Polish police criticized for using tear gas on protesters

November 19, 2020

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish police came under criticism on Thursday for using tear gas and force on mostly female and young protesters during the latest in a string of women-led protests against a top court ruling restricting abortion.

Political tensions have been extremely high in Poland since the constitutional court ruled last month to impose a near total ban on abortion. The government has yet to publish the ruling, which would enshrine it as law, because of the huge pressure from the mass street protests.

Meanwhile, a standoff with the European Union and a surge in coronavirus infections — with a record number of 637 deaths in one day recorded Thursday — as well as frustration over the government's handling of the pandemic are all contributing to a sense of deepening crisis in the country.

Also Thursday, several activists were forcefully removed by police after blocking traffic in front of the District Court in Warsaw. They had gathered there to show solidarity with an activist who was suspected of assaulting a police office at an earlier protest.

She was charged in relation to an incident in which the women-led protesters and far-right nationalists were facing off against each other, with police in the middle. Reportedly someone threw a flare at the police. But the court today decided that the woman doesn't have to remain in pre-trial detention and her lawyer says any punishment will likely not be severe.

According to reports in Polish media, plainclothes police with batons used force on some of the protesters Wednesday night. Witnesses said that plainclothes officers entered the crowd of protesters, some with armbands identifying them as police and some without, and used truncheons to beat protesters.

TV broadcast images also showed Marta Lempart, one of the leaders of Women's Strike — the key organization beyond the protests — on the ground in pain after tear gas got in her eyes. On Thursday, Lempart accused the police of breaking the law.

Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who is a liberal opponent of the nation’s conservative government, also criticized the police behavior. “Tear gas against women? Really, Polish police?” said on Twitter. “The use of direct coercion must be justified and proportionate, it must be a last resort. I believe there was no reason to use it against women’s and youth demonstrations. There were many more policemen than protesters.”

Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski told parliament Thursday that the police officers used force because they found themselves “under attack” from the protesters. But Cezary Tomczyk, head of the opposition party Civic Platform's club in parliament, said that police were lying.

“These were peaceful demonstrations," Tomczyk said. "There was no reason for such brutal interventions.” Protesters had meant to create a blockade of the parliament building Wednesday evening, but were prevented from doing so by a large contingent of police vans, forcing the demonstrators to gather elsewhere in the city.

Emotions were high on the streets and inside the parliamentary chamber. A lawmaker who had her parliamentary pass ripped apart by police amid the protests outside confronted Poland's most powerful politician, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, during the parliamentary session, accusing him of causing the turmoil in the country.

Kaczynski in turn accused oppositions lawmakers of having “blood on your hands” for supporting the mass protests, which he alleged were contributing to the massive spike in coronavirus infections. When opposition politicians chanted at Kaczynski that he deserved to be in prison, he retorted that they were the ones who belonged behind bars.

After congratulating Biden, France's Macron sees Trump envoy

November 16, 2020

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron faced the potentially uncomfortable position Monday of meeting U.S. President Donald Trump's top diplomat, having already congratulated President-elect Joe Biden for his election victory.

Neither side said much in advance about U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's low-profile visit to Paris, the starting point of a seven-country tour of Europe and the Middle East. Macron's office described Pompeo's planned stop Monday at the presidential Elysee Palace as a “courtesy” visit. No press conference was scheduled, seemingly ruling out the likelihood of journalists getting to ask Pompeo or Macron about their conflicting visions of the U.S. election outcome.

Pompeo has not accepted Trump's election defeat. Macron has already spoken by phone with Biden to congratulate him. Pompeo's trip is aimed at shoring up the priorities of Trump's outgoing administration. From Paris, he was expected to travel to Turkey. The trip will also include visits to Israeli settlements in the West Bank that have been avoided by previous secretaries of state.

Before the scheduled meetings with Macron and his foreign minister, Pompeo laid a bouquet of red, white and blue flowers at a memorial to victims of terrorism at a Paris landmark, the Hotel des Invalides.

The ceremony lasted about a minute.

Pro-Western candidate wins Moldovan presidential election

November 16, 2020

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Maia Sandu, a former World Bank economist who favors closer ties with the European Union, has won Moldova's presidential runoff vote, decisively defeating the staunchly pro-Russian incumbent, according to preliminary results released Monday.

Sandu captured over 57% of the vote, leaving the incumbent, Igor Dodon, behind by over 15 points, according to preliminary data from the Central Election Commission, CEC, that said nearly 100% of the vote has been counted.

