Month: April 2023

Ukrainian military forces have successfully established positions on the eastern side of the Dnipro River, according to a new analysis, giving rise to speculation Sunday that the advances could be an early sign of Kyiv’s long-awaited spring counteroffensive.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, reported late Saturday that geolocated footage from pro-Kremlin military bloggers indicated that Ukrainian troops had established a foothold near the town of Oleshky, along with “stable supply lines” to their positions.

Analysts widely believe that if Ukraine goes ahead with a spring counteroffensive, a major goal would be to break through the land corridor between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, which would necessitate crossing the Dnipro River in the country’s south.

Responding to Ukrainian media reports proclaiming that the establishment of such positions indicated the counteroffensive had begun, Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Operational Command South, called for patience.

While neither confirming nor denying the ISW report, she said only that details of military operations in the Dnipro delta couldn’t be disclosed for operational and security reasons.

Speaking on Ukrainian television, Humeniuk added that it was “very difficult work” when “it’s necessary to overcome an obstacle such as the Dnipro, when the front line passes through a wide and powerful river.”

The Kremlin-installed head of the Kherson region, one of four parts of Ukraine that Russia said it was illegally annexing in September, denied on Sunday that Ukrainian forces have established a foothold on the east bank of the Dnipro.

In a Telegram update, Vladimir Saldo said that Russian forces are “in full control” of the area, and speculated that the images referenced by the ISW may have depicted Ukrainian sabotage units that “managed to take a selfie” across the Dnipro before being forced back.

After more than a year since the Russian invasion, recent fighting has become a war of attrition, with neither side able to gain momentum.

But Ukraine has recently received sophisticated weapons from its Western allies, and new troops freshly trained in the West, giving rise to growing anticipation of a counteroffensive.

American-made Patriot missiles arrived in Ukraine last week and military spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said Sunday on Ukrainian television that some have already gone into battlefield service.

The United States agreed in October to send the surface-to-air systems, which can target aircraft, cruise missiles and shorter-range ballistic missiles such as those that Russia has used to bombard residential areas and the Ukrainian power grid.

The fiercest battles have been in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is struggling to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the face of dogged Ukrainian defense.

On Sunday, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed Moscow’s forces had captured two more neighborhoods in the western part of Bakhmut, without providing further details or clarifying what areas were still in Ukrainian hands.

In the south, the Dnipro has for months marked the contact line in the Kherson region, where its namesake capital is regularly pummeled by shelling from Russian forces stationed across the river.

In addition to having established a foothold near the town of Oleshky, across the Dnipro delta from Kherson, the ISW said that Ukrainian troops were also approaching the nearby village of Dachi, citing data from Russian military bloggers.

In Telegram posts on Thursday and Saturday, the ISW said the bloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces had maintained these positions for weeks and established stable supply lines to them, indicating a lack of Russian control over the area.

The Associated Press confirmed the posts from the bloggers, but it wasn’t immediately possible to independently verify the data they shared.

Russia is also expected to launch more intensive attacks in the spring, but ISW reported that top Russian defense figures are showing signs that they may be pushing for a consolidation of existing gains in Ukraine, rather than costly new operations, as Moscow struggles with both material and manpower.

The ISW cited comments from financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group — a private Russian military company whose fighters have spearheaded the offensive on Bakhmut.

On Saturday, Prigozhin’s press service posted comments he made on its official Telegram channel in which he argued that Russian forces need to “anchor (themselves) in such a way that it is only possible to tear them out with (the) opponent’s claws.”

The interview was published shortly after Western leaders meeting at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany pledged to train more Ukrainian personnel and keep up their military support for Kyiv.

As Moscow seeks to bolster its troop numbers, the U.K. Ministry of Defense noted Sunday in an intelligence briefing that Russian authorities had mounted a large-scale military recruitment campaign using social media, billboards and state television.

It said Russian officials are “almost certainly seeking to delay any new, overt mandatory mobilization for as long as possible to minimize domestic dissent,” while assessing that this latest effort would likely fail to meet the defense ministry’s stated goal of recruiting 400,000 new volunteers.

In attacks overnight, local authorities in eastern Ukraine reported that Russian forces had launched at least five S-300 missiles at Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city and the surrounding region.

The missiles damaged an industrial facility and private homes but caused no casualties, according to Oleh Syniehubov, the Kharkiv regional governor.

In Kherson, one civilian was killed and two were wounded as Russian troops used artillery, drones and warplanes to launch a total of 54 strikes on the province, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram on Sunday morning.

Russian forces on Saturday and overnight also dropped five guided aerial bombs over the Kherson region, Ukraine’s Operational Command South said in a Facebook post Sunday. According to the post, the bombs were launched from drones and aircraft and damaged multiple residential buildings but caused no casualties.

Also in the Kherson region, two women, ages 85 and 57, were hospitalized after being wounded in a Russian artillery attack that damaged a local school and about 25 residential buildings in the village of Kizomys, Prokudin said in a Telegram post.

In the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, Russian shelling wounded a 56-year-old man in Stepnohirsk, a town on the banks of the Dnipro river, local Gov. Yurii Malashko wrote on Telegram.
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The UK conducted its first test of a new emergency alert service on Sunday, with millions of mobile phones emitting a loud alarm and vibrating.

The national system, modelled on similar schemes in Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States, aims to warn the public if there is a danger to life nearby but has generated criticism over “nanny state” intrusion.

The alert was due to go off at 3:00 pm (1400 GMT), although some phones sounded the alarm before the scheduled time, and others minutes later.

Some users on social media complained that they had not received the warning at all.

The alarm was accompanied by a message reading: “This is a test of Emergency Alerts, a new UK government service that will warn you if there’s a life-threatening emergency nearby.”

Emergency services and the government hope to use the system to alert people to issues such as severe flooding and fires.

The 10-second alarm, which sounded even if phones were on silent, rang out at entertainment and sporting events, including Premier League football matches.

Organizers of the World Snooker Championship paused play just before the alert, while the Society of London Theatre advised its members to tell audiences to turn off their phones.

