Tension rises as Turkey sends troops to Syria's Afrin

Agencies
January 22, 2018

Jan 22: The US has urged Turkey to use restraint in its ongoing military operation in northern Syria as Turkish ground forces pressed ahead against the Syrian Kurdish group YPG in the enclave of Afrin.

Washington considers the YPG its closest ally in Syria, viewing it as the most effective ground force in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Heather Nauert, spokeswoman for the US State Department, said on Sunday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke with his Turkish and Russian counterparts on the phone and called against an escalation in fighting in northern Syria.

"We urge Turkey to exercise restraint and ensure that its military operations remain limited in scope and duration and scrupulous to avoid civilian casualties," said Nauert.

The statement on Sunday came just hours after Turkey said its ground troops had crossed into northern Syria.

Ankara considers Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the YPG, "terrorist groups" with ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long fight inside Turkey.

It fears the establishment of a Kurdish corridor along its border.

Speaking in Istanbul earlier on Sunday, Binali Yildirim, Turkey's prime minister, said Turkish forces had  crossed into the YPG-controlled region in Syria at 08:05 GMT from the Turkish village of Gulbaba.

He said Turkey intended to establish a 30km "safe zone" in Afrin.

"Throughout the day we've heard the sound of jets in the sky, intense artillery and machine gun fire," Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Turkey-Syria border, said.

The Turkish army has said it is targeting only "terrorist" positions and "utmost importance" was being given to not harm civilians.

'Well-trained' force

According to estimates, there are between 8,000 to 10,000 Kurdish YPG fighters in the Afrin area.

"Turkey says it will continue its operation until it has pushed the YPG away from its borders," our correspondent said.

No one knows how long this will take or what the implications may be.

"The YPG are extremely well trained. They know the terrain in Afrin but Turkey has superiority in the skies and that is a huge advantage."

Reacting to Turkey's ground advance into Syria, France called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

"Ghouta, Idlib, Afrin - France asks for an urgent meeting of the Security Council," Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, said on Twitter on Sunday.

Le Drian said he had talked to his Turkish counterpart in the day and called for a complete ceasefire in Syria.

France's request for the emergency meeting comes one day after the Turkish operation against the YPG began.

On Saturday, Turkish jets carried out air strikes against targets in Afrin.

Russia, which controls the airspace over Afrin, withdrew hundreds of its soldiers deployed near the city before Turkey's operation began.

Several diplomats and mission chiefs of the permanent members of Security Council - the US, Russia, the UK, France and China - were brought up to speed on the developments in Afrin.

Erdogan's warning

For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he hoped the military operation will be completed "in a very short time".

But Erdogan also warned pro-Kurdish opposition supporters in Turkey not to hold protests.

"Know that if you go out on the streets, authorities are on your necks," he told thousands of supporters in Bursa.

"This is a national struggle and we will crush anyone who opposes our national struggle."

Earlier, Anadolu news agency reported that Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters had advanced towards Afrin in the early hours of Sunday, supported by Turkish troops.

The YPG confirmed the advance, saying two villages in Afrin's Bilbil district near the Turkish border came under attack.

About 25,000 Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels were joining the Turkish military operation in northern Syria with the goal of recapturing Arab towns and villages held by the YPG, a Syrian rebel commander told Reuters news agency on Sunday.

As early as Friday, thousands of FSA fighters had already been mobilised in Turkey's Hatay province and Syrian locations east of Afrin.

Major Yasser Abdul Rahim, who is also the commander of Failaq al-Sham, a main FSA rebel group in the operations room of the campaign, said the rebels did not seek to enter Afrin but encircle it and expel the YPG.

"We have no interest in entering the city only the military targets inside the city and the villages around it. We aim to encircle the city and ensure the militias are evicted. We won't fight in the city as we have no problem with civilians," he said.

A main goal of the military operation was to recapture Tel Rifaat, a town southeast of Afrin, and a string of Arab villages the YPG captured from rebels in February 2016, driving out tens of thousands of inhabitants, Abdul Rahim said.

"The task of the Free Syrian Army is first to regain sixteen Arab towns and villages occupied by the foreign militias [YPG] with the help of the Russian air force," Abdul Rahim told Reuters in a phone interview from inside Syria.

The fighting Abdul Rahim was referring to forced at least 150,000 residents of these villages to flee to Azaz.

They are sheltering in camps at the Turkish border and rebels say they have not been allowed to go back to their homes.

On Saturday, Erdogan said the operation in Afrin would be followed by a push in the northern town of Manbij, which the US-backed Kurdish forces captured from ISIL in 2016.

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News Network
June 16,2020

New Delhi, Jun 16: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday demanded a rollback of hike in fuel prices, saying the government's decision to increase the prices of petrol and diesel during the coronavirus crisis is "wholly insensitive" and "ill-advised".

The government is doing nothing short of "profiteering off its people" when they are down and out, she said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Petrol and diesel prices were hiked for the 10th day in a row on Tuesday.

"I am deeply distressed that in these exceedingly difficult times since the beginning of March, the government has taken the wholly insensitive decision to increase petrol and diesel prices on no less than ten separate occasions," Gandhi said in her letter.

She accused the government of earning an additional revenue of nearly Rs 2.6 lakh crore through these "ill-advised" hikes in excise duty and increase in prices of petrol and diesel.

"I urge you to roll back these increases and pass on the benefit of low oil prices directly to the citizens of this country.

"If you wish for them to be 'self-reliant' then do not place financial fetters on their ability to move forward," the Congress president said.

Gandhi also urged the government to use its resources to put money directly into the hands of those in need in these times of severe hardship.