Sunday’s election was seen as a referendum on two divergent visions for the future of the small Eastern European nation sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania. Sandu and Dodon, who Russian President Vladimir Putin identified as his preferred candidate, have been rivals since he narrowly defeated her in the 2016 presidential race.

“People voted in very large numbers ... they voted because they care, because they want their voices to be heard,” Sandu, who promised during the campaign to secure more financial support from the EU, said late Sunday after it became apparent she was leading. “People want the ones in power to offer solutions to their problems.”

On Monday, Dodon conceded after the results were published and congratulated Sandu. “I call for calm and peace, absolutely no disturbances or protests, we must not allow any destabilization of the country," he said.

The current pro-Russian government controls only 51 of 101 seats in the parliament. The new president can dissolve parliament if the prime minister resigns and there are two failed attempts to find a successor.

Commenting on Sandu's win, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Moscow respects “the choice of the Moldovan people” and hopes to establish “a working relationship” with the new president.

“We know that Maia Sandu said she would work in the interests of the Moldovan people, and we’re convinced that building good and close relations, cooperation in all areas with our country, Russia, is in the interest of the Moldovan people,” Peskov told reporters.

Ever since gaining independence a year after the Soviet collapse in 1991, Moldova has been divided between those favoring closer relations with Europe and those who prefer stronger links with Moscow.

Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe with nearly 1.2 million of its people estimated to be living abroad. It relies heavily on remittances, and closer ties with the EU are generally seen as more likely than those with Moscow to lead to a long-elusive political stability and economic recovery.

Yet in this election, those choices might have been overshadowed by the heavy social and economic toll inflicted on Moldova by the coronavirus pandemic. So far, the nation of 3.5 million people has tallied close to 89,000 virus cases and over 2,000 deaths. On Saturday, it reported a record 1,411 new daily infections.

In 2014, while it was run by a pro-European coalition, Moldova signed a deal on closer political and economic ties with the EU, now a bloc of 27 nations. However, Brussels has since been increasingly critical of Moldova’s progress on reforms.

Syria's longtime Foreign Minister al-Moallem dies at age 79

November 16, 2020

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s longtime Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, a career diplomat who became one of the country’s most prominent faces to the outside world during the uprising against President Bashar Assad, died on Monday. He was 79.

Al-Moallem, who served as ambassador to Washington for nine years, starting in 1990 during Syria’s on-and-off peace talks with Israel, was a close confidant of Assad known for his loyalty and hard-line position against the opposition.

A soft spoken, jovial man with a dry sense of humor, al-Moallem was also known for his ability to defuse tensions with a joke. During the current crisis, he often held news conferences in Damascus detailing the Syrian government’s position. Unwavering in the face of international criticism, he repeatedly vowed that the opposition, which he said was part of a Western conspiracy against Syria for its anti-Israel stances, would be crushed.

A short and portly man with white hair, his health was said to be deteriorating in recent years with heart problems. The state-run SANA news agency reported his death, without immediately offering a cause.

Born to a Sunni Muslim family in Damascus in 1941, al-Moallem attended public schools in Syria and later traveled to Egypt, where he studied at Cairo University, graduating in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in economics.

He returned to Syria and began working at the foreign ministry in 1964, rising to the top post in 2006. His first mission outside the country as a diplomat in the 1960s was to open the Syrian Embassy in the African nation of Tanzania. In 1966 he moved to work in the Syrian Embassy in the Saudi city of Jiddah and a year later he moved to the Syrian Embassy in Madrid.

In 1972, he headed the Syrian mission to London and in 1975 moved to Romania, where he spent five years as ambassador. He then returned to Damascus, where he headed the ministry’s documentation office until 1984, when he was named as the head of the foreign minister’s office.

He was appointed as Syria’s ambassador to Washington in 1990, spending nine years in the U.S. During that time Syria held several rounds of peace talks with Israel. In 2006, he was appointed foreign minister at a time when Damascus was isolated by Arab and Western nations following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri a year earlier.

Many Lebanese, Arabs and Western governments blamed Syria for the massive blast that killed Hariri — accusations that Damascus repeatedly denied. Syria was forced to end nearly three decades of domination and military presence in its smaller neighbor and pulled out its troops in April that year.

Al-Moallem became the most senior politician to visit Lebanon in 2006, after Syrian troops withdrew. He attended an Arab foreign ministers meeting during the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, a strong ally of Syria.

