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In Turkey, a commemoration was held to mark the first anniversary of the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi’s slaying sparked widespread international condemnation of Saudi Arabia, and the calls for justice are continuing, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
 
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed on the importance of protecting the rights of Christian minorities in the Middle East during a meeting at the Vatican on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said.Pompeo, whose trip to Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia and
Greece has been overshadowed by an impeachment inquiry at home targeting President Donald Trump, met the pope for about a half an hour.
“They reaffirmed the United States and Holy See commitment
to advancing religious freedom around the world, and in
particular, protecting Christian communities in the Middle
East,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said.
Ancient Christian communities face persecution or harassment
in some Middle Eastern countries, and many Christians have left
to build new lives in the West.
The Vatican did not issue a statement on the contents of the
meeting. It usually does so only when the pope meets heads of
state.
On Wednesday Pompeo attended a Vatican conference on
religious freedom where he blasted China over its treatment of
Uighur Muslims.
Pompeo has already met Italian leaders and is due to visit
his ancestral home in the rugged Abruzzo region northeast of
Rome before leaving Italy.
 
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A somber commemoration marking the first anniversary of the slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was held Wednesday in Istanbul just a few meters from the Saudi consulate where he was dismembered.Khashoggi’s brutal killing sparked widespread international condemnation of Saudi Arabia, with calls for justice continuing.A year ago, security camera images showed Khashoggi entering the consulate to collect documents for his forthcoming wedding. Inside, death awaited him at the hands of a Saudi hit squad suspected of acting on orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Commemoration in Istanbul for Slain Journalist Jamal Khashoggi video player.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and owner of The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi wrote columns, was a surprise attendee of Wednesday’s commemoration. (Courtesy Dorian Jones)International human rights groups, friends and colleagues of Khashoggi were present. Among them was Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, whose newspaper published Khashoggi’s columns.“Hatice, no one should ever have to endure what you did,” Bezos said in a short speech. “Right here, where you are, you paced that street for hours. Pacing and waiting, and he never came out. It is unimaginable. You need to know you are in our hearts, and you are not alone,” he said.Khashoggi’s columns critical of the crown prince are believed to have made him a target.Wednesday commemoration of Jamal Khashoggi’s slaying was held a few meters from Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was killed, allegedly by a Saudi hit squad. (Courtesy Dorian Jones)Calls for justiceEleven people have been charged in Saudi Arabia in Khashoggi’s death, some of whom were caught on Turkish security cameras arriving in Istanbul. Crown Prince Mohammed denies any involvement in the killing, but intelligence officials dispute his claim.Many regional experts claim it is inconceivable for such a high-profile killing to take place in a Saudi diplomatic mission without the crown prince’s knowledge.United Nations Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, who led an international investigation into Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, addressed Wednesday’s ceremony. She said holding all to account for his death carries critical importance to prevent future crimes. (Courtesy Dorian Jones)Attending Wednesday’s ceremony was United Nations Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, who led an international inquiry into Khashoggi’s killing. Addressing the ceremony, she called for justice.“No one should get away with murder,” she said. “No matter who they are or how high their station in life, whether they raised the deadly fist or ordered the deadly blow.”Callamard stressed that the battle for justice for Khashoggi has a much broader symbolic importance.“We are also standing against any authority that seeks to do the same,” she added. “To kill with impunity journalists, human rights defenders, dissidents, and then audaciously rely upon the indifference of the world to provide them crude cover.”Outrage forgottenMany of the attendees at Wednesday’s ceremony expressed fears that the international community had moved on from their initial outcry over Khashoggi’s savage death.Andrew Gardener, Turkey researcher for Amnesty International, says international leaders are failing to hold to account Saudi Arabian leaders for Khashoggi’s death. (Courtesy Dorian Jones)“The international community, with states like the United States, have prioritized diplomatic and trade relations with Saudi Arabia over justice,” Andrew Gardener, senior Turkey researcher at Amnesty International, said at the ceremony.Gardener said Wednesday’s ceremony was essential in efforts to check world leaders’ eagerness to leave behind the Khashoggi killing.A marble plinth with Jamal Khashoggi’s name was unveiled at Wednesday’s commemoration in the shadow of the Saudi consulate where he was killed. (Courtesy Dorian Jones)“I think it is necessary to remind everyone what sorry state the international order has come to that allows a state like Saudi Arabia to be able to kill a critical journalist in their own consulate building,” he said. “To remind people how important it is to get justice for Jamal Khashoggi, and to make journalists all around the world safer as a result.”At the end of the ceremony, Cengiz unveiled a marble plinth with Khashoggi’s name carved on it.Attendees pledged to continue fighting to hold Khashoggi’s killers accountable, and to not let his death become a footnote in history.
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The European Union has reacted with skepticism to new proposals from Britain for a deal to leave the bloc.
 
