Turkey over its gas exploration missions in the eastern Mediterranean.

“We always see ourselves as part of Europe,” Erdogan said in a virtual speech to ruling party members. “We chose to favor Europe as long as they don’t force us to look elsewhere.”

He added: “Keep your promises to our country, from full membership to the issue of refugees. Let’s establish a closer and more efficient cooperation together.”

Turkey applied for membership in the bloc in 1987 and four years ago signed a deal with the EU to manage the flow of migrants to Europe.

However, claims of democratic backsliding have seen its application effectively suspended while both sides have accused the other of not properly implementing the refugee agreement.

Ankara has dispatched research and drillships to waters claimed by EU members Greece and Cyprus, sparking a military escalation over the summer.

Prior to an EU summit in September, Turkey withdrew the Oruc Reis research vessel from the eastern Mediterranean. The ship later returned and on Saturday Turkey announced it was extending its mission until Nov. 29.

European heads are due to meet in Brussels on Dec. 10 and 11 and have voiced concerns over Turkish activity in parts of the Mediterranean that Ankara unilaterally claims as its economic zone. Tensions have also been stoked by Erdogan’s insults against French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkey’s foreign policy in northern Cyprus and Azerbaijan.

Last week, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas urged Turkey to stop “provocations” in the Mediterranean or face possible sanctions. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was “approaching a watershed moment in our relationship with Turkey.”

In a bid to patch up relations, Erdogan dispatched his spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, who often takes a role in foreign affairs, to Brussels on Friday.

Over the last two weeks, Erdogan has talked about plans for judicial and democratic reforms to accompany a change in economic policy, a sign that some have suggested is a bid to win over Europe and the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden in the U.S.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/erdogan-turkeys-place-europe-eu-summit-74345310

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Germany has had a lot of nasty geopolitical surprises in recent years. But the worst by far — what strategy wonks call a black swan — wasn’t Russian aggression on Europe’s doorstep, China’s quest for global dominance or Turkey stoking conflict in the eastern Mediterranean. It was the election of Donald Trump as US president. Consequently, the nation is mesmerized by the possibility of his re-election on November 3.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, a dedicated transatlanticist, never established the kind of rapport with Mr Trump that she’d had with his predecessors George W Bush and Barack Obama. Mr Trump is the first postwar US president not to have made a state visit to Germany in his first term. But Berlin’s troubles with Washington go beyond the two leaders and extend across the political aisle. On many points of contention, there is near-bipartisan agreement.

Trade protectionists have Germany’s surpluses in their sight. Middle East hawks are upset that Berlin (locking arms with Paris and London) wants to preserve the Iran nuclear agreement. China hawks accuse Ms Merkel of being soft on Beijing. Russia hands are upset at Germany’s reluctance to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. The defence community is deeply underwhelmed that the country spends no more than 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence.

Of course, a second term for Mr Trump would have a wholly different impact on US-German relations than would a Joe Biden presidency. It is conceivable that a victorious Mr Trump would push hard to end US wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and take American troops out of Europe. He might even hope to make an ally of Russia against China. It would almost certainly be the end of Nato.

Mr Biden cherishes the transatlantic alliance and appreciates the EU’s economic and regulatory heft. Yet bogged down by a multitude of domestic challenges, his administration would have to focus urgently on China’s rise. The burden of regional security — from north Africa via the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East all the way to the Caucasus, Ukraine and Belarus — will fall to Europe.

In either election outcome, the simple truth is that the onus is on Europe’s most powerful country to turn itself into the continent’s security anchor. Germany is unprepared for this, says Norbert Röttgen, chair of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee.

Still, there is a new sense of urgency in Berlin. In the summer, Germany backed a massive debt-financed recovery programme for the pandemic-stricken EU. It has supported new sanctions against senior Kremlin figures after the assassination attempt on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. And while Ms Merkel still appears unwilling to suspend Nord Stream 2, for the first time she has refused to rule it out. The legislature is considering a law that would effectively ban the Chinese telecoms provider Huawei from Germany’s 5G network.

As for the US, German defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer gave a forceful speech last week in which she said Germany would have to become a “strategic giver” and play a stronger role in the security of Europe’s neighbourhood. Foreign minister Heiko Maas followed with an op-ed warning that the “profiteers of our differences sit in Beijing and Moscow, but also in Tehran and Pyongyang”. Both emphasised the need to co-operate on confronting Chinese assertiveness — but the fear of being dragged into a confrontation by the US is palpable.