“I wish I were a fighter with the resistance,” al-Moallem said in Beirut at the time, triggering criticism from anti-Syrian Lebanese activists who poked fun at him as being unfit to fight. After the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, al-Moallem was tasked with holding news conferences in Damascus to defend the government’s position. He traveled regularly to Moscow and Iran, key backers of the Syrian government, to meet with officials there.

During a news conference a year after the conflict began, al-Moallem was asked to comment about then French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe’s comment that the regime’s days were numbered. Al-Moallem answered with a smile on his face: “If Mr. Juppe believes that the days of the regime are numbered I tell him, wait and you will see.”

“This is if God gives him a long age,” al-Moallem said. In February 2013, he was the first Syrian official to say during a visit to Moscow that the government was ready to hold talks even with those “who carried arms.”

In early 2014, he headed Syria’s negotiating team during two rounds of peace talks with the opposition in Switzerland. The talks, which eventually collapsed, marked the first time that members of the Syrian government sat face-to-face with Syrian opposition figures.

Al-Moallem was widely criticized for a rambling speech he gave at the start of Syria’s peace conference in Montreux, Switzerland. Then U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon repeatedly asked him to step away from the podium when he exceeded his time limit.

Al-Moallem ignored Ban’s pleas, setting off an exchange that showed the tensions in trying to resolve Syria’s bloody conflict. “You live in New York. I live in Syria,” al-Moallem snapped. “I have the right to give the Syrian version here in this forum. After three years of suffering, this is my right.”

Al-Moallem then proceeded with his speech, saying he had a few minutes left. Ban asked him to keep his promise. “Syria always keeps its promises,” al-Moallem replied, triggering approving laughter from the Syrian government delegation behind him and a grin from Ban.

Al-Moallem's last public appearance was at the opening of an international refugee conference last Wednesday in Damascus, when he appeared to be in ill health. The following day, he did not attend the closing ceremony of the event, which was co-hosted with Russia.

Al-Moallem is survived by his wife, Sawsan Khayat and three children, Tarek, Shatha and Khaled. He will be buried on Monday afternoon and prayers will be held at a mosque in Damascus.

Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

In ruins, Syria marks 50 years of Assad family rule

November 12, 2020

BEIRUT (AP) — On Nov. 13, 1970, a young air force officer from the coastal hills of Syria launched a bloodless coup. It was the latest in a succession of military takeovers since independence from France in 1946, and there was no reason to think it would be the last.

Yet 50 years later, Hafez Assad’s family still rules Syria. The country is in ruins from a decade of civil war that killed a half million people, displaced half the population and wiped out the economy. Entire regions are lost from government control. But Hafez’s son, Bashar Assad, has an unquestioned grip on what remains.

His rule, half of it spent in war, is different from his father’s in some ways —dependent on allies like Iran and Russia rather than projecting Arab nationalism, run with a crony kleptocracy rather than socialism. The tools are the same: repression, rejection of compromise and brutal bloodshed.

Like the Castro family in Cuba and North Korea’s Kim dynasty, the Assads have attached their name to their country the way few non-monarchical rulers have done. “There can be no doubt that 50 years of Assad family rule, which has been ruthless, cruel and self-defeating, has left the country what can only be described as broken, failed and almost forgotten,” said Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program.

“RUTHLESS BUT BRILLIANT”

After his 1970 takeover, Hafez Assad consolidated power. He brought into key positions members of his Alawite sect, a minority in Sunni-majority Syria, and established a Soviet-style single-party police state.

His power was absolute. His Mukhabarat — or intelligence officers — were omnipresent. He turned Syria into a Middle East powerhouse. In the Arab world, he gained respect for his uncompromising position on the Golan Heights, the strategic high ground lost to Israel in the 1967 war. He engaged in U.S.-mediated peace talks, sometimes appearing to soften, only to frustrate the Americans by pulling back and asking for more territory.

In 1981, in Iraq’s war with Iran, he sided with the Iranians against the entire Arab world backing Saddam Hussein — starting an alliance that would help save his son later. He supported the U.S.-led coalition to liberate Kuwait after Saddam’s 1990 invasion, gaining credit with the Americans.

“He was a ruthless but brilliant man who had once wiped out a whole village as a lesson to his opponents,” former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who met with Assad several times, wrote in his memoirs “My Life.”

