Germany to loan ailing Jordan $100M
AMMAN, Jordan — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday promised a $100 million loan to troubled Jordan, where mass protests over austerity measures forced the prime minister to resign earlier this month.
She arrived later in the Lebanese capital Beirut, another major Middle Eastern refugee host country, where she was expected to meet officials, businessmen and representatives of U.N. organizations during a two-day visit.
Merkel is visiting Jordan and Lebanon, both neighbors of war-torn Syria, amid an escalating domestic row over migration.
The chancellor said Germany will provide the $100 million loan in addition to bilateral aid which amounts to about $442 million this year. She said she hopes the additional funds will help Jordan carry out economic reforms sought by the International Monetary Fund.
The group is seeking such reforms to lower Jordan’s public debt-to-GDP ratio, which has risen to about 96 percent, in part because of the continued economic fallout from Syria’s civil war and other regional crises.
Syrian forces shell rebels, violate truce
BEIRUT — Syrian government forces shelled rebel-held areas in the south on Thursday, further undermining an international “de-escalation” agreement backed by the United States ahead of a threatened offensive, prompting a warning from the U.S. of “serious repercussions” for the violations.
The U.S., Russia and Jordan negotiated a truce for the area, which borders Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in July of last year. But the calm has started to unravel in recent weeks, and a war monitoring group said more than 12,500 people have been displaced since Tuesday, with most moving into other rebel-held areas.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the shelling Thursday in areas northeast of the city of Daraa. The rebel factions hold parts of the city and areas to its west and east.
State media said the government is shelling “terrorists’” posts northeast of Daraa, destroying their weapons.
U.S. State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said in a statement the U.S. remains “deeply troubled” by reports of “increasing Syrian regime operations” within the boundaries of the truce and demanded that Russia “restrain” Assad’s forces from further action in the zone covered by the truce.
Turkey claims airstrike killed key Kurds
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again asserted that Turkish jets have dealt a heavy blow on the outlawed Kurdish rebels’ leadership in Iraq, saying some 35 high-level militants were killed.
Addressing crowds during a campaign rally Thursday, Erdogan said Turkish warplanes recently struck Iraq’s Qandil mountain while a group of 35 senior militants were holding a meeting. He did not provide details.
Qandil, near Iraq’s border with Iran, is where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party maintains its headquarters.
Erdogan said: “We caught them during their leaders’ meeting. During this leaders’ meeting, we finished off 35 important names.”
In Iraq, a Kurdistan Workers’ Party spokesman, Serhet Varto, confirmed heavy Turkish airstrikes in the area but denied they had caused any casualties.
The claims could not be in verified independently.
Iraq’s top court endorses ballot recount
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Supreme Court on Thursday endorsed a manual recount of all ballots from last month’s national elections but rejected the invalidation of ballots from abroad and from voters displaced by recent conflict.
Authorities have been struggling to address allegations raised by underperforming parties that the May vote was marred by fraud.
The court ruling concerned a law passed by Parliament that mandated a full, manual recount of the vote and ordered other measures that President Fuad Masum and the national elections commission described as political interference. Two-thirds of Parliament’s current members lost their seats in the May polls or did not stand for re-election.
A warehouse storing ballots from eastern Baghdad was burned down days after the Parliament filed the legislation.
The Supreme Court said the legislation was broadly constitutional and endorsed the order to replace the Independent Elections Commission with a panel of nine judges to supervise the recount. The commission, deflecting allegations of fraud, refused to conduct one of its own.