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined the plans Tuesday, saying they were aimed at breaking the impasse over the future of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which becomes an external EU frontier after Brexit.
 
Johnson said the proposal was the final offer he would make to Brussels. Britain is due to leave the EU at the end of the month.
 
Speaking to supporters at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester Tuesday, Johnson repeated his pledge to refuse to ask for a Brexit extension.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivers a speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, England, Oct. 2, 2019. “We are coming out of the EU on Oct. 31 come what may. Let’s get Brexit done. We can, we must, and we will,” Johnson said, amid cheers from party members.
 
Johnson’s new proposals would eliminate the so-called “Irish backstop” from the withdrawal agreement, which would have kept Britain bound closely to EU rules to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland until an alternative could be agreed upon.
 
Instead, Britain is proposing that Northern Ireland stay in the European single market for goods, but leave the bloc’s customs union. This would require some customs checks on or close to the border.
 
Early reaction suggests the plans fall short of European and Irish demands.“We don’t think that this is really the safeguard that Ireland needs,” said Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the European Parliament Brexit Steering Group.
 
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier echoed those concerns, warning that “a lot of work still needs to be done.”
 
There are also domestic hurdles. Even if Johnson and the EU can strike a deal, it still has to be ratified in Parliament, and Johnson simply doesn’t have a parliamentary majority, says Alan Wager of the UK in a Changing Europe program at King’s College London.A truck races past a sign against the reestablishment of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Oct. 1, 2019.“The European Union now is worried that Boris Johnson has created such a divided House of Commons that any deal that Boris Johnson comes back with can’t be voted through by (opposition) Labor MPs,” Wagner said.
 
Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, saw her withdrawal agreement rejected three times. Johnson’s government would likely be reliant on Labor votes, but party leader Jeremy Corbyn signaled his opposition Tuesday.
 
“It’s worse than Theresa May’s deal. I can’t see it getting the support that (Johnson) thinks it will get,” Corbyn said.
 
Recent legislation passed by opposition MPs compels the prime minister to ask Brussels for a Brexit extension if he can’t strike a deal. Johnson is finding himself increasingly boxed in, says Wager.
 
“So, the options open to Boris Johnson are essentially to resign as prime minister, or to go and request that extension, but to make it very clear that he’s being dragged there and he doesn’t want to be there. Maybe try and stage a walkout of the (European) Council halfway through, or so on. What he really wants to make clear to those Brexit voters, those Brexit supporters, is that he is breaking his promise but he really doesn’t want to.”
 