Clinton was referring to the 1982 massacre in Hama, where Assad’s security forces killed thousands to crush a Muslim Brotherhood uprising. The massacre, one of the most notorious in the modern Middle East, left hatreds that fanned the flames of another uprising against his son years later.

“A key element of the Assad regime’s survival has been: No compromise domestically, exploit the geopolitical shifts regionally and globally, and wait your enemies out,” said Sam Dagher, author of the book “Assad or we Burn the Country: How One Family’s Lust for Power Destroyed Syria.”

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Bashar Assad borrowed heavily from that playbook after his father's death in 2000. Unlike his father, critics say he repeatedly squandered opportunities and went too far.

First welcomed as a reformer and modernizer, Bashar, a British-trained eye doctor, opened the country and allowed political debates. He quickly clamped back down, faced with challenges and a rapidly changing world, beginning with the Sept. 11 attacks in America.

He opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, worried he would be next. He let foreign fighters enter Iraq from his territory, fueling an insurgency against the U.S. occupation and enraging the Americans.

He was forced to end Syria's long domination of Lebanon after Damascus was blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Still, he tightened ties with Lebanon's Hezbollah. Like his father, Bashar Assad elevated family to insulate his power — a younger, more modern generation, but one seen by many Syrians as more rapacious in amassing wealth.

The Assad family’s gravest challenge came with the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region, reaching Syria in March 2011. His response to the initially peaceful protests was to unleash security forces to snuff them out. Instead, protests grew, turning later into an armed insurgency backed by Turkey, the U.S. and Gulf Arab nations. His military fragmented.

With his army nearing collapse, Assad opened his territory to Russia's and Iran’s militaries and their proxies. Cities were pulverized. He was accused of using chemical weapons against his own people and killing or jailing opponents en masse. Millions fled to Europe or beyond.

For much of the world, he became a pariah. But Assad masterfully portrayed the war as a choice between his secular rule and Islamic fanatics, including the Islamic State group. Many Syrians and even European states became convinced he was the lesser evil.

Eventually, he effectively eliminated the military threat against him. He is all but certain to win presidential elections due next year in the shattered husk that is his Syria. Still, Dagher said the war transformed Syrians in irreversible ways. An economic meltdown and mounting hardship may change the calculus.

“A whole generation of people has been awakened and will eventually find a way to take back the country and their future,” he said. As U.S. election results rolled in, showing Joe Biden the winner, memes by Syrian opposition trolls mocked how the Assads have now outlasted nine American presidents since Richard Nixon.

“In my life, my fellow Syrians had to vote four times for the only president on the ballot ... Hafez Assad. His son is still president. After migration to the U.S., I voted for six different presidents,” wrote Zaher Sahloul, a Chicago-based Syrian-American doctor who left Syria in 1989. “I wish that my homeland will witness free elections one day.”

Hafez Assad’s legacy might have looked quite different had he not shoe-horned Bashar into succeeding him, Quilliam said. “It would not have been favorable, but Bashar’s legacy will overshadow Assad’s legacy and make it synonymous with cruelty, willful destruction of a great country and the brutalization of a beautiful people,” he said.

Ethiopia conflict tensions spread as 150 'operatives' held

November 12, 2020

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tensions over the deadly conflict in Ethiopia are spreading well beyond its cut-off Tigray region, as the federal government says some 150 suspected “operatives” accused of seeking to “strike fear and terror” throughout the country have been detained.

The new statement says the suspects “happen to be ethnically diverse,” but concerns remain high among ethnic Tigrayans amid reports of being singled out by authorities. The statement comes as rallies are expected Thursday in support of the federal government’s military offensive in the northern Tigray region against a regional government that Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his government regard as illegal.

Close to 10,000 Ethiopian refugees have already fled the weeklong conflict into neighboring Sudan, where local authorities are already warning they are overwhelmed. They are preparing for up to 200,000 arrivals.

Ethiopia’s prime minister has rejected international pleas for negotiation and de-escalation, saying that cannot come until the Tigray People’s Liberation Front ruling “clique” is removed and arrested and its heavily stocked arsenal is destroyed.

What appeared to be a sudden slide toward civil war has been months in the making. Abiy after taking office in 2018 announced sweeping political reforms that won him the Nobel but marginalized the TPLF, which had dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. The TPLF later left the coalition and in September held a local election in defiance of the federal government.

