World

DAVOS, Switzerland — UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres skewered oil firms on Wednesday for having "peddled the big lie" about their role in global warming, telling the World Economic Forum that they should be held accountable.

Addressing a room-full of the world's business and political elite, Guterres drew a parallel between the actions of oil companies and those of tobacco companies that have been hit by massive lawsuits over the effects of cigarettes.

"We learned last week that certain fossil fuel producers were fully aware in the 1970s that their core product was baking our planet," Guterres said.

A study published in the journal Science last week said ExxonMobil had dismissed the findings of its own scientists on the role of fossil fuels in climate change.

"Just like the tobacco industry, they rode rough-shod over their own science," Guterres said, referring to lawsuits that found that cigarette companies had hidden the dangers of their products. 

"Some in Big Oil peddled the big lie. And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account."

In 1998, US states won a landmark settlement against tobacco companies worth $246billion aimed at recovering the costs of treating smokers from the harmful effects of cigarettes.

The study on ExxonMobil published in the journal Science last week found that the firm's scientists had modelled and predicted global warming "with shocking accuracy", only for the company "to spend the next couple of decades denying that very climate science".

ExxonMobil is the target of a number of lawsuits in the United States.

Asked about the Science report, an ExxonMobil spokesman said last week that the issue had come up several times in recent years and in each case the company's answer was that "those who talk about how 'Exxon Knew' are wrong in their conclusions".

In his speech, Guterres urged the world to “end the addiction to fossil fuels” as he warned that the aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5ºC was “going up in smoke”.

“Fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that this business model is inconsistent with human survival,” he said.

“This insanity belongs in science-fiction, yet we know the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact,” Guterres added.

The UN chief also called on business leaders in the room to provide by the end of the year “credible and transparent” plans on how to achieve net-zero emissions.

UN experts published recommendations at the UN climate summit in Egypt in November saying firms cannot claim to be net-zero if they invest in new fossil fuels, cause de-forestation or offset emissions with carbon credits instead of reducing them

“Here at Davos, I call on all corporate leaders to act based on these guidelines,” he said.

Guterres said the benchmarks and criteria in the pledges made by companies are “often dubious or murky”, which can “mislead consumers, investors and regulators with false narratives”.

“It feeds a culture of climate misinformation and confusion. And leaves the door open to greenwashing,” he said.

ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday signalled that he intended to bring the next general election forward by one month to May 14.

The announcement sets the stage for what some analysts view as Turkey's most consequential vote in generations.

Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted party have ruled Turkey for two tumultuous decades that have seen years of economic booms and busts as well wars and even a failed but bloody coup.

His secular opposition enters the campaign divided over everything from policy to strategy and has not agreed on a candidate to field against Erdogan.

Turkey's next general election is officially due to be held on June 18.

But Erdogan's allies have been hinting for weeks that they may bring the polls forward because of religious holidays and school exams.

Analysts believe that Erdogan’s office is looking for a perfect moment at which his own voters are more likely to turn out than those backing his opponents.

On Wednesday Erdogan delivered a speech to his ruling party in which he recalled the day contemporary Turkey held its first free election in 1950.

That May 14 vote was won by Adnan Menderes — a prime minister who was toppled by a military junta in 1960 and executed a year later.

Erdogan was himself deposed and briefly jailed when he was mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s and often compares himself to Menderes.

“The late Menderes said on May 14, 1950 ‘enough, the people will have their say’, and emerged victorious at the ballot box,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.

“Our people will give their answer to the [pposition] on the same day 73 years later.”

‘Never write 

Erdogan off’ 

Erdogan enters the election with his approval ratings bruised by a year-long economic crisis that saw inflation touch 85 percent late last year.

But the fractured opposition has still not united around a single candidate after more than a year of heated talks.

Their best hope at one stage appeared to be Istanbul’s popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

The telegenic 52-year-old beat Erdogan’s ally in the landmark 2019 municipal election in which the opposition also swept to power in the capital Ankara and Turkey’s third-largest city Izmir.