With an election likely imminent, analysts say the political maneuvering is intended not just for Europe but also for the British electorate back home. 
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For decades, Interpol, the France-based global police network, has played a critical role in fighting crime across international borders. Among other things, it promotes global cooperation among law enforcement agencies.But the same agency that has helped catch thousands of criminals is increasingly being exploited by authoritarian regimes such as Russia and Turkey to harass their political enemies who live in exile, according to U.S. officials, lawmakers and immigration attorneys.Their weapon of choice? The Red Notice, an alert issued by Interpol to member countries that a person is wanted for arrest and extradition. Any member country can file a Red Notice as long as it complies with Interpol’s rules. The agency does little vetting. Last year, Interpol issued 13,516 Red Notices, many suspected to be persecutory.Critics say the abuse has trickled down through the U.S. immigration system where authorities often treat Red Notices as “arrest warrants” to target asylum-seekers and other foreign nationals wanted on trumped-up charges in their home countries.The problem dates back to the early days of the administration of former President Barack Obama, but immigration lawyers say it has escalated amid the Trump administration-led immigration crackdown.“This blind acceptance of an Interpol communication without scrutiny can, and often does, turn ICE officials and our own immigration judges into unwitting agents of repressive regimes,” Sandra Grossman, an immigration attorney, recently testified before the U.S. Helsinki Commission, an independent U.S. government agency investigating the abuses.Abuses of Red NoticesThe precise number of asylum-seekers and other immigrants affected by persecutory Red Notices is not known. One expert, Ted Bromund of the Heritage Foundation, estimates it runs into the dozens, and possibly “the low 100.” A recent survey by the American Immigration Lawyers Association turned up nearly two dozen previously unreported cases of abuse of the Red Notice.Increasingly alarmed, members of Congress are pushing legislation to put a stop to the abuses. Last month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the Transnational Repression Accountability and Prevention Act.In addition to requiring the U.S. government to press for enhanced screening of Interpol alerts, the TRAP Act codifies a long-standing U.S. prohibition against arresting someone solely based on a Red Notice.If enacted, the legislation “should help counter Interpol abuse in the United States and perhaps globally if it’s able to achieve reforms within Interpol itself,” Nate Schenkkan, director of special research at the Freedom House, said at a recent Helsinki Commission hearing.Interpol, despite its name, is not a police agency with the power to investigate and arrest. Instead, the group, headquartered in Lyon, serves as more of a conduit for its 194 members, notifying law enforcement agencies about wanted persons through Red Notices and other color-coded alerts.Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they vet Red Notices to ensure they’re legitimate.But while the agency has successfully removed thousands of dangerous criminals from the country on the basis of Interpol alerts, critics say ICE’s policy of treating a Red Notice as an arrest warrant has swept up otherwise innocent foreign nationals seeking to live in the United States.This policy is at odds with the Justice Department’s own manual, which cautions prosecutors that a Red Notice in and of itself is not a basis for arrest.“We’re talking about issues involving U.S. government policy and agencies that are supposed to carry out those policies not following them,” Grossman said.Arrested by ICEIn 2017, a Russian entrepreneur, escaping from what he claimed was a cooked-up prosecution in Russia, was arrested by ICE at his asylum interview, said Grossman, who later filed a Freedom of Information Act disclosure request with ICE to find out the basis for the entrepreneur’s arrest.“It was quite enlightening to read the FOIA results,” Grossman said. “It just said, ‘Individual is the subject of a Red Notice. Danger to the community. Extreme flight risk. Apprehend Immediately.’”Although Interpol later canceled the Red Notice on appeal, Grossman said her client remains “in a legal limbo, unable to travel, unable to normalize his status until his deportation hearings are final.”ICE did not respond to questions about its use of Red Notices. In a statement to VOA, a Justice Department spokeswoman said, “Interpol has instituted a number of safeguards and processes to detect abuses and ensure that all notices meet the Interpol standards and we continue to work within that framework. At the same time, we actively consult with other U.S. agencies on their use of Interpol notices issued by other countries.”It’s not just ICE that treats Red Notices as evidence of criminality. Immigration judges, too, often impose exceptionally high bonds or refuse to release a detained immigrant because of a Red Notice, according to immigration attorneys.A Chinese citizen represented by Grossman has spent months locked up in a detention center because of a Red Notice, she said. “The judge has refused to issue him a bond solely because of the Red Notice.”The problem stems from a larger systematic abuse of Red Notices that for years has dogged Interpol, where submitting an alert is as easy as filling out an online message. The result has been a dramatic escalation in the number of Red Notices, many of them abusive, over the past 10 years.