President Donald Trump announced Friday that he had dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to "witness the signing of an agreement with representatives of the Taliban" and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to "issue a joint declaration with the government of Afghanistan."
"If the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan live up to these commitments, we will have a powerful path forward to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home," Trump said in a statement. "These commitments represent an important step to a lasting peace in a new Afghanistan, free from Al Qaeda, ISIS, and any other terrorist group that would seek to bring us harm."
The deal will be inked in Doha, Qatar, which served as the base for on-and-off talks between US and Taliban negotiators for more than a year. Those negotiations have been led on the US side by Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad. The two sides had reached "an agreement in principle" in early September 2019, Khalilzad said at the time. Shortly thereafter, Trump called off the talks and said he canceled a secret Camp David summit with the militant group after they took credit for a deadly attack in Kabul that killed a US service member.
In a surprise visit to Afghanistan in November, Trump announced that the talks had restarted. The US President made the announcement shortly after the Taliban released an American and Australian professor in exchange for the release of three Taliban prisoners by the Afghan government. The State Department announced in early December that Khalilzad had rejoined talks with the Taliban in the Qatari capital.
The signing of the agreement would see the realization of a campaign promise for Trump, who has sought to diminish US involvement in wars overseas. Under the plan, the American military presence would be reduced to 8,600 troops from the current 12,000 to 13,000 over the course of 135 days, according to two sources familiar with the agreement.
Pompeo, speaking at the State Department Tuesday, noted that such a drawdown would be "conditions-based," adding that it "sets a high bar for the things that will take place in order for America to ensure that we can accomplish both of those missions: a peace and reconciliation solution in Afghanistan and ensuring that the homeland continues to be as risk free as we can possibly make it."
A senior Afghan politician told CNN Friday that Afghan government is wary about the upcoming deal, which is meant to trigger intra-Afghan dialogue between Afghan stakeholders and the Taliban.
"These negotiations, if they take place, will be the first time that Afghans representing all sides of the conflict will sit down together and begin the hard work of reconciliation," Pompeo said Tuesday.
Developing the team to send to the talks has been deeply challenging but the tentative plan is for each side -- the Afghans and the Taliban -- to have 15 representatives, sources told CNN earlier this week.
Members of Congress and regional experts have raised concerns about the deal, which has yet to be made public. On Wednesday, Rep. Liz Cheney led a group of 21 other Republican lawmakers in expressing "serious concerns" about the anticipated agreement.
In a letter to Pompeo and Esper, they wrote that they are "are seeking assurances that you will not place the security of the American people into the hands of the Taliban, and undermine our ally, the current government of Afghanistan."
There were a record high number of attacks carried out in Afghanistan last year by the Taliban and other anti-government groups. The violence in Afghanistan has continued this year, with the Taliban killing two US service members earlier this month.
There are also concerns that a deal with the Taliban could put at risk the gains made by Afghan civil society and women. Repeatedly pressed about a commitment to women's rights, Pompeo on Tuesday did not specifically answer.
"Our mission set there has been much broader than that," Pompeo said.
"Our mission set there is to deliver good security outcomes for the Afghan people, to let their political process work its way through," he said. "I'm very confident that the very concerns that you raised will be addressed as part of these conversations."
CNN's Kylie Atwood, Nic Robertson and Nicole Gaouette contributed to this report.
Syrians in the northwestern city of Idlib perform funerary prayers for Turkish soldiers Friday. Turkey sought an urgent NATO meeting after at least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria's Idlib province Thursday.
Abdulaziz Ketaz/AFP via Getty Images
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Abdulaziz Ketaz/AFP via Getty Images
NATO is condemning "indiscriminate air strikes by the Syrian regime and Russia," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says, after 33 Turkish soldiers died in an attack near Idlib Thursday. The bombing caused Turkey to request an urgent NATO security meeting that was held Friday.
The NATO meeting was held in solidarity with Turkey, which says the troops were killed in an area where Russian-backed Syrian forces are fighting anti-regime militants. Russia denies playing a role in the strike, which came after weeks of heightened violence in Idlib province.
