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Trump Meets Turkish President Erdogan, Stresses Common Ground on ISIS, Trade

Geoff Regan Looks to Keep Role as Speaker of the House of Commons in Canada

OTTAWA—Geoff Regan, who presided over the House of Commons as Speaker for the past four years, is looking to reprise his role in the new session of Parliament. The Halifax Liberal MP plans to let his name stand among those who want to be the referee in what is likely to be a fractious Commons following last month’s bruising election campaign that returned Justin Trudeau’s Liberals with a minority government. The new session is to start on Dec. 5 and the first order of business will be for MPs to elect a new Speaker. Speaker’s office spokeswoman Heather Bradley said Regan “would welcome the opportunity to place his experience as Speaker in the [last] 42nd Parliament at the service of the House of Commons and will therefore be letting his name stand as a candidate for…

President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Nov. 13, 2019. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

President Donald Trump met his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in the White House on Wednesday, Nov. 13. Trump went into the talks focused on trade, fighting ISIS, and on untangling some contentious issues in the relationship with the NATO ally.

During an afternoon press conference, Trump praised Turkey’s participation in United States’ fight against terrorism, including some assistance Turkey provided to the operation to kill ISIS terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Erdoğan emphasized Turkey’s role in fighting ISIS and bearing the brunt of the Syrian civil war.

Turkey has captured thousands of ISIS terrorists, including over 1,200 still incarcerated in Turkey. It also hosts over 3.6 million Syrian refugees at the cost, so far, of some $40 billion, he said.

Erdoğan also voiced support for Trump’s plan to boost trade between the two countries about fourfold to $100 billion.

Regarding U.S. complaints about Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system, both presidents expressed a commitment to continue talks on the matter.

Erdoğan floated the possibility of Turkey buying the American Patriot missile defense system.

“Under suitable circumstances we could acquire Patriot missiles as well,” he said.

He gave no assurances regarding the S-400.

In response to the S-400 purchase, Washington removed Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program, in which Ankara was a manufacturer and buyer.

Pulling Turkey back into the program hinges on resolving the S-400 issue, a senior administration official told reporters in a Nov. 12 evening background call.

Washington is also concerned about Turkey’s treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in Syria, including Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds, as well as “human rights issues, like religious freedom issues, within Turkey,” senior administration officials said during the call.

Erdoğan said minorities such as Yazidis and Christians have “no problems whatsoever” on the Turkish side of the border, but that Turkey has a plan to restore their places of worship in Northern Syria.

“We’ll see their sanctuaries getting revived and their churches will be reconstructed so that they can go back and start praying there again,’ he said. “And these are the plans that we’re making for them.”

Regarding the Kurds, Erdoğan made a distinction between Kurds as an ethnicity and some Kurdish organizations which Turkey considers terrorist.

“We have no problems with the Kurds,” he said. “We have problems with terrorist organizations.”

He pointed out that his own party has 50 Kurdish parliament members and that Turkey has good relations with the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq.

Turkey has for years complained about Washington’s cooperation in Syria with the military coalition led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist group.

The United States has supported the YPG in fighting ISIS in Syria, but has acknowledged that the group is tied to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.

The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Turkey after Erdogan launched in October a military offensive into Syria, its southern neighbor, with the stated purpose of pushing the YPG away from the border and to establish a “safe zone” for resettling about a million Syrian refugees.

Trump lifted the sanctions two weeks later after Turkey agreed to halt the offensive.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkey have since accused each other of violating the ceasefire.

Trump said “the ceasefire continues to hold,” though he called the situation “complicated.”

Despite Turkey’s objections, the Trump administration continues to work with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a YPG-led coalition.

SDF chief Mazloum Abdi said in a Nov. 8 tweet that his troops are helping to fight ISIS remnants in Syria and assist U.S. troops protecting Syrian oil fields.

Trump withdrew most U.S. troops from Syria, but left some behind to guard the oil.

Turkey blames Abdi, who was formerly with the PKK, for 18 terrorist attacks in Turkey in which 164 soldiers and 40 civilians died, according to Hilal Kaplan, a reporter with the Turkish pro-government Daily Sabah newspaper.

She asked Trump whether he still plans to invite Abdi for a visit, saying it would be “very offensive an hurtful for the Turkish public.”

Trump said he recently had a “very good talk” with Abdi.

“A lot of it is definition,” he said. “What’s your definition of the various groups within the Kurds? You have various groups within the Kurds and some like them and some don’t.”

He invited the reporter to pose a question to Erdoğan too, quipping, “You’re sure you’re a reporter? You don’t work for Turkey?”

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Trump Expected to Delay European Auto Tariff Decision, Say EU Officials

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce this week he is delaying a decision on whether to slap tariffs on cars and auto parts imported from the European Union, likely for another six months, EU officials said. “We have a solid indication from the administration that there will not be tariffs on us this week,” one EU official said on Monday. The Trump administration has a Thursday deadline to decide whether to impose threatened “Section 232” national security tariffs of as much as 25 percent on imported vehicles and parts under a Cold War-era trade law. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose agency is overseeing an investigation into the effect of auto imports on U.S. national security, said on Nov. 3 the United States may not need such tariffs…