But a criminal court last month banned Imamoglu from politics for calling officials who annulled his initial 2019 victory “idiots”.

Imamoglu has appealed and can still technically run for president.

But if he won and his conviction for slander was eventually upheld, he would have to step down from office, making his candidacy too risky for the opposition.

The main opposition party’s leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu now appears like the most likely candidate to stand against Erdogan.

But the 74-year-old former civil servant’s failure to light up opinion polls have caused divisions within the six opposition parties now allied against Erdogan.

The six have promised to finally agree on a single candidate once Erdogan set the election date.

“Now, there is no other choice for the [opposition] but to determine the joint candidate as soon as possible and to stand behind this candidate with all their party organisations,” veteran Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel tweeted.

The polls will also challenge Erdogan’s control of parliament.

His ruling party is currently in an alliance with a far-right group whose support has dwindled in the past few years.

“Polls show the opposition in the lead but momentum seems to be back with Erdogan,” emerging market economist and veteran Turkey watcher Timothy Ash wrote in a note to clients.

“I think the election really is too close to call, but I would never write Erdogan off in any election.”

TALAGANTE, Chile — Alhue and Mailen were born in captivity but conservationists hope to free the chicks soon as part of a project to boost Chile’s ailing population of Andean condors.

The Andean condor, a type of vulture, is the largest flying bird in the world but its population is considered “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Endangered Species.

There are just an estimated 6,700 Andean condors living in the wild.

At Chile’s Rehabilitation Centre for Birds of Prey (CRAR), conservationists are trying to boost those numbers.

“The aim is to introduce condors to nature born from condors that cannot be freed, who are here for life,” said Eduardo Pavez, the CRAR founder.

The CRAR center in Talagante, 40 kilometres from Santiago, looks after birds that cannot be released into the wild, either because they cannot fly or have become too accustomed to human contact.

The parents of both Alhue, a male, and female Mailen, have lived in the centre for years and cannot be released.

Venerated but threatened 

The condor has long been venerated by indigenous peoples in the Americas.

In Andean religious mythology, the condor was a symbol of power and ruled the upper world, acting as an intermediary with the world of spirits and the sun god, Inti.

It features on the coat of arms of several countries, such as Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile.

It is virtually extinct in Venezuela in the north of the continent, while the largest concentrations are found in the south of Chile and Argentina.

The greatest threat to the condor is human occupation of the Andean mountain range, and a lack of food.

CRAR, founded in 1990, takes in all sorts of birds of prey including owls and falcons that are injured, have been in an accident or were kept in captivity.

Its aim is to rehabilitate them and release them back into the wild, but in many cases that is impossible.

Alhue’s mother, for example, was injured by a power line and can no longer fly.

Mailen’s mother, who was brought to the centre at the age of about one, has become too accustomed to humans to be able to survive in the wild.

Over the years, CRAR has already freed 13 out of 25 condor chicks born in captivity, with another four due to be soon released.

Teaching by pecks 

Within the next six to nine months, once they are fully grown, Alhue and Mailen will be separated from their parents.

The parents will then be able to begin reproducing again while their offspring will start socialising with and learning from other adult condors at the centre.

They will be taken to a large cage where adults that cannot be released mix with juveniles preparing for the outside world.

There they can fly around and communicate with other members of their species.

“Here they establish a hierarchy where the adult males dominate. They have to learn that hierarchy, sometimes by force of pecks, so they find their place in condor society,” said Pavez.

That is a vital apprenticeship for Mailen and Alhue ahead of their likely release in the southern hemisphere in spring of 2024 so that they are able to build relationships with other wild condors, get to know their territory and find food.

POKHARA, Nepal — Nepali hospital staff began the grim task of handing over bodies to grieving families on Tuesday after a plane with 72 people on board crashed, the country’s worst aviation disaster in three decades.

