News Line

Turkey will not pay compensation to Russia over the downing of a fighter jet last year and has only expressed regret over the incident, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote to his Russian counterpart. The Kremlin said on Monday that Erdogan had apologized to Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a letter. Erdogan’s spokesman confirmed the letter to Putin but did not refer explicitly to an apology, saying the Turkish president had expressed regret and asked the family of the pilot to “excuse us.” Yildirim also told reporters in parliament that legal proceedings were underway against an individual allegedly responsible for the killing of the Russian pilot. (Reuters)

Normalization of relations between Turkey and Russia has started, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday, adding that an improvement in ties with all Black Sea and Mediterranean countries was an important goal. Yildirim made the comments to members of his ruling AK Party in parliament. He was speaking a day after Turkey announced the restoration of diplomatic ties with Israel and expressed regret to Russia over the downing of a warplane last year, seeking to mend strained alliances. (Reuters)

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday underscored Germany’s determination to both maintain close ties with Britain and work to strengthen the EU after last week’s historic UK vote to leave the bloc. “We sense how critical is that all the remaining 27 countries in the EU demonstrate that we are willing and capable of taking the right steps forward,” Merkel told the German parliament. She welcomed all proposals that helped strengthen the EU, but said it crucial to avoid any measures that could encourage other countries to leave and said there could be no “cherry-picking” by London in its forthcoming negotiations. Merkel said it was up to Britain to initiate next steps to leave the EU. (Reuters)

Turkey signed a broad deal on Tuesday to restore ties with Israel after a six-year rupture, a Turkish foreign ministry official said, formalizing an agreement announced a day earlier by the prime ministers of the two countries. Relations between Israel and what was once its principle Muslim ally crumbled after Israeli marines stormed an activist ship in May 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and killed 10 Turks on board. Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu signed the accord for the Turkish side in Ankara. (Reuters)

Five people including two police officers were wounded in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakir on Tuesday when a bomb exploded as an armored police vehicle was passing, security sources said. The blast occurred near a state hospital in the district of Dicle, north of the region’s largest city Diyarbakir. Bomb attacks on the security forces have surged since a two-year ceasefire between the state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) collapsed last July. (Reuters)

Five people have been killed as four suicide bombers carried out terrorist attacks in the Lebanese Christian village of Qaa on the border with Syria, Reuters reports. Fifteen more people were wounded later the same day as another suicide bomber blew himself up outside the village’s church as the residents were preparing for the funerals of the victims of the previous attacks, according to local medical sources.