World

AMMAN — Pakistan celebrates its independence day on Sunday. It was established in 1947 as a separate homeland for the Muslims of South Asia, according to a statement released by the Pakistani embassy in Amman on Saturday.

"Today, Pakistan stands as a nuclear state with a prosperous economy," the embassy said, highlighting the country's role in fighting terrorism. 

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Fighting raged Thursday in Helmand after Afghanistan rushed military reinforcements to beat back Taliban insurgents advancing on the besieged capital of the southern poppy-growing province, as officials downplayed fears the city could fall.

Afghan forces fought back insurgents after they stormed Nawa district, just south of Lashkar Gah city, late Wednesday, raising alarm that the provincial capital was at risk.

But US and Afghan officials insist that they will not allow another urban centre to be captured, after the Taliban briefly overran northern Kunduz city last September in their biggest victory in 15 years of war.

"The security situation in Lashkar Gah is under our control," the defence ministry spokesman, Dawlat Waziri, said after special forces were deployed.

"We have retaken control of Nawa. Fighting is still going on in the outskirts but we are making progress with clearance operations," he told AFP, adding that dozens of Taliban were killed in the fight.

Fierce battles in recent days across Helmand, seen as the focal point of the insurgency, has sent thousands of people fleeing to Lashkar Gah, sparking a humanitarian crisis as officials report food and water shortages.

The United States has stepped up air strikes supporting Afghan forces on the ground, highlighting the intensity of the battle in Helmand.

The Taliban effectively control or contest 10 of the 14 districts in Helmand, the deadliest province for British and US forces in Afghanistan over the past decade.

The turmoil convulsing the long-contested province, blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency, underscores a rapidly unravelling security situation in Afghanistan.

'We will die of hunger' 

Around 30,000 people have been displaced in Helmand in recent weeks, local officials said, with many of those fleeing to Lashkar Gah forced to abandon their lentil, maize and cotton crops during the lucrative harvest season.

"We left everything behind in Nawa — our house, our grape and maize harvests. We fled with 15 members of my family to Lashkar Gah, fearing for our lives," Mohammad Ali, 40, told AFP in a camp in the provincial capital.

"For the last three days we have been surviving on bread and water. We will die of hunger." 

The residents of Lashkar Gah said the city was practically besieged, with roads from neighbouring districts heavily mined by the insurgents.

Afghan special forces had launched operations to flush out insurgents controlling key highways linking Lashkar Gah to the districts, said Sediq Sediqqi, the interior ministry spokesman.

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had downscaled its team in Lashkar Gah, with some non-medical staff relocated from the city.

"We've shared coordinates of our 300 bed hospital to approaching warring parties in Helmand," the international medical charity tweeted.

Washington has deployed several hundred troops in Helmand in recent months to aid Afghan ground forces.

NATO officially ended its combat mission in December 2014, but US forces were granted greater powers in June to strike at the insurgents as President Barack Obama vowed a more aggressive campaign.

"The situation in Helmand remains contested," NATO said in a statement.

"While there is clearly an increase in fighting, the Taliban have suffered a number of casualties and [Afghan forces] have been able to recover many checkpoints." 

Northern Kunduz was the first city to fall to the insurgents last September, in a stinging blow to Afghan forces who have struggled to rein in the Taliban since the NATO combat mission ended.

The fighting in Helmand comes as Afghan troops are stretched on multiple fronts across Afghanistan — including eastern Nangarhar province where the Daesh terror group is making inroads. 

KIEV — Ukraine on Thursday placed its forces around Crimea on high alert as tensions soared after Moscow accused Kiev of attempting armed incursions into the disputed peninsula.

Russia's FSB security service said on Wednesday it had thwarted "terrorist attacks" in Crimea this week by Ukrainian military intelligence and beaten back armed assaults, but Kiev fiercely denied the claims.

The allegations ratcheted up the heat in a feud sparked by Moscow's 2014 seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine and raised fears of possible wider conflict. 

The UN Security Council was to discuss the growing tensions later Thursday at the request of Ukraine, a non-permanent council member.

Ukraine's pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko met his top brass and ordered forces along the frontier with Crimea and across the conflict-wracked east onto "high-alert level".

