Brussels terror - Anadolu Agency

Abd Doumany wins Photo of
the Year 2016 at Anadolu Turkey, Pakistan sign free
Agency’s 2nd Istanbul
trade agreement framework
Photo Awards
Turkey and Pakistan have paved the way for a new
Tourism could help normalize
Russia-Turkey relations
The deteriorating relations between Turkey and Russia could thaw out before summer, thanks to the
Russians’ love for Turkish holiday resorts, although
some obstacles have to be overcome, according to
experts. Relations between Turkey and Russia have
been severely damaged when two Turkish F-16
fighter jets on an aerial patrol shot down a Russian
warplane late November. The Kremlin reacted by
banning the sale of charter holidays for Russians to
Turkey. >>ENERGY
free trade deal, which has the potential to reduce
barriers in bilateral trade and investment. Turkish
Economy Minister Mustafa Elitas and Pakistani
Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan inked
the Free Trade Agreement Framework in the Pakistani capital Islamabad Tuesday. The Free Trade
Agreement between the two countries is expected
to be signed before the end of 2016.
The photo, showing a wounded boy in a makeshift hospital
in Syria, is praised by jury for its great ‘evocative power’.
Taken by Syrian photographer Abd Doumany for AFP, a
powerful image showing a deep well of emotion in the eyes
of a wounded boy, encapsulating the horror of the last several years in Syria, was chosen Photo of the Year 2016
by the international jury of the 2nd
Istanbul Photo Awards. >>CULTURE and ART
>>ECONOMY
Thursday March 24, 2016
WEATHER / ANKARA
Thursday
heavy raın
16°C
Friday
heavy raın
14°C
Brussels terror
suspect arrested
Local media says Najim Laachraoui arrested in
Anderlecht district of Belgian capital
A man wanted in connection with the terror attacks
at Brussels airport was
arrested Wednesday, Belgian media reported. Najim
Laachraoui was arrested in
the Anderlecht neighborhood of the capital, the DH
newspaper said on its website. He is said to be one of
three suspects pictured at
Zaventem airport moments
before two explosions killed
dozens. The other two suspects have been identified as
brothers Khalid and Brahim
el-Bakraoui by the Belgian
media. They are thought
to have been killed in the
explosions The blasts and
another at Maelbeek metro
station on Tuesday morning left at least 30 dead and
hundreds injured, according
to officials. The broadcaster
RTBF reported the brothers
were known to police for
links to organized crime
rather than terrorism. One,
Khalid, rented an apartment in the Brussels suburb
of Forest, which the police
raided last week. During the
raid a suspect was killed and
it led to the arrest of Saleh
Abdeslam, who had been
wanted in connection with
November’s Paris attacks,
on Friday. >>MORE DETAILS
Mayors, foreign diplomats Verdict due against ‘Butcher
of Bosnia’
visit Istanbul blast site
And express solidarity with
Belgian consul-general on day
of Brussels attacks
Istanbul’s mayors and 19 foreign diplomat chiefs
paid their respects to the victims of the Istanbul
attack that took place Saturday. Mayors of Beyoglu, Fatih and Esenler districts along with several consul-generals including the U.S.’s Frederick
Hunter, the U.K.’s Leigh Turner, laid carnations
at the site on Istiklal Street that was rocked by a
suicide bombing, which killed four people and injured 39, as the street tried to get back to its daily
routine.Belgium’s Henri Marc Jose Vantieghem,
whose country’s capital was rocked by explosions that have killed at least 34 people Tuesday,
called for a united fight against such terror attacks. He also expressed his thanks for the messages of solidarity that he received from Turkish
people. Ahmet Mishap Demircan, the mayor of
Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, where the attack occurred, said Saturday’s terrorist attack had tar-
Suspected Daesh suicide bomber
arrested in Turkey
Turkish border guards stopped
a suspected Daesh-linked suicide bomber on the Syrian
frontier on Tuesday, a security source said. The potential bomber, who was carry-
ing explosives, was arrested
alongside nine other suspected
Daesh members in Gaziantep
province, the source said on
condition of anonymity due to
restrictions on speaking publicly. According to a statement
from the provincial governor’s office, the group originally consisted of 13 suspects
but three escaped. It said two
were injured when they were
arrested.>>MORE DETAILS
geted “humanity” and added that he shared Belgians’ pain. American diplomat Frederick Hunter
stressed that every country had to act together
against terrorist attacks. After laying carnations,
foreign diplomats and mayors marched to the
Belgium Consulate General to express their solidarity. A strong security presence was still visible on Istiklal Street Tuesday as it attempted to
return to a sense of normalcy. >>MORE DETAILS
People across Bosnia and Serbia will be
anxiously waiting by TVs and radios
Thursday for news from a non-descript courtroom in the Netherlands.
