Ukraine Looks to Reform with an Eye on Europe

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- As Ukraine's most ardently pro-European parties pocketed a resounding collective election triumph Monday, thoughts turned to a reform agenda that promises pain and progress in equal doses.

Although the outcome of Sunday's vote is in part fruit of a surge in anti-Russian sentiment, Moscow says it will recognize the result and urged Ukraine's new order to grapple with the country's most pressing problems.

With 72 percent of the vote counted Monday, the three main Western-leaning parties alone stood to win a combined 54 percent of the vote. Coalition negotiations were already underway.

Parliament is now largely purged of the loyalists of former President Viktor Yanukovych, who sparked months of protests - and eventually his ouster in February - with his decision to deepen ties with Russia instead of the European Union.

Of the European-minded parties, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Popular Front had 21.9 percent of the vote while President Petro Poroshenko's party had 21.5 percent. A new pro-European party based in western Ukraine was running third with 11 percent.

The Fatherland party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has argued strongly for NATO membership and is likely to join a pro-Europe coalition, had 5.7 percent of the vote.

Poroshenko last month laid out an ambitious agenda envisioning significant changes to Ukraine's police, justice and tax systems, defense sector and health care - all to be completed by 2020. Among the tougher decisions ahead will be allowing the cost of utilities in the cash-strapped country to float in line with market dictates.

"Ukraine is pregnant with reforms," said political analyst Oleksiy Haran. "The elections showed that both the government and voters expect structural changes to bring Ukrainians closer to the European Union."

Haran said measures to simplify regulations for private enterprise and to attract investment need to be adopted first.

Hopeful businessmen in Ukraine complain that if excess red tape doesn't kill their ventures at birth, corruption does so further down the road. For that reason, initiatives to curb graft and overhaul the justice system should follow suit, Haran said.

Poroshenko has also said he wants to see Ukraine become more self-reliant for its energy needs and farm out more powers to local government.

The precise recipe of policies to be pursued is subject of coalition negotiations.

Messages from Western governments congratulating Ukraine on its election pressed the reform theme further.

George Soros: Russia Poses Existential Threat to Europe

George Soros has warned that Russia’s expansionism poses an existential threat to the EU and called for greater material support for Ukraine.

The investor and philanthropist argues that Vladimir Putin’s mix of authoritarianism and aggressive nationalism represents an alternative model to western liberal democracies, referring to the admiration for the Russian president expressed by the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, the president of France’s Front National, Marine Le Pen, and Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

“Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence. Neither the European leaders nor their citizens are fully aware of this challenge or know how best to deal with it,” Soros writes in an article published in the New York Review of Books.

“Now Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental challenge to the values and principles on which the European Union was originally founded. It is based on the use of force that manifests itself in repression at home and aggression abroad, as opposed to the rule of law.”

Soros told the Guardian: “There is a general dissatisfaction with the EU as a result of the euro crisis, which has perverted the initial impetus for forming a union of like-minded democratic states. The euro crisis was mishandled and lasted a long time, and it turned a voluntary union of equals into something quite different.”

Iceland recognises Palestinian state

Iceland on Thursday became one of the first Western European nations to recognise the Palestinian state, marked in a formal ceremony in Reykyjavik. This comes two days after UNESCO in Paris raised the Palestinian flag for the fist time.

AFP - Iceland formally recognised the Palestinian state at a ceremony in Reykjavik on Thursday, becoming one of the first Western European countries to do so.

"This is the day I formally submit to you the declaration of Palestine independence in accordance with the will of the Icelandic parliament," Icelandic Foreign Minister Oessur Skarphedinsson said, addressing his Palestinian counterpart Riad Malki at a news conference.

The two were also scheduled to announce the establishment of diplomatic relations, according to a statement from the Icelandic foreign ministry.

The ceremony at the Reykjavik Culture House follows a vote in the Icelandic parliament, or Allthingi, on November 29 in favour of recognising the Palestinian state on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.