Each side now regards the other as illegal, and each blames the other for starting the fighting. Communications and transport links remain severed in the Tigray region, making it difficult to verify claims, while the United Nations and others warn of a looming humanitarian disaster as food and fuel run short for millions of people.

The effects of the conflict risk drawing in Ethiopia’s neighbors, notably Sudan, whose leaders are under pressure from the international community, Ethiopia’s federal government and now the government of Eritrea, which the TPLF accuses of joining the fighting at Ethiopia’s request.

Experts fear that the Horn of Africa, one of the world’s most strategic regions, could be destabilized despite Abiy’s past peacemaking efforts.

Sudan braces for up to 200,000 fleeing Ethiopia fighting

November 11, 2020

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Up to 200,000 refugees could pour into Sudan while fleeing the deadly conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, officials said Wednesday, while the first details are emerging of largely cut-off civilians under growing strain. Already at least 6,000 people have crossed the border, including some wounded in the fighting, and the flow is growing quickly.

Inside the Tigray region, long lines have appeared outside bread shops, and supply-laden trucks are stranded at its borders, the United Nations humanitarian chief in the country told The Associated Press in an interview.

“We want to have humanitarian access as soon as possible,” Sajjad Mohammad Sajid said. “Fuel and food are needed urgently.” Up to 2 million people in Tigray have a “very, very difficult time,” he said late Tuesday, including hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Communications remain almost completely severed with the Tigray region a week after Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced a military offensive in response to an alleged attack by regional forces. He insists there will be no negotiations with a regional government he considers illegal until its ruling “clique” is arrested and its well-stocked arsenal is destroyed.

Reports grew of the targeting of ethnic Tigrayans across Ethiopia, the Tigray Communication Affairs Bureau said in a Facebook post. Abiy has warned against ethnic profiling. The administration of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, announced rallies in support of the federal government's measures there and in other cities in the Oromia and Amhara regions Thursday, along with a blood drive for the Ethiopian army.

Britain and the African Union have urged Abiy for an immediate de-escalation as the conflict threatens to destabilize the strategic but vulnerable Horn of Africa region. The United States did not immediately give details on any outreach.

The standoff leaves nearly 900 aid workers in the Tigray region from the U.N. and other groups struggling to contact the outside world with pleas for help. “Nine U.N. agencies, almost 20 NGOs, all depending on two offices” with the means to communicate, Sajid said.

In addition, more than 1,000 people of different nationalities are stuck in the region, he said. That includes tourists. Countries urgently are seeking their evacuation. With airports in Tigray closed, roads blocked, internet service cut off and even banks no longer operating, it “makes our life very difficult in terms of ensuring almost 2 million people receive humanitarian assistance,” Sajid said.

There is no sign of a lull in the fighting that has included multiple airstrikes by federal forces and hundreds of people reported dead on each side. “It looks like, unfortunately, this may not be something which can be resolved by any party in a week or two,” Sajid said. "It looks like it’s going to be a protracted conflict, which is a huge concern from the point of view of protection of civilians.”

Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigray’s regional government, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, blame each other for starting the conflict. Each regards the other as illegal. The TPLF dominated Ethiopia's ruling coalition for years before Abiy came to office in 2018 but has since broken away while accusing the prime minister's administration of targeting and marginalizing its officials.

Ethiopia's air force chief, Maj. Gen. Yilma Merdasa, asserted to reporters that forces had destroyed weapons depots, gas stations and other targets with “supreme control of the skies.” He said the airstrikes would continue.

It remains difficult for diplomats, experts and others to verify either side’s claims about the fighting. And now some Ethiopian journalists are being arrested, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said, calling it a “worrying development.”

Experts have compared this to an inter-state conflict, with each side heavily armed and well-trained. The Tigray region has an estimated quarter-million various armed fighters, and of the Ethiopian military's six mechanized divisions, four are based in Tigray. That's a legacy of Ethiopia's long border war with Eritrea, which made peace after Abiy came to power but remains at bitter odds with the TPLF.

The Tigray president on Tuesday accused Eritrea of attacking his region at the request of Ethiopia, saying that "the war has now progressed to a different stage,” he said. Eritrean officials have not responded to requests for comment.

Under growing pressure, at least 6,000 Ethiopian refugees have crossed the now-closed border into Sudan, the state-run SUNA news agency there reported. The agency, citing unidentified officials, said that over 200,000 Ethiopians were expected to cross into Sudan in the coming days.

