Turkey shelled Kurdish positions in northern Syria

1. Turkey — Syria

The Turkish army attacked the positions of the Kurdish militia and the «Syrian Democratic Forces» in north of Syria — »Interfax» reports while citing the official Syrian mass-media. The Kurdish militia and the fighters of the oppositional «Syrian Democratic Forces», the main part of which are Kurdish »People’s self-defense» troops, were attacked in the city of Al-Malikiya, in the province of Hasaka. Last Saturday, the Turkish President Erdogan announced his intention to conduct a military operation in the border regions of Syria in a few days. On Monday, the USA pulled their forces out from the Syrian-Turkish border, and refused to support the Turkish operation in north of Syria. Donald Trump threatened to “destroy the Turkish economy” if Ankara does something “unacceptable”. Lindsay Graham, a senator from the US Democratic Party, announced that if Turkey begins a military operation in Syria — the Congress will consider a bill on sanctions against Ankara, and will also insist on a suspension of the Turkish participation in the NATO.

2 the USA

The 1st and 6th Committees of the UN General Assembly have suspended their work for several hours becuase the diplomats from Russia and some other countries weren’t issued their visas. This was announced by the Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN — Gennady Kuzmin. Earlier, about 7 representatives of the Russian delegation weren’t issued the US visas, needed to participate in the work of the General Assembly. In this regard, Russia proposed to take a procedural pause in the work of the 1st Committee, and switch to informal consultations until the USA issue visas to the entire Russian delegation. Earlier, the representative of the Iranian delegation, Ali Anasimfar, announced that almost 60 people from the Iranian delegation also didn’t receive the American visas, and in that regard, Iran hasn’t yet agreed to approve the work plan of the General Assembly committee on the legal issues. Russia, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua supported this decision.

3 Venezuela

The Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that the Venezuelan Army will be deployed on the border with Colombia, despite the completion of the military exercises. «I decided to extend the second phase of the «orange» level of threat, and deploy our armed forces» — said Nicolas Maduro. He underlined that “No armed group can freely exist in Venezuela”, and added that “There is no room for the Colombian violence in Venezuela”. In September, Nicolas Maduro made the National Security Council that will deal with the threats of violence of the Colombian government against Venezuela.

4 Belarus

The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, announced that Minsk is ready to develop the text of a declaration by the responsible parties on the non-deployment of medium and short range missiles in Europe. He admitted that such declaration won’t be a proper substitute for the INF treaty, but at the same time — “it could help to fill the legal vacuum in the regulation of this segment of armaments”. Alexander Lukashenko expressed his hope that such document would receive the support of many states, and it would be a practical contribution in the implementation of the initiative of Minsk to launch an international dialogue on the security.