Berlin’s dilemma is that it badly wants to reserve the right to agree to disagree with Washington, regardless of who is the next president. But it is a long way from being able to afford to.

Constanze Stelzenmüller

Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe

Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/10/26/germany-needs-to-step-up-to-europes-defense/

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German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Wednesday called on both China and India to deescalate tensions and peacefully resolve their Himalayan border dispute. “These are two large countries and I don’t want to begin to think about the conflict that could happen if this results in a real military escalation,” Maas told DW. “That’s why we are trying at all levels on both sides to bring about de-escalation.”

Maas said Germany was unlikely to directly involve itself, but added that it was using its influence to dissuade a military clash.

“I don’t think that Germany needs to get involved everywhere as a mediator. But we are sitting on the UN Security Council and we will take on the presidency in July,” he said. “I believe the expectation in the international community is that countries like India and China should not get embroiled in a conflict that would not only affect those two nations, but also the entire region.

“And that’s why we are doing what we can to influence both sides with the clear message to deescalate this conflict and avoid a further escalation, especially a military one.”

Read more: How Chinese and Indian media reacted to border clashes

Over the past few weeks, Chinese and Indian troops have been locked in aggressive posturing at multiple locations along the two nations’ de facto border, known as Line of Actual Control (LAC), raising tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

While a skirmish this week left 20 Indian soldiers dead, China has refused to confirm if it suffered any casualties. The incident, the first deadly clash at the border in decades, dominated Indian news channels and inflamed social media in both countries.

On EU presidency

Germany is due to take over the rotating presidency of the European Council from July 2020. When asked about Germany’s plans for the EU, Maas said Berlin wanted to make sure that member states severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic were “helped to recover quickly.”

“A large export nation like Germany profits when people prosper in Europe. That’s why we want to make sure the countries that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, like Italy and Spain, will be helped to recover quickly from the crisis,” the minister said, adding: “That’s not only good for those countries and Europe. It’s also good for Germany.”

During its presidency in the second half of the year, Germany would also seek to rein in conflicts “between north and south” in the 27-nation bloc, Maas said. “We want to find a solution to that. We’ve made a proposal with France, and I believe it will be the basis for consensus within the European Union.”

When asked about the intra-EU disagreements between “east and west,” Maas said countries in Central and Eastern Europe such as Poland and Baltic nations, had “different political and security concerns” compared to Western Europe. “So yes, Germany can be a bridge in Europe between east and west,” said Maas in support of a strategy to dispel “any impression that they’re second-class members.”

Regarding two EU rule-of-law proceedings against Hungary and Poland, Maas said these would be on the six-month German presidency agenda. “The rule of law is one of our core values and must not become a point of contention in the European Union,” he asserted.

Trans-Atlantic ties ‘complicated’

Maas also touched on the subject of NATO and the state of trans-Atlantic ties. US President Donald Trump on Monday announced a major reduction in American troop strength in Germany, from around 34,500 personnel down to 25,000.

Germany, Trump said, is not meeting its commitment to spend 2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense as required by the NATO alliance. Member nations had pledged to reach the 2% threshold by 2024. Germany has said it hopes to reach the target by 2031.

Trump has long complained that host nations have not been paying their fair share for the US troops and has repeatedly singled out Germany as a major offender. Until Berlin meets the spending target, he said, the US will reduce its deployment in the country.

Read more: US military in Germany: What you need to know

Trump’s move to reduce US troop numbers in Germany would not leave Europe managing on its own, Maas said. He stressed that Europeans and Americans are united by shared values, namely liberal democracy and freedom, “even if relations are complicated at the moment.”

It was in the United States’ interest to remain closely tied to Europe in terms of foreign and security policy, Maas said, but conceded that “maybe the US will not be the protective shield that it once was for Europe.”

“That will lead to us having to do more for our own security,” he underlined, adding that Europe was “having that discussion” but not to the extent of uncoupling security. “I don’t want Europe to become militarily independent. I want us to realize our security interests as an ally in NATO — with the United States,” Maas said.

“We’ve already taken on a lot of responsibilities, in Africa, for example, both Europe and Germany and France,” he said, referring to Sahel nations such as Mali. Germany was also playing a role in the “intra-Afghan peace process,” said Maas. “It’s always about security, but also diplomacy… because in the end, wars need peace treaties and they need political and not military solutions,” he stressed.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-maas-urges-india-china-to-deescalate-border-tensions/a-53852433

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BRUSSELS — The EU reiterated its support for the nuclear deal brokered with Iran, also expressing concerns Friday that the escalating tensions in the region could lead to a resurgence of the Islamic State’s activities.