"I call on them to stop their offensive, to respect international law and to back U.N. efforts for a peaceful solution," Stoltenberg said. "This dangerous situation must be de-escalated."
Stoltenberg did not lay out any changes NATO might make to its current security arrangement in the area. But Turkey says its military struck 200 Syrian regime targets Friday, in retaliation for the strikes.
"This attack occurred even though the locations of our troops had been coordinated with Russian officials in the field," Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency.
Listing the damage of the retaliatory attacks, Akar said, "Turkish forces destroyed five Syrian regime choppers, 23 tanks, 10 armored vehicles, 23 howitzers, five ammunition trucks, a SA-17, a SA-22 air defense system as well as three ammunition depots, two equipment depots, a headquarter and 309 regime troops."
Turkey requested the NATO meeting under Article 4 of the organization's founding treaty. The provision allows any ally to "request consultations whenever, in the opinion of any of them, their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened."
Russia's Defense Ministry says its military did not conduct any airstrikes in the area where the Turkish soldiers were killed, NPR's Lucian Kim reports from Moscow.
On Thursday, Russia's foreign ministry acknowledged that the country's air force is supporting the Syrian army's "Dawn over Idlib" operation. But the agency also said the offensive "focuses exclusively on the terrorists who are holed up in the deescalation zone."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Friday, in a conversation that the Kremlin says included a "substantive exchange of views" on Syria and an agreement to improve coordination between Russia's and Turkey's defense ministries.
"The two leaders have a thorny relationship," NPR's Lucian Kim reports from Moscow. "Putin has sold Erdogan an advanced air defense system and last month opened a natural-gas pipeline from Russia. But in 2015, Russia nearly went to war after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane."
In Friday's phone call, Putin and Erdogan agreed to look at the possibility of "soon holding a meeting at the highest level," the Kremlin says.
Stoltenberg said Turkey's NATO allies are "constantly looking" for ways to support Turkey, as a bloody and destabilizing civil war plays out in neighboring Syria. He added that the group will continue to augment Turkey's air defense, to prevent missile attacks from Syria.
"There's a Patriot missile battery in southern Turkey and AWACS flights keeping an eye from above," Teri Schultz reports for NPR's Newscast. "Turkey has reportedly asked the U.S. directly to share more missile-defense capabilities."
Fears over the rapid spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus have been growing, with California reportedly monitoring around 8,400 people after the first possible case of person-to-person transmission of unknown origin was confirmed this week.
Cases have been confirmed in at least 10 new countries as of Friday, including New Zealand, the Netherlands and Nigeria, as the death toll climbed to more than 2,850 across the globe.
The deadly virus, which was first identified in China's Wuhan city in Hubei province, has now infected nearly 84,000 people across more than 50 countries, including more than 4,000 people outside China, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
For the first time since the outbreak of the virus, the number of new cases reported outside China has surpassed the number of new cases within the country, with at least 746 reported outside China, while 439 new cases have been recorded within, according to a February 27 report by the World Health Organization.
Some countries have taken drastic measures to prevent the virus from spreading. This includes banning the entry of travelers from countries most affected by the outbreak such as South Korea, which now has the highest number of cases outside of China, with nearly 2,400 infected patients.
The Royal Caribbean cruise company is rejecting travelers from South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Italy, while Japan, Singapore and the Philippines are also banning travelers from South Korea.
Several nations in the Middle East, where Iran has seen 26 deaths from the virus (the highest outside China so far), have also taken heightened precautionary measures. This week Saudi Arabia banned all pilgrimages to the cities of Mecca and Medina, two of Islam's holiest sites, in a bid to prevent the virus from entering the country.
WHO issued a set of temporary recommendations after the virus was declared a public health emergency in January. But the body "did not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available."
"Tourism's response needs to be measured and consistent, proportionate to the public health threat and based on local risk assessment, involving every part of the tourism value chain – public bodies, private companies and tourists, in line with WHO's overall guidance and recommendations," WHO said in a statement on Thursday.
"UNWTO [UN World Tourism Organization] and WHO stand ready to work closely with all those communities and countries affected by the current health emergency, to build for a better and more resilient future. Travel restrictions going beyond these may cause unnecessary interference with international traffic, including negative repercussions on the tourism sector," it added.