Drivers were warned not to pick up their phones during the test, and people who did not wish to receive the alerts were able to opt out in their device settings.

“Keep Calm and Carry On. That is the British way and it is exactly what the country will do when they receive this test alert at 3:00 pm today,” said Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden before the test.

“The government’s number-one job is to keep people safe and this is another tool in the toolkit for emergency situations.”

‘Terrifying’

But some Conservative figures have criticized the plan, with former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg urging people to defy the government’s calls and “switch off the unnecessary and intrusive alert.”

“It is back to the nanny state — warning us, telling us, mollycoddling us when instead they should just let people get on with their lives,” he said.

Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine, ex-wife of government minister Michael Gove, called the plans “terrifying.”

“This Sunday, at 3 pm… the government intends to rattle our collective cages by invading our mobile phones — and our privacy — with its absurd emergency test signal. The notion is as terrifying as it is tiresome,” she wrote.

“Terrifying because it’s a reminder of the tyranny imposed on all of us by the technology that has invaded our homes like Japanese knotweed, infiltrating every aspect of our daily lives,” she added.

Dowden sought to play down privacy and intrusion fears, saying “all people need to do is swipe away the message or click “OK.”

“The test is secure, free to receive and one-way, and does not reveal anyone’s location or collect personal data,” he added.

Judy Edworthy, an international expert in alarm systems and psychology professor at the University of Plymouth, said the alert system was a positive development, even if its first airing may surprise people.

“Despite the message explaining it is a test, I expect some people may well be astonished,” she told the domestic Press Association.

MPs also criticized the decision to hand the lucrative IT contract for the alert system to Fujitsu, the Japanese firm responsible for faulty software in the Post Office system that led to innocent sub-postmasters receiving fraud convictions.
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A 50-member Indian business delegation starts a four-day visit to Russia Monday as both countries seek to deepen economic ties that have grown in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

India and Russia are also in talks for a free trade deal, ministers from the two countries said earlier this week during a visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov to New Delhi.

In recent months, Moscow has become India’s largest supplier of crude oil as sanctions-hit Russia seeks more trade with Asian countries.

New Delhi has not joined U.S-led Western sanctions on Moscow or condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine outright but has been calling for a negotiated resolution of the conflict.

It is also continuing to step up its economic engagement with Russia despite Western calls to gradually distance itself from Moscow.

The Indian business delegation headed to Russia is expected to meet buyers in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

“We see opportunities in Russia and that is why we put together this delegation. It is going to explore markets in food and agricultural products,” Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations told VOA.

He said that the aim is to double Indian exports to Russia to about $5 billion this year.

Trade analysts say India is trying to step up its exports to Russia to bridge a trade deficit that has become huge as New Delhi’s crude oil imports from Moscow rise exponentially.

While India’s imports from Russia have jumped fourfold to over $46 billion since 2021, its exports to Moscow add up to less than $3 billion.

But as Russia’s trade with the West dries up, it has been seeking products from India, including manufactured goods, electronics devices and automobile components.

“It is a windfall situation. We are getting discounted oil which is a huge advantage for India. Compared to virtually nothing prior to the Ukraine invasion, India’s crude oil imports have risen to over a million barrels of oil per day from Russia,” Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation told VOA. “And now that they are under sanctions, India sees an opportunity in promoting exports also, so that will be a double advantage.”

Russia, India’s Cold War ally, was its largest defense supplier for decades. Even though New Delhi has strengthened strategic partnerships with the United States and other Western countries in the last two decades, it maintains close ties with Moscow.

Addressing a business forum with Manturov on April 17 in New Delhi, Indian External Affairs Minister Subramanyam Jaishankar called the India-Russia relationship among the “steadiest” in global relations, and said that the partnership is drawing attention not because it has changed but because it has not.

Jaishankar said Russia’s resources and technology can make a powerful contribution to India’s growth as Moscow is looking more toward Asia.

“We are looking forward to intensifying trade negotiations on a free trade agreement with India,” Manturov, who is also Russia’s industry and trade minister said.

Indian exporters however say that issues such as logistics, market access and payment difficulties pose a challenge. “The opportunity is there to grow trade, but only time will tell how far we can exploit it,” Sahai said.

While Western countries want India to decrease its reliance on Russian imports to isolate Moscow over the Ukraine war, New Delhi has remained firm in maintaining its economic engagement with Russia.

“India’s message to the West is clear. We will pursue a relationship in our self-interest and we will go wherever our interests take us,” Joshi said.

“Yes, the West would like India to pressure Russia by not buying oil from them, but they have reconciled to the position that New Delhi has taken,” he said.
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With the peak tourism season setting in, Greece is bracing for a record number of arrivals and is welcoming back Chinese tourists. The warm feelings follow a period of discontent due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions placed on travelers from China for the past three years, and other issues.

On the cobblestone streets of Athens, tavern owner Spiros Bairaktaris opens his arms wide open, welcoming news of what is already called the Chinese return.

He says, “We await them with great love, from the bottom of our hearts. We want to host them, to feed them, to offer all our services.”

All restaurants here, he says, are aching for their return.

While groups of Chinese travelers are just starting to trickle in, Greece expects the number to surge through the summer, exceeding the roughly 200,000 who visited the country ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In recent months, a flurry of meetings between Greek and Chinese officials has helped ease visa restrictions. Direct flights have resumed, but also increased in number and locations in a strategy to boost inflows of travelers from China,

Tourism accounts for more than a quarter of Greece’s economic earnings. And with forecasts predicting more than 30 million travelers this summer, business and officials here say that the Chinese return will help stoke the engines of this country’s lackluster economy after a decade-long recession and the pandemic.

“In the past, we have seen that average spending from our friends from China was even double [that of] European travelers to Greece,” said Sofia Zacharaki, the deputy tourism minister.

Such sweeping feelings of welcome and enthusiasm are new.

Just five years ago and ahead of the pandemic, many businesses and locals said they upset with what they called an over-saturation of Chinese travelers. Greeks pointed to what they say was an over-commercialization of mass Chinese weddings against iconic sunsets on popular islands like Santorini.