Russian President Vladimir Putin also held a meeting with security chiefs to discuss "additional measures for ensuring security for citizens and essential infrastructure in Crimea", the Kremlin said in a statement. 

"Scenarios were carefully considered for anti-terrorist security measures at the land border, in the waters and in the airspace of Crimea," it said. 

'Dangerous game' 

The FSB said one of its officers was killed in armed clashes while arresting "terrorists" on the night of August 6-7, while a Russian soldier died in a firefight with "sabotage-terrorist" groups sent by the Ukrainian military on August 8.

An irate Putin accused Kiev of "practising terror" and warned that the deaths of the two Russian officers would have consequences.

"We obviously will not let such things slide by," Putin said. "This is a very dangerous game." 

Poroshenko hit back, saying Moscow's claims were "senseless and cynical". 

"Fantasies are only another pretext for the next military threats toward Ukraine," he said.

Two residents living on the Russian-controlled side of the Crimea-Ukraine frontier told AFP there had been an unexplained build-up of Russian military hardware in the area over the past few weeks.

Russia is holding nationwide legislative elections next month — including in Crimea — and the FSB said the alleged raids could be aimed at destabilising the situation ahead of the vote. 

 'Crude provocation' 

A senior Ukrainian security official told AFP that Moscow's claims were a "crude Russian provocation" and that Kiev was "getting ready for anything", including an invasion.

Russia says it has detained several Ukrainian and Russian citizens over the incident, including an alleged Ukrainian military intelligence officer named Yevgen Panov. Kiev has called Panov a "hostage". 

Moscow and Kiev have been locked in a bitter dispute since the Kremlin seized Crimea in March 2014 after Ukraine's Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. 

The crisis sent ties between Moscow and the West plunging to their lowest point since the Cold War and led to tough economic sanctions by the EU and US against Russia. 

The latest war of words represents the most serious increase in tensions in months as a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine — that Kiev and the West blame on Moscow — drags on despite a stalled peace deal.

More than 9,500 people have been killed since the pro-Russian insurgency erupted in April 2014.

Putin said a mooted meeting with Poroshenko and mediators German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at next month's G-20 summit in China was now "senseless".

Independent Russian daily Vedomosti wrote in an op-ed entitled "A new old enemy" that Moscow has tended to ramp up tensions ahead of negotiations over Ukraine.

"The main political question now is what is the future of the Minsk process," the paper wrote, referring to the peace deal hammered out in the Belarussian capital in February 2015.

"Will Russia bring an end to it or demand new concessions?"

ANKARA/ISTANBUL — Turkey said on Wednesday the European Union was fuelled by anti-Turkish sentiment and hostility to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and was making grave mistakes in its response to a failed coup which was costing it the trust of ordinary Turks.

Erdogan and many Turks have been incensed by what they see as the undue concern of Europe over a crackdown after the abortive July 15 putsch but indifference to the bloody events themselves, in which more than 240 people were killed.

"Unfortunately the EU is making some serious mistakes. They have failed the test following the coup attempt ... Their issue is anti-Turkey and anti-Erdogan sentiment," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu Agency.

"We have worked very hard towards EU [membership] these past 15 years. We never begged, but we worked very hard ... Now two out of three people are saying we should stop talks with the EU."

 More than 60,000 people in the military, judiciary, civil service and education have been detained, suspended or placed under investigation since the coup attempt, in which rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and warplanes to try to take power.

Dismissals continued at Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council (Tubitak), which has now removed 560 staff, private broadcaster NTV said on Wednesday.

Some of Turkey's European allies are concerned Erdogan, already seen as an authoritarian leader, is using the coup attempt as an excuse to further tighten his grip. Turkish officials dismiss such claims, saying the purges are justified by the gravity of the threat posed by the putsch.

Western allies are also watching Erdogan's rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, concerned that both leaders may use their detente and chilled relations with the West to pressure Washington and the European Union.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern has said Europe needs to think again about Turkey's possible EU membership.

"I am interested in a fundamental discussion," he said on Wednesday in an interview with broadcaster ORF.

"That fundamental discussion is: Can we accept someone within the EU who does not adhere to democratic standards, who has difficulty with human rights, and who ignores humanitarian necessities and necessities regarding the rule of law?"