The Yeti Airlines flight with 68 passengers and four crew plummeted into a steep gorge, smashed into pieces and burst into flames as it approached the central city of Pokhara on Sunday.

All those on board, including six children and 15 foreigners, are believed to have died.

Rescuers have been working almost around the clock extracting human remains from the gorge strewn with twisted plane seats and chunks of fuselage and wing.

Seventy bodies had been retrieved by early Tuesday, police official AK Chhetri told AFP. Another senior official said the day before that the hope of finding anyone alive was “nil”.

“We retrieved one body last night. But it was three pieces. We are not sure whether it’s three bodies or one body. It will be confirmed only after a DNA test,” Chhetri said.

Drones were being used and the search for the two remaining bodies had been expanded to a radius of 2 to 3 kilometres, he added.

The black boxes from the plane, made by France-based ATR, were handed over to authorities on Monday, said Bikram Raj Gautam, chief of Pokhara International Airport.

Hospital workers in blue and white protective suits and masks loaded bodies wrapped in plastic onto army trucks on Tuesday as distraught relatives wept and hugged outside.

The trucks then left for the airport, where the bodies would be airlifted back to the capital Kathmandu.

The body of one victim, journalist Tribhuban Poudel, was laid out on a bier covered with orange marigold flowers outside his home as mourners filed past offering prayers in the winter sunshine.

“Eight bodies have been handed to families. We will hand over another 14 bodies after completing autopsies here in Pokhara. Forty-eight bodies have been sent to Kathmandu for DNA tests and handover to the families,” Chhetri said.

Explosion 

The ATR 72 was flying from Kathmandu to Pokhara, a gateway for religious pilgrims and trekkers, when it crashed shortly before 11:00am (05:15 GMT).

“I was walking when I heard a loud blast, like a bomb went off,” said witness Arun Tamu, 44, who was around 500 metres away and live-streamed video of the blazing wreckage on social media.

The cause of the crash was not yet known, but a video on social media showed the twin-propeller aircraft banking suddenly and sharply to the left as it neared Pokhara airport. A loud explosion followed.

Experts told AFP it was unclear from the clip whether human error or a mechanical malfunction was to blame.

Experts from the French accident investigation agency were due to arrive in Nepal on Tuesday, the body told AFP.

“We don’t know whether [the crash] was due to any technical fault or reason,” local official Tek Bahadur KC told AFP.

‘In pain’ 

Raj Dhungana, the uncle of one of the passengers, 23-year-old Sangita Shahi, told AFP outside a hospital in Pokhara that his whole family “is in pain”.

“God has taken away such a nice person,” he said.

According to the Press Trust of India news agency, the pilot Anju Khatiwada joined Nepal’s aviation sector after her husband was killed flying a small passenger plane in 2006.

Poor record 

Nepal’s aviation industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas, as well as ferrying foreign mountain climbers.

The sector has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance.

The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.

Nepal also has some of the world’s trickiest and most remote runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with difficult approaches and capricious weather.

Its deadliest aviation accident was in 1992, when all 167 people on a Pakistan International Airlines jet were killed when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu.

POKHARA, Nepal — Nepali rescue workers scoured a debris-strewn ravine on Monday for more bodies from the mangled wreckage of a plane with 72 people on board, with hopes of any survivors now "nil", according to officials.

The Yeti Airlines ATR 72 plummeted into the steep gorge, smashed into pieces and burst into flames as it approached the central city of Pokhara on Sunday morning, in Nepal's worst aviation disaster since 1992.

The cause was not yet known but a video on social media, verified by AFP partner ESN, showed the twin-propeller aircraft banking suddenly and sharply to the left as it approached Pokhara airport. A loud explosion followed.

Nepal, which has a poor record on air safety, observed a day of mourning on Monday for the victims.

Soldiers used ropes and stretchers to retrieve bodies from the 300-metre deep ravine late into the night, with recovery efforts resuming on Monday.

