Brandenburg state police said the incident happened as the soldiers were driving an Unimog truck in a convoy of 27 military vehicles on a six-lane highway.

Police said the tractor-trailer was in the central lane, traveling in the same direction as the convoy, when it suddenly swung to the right, pushing the heavy Unimog off the road.

The military vehicle crashed through a guardrail and hit a steel signpost.

Both occupants of the truck, ages 20 and 33, died at the scene; the 34-year-old driver of the tractor-trailer suffered minor injuries.

The 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment based in Ansbach will use the Maneuver Short Range Air Defense system, known as M-SHORAD, mounted on its Stryker A1 vehicles.

The system will “defend maneuvering forces against unmanned aircraft systems, rotary-wing and fixed-wing threats,” the Army said in a statement Friday.

The M-SHORAD integrates existing guns, missiles, rockets and sensors. Future variants will include directed-energy capabilities, the Army said.

The Ansbach regiment, which falls under the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, received four systems and is slated to receive more this year as it transitions from an Avenger air defense-based battalion to the first fully operational M-SHORAD battalion in the Army, the service said.

Adding firepower in Europe has been a priority for the Army, which has bolstered capabilities on the Continent over the past several years in connection with concerns about a more aggressive Russia. Air defense has been a particular focal point.

“Our adversaries have invested heavily from their indirect fire up to their strategic missile assets, necessitating the modernization of our air and missile defense capabilities,” Brig. Gen. Gregory J. Brady, head of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, said in a statement. “M-SHORAD is a critical part of the Army’s comprehensive dedicated Air Defense Artillery capacity and augmented combined arms approach to be able to provide a multi-layered defense against all aerial threats.”

The Army fast-tracked the development of M-SHORAD, which resulted in a prototype within one year. The Army is expected to field the M-SHORAD system to four additional battalions later this year.

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ROME — Italian Premier Mario Draghi is presenting a 222.1 billion euro  coronavirus recovery plan to Parliament on Monday, aiming to not only bounce back from the pandemic but enact "epochal" reforms to address structural problems that long predated COVID-19.

Italy has the biggest share of the EU's 750 billion euro recovery pot, with 191.5 billion euros of its six-year plan financed by EU funds. Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief, was put in the premier's office specifically to make sure the money isn't wasted since Italy has long had one of the worst records in the EU of making use of available funds.

The plan is heavy on investments to modernize and digitize Italy's economy and bureaucracy and encourage environmentally sustainable development. Both are directed particularly at the all-important tourism industry — think Venice, the Colosseum and Amalfi coast resorts — which accounts for 13% of Italy's gross domestic product and was devastated by pandemic-related closures.

Employment options for women and young people are prioritized, given youth unemployment tops 30% and Italy has long ranked at the bottom of the EU in terms of the percentage of women in the workforce. Women accounted for more than half the 456,000 jobs lost in Italy last year.

Here's a look at Italy's plans, which were announced on the same day that most of the country began emerging from its latest coronavirus lockdown, with museums reopening and restaurants and bars open for outdoor service.

Digital transformation, employment

About 27% of the plan is directed at digital transformation of the Italian economy and public administration, broadening access to high-speed internet service, especially in schools, and providing incentives to the private sector to digitize.

Around 22.4 billion euros are aimed at "social inclusion" investments and programs to boost training and employment opportunities for women and help cities improve access and opportunities for disabled people. The aim of both, coupled with increased day care spots, is to remove obstacles that have traditionally kept Italian women at home caring for the young, old, sick and disabled.

The plan envisages the Italian economy, which shrank 8.8% last year, will grow 3.6 percentage points beyond base forecasts in 2026 and that its employment rate will grow 3.2 percentage points.

Sustainable development

The EU required that at least 37% of its funds be directed toward climate-related investments, part of the bloc's aim for a cut of 55% of greenhouse gases by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.

Italy's plan is directing 40% overall, or 68.6 billion euros, to green-related investments and initiatives: boosting recycling, overhauling public transport systems to favor low-emission vehicles, and reducing water waste through improvements to waterways.

The plan calls for some 31.4 billion euros in transportation infrastructure improvements and extending high-speed rail lines across the peninsula, especially in the underserved south.

Education and research

Among other things, the plan aims to create 152,000 more day care spots for babies and 76,000 for preschoolers, addressing a structural shortage that has long dissuaded parents from having children and women from working.

Other destinations for the 31.9 billion euro investment in education and research is to spiff up dilapidated school buildings and get them better wired, and revamp the higher-education curriculum to encourage more students to pursue higher degrees.

Italy has long been beset by brain drain, with its brightest students pursuing advanced degrees and jobs abroad, and not coming back.

Health care

The structural weakness of Italy's national health system was on full display during the pandemic, when hospitals in northern Lombardy were overwhelmed and general practitioners were largely left on their own to care for sick patients as Italy became the epicenter of Europe's outbreak.

The 18.5 billion euro investment in health care aims to reinforce in particular the general medicine and preventive care provided at the local level, with a strengthening of home care and telemedicine. Digital infrastructure improvements aim to improve data analysis.

Reforms

Italy's lethargic justice system and cumbersome bureaucracy have long been accused of discouraging foreign investment, since lawsuits and criminal trials can last for years and securing permissions to do just about anything can take a similarly long time.

The justice system reform aims to reduce the backlog of court files with temporary hires, while revising norms and procedures to encourage more recourse to mediation.

Other reforms are focused on modernizing Italy's old and outdated public administration, aiming to increase turnover to get more young people hired, digitize systems, simplify procedures for permits and boost competition particularly in public services and utilities.

American tourists fully vaccinated for the coronavirus will be able to travel to European Union countries this summer, the leader of the bloc told The New York Times on Sunday.

The fast pace of vaccinations in the U.S. has prompted EU officials to begin the process of loosening travel rules for those with proof they’ve been immunized, said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

“The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines,” von der Leyen said. “This will enable free movement and the travel to the European Union.”

All 27 EU member states will accept, “unconditionally,” all those who are vaccinated with inoculations approved by the European Medicine Agency, she said in The New York Times report.

The three vaccines approved for emergency use in the U.S., Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, are all accepted in Europe.

Talks are underway between the U.S. and Europe on a format for vaccination certificates. Von der Leyen did not offer a timeline for when the details would be worked out or when tourist travel would be allowed.

Flights between the U.S. and Europe have been limited mainly to official and essential travel since last year.