“It made abuse much easier to perpetrate,” said Bromund, of the Heritage Foundation, referring to Interpol’s new electronic filing system. Most prolificTurkey is believed to be the most prolific abuser, followed by Russia, China, and the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.U.S. authorities have pushed back against clearly spurious Red Notices, dismissing at least eight alerts issued by Russia for prominent Kremlin critic Bill Browder.“We cannot allow Interpol to be weaponized against journalists, dissenting voices and oppressed minorities,” Edward O’Callaghan, a senior Justice Department official, said at a recent event commemorating Interpol Washington’s 50th anniversary.Interpol, too, has at times intervened in blatantly abusive cases. When Turkey submitted requests for the arrests of “tens of thousands of people” after a failed 2016 coup attempt, Interpol “essentially set aside and didn’t honor them,” said Schenkkan, of Freedom House.“It does indicate that there is at least some willingness to address the most flagrant abuses of the system,” he said.
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This story originated in FILE – German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier gives a statement at Luebeck City Hall before a meeting of G-7 foreign ministers, Luebeck, Germany, April 14, 2015.The plan, first proposed by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, aims to get both sides to agree to a set of key articles outlined in the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 as way to jump-start settlement negotiations.Critics of the deal say it makes too many concessions to Russia’s interest in seeing pro-Russian regions of the Donbas assume more self-governance — something Russian has long advocated — while supporters say it may be a crucial step toward stopping the violence and reaching toward a broader resolution of the 5-year-old war.FILE – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, left, and Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend debates at the Olympic stadium in Kiev, Ukraine, April 19, 2019.‘Putin’s formula’Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who was defeated by Zelenskiy in a landslide election earlier this year, was quick to slam the deal.“The Steinmeier formula means Putin’s formula, which radically changes the sequence of actions within Minsk agreements and throws away the roadmap of Minsk agreements,” Poroshenko said in an interview with local news outlets.Without a full retreat of “all foreign occupation forces” and disarmament “illegal military forces” and the return of Ukrainians displaced by the war, “no election can be legitimate or considered free will of the citizens.”Residents in the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk expressed a cautious optimism that the deal would bring peace, but also concern that the pace of change would be too slow.“In our view we made a huge breakthrough, as we have been urging Ukraine to agree with the Steinmeier formula,” said Ukrainian national Natalia Nesterova of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk People Republic, which is not officially recognized domestically or internationally. “In these three years nothing worked, neither the direct instructions of the Normandy format advisers nor direct instructions of the Normandy format leaders. And today, after yet another direct signal from the Normandy format advisors, the Ukrainian side after all agreed to sign Steinmeier formula.”Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov praised the agreement, saying he’s hopeful that a date will soon be set to resume the Normandy format peace talks between France, German, Ukraine and Russia for the first time since 2016.FILE – Members of the Donbas self-defense battalion attend a ceremony to swear an oath to be included in a reserve battalion of the National Guard of Ukraine near Kyiv, June 23, 2014.Scant detailsFormer U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer said he doesn’t think the deal benefits Russia as much as critics say.“I’m not sure yet we know enough facts, enough details about the agreement, but one detail to my mind sounds pretty good, which is, as the president described it, that, first … Russian and Russian proxy forces have to leave occupied Donbas,” he told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.“Ukraine is then allowed to re-establish control, including presumably on the Ukraine-Russia border, and only then local elections happen,” he said. “I think that’s very much in Ukraine’s favor.”Just weeks ago, he said, “I would be surprised if the Russians would accept that because the Russians seem to indicate that they wanted to have these elections take place before Ukraine re-established control.“The lack of details regarding how Kyiv defines “local self-government or special status,” he said, remained one outstanding concern.Former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Alexander Vershbow, now with the Atlantic Council research institute, largely echoed that view, adding that it remains to be seen if Russia is interpreting the Steinmeier agreement the same way that Zelenskiy does.“Hopefully everyone will benefit from it if it is implemented in a way that’s consistent with the overall goals of Minsk, and that it is not something that is responsive to the Russian interpretation of Minsk, which is very self-serving,” he said.