It also comes two days after the Palestinian flag was raised for the first time above a United Nations agency, flying over the UNESCO headquarters in Paris as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas attended a ceremony marking his people's historic admission to the education, science and culture body.

Admission to UNESCO has however had no impact on the Palestinians' bid for full UN membership. They would need nine votes out of 15 in the Security Council, but the United States has made clear that it would veto the bid.

More than 100 countries around the world have recognised the Palestinian state.

Within the European Union, of which Iceland is not a member, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Malta have officially recognised Palestine.

Turkey says Kobane ‘about to fall’ to IS jihadists

Turkey’s President said Tuesday that the key Syria-Turkey border town of Kobane is ‘about to fall’ to the Islamic State (IS) group and that a ‘ground operation’ is needed to defeat the jihadists.

The IS group entered Kobane for the first time Monday after a three-week-long siege. At least 20 jihadists were reported to have been killed in the ensuing street fighting.

By early Tuesday morning, the jihadists had taken three Kobane neighbourhoods, according to the AFP.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Erdogan warned Tuesday that the city was “about to fall” and that a ground operation was needed to defeat the jihadists. He made the comments during an address to Syrian refugees at a camp in Gaziantep province, near the border with Syria.

IS group flagsover east of town

According to an AFP photographer, two black IS group flags were flying on Kobane's eastern side Monday.

IS group fighters seized part of Mishtenur Hill, which overlooks Kobane, late on Saturday, but US-led air strikes slowed their advance.

In a sign of mounting desperation, a Kurdish female fighter blew herself up at an IS group position east of Kobane on Sunday, the Observatory said.

It was the first reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter employing a tactic often used by the jihadists, said the Britain-based monitor, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.

On another front, twin IS group suicide truck bombings killed at least 30 YPG fighters and security officers on Monday in the Kurdish town of Hasakeh, northeast Syria, the Observatory said.

Sunday's fighting around Kobane - also known as Ain al-Arab - killed at least 19 Kurdish fighters and 27 IS jihadists, it added.

The town has become a crucial battleground in the international fight against the jihadists, who sparked further outrage at the weekend with the release of a video showing the beheading of Briton Alan Henning.

WHAT IS KOBANE'S STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE?

The video - the latest in a series of on-camera beheadings of Western hostages - also included a threat to another hostage, US aid worker Peter Kassig.

His parents have issued a video plea for their son's release, urging his captors to show mercy towards the 26-year-old former US soldier who has converted to Islam.

'NATO to protect Turkey'

The IS group began advancing on Kobane on September 16, seeking to cement its grip over a long stretch of the Syria-Turkey border.

The offensive prompted a mass exodus from the area, with some 186,000 people fleeing into Turkey.

The Turkish security forces used tear gas Monday to push dozens of reporters and Kurdish civilians away from the border zone, which has become increasingly dangerous because of stray mortar fire.

Parliament in Ankara last week authorised the government to join a US-led campaign against IS group militants, but so far no plans for military action have been announced.

The new head of NATO said Monday that the alliance would protect Turkey against any IS group attack.

"Turkey is a NATO ally and our main responsibility is to protect the integrity, the borders of Turkey," said NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

British media, meanwhile, reported that Turkish hostages freed by the IS group last month may have been released as part of a prisoner exchange for up to 180 jihadist fighters.

The Times newspaper cited a list it had received saying that among them were three French nationals, two British, two Swedes, two Macedonians, one Swiss and one Belgian.

The Islamic State group has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, where it has been accused of carrying out widespread atrocities, including mass executions, abductions, torture and forcing women into slavery.

After first launching strikes against the IS group in Iraq in August, Washington has built a coalition of allies to wage an air campaign against the group.

In Syria, the coalition carried out anti-IS group strikes on Sunday and Monday near Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and Kobane, where two jihadist "fighting positions" were destroyed, said US Central Command.

In Iraq, they also launched three raids, targeting the jihadists near Fallujah and Ramadi, it said, adding Belgium and Britain took part in the strikes.