The loosening of travel rules is expected to give the tourist industry in Europe a summer jolt.

It would also make it easier for many of the tens of thousands of U.S. troops and military civilians in Europe to reunite with visiting friends and family.

Nearly 29% of Americans had been fully vaccinated for the coronavirus while about 42% had received an initial dose as of Sunday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In most of Europe, the pace of vaccinations has been much slower. On military bases, the rate of inoculations had lagged behind the U.S. But the pace has accelerated recently as more bases in Europe began receiving larger vaccine shipments.

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Pamplona Mayor Enrique Maya cited a prevalence of coronavirus outbreaks, a high occupancy rate in hospitals and a slow rollout of vaccines as reasons to call off this summer's celebration.

"The festival cannot be organized overnight," Maya said Monday during a news conference. "This is very hard. I never thought that this could happen."

The nine-day festival in July is easily Spain's most international event.

The festival was popularized by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" and up to last year's cancellation had last been called off during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

A new contagion resurgence seems to be waning in Spain, which has seen three major bouts of outbreaks since March last year. The accumulated caseload since then nationwide is nearing 3.5 million coronavirus infections.

At least 77,500 people have died in the country from COVID-19, although experts are saying that the vaccination of nearly one fifth of the country's 47 million inhabitants with at least one of two doses is helping to keep the number of new fatalities at the lowest levels so far during the pandemic.

This week it's different — quite different. The mood is dour even before the two sides agree to sit down for real talks because they no longer seem to share the same vision of how a final peace deal should take shape.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres will host an informal gathering of the rival Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders in Geneva as well as the foreign ministers of Cyprus 'guarantors' — Greece, Turkey and former colonial ruler Britain. The goal is to get the two sides back on the same page and embarking on a fresh round of formal talks.

Guterres' spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, has urged the sides to "come with creativity" to the informal meeting. Here's a brief explainer of where things stand:

Why the change?

Over 47 years of talks, the ultimate goal endorsed by the U.N. Security Council had been to reunify a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south as a federation - two zones running their own affairs with a federal government overseeing the core elements of national governance like foreign policy and defense.

But now Turkey and the new Turkish Cypriot leadership that espouses even tighter bonds with Ankara have changed the rules, dismissing further talks about a federation-based accord as a "waste of time" because nearly five decades of talks on that model have gone nowhere. They're proposing instead essentially a two-state model that Greek Cypriots say they'd never accept because it would legitimize the country's partition forever.

Why no deal?

Much of how a federation would work has already been agreed upon, but the nitty-gritty details sank the previous round of talks in 2017.

The minority Turkish Cypriots are upset because they say Greek Cypriots refuse to accept them as 50-50 partners in a federal partnership — what they term "political equality" or equal decision-making powers on all levels of government. Greek Cypriots argue that granting veto powers to a minority defies democratic principles and is without international precedent, could logjam the running of government and potentially allow Turkey to meddle in the island's internal affairs.

Instead, they propose a formula in which Turkish Cypriots would have a say if any law or government decision infringes on their interests. Despite Turkish and Turkish Cypriot resistance, the Greek Cypriots also want the European Union to take part in formal talks in order to assure any peace deal conforms with EU laws and norms.

Soldiers or not?

Turkey insists on keeping a military presence on the island for an indeterminate amount of time as part of a peace accord to ensure that Turkish Cypriots are protected. More than 35,000 Turkish troops have been stationed in the north of Cyprus since 1974 when a Turkish invasion split the country following an Athens junta-backed coup aimed at union with Greece.

But Greek Cypriots reject such a military presence because they see it as an existential threat and a serious breach of any country's sovereignty. Greek Cypriots also say any unilateral military intervention rights in the country's 1960 constitution must be expunged.

Why a deal matters

A Cyprus accord would go a long way in helping to ease tensions between Turkey and NATO ally Greece, as well as helping to get Ankara's troubled bid to join the EU back on track. It could also unlock a wave of new cooperation between regional neighbors to harness the significant gas deposits believed to lie beneath the east Mediterranean seabed.

Turkey doesn't recognize Cyprus as a state, disputes its rights to already-discovered offshore deposits and is prospecting for hydrocarbons off the island. But Turkey has so far remained the outsider in new, energy-based cooperation pacts that Israel, Egypt, Greece and Jordan have forged with Cyprus.

A peace deal would also ease progress on potential projects such as pumping east Mediterranean gas to Europe through a pipeline that would run through both Cyprus and Turkey.

MILAN — Italy's gradual reopening on Monday after six months of rotating virus lockdowns is satisfying no one: Too cautious for some, too hasty for others.

Allowing outdoor dining comes too little, too late for Italy's restaurant owners, whose survival is threatened by more than a year of on-again, off-again closures. The country's continued 10 p.m. curfew puts a damper on theater reopenings, and is seen as bad public relations for Italy's key tourism industry, which hopes the second summer of the pandemic can finally see the return of overseas visitors. The government has also been facing strong pressure to reopen from Italy's right-wing parties.

Yet the nation's weary virologists and medical workers worry that even the tentative reopening planned by Premier Mario Draghi's government will invite a free-for-all that risks a new virus surge before the current one is truly tamped down.

"Unfortunately, as I have had to repeat often: The virus does not negotiate. The virus, moreover, has succeeded in adapting itself, becoming more aggressive and more widespread,'' said Professor Massimo Galli of Milan's Sacco Hospital.

In a preview of what many fear, Italians on Sunday — a day before the virus restrictions loosened — crowded the streets, squares and parks of cities from Rome to Turin, Milan to Naples, as warmer weather pushed aside an unusually cold spring.

Recognizing the risks, Italy's interior ministry instructed law enforcement officers on Sunday to make sure that social distancing and mask-wearing were enforced so that the loosening of restrictions doesn't translate into a new virus spike.

Italy has the second-deadliest pandemic toll in Europe after Britain, with over 119,000 confirmed deaths. And experts say that number is low because more Italians suspected of having COVID-19 died in spring 2020 before they could be tested.

By Monday, 15 of Italy's 21 regions and autonomous provinces will be under the lowest levels of coronavirus restrictions, with inter-regional travel allowed for the first time since the fall. The number of people who can visit friends and family at any one time will double from two to four. Restaurants and bars will be able to seat people for open-air dining. Contact sports can resume outdoors.

However, plans to fully reopen Italian high schools for the last six weeks of the school year ran up against inadequate public transport and had to be scaled back to a minimum of 70% in-person schooling for the upper grades.
Four southern regions — Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia and Sicily — along with tiny Aosta on the French border in the north remain under stronger, second-tier virus restrictions.