They also say that on Santorini and other islands, law enforcement, garbage collection and other services were overstretched… due to the influx of mainly Chinese visitors. Concerns were also raised about reckless construction as the host islands sought to accommodate the visitors.

And many locals began fearing that Chinese and other visitors were posing threats to social cohesion.

Whether such deep-rooted concerns will creep up again remains unclear.

For now, though, restaurant menus are being translated into Mandarin, shops are being festooned with Chinese flags and hotel employees, are learning Mandarin.

 
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New developments:

At least five Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and surrounding districts Saturday night.
Russia struggles to justify the war in Ukraine to its citizens.
Russia claims to have captured three more districts in Bakhmut.
Russian billionaires’ wealth rises to more than half a trillion dollars, despite Western sanctions, Forbes reports.

Russia is looking to recruit “real men” to fight in its invasion of Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its intelligence update posted on Twitter.

The ads for the new campaign on billboards, TV, and social media sites also feature the financial rewards of signing up for the Russian military, but it is “highly unlikely” that Russia will meet its target of 400,000 volunteer recruits, the British ministry said.

Ukraine announced new sanctions against individuals or legal entities who support or invest in “Russian aggression.” In his nightly video address Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Kyiv has sanctioned 322 companies that manufacture weapons and military components for Russia’s military against Ukraine.

Additional sanctions have been imposed against “individuals and legal entities that help circumvent sanctions against Russia,” he said.

“The task is to remove any opportunity for Russia to circumvent sanctions,” he added, “the tougher the sanctions against the Russian war economy, the faster the end of the aggression will be.”

So far, Western sanctions against Russia have not dampened the wealth of Russian billionaires.

According to Forbes World’s Billionaires list, the wealth of Russia’s billionaires rose to about half a trillion dollars in 2023. The overall wealth of Russian billionaires jumped from $353 billion in 2022 to $505 billion in 2023, and 22 people were added to the number of super-rich Russians, raising the total to 110. That number does not include the ultra-wealthy Russians who have renounced their Russian citizenship. The data “fly in the face of significant Western sanctions and a troubled Russian economy that shrank 2.1% last year,” Forbes says.

Missiles strike

Reuters reports that at least five Russian missiles struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and adjacent areas late Saturday night, damaging some civilian buildings, according to local officials.

Regional governor Oleh Sinegubov wrote on Telegram that one missile destroyed a house in the village of Kotliary, just south of Kharkiv, and another caused a large fire in the city.

Just about an hour’s drive away, across the border in Russia, at least 3,000 evacuees returned to their homes Saturday in the city of Belgorod. They had evacuated while military experts disposed of a bomb.

A Russian Sukhoi-34 supersonic warplane accidentally fired on Belgorod on Thursday, and the blast injured three people, Russian officials said.

Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram that “operational headquarters decided to evacuate 17 apartment buildings within a radius of 200 meters” before explosive experts began their work.

Russia expels German diplomats

Russia announced Saturday it was expelling more than 20 German diplomats. According to Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency, the Kremlin’s decision was made in response to Germany’s expulsion of more than 20 Russian diplomats.

A German Foreign Ministry official said the two countries had been looking to reduce their staffing, with Germany interested in reducing Russia’s intelligence presence, according to Reuters.

“Today’s departure of Russian embassy staff is related to this,” the official told Reuters. The German ministry declined to say how many Russian diplomats had left.

“The German authorities have decided on another mass expulsion of employees of Russian diplomatic missions in Germany,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “We strongly condemn these actions by Berlin, which continues to demonstratively destroy the entire array of Russian-German relations,” it said.

Relations between the two countries have been frosty since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before the invasion, Germany was Russia’s biggest oil and gas importer.

Russia’s war justification faltering

In its daily intelligence update on Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday that Russia is “struggling to maintain consistency in a core narrative it uses to justify the war in Ukraine.” The narrative is that the invasion of Ukraine is similar to the Soviet experience in World War II.

Earlier this month, Russia cited safety issues as the reason for canceling the annual observance of the Immortal Regiment “Great Patriotic War” remembrance marches. “In reality,” the ministry said,” the authorities were highly likely concerned that participants would highlight the scope of recent Russian losses.”

The Russian military downplays the number of Russian soldiers killed in battle. According to RFE/RL of the 400 soldiers killed by a Ukrainian strike in the eastern city of Makiyivka four months ago, only 89 were documented. The government’s lack of transparency has led many Russians to desperately seek answers about their missing relatives at the war front, the article says.

“Maybe in 10 years we will learn the truth,” said a woman whose brother was killed in Makiyivka.

Another part of the Russian saga justifying its invasion against Ukraine, is its alleged de-Nazification operation there. But even Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner Group and a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has publicly questioned the existence of Nazis in Ukraine, contradicting Russia’s justification for the invasion, the British ministry said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that Russian assault troops had captured three more districts in the western part of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Reuters reports. Russia’s regular forces and fighters from the Wagner private military company are launching nonstop assaults on the ravaged city Ukrainian commanders on the front lines told CNN.

Kyiv said Friday that while Russian forces had made some advances in the eastern city, the situation was still in play.

“The situation is tense, but under control,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar wrote on Telegram.

Malyar made the comments after Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a briefing Friday that assault troops were fighting in western parts of Bakhmut, the last part of the embattled Ukrainian city still held by Kyiv’s forces.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Serbs in northern Kosovo boycotted local elections on Sunday in protest that their demands for more autonomy have not been met, in another sign that a peace deal signed between Kosovo and Serbia last month is not working.

The main political party in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, Serbian List, called on Friday on the Serb community not to vote on Sunday.

“Except in some rare and very few cases, Serbs are boycotting the elections,” an official from the central election commission, who did not wish to be named, told Reuters on Sunday.

Serbia and the Kosovo Serbs are demanding the creation of an association of Kosovo Serb municipalities, in line with a decade-old EU-brokered deal with the Kosovo government in Pristina, before they take part in the vote.