Despite the sudden spike in outbreaks in different regions, WHO has not declared the virus a pandemic.
"For the moment, we are not witnessing sustained and intensive community transmission of this virus, and we are not witnessing large-scale severe disease or death," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a WHO weekly mission briefing on Wednesday.
"Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems," he added.
More than half of U.S. coronavirus cases are in California
California confirmed 33 patients tested positive for the virus and the state is monitoring at least 8,400 others, California's governor Gavin Newsom said at a press briefing on Thursday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed there are around 60 cases confirmed in the U.S., 42 of which were passengers on board the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship which was quarantined off the coast of Japan for two weeks after a passenger from Hong Kong was diagnosed earlier this month.
"We are currently in deep partnership with CDC on one overriding protocol that drives our principal focus right now and that's testing, and the importance to increase our testing protocols and to have point of contact diagnostic testing as our top priority not just in the state of California but I imagine all across the United States," Newsom said at the press conference.
American citizens wave from a bus as they leave the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship at Daikoku Pier to be repatriated to the United States on February 17, 2020 in Yokohama, Japan.
The state was said to be conducting a "deep tracking and tracing" of anyone who may have come into contact with the latest infected patient this week, who had no known exposure to the virus via close contact with an infected person or from traveling. The case was reported to be the first possible indication of a community spread of the virus where the source of the infection is unknown, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) said.
The latest patient, who is being treated in Sacramento County, was reported to be in serious condition, according to Representative John Garamendi, who represents the California district where the patient is from.
"Whether this person can actually talk or not is of question. She's been intubated, and so may not be in a position to discuss it," he told CNN.
"This is a fluid situation right now and I want to emphasize the risk to the American public remains low," Dr. Sonia Y. Angell, the director of the CDPH and the state's health officer, said at a press conference. "There have been a limited number of confirmed cases to date," she added.
The virus spreads to 10 new countries
New cases of the virus have been reported in at least 10 additional countries, including New Zealand, the Netherlands and Nigeria.
New Zealand became the 48th country to be affected by the outbreak, the country's ministry of health confirmed in a statement on Friday.
The infected patient was reported to be in their 60s and had recently returned from Iran on a flight with Emirates (Flight EK450) via Bali, arriving in Auckland on February 26.
"The patient confirmed with COVID-19 is being treated in Auckland City Hospital. They are in an improving condition in isolation, in a negative pressure room to prevent any spread of the disease.
"Contact tracing has started and close contacts are in isolation. Other close family contacts will also now be tested for COVID-19," the ministry said in the statement.
"Although we have our first case of COVID-19, the chances of community outbreak remain low.
"The Ministry of Health is confident the public risk from this new infection is being well managed because of the public messaging, awareness of COVID-19 disease and our public health response to managing cases and contacts," the ministry said.
Nigeria has also reported its first infection, becoming the first case in sub-Saharan Africa.
The patient, an Italian national working in Nigeria who had flown from Milan to Lagos on February 25, was reported to be in stable condition, with no serious symptoms, at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Lagos, the BBC reports.
"We have already started working to identify all the contacts of the patient, since he entered Nigeria," the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said in a statement.
Two South African nationals aboard a cruise ship in Japan were also reported to have tested positive for the virus, according to South Africa's ministry of health, while Egypt and Algeria previously reported cases.
Kenya has seen a public outcry after China's Southern Airlines resumed flights to Nairobi amid the growing outbreak.
WHO recently warned that the continent's "fragile health systems" meant the threat posed by the virus was "considerable" in Africa, the BBC reports.
Lithuania, Belarus, Denmark, Estonia, Romania and Pakistan also reported their first infections in the last 24 hours or so.
Italy, Europe's worst-hit country, has now reported a total of 655 cases, an increase of more than 200 within a day, with a death toll of 17. Other popular European destinations continue to report more cases, including Germany, which has 48 cases, while France has 38 and Spain has 25 confirmed cases, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
South Korea faces more travel bans, Japan weighs Olympics
Confirmed cases in South Korea have climbed to 2,337, most of which have been linked to members of a religious group known as the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ). The secretive group holds services in large masses with members sitting on the floor in close proximity for periods of one to two hours.