A Sudanese official urged U.N. agencies to speed up their response in the provinces of Kassala and Qadarif along the Ethiopian border. “More and more people, including wounded from the operations there, are still coming. The numbers are increasing rapidly. There are lots of children and women,” Al-Sir Khalid, the head of the refugee agency in Kassala, told the AP. “They are arriving very tired and exhausted. They are hungry and thirsty since they have walked long dispenses on rugged terrain."

Local authorities are overwhelmed and the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly, he said.

Magdy reported from Cairo.

Greece, Egypt seek Biden role in East Mediterranean dispute

November 11, 2020

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s prime minister said Wednesday that he expects U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration to play a more active role in attempting to calm tension in the eastern Mediterranean.

“We have every reason to welcome, along with all our partners in the region, the return of the United States to its central role as a leader of NATO,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after a meeting in Athens on Wednesday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi.

Greece and Egypt are at odds with Turkey in a volatile maritime boundary dispute in the eastern Mediterranean over rights to search for and exploit natural gas deposits. The European Union and the United States have both criticized Turkey’s ongoing maritime research missions in waters where Greece asserts jurisdiction. But Athens says it expects a Biden administration to be more engaged in the dispute.

“I believe that Greece and Egypt will welcome and have a positive attitude toward the determination of America’s contribution to the events of the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean in our troubled region,” Mitsotakis said.

The dispute between Greece and Turkey triggered a major military buildup over the summer that raised concerns of military confrontation. Turkey argues that Greek islands along its coastline are blocking its access to undersea gas deposits and that boundaries should be set around the mainland and not include the islands. A Turkish research vessel, the Oruc Reis, is currently continuing a survey in a maritime area between Turkey's coast, southeast Greek islands, and Cyprus. Greece’s Foreign Ministry condemned a new notification to mariners by Turkey extending the research through Nov. 23, which it said covered an area of the Greek continental shelf.

The ministry said Turkey was “repeatedly violating the International Law of the sea and undermining peace and stability in the region.” Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias had given instructions for a complaint to be lodged with Turkey over the move, the ministry said. Turkey’s behavior, it said, “pushes further away any prospects of a constructive dialogue” between Greece and Turkey. Michael Carpenter, a foreign policy advisor to Biden, said that the new administration could seek closer cooperation with France, Germany and other European nations in its policy concerning Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“I do think and I am hopeful that when a President Erdogan sees a united front, that suggests that there is room for cooperation, but also that there are very negative consequences to pursuing a more aggressive policy, then he will have a rethink,” said Carpenter, managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

He made the remarks Monday, speaking by video link at a diplomatic conference organized in Greece. In Athens for a two-day visit, el-Sisi also met with Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, while Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will sit down with Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias in the evening.

In August, Greece and Egypt signed a maritime deal demarcating the two countries’ maritime boundaries and setting out respective exclusive economic zones for the exploitation of resources such as oil and gas drilling.

The agreement, which remains partial, angered Turkey, which has accused Greece of trying to grab an unfair share of resources in the eastern Mediterranean. The Greece-Egypt deal was widely seen as a response to a disputed agreement reached earlier between Turkey and Libya’s Tripoli-based administration that increased tension in the region.

Greece, Cyprus and Egypt widely criticized the deal between Ankara and Tripoli, saying it infringed on their economic rights.

Bahrain's long-serving prime minister dies at age 84

November 11, 2020

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bahrain’s Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who led his island nation’s government for decades and survived the 2011 Arab Spring protests that demanded his ouster over corruption allegations, died on Wednesday. He was 84.

Bahrain's state-run news agency announced his death, saying he had been receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic in the United States, without elaborating. The Mayo Clinic declined to comment. Prince Khalifa’s power and wealth could be seen everywhere in this small nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. His official portrait hung for decades on walls alongside the country’s ruler. He had his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries, complete with a marina and a park that had peacocks and gazelle roam its grounds.

The prince represented an older style of Gulf leadership, one that granted patronage and favors for support of the Sunni Al Khalifa family. That style would be challenged in the 2011 protests by the island’s Shiite majority and others, who demonstrated against him over long-running corruption allegations surrounding his rule.

Though less powerful and frailer in recent years, his machinations still drew attention in the kingdom as a new generation now jostles for power. “Khalifa bin Salman represented the old guard in more ways than just age and seniority,” said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. “He represented an old social understanding rooted in royal privilege and expressed through personal patronage.”

Bahrain's Royal Court announced a week of official mourning, with a burial coming after the return of his body. State television aired a recitation of Quranic verses, showing a black-and-white image of the prince.

