North Korea has launched a newly built “tactical nuclear attack submarine” capable of carrying out an underwater nuclear attack that would further strengthen the state nuclear deterrence, the country’s media said Friday.
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the launching ceremony for the submarine, held last Wednesday, was attended by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
“The submarine-launching ceremony heralded the beginning of a new chapter for bolstering up the naval force of North Korea and made clearer the steadfast will of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and the government to further strengthen the state nuclear deterrence both in quality and quantity and by leaps and bounds for regional and global peace and security,” the KCNA said.
The Biden administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on five Turkish companies and a Turkish national, accusing them of helping Russia evade sanctions and supporting Moscow in its war against Ukraine.
The designations, first reported by Reuters, target shipping and trade companies accused of helping repair sanctioned vessels tied to Russia’s defense ministry and helping the transfer of “dual-use goods”. The move is part of a bigger package of measures hitting Russia with sanctions on about 150 targets, including the country’s largest carmaker.
The action comes at a delicate moment for US-Türkiye relations, with Washington hoping Ankara will ratify NATO membership for Sweden when the Turkish parliament reconvenes in early October.
The United States and its allies imposed extensive sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, but supply channels from Black Sea neighbor Türkiye and other trading hubs have remained open, prompting Washington to issue repeated warnings about the export of chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in Moscow’s war effort.
Multiple senior US officials, including Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, have traveled to Türkiye since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as part of a pressure campaign to prevent any Turkish companies from helping Russia circumvent US curbs.
“For the past 18 months, we’ve shared our concerns with the Turkish government and private sector and informed them of the significant risks of doing business with those we’ve sanctioned who are tied to Russia’s war,” a senior Treasury official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“These designations reflect our ongoing commitment to target individuals and entities who provide material support to sanctioned entities,” the official added.
Blocking dual-use goods
The US Treasury Department in a statement said it imposed sanctions on Margiana Insaat Dis Ticaret and Demirci Bilisim Ticaret Sanayi, saying the Türkiye-based companies were among those that Russia relied on for importing “much-needed dual-use goods to enable its unprovoked war of aggression on Ukraine.”
It said the former has made hundreds of shipments to sanctioned Russian entities that are part of the supply chain for producing military drones used in the Ukraine war, while the latter has sent sensors and measuring tools into Russia.
Reuters could not immediately reach the companies for comment.
The US State Department imposed sanctions on Denkar Ship Construction for providing ship repair services to previously designated vessels of a company connected to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Denkar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The State Department also targeted Türkiye-based shipyard agency ID Ship Agency and its owner Ilker Dogruyol as well as CTL Limited, which the State Department said was an intermediary that ships electronic components of US- and European-origin to companies in Russia.
The firms and Dogruyol had no immediate comment.
The broader sanctions package targets Russia’s industrial base, maritime sector and technology suppliers, as well as facilities producing and repairing Russian weapons systems.
Among those targeted was Russia’s largest carmaker, Avtovaz, while Gaz Group – another automotive manufacturer – was hit with a new round of sanctions. Avtovaz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US also imposed sanctions on a major local copper producer – Russian Copper Company.
A Finland-based network that specializes in shipping foreign electronics to Russia-based end-users was also targeted in the action as Washington cracks down on sanctions evasion. The Treasury slapped sanctions on Finland-based logistics firms Siberica Oy and Luminor Oy, accusing them of sending a wide variety of electronics into Russia.
Russia’s construction sector, revenue streams from extractive industries and Russia-based banks, wealth management consulting, auditing and investment firms were also hit in the action.
NATO membership
NATO member Türkiye has sought to maintain good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv amid the war. It opposes the sanctions on principle but has said they will not be circumvented in Türkiye and that no shipped products can be used by Russia’s military.
Ties with the US have been strained over Türkiye’s reluctance to support the bids of Sweden and Finland to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine. While Finnish membership was sealed in April, Sweden’s application remains held up by Türkiye and Hungary.
Ankara has accused Sweden of harboring militants hostile to the Turkish state, mainly members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), deemed a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the European Union and United States.
After months of objections, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed at a NATO summit in July to forward Sweden’s NATO bid to the Turkish parliament for ratification, but the exact timing of the approval remains unclear.
The United States has repeatedly said Sweden has done enough to alleviate Türkiye’s concerns and that its membership should be approved now.
