International5

Neighbor News

Trump Freezes Venezuelan Government Assets Amid Tensions

Turkey, Tajikistan to Cooperate in Industry

and Technology Spheres

Turkmenistan Actively Cooperates with International

Organization for Migration

Pakistan Confronts with Racist Ideology of Modi Govt:

PM Imran Khan

Two Nuclear-Armed States Accuse India of Harming

Sovereignty

Erdogan Says Trump Will Not Allow Ties to be Held ‘Captive’ To S-400 Row

No Deal Brexit Is UK PM Johnson’s Central Scenario,

EU Diplomats Say

Italy’s League Aims for 1 Billion Euro Property Tax Cut: Deputy PM Salvini

Lebanon’s Hezbollah Faces Huge Financial, Political Challenges

‘We Will Make Them Pay’: North Korea Launches Missiles,

Condemns U.S.-South Korea Drills

Iran Unveils Home-Made Smart Bombs, Missile

Philippines’ Duterte to Meet China’s Xi over South China Sea Arbitration Win

DUSHANBE - Tur-key and Tajikistan will cooperate in the fields of industry and technology, Turkish Minister of Indus-try and Technology Mustafa Varank said during a meeting with Tajik Minister of Eco-nomic Development and Trade Nematullo Hikmatullozoda in Ankara, Trend reports referring to Turkish media.According to Varank, there is potential for deepening the rela-tions between the two countries and increase trade. He noted that

ASHGABAT - The International Organi-zation for Migration (IOM) is holding a seminar in the Turk-men capital of Ash-gabat, Trend reports referring to the Turk-men Foreign Ministry.The event is attended by representatives of the Turkmen Parlia-ment and of the Turk-men ministries for justice, education, la-bor and social protec-tion of the population.A presentation of a training manual for youth developed as part of a project titled “Strengthening Coun-ter-Trafficking and Protecting Vulnerable Migrants in Central Asia in response to Regional and Global Challenges” was pre-sented at the seminar.The general goal of the seminar is to raise the awareness and qualifications of rep-resentatives of edu-cational institutions in the field of the pre-

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday said that Pakistan was con-fronted with the racist ideology of Modi gov-ernment, which had been following the RSS (Rashtriya Sway-amsevac Sangh) ide-ology and was bent upon ethnic cleansing in secular India.“Whatever they did in the Held Kashmir to change its Special Constitutional Status was according to their

TEHRAN - Iran’s armed forces on Tuesday unveiled two home-made pre-cision-guided smart bombs and a missile, Press TV reported.The bombs named “Yasin” and “Bala-ban” and a new series of the “Ghaem” mis-siles were unveiled during a ceremony in the presence of Ira-nian Defense Minister Amir Hatami.“Balaban” has fold-ing wings designed to increase its range, Hatami said. It is guided by GPS and sensors and could be mounted under aircraft, he added.Hatami described “Yasin” as a long-range smart, guided bomb that can be fired

NEW DELHI - India’s move to abolish the decades-long autonomy of Kashmir has drawn strong reaction from its neighbors, with China accusing New Delhi of undermining its terri-torial sovereignty and Pakistan’s army vowing to go to “any extent” to stand by the Himalayan state.China’s strongly-word-ed statement was most critical of the impact of India’s actions on the mainly Buddhist region of Ladakh -- an area of strategic importance

ANKARA - Turkish President Tayyip Er-dogan said on Tues-day that he believes U.S. President Donald Trump will not allow ties between the two NATO allies to become captive to a dispute over Ankara’s purchase of a Russian S-400 de-fense system.Ankara and Washing-ton have been at log-gerheads over Turkey’s purchase of the S-400s systems, which the United States says are not compatible with NATO defenses and

LONDON - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s central scenario is a no-deal Brexit and he has no intention of renego-tiating the Withdrawal Agreement, Eu-ropean diplomats were quoted as telling The Guardian newspaper.“It was clear UK does not have another plan,” the newspaper quoted a senior EU diplomat after a meeting between David Frost, the government’s new chief Europe adviser and EU diplomats.“No intention to negotiate, which would require a plan,” the diplomat was quot-ed as saying. “A no-deal now appears to be the UK government’s central sce-nario.” (Reuters)