Vietnam will suspend visa-free travel for South Koreans from Saturday, while Russia is planning to restrict the entry of South Koreans (and ban the entry of Iranians) from March 1.
Disney theme parks in Asia have been temporarily shut in view of the growing outbreak. Japan's Disneyland Tokyo will be closed until March 15, while all schools in Japan (which has confirmed 226 cases so far) will be closed from March 2 until the next spring break session later that month, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo confirmed.
Japan is due to host the 2020 Olympics this summer in July and fears over the virus have cast doubts over whether the games will go ahead.
Olympic organizers are scheduled to decide on the ceremonial torch relay, which is due to begin in the country on March 20 for a 121-day journey through the country's landmarks, Reuters reports.
The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the spread of the COVID-19 virus as of February 28.
A map showing worldwide cases of COVID-19.Statista
BRUSSELS — In an apparently coordinated effort by Turkey to raise the pressure on Europe, Turkish state news agencies on Friday showed videos of hundreds of migrants making their way to the Turkish-Greek land border, seemingly facilitated by the Turkish authorities.
The broadcasts, an apparent effort by Turkey to press European leaders into supporting its military campaign in northern Syria, came hours after Turkey suffered heavy losses in fighting in Idlib Province in Syria, prompting an extraordinary NATO ambassadors’ meeting and fears of escalation.
European Union officials, fearful of a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis, were apprehensively watching the developments in Turkey on Friday, as migrants were shown on live television making their way to Turkey’s borders with Greece.
Videos released by Anadolu, Turkey’s state-controlled news wire, showed migrants making their way through fields and roads close to the Turkish-Greek border. A migrant interviewed by a Turkish channel near the border said she had been driven there free by bus.
A Turkish news crew also filmed a boat of migrants as it departed for Greece, in a stunt that implied coordination among smugglers, Turkish officials and the private news media, whose owners are heavily influenced by the government.
Another group that had been driven to the coast turned back after it realized there were no more boats ready to smuggle its members to Greece. But the steady drip of footage at least initially appeared to be coordinated, rather than an organic mass movement of refugees.
Local organizations and the authorities on the Greek islands said two boats had arrived on Lesbos on Friday morning. Lighthouse Relief, an aid group that helps coordinate landings in Lesbos, said it had witnessed a Turkish Coast Guard ship approach one of the boats and then let it pass.
The Greek authorities said they were reinforcing controls at their land borders with Turkey in the north, as well as preparedness on the islands in the northeastern Aegean that bore the brunt of the 2015-16 crisis and still host dozens of thousands of migrants in appalling conditions.
Turkey has shown no sign of opening its southern border with Syria, where several hundred thousand Syrians are sheltering from attacks by the Assad government. Nor has it rescinded visa restrictions for Syrians living in Lebanon and Jordan.
A large proportion of the refugee influx to Europe in 2015 were Syrians who had come directly from Syria — or who had traveled by plane into Turkey from Jordan and Lebanon.
After the mass movement of asylum seekers in 2015, the European Union had struck a deal with Ankara, which saw it funding international and local organizations to help refugees in Turkey with 6.6 billion euros ($7.2 billion). The deal also foresaw that Syrians could be returned to Turkey from Greek islands, but in practice, the Greek government has not made much use of this provision.
“There is no official announcement from the Turkish side about any change to their asylum-seeker, refugee or migrant policy,” said Peter Stano, a spokesman from the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.
“We expect Turkey to uphold its commitment,” he added.
But the Turkish government said that while its policy hadn’t changed formally, the situation had changed practically.
“We have said that Turkey would not be able to carry the pressure of incoming refugees. After the attacks, refugees are going ahead toward Europe and towards Turkey,” the governing party spokesman, Omer Celik, told CNN Turk television overnight Friday.
“Our refugee policy is the same, but there is a situation here now and we are not in a position anymore to hold the refugees,” Mr. Celik said.