 Turkey began EU accession talks in 2005 but has made scant progress despite an initial burst of reforms. Many EU states are not eager to see such a large, mostly Muslim country as a member, and are concerned that Ankara's record on basic freedoms has gone into reverse in recent years.

In a return to combative form, Erdogan on Wednesday took aim at Turkey's banks, saying they should not be charging high interest in the aftermath of the coup plot and promising to take action against lenders who "go the wrong way".

Erdogan has repeatedly equated high interest rates with treason and called for lower borrowing costs to fuel growth, raising concern about the independence of the central bank.

Losing Turkey

Erdogan on Tuesday took a big step towards normalising ties with Russia, meeting Putin in St Petersburg, his first foreign trip since the failed putsch.

Putin said Moscow would phase out sanctions against Ankara, imposed after the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border nine months ago, and that bringing ties to their pre-crisis level was the priority.

"We're not mending relations with Russia to send a message to the West," Minister Cavusoglu said. "If the West loses Turkey one day, it will not be because of Turkey's relations with Russia, China, or the Islamic world, but rather because of themselves."

 Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara it was normal for Turkey to seek "other options" on defence cooperation as it had not received the expected support from its western friends and NATO allies following the failed coup.

NATO said on Wednesday that Turkey's membership was not in question and that Ankara could count on its solidarity and support after the coup bid, which has triggered deep purges in the alliance's second-largest armed forces.

Putin said on Tuesday Moscow would gradually phase out sanctions against Ankara, imposed after the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border nine months ago, and that bringing ties to their pre-crisis level was the priority.

Cavusoglu also indicated that Turkey could find common ground with Russia on Syria, where they have been on opposing sides of the conflict. Moscow backs Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Turkey says he is a dictator who must be removed.

"We think similarly regarding the ceasefire, humanitarian aid and [the need for] political resolution in Syria," Cavusoglu said, although he added the two may think differently on how to implement the ceasefire.

He said Turkey was building a "strong mechanism" with Russia to find a solution in Syria, and a delegation including the foreign ministry, military and intelligence officials would go to Russia on Wednesday for talks.

QUETTA, Pakistan  — Pakistani lawyer Ataullah Lango had just arrived at the Civil Hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta to mourn the slain head of his provincial bar association when he heard a loud explosion and felt the pain of glass stabbing his face.

He lost some 60 colleagues in the suicide bombing that decimated the leadership of this tight-knit legal fraternity, probably for years.

"The cream of our legal fraternity has been martyred," Lango told Reuters at the house of the slain bar president.

"Our senior leaders... are now gone."

 Pakistan has endured a wave of militant attacks in recent years, but lawyers have not been singled out on such a scale before.

That changed on Monday when a suicide bomber struck a crowd of lawyers who had crammed into a hospital emergency department to accompany the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the 3,000-member Baluchistan Bar Association.

At least 74 people were killed, most of them lawyers, in Pakistan's worst bombing this year, claimed by both a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, and the Middle East-based Daesh terror group.

Across Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province surrounded by mountains, lawyers gathered for funeral prayers on Wednesday, visited families of lost friends, shouted slogans at protests and urged the government to protect them better.

Baluchistan is no stranger to violence, with separatist fighters launching regular attacks on security forces for nearly a decade and the military striking back.

Islamist militants, particularly sectarian groups, have also launched a campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations of minority Shiites.

After Monday's attack, the legal community in Baluchistan and across the country said it felt leaderless but also vowed unity.

Kasi's younger brother, Shoaib Kasi, himself an attorney, said the attacker had "pre-planned" to first kill the bar association president and then target the hospital, knowing that mourners would gather there.

"It will take centuries for us to make up this loss," lawyer Abdul Aziz Lehri told Reuters at the district court building, largely deserted due to a strike by his colleagues.

The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Ali Zafar, called the attack a "turning point", and gave the government until Thursday to present a security plan to protect lawyers and other "soft targets".

Anger and defiance

Emotions ran high at a press conference where lawyers expressed anger, particularly against the country's powerful military, but also voiced defiance.

"We are not tense because of the terrorists," said senior lawyer Manzoor Ul Hassan. "We have sadness, of course, but no fear."

Lawyers have held a special place in Pakistan's democratic process.