Fearing possible violence on Sunday, the central election commission abandoned plans to put voting booths in schools and instead set up mobile huts at 13 locations, while NATO troops from Latvia and Italy, part of a more than 3,000 strong peacekeeping force in Kosovo, patrolled roads in voting areas.

Election officials in Zubin Potok, a municipality inhabited mainly by Serbs, were on standby in case any voters showed up.

“Whether anyone will vote or not we have to keep the doors open,” one election commission official in Zubin Potok, who did not wish to be identified, told Reuters.

The voting huts were guarded by Albanian police officers brought in from other regions after 500 Serb police officers, along with Serb administrative staff and judges resigned collectively last November in protest over the Kosovo government’s plan to replace Serbian car license number plates with those of Kosovo.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, following the 1998-99 war in which NATO intervened to protect the ethnic Albanian majority, but Serbia has not recognized independence and Kosovo’s Serbs view themselves as part of Serbia and see Belgrade, not Pristina, as their capital.

Northern Kosovo is home to around 50,000 Serbs. On March 18, Pristina and Belgrade verbally agreed to implement a Western-backed plan aimed at improving ties and defusing tensions in northern Kosovo, by offering more autonomy to local Serbs with Pristina given ultimate control. But Serbs say the agreement has yet to produce concrete action.

“Democracy by force? No,” said Jovan Knezevic, a Serbian in the town North Mitrovica, on why he would not be voting. The Serbian community should have been consulted on whether local elections should take place, he said. “There has to be a compromise, there has to be an agreement,” he said.

Albanians form a more than 90% majority in Kosovo but are a small minority in the north.

Only one of 10 candidates in Sunday’s elections was a Serb after another Serb withdrew.

On Tuesday Kosovo’s elected prime minister Albin Kurti said Belgrade was intimidating Serbs from the north not to participate in the elections.

The European Union and the United States said last week they were disappointed that Serbs had decided not to participate in the elections.
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German government officials and labor unions have reached a pay deal for more than 2.5 million public-sector workers, ending a lengthy dispute and heading off the possibility of disruptive all-out strikes.

The ver.di union had pressed for hefty raises as Germany, like many other countries, grapples with high inflation. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said as the deal was announced around midnight Sunday that “we accommodated the unions as far as we could responsibly do in a difficult budget situation.”

The deal entails tax-free one-time payments totaling 3,000 euros ($3,300) per employee, with the first 1,240 euros coming in June and monthly payments of 220 euros following until February. In March, regular monthly pay for all will be increased by 200 euros, followed by a salary increase of 5.5% — with a minimum raise of 340 euros per month assured. The deal runs through to the end of 2024.

Ver.di originally sought a one-year deal with a raise of 10.5%. The deal was reached on the basis of a proposal by arbitrators who were called in after talks broke down last month.

Ver.di chair Frank Werneke said that “we went to our pain threshold with the decision to make this compromise.” He said that the raises in regular pay next year will amount to an increase of over 11% for most employees of federal and municipal governments.

The union has staged frequent walkouts over recent months to underline its demands, with local transport, hospitals and other public services hit.

Germany’s annual inflation rate has declined from the levels it reached late last year but is still high. It stood at 7.4% in March.

The past few months have seen plenty of other tense pay negotiations in Europe’s biggest economy, some of which have yet to be concluded. In a joint show of strength, ver.di and the EVG union — which represents many railway workers — staged a one-day strike last month that paralyzed much of the country’s transport network.

EVG, whose members walked off the job again on Friday, is seeking a 12% raise and has rejected the idea of negotiating a deal based on the arbitration proposal that helped resolve the public workers’ dispute. The next round of talks is set for Tuesday.

And ver.di is still in a dispute with Germany’s airport security companies association over pay and conditions for security staff. In the latest of a string of walkouts, it has called on security workers at Berlin Airport to walk out on Monday. The airport says there will no departures all day.
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Planning for next month’s coronation of King Charles III, the first for a British monarch in 70 years, is being met with subdued enthusiasm in Canada, the Commonwealth’s largest country by area.

While some Canadians are eagerly awaiting the pageantry-filled spectacle steeped in centuries of history, most of their compatriots say they have little interest in the event and don’t want Charles as their king.

But Canada is unlikely to cast off the monarchy and become a republic any time soon.

“The monarchy is hard-wired into the Canadian constitution and just because most Canadians have little interest in it does not mean that the monarchy is on its death-bed,” said Cape Breton University professor David Johnson, an expert on Canadian politics and constitutional matters, in an email exchange with VOA.

Many Canadians, like their American neighbors, are fascinated by not only the pageantry but also the tabloid-worthy drama that surrounds the royal family. But unlike the United States, which threw off royal rule in 1776, Canada still recognizes the king or queen of England as its head of state.

Many see monarchy as dated

While the inhabitants of Windsor Castle have no role in day-to-day governance in Canada, the monarchy is embedded in its institutions, with the face of the ruling monarch adorning its currency. The monarch’s representative, known as the governor general, presides over the annual opening of Parliament, and lieutenant governors perform similar ceremonial duties in each of the 10 provinces.

But Canadians are increasingly seeing that legacy of colonial rule as an outdated relic, a change in attitude that has been brought to the fore by the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the imminent coronation of Charles.

“It’s not surprising that recent polling on this shows the vast majority of Canadians to be uninterested in the coronation, the king, and the institution of the monarchy in Canada,” Johnson said.

He cited a Research Co. poll conducted in early March that showed only 19% of survey respondents wanted to see Charles remain as Canada’s head of state. Several other polls have produced similar findings.

“Some 44% of respondents wish to see an elected head of state in this country,” Johnson wrote.

“I am in no way surprised by any of these numbers,” said Johnson. “Only some one-third of Canadians generally express views supportive of the monarchy in Canada (and I am one of them) while the majority show little interest in it, and are perplexed as to why the head of the Windsor family in the U.K. is our head of state.”