“President Zelenskiy has tried to reassure people that he has in mind implementing the Steinmeier formula, but only holding the elections after Russian forces and illegal militias have been removed or disarmed in the Donbas,” he added. “I think he’s absolutely right. You can’t hold elections at the barrel of a gun. But it remains to be seen if the Russians understand that this is an essential precondition for implementing the Steinmeier formula.”Vershbow also said the presence of international observers and possibly international peacekeeping forces may be necessary to oversee the withdrawal of Russian-backed militias and ensure that elections are conducted in a fair and transparent manner.Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Zelenskiy could meet for the first time as early as this month in talks aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.The war in eastern Ukraine continues despite a ceasefire agreement.
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This story originated in U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press conference at the Palace Hotel on the sidelines of the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 26, 2019.On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged he was on the telephone call between Trump and Zelenskiy that triggered the presidential impeachment investigation. The probe already has resulted in the resignation of former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who, along with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, is expected to testify Thursday before the House intelligence, oversight and foreign affairs committees.Javelin missiles are manufactured by a joint venture of Lockheed Martin, based in North Bethesda, Maryland, and Raytheon Co., which has headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. The Javelin systems, however, are produced at a facility in Tucson, Arizona.Kurt Volker, former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, gestures during an interview with Reuters in Kyiv, Oct. 28, 2017.Volker, who was appointed special envoy by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in 2017, had an unusual arrangement with the State Department. As a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Volker assumed the part-time, unpaid special envoy role, while maintaining his paid work as executive director of Arizona State University’s McCain Institute in Washington.A Politico story published last week suggested a conflict of interest, reporting that Raytheon had links to the McCain Institute and a lobbying firm for which Volker worked.Ukrainian calls specifically for the lightweight, shoulder-fired Javelins, however, date back to at least 2015.”The push to provide Ukraine with man-portable anti-armor weapons, i.e., Javelin missiles, significantly predates Amb. Volker’s appointment as special envoy,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer recently told Patrick Tucker of Defense One magazine.”I visited the Ukrainian field headquarters for military operations in Donbas in January 2015. I specifically asked the Ukrainian headquarters staff if they sought Javelins, and they shouted back da, da, Javelins’ (yes, yes, Javelins’). President Obama chose not to act on that recommendation, in part, I believe, because German Chancellor Merkel, who was just about to convene the Minsk meeting with Presidents Putin and Poroshenko, asked him not to provide lethal assistance.” The U.S. has been providing military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded its neighbor following the ouster of a Kremlin-backed president in 2014. 
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Former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker is set to testify before House committees Thursday about his involvement in U.S. President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. He is expected to speak behind closed doors to the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees.Volker has served as a special envoy to Ukraine since he was appointed to the job by then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Volker was in public service for more than 20 years, starting as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency in 1986. After that followed time in the foreign service, serving overseas in London, Brussels and Budapest. He eventually ended up as special assistant to the U.S. special envoy for Bosnia negotiations, Richard Holbrooke.Volker also served as a legislative fellow for Sen. John McCain for two years. He became the first secretary of the U.S. mission to NATO in 1998. He worked in different capacities in NATO until 2005. His work there included being in charge of U.S. preparations for the summit in Prague in 2002 and the summit of NATO members in Istanbul in 2004. Volker later became deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. He served in that position until President George W. Bush named him U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO in July 2008, where he served until May 2009. He entered the private sector as an independent director at the Wall Street Fund, and worked at other financial groups. He also worked at McLarty Associates, a global consulting firm, and BGR Group, a lobbying firm and investment bank. When Arizona State University launched the McCain Institute for International Leadership in 2012, Volker was its first executive director, a position he still holds. He returned to public life in 2017 when Tillerson appointed him special envoy to Ukraine.  