The Cypriot president said Thursday that joint military maneuvers with three other European Union member states underway in the Eastern Mediterranean underscore the bloc’s readiness to ensure security and stability in the region.
President Nikos Christodoulides said the drill with France, Italy and Greece is of “particular geostrategic significance” for the 27-member bloc and others, including the United States.
Christodoulides said his government is putting a “special emphasis” on upgrading the island’s military installations in order to take full advantage of its geographical location at the southeasternmost corner of Europe and close to the Middle East and Africa.
He spoke ahead of a visit to the French frigate Chevalier Paul, which is taking part in the drill, and stressed that the show of strength is not turned against any other country — a veiled allusion to Türkiye, with which Cyprus shares a violent past, including a 1974 Turkish invasion brought on by a coup aimed at forming a union with Greece.
Since then, the island has been divided along ethnic lines, with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north separated from the Greek Cypriot south where the internationally recognized government is seated.
NATO-member Türkiye does not recognize Cyprus as a state, and claims much of the island’s offshore exclusive economic zone where several significant natural gas deposits have been discovered.
The five-day drill, which kicked off on Monday and is code-named EUNOMIA 4-2023, involves naval and air forces, including French Rafale jet fighters and Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft, according to a Cyprus Defense Ministry statement.
The exercise also includes for the first time this year civilian evacuation drills in the event of a regional emergency.
Britain used Cyprus as a waypoint to evacuate hundreds of its citizens from Sudan when fighting erupted there between Sudanese military and a rival, paramilitary force in mid-April. As chaos and violence engulfed the African country, many foreign countries rushed to evacuate their citizens from Sudan through complex airlifts and land
The US and three European allies have threatened Iran with another resolution at the UN nuclear watchdog’s board demanding action on issues such as explaining uranium traces found at undeclared sites, but left open whether or when they might follow through.
The warning delivered by Britain, France and Germany – the so-called E3 – and the US to a quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors meeting published on Thursday comes as the West’s standoff with Iran has been complicated by secret US-Iran talks.
A November resolution ordered Tehran to cooperate urgently with the IAEA’s investigation into the presence of uranium particles at three undeclared sites, since narrowed down to two.
Western powers have recently condemned Iran for stonewalling the IAEA on that and other issues like the re-installation surveillance cameras removed last year, and for enriching uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons grade. But in parallel diplomats say the United States has held secret “de-escalation” talks with Iran, potentially muddying the waters.
Those de-escalation talks, which Washington does not acknowledge, cover issues such as Iran’s recent slowdown of enrichment to 60% purity, frozen Iranian funds abroad, and a prisoner swap, diplomats say.
“If Iran fails to implement the essential and urgent actions contained in the November 2022 Resolution and the 4th March Joint Statement in full, the Board will have to be prepared to take further action in support of the (IAEA) Secretariat to hold Iran accountable in the future, including the possibility of a resolution,” the four Western powers said in a statement to the 35-nation IAEA board.
Iran tends to bristle at resolutions against it and respond by expanding or accelerating its nuclear activities. Iran says its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful uses. Western powers say there is no credible civilian explanation for it.
The joint statement addressed the re-installation of monitoring equipment such as cameras but only a fraction of the cameras the IAEA wants to put in place have been set up.
Rather than seek another binding resolution against Tehran for the lack of progress on these issues at this week’s IAEA board meeting, however, the Western powers issued a non-binding joint statement with 59 other countries calling on Iran to “act immediately” on issues including explaining the uranium traces.
A total of 22 countries of the 35 on the board backed the statement, fewer than the 26 that supported the resolution in November.
The small Italian island of Lampedusa is being overwhelmed by the numbers of migrants arriving on its shores after thousands of people landed from North Africa on boats over the past two days, its mayor said on Thursday.
Lampedusa sits in the Mediterranean between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily and is a first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the European Union.
“In the past 48 hours, around 7,000 people have arrived in Lampedusa, which has always welcomed them with open arms,” mayor Filippo Mannino told Italy’s RTL 102.5 radio.
“However, we have now reached a point of no return and the island is in crisis,” he said.
“Europe and the Italian state must step in immediately with a rapid support operation and swift transfer of people.”
The island normally has a population of just over 6,000.
Some migrants on the island placed towels over their heads to shield themselves from the late summer sun as they waited to be processed by the Italian authorities.
Footage from earlier in the week showed queues of flimsy boats, full of migrants, waiting to dock at Lampedusa’s port. The island’s reception center has an official capacity of around 400.