"We have collected 68 bodies so far. We are searching for four more bodies. We should continue until we get the bodies," senior local official Tek Bahadur KC told AFP.

“We pray for a miracle. But, the hope of finding anyone alive is nil,” he said.

Debris from the airliner was strewn across the crash site, including the mangled remains of passenger seats and the plane’s white-coloured fuselage.

Rescue workers had rushed to the site after the crash, and tried to put out the raging fires that had sent thick black smoke into the sky.

There were 15 foreigners on board, including five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one passenger each from Argentina, Australia, France and Ireland, Yeti spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula told AFP.

The rest were Nepalis.

“Incredibly sad news out of Nepal of a plane crashing with many passengers on board,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Monday, adding that his government was seeking information about the Australian national on board.

 ‘Like a bomb’ 

The ATR 72 was on a flight from the capital Kathmandu and plunged into the gorge between Pokhara’s brand-new international airport and the old domestic one shortly before 11:00am (0515 GMT) on Sunday.

“I was walking when I heard a loud blast, like a bomb went off,” said witness Arun Tamu, 44, who was around 500 metres away and who live-streamed video of the blazing wreckage on social media.

“A few of us rushed to see if we can rescue anybody. I saw at least two women were breathing. The fire was getting very intense and it made it difficult for us to approach closer,” the former soldier told AFP.

It was unclear if anyone on the ground was injured.

“Our first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this,” the plane’s France-based manufacturer ATR said in a statement on Sunday.

“ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer.”

Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas, as well as ferrying foreign mountain climbers.

The sector has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance. The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.

Nepal also has some of the world’s most remote and trickiest runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge for even accomplished pilots.

The weather is also notoriously capricious and hard to forecast, particularly in the mountains, where thick fog can suddenly obscure whole mountains from view.

Nepal’s deadliest aviation accident took place in 1992, when all 167 people on a Pakistan International Airlines jet died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu.

SANTA CRUZ, United States — Soggy Californians on Sunday wearily endured their ninth successive storm in a three-week period that has brought destructive flooding, heavy snowfalls and at least 19 deaths, and forecasters said more of the same loomed for another day.

"Rain and heavy mountain snow to continue across the West," the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

One to 30 to 91 centimeters of new snow fell over the weekend in parts of California's Sierra Nevada range.

Some areas of the central Sierra have received more than seven feet of snow in the last seven days, a research station run by the University of California at Berkeley reported. And the white stuff just keeps falling.

"Periods of moderate to heavy snow will continue into Monday," the NWS's Sacramento office tweeted. 

US President Joe Biden late Saturday declared a major disaster in the country's most populous state, allowing the federal government to expedite aid, including help with temporary housing and repairs, to Californians hit by flooding and landslides. 

Drier weather appeared in the offing later in the week for a state more used to drought than to deluges that have flooded farm fields, closed major highways and inundated some urban areas.

“Dry weather returns on Tuesday, followed by a weak system Wednesday,” the NWS tweeted.

Some flooding remains possible, the NWS said, “especially given the very wet antecedent conditions”. 

More than 11,000 homes remained without power Sunday in California, according to poweroutage.us.

‘It happened crazy fast’ 

Parts of coastal California received a brief break in the rain, and residents there took advantage of the less inclement weather.

On a beach in Santa Cruz still covered with flood debris from the San Lorenzo River, 29-year-old Evan Short and three friends found room for a volleyball game.

“I saw a little break in the weather and convinced a couple other desperate friends to join us,” Short, a data analyst, told AFP.

But much of the state was still struggling to cope with weeks of flooding and sometimes with personal disasters.

“I’m so angry, it just makes me want to cry,” said Camilla Shaffer, a Briton in the northern town of Felton whose house flooded Saturday for the third time in two weeks.

Amberlee Galvin, a chef at a local restaurant, said her front room was inundated.

“Within 10 minutes it had flooded completely to the ceiling. It happened crazy fast,” the 23-year-old said. “We had to get canoed out by a neighbour.”