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell called the urgent meeting of European foreign affairs ministers in Brussels after the U.S. killing of Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone attack in Iraq on Jan. 3.

Tehran responded earlier this week with missile strikes at U.S. bases and announced it would no longer respect limits set under the 2015 nuclear deal on how many centrifuges it can use to enrich uranium, fuelling fears Iran could quickly start building a nuclear arsenal.

“We need to understand that the fight against Daesh is not over,” said NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, who attended the meeting in the EU capital and referred to an alternative name for the Islamic State group.

“We have made enormous progress but Daesh can return.”

In an attempt to avoid an escalation between Iran and the United States, EU leaders have intensified diplomatic activities, trying to keep alive the nuclear deal while making sure the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition continues to operate in Iraq. In the wake of the killing of Soleimani, Iraq’s parliament called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas reiterated Germany’s position that the fight against IS in Iraq needs to continue.

“I can’t rule out that, if the anti-IS coalition leaves Iraq then IS will regenerate so much that it can carry out attacks in Europe again,” said Maas, speaking to German broadcaster n-tv.

And Denmark’s foreign affairs minister, Jeppe Kofod, said IS is the threat for Europe.”

Despite calls from U.S. President Donald Trump to break away from the nuclear deal, the European Union remains committed to the treaty.

“Thanks to this deal Iran is not a nuclear power,” Borrell said.

Iran struck the deal in 2015 with the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China. It has, however, been damaged by Trump’s decision to unilaterally abandon it in 2018 and to impose sanctions that have hurt Iran’s economy.

Iran has gradually rolled back its commitment to the accord and the recent escalation of tensions between Iran and the U.S. has dealt further blows to the pact.

“We are of the opinion that this agreement makes sense because it holds Iran to not developing nuclear weapons, and so we want this agreement to have a future,” Maas said upon arrival at the meeting. “But of course it only has a future if it is complied with, and we expect that from Iran.”

Despite its decision to get rid of restrictions in relation to its enrichment capacity, Iran has not stopped collaborating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and has made clear it is ready to return to its commitments if sanctions are lifted.

Delivering the meeting’s conclusions, Borrell urged Iran to get back “to full compliance without delay” to make sure the deal can be salvaged.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian continued to insist the accord “is not dead” and said Iran could get access to atomic weapons within “one or two years” if the deal continues to lose its substance.

In a phone call with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson also reaffirmed his support for the deal.

Borrell has invited Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to Brussels for talks, but a date for his visit has yet to be set.

In front of Ghassam Salamé, the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya, the Council also addressed the current crisis in the war-torn country, with Borrell warning of an increased risk of terror activities if a cease-fire is not quickly reached.

Libya is currently governed by dueling authorities, in the east and the west, each relying on different militias. The east-based government is backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia. The western, Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar, and Italy.

Borrell said the presence of fighters coming from Syria and Sudan has been detected in Libya recently and insisted the conflict could lead to a new influx of refugees in Europe.

“This crisis may spiral out of control,” Borrell said.

———

Frank Jordans and Geir Moulson in Berlin, Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this story.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eu-foreign-ministers-gather-brussels-salvage-iran-deal-68191220

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(Bloomberg Opinion) — Now that German leaders have responded to French President Emmanuel Macron’s provocative remarks concerning the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an unusually wide public rift has emerged between France and Germany. At its root, it’s about France’s leadership ambitions, to which Germany is opposed without itself wanting to lead.

“We do want a strong and sovereign Europe,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wrote in an op-ed article in the weekly Der Spiegel on Sunday. “But we need it as part of a strong NATO, and not as a substitute.”

That doesn’t just mean Maas is keen to preserve Europe’s, and Germany’s, transatlantic alliance regardless of U.S. President Donald Trump’s relative lack of interest in it — simply because Europe cannot defend itself without U.S. help today. Maas insisted that “when Europe is one day able to defend its own security, we should still want NATO.” And, directly answering Macron’s musings about improving relations with Russia as the alliance with the U.S. erodes, the German minister declared that “Germany will not tolerate any special arrangements, not vis-à-vis Moscow and not on any other matters,” because it takes the security of Poland and the Baltic states to heart.