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Agencies
January 20,2020

New Delhi, Jan 20: The BJP has got a brand new President in the form of JP Nadda. At around 2.30 pm, the announcement was made, bringing an end to the Amit Shah era in BJP. The party's Working President Jagat Prakash Nadda won unopposed, sparking celebrations outside the BJP headquarters here on Monday. 

Amit Shah himself was among the people who proposed Nadda's name along with Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh. Soon after his annointment, BJP election returning officer Radha Mohan Singh told the media, "I announce JP Nadda as the new BJP President." Shah was also seen hugging Nadda.

The nomination process for the post of the BJP President began at 10 am and went on till 12.30 pm. For the next hour, the filed nomination paper, which was just one, was examined. Party members waitied till 2.30 pm for the candidate to withdraw if he wished to. It was after this that Nadda was declared as the man who would step into the shoes of Amit Shah.

Many in the BJP believe that although Nadda is the BJP chief now, Shah would still make all macro-level decisions like pre poll alliances or top organisational appointments. Nadda would be in charge of monitoring the day-to-day needs of the organisation. BJP sources say that Amit Shah himself wanted an arrangement like this one and personally wanted Nadda to take over. as he helped Shah formulate legislations like Triple Talaq and Citizenship Amendment Act.

The party constitution mandates completion of election of at least 50 per cent of state Presidents for the election of national President to happen. In the last few days, the BJP has completed the election of a slew of state Presidents like in West Bengal, Nagaland among others.

The process of election of the national BJP President is quite elaborate and has been described in detail in the party constitution, which says that the national president shall be elected by an electoral college, comprising members of the national council and the state councils.

"Any 20 members of the electoral college of a state can jointly propose the name of a person, who has been an active member for four terms and has 15 years of membership, for the post of national president. Such joint proposal should come from not less than five states where elections have been completed for the national council. The consent of the candidate is necessary," it says.

Who is JP Nadda?

Jagat Prakash Nadda, 59, who has his roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates, was appointed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national President on Monday, replacing his 'mentor' and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Former environment, health and law minister from Himachal Pradesh, which has just four of the Lok Sabha's 543 seats, Nadda has tried to carve out his own space in national politics with his low profile and astute organisational skills, believe his party leaders.

He rose through the ranks from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, from where he has managed to build inroads from university to the state politics.

Nadda has been active on the national political scene since 2010 when he was picked by then BJP chief Nitin Gadkari to join his new team. He was made the party's national general secretary.

Born on December 2, 1960, Nadda did his graduation from Patna and holds a post-graduate degree in political science and Bachelor of Legislative Law (LL.B) from Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla.

Starting his political career as a student leader of the ABVP in 1978, Nadda had also worked both with Gadkari and Shah even in the party's youth wing -- the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha -- from 1991 to 1994.

His wife Mallika Nadda, who teaches history at the Himachal Pradesh University and is currently posted in university's campus in Delhi, was an ABVP activist too, and its national general secretary from 1988 to 1999.

In the previous BJP government (2007-12) in the state, Nadda was forced to resign as Forest Minister in 2010 owing to differences between him and then chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.

He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2012.

Nadda won his first Assembly election from Bilaspur (Sadar) in Himachal in 1993. In 1998, he again won from that seat and became the state Health Minister.

He lost the Assembly elections in 2003, but again won in 2007 and was appointed the Forest Minister in the Himachal Pradesh.

Nadda, as a forest minister, was the brain behind opening forest police stations to check forest crimes, launching community-driven plantation, setting up forest ponds and the massive plantation of deodars to boost the depleting green cover of the 'Queen of Hills', as Shimla was fondly called by the British.

A close confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nadda was among those who were mentioned as likely aspirants to the BJP top post after Rajnath Singh was inducted into the Central government as the Home Minister in 2014.

Later, Nadda was inducted into the union cabinet in its first expansion in 2014 as the Health Minister.

Hailing Nadda's appointment, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur told IANS it is a proud moment that a leader belonging to a small state in the national politics is today the leader of the country's biggest national party.

His father N.L. Nadda, who was a Vice-Chancellor of the Ranchi University, resides in Bilaspur town.

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News Network
July 14,2020

Jaipur, Jul 14: In a show of strength, Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot-led Rajasthan Congress camp on Monday released a video showing at least 16 MLAs sitting together.

This comes hours after the Congress held a legislature party meeting. Party leaders said 106 of 122 MLAs attended, a claim contested by the Pilot camp.

The 10-second video was shared late at night on Pilot's official WhatsApp group.

In the video, at least 16 MLAs are seen sitting together in a close circle. Pilot is not seen in the video.

Six other people can be seen in the video but they could not be identified.

Some of the MLAs seen in the video are Indraraj Gurjar, Mukesh Bhakar, Harish Meena.

Tourism Minister Vishvendra Singh tweeted the video with the caption "Family".

Ladnun MLA Mukesh Bhakar tweeted, "...Loyalty in Congress means Ashok Gehlot's slavery. That is not acceptable to us."

Pilot has been upset since he was denied the Rajasthan chief minister's post after the December 2018 assembly elections.

On Sunday, he claimed to have the backing of 30 Congress MLAs and "some independents".

Those close to him disputed Gehlot's claim that his government had a majority, and said this is proven in the assembly and not at the CM's house.

Sources close to him have also ruled out the possibility of Pilot joining the BJP.

In the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly, the Congress has 107 MLAs and the BJP 72. In the past, the ruling party has claimed the support of 13 independents, two MLAs each from the CPM and the Bharatiya Tribal Party, and one from the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

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