The Italian island of Sardinia — the only region entirely free of restrictions this winter — was plunged into the red zone in mid-April after the all-clear signal resulted in a surge of new infections. Sardinia has become a cautionary tale cited by Italian virologists.

The reopenings come even as Italy's intensive care wards remain above the 30% threshold for alarm. Italy's vaccine campaign is also still well shy of its 500,000-shots-a-day goal, and is only now moving to protect people in the 70-79 age bracket. The World Health Organization says people over 65 have accounted for the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in Europe.

"There are two words that should guide us in the next days,'' Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Sunday. "Trust, because the measures have worked, and prudence. We need to take one step at a time, be gradual and evaluate the evolution day by day."

The incident involving the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade’s “No Mercy” battalion during its recent deployment to Europe now has multiple officers facing the possible end of their military careers.

“The command took immediate and appropriate adverse action against the leaders involved,” Col. Joseph Buccino, spokesman for the 18th Airborne Corps, said in a statement. “Some officers are facing further administrative actions to determine whether they will continue to serve in the Army.”

A command investigation report obtained by Stars and Stripes details how taxpayer dollars were spent on a trip that was supposed to be about improving “unit cohesion and morale,” but ended in scandal as rumors of the battalion’s deeds swirled through the brigade in the months that followed.

The September trip to the coastal city of Gdansk marks the latest findings of wrongdoing in an Army unit carrying out a rotational mission in Europe.

Earlier this month, the Army fired Col. Michael Schoenfeldt as commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, for bullying and toxic leadership during the Fort Hood group’s deployment to Europe.

The Army probe into the incident in Poland also revealed broader concerns about potentially compromised combat readiness due to a pilot being incapacitated during the trip, as well as perception within the unit of special treatment that undermined morale.

“These issues included perceived preferential treatment for pilots over other personnel, and for officers over NCOs/Soldiers, as well as the way incidents were treated by the chain of command,” the Dec. 3 Army 15-6 investigation report said.

A 15-6 investigation is typically a commander-driven probe that can lead to administrative punishment or a court-martial following a recommendation from an investigating officer.

Drugged, bitten and lost

About 40 members of the “No Mercy” 1st Battalion, led by Lt. Col. Matthew Fix, took part in the two-day trip to Gdansk. The unit, part of the 101st Airborne Division based out of Fort Campbell, Ky., was responsible for carrying out a wide range of missions during its nine-month rotation in Europe providing airpower along NATO’s eastern and southern flanks.

The Army 15-6, which was based on interviews with numerous soldiers, detailed the chain of events this way:

At the end of the first day, the team gathered for dinner at The Legendary White Rabbit Saloon and celebrated their sergeant major’s 40th birthday. Some soldiers bounced between the White Rabbit and other establishments, including a karaoke bar. By the end of the evening, many were “heavily intoxicated” and returned to their hotels around midnight, the report said.

At that time, an unspecified number of soldiers, including battalion executive officer Maj. Matthew Conner, went to Club Obsession in Gdansk’s city center.

Reviews of the club by various online travel sites warn of a sketchy scene where drinks get spiked with narcotics and woozy patrons get scammed out of thousands of dollars.

A warrant officer told the Army’s investigator that during the ride back to Powidz, Poland, at the conclusion of the trip, Conner described the events at the strip club in similar terms. Fix, the battalion commander, was driving the car.

Conner said that he received multiple lap dances and that strippers “bit his nipples to keep him awake, and repeatedly had his credit card swiped,” the report stated. Conner then showed the soldiers in the car multiple receipts, which added up to 50,000 — it wasn’t clear whether the sum was in dollars or Polish zloty, which would amount to about $13,000.

Conner “also expressed a belief that the champagne he had been given at the club had been laced/drugged,” the report said.

Fix, who didn’t attend the strip club, didn’t report to higher headquarters the suspected drugging of Conner, who was still sick the following day, the report said.

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Conner, a pilot, was “so severely impaired by the incident that he cancelled all of his flights for the next week because he ‘just did not feel right’ and it took days for him to feel normal again,” the report said.

Neither Fix nor Conner responded to requests for comment from Stars and Stripes.

It’s unclear how the night at the strip club ended, but by morning no one in the battalion knew where Conner was.

‘Lapses in judgment and leadership’

After partying into the early morning hours, no one could make contact with Conner, who wasn’t in his room at the IBB Hotel Dlugi Targ, the investigation report said.

That’s when Fix and Sgt. Maj. Ronnie Winberry organized a search party, calling on all staff ride attendees to meet in the city center and retrace their steps from the night before.

“The group ultimately met up outside the Obsession Club, where MAJ Conner was allegedly last seen, to begin the re-tracing process,” the report said.

Eventually, Conner was found at a different hotel by Fix and Winberry. The team then completed an abbreviated version of their World War II battlefield tour.

In the weeks that followed, rumors circulated on social media as word of the trip spread through the unit about a visit to an “alleged sex dungeon” where tens of thousands of dollars were spent, the report said.

The staff ride proved to be “poorly planned,” with insufficient dialogue between Fix and 101st CAB boss Col. Travis Habhab “regarding risk to mission or force,” the investigator found.

There also were unaddressed health concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Not only is it questionable whether the purpose and intent of a (battalion staff ride) was met, but during the trip, multiple individuals exhibited lapses in judgment and leadership that are not expected of senior leaders in the Army,” the investigation stated.

The 15-6 recommended that Fix and Conner face administrative or disciplinary action along with several other junior officers and a first sergeant. An Army official said that Fix is in the process of retiring after receiving a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand, while Conner faces a separation review board.

Earlier this month, the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade completed its nine-month rotation to Europe, where it was replaced by the 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division.

Col. Joe Scrocca, spokesman for U.S. Army Europe and Africa, said some of the recent leadership problems that have emerged on recent unit rotations were “isolated cases.”

“The same standards of conduct and leadership apply here in Europe as they do in the United States,” Scrocca said in a statement. “Our permanently stationed and rotational forces are expected to live by the same Army Values.”

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Twitter: @john_vandiver
 

New aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, the most powerful surface vessel in the Royal Navy's history, will set sail next month for Asia with eight fast jets on board. It will be accompanied by six Royal Navy ships, a submarine armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, 14 naval helicopters and a company of Royal Marines.

Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Monday the mission aims to show that Britain is "not stepping back but sailing forth to play an active role in shaping the international system."

"When our Carrier Strike Group sets sail next month, it will be flying the flag for Global Britain — projecting our influence, signalling our power, engaging with our friends and reaffirming our commitment to addressing the security challenges of today and tomorrow," Wallace said in a statement.

The deployment is expected to last about six months and visit more than 40 countries. Wallace is expected to reveal more details to Parliament later Monday.

Last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the Indo-Pacific region will become Britain's defense and foreign policy focus as the U.K. reconsiders its place in the world order after leaving the European Union.

Johnson had planned to visit India to boost trade and investment ties as part of that plan, but he was forced to cancel the trip as the coronavirus pandemic worsened in India.

The Defense Ministry said the military deployment will help deepen security and political ties and support Britain's exports and international trade.
 

French police killed the 37-year-old Tunisian attacker shortly after he stabbed the unarmed administrative employee on Friday at the entrance of her police station in the town of Rambouillet.

In a news conference on Sunday, anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said police are questioning a cousin of the suspect.

The suspect's father, a couple who had provided him with an address for mail and other uses, and another cousin were also being questioned, Ricard said.

The victim, a National Police employee, had left the station to extend her time on a parking meter and was followed into the entry area and stabbed by the attacker. He was then shot to death by a police officer.

The attacker, identified by authorities as Jamel G., entered France illegally in 2009 and was given residency papers at the end of 2019, Ricard said. He was a practicing Muslim according to his father, Ricard added.

He had staked out the police station ahead of time and listened to religious songs inciting "jihad" just before the attack, according to evidence on his mobile phone. Witnesses heard him say "Allahu akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great" — during the attack, he said.

The man had no criminal record or evidence of radicalization, Ricard said.

He went to psychiatric consultations in Rambouillet on Feb. 19 and Feb. 23 yet his condition involved no need for hospitalization or treatment, according to Ricard. He then travelled to Tunisia from Feb. 25 to March 13.

Ricard stressed that investigations are taking place to determine whether people helped or inspired the attacker, and French officials are working in "close coordination" with Tunisian judicial authorities.

Tunisia's Foreign Affairs Ministry offered its condolences to the victim's family, the French government and people and said Tunisia expresses its "total condemnation of extremism and terrorism."

Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi condemned the "cowardly attack" and promised Tunisia's "full solidarity" with France.

Meanwhile, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin will present a new counterterrorism and intelligence bill in a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. It will extend measures enabling authorities to shut down places of worship and better monitor those convicted of terrorism when they get out of prison.

Reactor No. 4 at the power plant 65 miles north of the capital Kyiv exploded and caught fire deep in the night on April 26, 1986, shattering the building and spewing radioactive material high into the sky.

Soviet authorities made the catastrophe even worse by failing to tell the public what had happened — although the nearby plant workers' town of Pripyat was evacuated the next day, the 2 million residents of Kyiv weren't informed despite the fallout danger. The world learned of the disaster only after heightened radiation was detected in Sweden.

Eventually, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity and a 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone was established where the only activity was workers disposing of waste and tending to a hastily built sarcophagus covering the reactor.

Radiation continued to leak from the reactor building until 2019, when the entire building was covered by an enormous arch-shaped shelter. As robots inside the shelter began dismantling the reactor, officials felt new optimism about the zone.

"This is a place of tragedy and memory, but it is also a place where you can see how a person can overcome the consequences of a global catastrophe," said Bohdan Borukhovskyi, Ukraine's deputy environment minister.

"We want a new narrative to appear — it was not a zone of exclusion, but a zone of development and revival," he said.

For him, that narrative includes encouraging tourism.

"Our tourism is unique, it is not a classic concept of tourism," he said. "This is an area of ​​meditation and reflection, an area where you can see the impact of human error, but you can also see the human heroism that corrects it."

The Chernobyl zone saw its tourism increase twofold after the lauded television miniseries of 2019 and officials hope that level of interest will continue, or grow, once the global pandemic has receded.

One of the prime draws for tourists is to see the ruins of Pripyat, the once-modern town of 50,000 now being taken over by decay and vegetation. Work is underway to build paths to make it easier for visitors to navigate the ruins.

The Chernobyl plant is out of service, but there is still much work to be done at the decommissioned plant. Borukhovskyi said all four of its reactors are to be dismantled only by 2064.

Ukraine also has decided to use the deserted zone as the site for its centralized storage facility for the spent fuel from the country's four remaining nuclear power plants, and that is to open this year. Until recently, the fuel was disposed of in Russia.

Storing the spent fuel at home will save the country an estimated $200 million a year.

"We are doing everything possible so that this territory, where it is now impossible for people to live, is used with benefit and gives the country a profit," said Serhiy Kostyuk, head of the agency that manages the exclusion zone.

Although the radiation level in the zone is low enough that tourists can visit and workers can carry out their jobs, permanent residence is banned. However, more than 100 people still live in the zone that extends 18 miles around the nuclear power plant, despite orders to leave the site.

Among them is 85-year-old former teacher Yevgeny Markevich, who said "It's a great happiness to live at home, but it's sad that it's not as it used to be.

Today, he grows potatoes and cucumbers on his garden plot, which he takes for tests "in order to partially protect myself."

Long-term effects on human health remain the subject of intense scientific debate. Immediately after the accident, 30 plant workers and firefighters died from acute radiation sickness. Later, thousands of people died from radiation-related illnesses such as cancer.

To the surprise of many who expected the area might be a dead zone for centuries, wildlife is thriving: Bears, bison, wolves, lynx, wild horses and dozens of bird species live in the people-free territory.

According to scientists, the animals were much more resistant to radiation than expected, and were able to quickly adapt to strong radiation.

Ukrainian scientists are researching this phenomenon together with colleagues from Japan and Germany.

"This is a gigantic territory ... in which we keep a chronicle of nature," said biologist Denis Vishnevskiy, 43, who has been observing nature in the reserve for the past 20 years. "The exclusion zone is not a curse, but our resource "

The Ukrainian authorities are calling for the exclusion zone to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, since the object is a unique place "of interest to all mankind". The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine has already taken steps to recognize the zone as a monument, which will attract more funding and tourists.

"Chernobyl should not become a wild playground for adventure hunters," said Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko. "People should leave the exclusion zone with the awareness of the historical memory of this place and its importance for all mankind."

In the spirit of preserving the memories, some enthusiasts have created the Chornobyl App, which includes declassified documents about the disaster and allows users to explore augmented-reality view of the zone and structures.