Among those with little interest in the monarchy are the residents of predominantly French-speaking Quebec, who feel more affinity with France than with Britain, and the more than 8 million Canadian residents — accounting for almost a quarter of the total population — who came to Canada as immigrants.

Proponents for separation

One of the most outspoken proponents for cutting ties with the monarchy is Tom Freda, director of the advocacy group Citizens for a Canadian Republic, who sees the coronation as an opportunity to advance his cause.

“Anything that gets Canadians thinking about the monarchy is a good thing,” Freda said in an email exchange. “Because when they do, the majority always see it as an anachronistic colonial relic that needs to be sent to the history books.

“This is the conundrum monarchists face with an absentee monarch,” Freda told VOA.

“If they [royal family members] stay in Britain, Canadians will always think they’re British and symbols of our colonial past,” said Freda. “But if they visit (or are in the news for any other reason), the sheer ridiculousness of having a head of state who is a hereditary monarch and lives in a castle on another continent, becomes front-and-centre.”

Freda believes not much would change if Canada were to become a republic.

“Where there will be a change is in the enhanced sense of Canadian identity we’ll all feel when it happens,” Freda said. “This has proven to be the case in all the news stories on Barbadosi transition to a republic. Barbadians interviewed describe a renewed sense of pride in their country for taking the last step to independence.”

Some still loyal to royals

But any attempt to cut Canada’s ties to the monarchy would encounter constitutional hurdles and likely run into stiff opposition from the one-third of Canadians, especially older ones, who still revere the institution.

“Abolishing the monarchy would require a feat of political maneuvering that has rarely been seen throughout the years, requiring unanimous agreement among the House of Commons, the Senate and all of the provincial legislatures,” wrote Amanda Connolly in Canada’s Global News. Her September 18 article followed remarks by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ruling out any such effort in the near future.

Canadian royalists, meanwhile, are heartened by an uptick in approval of Charles himself, who has managed to achieve a stature as king that long evaded him as Prince of Wales.

Historian Robert Lacey, who wrote the companion books to the blockbuster TV series “The Crown,” told VOA he could not speak to Charles’ popularity in Canada but said it is growing in the United Kingdom.

“Quite a lot of people in Britain say I’ve never had much time for Prince Charles but I quite like King Charles,” Lacey told VOA via Skype. “In his speaking, he’s developed an appeal that people didn’t quite expect.”

Johnson pointed out that polling shows the next generation of royals is more popular in Canada than the new king. “54% of respondents like the Prince and Princess of Wales, and 46% like Harry, 41% like Meghan,” he said.

Canada will host coronation celebrations

Regardless of public opinion, the federal government is moving ahead with plans for a day of festivities to mark the coronation, though the prime minister might skip the events in London.

In a March 16 press release, Trudeau’s office announced plans for Coronation Day celebrations that would “acknowledge the special relationship” between Canada and the new king, including “artistic performances, and special unveilings” at various Ottawa locations.

“All Commonwealth nations will be represented, likely by governors-general,” Johnson told VOA. “This will probably be the case for Canada, although this has not yet been stated. The prime minister has a Liberal Party convention to attend that weekend.”
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France is trying to limit the diplomatic fallout after President Emmanuel Macron said Europe should reduce its dependence on the U.S. and avoid “getting caught up in crises that are not ours,” following a state visit to China earlier this month.

Critics said Macron’s remarks undermined the transatlantic relationship at a time of dangerous geopolitical tensions.

Macron was in Beijing April 5-8, alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, partly to seek China’s help in ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They were accompanied by dozens of European business leaders, who signed a series of commercial deals during the visit.

So far, China has refused to condemn Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. President Xi Jinping again refrained from criticizing Moscow during Macron’s visit. Nevertheless, Macron later wrote on Twitter: “Long live the friendship between China and France!’”

In an official statement, China described the visit as “successful and rewarding with fruitful outcomes.”

Beijing has since vowed not to send any weapons to Russia. “China will not provide weapons to relevant parties of the conflict and will manage and control the exports of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations,” Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said at an April 14 news conference, alongside his visiting German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock.

Taiwan focus

Just two days after Macron and von der Leyen’s visit to Beijing, the Chinese military conducted live fire exercises encircling Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory.

On the flight home to Paris, Macron gave interviews to journalists from Les Echos and Politico, in which he reportedly said the great risk Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”

“The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” Macron was reported as telling Politico.

Macron was questioned about his remarks during a visit to The Hague on April 12.

“France is for the status quo in Taiwan. France supports the ‘One China’ policy and the search for a peaceful settlement of the situation. This is, moreover, the position of the Europeans, and it is a position which has always been compatible with the role of ally,” Macron told reporters.

“But it is precisely here that I insist on the importance of strategic autonomy. Being allies does not mean being a vassal. It is not the case that because we are allies, because we do the things together that we decide to do, that we no longer have the right to think alone.” he added.

Fierce pushback

There has been a strong backlash on both sides of the Atlantic.

Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, said Warsaw was not in favor of any shift away from Washington. “We believe that more America is needed in Europe. … Today, the United States is more of a guarantee of safety in Europe than France,” Przydacz told Polish broadcaster Radio Zet.

In Washington, Republicans on Capitol Hill also strongly criticized Macron’s remarks. In a video posted on Twitter, Senator Marco Rubio said if Europe refuses to “pick sides between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, then maybe we shouldn’t be picking sides either [on Ukraine].”

Timing questioned

Macron’s timing was unwise, said Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to the United States and the United Nations and now an analyst with the Atlantic Council.

“We are just right now fighting — all of us, together, behind the Americans — we are fighting the Russian aggression in Ukraine. And I do understand that for a lot of our partners, it was not the right moment, frankly, to raise the issue of our transatlantic alliance,” Araud told VOA in an interview Tuesday.

Others fear the fallout could be more damaging, as Macron’s comments undermine the transatlantic alliance just as the West tries to counter Russian aggression and stand up to an increasingly assertive China.

“The way Macron framed it made it sound as if it is a project of equidistance — of having sort of the same distance to the United States and to China,” said Liana Fix, a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “And it also created the impression that it is the United States which is pushing confrontation, and not China. The feedback from China was very positive, because it confirmed Chinese thinking that it’s possible to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.”

