China’s top foreign policy official is heading to Russia for security talks after two days of meetings with US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser over the weekend in Malta.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who simultaneously holds the ruling Communist Party’s top foreign policy post, will be in Russia from Monday to Thursday for a round of China-Russia strategic security consultations, the Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement.
The US and China are at odds over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China has refrained from taking sides in the war, saying that while a country’s territory must be respected, the West needs to consider Russia’s security concerns about NATO expansion. It has accused the US of prolonging the fighting by providing arms to Ukraine, weaponry that the US says is needed to defend against Russian aggression.
China and Russia have grown closer in recent years as relations with the West have deteriorated for both. China is looking for support as it seeks to reshape the US-led international order into one that is more accommodating to its approach. Last month, it helped engineer an expansion of the BRICS partnership, which invited six more countries to join what has been a five-nation bloc that includes China and Russia.
Wang discussed the situation in Ukraine in his weekend meetings with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Both sides described the talks as candid, substantive and constructive as they try to stabilize their rocky relationship and manage differences over security, trade, technology and human rights. Specifics of their talks were not released.
Wang stepped down as foreign minister at the end of last year, taking on the more senior position of Communist Party foreign affairs chief, but was called back as foreign minister in July after his successor, Qin Gang, disappeared from public view. It’s unclear what happened to Qin, but he may have fallen out of favor with the leadership.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said Tuesday that his country will never give up its right “to have peaceful nuclear energy” and urged the United States “to demonstrate in a verifiable fashion” that it wants to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Addressing the annual high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly, Raisi said the American withdrawal from the deal trampled on US commitments and was “an inappropriate response” to Iran’s fulfillment of its commitments.
Then-President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the accord in 2018, restoring crippling sanctions. Iran began breaking the terms a year later and formal talks in Vienna to try to restart the deal collapsed in August 2022.
Iran has long denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and continues to insist that its program is entirely for peaceful purposes – points Raisi reiterated Tuesday telling the high-level meeting that “nuclear weapons have no place in the defensive doctrine and the military doctrine” of the country.
But UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press that the Iranian government’s removal of many cameras and electronic monitoring systems installed by the International Atomic Energy Agency make it impossible to give assurances about the country’s nuclear program. Grossi has previously warned that Tehran has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear bombs if it chose to build them.
The IAEA director general also said Monday he asked to meet Raisi to try to reverse Tehran’s uncalled for ban on “a very sizable chunk” of the agency’s inspectors.
Raisi made no mention of the IAEA inspectors but the European Union issued a statement late Tuesday saying its top diplomat, Josep Borrell, met Iran’s Foreign Minister on Tuesday and raised the nuclear deal and the inspectors as well as Iran’s arbitrary detention of many EU citizens including dual nationals.
At his meeting with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the EU said Borrell urged Iran to reconsider its decision to ban several experienced nuclear inspectors and to improve cooperation with the IAEA.
Borrell again urged the Iranian government to stop its military cooperation with Russia, the EU statement said. Western nations have said Iran has supplied military drones to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to have his long-coveted meeting with President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
Netanyahu has been a frequent visitor to the White House over the years, and Israeli leaders are typically invited within weeks of taking office. The lengthy delay in setting up the meeting with Biden, and the White House decision to hold the meeting in New York rather than Washington, have been widely interpreted in Israel as signs of US displeasure with Netanyahu’s new government, according to The Associated Press.
“Meeting at the White House symbolizes close relations and friendship and honor, and the denial of that shows exactly the opposite,” said Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israeli relations at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.
“This is not going to be a pleasant meeting,” Gilboa said. “It is going to be a sour meeting.”
Biden administration officials have repeatedly raised concerns about Netanyahu’s contentious plan to overhaul Israel’s judicial system, and the topic is sure to come up.
Netanyahu says the country’s unelected judges wield too much power over government decision-making. Critics say that by weakening the independent judiciary, Netanyahu is pushing the country toward authoritarian rule.
His plan has bitterly divided the nation and triggered months of mass protests against his government.