Hundreds of migrants were transferred to Porto Empedocle in Sicily on an overnight ferry where they were greeted by volunteers handing out food.
The arrivals are a headache for Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government which took power last October with a promise to crack down on immigration.
Meloni has sought to improve ties with Tunisia, from where most of the boats are now leaving, and in July Tunis and the European Union signed a pact aimed at stemming migrant flows.
An Italian foreign ministry spokesman had no immediate comment when asked why the deal, which pledged 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion) of EU money to help Tunisia’s battered economy, was failing to produce results on migration.
Since the start of the year, almost 124,000 sea migrants have landed on Italian shores, almost double the number recorded in the same period in 2022.
The German government said on Wednesday it had suspended an agreement with Italy to voluntarily take in refugees, accusing Rome of failing to honor its side of the bargain.
The commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, is one of three senior officials targeted in a rare criminal complaint filed with Paris prosecutors Thursday.
Along with Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Al-Quds force chief Esmail Qaani, Salami is accused of “death threats and justifying terrorism,” a lawyer for the six Iranian and Franco-Iranian plaintiffs said.
Their case refers to public threats issued by the three men between December 2022 and January 2023 against people backing the nationwide protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested for violating Iran’s female dress code.
Khatib said on December 13 last year that “anyone playing a role in the riots will be punished, wherever they are in the world”.
The declaration was spread widely in the press and on social media, according to the text of the criminal complaint seen by AFP.
Meanwhile, Salami himself said on January 10 that “the French people and the managers of (satirical anti-clerical magazine) Charlie Hebo” should not “concern themselves with the fate of Salman Rushdie”.
The British author has long been subject to a fatwa calling for his killing issued by Iran’s late leader Khomeini and was gravely wounded in an August 2022 knife attack. Charlie Hebdo staff were massacred by extremist gunmen in 2015 after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
“These threats are in fact just so many disguised fatwas” — an Islamic legal decree — against Iranian opposition activists around the world, said Chirinne Ardakani, a French-Iranian lawyer from the Iran Justice Collective.
“The regime of Iran and its agents are keeping up a long tradition of threatening Iranian opposition figures in exile with death, hunting and murdering them on French and European soil,” the 22-page legal complaint read.
Some living in France since the 1980s and others recently exiled, the six plaintiffs include a filmmaker, a journalist, a writer and a rights activist, all of whom have made public stands against Tehran.
Their largely symbolic complaint marks the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 — which triggered the “Woman. Life. Freedom” movement across Iran.
“It’s about showing the Iranian regime, which wants to suffocate opposition, that wherever Iranians are in the world, they will continue to make themselves heard,” Ardakani said.
“We’re sending up balloons, we’re using every avenue offered by French law, but the final aim is to have the perpetrators of atrocities prosecuted and brought to justice in France,” she added.
The France-based Iran Justice Collective has been documenting abuses and repression against demonstrators over the past year, which the group says have resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests.
Ukraine destroyed a Russian air defense system near the town of Yevpatoriya in annexed Crimea in an overnight drone and missile attack conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine and navy on Thursday, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters.
Russia said its air defenses shot down 11 attack drones overnight over Crimea, which Russia seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Reuters was unable to independently verify the accounts.
The Ukrainian source said drones blinded a Russian “Triumf” air defense system by attacking its radar and antenna. The navy then fired two Ukrainian-made Neptune cruise missiles at the system’s launch complexes, the source said.
The Neptune anti-ship missile has been modified to attack ground targets, military analysts say.
The attack comes a day after Ukraine launched missiles at the Crimean port of Sevastopol, home to the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet, in an attack that signalled Ukraine’s growing missile capabilities.
Kim Jong Un invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit North Korea during a rare summit, stoking US concerns that a revived Moscow-Pyongyang axis could bolster Russia’s military in Ukraine and provide Kim sensitive missile technology.
Putin accepted the invitation, according to North Korean state news agency KCNA, though there was no immediate confirmation from the Kremlin. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin has rarely travelled abroad.
Calling each other “comrades”, the two leaders celebrated to their friendship on Wednesday after the 70-year-old Putin showed Kim, 39, around Russia’s most modern space launch facility and they held talks alongside their defense ministers.
“At the end of the reception, Kim Jong Un courteously invited Putin to visit the DPRK at a convenient time,” KCNA said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s formal name.