“From the perspective of central and eastern Europeans, these remarks basically confirmed their most fundamental fears: that Macron’s pledge for European strategic autonomy or more independence is just a pledge for more French power in Europe. It’s a pledge to decouple from the United States,” Fix told VOA on Monday.

Mending ties

In the wake of a growing diplomatic storm, a delegation from the French parliament visited Taiwan last week to reassure them of French support.

“This is very important for us to be here and just saying to all the people from Taiwan, we stand to you, we are close to you,” the head of the delegation, Eric Bothorel, told reporters in Taiwan.

Analyst Renaud Foucart of Britain’s Lancaster University argued that Macron was simply trying to avert wider confrontation.

“China is asking for a multilateral world. And Macron is coming and saying, ‘OK, if you don’t arm Russia, we can be France and claim that we are not a vassal to the U.S., we can claim that we are all different blocs, that we have our own sensitivities to the ‘One China’ policy of Taiwan, and all those things.

“But if you start yourself, China, to create a bloc with Russia — to start to arm Russia— then we cannot be the multilateral world. We need to be together with the U.S. And this is going to be our natural allies in that in that framework.’”

It is disingenuous to suggest that Macron supports China over Taiwan, Foucart asserted.

“At the same time that Macron was making these comments about China and Taiwan … there were military boats of France cruising the Taiwan Strait at the same time as the Chinese were having their [military] training,” he said. “So, the French have their own interest in the Indo-Pacific.”

US election

The United States is set to hold presidential elections in 2024. That could usher in a new administration less keen than Joe Biden to spend money arming Ukraine or defending Europe, said Araud, the former French ambassador to the U.S.

“For the moment, as long as the U.S. administration is strongly supporting the defense of Europe, there will be no question about strategic autonomy on European defense,” said Araud. “If [Donald] Trump is elected president, I think that the debate would be reopened by force. The Europeans who want to sleep under the American flag will be obliged to wake up.”
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France is trying to limit the diplomatic fallout after President Emmanuel Macron said that Europe should reduce its dependence on the U.S. and avoid ‘getting caught up in crises that are not ours’ after a state visit to China earlier this month. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Saturday he did not want to “please anyone” with his views about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after provoking criticism in the West for suggesting Kyiv shared the blame for the war.

Speaking in Lisbon at the start of his first visit to Europe since being elected president, Lula said his aim was to “build a way to bring both of them (Russia and Ukraine) to the table.”

“I want to find a third alternative (to solve the conflict), which is the construction of peace,” he told a news conference.

Last week he said the United States and European allies should stop supplying arms to Ukraine, arguing that they were prolonging the war.

“If you are not making peace, you are contributing to war,” Lula said.

The White House accused Lula of parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who accompanied Lula at the news conference, said their countries’ stances on the war were different.

Portugal is a founding member of the Western NATO defense alliance and has sent military equipment to Ukraine. Rebelo de Sousa said Ukraine had the right to defend itself and recover its territory.

Lula arrived in Portugal on Friday for a five-day visit as he strives to improve foreign ties after Jair Bolsonaro’s four years in office, during which Brazil’s relations with many countries including its former colonial power frayed.

Bolsonaro did not visit Portugal, home to about 300,000 Brazilians, during his time in office.

“I wanted to tell you how happy I am,” Lula, standing next to Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, told a room packed with government officials and reporters. “Brazil spent almost six years, especially the last four, isolated from the world.

“Brazil is back, to improve our relationship,” he said.

Lula signed 13 agreements on technology, energy transition, tourism, culture and education with Costa.

Brazil has said Portugal could be an important ally in helping South America’s Mercosur bloc to negotiate a free trade deal with the European Union.

“Small adjustments are needed but we will do it,” Lula said.
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VOA Azerbaijani Service journalists Idrak Jamalbeyli and Seymur Shikhaliyev received shrapnel wounds Saturday when a booby trap left by Russian soldiers exploded as they were reporting in the previously Russian-occupied trenches near the village of Myrne in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine.

Ukrainian volunteers were showing Jamalbeyli and Shikhaliyev extensive trenches dug by Russian troops in the area when the explosion was ignited by a trap set up by the departed Russian soldiers.

Jamalbeyli was wounded by some shrapnel in one of his legs, and one of Shikhaliyev’s arms was hit, also by shrapnel. Both are recovering, and they did not sustain serious injuries. One of the Ukrainian volunteers also received light wounds on his face.
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The daughter of an environmentalist imprisoned by Iran said on Saturday she had lost confidence in U.S. President Joe Biden’s efforts to free her father.

Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian American who also holds British citizenship, has served five years of a 10-year sentence after being convicted of spying.

He was briefly released to house arrest with an electronic tag in March 2022 when two other dual nationals, including British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, were allowed to leave Iran.

In July his lawyer was quoted as saying he had been granted bail, but his daughter said he was now back in jail.

“I think being told since Biden has taken office that our loved ones are a priority, and then seeing no action — it is hard to hold hope,” Tara Tahbaz told Reuters in Madrid while she was visiting from the United States to see relatives.

She said her family and the relatives of two other U.S. prisoners in Iran hoped Biden would grant them time to explain their stories at a meeting in Washington scheduled for next month.

She said her father, now 67, suffered from prostate cancer and has had COVID-19 three times in jail.

The United States has urged Iran to release Tahbaz and two other citizens, Emad Shargi and Siamak Namazi, who are all imprisoned on espionage charges that Washington says are baseless.

U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel tweeted on Saturday: “We once again call on Iran to cease unjustly imprisoning foreign nationals for use as political leverage and to release U.S. citizens Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz, and Siamak Namazi.”

Namazi, an oil executive, was jailed for 10 years in 2016 on charges of spying and cooperating with the U.S. government. Shargi was convicted in 2021 and also sentenced to 10 years.
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As fighting between two clashing military factions continued Saturday, Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said in a statement that his troops would facilitate the evacuation of diplomats and citizens from Britain, China, France and the United States, “in the coming hours.”