Those protests have followed him to the US Large numbers of Israeli expatriates are expected to protest outside Wednesday’s meeting in Manhattan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Early this year, Biden voiced his unhappiness over the overhaul, saying Netanyahu “cannot continue down this road” and urging the Israeli leader to find a compromise. Netanyahu’s negotiations with the Israeli opposition have stalled and his coalition has moved ahead with its plan, pushing the first major piece of the legislation through parliament in July.
The Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians has also drawn American ire. Netanyahu’s coalition is dominated by far-right ultranationalists who have greatly expanded Israeli settlement construction on occupied lands claimed by the Palestinians for a future state. Israel’s government also opposes a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians — a cornerstone of White House policy in the region. The deadlock has coincided with a spike in fighting in the West Bank.
The White House said Wednesday’s talks would focus on “shared democratic values between our two countries and a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region.”
The meeting comes at a time of cooling ties between Israel and the Democratic Party.
The Biden administration issued fresh Iran-related sanctions on Tuesday, targeting multiple people and entities in Iran, Russia, China and Türkiye in connection with Tehran’s drone and military aircraft development.
The sanctions target seven individuals and four entities in the four countries that it said have “facilitated shipments and financial transactions” to the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company and its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and military aircraft efforts, the US Department of Treasury said in a statement.
“Iran’s continued, deliberate proliferation of its UAVs enables Russia, its proxies in the Middle East, and other destabilizing actors to undermine global stability,” U..Treasury Under Secretary of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement.
“The United States will continue to take action against Iran’s UAV procurement networks, and encourages jurisdictions to exercise the due diligence necessary to prevent the export of these components to Iran,” he added.
Washington had earlier sanctioned five China-based companies and one individual over selling and shipping aerospace components, including parts used for drones, to the Iranian company, according to the Treasury.
US officials had said more sanctions on Iran were expected even as the two nations engaged in a swap this week with five Americans freed from Iran returning to the United States earlier on Tuesday.
US President Joe Biden appealed to world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to stand with Ukraine against Russian invaders, hoping Republicans in Congress will also take notice.
“Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence,” Biden said in his speech to UNGA. “If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?”
Biden’s address at the annual gathering was the centerpiece event of his three-day visit to New York, which will include meetings with the heads of five Central Asian nations, and the leaders of Israel and Brazil.
Biden, a Democrat, has made rallying US allies to support Ukraine a leading component of US foreign policy, arguing the world must send a clear signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will not be able to outlast the West.
Biden has faced criticism from some Republicans who want the United States to spend less money on the war effort.
Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, has vowed to seek a quick end to the war if returned to power.
Trump has voiced skepticism about Washington’s engagement with traditional allies, including NATO, and has been complimentary of Putin.
House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in Washington, has questioned whether the United States should keep sending billions of dollars in weaponry to Ukraine.
In his speech, Biden argued that Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and occupation of territory violated the founding UN Charter, a main principle of which is respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Biden echoed remarks of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who in his opening speech to UNGA on Tuesday said Russia’s invasion “has unleashed a nexus of horror.”
A Biden administration official said Biden and US officials would also focus at the UN meetings on mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development and fighting climate change.
Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and believe that such aid demonstrates to China and other US rivals a will to protect US interests and allies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey in June.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, due to speak at UNGA on Tuesday, was expected to visit Biden at the White House on Thursday and to meet some congressional leaders as well.
The United States is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine to coincide with Zelenskiy’s visit, and Congress has been asked to approve billions of dollars more in security assistance for the rest of the year.
“We have confidence that there will be bipartisan support for this. I think President Zelenskiy does as well,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
After his speech, Biden was due to sit down with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to discuss world hot spots.
Later, he will attend a summit with the presidents of five Central Asian nations, a first. They are Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
On Wednesday, Biden will meet Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and join him in an event with labor leaders from Brazil and the United States.
Also on Wednesday, Biden will have his first face-to-face meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since Netanyahu regained power last December.
Sullivan said they would discuss “a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region, as well as to compare notes on effectively countering and deterring Iran.”