“Putin accepted the invitation with pleasure and reaffirmed his will to invariably carry forward the history and tradition of the Russia-DPRK friendship,” KCNA said.
For the United States and allies, the burgeoning friendship between Kim and Putin is a concern: Washington has accused North Korea of providing arms to Russia, but it is unclear whether any deliveries have been made.
Both Russia and North Korea have denied those claims, but promised to deepen defense cooperation, and during a visit to North Korea in July, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was shown banned ballistic missiles by Kim.
Kim is due on Thursday to visit military and civilian aviation factories in the Russian city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur and to inspect Russia’s Pacific fleet in Vladivostok, Putin said.
‘Friendship’
Over a sumptuous lunch of Russian “pelmeni” dumplings made with Kamchatka crab, white Amur fish soup and sturgeon, Kim on Wednesday toasted to Putin’s health, to the victory of “great Russia” and to Korean-Russian friendship, predicting victory for Moscow in its “sacred fight” with the West.
North Korea was founded in September 1948 with the backing of the Soviet Union, and Moscow supported it for decades during the Cold War, though support dropped off after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
In recent years, China has been seen as the power with the most influence over Kim, but Pyongyang’s leaders have often tried to balance ties with both Moscow and Beijing.
After taking over from Boris Yeltsin in 1999, Putin visited Pyongyang in July 2000 for a meeting with Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un.
At the summit on Wednesday, it was unclear just how far Putin was prepared to go in fulfilling North Korean wish lists for technology.
Amid the grinding artillery battles in Ukraine, Russia has ramped up its shell production, but a North Korean supply line could be useful.
North Korea is believed to have a large stockpile of artillery shells and rockets compatible with Soviet-era weapons, as well as a history of producing such ammunition.
Asked whether Russia could simply remove sanctions on North Korea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia remained a responsible member of the UN Security Council.
But Peskov added that Moscow would develop its relations with North Korea in accordance with its own interests.
The US State Department said the Biden administration “won’t hesitate” to impose additional sanctions on Russia and North Korea if they conclude any new arms deals.
Russian diplomats said the United States was hypocritical to criticize the summit because Washington had sown chaos and sent weapons to allies across the world.
“The United States has no right to lecture us on how to live,” Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said in a statement.
South Korea’s unification minister, Kim Young-ho, who is in charge of relations with the North, expressed “deep concerns” over military cooperation and possible arms transactions between Pyongyang and Moscow, saying the two countries were apparently continuing to pursue “some kind of” a military deal.
Ukraine said it struck Russian naval targets and port infrastructure early on Wednesday in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, in what appeared to be the biggest attack of the war on the home of the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet.
The strike on Crimea, which was seized and annexed by Russia in 2014, was confirmed by Moscow. It highlighted Kyiv’s growing missile capabilities as Russia continues to bombard Ukraine from afar with long-range missiles and assault drones.
“We confirm a large landing vessel and submarine were hit. We do not comment on the means (used) for the strike,” Ukrainian military intelligence official Andriy Yusov told Reuters, giving no further details on the scale of the damage.
Russia’s defense ministry said in statement that Ukraine had attacked a Black Sea shipyard with 10 cruise missiles and three uncrewed speedboats in the early hours, damaging two military vessels that had been undergoing repairs.
It said it downed seven of the incoming missiles and that the attack boats had been destroyed by a Russian patrol ship.
An image circulated online and verified by Reuters showed a docked vessel that had sustained serious damage.
“It really is the biggest attack on Sevastopol since the beginning of the war,” retired Ukrainian navy captain Andriy Ryzhenko told Reuters by telephone.
The city is home to the Black Sea Fleet which the Kremlin uses to project power into the Middle East and Mediterranean and – during the war in Ukraine – to impose a de facto blockade on Ukraine’s seaborne food exports via the Turkish straits.
Ukraine has tried to push back against the fleet’s naval power by attacking with sea drones packed with explosives, but Russia has continued to use its warships for missile attacks on Ukraine throughout the more than 18-month-old war.
It was not clear what kind of missile was used by Kyiv in the attack on Sevastopol, which lies about 300 km (185 miles) from Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa.
Ryzhenko said Ukraine may have used domestically made Neptune anti-ship missiles that had been modified to work against ground targets. British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles were another possibility, he said.
Britain’s Sky News cited unnamed sources saying Storm Shadows were used in the attack.