These are strong statements, especially coming from Maas. He’s a member of the Social Democratic Party, which is less pro-U.S. and pro-NATO than its senior partner in Germany’s governing coalition, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. But on the points Maas made in his article, the German government appears to be united. Merkel, too, has criticized Macron’s vision more sharply than on any other matter since his election in 2017, calling it a “sweeping attack.”

“We must bring the European part of NATO closer together,” Merkel said on her regular Sunday podcast. That, she added, was what the European Union defense project, known as Permanent Structured Cooperation, or Pesco, is all about.

That’s an approach radically different from Macron’s. To him, the EU defense project is about strategic sovereignty. To German politicians, it’s largely an efficiency project aimed at harmonizing European countries’ defense industries, cutting the number of different defense systems used by member states’ armies, and centralizing the development of new weapons such as warplanes and tanks.

This German visio is consistent with the Framework Nations Concept, adopted by NATO in 2014. It’s a mechanism for voluntary defense cooperation built around specific nations’ projects, such as Germany’s own idea of coordinating the development of defense capabilities, or the U.K.’s work on a multinational rapid response force. Under the concept, pretty much any cooperation projects, even those including non-NATO members such as Sweden and Finland, can take place under NATO’s umbrella.

With NATO providing such a flexible platform, it’s often not obvious why any other defense cooperation programs are necessary. NATO and the EU have agreed to coordinate their activities, anyway, and it’s evident from progress reports on that effort that this creates a lot of duplicative bureaucratic activity such as cross-participation in working groups. The same exercises under the program get two different names, one for the EU and one for NATO.

But especially from the French point of view, NATO isn’t the best platform for joint procurement programs, because outside it, Europeans can keep out U.S. competition. Involving NATO also means dealing with the U.S. as the organization’s military leader. France, as the country with the strongest military in the EU, likes to exercise leadership, too. Which is perhaps the best explanation for Macron’s European Intervention Initiative, an attempt at coordinating European countries’ strategic thinking that isn’t even part of EU defense cooperation.

Germany doesn’t have France’s military ambitions. It’s a low defense spender because higher expenditure is politically unpopular. The Bundeswehr’s combat readiness is constantly in question, and there’s all the weight of history on the shoulders of  German leaders. So German politicians see their function in maintaining European security differently than Macron does, even if they, too, refer to “leadership.”

“As a country at the centre of Europe, Germany must play a central, mediatory and balanced role – within Europe and vis-a-vis the United States,” Maas wrote. “If we do not assume this leadership role, nobody will.”

Being a mediator, though, is not the same as being a leader. An unambitious, compromise-minded Germany won’t compete with Macron’s cocky France, but it’ll be a drag on Macron’s security strategizing, getting in the way as he tries to provoke the U.S. with talk of strategic autonomy or flirt with Russia. It’ll provide the reliably boring alternative, and that’s probably for the best: Any machine in which Macron designs the sporty engine needs German-made brakes.

To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.

Source: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/germany-won-t-enlist-in-macron-s-european-army-1.1346425

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BERLIN – 13 May 2018: Germany wants to help its companies continue doing business in Iran after the U.S. decision to reimpose sanctions against Tehran, but it could be difficult to shield them from any fallout, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Sunday.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision on Tuesday to renege on the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran and reimpose sanctions against Tehran came with the threat of penalties against any foreign firms involved in business there.

Germany – along with France and Britain – has said it remains committed to the nuclear deal. The foreign ministers of the three European powers will meet their Iranian counterpart in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss a way forward.

“I do not see a simple solution to shield companies from all risks of American sanctions,” Maas told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

“The talks with the Europeans, Iran and the other signatories to the agreement are therefore also about how it can be possible to continue trade with Iran,” Maas said.

Maas said the Europeans wanted to ensure that Iran would continue to abide by the rules and restrictions of the nuclear agreement.

“After all, Iran is ready to talk. It’s clear that there should also be economic incentives – that will not be easy after the U.S. decision,” Maas said.

The minister echoed calls from Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders that Iran should agree to a broader deal that went beyond the original accord and included Iran’s “problematic role in the region”.

The Trump administration portrayed its rejection of the nuclear agreement as a response, in part, to Tehran’s interventions in the Middle East, underpinning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tough line towards Iran.

Source: https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/49927/Difficult-to-shield-German-firms-after-U-S-withdrawal-from

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