The United States is engaging in diplomatic outreach after Azerbaijan launched “anti-terrorist activities” in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday, US officials said, adding that the incident was particularly dangerous.
A senior US State Department official said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was likely to get involved in the next 24 hours in the diplomatic engagement already under way on the tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Blinken discussed the situation and stated the need for de-escalation, Interfax reported, citing the Armenian government.
Azerbaijan launched military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a step that could presage a new war in the volatile area but which Baku said was necessary to restore constitutional order and drive out Armenian military formations.
A second senior State Department official said the incident overnight was “particularly egregious and particularly dangerous, so we’ll obviously be in touch with all sides.”
Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but part of it is run by breakaway ethnic Armenian authorities who say the area is their ancestral homeland. It has been at the center of two wars – the latest in 2020 – since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
This week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was able to make simultaneous aid deliveries via the Lachin corridor and a separate road linking Karabakh to the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam.
Despite that, tensions have risen sharply this month, with Armenia and Azerbaijan accusing each other of building up troops.
“It’s concerning that this happened overnight, especially because we did see some progress yesterday with shipments moving through the Lachin corridor,” the first official said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have already fought two wars over Karabakh in the three decades since the Soviet Union collapsed. Both had been part of the Soviet Union.
Analysts say successive rounds of talks, mediated variously by the European Union, the United States and Russia, have brought the two sides closer to a permanent peace treaty than they have been for years, but a final settlement remains elusive.
Azerbaijan on Tuesday began what it called an “anti-terrorist operation” targeting Armenian military positions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and officials in that region said there was heavy artillery firing around its capital.
The Azerbaijani defense ministry announced the start of the operation hours after four soldiers and two civilians died in landmine explosions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The ministry did not immediately give details, but said “positions on the front line and in-depth, long-term firing points of the formations of Armenia’s armed forces, as well as combat assets and military facilities are incapacitated using high-precision weapons.”
The Azerbaijani statement said: “Only legitimate military targets are being incapacitated.”
But ethnic Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement that the region’s capital Stepanakert and other villages were “under intense shelling.”
The reports raised concerns that a full-scale war over the region could resume between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which fought heavily for six weeks in 2020.
Earlier Tuesday, Azerbaijan said six people were killed in two separate explosions in the region that is partly under the control of ethnic Armenian forces.
A statement from Azerbaijan’s interior ministry, state security service and prosecutor-general said two employees of the highway department died before dawn when their vehicle was blown up by a mine and that a truckload of soldiers responding to the incident hit another mine, killing four.
Nagorno-Karabakh and sizable surrounding territories were under ethnic Armenian control since the 1994 end of a separatist war, but Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself in a six-week war in 2020. That war ended with an armistice that placed a Russian peacekeeper contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh.
However, Azerbaijan alleges that Armenia has smuggled in weapons since then. The claims led to a blockade of the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, causing severe food and medicine shortages in the region.
Red Cross shipments of flour and medical supplies reached Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, but local officials said road connections to the region were not fully open.
Ukraine will soon receive M1 Abrams tanks from the United States as Kyiv’s forces steadily advance in their counter-offensive against Moscow’s troops, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday.
Representatives of dozens of countries that support Kyiv are meeting in Germany to discuss new aid for Ukraine ahead of an address to the UN General Assembly by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Washington had promised the 31 tanks to Kyiv at the start of the year, part of more than $43 billion in security assistance pledged by the United States since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“I’m… pleased to announce that the M1 Abrams tanks that the United States had previously committed to will be entering Ukraine soon,” Austin said at the opening of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
A senior US military official said the first tanks will be sent in the coming days and the process completed within weeks.
The tanks will be paired with 120mm armor-piercing depleted uranium rounds.
Such munitions are controversial due to their association with health problems, such as cancer and birth defects, in areas where they were used in past conflicts, although they have not been definitively proven to have caused them.
The decision to provide Abrams tanks to Ukraine represented a U-turn as American defense officials had repeatedly said they were ill-suited for Kyiv’s forces due to their complexity.