In Spreckels, a community a few hundred yards from the Salinas River in central California, most residents opted not to evacuate despite warnings from authorities.

“It looks like we might have missed kind of the worst of it,” said Robert Zagajeski, out walking his dog.

But Governor Gavin Newsom urged Californians to remain vigilant and exercise “common sense over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours”.

Between the repeated storms of recent weeks, workers have rushed to clear some of the mess, shoveling mud from roads and using heavy machinery to remove fallen trees or clear rockslides.

Winter storms are not unusual in California. But global warming is making them wetter and more powerful.

The past three months in San Francisco have been the rainiest, with 50 centimetres of rain in the period, since the winter of 1972-73.

Despite that, the farm fields of California, a breadbasket to the country, have yet to fully recover from years of drought.

KYIV — Ukraine said Sunday that the death toll had risen to 21 after a Russian missile slammed into a tower block in the city of Dnipro during a massive wave of strikes causing power outages and blackouts across the war-torn country.

Officials said more than 40 people were still missing after the Dnipro strike Saturday, which came as Ukraine celebrated the Old New Year holiday and as Britain became the first Western country to offer Kyiv the heavy tanks it has long sought.

At least 21 people were killed and 73 others wounded in the attack on the Dnipro tower block, Ukraine's regional council head Mykola Lukashuk said.

A 15-year-old girl was among the dead, officials said, after dozens of people were pulled from the rubble, including a woman brought out by rescuers on Sunday.

"Rescue operations continue. The fate of more than 40 people remain unknown," regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

The strike destroyed dozens of flats in the apartment block leaving hundreds of people homeless, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official at the presidency.

The Ukrainian army said the block was hit by an X-22 Russian missile that it lacked the capacity to shoot down.

“Only anti-aircraft missile systems, which in the future may be provided to Ukraine by Western partners... are capable of intercepting these air targets,” it said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday pleaded for more Western military weapons, saying that Russian “terror” could be stopped only on the battlefield.

“What is needed for this? Those weapons that are in the warehouses of our partners,” Zelensky said.

British tanks 

On Saturday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to provide Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, the first Western country to supply the heavy tanks Kyiv has been demanding.

The tanks would arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks, Downing Street said, adding that Britain would also train the Ukrainian armed forces on how to use them.

Russia’s embassy in Britain warned that “bringing tanks to the conflict zone... will only serve to intensify combat operations, generating more casualties, including among the civilian population”.

Moldova, Ukraine’s south-western neighbour, said it had found Russian missile debris on its territory after Saturday’s strikes.

“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine directly impacts Moldova again,” President Maia Sandu tweeted, posting photographs of the wreckage.

Ukraine’s energy facilities were still reeling Sunday from what was a 12th wave of large-scale Russian attacks on energy infrastructure in recent months.

The attacks targeted power infrastructure in the Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia and Kyiv regions, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said.

On Sunday, operator Ukrenergo said energy infrastructure was “being restored” but that the attacks had “increased the energy deficit”.

“The period of outages may increase,” it acknowledged.

Zelensky said Ukraine shot down 20 of the more than 30 Russian missiles fired.

Rivalries over Soledar 

“Unfortunately, energy infrastructure facilities have been also hit,” he said, adding that the regions of Kyiv and Kharkiv, home to the country’s eponymous second city, were suffering the most.

The strikes came amid uncertainty about the fate of Soledar, a salt mining outpost that Russia claimed to have captured, despite denials from Ukraine.

Both sides have conceded heavy losses in the battle for the town, which had a pre-war population of about 10,000.

On Sunday, the US-based Institute for the Study of War said that “Ukrainian forces are highly unlikely to still hold positions within the settlement of Soledar itself”.

On Friday, Russia’s defence ministry announced that it had “completed the liberation” of Soledar.