"Sixty percent of Ukrainians do not know the date of the accident and we decided that there should be a resource where a lot of verified information is collected," said Valeriy Korshunov, one of the free app's developers.

Dmytro Vlasov and Oleksander Stashevsky contributed to this story from the exclusion zone.

Some 3.6 million eligible voters, including Albanians overseas, will elect 140 lawmakers among some 1,800 candidates from 12 political parties or coalitions and those running independently. No early or postal voting is allowed. People infected with COVID-19 cannot vote.

Albania, with a population of 2.8 million and a NATO member since 2009, is looking forward to launching full membership negotiations with the European Union later this year. Sunday's vote is considered as a key milestone on that path.

Albania has seen a significant fall in daily coronavirus cases in the past week despite political rallies around the country. More than 400,000 people have received their jabs.

An overnight curfew has been enforced with restrictions on gatherings and mandatory mask-wearing.

Prime Minister Edi Rama of the governing Socialists, who are seeking their third consecutive mandate, wants to turn Albania into a "champion" in tourism, energy, agriculture and digital projects.

Pre-election survey polls showed Rama's left-wing Socialist Party likely to place first.

Lulzim Basha of the Democratic Party accuses the government of corruption and links to organized crime, and pledges lower taxes, higher salaries and more social financial support.

Confrontations between supporters of the two main parties culminated Wednesday in central Elbasan city, where a leading activist of the Socialist Party died. Police said the victim was shot, allegedly by a member of the opposition Democratic Party, during an argument.

Though officially impartial, President Ilir Meta has turned into a firebrand government opponent, accusing Rama of concentrating all legislative, administrative and judicial powers in his hands and running a "kleptocratic regime" that has bungled pandemic response and delayed the country's EU integration.

Foreign observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Western embassies will closely watch Sunday's polls.

The memorial gatherings observed the 106th anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign. Soldiers from Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, Newfoundland, South Africa and France fought and died during the international operation that started with landings on the peninsula on April 25, 1915.

So did Ottoman soldiers who fought to protect their homeland, here, the Rev. Patrick Irwin said at the memorial site of Cape Helles.

The Helles Memorial is a Commonwealth battle memorial for the whole Gallipoli Campaign, as well as site to remember the servicemen with no known grave. The British ambassador to Turkey, Sir Dominic Chilcott, gave the welcoming address on Saturday.

Turkey and France held separate remembrance ceremonies for their fallen soldiers. All memorial events were kept small this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Sunday, Australians and New Zealanders will mark Anzac Day to remember their fallen soldiers. A dawn ceremony will be held in Turkey.

During the Gallipoli Campaign, Allied forces aimed to take control of the peninsula to weaken the Ottoman Empire. The campaign failed, and the Allies withdrew after eight months of ground fighting and some 250,000 casualties on both sides.

The Ottoman victory did not prevent the end of the Ottoman Empire but propelled Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a commander at Gallipoli, to lead Turkey's war for independence.

Turkey reacted with furor, with the foreign minister saying his country “will not be given lessons on our history from anyone.” A grateful Armenia said it appreciated Biden’s “principled position” as a step toward “the restoration of truth and historical justice.”

Biden was following through on a campaign promise he made a year ago Saturday — the annual commemoration of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day — to recognize that the events that began in 1915 were a deliberate effort to wipe out Armenians.

While previous presidents have offered somber reflections of the dark moment in history, they have studiously avoided using the term genocide out of concern that it would complicate relations with Turkey, a NATO ally and important power in the Middle East.

But Biden campaigned on a promise to make human rights a central guidepost of his foreign policy. He argued last year that failing to call the atrocities against the Armenian people a genocide would pave the way for future mass atrocities. An estimated 2 million Armenians were deported and 1.5 million were killed in the events known as Metz Yeghern.

“The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today,” Biden said in a statement. “We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a letter to Biden that recognition of the genocide “is important not only in terms of respecting the memory of 1.5 million innocent victims, but also in preventing the repetition of such crimes.”

Turkish officials struck back immediately.

“We reject and denounce in the strongest terms the statement of the President of the US regarding the events of 1915 made under the pressure of radical Armenian circles and anti-Turkey groups,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that “words cannot change history or rewrite it" and Turkey “completely rejected” Biden’s statement.

Minutes before Biden’s announcement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the Armenian community and patriarch of the Armenian church calling for not allowing “the culture of coexistence of Turks and Armenians ... to be forgotten." He said the issue has been “politicized by third parties and turned into a tool of intervention against our country.”

The U.S. Embassy and consulates in Turkey issued a demonstration alert and announced their offices would be closed for routine services on Monday and Tuesday as a “precautionary measure.” They cautioned Americans to avoid areas around U.S. government buildings and exercise caution in locations where foreigners gather.

During a telephone call Friday, Biden had informed Erdogan of his plan to issue the statement, said a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S. and Turkish governments, in separate statements following Biden and Erdogan’s call, made no mention of the American plan to recognize the Armenian genocide. But the White House said Biden told Erdogan he wants to improve the two countries’ relationship and find “effective management of disagreements.” The two also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting at the NATO summit in Brussels in June.

In Armenia on Saturday, people streamed to the hilltop complex in Yerevan, the capital, that memorializes the victims. Many laid flowers around the eternal flame, creating a wall of blooms two meters (seven feet) high.

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Avet Adonts, speaking at the memorial before Biden issued his statement, said a U.S. president using the term genocide would “serve as an example for the rest of the civilized world.”

Biden’s call with Erdogan was his first since taking office more than three months ago. The delay had become a worrying sign in Ankara; Erdogan had good rapport with former President Donald Trump and had been hoping for a reset despite past friction with Biden.

Erdogan reiterated his long-running claims that the U.S. is supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria who are affiliated with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK. The PKK has led an insurgency against Turkey for more than three decades. In recent years, Turkey has launched military operations against PKK enclaves in Turkey and in northern Iraq and against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. The State Department has designated the PKK a terrorist organization but has argued with Turkey over the group’s ties to the Syrian Kurds.

Biden, during the campaign, drew ire from Turkish officials after an interview with The New York Times in which he spoke about supporting Turkey’s opposition against “autocrat” Erdogan. In 2019, Biden accused Trump of betraying U.S. allies, following Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, which paved the way for a Turkish military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish group. In 2014, when he was vice president, Biden apologized to Erdogan after suggesting in a speech that Turkey helped facilitate the rise of the Islamic State group by allowing foreign fighters to cross Turkey’s border with Syria.