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Russia and European powers, eager to end a protracted military conflict in war-torn eastern Ukraine, welcomed a new accord between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists, but many in Ukraine dismissed the election agreement Wednesday as a capitulation to Moscow.In the deal signed Tuesday, Ukraine, Russia and mediators Germany and France agreed a local election could be held in Ukraine’s rebel-held east, where a grinding five-year conflict between the separatists and Ukrainian troops has killed more than 13,000 people.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the accord as a major step toward resolving the conflict. The election pledge was seen as the final hurdle to Zelenskiy, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of France and Germany setting a summit for peace talks.People attend a rally against recent approval of a new deal between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 2, 2019.But other Ukrainian politicians raised alarms about the accord, saying it opens the door to cementing Russia’s presence in the region.“This is capitulation to Russia,” former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, now a member of parliament, told reporters.Poroshenko said the deal is “playing into Russia’s hand” because Ukraine committed to holding the local election but did not receive any guarantees that it would regain control over all of its border with Russia.A 2015 peace agreement, brokered by France and Germany and signed in Minsk, Belarus, envisaged Ukraine regaining full control of its border with Russia only after the rebel regions receive broad autonomy and elect local and regional leaders and legislatures.Ukraine and the West say the border has served as a conduit for Russian troops and weapons. The Minsk deal’s provision for the rebel regions to have wide autonomy met broad criticism in Ukraine, effectively thwarting the agreement Zelenskiy now seeks to resuscitate.Lawmaker Andriy Parubiy, former parliament speaker, said he would push for hearings into the peace deal, accusing Zelenskiy’s new administration of sidelining society from the decision-making process in such a crucial development.Zelenskiy’s party holds a majority in parliament after resoundingly defeating Poroshenko and Parubiy’s allies in an election this summer.A woman attends a rally against the approval of a local election accord, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 2, 2019. Her sign reads: “No capitulation!”About 1,000 people protested Wednesday on the Maidan in central Kyiv, the iconic capital square that symbolizes two uprisings against Russian influence. The protesters then they marched to the presidential headquarters to vent their anger over the local election accord.The demonstration was peaceful but bigger than a similar gathering Tuesday night hours after Zelenskiy announced the deal. The crowd of protesters included Ukrainian nationalists dressed in black.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed Tuesday’s agreement as a “positive step” to implementing the 2015 accord and said the date for the summit of the four leaders would be announced soon.Russia has sought to play down its involvement in eastern Ukraine recently. Eager to get Europe to lift at least some of the sanctions over its involvement in Ukraine, Putin agreed on a major prisoner exchange with Ukraine last month.The U.S. and the European Union slapped Russia with sanctions over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and its support for the separatists, and those penalties have hurt substantial bilateral trade between Russia and Europe.Businesses in the EU — in France and Germany in particular — have been pushing for an easing of sanctions but European political leaders have insisted this can only be done if there is progress on peace in eastern Ukraine.FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference after the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assem.bly at the French mission to the UN in New York, Sept. 24, 2019French President Emmanuel Macron met with Putin and Zelenskiy separately this summer, encouraging them to relaunch the peace talks. While praising Zelenskiy for reaching out to residents in the rebel-held territories, Macron supported the decision to give back Russia its voting rights at the Council of Europe and signaled he would support Russia returning to the Group of Seven if there was progress in the Ukraine peace process.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday it was still too early to talk about the possibility of lifting sanctions, but she praised Tuesday’s agreement as a step in the right direction.