Turkey sets condition on Armenia peace accord

Historic agreements just signed between Turkey and Armenia, to resume diplomatic relations after decades of hostility, may have met its first hurdle.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Sunday that the parliament would not look favorably on the accords, signed in Zurich on Saturday by the two nations' foreign ministers, unless Armenia withdraws from Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

He linked the condition to the provision in the fragile agreements, seeking the reopening of the common border, which Azerbaijan has slammed as a threat to regional stability.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has also threatened that the deals would "cast a shadow" on its ties with Istanbul.

"We want all the borders to be opened at the same time..., but as long as Armenia has not withdrawn from Azerbaijani territory that it is occupying, Turkey cannot have a positive attitude on this subject," Erdogan told a meeting of officials from his party on Sunday.

The US and European officials pushed for the Saturday's agreements, aimed at normalizing relations between the two nations, despite last-minute differences.

The disputed Nagorny-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan has long been a source of disputes between Turkey and Armenia.

Armenia says the Armenian-majority enclave, which broke free from Azerbaijan after a war, has no place in the reconciliation negotiations with Turkey, which backs Baku.

Chad, Sudan in fresh push for peace

Mon Oct 12, 2009

Senior officials from the Sudanese and Chadian governments have pledged to fully cooperate with each other to forge a lasting peace between the two sides.

In talks in Chad's capital city N'djamena, delegations from the two countries on Sunday agreed to push for the implementation of agreements previously signed.

The neighbors say they will refrain from any action likely to damage relations between the two.

Ties between the two countries have been tense in recent years.

Chad has accused Sudan of supporting rebels seeking to oust the government.

Khartoum in return charges N'djamena with backing fighters in the volatile Darfur region.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/108438.html.

Hamas, Fatah reconciliation deal delayed

The signing of a Palestinian reconciliation agreement brokered by Egypt and originally set for October 25 has been delayed for several weeks.

The news came as US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Cairo on Sunday.

Aboul Gheit would not name the Palestinian faction who requested the delay, but the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on its Website announced that it was postponing the agreement because of the Palestinian Authority's withdrawal of support for a report condemning the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Earlier, Mitchell met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas.

Egypt has been working on reconciling the two Palestinian factions since 2007 so that a unified front can be presented in the stalled peace talks with Israel.

Pakistan ready for 'imminent' strike against militants

Pakistan is preparing for an "imminent" offensive in the country's troubled northwest after a recent assault by militants against an army headquarters near Islamabad.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Sunday blamed the attack on the pro-Taliban insurgents whose strongholds are in the troubled Waziristan region near the Afghan border.

"The operation is imminent," the Reuters news agency quoted Malik as saying.

The militants have launched numerous attacks over the past couple of years, mostly aimed at government and security forces.

The latest was a raid on an army base in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Saturday.

At least 19 were killed in the Rawalpindi assault, which sent immediate shock waves across the nuclear-armed country.

The Pakistani army has been preparing for a major operation in the South Waziristan region after it forced out militants from the scenic Swat valley back in September.

Partisan divide deepens on US war in Afghanistan

Divisions between Democrats and Republicans at the US Senate continue to deepen as President Barack Obama reconsiders the future of the US role in Afghanistan.

Republican Senator John McCain in a TV interview on Sunday warned President Obama that a failure to send more troops to Afghanistan will be "an error of historic proportions."

Obama's former rival emphasized that the president had found himself caught between military commanders and Democratic lawmakers.

"I think the great danger now is a half-measure ... trying to please all ends of the political spectrum," McCain was quoted by CNN as saying.

He earlier had asked Obama to trust his top commanders who are calling for more troops to tackle the growing insurgency in Afghanistan.

The commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley Mc-Chrystal, has asked for 40-thousand more soldiers.

Democrats, however, oppose any troop surge and have introduced legislation to prohibit funding for further deployment.

Obama and his war council are busy looking for an effective military strategy in Afghanistan.

The mounting number of Western soldiers coming home in body bags has sent support for the war plummeting in Europe, Canada, and the United States.

Azerbaijan slams Turkey-Armenia peace deal

Republic of Azerbaijan's foreign ministry criticizes a recent peace deal between Turkey and Armenia, saying the agreement can "cast a shadow" over Baku-Ankara ties.

The Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that a peace deal should not have been signed while Armenian troops remain in Nagorno-Karabakh, Reuters reported.

"The normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia before the withdrawal of Armenian troops from occupied Azeri territory is in direct contradiction to the national interests of Azerbaijan," the ministry said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region has been the scene of a decades-old dispute between Armenia and traditional Turkish ally Azerbaijan.

During the war in that region in 1993, Turkey shut its border with Armenia out of solidarity with Azerbaijan.

Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark peace accord on Saturday to normalize ties after a century of hostility.

The two neighbors have had a history of bitter relations stemming from the memory of World War I killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces.

Somali Islamists threaten to attack Kenya

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- The Islamist insurgency in Somalia may attack targets in neighboring Kenya, an Islamist official said Sunday.

The insurgency's appointed governor of Gedo region, Sheik Da'ud Mohamed Garane, made the threats on behalf of the al-Shabab militia following reports that Kenya's military was stepping up recruitment of ethnic Somalis who are Kenyan citizens.

"Our intelligence sources have already confirmed that Kenya is giving training and military equipment to Somali men in three different areas along its border with Somalia," he told a crowd of some 200 people in southwestern Somalia. "These men are being prepared to attack the peaceful positions we control. But let me tell Kenya that we will do all we can to prevent that to happen."

Somali information minister Dahir Mohamud Gelle has denied the Kenyan military is recruiting near the long and porous border shared by the two countries. Kenyan officials were not immediately available for comment.

Many who live in Kenya's arid northeastern region speak Somali and consider themselves part of that ethnic group.

Islamists have targeted Kenya, a popular tourist destination, before. In 1998 Islamists blew up the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, and in 2002 Islamists bombed an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya, killing 13 people.

Somalia has been torn apart by civil war over the past 18 years, after warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other.

The Islamist insurgency is currently not only battling the U.N.-backed government, but also trying to heal splits in its own alliance that spilled over into a fatal clash last month.