Visto l’interesse che da sempre European Affairs nutre verso l’intelligence e la difesa, non potevamo non cogliere alcune novità editoriali ed alcuni importanti anniversari – appena trascorsi ed ignoti ai più – di sicuro interesse per gli appassionati di questioni strategiche e per gli addetti ai lavori.
Three summit will be held in occasion of Trump visit. The first meeting will be useful to reinforce the cooperation between King Salman and US President Trump, who are going to discuss about the main points of their historical ties. The second one will be between Trump and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also will coincide with the half-yearly meeting of the organization. The third meeting will be between Trump and the heads of Islamic and Arab countries, which are member of Islamic Alliance to combat terrorism. At those meetings it will be expected the participation of El-Sisi, Egyptian President, but also Sharif, Pakistan Prime Minister.
U.S. Democrats on Sunday criticized the lack of women on a working group in the Republican-led Senate that will craft a plan to pass legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare. As the Senate begins to wrestle with a Republican healthcare bill narrowly approved by the House of Representatives last week, senators questioned why the 13-member working group put together by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell does not include any of the chamber’s five Republican women. “Women’s health is a big part of this and women are a majority of the population, and their health interests deserve to be contemplated in any reform”, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
North Korea said on Sunday it has detained another U.S. citizen on suspicion of “hostile acts” against the state, which would make him the fourth American to be held by the isolated country amid heightened diplomatic tensions with Washington. Kim Hak Song, who worked for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, was detained on Saturday, the North’s KCNA news agency said. “A relevant institution of the DPRK detained American citizen Kim Hak Song on May 6 under a law of the DPRK on suspension of his hostile acts against it”, KCNA said. DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name. A third U.S. citizen, Kim Sang Dok, who was associated with the same school, was detained in late April for hostile acts, according to the North’s official media.
North Korea on Friday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea’s intelligence service of a plot to attack its “supreme leadership” with a bio-chemical weapon and said such a “pipe-dream” could never succeed. Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks, driven by concern that North Korea might conduct its sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
A Turkish preparatory delegation is visiting the U.S. on May 5 ahead of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Washington on May 16-17, when he will meet U.S. President Donald Trump. The delegation is composed of Chief of General Staff Org. Hulusi Akar, Chief of Intelligence Hakan Fidan and presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın. Ankara and Washington want to restore ties, which have deteriorated since a failed military coup attempt in July 2016 and disagreements over U.S. support for a Kurdish militia group fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in Syria. Turkey sees the group as an extension of the outlawed PKK.
Despite bleak prospects for success, President Donald Trump promised on Wednesday “to do whatever is necessary” to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. At a White House meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Trump pledged to reinvigorate the stalled Mideast peace process that has bedeviled his predecessors and said he would serve as “a mediator, an arbitrator or a facilitator” between the two sides. “We will get it done”, Trump confidently told Abbas. The source of Trump’s optimism was not immediately apparent. He offered no details about his effort or how it would be any different from attempts over the past two decades during which former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all tried and failed. Palestinian officials said after the meeting that Trump had not raised any specific proposals to restart negotiations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday to push a plan to create security zones and deploy peacekeepers in Syria as part of ceasefire efforts.The “de-escalation zones” would be situated in rebel-held territory in the northwestern province of Idlib, in parts of Homs province in the centre, in the south, and in the opposition enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Putin said that the creation of the so-called security zones would be hard to implement without US participation. Delegations will discuss the Russian plan at peace talks in Kazakhstan today.The phone call, the third between both leaders since Trump’s inauguration, is the first time the leaders have spoken since the US struck a Syrian airbase in retaliation for Syria’s chemical attack. The two parts agree to cooperate to end the syrian conflict.
The Hamas terrorist organization wasted little time in rejecting the peace negotiations US President Donald Trump and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke of restarting during their meeting at the White House Wednesday afternoon. Abbas said that he believe that we are capable, under your leadership, your courageous stewardship, and your wisdom, as well as your great negotiating ability, We can be true partners to you to bring about a historic peace treaty. Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said that the terrorist group which rules Gaza categorically rejects Abbas’ statement and that “all of Palestine” belongs to the Palestinian Arabs. We reject Abbas’s statement that all final status issues are solvable, because national rights belong to all Palestinians and no one person can relinquish them.
President Donald Trump is giving “serious consideration” to moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday, a day before a scheduled White House visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Trump is also “personally committed” to becoming the U.S. president who finally ends the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Pence said.Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem is a politically charged act that would anger Palestinians who want east Jerusalem as a future capital and part of their sovereign territory. Such a move would also distance the U.S. from most of the international community, including its closest allies in Western Europe and the Arab world. The White House said on Monday that Trump will continue to talk to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about settlement activity in Judea and Samaria. The announcement was made following reports that Israel plans to build 15,000 new homes in east Jerusalem. “I’m sure that we’ll continue to have conversations with the prime minister and that’ll be something that the president will continue to discuss”, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing after being asked if Netanyahu was snubbing the U.S. president.