ROME - One of the partners in Italy’s ruling coalition is working on scrapping a property levy in a measure that would be worth 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to taxpayers, Deputy Prime Minister Mat-teo Salvini said on Tuesday.Salvini, whose League party governs alongside the 5-Star Movement, also told reporters in Rome that he wanted to re-open discussions on European Union budget limits, which he has repeatedly criticized. (Reuters)

BEIRUT - Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based political party, is facing huge political and financial challenges be-cause of the increased U.S. sanctions against Iran and the party’s military involvement in different parts of the Arab world, analysts told Xinhua. “To start with, salaries of Hezbol-lah’s fighters who are at the forefront of any military confrontation have dropped by around 30 percent,” Youssef Diab, political analyst, told Xinhua.Since U.S. President Donald Trump introduced new restrictions on trade with Iran last year, Iran’s ability to finance allies such as Hezbollah has been reduced. As a result, Hezbollah has witnessed a sharp fall in its revenue and is be-ing forced to adopt austerity meas-ures. Moreover, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called upon his supporters on March 8 to donate funds to help the party face tighter sanctions from Western countries af-ter Britain joined the United States to list Hezbollah as a terrorist group.To make things worse, the U.S. Treas-ury slapped sanctions last month on three key Hezbollah figures, includ-ing two members of Lebanese parlia-ment. According to Diab, these sanctions against the political wing of Hezbol-lah pose a great political challenge for the party.Meanwhile, Makram Rabah, a lectur-er at AUB’s Department of History, believes ...(More on P4)...(18)

trade turnover be-tween Turkey and Ta-jikistan made up $380 million in 2018, and that it is intend to in-crease the turnover to $1 billion. Accord-ing to the information provided by the Turk-ish Ministry of Trade, the trade turnover be-tween Turkey and Ta-jikistan for the first 6 months of 2019 made up $147.777 million. Turkey’s exports to Tajikistan amounted to 71.189 million dur-ing the said period, and imports from Ta-jikistan to $76.588 mil-lion. (Trend)

vention and combat-ing of trafficking in persons, the informa-tion says.Turkmenistan joined the IOM as a full member in 2013. Prior to this, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Turkmen government and IOM in June 1998. The IOM mission in Turkmeni-stan commenced its activities in 2005.The main program di-rections of joint work include counteract-ing human trafficking and assistance to mi-grants, technical co-operation and border management, man-agement of emergen-cy situations, as well as reduction of the risk of natural disas-ters. Information and educational events are being held as part of joint programs, and the institutional and professional capacity of the relevant institu-tions of Turkmenistan is growing. (Trend)

[BJP] ideology as they wanted to change de-mography of the Oc-cupied Kashmir,” the Prime Minister said in a policy statement at Joint Session of the Parliament.The special Joint Ses-sion of the Parlia-ment was convened to discuss Modi gov-ernment’s decision to revoke special consti-tutional status for the disputed territory of Kashmir. (Monitoring Desk)

from a range of 50 kil-ometers at its target from manned or un-manned aircraft.He said that “Ghaem” is also a missile to be used for precision strikes and could hit within 50 centimeters of a target.“Ghaem” is equipped with different visible, thermal and cylindri-cal seekers and can be installed on various drone, helicopters and fighter jets to an-nihilate their targets, he added. The Irani-an minister said that “the defense ministry will never hesitate to defend Iran and boost security despite the malice and conspira-cies hatched by the United States.” (Xin-hua)

MANILA - Philippine President Rodrigo Du-terte will meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping soon to discuss a 2016 arbitration case over the South China Sea, an aide said on Tuesday, as domestic pressure builds for the firebrand leader to stand up to Beijing.Duterte has a consistent approval rating of about 80 percent but the same surveys show people in the Philippines mistrust China and want the government to fight its perceived maritime bul-lying.Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the leaders are likely to

SEOUL - North Korea fired missiles into the sea off its east coast for the fourth time in less than two weeks, South Korea said on Tuesday, as Pyongyang warned that hostile moves against it “have reached the danger line.”The North, criticizing the U.S.-South Korean drills and their use of high-tech weapons, has fired a series of missiles and rockets since its leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Don-

Hiroshima Marks 74th Anniversary of Atomic Bombing

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration froze all Venezuelan government assets in a dramatic escalation of tensions with Nicolás Maduro that places his socialist administration alongside a short list of adversaries from Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran that have been tar-geted by such aggres-sive U.S. actions.The ban, blocking Amer-ican companies and in-dividuals from doing business with Maduro’s government and its top supporters, took effect

meet at the end of this month for talks that Du-terte has said were his idea.“‘Remember that I said before that there will be a time when I will invoke that arbitral rul-ing?’” Panelo told a reg-ular briefing, quoting Duterte.