“We have made some progress, but there will be many more steps to come” she said in Berlin. “So what we can say now is not that we can remove sanctions but that the conditions are there … for a meeting of state and government leaders.”German Foreign Ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said the deal “demonstrates that persistent, sustained diplomatic efforts pay off.” He insisted it would not compromise Ukraine’s territorial integrity as some fear. When asked if Ukraine needs to regain full control over the border with Russia before the vote, he said that was “the question that still needs to be discussed.”Zelenskiy insisted Tuesday that the local elections in the east would be held only under Ukrainian law and after Ukraine regains control of the border.FILE – Cars of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) move as people stand near a checkpoint before crossing the contact line between Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian troops in Mayorsk, eastern Ukraine, July 3, 2019.Darka Olifer, a spokeswoman Leonid Kuchma, who is the Ukrainian envoy to the talks, told The Associated Press that all parties have committed to consider the vote valid only if monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe rule that the elections are free and fair.Tatyana Stanovaya, a scholar at the Moscow Carnegie Center, described Tuesday’s deal as a vague document that does not commit Ukraine or Russia to anything. “Ukraine has agreed to a formula that is very vague and has no details. The question is what happens next,” she said.Views in the Kremlin on the Ukrainian conflict vary between those unwilling to offer any concessions to Kyiv and those who see more benefits in offering compromises such as allowing peacekeepers in the east, because the ongoing confrontation is weighing heavily on Russia’s economy, Stanovaya said.Zelenskiy is under pressure both from Europe, which wants to see progress in a peace settlement, and from Ukrainians, who want peace but are wary of reintegrating separatist rebels into the country’s political system.
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U.S. security officials are not laughing at the latest comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Kremlin’s attempts to interfere in U.S. elections.
Putin, speaking at an economic forum in Moscow Wednesday, dismissed U.S. allegations that Russia meddled in both the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the 2018 mid-term election as “ridiculous.”
“Or it would be ridiculous if it was not that sorrowful, because all we see now in the U.S. domestic politics ruins Russia-U.S. relations, and I am sure it harms the United States itself, too,” Putin said.
“I’m telling you as a secret – yes, we will definitely do it (meddle in next year’s U.S. presidential election) in order to deliver you the best of fun,” Putin joked with the audience. “Just don’t tell anyone.”Despite Putin’s comments, U.S. security and intelligence officials have said, consistently, that they have seen indications Russia will try to interfere with the upcoming 2020 presidential elections.
But they also say the country’s election infrastructure – including the voter registration databases and vote tabulating systems that do connect to the internet – is ready.
“We’ve got all instruments of our power in our government countering it,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Assistant Director Jeanette Manfra told VOA Wednesday when asked about Putin’s remarks.
Manfra also said Americans should feel secure when they go to the polls in the 2020 presidential election, noting there are sensors now monitoring key systems in all 50 states and that communication between federal, state and local election officials has never been better.
“I remain very, very confident that the tally of the votes, the actual vote cast, itself, will be faithful to what the voter actually puts into the machine,” she said in response to questions during a Washington Post Cybersecurity Summit.
Still, concerns persist that Russia may try new tricks to interfere with U.S. election systems.
The U.S. Defense Department has announced it is making election security one of its enduring missions.
“We need to do more than just play goal line defense,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper told a security forum outside of Washington last month. “The Department of Defense has an important role in defending the American people from this misinformation, particularly as it pertains to preserving the integrity of our democratic elections.”This past July, former special counsel Robert Mueller, tasked with investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections, warned lawmakers Moscow’s meddling had never stopped.
“It wasn’t a single attempt. They’re doing it as we sit here,” he said. “They expect to do it during the next campaign.”
There are also ongoing fears about how to counter disinformation campaigns by Russia and other countries, including China and Iran, that might impact how voters decide for whom to cast ballots.
“This is where the Russians exploited us, exploited our divisiveness,” former U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday “That part of the problem, I’m not sure about.”
Likewise, there are indications that such election interference campaigns are becoming the norm, and no longer limited to just nation-states like Russia.
“I cannot think of an election in the last four years where there hasn’t been experimentation and mockery,” per John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, told the Washington Post Cybersecurity summit. “I’m not at all convinced we’ve got a good handle on this.” 
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Ukraine’s former president said Wednesday he discussed investments with President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in 2017, but that he never discussed Ukrainian companies with any U.S. official.Like many Ukrainians, former President Petro Poroshenko is trying to distance himself from the U.S. impeachment inquiry into Trump, triggered by a phone call between the American leader and Poroshenko’s successor, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
 