Lawmakers and Armenian American activists had lobbied Biden to make the genocide announcement on or before remembrance day. The closest that a U.S. president had come to recognizing the World War 1-era atrocities as genocide was in 1981 when Ronald Reagan uttered the words “Armenian genocide” during a Holocaust Remembrance Day event. But he did not make it U.S. policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, lamented that “the truth of these heinous crimes has too often been denied, its monstrosity minimized.”

“History teaches us that if we ignore its darkest chapters, we are destined to witness the horrors of the past be repeated," she added.

Rep. Adam Schiff, also a California Democrat, praised Biden for following through on the pledge.

“For Armenian-Americans and everyone who believes in human rights and the truth, today marks an historic milestone: President Biden has defied Turkish threats and recognized the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians for what it was — the first genocide of the 20th Century," Schiff said in a statement.

California is home to large concentrations of Armenian Americans.

Salpi Ghazarian, director of the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies, said the recognition of genocide would resonate beyond Armenia and underscore Biden seriousness about respect for human rights as a central principle in his foreign policy.

“Within the United States and outside the United States, the American commitment to basic human values has been questioned now for decades,” she said. “It is very important for people in the world to continue to have the hope and the faith that America’s aspirational values are still relevant, and that we can in fact do several things at once. We can in fact carry on trade and other relations with countries while also calling out the fact that a government cannot get away with murdering its own citizens.”

Lee reported from Washington, Bilginsoy from Istanbul. Associated Press writer Avet Demourian in Yerevan contributed to this report.

The evidence to be used in the case is itself a state secret. Navalny's attorney has been told he will get access to the file shortly beforehand, according to Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov.

If the court sides with the prosecutor's general request - declaring Navalny's political group and his Anti-Corruption Foundation to be extremist organizations - it would put them alongside the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban in the eyes of Russian authorities.

The rights group Amnesty International said it would be "one of the most serious blows for the rights to freedom of expression and association in Russia's post-Soviet history."

Even selling refrigerator magnets or wearing T-shirts with Navalny's slogan "Russia will be happy" could bring jail time. Navalny's team members could face six years in jail if they continued to work.

Putin foe Navalny once described prison life with dark humor. Now his messages are just dark.

Donating to Navalny's crowdfunded organizations would be akin to supporting terrorists, with penalties of up to 10 years in jail. Retweeting previous videos by Navalny's group, exposing the corruption of Russian politicians and bureaucrats, could also mean prison.

Already, Russian authorities have barred Navalny and many of his allies from contesting elections and made it a crime to call unauthorized protests or repeatedly participate in them. Many have fled into exile to avoid jail.

The court ruling takes to another level President Vladimir Putin's efforts to stamp out Navalny's influence.

Navalny, poisoned by a chemical nerve agent in August and jailed in February, announced an end to a 24-day hunger strike Friday after medical warnings he was facing death. On Wednesday, thousands of protesters across Russia took to the streets to call for Navalny's release.

Opposition activists draw parallels between Putin's increasingly tight grip and Soviet-style rule dominated by security officials and preoccupied with staying in power, amid growing public dissatisfaction over declining real wages and rising food prices.

"It reminds me of Soviet trials when someone was declared a spy or foreign agent and then there would be a secret closed trial," said Zhdanov, director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, who fled the country earlier this year. "Putin is trying to take Russia back into the Soviet past."

Banning the organization as extremist "would open the gate to mass repressions. The authorities really want to destroy us because our activity is now making them vulnerable and they feel it," he said.

Putin and his government see themselves as Russia's true patriots and state media disparages Navalny a "Nazi" paid by foreign powers to ruin the country.

But the struggle underway in Russia is about two competing views of the country: one outward-facing and democratic, the other inward-looking, increasingly isolated and paranoid, forcing some young scientists, computer experts and engineers and others to immigrate to freer countries.

"It would not be safe for our staff and people who work for us to continue. Of course, we would have to reformat certain parts of our activity, but we are not going to stop," said Zhdanov.

Russian flags are stacked in one corner in Navalny's headquarters in Tomsk, the Siberian city where he was poisoned last August - an attack he blames on Russian agents acting on orders from Putin. The Kremlin denies any link.

Head of the regional headquarters Ksenia Fadeyeva, 29, is one of two Navalny Tomsk team members elected to the local council last year. On the wall in the office is a large map with all of the city's electoral districts marked out in pen and numbered.

"I love my country, but I know something is wrong here," she said. "I don't want to just sit here and do nothing. I want to change things."

Police have already raided many of Navalny's regional offices in recent weeks and arrested dozens of staff.

"We all know what risks we are facing. They can bring in new criminal cases or absurd charges. They will do their best to ruin our lives. We understand what might happen, but we cannot think about that too much or we would go crazy," she said.

Fadeyeva did not comment on what could happen if the organization is banned.

Tomsk colleague Andrei Fateyev was sentenced to 30 days in jail over Wednesday's protest in Tomsk.

"It's dangerous in Russia in general, whether you are a businessman or a politician or an activist," said Fateyev in an interview earlier this month.

But he believes "Russia will change."

"The goal of the regime is to hang onto power . . . But I don't believe they have the ability to cement their power, as they are trying to do now," he said.

Maria Alyokhina, a member of the political activist punk rock group Pussy Riot who was jailed for nearly two years over an anti-Putin protest in 2012 in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, said the crackdowns on dissent and jailing activists are now "part of everyday reality" in Russia.

"It happened in small steps, closing everything down," said Alyokhina, who is now under house arrest, is awaiting trial over her role in January protests in support of Navalny. "All these crazy laws on naming [nongovernment organizations] as foreign agents and people as foreign agents, and the huge fines and imprisonment," she added.

Designating Navalny's organizations as extremists "means that if you post a link to them, you can go to jail. What it means is that is that a big part of the country can be jailed. We are all illegal," said Alyokhina, who spent 12 hours a day, six days a week in prison sewing police and army uniforms. "It's Stalin's principle."

One 80-year-old Muscovite who joined a mass protest in support of Navalny on Wednesday feared Russia is heading into a form of authoritarian worse than that of the Soviet era.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, "we expected a brighter future. But we missed the moment when there was openness and this ability to speak up and express your opinion to do something," said Galina, who spoke on the condition that her surname not be used out of fear of repercussions. "Now we have this new control where the secret services are repressing everyone." 
 