With fighting reported around the Khartoum International Airport, though, it is still unclear how any major evacuation could unfold. The area around the airport has seen some of the most intense gun battles and shelling over the past week.

A State Department spokesperson could not firm reports an evacuation of U.S. government personnel is imminent. A State Department spokesperson told VOA early Saturday Washington time, “We continue to remain in close contact with our embassy in Khartoum and have full accountability of our personnel. For their safety, I cannot discuss the details of their movements or whereabouts.”

The U.S. Embassy in Sudan said in a security alert Saturday that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens.” The embassy also said, “There is incomplete information about significant convoys departing Khartoum traveling toward Port Sudan. The embassy is unable to assist convoys. Traveling in any convoy is at your own risk.”

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak chaired an emergency response committee meeting Saturday regarding the situation in Sudan.

VOA reached out to the United Nations to see if there are plans to evacuate any of their 800 international staff. A spokesperson said, “We are exploring all options. Nothing to confirm as of now.”

Sudan’s military said army chief General Burhan had spoken to leaders of various countries requesting safe evacuations of their citizens and diplomats from Sudan, which has seen bloody clashes over the past week that have left more than 400 people dead.

Burhan said that diplomats from Saudi Arabia already had been evacuated from Port Sudan and airlifted back to the kingdom. He said that Jordan’s diplomats would soon be evacuated in the same way. Saudi State TV reported the first evacuation vessel from Sudan arrived Saturday in the port city of Jeddah, carrying 50 Saudi citizens and nationals from friendly countries. Egypt also has evacuated some of its personnel, while Japan is preparing to evacuate.

The State Department has said there are some 70 U.S. Embassy staff members in Khartoum, and it has been working to gather them in one location. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel had a warning Friday for non-government U.S. citizens in Sudan.

“We have advised Americans to not travel to Sudan since August 2021, and the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum’s security alert on April 16 stated that due to the uncertain security situations in Khartoum and closure of the airport, Americans should have no expectation of a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation at this time,” Patel said. “It is imperative that U.S. citizens in Sudan make their own arrangements to stay safe in these difficult circumstances.”

Patel said U.S. authorities were in touch with several hundred U.S. citizens understood to be in Sudan. The State Department confirmed the death of one U.S. citizen in the country. The person was not a U.S. government employee.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been working the phones in the crisis, reaching out repeatedly to both General Burhan, the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, SAF, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the commander of the rival Rapid Support Forces, RSF, known as Hemedti.

Blinken called on both generals to uphold the nationwide cease-fire through at least the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr on Sunday, April 23.  Blinken also participated in a special ministerial session Thursday under the leadership of African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki, with all participating leaders unanimous on the urgent need for a cease-fire.

The two generals are former allies who seized power in a 2021 coup but later fell out in a bitter power struggle.

The sudden fighting that broke out one week ago has brought the city of 5 million people to the brink of collapse, with residents hunkering down inside their homes with no electricity amid bombardment, and with marauding fighters roaming the streets, looting homes.

Sudan borders seven countries and sits between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Africa’s volatile Sahel region. The violence broke out as an internationally backed transition plan to form a new civilian government was scheduled to take effect, four years after the fall of Omar-al-Bashir. Both the government and the paramilitary forces accuse each other of thwarting the transition.

The U.S. has some military forces stationed in the neighboring country of Djibouti, which experts say would likely be used for any evacuation operation. Experts say the Biden administration does not want a repeat of the hasty U.S. departure from Afghanistan.

Cameron Hudson, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA that “I think we can’t sell short the comparison to Afghanistan, especially if we’re contemplating the visuals of Americans leaving a besieged city, when civilians are begging for their own lives, begging to be evacuated along with Americans and international staff. I think that’s a terrible optic for the United States to be sending in Africa right now.”

VOA United Nations Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this story.
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New developments:

The Wagner Group founder is concerned about a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The United States will be training Ukrainian soldiers on Abrams tanks, while Germany will build a tank repair hub in Poland.
Ukraine grain exports are still banned by European countries.

In its daily intelligence update on Ukraine, then British Defense Ministry said Saturday that Russia is “struggling to maintain consistency in a core narrative it uses to justify the war in Ukraine.” The narrative is that the invasion of Ukraine is similar to the Soviet experience in World War II.

Earlier this month, Russia cited safety issues as the reason for canceling the annual observance of the Immortal Regiment “Great Patriotic War” remembrance marches. “In reality,” the ministry said,” the authorities were highly likely concerned that participants would highlight the scope of recent Russian losses.”

Another part of the Russian narrative is the rallying cry that there are Nazis in Ukraine.  But now, however, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the chief of the Wagner Group and also a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has publicly questioned the existence of Nazis in Ukraine, contradicting Russia’s justification for the invasion, the British ministry said.  

In his nightly video address Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was readying for a counteroffensive.

“The front line is priority No. 1,” he said Friday. “We are also actively preparing new brigades and units that will show themselves at the front.”

Zelenskyy thanked the allies for their commitment to Ukraine’s defense.

A U.S.-hosted meeting Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany focused on air defense and ammunition in Ukraine. The United States said it would soon start training Ukrainian troops to operate Abrams tanks, while Germany announced that it was building a tank repair hub in Poland for tanks deployed in Ukraine.

During the meeting, allies also reassured Kyiv of their unconditional support and backed Ukraine’s bid to join NATO in the future.

Ukraine pressed its allies for long-range weapons, jets and ammunition ahead of the counteroffensive against Russian troops, which is expected in the coming weeks or months.

Prigozhin concerned

Following Zelenskyy’s remarks Friday, Yevgeni Prigozhin, chief of the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, expressed concerns about an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive with highly trained Ukrainian forces.

“Today we are killing those who were trained in Ukraine, but the ones coming from Germany will be technologically educated,” he said in an audio recording released on his Telegram channel.

He was referring to those Ukrainian soldiers who will train in Germany to use U.S. Abrams tanks.