After court hearings spanning seven
years, the UN war crimes tribunal in
The Hague is to pass verdict on Radovan Karadzic, the one-time leader
of Bosnia’s Serbs. His lawyer has said
he expects a guilty verdict on an indictment made up of war crimes and
genocide committed against Bosnian
Muslims and Croats. The 70-year-old
faces a life sentence. “Taking into account all elements of the indictment,
which are very precise, I expect that
Karadzic gets a minimum of life in
prison,” Stasa Zajovic, a coordinator of
the Women in Black anti-war group
told Anadolu Agency. “That would be
at least a symbolic satisfaction of justice for the victims but it would [also]
be important for the rehabilitation of
the concept and practice of international justice.” Karadzic was president
of the self- styled Bosnian Serb Republic and supreme commander of its
armed forces between 1992 and 1995,
when around 100,000 Bosnians died
as the former Yugoslavia descended
into ethnic bloodshed. >>MORE DETAILS
Turkish, German mins. stress
US: ‘Depraved ideology’ caused solidarity against terrorism
Brussels attacks, not Islam
The terror attack in Brussels on
Tuesday is not about Islam, but a
“depraved ideology”, according to
the U.S. “This isn’t about a religion.
This is about a warped and brutal,
depraved ideology that continues to
be attractive to a small number of
people in the Muslim faith, radicals
and extremists,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby. “We
don’t believe that it’s indicative of
any way of the Muslim faith or the
people who practice Islam as a reli-
Russian military assets still
deployed in Syria: Sources
gion.” While stopping short of confirming Daesh was responsible for
the attacks, even though the group
claimed responsibility, Kirby said
the militants were “still capable of
this kind of violence”. He said that
not only the U.S., but the world has
to take this latest threat “seriously”. ”We need to continue to look
for ways to improve our capabilities
against this threat and -- and we’ll
do that,” he concluded. >>MORE DETAILS
Despite Russia’s recent decision
to reduce its military assets in
Syria, 24 high-tech bombing
aircraft remain deployed in the
war-torn country. According
to western diplomatic sources,
only 20 bombing aircraft and
one personnel-transport plane
have returned to Russia from
Syria since Moscow’s partial
withdrawal announcement on
March 13. They say that a total of 24 aircraft -- including
12 Sukhoi Su-24s, four Su30s, four Su-34s and four Su35s -- remain deployed in the
country. Advanced-technology Sukhoi Su-30, Su-34 and
Su-35 aircraft, all of which
are now deployed in Latakia’s
Khmeimim Airbase, are used to
carry out bomb-runs capable
of causing enormous destruction. The continued presence
of 12 Russian Sukhoi Su-24
bombers in Syria means Russia has maintained the ability
to carry out heavy bombardments across wide swathes of
territory. On Tuesday, Sergey
Rudskoy, chief of the Russian
General Staff’s main operations department, said Russian
airpower may begin targeting
groups that fail to comply with
a cessation-of-hostilities agreement that went into effect in
Syria late last month.
>>MORE DETAILS
Hours after Brussels blasts, Bozkir meets with Germany’s Roth,
who says, ‘Turkey has provided a
new homeland for immigrants’.
Turkey’s EU Minister Volkan
Bozkir and Michael Roth, Germany’s minister of state for Europe, said Tuesday that Ankara
and European countries should
act with solidarity in reacting
to the multiple blasts in Brussels. They made the remarks at
a joint press conference after a
meeting in Ankara previously
scheduled to discuss last week’s
EU-Turkey agreement on refugees. The two officials urged
solidarity and cooperative ac-
tion to combat terrorism. “This
incident, which we wish had
not happened, shows us that
we must act with solidarity to
combat terrorism,” Bozkir said,
referring to the blasts in Brussels. At least 34 people were
killed and more than 100 others
were injured in multiple explosions at an airport and metro
station in Brussels.>>MORE DETAILS
World leaders condemn Brussels attacks
Country’s new government up against
years of ingrained prejudice in solving situation of one of the most persecuted people
in the world. Myanmar’s newly-elected
president has proposed the creation of a
ministry aimed at solving the country’s
long-standing ethnic issues, but on a list
of the country’s 135 official ethnicities one
minority is nowhere to be seen. For years,
the country’s Muslim Rohingya community has been branded one of the most
persecuted in the world, but Aung San Suu
Kyi’s election winning National League for
Democracy (NLD) rarely dares to breath its
name. “If we talk about Rohingya Muslims, people won’t listen to us,” a Western
diplomat who did not wish to be named
as he was not authorized to talk to media told Anadolu Agency this weekend.
He added that even politicians who appear open-minded would say the ethnic
minority -- that most citizens refer to as
Bengali -- is not one of the country’s various ethnicities, just illegal migrants from a
neighboring country. >>MORE DETAILS