According to medics and witnesses, at least 25 IS group jihadists were killed in three overnight air strikes on bases around their northern hub of Mosul.

Turkey’s priority is Kurdish problem, not IS group

The mounting frustration displayed by Kurds in violent clashes across Turkey and along its border with Syria illustrates the deep divisions within the international coalition assembled to fight the Islamic State group, analysts say.

Speaking from the Turkish side of the border on Wednesday, FRANCE 24's Marine Olivesi said Kurds were angered by Turkey’s failure to help Kurdish fighters backed by international air strikes battle IS militants alone in the symbolic town of Kobane, despite the presence of Turkish troops massed within sight of the battlefield.

FRANCE 24'S MARINE OLIVESI REPORTS FROM TURKISH BORDER

“The Turkish parliament voted last week to allow the government to get involved militarily in Syria. That was on Thursday, and yet Turkish tanks positioned at the border have not moved an inch since,” said Olivesi.

Despite assurances that they would not let Kobane fall into the IS group’s hands, the Turkish authorities have set two conditions for military action in Syria.

“The first one is that there is a security zone in Kurdish territory in Syria, and the second one is that there is a no-fly zone,” Olivier Marty, a lecturer in international relations at Sciences Po, Paris told FRANCE 24. “Those two security zones both on the ground and in the air are not yet achieved, and the Turkish army is now pretending that the only circumstance in which they would intervene is an attack on the tomb of a former Turkish historical figure,” he added in reference to the mausoleum of Suleyman Shah. The historic site is located in a Turkish enclave within Syria, 60km west of Kobane.

“The Turks are likely to remain hesitant unless the situation really deteriorates and the insurgents try to attack Turkey,” Marty said. “But I doubt they will, because that would provoke retaliation from Turkey and from NATO.”

Syrian kurds accused of harbouring PKK fighters

The Kurdish troops resisting the IS group’s advance in Kobane belong to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syrian-based group close to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey has accused Syrian Kurds of harbouring members of the PKK - an organisation advocating Kurdish self-determination and regarded by the Turkish government as well as the US and the European Union as a terrorist group after decades of violent campaigns.

KURDS SAY PEACE PROCESS WITH TURKEY NOW AT RISK

“We want Turks to keep their promises,” PYD’s leader Salah Muslim told FRANCE 24. “We want them to let us support our men across the border, to give us humanitarian aid, and we want them to retaliate against those who are hitting their territory,” he added in reference to the IS group's artillery fire allegedly hitting Turkish soil.

FRANCE 24’s Marine Olivesi said Turkey’s efforts to block Kurds from crossing into Syria and support PYD fighters in Kobane had angered them further. “Hundreds of Turkish Kurds have tried for weeks now to cross the border and help Syrian Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State, but the Turkish army has kept a tight lock on the border,” she said. “Over the past few days the military even tried to drive back the crowd gathering there with teargas and water cannons, which aggravated the anger here.”

Turkish security forces have also detained at least 200 Kurds who crossed the border from Kobane. A Turkish official told AFP on Wednesday their fingerprints were being scanned for matches with wanted PKK members.

Double standards in Turkish border controls

French historian and international relations lecturer Pierre Conesa told FRANCE 24 that Turkey was applying double standards – allowing Islamist fighters to reach Syria through its borders to fight the troops of Bashar al-Assad in the past, but now blocking Kurdish fighters from taking part in the conflict.

“Turkey’s priority is to get rid of the Kurdish problem rather than the Islamic state organisation,” he said. “Turkey in fact is allowing the central part of Syrian Kurdistan to be exterminated, and that area is precisely a stronghold for the Kurdish PKK.”

According to Conesa, the escalating tension between Turkey and the Kurds illustrates deep divisions within the US-led international coalition against the IS group. “Two supposed allies within the coalition are fighting each other,” he said. “It illustrates the lack of political consensus on what this military operation is supposed to be about.”