Even if migrants and refugees manage to arrive in Greece and Bulgaria, the repeat of a situation similar to the one in 2015 is highly unlikely. Not only have neighboring Greece and Bulgaria shut their borders to prevent further movements, but the European Union has also invested heavily in keeping people in those countries and preventing them from traveling onward to the continent’s north.
Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported from Brussels, and Patrick Kingsley from Jerusalem.
A Chinese Navy ship fired a laser at a U.S. surveillance aircraft flying over the Philippine Sea west of Guam, the Navy said Thursday. Officials acknowledged the incident more than a week after it happened.
The Navy said the People's Republic of China naval destroyer lased the American P-8A Poseidon aircraft in an act the U.S. deemed unsafe and a violation of international codes and agreements. The statement from U.S. Pacific Fleet said the laser was detected by sensors on the aircraft, but was not visible to the naked eye.
People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer lased a #USNavy P-8A Poseidon aircraft in an unsafe, unprofessional manner. The incident took place Feb. 17 in the airspace above international waters 380 miles west of Guam. #FreeandOpenIndoPacific
"Weapons-grade lasers could potentially cause serious harm to aircrew and mariners, as well as ship and aircraft systems," the Navy said. The incident took place about 380 miles west of Guam.
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The Poseidon crew is deployed to Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. The squadron conducts routine operations, maritime patrol, and reconnaissance in the Pacific Fleet area.
A P-8A Poseidon assigned to the Golden Swordsmen of Patrol Squadron (VP) 47 performs a fly-by next to the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG 88) on Feb. 4, 2019.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Bryan Niegel/Released
LONDON — Russia on Friday announced it had dispatched two state-of-the-art warships to the Middle East after an attack in Syria killed 33 Turkish soldiers.
Videos posted on social media showed two of Russia’s newest guided missile frigates, the Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Makarov, making their way through the Bosporus, a Turkish-controlled chokepoint that runs through Istanbul, on their way to the Syrian coast.
Though Russia and Turkey have seen a rapprochement in recent years, much to the chagrin of the U.S. and its NATO allies, the two sides pursue opposing goals in Syria: Moscow backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Ankara backs rebel groups opposing him in northern Syria.
Jan. 11, 202000:59
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Turkey has beefed up its support — both in men and materiel — for rebel forces in the face of a Syrian regime assault on the last remaining opposition stronghold in Idlib province. The escalation of violence has again highlighted Russia and Turkey’s irreconcilable aims in Syria.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that the Turkish forces in Idlib came under Syrian government fire while operating alongside “terrorist formations” near the settlement of Behun, referring to Turkish-backed rebels.
“[Russian forces] have constantly requested and confirmed with their Turkish colleagues the coordinates of the location of all units of the Turkish armed forces positioned near the areas of terrorist actions,” the Russian statement said.
The statement said that Turkey failed to notify Russia that its troops were operating in the region while simultaneously denying that any Russian aircraft were conducting air strikes in the region.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at press conference Friday, expressed his condolences for the Turkish soldiers, but noted that the incident would have been prevented if Ankara honored a de-confliction agreement between the two militaries in the region. He also said Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan have spoken about the situation.
The deployment Friday of Russian ships, capable of firing guided cruise missiles at land targets, comes as Turkey mulls over possible responses to the killing of its soldiers by Russian-backed Syrian forces on Thursday— including the possibility of a wider Turkish assault on Syrian forces in Idlib.
Turkey-backed Syrian fighters rest in the town of Saraqib in Syria's Idlib province on Thursday.Bakr Alkasem / AFP - Getty Images
Military tensions last flared in 2017, when Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft that strayed into Turkish airspace while conducting bombing runs on Ankara-backed rebel forces in north-western Syria, raising the specter of broader conflict between Europe’s two largest militaries.
Turkey ultimately backed down from that standoff and signed on to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems. Since then, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan have made a show of fostering closer ties – at the expense of Turkey’s relations with NATO.
But now, with tensions again flaring with Russia, Erdogan is looking West for support. At Turkey’s request, NATO will be holding a meeting to consult with Ankara on the situation in Syria on Friday.