Zelensky arrived in the United States on Monday, visiting wounded Ukrainian troops at a hospital ahead of his UN address, which he will make as the country’s forces push ahead with a slow-moving, high-stakes counter-offensive to wrest back territory from Russian forces.
‘Steady forward progress’
Ukraine’s limited progress against entrenched Russian positions has spurred debate among Kyiv’s Western allies over its military strategy.
But on Monday, Ukraine’s defense ministry said it had recaptured a total of seven square kilometers (nearly three square miles) last week near the eastern town of Bakhmut and also along the southern front.
Austin said Tuesday that the counter-offensive “continues to make steady forward progress.
“And brave Ukrainian troops are breaking through the heavily fortified lines of Russia’s army of aggression.”
The US defense chief also welcomed new Ukrainian defense minister Rustem Umerov, who was appointed earlier this month in a significant change for Kyiv, following corruption scandals at the ministry.
A senior US defense official said ahead of the meeting that the gathering provided an opportunity “to hear from minister Umerov himself what his vision is, what his priority is”.
“Democracies like Ukraine have… turnover in leadership all the time,” the official said, adding: “We do expect continuity (from Kyiv).”
US officials have spearheaded the push for international support for Ukraine, quickly forging a coalition to back Kyiv after Russia invaded and coordinating aid from dozens of countries through near-monthly Contact Group meetings.
As Kyiv reported that its air defense systems had downed 27 Shahed drones launched overnight in Russia’s latest aerial barrage, Austin in Ramstein urged allies to “continue to dig deep” on such systems for Ukraine as they are “saving lives”.
Ahead of the latest meeting, Germany announced it will give another 400 million euros ($428 million) of weapons and aid to Ukraine.
This will include ammunition, armored vehicles and mine-clearing equipment, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told top German tabloid Bild.
“Ammunition is what Ukraine needs most in its defensive struggle against the brutal war of aggression,” he said.
Ukraine’s supporters have also provided training to Kyiv’s troops, while the United States and other countries have imposed tough sanctions on Russia.
The targets of the sanctions include financial institutions, technology imports and energy exports.
A plane carrying five Americans freed by Iran landed in the United States on Tuesday, a day after they were swapped for the release of five Iranians held in the US and the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian funds, in a deal between the arch enemies.
CNN reported the plane had landed. The report did not provide further details.
It followed a carefully choreographed exchange, agreed after months of Qatar-mediated talks, that was triggered on Monday when the funds that had been blocked in South Korea were wired, via Switzerland, to banks in Doha.
After the transfer was confirmed, the five US prisoners plus two relatives took off on a Qatari plane from Tehran, at the same time as two of the five Iranian detainees landed in Doha on their way home. Three Iranians chose not to go to Iran.
The deal removes a point of friction between the United States, which brands Tehran a sponsor of terrorism, and Iran, which calls Washington the “Great Satan”.
But it is unclear whether it will bring the two adversaries, which have been at odds for 40 years, closer on any other issues, such as Iran’s nuclear program and its backing for regional militias or the US military presence in the Gulf and US sanctions.
The freed Americans include US-Iranian dual citizens Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Sharqi, 59, both businessmen, and Morad Tahbaz, 67, an environmentalist who also holds British nationality. Two of them have not been publicly identified.
‘Humanitarian action’
US President Joe Biden welcomed the return of the prisoners home in a statement on Monday but his administration also announced fresh US sanctions.
“We will continue to impose costs on Iran for their provocative actions in the region,” he said.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was in New York for the annual UN General Assembly, called the swap a humanitarian action. “It can certainly be a step based upon which in the future other humanitarian actions can be taken,” he added.
Relations between the United States and Iran have been especially bitter since 2018 when then-President Donald Trump pulled out of a deal aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and toughened US sanctions.
Washington suspects Iran’s nuclear program may be aimed at developing nuclear arms, a charge Iran denies.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the door open to nuclear diplomacy, but suggested nothing was imminent.
US analysts were skeptical about prospects for progress.