 “We definitely do not want to be involved in the political process inside the United States,” Poroshenko, now a member of parliament, told reporters.
 
Poroshenko said he met Giuliani in 2017 as a “friend of Ukraine” and they discussed “political support and investment” but nothing else. He wouldn’t elaborate.
 
 “We never ever spoke about commercial companies” with Trump, former President Barack Obama, current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, or “any U.S. officials,” said Poroshenko, who led Ukraine from 2014 to 2019.
 FILE – President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani waves as he attends the White House Sports and Fitness Day event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, May 30, 2018.Giuliani wants Ukraine to investigate Biden, whose son Hunter served on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Trump asked Zelenskiy to “look into” the Bidens in a July 25 phone call that is now at the center of an impeachment inquiry.
 
In his first public comments on the phone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Trump’s critics are using “every excuse to attack” the U.S. president. Putin made his remarks at a conference in Moscow.
 
Poroshenko said he was not aware that Giuliani had met with then-Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko.
 
Like Poroshenko, many Ukrainians are shrugging off U.S. efforts to impeach Trump as someone else’s problem.
 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to media during his press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 1, 2019.But they are worried about one thing: that Ukraine’s role in the Trump affair strengthens Russia’s hand, and hobbles the politically inexperienced Zelenskiy just as he’s trying to tackle the problems that matter to them most: corruption and an armed conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east that has divided their nation.
 
Zelenskiy announced an agreement Tuesday with Ukrainian separatists that paves the way for peace talks to end five years of fighting, but Ukrainian nationalists denounced it as capitulation to Russia.
 
The U.S. scandal “is weakening Zelenskiy’s standing inside the country,” said Tatyana Stanovaya, head of the R.Politik political analysis firm.
 
A rough transcript of the July phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy shows the Ukrainian leader flattering Trump, criticizing the U.S. ambassador and European leaders, and saying Ukraine’s chief prosecutor is “my guy.”
 
 “He gave a reason to doubt his ability to be an honest president,” Stanovaya said. “It’s the first big blow for him” since he overwhelmingly beat Poroshenko in Ukraine’s April election.
 
Zelenskiy’s comments on the call will fuel the Kremlin’s view that Ukrainian leaders are beholden to U.S. interests.
 
As the impeachment process heats up, the U.S. State Department gave initial approval to a $39 million sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine to help the country battle Russia-backed separatists. The proposed aid is in addition to some $400 million in U.S. military aid released last month.
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Finnish police said Wednesday they believe a man who killed a woman and wounded nine other people while wielding a sword and a firearm inside a classroom acted alone.Chief investigator Olli Toyras of the National Bureau of Investigation says the man, who wasn’t officially named, is suspected of murder and several murder attempts. No motive or reason for Tuesday’s attack at a vocational school was immediately known.Police fired twice to stop the man, a Finnish citizen born in 1994, after he refused to obey a police order, Toyras said Wednesday. The suspect, who was seriously wounded, is in custody at a hospital.Toyras said the man was a student at the Savo Vocational College, which occupies the second floor of the Herman shopping center in Kuopio, central Finland. The city is 350 kilometers (220 miles) northeast of the capital, Helsinki.Finnish media say the victim was a student at the school and “the primary target” of the dark-clad attacker who entered a class with a bag and took out a sword and struck the teacher with it. They said those injured were students and staff of the school, mostly women aged 15-50.It wasn’t clear if the attacker used his firearm.Due to the attack, flags were lowered to half-mast on public government offices and institutions across the Nordic country on Wednesday. 
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