The 25-year-old Syrian refugee had fled the civil war with her family in an all-too-familiar journey across the sea to Europe, where they finally arrived in Denmark and were granted asylum in 2015. Yet six years later, she was being told she had to go back — alone, and soon.

Ten years after the start of the uprising against Bashar al-Assad's regime, Denmark has become the first European country to start revoking the residency permits of some Syrian refugees, arguing that the Syrian capital, Damascus, and neighboring regions are safe. Yet few experts agree with Denmark's assessment.

"There are no laws in Syria that can protect me like here in Denmark," Satouf said with palpable anxiety. "My father is sought after in Syria, so of course I will be arrested upon my return."

In the past six years, Satouf has learned Danish, graduated from high school with flying colors and is now studying to be a nurse while working in a supermarket. She can't understand why a country that encouraged integration and which needs nurses amid a pandemic would expel her and others, mainly women.

For now, the decision affects only people from certain areas of Syria who got their initial asylum because they were fleeing civil war. It doesn't include those who can prove a specific threat to their lives, such as men who could face conscription into Assad's army.

"This is very much down the line of gender," said Satouf's lawyer, Niels-Erik Hansen. "When I have a male client, I will send him right away to the Immigration Service and he will get asylum within three weeks. A female client will get rejected ... and we will have to take this case to the refugee board. So when I look into the pile of cases that I'm representing at the board, it's like 90% women and 10% male."

Because Denmark has no diplomatic relations with Syria, those who refuse to leave the country cannot be sent to Syria. Instead, they are sent to deportation centers, separated from family, unable to work and withdrawn from education programs.

Single women are likely to be sent to the Kaershovedgaard deportation center, a remote complex of buildings about 300 kilometers (185 miles) west of Copenhagen. Access is strictly limited, but Red Cross photos show rudimentary infrastructure where cooking is banned and activities are restricted. Even Danish language lessons are not allowed.

"It is like a prison, but they are allowed to go out in the daytime," said Gerda Abildgaard, who has visited the center for several years for the Red Cross.

The policy is the product of a left-wing Social Democratic-led government, whose immigration stance has come to resemble that of far-right parties after years of large migrations peaked in 2015 with 1 million new arrivals in Europe. The large numbers of people coming from Africa and the Middle East energized populist movements across the continent, pushing parties that had a more welcoming position to embrace stricter policies.

It's a dilemma that Democrats are facing in the U.S., as a surge of young migrants at the Southern border tests President Joe Biden's campaign promise to accept more refugees than in the Trump era.

Though the numbers of asylum-seekers in Denmark have since plummeted, particularly during the pandemic, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen reiterated in January a vision of having "zero asylum-seekers."

The Danish government argues that it made clear to the Syrians from the beginning that they were being offered only temporary protection.

"It's a cornerstone of our legislation … that you get temporary protection, and as soon as you don't need protection anymore, you will have to leave Denmark," said Rasmus Storklund, a Social Democratic lawmaker and member of Parliament's Immigration and Integration Committee.

Standing in front of the deportation center's heavy gates, Abildgaard pleads: "But is Syria safe again? It's only Denmark who says that. All the other European countries don't say that. Only Denmark."

This week, experts who contributed to reports on which the Danish authorities based their assessment condemned that conclusion, warning in a joint statement published by Human Rights Watch that "conditions do not presently exist anywhere in Syria for safe returns."

In government-controlled areas, including in the suburbs of Damascus and many parts of central Syria previously held by opposition rebels, the security situation has stabilized, but entire neighborhoods are destroyed, and many people have no houses to return to. Basic services such as water and electricity are poor to nonexistent.

Moreover, forced conscription, indiscriminate detentions and forced disappearances continue.

In a borderless European Union, Denmark tightening migration regulations means that people facing deportation may flee to neighboring Sweden or to Germany, which welcomed refugees in past years but where there is little political will now to take more.

"This is also a lack of solidarity with the rest of Europe," said Hansen, Satouf's lawyer. "As the first country that starts to withdraw residence permits for these refugees, we are, in fact, pushing people to go to other European countries."

Denmark's approach marks a dramatic transformation of a nation that was the first to sign the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, and which was long seen as a paragon of openness and tolerance.

"We used to be known as one of the most humanitarian countries in Europe, with a lot of freedom, a lot of respect for human rights," says Michala Bendixen, the head of Refugees Welcome Denmark, a non-governmental group. Now, she notes, Denmark's policies look much more like those of countries with hard-line immigration policies, like Hungary.

The ultimate goal, Bendixen believes, is "making it less attractive for refugees and foreigners to arrive in Denmark."

On Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered in front of parliament to protest the deportation orders, surrounded by Danish friends, classmates and work colleagues.

Addressing the crowd, a nervous Satouf told her story.

Others also spoke: A brother and sister facing separation, siblings whose residence permits were expiring the next day, a high school student surrounded by her Danish classmates, a single woman who couldn't comprehend how Denmark, with its claim to uphold and defend women's rights, could be doing this.

"They say I should marry someone who has political asylum to stay here," said Nevien Alrahal who traveled to Denmark with her elderly father and who faces her final appeal on Friday. "That's a choice I don't want to make."

___

Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Zeina Karam in Beirut and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.
 

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Germans to accept nationwide pandemic restrictions that came into force at midnight, resulting in a 10 p.m.-5 a.m. curfews, further limits on personal contacts and access to non-essential stores in regions with high infection rates.

In her weekly video address Saturday, Merkel acknowledged that the new rules are "tough" but insisted they are needed to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

Germany's disease control agency on Friday reported 23,392 newly confirmed cases and more 286 deaths from COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, Germany has recorded almost 3.3 million cases and 81,444 deaths.

Merkel said the new measures, which automatically come into force in regions with more than 100 newly reported cases a week per 100,000 inhabitants, are "urgently needed."

Citing other countries such as Britain, Portugal and Ireland that saw infection rates sharply reduced during strict lockdowns, she defended Germany's new restrictions against critics who have called them excessive.

"No country that managed to break the third wave of the pandemic and then loosen restrictions again did so without tough measures such as nighttime curfews," Merkel said.

Dozens of German celebrities this week posted videos mocking the restrictions and those who advocate them. Some of the participants have since deleted their videos and apologized for echoing far-right narratives about the pandemic while appearing to downplay the suffering of those who lost loved ones to COVID-19.