“The prisoner swap does likely pave the way for additional diplomacy around the nuclear program this fall, although the prospect for actually reaching a deal is very remote,” said Henry Rome of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he trusts Russia as much he trusts the West.
Explaining his recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Erdogan said he had failed to get him to resume the Black Sea grain deal the Kremlin withdrew from in July but had elicited a pledge for Russia to supply 1 million tons of grain to Africa.
“I have no reason not to trust them,” Erdogan said during an interview late Monday with US broadcaster PBS in New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly.
“To the extent the West is reliable, Russia is equally reliable. For the last 50 years, we have been waiting at the doorstep of the EU and, at this moment in time, I trust Russia just as much as I trust the West.”
Ankara has maintained close ties with both Russia and Ukraine during the 19-month war. In July last year, Türkiye and the UN engineered a deal to allow Ukrainian grain to be safely shipped from its Black Sea ports, helping alleviate a global food crisis.
Moscow pulled out of the agreement two months ago, claiming a parallel deal to allow its exports of foodstuffs and fertilizer had not been honored.
Erdogan is visiting New York four months after winning elections that extended his 20-year rule for another five years. His fresh mandate has seen signs of an improvement in Ankara’s often fractious relationship with the West.
Speaking at an event on Monday, the Turkish leader appeared to roll back comments he made immediately prior to his departure for New York, in which he suggested Türkiye could end its 24-year bid for European Union membership.
“We see that a window of opportunity has opened for the revitalization of Türkiye-European Union relations in a critical period,” Erdogan said, according to a text of the meeting published by his office.
“We continue to emphasize the importance of revitalizing Türkiye’s EU accession process.”
Erdogan also indicated improving ties with Washington, which have recently focused on Ankara’s approval of Sweden’s NATO membership application and a possible deal to supply Türkiye with F-16 fighter jets.
“We are pleased with the development of our cooperation with the US,” Erdogan said. “We have resolved most of the deadlocks during the talks with Mr. Biden and we have decided to hold more talks in line with the positive agenda.”
Türkiye and Hungary are the only NATO members not to have approved Sweden’s bid to join the defense alliance, which Stockholm made following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The issue is due to be debated by the Turkish parliament when it returns from recess next month.
Some members of the US Congress have indicated the provision of F-16s to update Türkiye’s fighter fleet is dependent on Ankara agreeing to Sweden’s NATO membership.
But Erdogan reiterated that “these two topics shouldn’t be related” although he said the decision on Sweden lies with the Turkish parliament, where his party and its allies hold a majority.
“If the parliament doesn’t make a positive decision about this bid, then there’s nothing to do,” he told PBS.
Erdogan also drew a line between Sweden’s NATO bid and Türkiye’s EU accession. In July, however, he called on EU member states to “open the way for Türkiye” in return for Sweden’s path to NATO to be cleared.
He told PBS on Monday that “Sweden’s position and our current position within the EU accession negotiations are two separate things.”
Turning to the war in Ukraine and his contacts with Putin, Erdogan said it was “quite obvious that this war is going to last a long time” but that the Russian leader was “on the side of ending this war as soon as possible.
“That’s what he said. And I believe his remarks,” Erdogan said.
Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person, local officials said.
Lviv governor Maxim Kozitsky said firefighters were tackling the blaze and that a 26-year-old man had been taken to hospital. City mayor Andriy Sadovyi later said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble.
Emergency services said the fire had spread over an area of 9,450 square meters (11,300 square yards) after an attack at around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT).
“I want to emphasize that these are ordinary industrial warehouses. Nothing military was stored there,” Kozitsky said on the Telegram messaging app.
He said Russian forces had launched 18 drones in the attack and that 15 had been shot down, including seven that were directly over the Lviv region.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has carried out frequent air strikes on Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Russia has repeatedly attacked infrastructure critical to Ukraine’s defense, energy system and agriculture but many civilians have also been killed. At least seven people were killed in July when a Russian missile slammed into a residential building in Lviv, which is far from front lines.
Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.
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