3, January 2018
Turkish President Erdogan to visit France, explore improvement of EU ties 0
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to visit France this week for talks with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to explore an improvement of ties with the European Union and discuss regional issues.
The two will meet at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Friday, with talks expected to cover a range of issues from bilateral and Turkish-EU ties and trade to the developments in Syria and Palestine.
Macron reportedly intends to raise the issue of the human rights situation in Turkey. Key EU member states have engaged in quarrels with Ankara during the past year and a half over Turkey’s crackdown on perceived putschists after a failed coup in July 2016.
Earlier in the week, Macron’s office released a statement on the upcoming visit, saying that the meeting between the two would be a follow-up to “regular conversations of recent months” and would include “a particular focus on the Syrian file” as well as Palestine.
Turkey has been involved in a peace initiative for Syria with Iran and Russia in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana. Another peace initiative, on the auspices of the United Nations, has been ongoing in Geneva. Some Western countries want the focus to be on the Geneva peace talks and away from the Astana negotiations, which has progressed comparatively better.
Separately, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin has described France as a “leading ally” ahead of the visit and expressed optimism that the upcoming talks would further boost their relationship.
Two EU member states, namely Germany and Austria, have had the most strained relationship with Turkey. Berlin and Vienna have most strongly criticized the large-scale crackdown following the abortive coup in Turkey. Austria has even called for an end to EU accession talks with the Turkish government.
Macron of France has, in contrast, underlined the need to “avoid ruptures” with Turkey, which he has described as an “essential partner.” Turkey is a NATO member state.
Erdogan recently praised Macron — as well as the German leadership — for supporting Muslim nations in denouncing a decision by the US to declare Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel.
“They (the French) did not leave us by ourselves on this issue (Jerusalem al-Quds),” Erdogan said last week.
Source: Presstv
4, January 2018
Trump dissolves voter fraud commission 0
US President Donald Trump has dissolved a special commission which was established to investigate widespread voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.
The White House announced in a statement on Wednesday that Trump decided to break up the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach after several states did not cooperate with the panel.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense,” Trump abolished the commission made up of Republicans and Democrats.
The commission was created in May last year after Trump claimed that 3 to 5 million immigrants voted illegally in 2016, depriving him of a popular-vote victory against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
In June, the commission’s vice chair, Kris Kobach, an advocate of tougher laws on immigration and voter identification, demanded that states turn over voter information, including names, addresses, birth dates and the final four digits of social security numbers.
Over 20 states refused to do so and others said they needed to study whether they could give the data.
The Republican billionaire, who was inaugurated last year as the 45th president of the US, scored about 3 million votes less than Clinton in their November 8, 2016 face-off. However, he was able to seal the victory by winning the Electoral College vote, 304-227.
In the run-up to the presidential election, Trump repeatedly accused the mainstream media of bias for not covering “a large-scale voter fraud” underway during early voting across the country. In addition, he called the election process rigged, and said the media was colluding with Clinton in order to beat him.
According to Trump, there were “serious voter fraud” issues in three US states — Virginia, New Hampshire and California — during the election, but the mainstream American media ignored it.
“The claim of widespread voter fraud in the United States is in fact, fraud. The demise of this commission should put this issue to rest,” said Michael Waldman, president of the liberal Brennan Center for Justice.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) hailed the dissolution of the panel, calling it a “front to suppress the vote, perpetrate dangerous and baseless claims” that “was ridiculed from one end of the country to the other.”
Source: Presstv