Conesa argues that the international coalition against the IS group should state clear political objectives for its campaign– excluding involvement in regional disputes such as the conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites or between Turks and Kurds.

“We have no part to play in some parts of this war,” he said.

Conflicts: Passenger on downed Malaysia Airlines jet in Ukraine had oxygen mask on

THE HAGUE, Netherlands –  The body of one passenger of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was found wearing an oxygen mask, Dutch prosecutors said Thursday, raising questions about how much those on board knew about their fate when the plane plunged out of the sky above Eastern Ukraine in July.

The passenger, an Australian, did not have the mask on his face, but its elastic strap was around his neck, said Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch National Prosecutor's Office which is carrying out a criminal investigation into the air disaster.

De Bruin said Dutch forensic experts investigated the mask "for fingerprints, saliva and DNA and that did not produce any results. So it is not known how or when that mask got around the neck of the victim."

De Bruin said no other bodies recovered from the wreckage were found wearing masks. He said he did not know where in the plane the Australian victim was sitting.

All 298 passengers and crew died when the jet flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed July 17. Dutch air crash investigators said last month it was likely struck by multiple "high-energy objects from outside the aircraft," which some aviation experts say is consistent with a strike by a missile.

The head of the criminal investigation said the most likely of possible scenarios being investigated is that the Boeing 777 was shot down from the ground.

Relatives of the Australian passenger were told about the mask as soon as it was discovered, but relatives of other victims heard about it for the first time when Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans mentioned it during an interview on a late-night talk show on Wednesday.

Relatives of victims began calling investigators Thursday asking about the comments, De Bruin said.

The Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Timmermans regrets his comments.

"I have an enormous amount of sympathy for the next-of-kin," he said. "The last thing I want to do is compound their suffering in this way."

Ground operation in Syria ‘not realistic’, says Turkey

Turkey could not be expected to lead a unilateral cross-border ground operation into Syria, said Turkey’s foreign minister on Thursday.

Amid mounting international pressure on key NATO member Turkey for a military intervention against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara had no intention of sending ground troops across the border without outside help.

"It's not realistic to expect that Turkey will lead a ground operation on its own," said Cavusoglu. "We are holding talks. Once there is a common decision, Turkey will not hold back from playing its part."

The Turkish foreign minister was speaking to reporters in Ankara after holding talks with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

In his remarks to the press, Stoltenberg said the question of a buffer zone between Turkey and Syria had not been discussed by NATO member countries.

Safe zone required

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said a safe zone for refugees, backed up by a no-fly zone, must be created inside Syria if Ankara is to consider military action there.

"We discussed this issue today during our meeting here," said Stoltenberg. "It has not been on the table of any NATO discussions yet and it is not an issue which is discussed in NATO," he added.

Some NATO member countries such as France have already voiced their support for a buffer zone.

Amid mounting international criticism of Turkey’s failure to intervene in the fight for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian border town the anti-IS, Stoltenberg appeared to be wary of adding to the public pressure, saying that IS jihadists posed "a great threat for the Iraqi people, the Syrian people and the region in general."

"It's important to stand in solidarity," he added, saying NATO welcomed the Turkish parliament's vote last week that gave authorisation for military action.

"NATO stands ready to support all allies in facing threats," he said.

IS group controls ‘a third’ of Kobane

Stoltenberg’s visit to Turkey came as a Syrian activist group on Thursday said IS militants now control a third of the symbolic Kurdish town of Kobane.

The coalition carried out two fresh strikes on the town early Thursday, according to the AFP, as it continued a flurry of bombing raids on IS positions in and around the town.

Nearly 20 coalition bombing raids have hit near Kobane since Tuesday, but Washington has said air strikes alone would not be enough to save it.

Fierce street battles have been raging in Kobane since the jihadists breached its defences earlier this week.

IS fighters pulled out of some areas on Wednesday but have since renewed their offensive and seized more ground, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)