Prince Khalifa was born into the Al Khalifa dynasty that for more than two centuries has ruled Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf whose name in Arabic means the “two seas.” The son of Bahrain’s former ruler, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa who ruled from 1942 to 1961, the prince learned governance at his father’s side as the island remained a British protectorate.

Prince Khalifa’s brother, Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, took power in 1961 and served as monarch when Bahrain gained its independence from Britain in 1971. Under an informal arrangement, Sheikh Isa handled the island’s diplomacy and ceremonial duties while Prince Khalifa ran the government and economy.

The years that followed saw Bahrain develop rapidly as it sought to move beyond its dependence on dwindling oil reserves. Manama at that time served as what Dubai in the United Arab Emirates ultimately became, a regional financial, service and tourism hub. The opening of the King Fahd Causeway in 1986 gave the island nation its first land link with its rich and powerful neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and offered an escape for Westerners in the kingdom who wanted to enjoy Bahrain’s alcohol-soaked nightclubs and beaches.

But Prince Khalifa increasingly saw his name entangled in corruption allegations, such as a major foreign corruption practices case against aluminum producer Alcoa over using a London-based middleman to facilitate bribes for Bahraini officials. Alcoa agreed to pay $384 million in fines to the U.S. government to settle the case in 2014.

The U.S. Embassy in Manama similarly had its own suspicions about Prince Khalifa. “I believe that Shaikh Khalifa is not wholly a negative influence,” former U.S. Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann wrote in a 2004 cable released by WikiLeaks. “While certainly corrupt he has built much of modern Bahrain.”

Those corruption allegations fueled discontent, particularly among Bahrain’s Shiite majority who still today complain of discrimination by the government. In February 2011, protesters inspired by Arab Spring demonstrations across the Mideast filled the streets and occupied the capital Manama’s Pearl Roundabout to demand political reforms and a greater say in the country’s future.

While some called for a constitutional monarchy, many others pressed for the removal of the long-ruling prime minister and other members of the Sunni royal family altogether, including King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

At one point during the height of the unrest in March 2011, thousands of protesters besieged the prime minister’s office while officials met inside, demanding that Prince Khalifa step down over corruption allegations and an earlier, deadly crackdown on the demonstrations. Protesters also took to waving one Bahraini dinar notes over allegations Prince Khalifa bought the land on which Bahrain’s Financial Harbor development sits for just a single dinar.

Robert Gates, a former U.S. secretary of defense under President Barack Obama, wrote in his memoirs that he urged the king at the time to force Prince Khalifa from the premiership, describing him as “disliked by nearly everyone but especially the Shia.”

Bahraini officials soon crushed the protests with the backing of troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A government-sponsored report into the protests and crackdown later described security forces beating detainees and forcing them to kiss pictures of King Hamad and Prince Khalifa.

Low-level unrest continued in the years that followed, with Shiite protesters frequently clashing with riot police. Shiite militant groups, whom Bahrain’s government allege receive support from Iran, planted bombs that killed and wounded several members of the country’s security forces.

But while other hard-line members of the Al Khalifa family actively pushed for a confrontation with Shiites, Prince Khalifa maintained contacts with those the government opposed. Even with his influence waning, he called Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in 2019 during the holy month of Ramadan despite Bahrain being one of four Arab nations boycotting Doha in a political dispute.

“Khalifa bin Salman could and did work with both Sunni and Shia, especially through his relations with Bahrain’s business community,” Diwan said. “He brought this same personalistic approach to relations with other Gulf monarchs, and was genuinely uncomfortable with the new politics exemplified by coarse attacks on the Qatari leadership.”

Slowly though, Prince Khalifa’s influence waned as he faced unexplained health problems. He was admitted to hospital in November 2015 but was later released. He also traveled to southeast Asia for medical appointments. In late November 2019, he traveled to Germany for undisclosed medical treatments, remaining there for months.

In September, a U.S. Air Force C-17 flying hospital flew from Germany to Rochester, Minnesota, following by a royal Bahraini aircraft. While U.S. and Bahraini officials declined to comment on the flights, it came just after America offered the same care to Kuwait's ruling emir just before his death.

Prince Khalifa was married and has three surviving children, sons Ali and Salman and daughter Lulwa. Another son, Mohammed, died previously.

Associated Press writers Adam Schreck and Isabel DeBre contributed to this report.