A lawyers' movement emerged as the vanguard of a campaign against the then army chief Pervez Musharraf after he suspended the country's top judge in 2007 for opposing plans to extend the general's term in office.

Lawyers organised convoys travelling from city to city to support ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and the government was forced to re-instate him.

Musharraf emerged from the confrontation a much diminished figure and stepped down as president in 2008.

"Lawyers were the targets, because we fight for the rights of the people," Ali Zafar told the press conference. "They think we will be weakened... I say we will become stronger."

 Prominent lawyer Ali Ahmed Kurd said those left would carry the torch.

"The juniors who are left, they are filled with the passion for working hard, for honesty... that will make up the difference," Kurd told Reuters in Quetta.

But he added that the lawyers of Baluchistan were afraid to call a meeting of the bar association to map out the legal fraternity's next steps.

"If you convene a meeting now, who will come?" Kurd said. "There's no one. None is left.”

TOKYO — The Japanese city of Nagasaki on Tuesday marked 71 years since its destruction by a US atomic bomb, with its mayor lauding a visit by US President Barack Obama to Hiroshima earlier this year.

A bell tolled as thousands of people, including ageing survivors and relatives of victims, observed a minute's silence at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), the exact moment of the blast.

Some 74,000 people died in the initial explosion, while thousands of others perished months or years later from radiation sickness.

The attack came three days after the US dropped the first ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which ultimately killed 140,000 people.

Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue lauded Obama's landmark May visit to Hiroshima — the first ever by a sitting US president.

"Knowing the facts becomes the starting point for thinking about a future free of nuclear weapons," Taue said, calling on other world leaders to visit his city.

Local officials and those who survived the bombing called for strict adherence to Japan's post-war tradition of pacifism and were critical of the Japanese government.

"The government of Japan, while advocating nuclear weapons abolition, still relies on nuclear deterrence," the mayor said, calling it a "contradictory state of affairs".

Toyokazu Ihara, 80, who survived the Nagasaki bombing, used his address to call for abolition of nuclear weapons and world peace.

"Nagasaki must be the last," he said, concluding his Japanese remarks with an English sentence intended for global citizens.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui on Saturday marked the commemoration of the bombing of his city, also citing Obama's visit.

He said the visit was proof the US President shared his city's view of the "absolute evil" of nuclear weapons. 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in his address in Nagasaki, called on world leaders to honour the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"We must not allow a repeat of the horrible experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that happened 71 years ago," Abe said.

Abe has moved to extend the scope of Japan's military and deepen the nation's alliance with Washington in the face of threats from China's expanding military strength and unpredictable North Korea.

North Korea last week test fired a ballistic missile that landed in waters off Japan's coast for the first time.

SAINT PETERSBURG — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday promised to reinvigorate ties after their first meeting since Ankara shot down a Russian warplane last November.

Erdogan's visit to Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg is also his first foreign trip since the failed coup against him last month that sparked a purge of opponents and cast a shadow over Turkey's relations with the West.

"We lived through a very complicated moment in the relations between our states and we very much want, and I feel our Turkish friends want, to overcome the difficulties," Putin told journalists at a joint press conference after the encounter.

The Kremlin leader insisted it would take "painstaking work" and "some time" to return to previous trade levels as Russia looks to roll back a series of economic sanctions against Ankara, but both sides said they wanted to restart major energy projects hit by the crisis. 

Erdogan said that he hoped Russian-Turkish relations would become "more robust" and stressed how important it was that Putin offered his support after the coup. 

"We will bring our relations back to the old level and even beyond, both sides are determined and have the necessary will," he said. 

The shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by a Turkish F-16 over the Syrian border last fall saw a furious Putin slap economic sanctions on Turkey and launch a blistering war of words with Erdogan that seemed to irrevocably damage burgeoning ties.

But in a shock reversal late June, Putin accepted a letter expressing regret over the incident from Erdogan as an apology and quickly rolled back a ban on the sale of package holidays to Turkey and signalled Moscow would end measures against Turkish food imports and construction firms.

Now in the wake of the failed July 15 coup attempt, there are fears in Western capitals that NATO-member Turkey could draw even closer to Moscow — with Erdogan bluntly making it clear he feels let down by the United States and the European Union.

Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to phone Erdogan offering support after the coup attempt and shares none of the scruples of EU leaders about the ensuing crackdown.

Back to business? 

Relations between Turkey and Russia — two powers vying for influence in the strategic Black Sea region and Middle East — have historically not been straightforward. 

Yet before the plane downing crisis, Moscow and Ankara managed to prevent disputes on Syria and Ukraine harming strategic cooperation on issues like the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe and a Russian-built nuclear power station in Turkey.

Those projects were all put on ice with trade between the two countries falling 43 per cent in January-May this year to $6.1 billion and Turkey’s tourism industry seeing visitor numbers from Russia fall by 93 per cent.

Now with Russia mired in economic crisis due to Western sanctions over Ukraine and low oil prices along with Turkey’s outlook flagging, both men want to get business started again.
Erdogan said that he now wanted to see the TurkStream project “done as fast as possible”, while Putin said construction could start “in the nearest future”.

The Turkish leader also insisted that the two sides were once again targeting a very ambitious trade turnover of $100 billion by 2024.

Skirting Syria 

The earlier uptick in relations between Turkey and Russia was built on a macho friendship between Putin and Erdogan, two combative leaders in their early 60s credited with restoring confidence to their nations in the wake of financial crises but also criticised for clamping down on human rights.

But after such a bitter dispute — which saw Putin accuse Erdogan of stabbing Russia in the back and profiting from an illegal oil trade with the Daesh terror group — it will take a lot for the pair to reheat relations.

The two strongmen leaders conspicuously skirted one major issue dividing them and that lay at the heart of their falling out — the war in Syria. 

Putin and Erdogan said they would start discussing the conflict after the press conference but the Russian leader insisted both sides were committed to finding a peaceful solution. 

Russia is flying a bombing campaign in support of President Bashar Al Assad while Turkey is fiercely opposed to the Syrian leader. 

Erdogan insisted in an interview with Russian media ahead of the talks that Assad must still go — a position opposed by Putin — but said that the conflict could now become the focus for renewed cooperation between the two sides.

WASHINGTON — Fifty senior Republican national security officials have issued a stinging rejection of their party's White House nominee Donald Trump, warning if elected he would be "the most reckless president in American history".

The group, some of whom had already announced they would not vote for Trump, included former homeland security chiefs, intelligence directors, senior presidential advisers and a former US trade representative. They served under Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.

"We are convinced that he [Trump] would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country's national security and well-being," they wrote in a statement published in The New York Times on Monday.

Their disavowal of the Republican presidential nominee was followed by another setback for Trump, when influential US Senator Susan Collins said Tuesday he was "unworthy" of America's highest elective office and will not receive her support. 

"Donald Trump does not reflect historical Republican values nor the inclusive approach to governing that is critical to healing the divisions in our country," Collins wrote in an op-ed article appearing in Tuesday's Washington Post.

Trump has garnered disdain from a huge swath of America's political, defence and security establishment for his unorthodox — some say downright dangerous — views, such as his professed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggestions he might be willing to accept Moscow's annexation of Crimea.

Trump has also raised concerns over his recent war of words with the family of a fallen Muslim American soldier, his scant knowledge about global defence and security architecture, and his readiness to scuttle America's central role in the NATO military alliance. 

Further to the shock and dismay of many in America's political class, he has even questioned why the nation has bothered to develop nuclear weapons if it has no intention of putting them to use.

Unfit for office 

While the US security experts did not say they would vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — indeed they expressed "doubts" about her — they were clear in stating that "none of us will vote for Donald Trump".

 They essentially declared the brash billionaire unfit for office, echoing Clinton's criticism by saying that Trump "lacks the character, values, and experience to be president" and displays "alarming ignorance of basic facts" of international politics.

The New York real estate mogul also has shown no willingness to learn about foreign affairs or national security threats, "acts impetuously" and lacks self control, the experts' statement said.

"He is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood," the group wrote, saying Trump possesses a set of "dangerous qualities" that should disqualify him from the presidency.

"We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless president in American history."

They warned that the political neophyte's "erratic behaviour" has alarmed America's closest allies, adding that he fails to recognise the indispensable nature of such diplomatic relationships.

The signatories included Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, the first and second homeland security secretaries under president George W. Bush, former director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and Bush-era CIA director Michael Hayden.