Russian paramilitary group Wagner first claimed victory over the city on Wednesday, although the defence ministry initially made no mention of Wagner, only later praising the “bravery” of Wagner’s troops in Soledar.

Late Saturday, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin praised his mercenaries in a veiled jab at Russian army command, which has been criticised for poor coordination and being too far removed from the ground.

Prigozhin attributed Wagner’s victories to a “perfected system of command”.

“Everyone can express his opinion,” Prigozhin claimed, “but once a decision has been taken, all tasks are fulfilled. It is our group’s strictest discipline that gives us these possibilities.”

Wagner, which has been accused of abuses in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, Syria and Ukraine, has recruited thousands of convicts to fight in Ukraine.

LONDON/ISTANBUL — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday pledged to provide Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, making it the first Western country to supply the heavy tanks Kyiv has been calling for.

The pledge saw a swift reaction from Russia which warned it would only "intensify" the conflict.

"Bringing tanks to the conflict zone, far from drawing the hostilities to a close, will only serve to intensify combat operations, generating more casualties, including among the civilian population", the Russian embassy in the UK said.

Sunak said the tanks were a sign of the UK's "ambition to intensify our support to Ukraine", according to a readout of a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukraine's European allies have sent Kyiv more than 300 modernised Soviet tanks since Russia invaded in February 2022.

But they have so far held off on dispatching the Western-made heavy tanks that Ukraine has repeatedly requested to push forward against Russian invaders.

Zelensky thanked the UK on Twitter for making decisions that "will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners".

Heavy losses 

Ukraine's forces have taken heavy losses in the battles of Soledar and Bakhmut in recent months and have called on the country's allies to give it more 

support.

Russia said on Friday its forces had wrested control of the war-scarred town of Soledar in east Ukraine, its first claim of victory in months of battlefield setbacks, although Ukraine said fierce fighting was still under way.

“To win this war, we need more military equipment, heavy equipment,” Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also said that he had spoken with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and “emphasised the need” for Ukraine to receive Western-type tanks.

Sunak’s formal offer follows reports that he was preparing to sign off on sending four British Army Challenger 2 main battle tanks to eastern Europe immediately, with eight more to follow shortly afterwards.

The prime minister’s office has not yet confirmed the exact number of tanks it will send to Kyiv.

Seize the moment 

A Downing Street spokesman said Sunak and Zelensky agreed on the “need to seize on this moment” after Ukrainian victories had “pushed Russian troops back”.

“The Prime Minister outlined the UK’s ambition to intensify our support to Ukraine, including through the provision of Challenger 2 tanks and additional artillery systems,” the spokesman said.

The issue of heavy tanks has long been a key one for Kyiv and many experts see providing Ukraine with modern tanks as a vital building block in its ability to win against Russia.

Germany has been especially hesitant of supplying heavy tanks.

It has delivered powerful mobile artillery and air defences but remains fearful of an escalation with Moscow if its tanks face off directly against their Russian opposite numbers.

The Downing Street spokesman added that Sunak and Zelensky “welcomed other international commitments including Poland’s offer to provide a company of Leopard tanks”.

“The Prime Minister stressed that he and the whole UK Government would be working intensively with international partners to deliver rapidly the kind of support which will allow Ukraine to press their advantage, win this war and secure a lasting peace,” he said.

The UK announcement comes ahead of next week’s meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which coordinates arms supplies to Kyiv, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Meanwhile, Turkey said Saturday it was ready to push for local ceasefires in Ukraine and warned that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had the military means to “win the war”.

The proposal from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top foreign policy adviser represented NATO member Turkey’s latest effort to use its good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv to try and end Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.

Turkey hosted two early rounds of peace negotiations and helped strike a UN-backed agreement restoring Ukrainian grain deliveries across the Black Sea.

Erdogan has also held repeated rounds of phone consultations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky aimed at finding common ground.

Erdogan’s foreign policy adviser Ibrahim Kalin told reporters that the warring sides were unlikely to strike an “overarching peace deal” in the coming months.