Iran’s President Pezeshkian, during his address at the D-8 summit in Cairo, said “the first step to stopping the aggression is to pressure Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza and to halt attacks on Lebanon and Syria.”

This is the top humanitarian and ethical priority for regional countries and D-8 members, he said, adding that Iran supports any “agreement that is accepted by the Palestinian people and has the consensus of all Palestinian groups”.

In Lebanon, Pezeshkian said “despite extensive efforts to prevent the killing of civilians and innocents, a ceasefire text was eventually prepared, and the resistance, despite some reservations, agreed to it to strengthen national unity.

“However, unfortunately, the other side [Israel] is violating the ceasefire. We urge other countries to provide extensive support, both in terms of pressuring the Zionist regime to fulfil its commitments and in the reconstruction and normalization of life, as well as economic and infrastructural assistance to Lebanon.” (Aljazeera)

ANKARA  –  Turkiye has hit back at claims by the United States that it agreed to a ceasefire with Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, and has vowed to continue working to clear them from the territory – a military operation that was launched after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A senior Turkish defense official on Thursday rubbished claims made by US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller that a Washington-brokered ceasefire between Turkish-backed rebels and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) around the Syrian city of Manbij had been extended until the end of this week. The SDF is supported by Washington in its fight against ISIL, but Ankara views it as a “terrorist organisation”, alleging links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a four-decade armed rebellion on Turkish soil.

On Thursday, the Turkish official described Miller’s statement as “a slip of the tongue”, saying it was “out of the question” for Turkiye to talk to the SDF, a group spearheaded by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is seen an extension of the PKK. “Until the PKK/YPG terrorist organisation disarms and its foreign fighters leave Syria, our preparations and measures will continue within the scope of the fight against terrorism,” said the official. Turkiye regards the PKK, YPG and SDF as “terrorist” groups. The US and Turkiye’s Western allies also list the PKK as “terrorist”, but not the YPG and the SDF. Renewed fighting between Turkish-backed factions and Syrian Kurdish fighters comes more than a week after fighters led by opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Syria’s longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad.

Reporting from Istanbul, Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu said that Turkiye believed it was up to the new Syrian administration to remove “foreign fighters” – an allusion to PKK members of the YPG –  from its territory. “Turkiye considers all those PKK ranks within the YPG as foreign fighters and the Turkish foreign minister said these foreign fighters … within the opposition factions should be out of Syria, especially as there is a new Syrian administration and a national army is expected to be established,” she said. If the new administration was unable to remove foreign fighters from its territory, Turkiye could potentially intervene, she added.

The Turkish official’s comments came as concerns grew over a possible Turkish assault on the Kurdish-held Syrian border town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, some 50km (30 miles) northeast of Manbij. US President-elect Donald Trump described the toppling of al-Assad as an “unfriendly takeover” by Turkiye, which had aligned itself with several of the opposition groups that led the lightning offensive on Damascus. Speaking to Al Jazeera last Wednesday, Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan rejected Trump’s comments, saying it would be “a grave mistake” to describe the current events in Syria as a takeover by Turkiye. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: A mourner in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, holds a portrait of a fighter with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who was killed in Manbij during clashes with Turkish-backed opposition factions. (AFP)

USA – The White House intentionally hid from the public Joe Biden’s rapidly diminishing mental condition for his entire presidency, according to a bombshell report.  Biden’s team hired a vocal coach, put other officials into roles usually occupied by the president, scrapped meetings on the president’s ‘bad days’ and avoided calls with other politicians, according to an explosive report in The Wall Street Journal. It exposed an extensive and deliberate cover-up that included the administration repeatedly gaslighting those who dared to claim the president was no longer the same man who had served as Barack Obama’s vice president. 

But Biden’s decline was hard to overlook – especially after Special Counsel Robert Hur last year released a report in the classified documents case depicting a forgetful and frail then-81-year-old. Hur decided not to charge Biden because he ‘would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’ and ‘it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him.’

The WSJ notes how Biden could not even repeat back to his staff lines they fed him while preparing for his interview with the special counsel. Biden would also cancel important national security meetings, with aides excusing him because he had ‘bad days and good days’. A well-connected Democratic strategist confirmed to DailyMail.com that the majority of Biden’s executive power is ‘concentrated by people who are not external facing,’ including his advisors Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti, and Mike Donilon. For years, Biden’s lower-level staff have griped that the ‘triumvirate’ of Biden’s trusted advisors – known as the ‘Biden whisperers’ – have had an outsized influence on the president. As his presidency comes to an end, many in Washington agree that it’s been hard to tell who is actually in charge of running the country. (Dailymail)

CHINATOWN  –  An American citizen has pleaded guilty to helping run what has been described as the first known secret police station in the US on behalf of the Chinese government. Prosecutors say Chen Jinping and his co-defendent Lu Jianwang opened and operated the station in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighbourhood in early 2022 on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS). At least 100 such stations have been reported worldwide across 53 countries, with rights groups accusing China of using the outposts to threaten and monitor Chinese nationals abroad. But China has denied that they are police stations, saying they are “service stations” providing administrative services to nationals overseas. The outpost, which occupied an entire floor above a ramen stall, did provide basic services like renewing Chinese citizens’ driver licenses, but it also helped Beijing identify pro-democracy activists living in the US, say federal authorities.

Matthew Olsen, an assistant attorney general in the US Department of Justice, called the attempt to operate the undeclared overseas police station “a clear affront to American sovereignty and danger to our community that will not be tolerated”. The station was closed in the autumn of 2022 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation. But Chen and Lu destroyed text messages they exchanged with an MPS official when they learned of the probe, prosecutors said. The men, who are both American citizens, were arrested in April last year. Last  Wednesday, Chen, 60, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent for China, and faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced next year. Chen’s acknowledgement of guilt is a “stark reminder of insidious efforts taken by the [Chinese] government to threaten, harass, and intimidate those who speak against their Communist Party,” Robert Wells, an executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch said in a statement.

Lu, 59, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. Prosecutors have accused him of harassing a purported Chinese fugitive to return to China and for helping to locate a pro-democracy activist in California on behalf of the Communist Party. At the time of Chen’s arrest, authorities said it marked the first time the US has brought criminal charges in relation to such police outposts. Mr Olsen said US authorities would “continue to pursue anyone who attempts to aid China’s efforts to extend their repressive reach into the United States”. In September, Linda Sun, a former aide in the New York governor’s office, was charged with using her position to serve Chinese government interests. She was said to have received benefits, including travel, in return. Last year, 34 officers from the MPS were also charged with using fake social media accounts to harass Chinese dissidents in the US and spread official Chinese government propaganda. (BBC)

Photo: Manhattan’s Chinatown. (Getty Images)