Trump responds

Trump issued a sharply worded reprimand of the group, painting them as "nothing more than the failed Washington elite looking to hold onto their power" and saying they should be "held accountable" for making the world less safe.

"These insiders — along with Hillary Clinton — are the owners of the disastrous decisions to invade Iraq, allow Americans to die in Benghazi, and they are the ones who allowed the rise of ISIS," Trump said, using an acronym for the Daesh terror group.

"I offer a better vision for our country and our foreign policy — one that is not run by a ruling family dynasty." 

The anti-Trump Republicans join members of the security establishment who have already come out against the nominee, including former CIA director Michael Morell, who on Friday accused Trump of being an "unwitting agent" of Russian strongman Putin and said he will vote for Clinton.

Collins, who represents the state of Maine in the US Senate, was no less scathing about Trump in her opinion piece — particularly with regard to his bullying of those less powerful and less prominent.

"I have become increasingly dismayed by his constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or apologise," Collins wrote.

"But it was his attacks directed at people who could not respond on an equal footing — either because they do not share his power or stature or because professional responsibility precluded them from engaging at such a level — that revealed Mr. Trump as unworthy of being our president."

TOKYO/WASHINGTON — Japan warned China on Tuesday that ties were deteriorating over disputed East China Sea islets, and China’s envoy in Tokyo reiterated Beijing’s stance that the specks of land were its territory and called for talks to resolve the dispute.

The diplomatic tussle comes amid simmering tension as China builds on outposts in the contested South China Sea, including what appear to be reinforced aircraft hangars, according to new satellite images.

Ties between Asia’s two largest economies have been strained in recent days since Japan saw a growing number of Chinese coastguard and other government ships sailing near the East China Sea islets, called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

The flurry of Chinese incursions into the waters follows a period of sustained pressure on China over its activities in the South China Sea, and China’s criticism of what it sees as Japanese interference in that dispute.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called in Chinese ambassador Cheng Yonghua for the second time since Friday and told him China was trying to change the status quo unilaterally, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

Kishida told Cheng the environment surrounding Sino-Japanese ties was “deteriorating markedly”, the ministry said.

The Chinese diplomat said after the meeting that he had told Kishida the islands, which are controlled by Japan, were an integral part of China’s territory and the dispute should be resolved through dialogue.

“I told him... it is natural that Chinese ships conduct activity in the waters,” Cheng told reporters.

Dozens of Chinese vessels sailed near the islands on the weekend raising alarm in Japan. Cheng was called in by Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama last Friday over the incursions into what Japan see as its territorial waters.

The United States, its Southeast Asian allies and Japan have questioned Chinese land reclamation on contested islands in the South China Sea, particularly since an international court rejected China’s historic claims to most of that sea last month.

China has refused to recognise the court ruling on a case brought by the Philippines. Japan called on China to adhere to it, saying it was binding, but Beijing responded by warning Japan not to interfere.

Rapid construction

Satellite images taken in late July over the South China Sea show that hangars constructed on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands, have room for any fighter jet in the Chinese air force, the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.

The think-tank said in a report there was little evidence that China had deployed military aircraft to the outposts, but the “rapid construction” of reinforced hangars suggested that was likely to change.

“They are far thicker than you would build for any civilian purpose,” Gregory Poling, director of CSIS’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, told The New York Times, which first reported on the new images.

“They’re reinforced to take a strike.”

 A US navy commander said it had not been confirmed that the hangers were for military use, but uncertainty about them could add to tension.

“That increases the angst and the uncertainty, that lack of transparency, and that is generally destabilising as opposed to a stabilising action,” US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott Swift told reporters on a visit to the Chinese port city of Qingdao.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.

The United States has urged China and other claimants not to militarise their holdings there, prompting repeated denials from China that it is doing so. Instead, China has blamed US patrols and exercises for ramping up tension.

“China has indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and nearby waters,” China’s defence ministry said in a response to a request for comment on Tuesday.

“China has said many times, construction on the Spratly Islands and reefs is multipurpose, mixed, and with the exception of necessary military defensive requirements, are more for serving all forms of civil needs,” it said.