Germany's lawmakers this week approved legislation that applies an "emergency brake" consistently in areas with high infection rates, doing away with the patchwork of measures that often characterized the pandemic response across the country's 16 states.
 

After 40 days in voluntary isolation in a dark, damp and vast cave, eight men and seven women who took part in a scientific experiment emerged Saturday from their self-segregation in the Pyrenees.

With big smiles on their pale faces, the 15 participants exited the Lombrives cave to a round of applause and basked in the light of day while wearing special glasses to protect their eyes after so long in the dark.

"It's really warm!" said one.

For 40 days and 40 nights, the group lived in and explored the cave without a sense of time. There were no clocks and no sunlight inside, where the temperature was 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) and the relative humidity stood at 100%. The cave dwellers had no contact with the outside world, no updates on the pandemic or any communication with friends and family above ground.

Scientists at the Human Adaption Institute leading the 1.2 million-euro $1.5 million) "Deep Time" project say the experiment will help them better understand how people adapt to drastic changes in living conditions and environments, something much of the world can relate to because of coronavirus pandemic.

In partnership with labs in France and Switzerland, scientists monitored the 15-member group's sleep patterns, social interactions and behavioral reactions via sensors. One of the sensors was a tiny thermometer inside a capsule that participants swallowed like a pill. The capsules measure body temperature and transmit data to a portable computer until they are expelled naturally.

The team members followed their biological clocks to know when to wake up, go to sleep and eat. They counted their days not in hours but in sleep cycles.

On Friday, scientists monitoring the participants entered the cave to let the research subjects know they would be coming out soon. They said many of the people in the group miscalculated how long they had been in the cave and thought they had another week to 10 days to go.

"It's really interesting to observe how this group synchronizes themselves," project director Christian Clot said in a recording done from inside the cave. Working together on projects and organizing tasks without being able to set a time to meet was especially challenging, he said.

Although the participants looked visibly tired, two-thirds of them expressed a desire to remain underground a bit longer in order to finish group projects started during the expedition, Benoit Mauvieux, a chronobiologist involved in the research, told The Associated Press.

The U.S. and Turkish governments, in separate statements on the call, made no mention of the looming decision on the Armenian genocide recognition. But the White House said Biden told Erdogan he wants to improve the two countries' relationship and find "effective management of disagreements." The two also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting at the NATO summit in Brussels in June.

Biden pledged as a candidate to recognize the World War I-era killings and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in modern day Turkey. He is expected to make the announcement Saturday to coincide with the annual Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day commemoration, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Officials said Biden could still change his mind, but wanted to speak with Erdogan before formally recognizing the events of 1915 to 1923 as genocide — something past U.S. presidents had avoided out of concern about damaging relations with Turkey.

Friday's call between the two leaders was the first since Biden took office more than three months ago.  The delay had become a worrying sign in Ankara; Erdogan had good rapport with former President Donald Trump and had been hoping for a reset despite past friction with Biden.

Erdogan on Friday reiterated his long-running claims that the U.S. is supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria who are affiliated with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK. In recent years, Turkey has launched military operations against PKK enclaves in northern Iraq and against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. The State Department has designated the PKK as a terrorist organization but has argued with Turkey over the group's ties to the Syrian Kurds.

Erdogan also raised concerns about the presence of the U.S. of cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed 2016 coup attempt, according to the Turkish government statement. Gulen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s, denies involvement in the coup.

Biden, during the campaign, drew ire from Turkish officials after an interview with The New York Times in which he spoke about supporting Turkey's opposition against "autocrat" Erdogan. In 2019, Biden accused Trump of betraying U.S. allies, following Trump's decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, which paved the way for a Turkish military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish group. In 2014, when he was vice president, Biden apologized to Erdogan after suggesting in a speech that Turkey helped facilitate the rise of the terrorist group Islamic State by allowing foreign fighters to cross Turkey's border with Syria.

Lawmakers and Armenian American activists have been lobbying Biden to make the genocide announcement on or before the Armenian remembrance day that presidents typically mark with a proclamation.

Salpi Ghazarian, director of the University of Southern California's Institute of Armenian Studies, said the recognition of genocide would resonate beyond Armenia as Biden insists that respect for human rights will be a central principle in his foreign policy.

"Within the United States and outside the United States, the American commitment to basic human values has been questioned now for decades," she said. "It is very important for people in the world to continue to have the hope and the faith that America's aspirational values are still relevant, and that we can in fact to do several things at once. We can in fact carry on trade and other relations with countries while also calling out the fact that a government cannot get away with murdering its own citizens."

Turkey's foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had warned the Biden administration earlier this week that recognition would "harm" U.S.-Turkey ties.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment Friday on Biden's deliberations on the issue.

____

Bilginsoy reported from Istanbul.
 

President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi during a Friday phone call discussed the resumption of traffic to the towns of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh.

"In view of the joint work to ensure high standards of aviation security in Egyptian airports that has been completed, a principal agreement was reached to restore full-format air links between Russia and Egypt," a readout of the call said.

Egypt's office of the presidency also issued a statement saying that El-Sissi welcomed the decision. Neither specified when the first flights would take place, but Russian media reports said they could resume as early as mid-May after officials iron out technical details.

The government's anti-coronavirus task force said it will announce when flights will resume, and other specifics such as the number of flights, in the second half of May.

Russian air carriers said they are ready to move quickly to organize charter flights to the Egyptian resorts and and tour operators said they expect a strong demand.

Moscow suspended all flights to Egypt after a bomb by the local Islamic State affiliate brought down a Russian airliner over Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board. In 2017, it started flying to Cairo again, but direct trips to the two Red Sea resort towns have remained halted.

The attack was a serious blow to Egypt's vital tourism industry, which was also affected by the unrest following its 2011 popular uprising. Egyptian authorities have since spent millions of dollars to upgrade security at its airports, hoping to get Moscow to change its mind.

Earlier this month, Russia suspended most of its flights to Turkey until June 1 citing a rise in infections there, a move that dealt a heavy blow to the Turkish tourist industry and scuttled vacation plans for more than 500,000 Russians. Many of them could now look at Egyptian resorts as an alternative.

The resumption would be key for Egypt's tourism sector, which has been dealt another blow by the coronavirus pandemic over the past year. It's kept looser restrictions in the Red Sea resort towns to try to attract foreign visitors.

In the wake of the IS bombing, Britain, another major source of visitors to Egypt, suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort in Sinai from which the doomed Russian airliner took off. They lifted restrictions in October 2019.