The West has poured weapons worth billions of dollars into Ukraine to help it fend off Russian forces that have occupied swathes of territory in the south and east since their full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Public claim of responsibility
The Ukrainian military, which launched a counteroffensive in early June, took the unusual step of publicly claiming responsibility for the strike, something it does not typically do for attacks on Russia or the Crimea peninsula.
“On the morning of Sept. 13 the Ukrainian armed forces conducted successful strikes on naval assets and port infrastructure of the occupiers at the docks of temporarily occupied Sevastopol,” it said on Telegram.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea and a major Black Sea port, said on Telegram that at least 24 people had been injured.
He posted a night photo of flames engulfing what appeared to be port infrastructure. Russian Telegram channels posted videos and more photos of flames at a facility by the water.
On the streets of Sevastopol on Wednesday afternoon, residents said the attack had woken them up.
“My child was woken up as well. It was about 3 in the morning. We got very scared. Everything was shaking,” said Nadezhda Lunyova.
Another resident, Alexander Ivanov, said he was unfazed as he had just returned from the war.
“Everything is calm in town now. People are actually even curiously checking what happened. There’s no fear,” he said.
China has not issued a ban on the purchase and use of foreign phone brands, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday, in response to media reports that said some government agencies and firms had told staff to stop using Apple’s iPhones at work.
“China has not issued laws, regulations or policy documents that prohibit the purchase and use of foreign brand phones such as Apple’s,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press briefing when asked about the reports.
“But recently we did notice a lot of media exposure of security incidents related to Apple’s phones. The Chinese government attaches great importance to information and cyber security and treats both domestic and foreign companies as equals,” she added.
Reuters recently reported that China had widened existing curbs on the use of iPhones by state employees, telling staff at some central government agencies to stop using their Apple mobiles at work.
The supposed ban coincides with rising tensions between Beijing and Washington, and signals growing challenges for Apple, which relies heavily on China for revenue growth and manufacturing.
Mao said China hoped all mobile phone companies would strictly abide its laws and regulations, as well as “strengthen information security management”.
China has increasingly emphasized using locally-made tech products, as technology has become a major national security issue for Beijing and Washington.
The US House overwhelmingly approved measures Tuesday targeting Iran for its human rights record and placing restrictions on the country’s ability to import or export its expanding arsenal of weapons.
The measures would impose a series of sanctions on Iran’s supreme leader, president and other individuals as Washington seeks to further punish the Islamic Republic ahead of the one-year anniversary of nationwide protests. The resolutions will now go to the Senate, where it is unclear if the Democratic-controlled chamber will take them up.
The first bill takes aim at Iran’s production and exports of missiles and drones by sanctioning individuals involved in the process, while the second imposes sanctions on high-ranking government officials for “human rights abuses and support for terrorism.” The third resolution specifically condemns the government’s persecution of the Baha’i minority.
The near-unanimous passage of all three represents a renewed condemnation by Congress against Iran’s government, which engaged in a brutal crackdown of its citizenry after the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., the co-sponsor of the second bill, posted on social media that it was past time “to sanction those responsible for Mahsa’s murder and the repression of brave Iranian protestors.”
Amini had been detained for allegedly wearing her hijab too loosely in violation of strictures demanding women in public wear headscarves. The 22-year-old died three days later in police custody. Authorities said she had a heart attack but hadn’t been harmed. Her family has disputed that, leading to the public outcry.
The protests that ensued represented one of the largest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A security force crackdown that followed saw over 500 people killed and more than 22,000 people detained.
The unrest only further complicated any attempt by the Biden administration to restart negotiations between Washington and Tehran — after former President Donald Trump abruptly withdrew US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
And it has remained a point of contention for Republicans in Congress, who have sought to use the power of their majority in the House over the past several months to introduce or pass a series of binding and nonbinding resolutions related to the country’s abuse of human rights as well as its nuclear and missile programs.
The passage of the resolutions also comes a day after the Biden administration cleared the way for the release of five American citizens detained in Iran by issuing a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money without fear of US sanctions, The AP reported.
In response, Rep, Michael McCaul, the GOP chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said while he was relieved to see the hostages released, the deal sets a bad precedent.
“I remain deeply concerned that the administration’s decision to waive sanctions to facilitate the transfer of $6 billion in funds for Iran, the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism, creates a direct incentive for America’s adversaries to conduct future hostage-taking,” he said.
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