Former Philippines president Fidel Ramos said he was optimistic about what he has described as an ice-breaking trip to Hong Kong during which he hoped to meet experts and officials in an effort to rekindle ties with China soured by the dispute.

“The idea is to use the South China Sea as a place to save lives, but not to kill people or to destroy lives,” he told reporters.

Separately, relations between China and another US ally, South Korea, have been strained in recent days by a decision by South Korea and the United States to deploy an advanced anti-missile defence system, to guard against North Korean attacks, that China fears could be used against its military. 

ISTANBUL — Sometimes even good friends can have a bad falling out.

Ankara's downing of a Russian war plane over the Syrian border last November prompted rapid retaliation from Moscow and a bitter war of words between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan from which there appeared no going back.

But just half a year on Russia has accepted Ankara's expressions of regret over the incident and Erdogan will meet Putin in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday for their first summit since the crisis erupted, in the hope of reviving the relationship.

Ankara was also gladdened by Moscow's response to the July 15 failed coup in Turkey. Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to phone Erdogan offering support and, unsurprisingly, sharing none of the scruples of EU leaders about the ensuing crackdown.

"The Russian response stood in stark contrast to those of Turkey's Western allies," said Jeffrey Mankoff of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Relations between Turkey and Russia — two powers vying for influence in the strategic Black Sea region and Middle East — have never been straightforward and their predecessor Ottoman and Russian empires fought three centuries of war.

Yet before the plane crisis, Moscow and Ankara managed to prevent disputes on Syria and Ukraine harming strategic cooperation on issues like the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe and a Russian-built nuclear power station in Turkey.

The alliance was built on a macho friendship between Putin and Erdogan, two combative leaders in their early 60s credited with restoring confidence to their nations in the wake of financial crises but also criticised for clamping down on human rights.

With Erdogan making it bluntly clear he feels let down by the United States and the European Union after the coup, there is the prospect of a new era in Turkey-Russia ties.

"While Turkish-Russian ties are subject to their own uncertainties, this deterioration of relations with Western powers could accelerate a Turkish-Russian rapprochement," said analysts from the European Council on Foreign Relations.

'Restore relations

Turkey will want to reverse the damage sustained by sanctions imposed by Russia which took a heavy toll on agriculture and construction with trade falling 43 per cent to $6.1 billion in January-May this year.

Turkey's tourism industry was worst hit, with Russian arrivals down 93 per cent in June compared to the same period in 2015.

Meanwhile the TurkStream pipeline, that was to have pumped 31.5 billion cubic metres of gas a year, and the Akkuyu nuclear power station should now be back on the agenda.

Intriguingly, Turkish officials have said the pilots of the Turkish planes that shot down the Russian jet on November 24 have been detained over the failed coup, raising the prospect that Ankara could link the downing to the same conspiracy.

In a sign of goodwill ahead of the visit, Turkey's communications authorities unblocked access to the websites of the Russian state-controlled news provider Sputnik which had been restricted since April.

Separately, Turkish media quoted Erdogan as telling Russian state news agency TASS he hoped the trip would open a "new page" in ties.

'Pragmatic not personal' 

But after such a bitter dispute — which led Putin to declare that Erdogan had left modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk "turning in his grave" — it will take a lot for the two post imperial strongmen to get back to business as usual.

Some analysts contend that Moscow has the upper hand in the relationship with energy-poor Turkey, which still imports over half its natural gas needs from Russia.

Russia, which is the strongest ally of Erdogan's foe President Bashar Assad in Syria, transformed the balance of the Syrian civil war last September when it intervened militarily to Turkey's consternation.

When the jet crisis reached it peak, Moscow also brandished its support for a Syrian Kurdish militia which Ankara accuses of being a terror group, sparking fears Russia could even arm Kurdish militants fighting Turkey.

"The only person that Erdogan fears is Vladimir Putin," argued Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mankoff said the tension between Turkey and the West creates for Moscow a "prime opportunity to pull Ankara closer".

It may be that ties improve steadily but without the fireworks seen when the relationship was at its peak in late 2014 when Putin suddenly announced the TurkStream project as one of the first visitors to Erdogan's new presidential palace.

"What we are going to see is a longer-lasting but more pragmatic type of relationship built not on a personal friendship or ideology but on common material interests," said Alexander Baunov, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Centre.