“‘This is the time. That’s why I am going there’ - that’s what he said,” Panelo added.China’s embassy in Ma-nila did not immediate-ly respond to a request for comment.Duterte’s move follows sharp criticism during his ...(More on P4)...(14)

ald Trump agreed at a June 30 meet-ing to revive stalled denuclearization talks.North Korea has said it is committed to diplomacy and it will wait until the end of the year for the United States to soften its policy of sanctions and political pressure over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.But if Washington and Seoul disre-gard ...(More on P4)...(15)

immediately Monday and is the first of its kind in the Western Hemi-sphere in more than three decades, following an asset freeze against Gen. Manuel Noriega’s government in Panama and a trade embargo on the Sandinista leader-ship in Nicaragua in the 1980s.While the order falls short of an outright trade embargo — nota-bly, it spares Venezue-la’s still sizable private sector — it represents the most sweeping U.S. action to remove Madu-

nestled between Tibet and Pakistan.Just two years after In-dia and China’s dec-ades-long dispute flared up over a remote area of the Himalayas, and six months after the most serious military escala-tion between India and Pakistan in decades, Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi’s surprise move on Kashmir has inflamed tensions yet again.Beijing has always op-posed India’s inclusion of Chinese territory in the ...(More on P4)...(16)

pose a threat to its Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jets.Last month, Turkey received the first ship-ment of the S-400s and said a second ship-ment would arrive in Ankara next year. The move prompted Washington to begin formally removing An-kara from an F-35 pro-gram in which Turkey was both customer and producer. Washington warned that Turkey will face U.S. sanc-tions over the S-400s, ...(More on P4)...(17)

China Vows Retaliation If US Deploys Mid-Range Missiles in Asia after Ripping Up INF Treaty

BEIJING - Beijing will move to counter Wash-ington’s potential de-ployment of intermedi-ate ground-launched

missiles in Asia, foreign ministry officials have stated, joining Russia in criticizing the US for triggering a new arms

race.China would take un-specified “countermeas-ures” if the US followed through on its prom-ise to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Asia in the near future, Fu Cong, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control depart-ment, told press in Bei-jing on Tuesday.The US’ plans “will severely undermine global strategic balance and stability” as well as “threaten peace and security” in the Asia-

Pacific region, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ear-lier, urging Washington to “exercise restraint and stop taking actions that undermine the se-curity interests of other countries.”No sooner had the US formalized its with-drawal from the INF Treaty with Russia when incoming Defense Secretary Mark Esper suggested that the now-legal missiles should be rolled out in Asia as soon as possible. Australian ...(More on P4)...(13)

TOKYO — Hiroshima marked the 74rd anniver-sary of the atomic bombing of the city with its mayor re-newing calls for eliminating such weapons and demand-ing Japan’s government do more.Mayor Kazumi Matsui raised concerns in his peace address Tuesday about the rise of self-centered politics in the world and urged lead-ers to steadily work toward achieving a world without atomic weapons.“Around the world today, we see self-centered na-tionalism in ascendance, tensions heightened by in-ternational exclusivity and rivalry, with nuclear dis-armament at a standstill,” Matsui said in his peace dec-

laration.He urged the younger generations never to dis-miss the atomic bombings and the war as a mere events of history, but think of them as their own, while calling on the world leaders to come visit the nuclear bombed cities to learn what hap-

pened.Matsui also demanded Japan’s government rep-resent the wills of atomic bombing survivors and sign a U.N. nuclear weapons ban treaty.Japan, which hosts 50,000 American troops and is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, has

not signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, an inaction atom-ic bombing survivors and pacifist groups protest as insincere.Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged widening differences between nuclear and non-nuclear states.“Japan is committed to serve as a bridge between nuclear and non-nuclear states and lead the inter-national effort, while pa-tiently trying to convince them to cooperate and have a dialogue,” Abe said in his address at the ceremony. He vowed to maintain Ja-pan’s pacifist and nuclear nuclear-free principles, but did not promise signing the treaty. ...(More on P4)...(11)

ro since the Trump ad-ministration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful leader in Janu-ary. Critically, it also

exposes foreign entities doing business with the Maduro government to U.S. retaliation. “The apparent goal is to give ...(More on P4)...(12)