Prigozhin predicted that Ukraine would counterattack after the spring rains, when the ground is firm.

“They will attack … they will come and try to tear us apart, and we must resist,” he said.

Russia relies heavily on the Wagner forces in Bakhmut, where fighting is still raging.

Kyiv said Friday that while Russian forces had made some advances in the eastern city, the situation was still in play. “The situation is tense, but under control,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Malyar made the comments after Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a briefing Friday that assault troops were fighting in western parts of Bakhmut, the last part of the embattled Ukrainian city still held by Kyiv’s forces.

EU-Ukraine grain

Four European Union member states have banned Ukraine’s food exports to protect their own markets. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria say that an influx of Ukrainian food imports is harming their own farmers, who can’t compete with Ukraine’s low prices. The Polish government approved $2.4 billion in aid for its agricultural sector, criticizing the European Commission on Friday for not doing enough to help resolve the problem.

“What the EU is offered with a delay, it is too little, a drop in the ocean of needs,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference.

The European Commission has offered $110 million of aid for central European farmers, in addition to an earlier $61.5 million package. It has also said it will take emergency preventive measures for other products — like wheat, corn and sunflower seeds — but the central European states want this list to be broadened to include honey and some meats, Reuters reported.

Ukraine’s economy is heavily dependent upon agriculture, and the European ban will put a significant dent in its sales, Bloomberg reported, citing UkrAgroConsult.

Romania has for now decided not to participate in the ban, while allowing transit of Ukraine exports through its Black Sea port of Constanta.

Several central European countries became the gateway to a glut of Ukraine’s food exports after Ukrainian grain was stranded in Black Sea ports blockaded by Russia. The Black Sea Initiative brokered by the United Nations and Turkey has allowed safe transit of grain shipments through that corridor, though Russia is threatening not to renew after the deal expires on May 18.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that the renewal of the deal depended on whether the West would lift restrictions affecting Russia’s agricultural exports. The Kremlin said Friday that it was monitoring reports of a possible ban on Russian exports and that new Western sanctions would damage the global economy.

“We are aware that both the U.S. and the EU are actively considering new sanctions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We believe that both the current sanctions against the Russian Federation and the new additional steps that the U.S. and the EU may be thinking about now will, of course, also hit the global economy.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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A prominent Kurdish leader has added a new wrinkle to Turkey’s tense election campaign from his prison cell, suggesting the defeat of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could open the door to a resolution of the nation’s decades-old struggle against a Kurdish militant group.

Selahattin Demirtas, the former co-leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), is pledging to use his influence to get the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to give up its armed resistance to Turkish rule if a new administration takes office in Ankara after parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14.

“As a promise to our people, we will do everything we can to ensure that the PKK will lay down arms in Turkey after the Erdogan regime that feeds on conflict,” Demirtas said in a tweet thread posted via his lawyers last week.

Demirtas has been held in Edirne Prison since 2016 on terror charges. Last week, a Turkish prosecutor asked for an aggravated life sentence for him in a case related to what is known as the Kobani protests in 2014 in Turkey’s Kurdish-populated southeast.

In his tweets, Demirtas said a peaceful resolution to the conflict between the PKK and Turkey would come from “the Turkish parliament within the framework of the law” and added that this could have been done earlier.

“However, Erdogan imprisoned those who wanted peace, put them in prisons, tried to shut down their parties, appointed trustees to their municipalities, and tried to scare the people to gain votes through the discourse of terror by fueling the conflict with provocations,” Demirtas said, referring to the cases against the HDP.

Erdogan accuses the HDP, the third-largest party in the Turkish parliament, of having links to the militant PKK, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Turkey. The HDP denies any links to terrorism.

Disarmament

Demirtas’ statements have resonated with some experts who argue that conditions are suitable for the PKK to disarm and leave it for civilian politicians to defend Kurdish rights in Turkey.

“I don’t think it is difficult for the PKK to lay down its arms in Turkey. The conditions are favorable for this,” said Reha Ruhavioglu, director of the Diyarbakir-based Kurdish Studies Center.

“Our research shows that [Kurdish people] want to see civilian actors like the HDP and Demirtas as the bearer of the Kurdish issue in Turkey,” Ruhavioglu told VOA. “In other words, the Kurdish people in Turkey also prioritize disarmament and say that the problems should be discussed through civilian politics, not weapons.”

Long conflict

Founded by Abdullah Ocalan in 1978, the PKK aims to establish a confederation of semiautonomous Kurdish regions spanning parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

The almost four-decade conflict ceased once with a peace process between the PKK and Turkey in 2013, but violence resumed in July 2015. According to data collected by the International Crisis Group, at least 6,561 people, including 611 civilians, have died in clashes or terror attacks from July 2015 until the end of last month.

In a report last year, Human Rights Watch stated that clashes between the military and the PKK have greatly decreased in rural areas of Turkey’s eastern and southeastern regions.

But it said, “Turkey has concentrated its military campaign against the PKK, including with drone strikes in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq where PKK bases are located, and increasingly in northeast Syria against the Kurdish-led, U.S.- and U.K.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.”

The PKK announced a suspension of militant activity shortly after the 7.8 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes that jolted southern Turkey in February and later extended the pause until after next month’s Turkish elections.

The PKK has not publicly responded to Demirtas’ promise to press it to disarm.

In a written interview with VOA Turkish from his prison cell, Demirtas acknowledged the limits of his influence over the group.

“The issue is not whether the [PKK] listens to me or not,” he wrote. “If I make a call, they will not pay attention, it is obvious. But if some steps are taken for a possible solution in the parliament within an open, transparent and legal framework, of course, the actors will have to take this into account.”

Demirtas told VOA in messages relayed by his lawyers that he is proposing to work on creating the political, legal and social basis of a solution to the long-running conflict.

“And of course, we will do this,” he wrote. “We will create the appropriate environment and create the process where the weapons will be laid down. I want to emphasize that this is not difficult or impossible.”

This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service. Yildiz Yazicioglu contributed from Ankara.
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