Iran is not ready to return to talks with world powers over its nuclear programme yet and its new negotiating team wants to first meet with the EU in Brussels in the next few weeks, a senior EU official said on Friday.

EU political director Enrique Mora, the chief coordinator for the talks, was in Tehran on Thursday to meet members of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, four months after discussions broke off between Iran and world powers.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has so far refused to resume indirect talks with the United States in Vienna on both sides returning to compliance with the deal, under which Iran curbed its nuclear program in return for economic sanctions relief. Läs artikel

The European Union’s diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said Friday he was ”ready” to meet Iranian leaders in Brussels as part of efforts to revive the faltering 2015 nuclear deal, but warned Tehran it was time to fully return to the negotiating table.

Wrapping up a trip to Washington, Borrell also brushed aside the notion of a ”Plan B,” or a possible military option as suggested this week by the United States and Israel, should Tehran fail to rejoin the accord aimed at keeping it from developing nuclear weapons. Läs artikel

French army bases in Kidal, Tessalit and Timbuktu, in the north of the country, will be closed by the end of the year and handed over to the Malian army.

While air support will be maintained, the 5,100 French troops currently in the Sahel will be reduced to roughly 3,000. European special forces, deployed in the Takuba task force, will be in charge of supporting the Malian military in combat.

”The idea is not to create a vacuum. The idea is to leave the responsibility of these areas to the Malian state,” said General Etienne du Peyroux of the French Barkhane force. ”To avoid the risk of getting stuck in conflict, we need a response that is not only military.” Läs artikel

The United States and Greece signed an agreement on Thursday renewing their long-standing defence cooperation, a move Secretary of State Antony Blinken said would allow the NATO allies to advance security in the Eastern Mediterranean region and beyond.

Known as the U.S.-Greece Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement, the MDCA has allowed U.S. forces to train and operate within Greek territory since 1990.

The two countries, which have strong political and economic ties, renewed their agreement for five years with an understanding that from then onward, it would remain in place indefinitely unless one of the parties chooses to withdraw. […]

The two countries’ deepening cooperation comes as U.S. ties with Greece’s neighbor Turkey remain strained. Turkey was removed from the F-35 program after it purchased Russian missile defense systems, which the United States says threatens its stealth jets. Läs artikel

Heimevernet kan øke med 8000 soldater de neste årene. Det er om den påtroppende Støre-regjeringen får det som de vil. Senterpartiet gikk til valg på at de vil ha 50.000 soldater i Heimevernet (HV).

I regjeringsærkleringen «Hurdalsplattformen» presenterer den nye regjeringen sin politikk som de skal ta utgangspunkt i de neste fire årene. Der står blant annet at partiene ønsker å:

«Øke Heimevernets områdestruktur til 45.000 soldater. For å møte behovet for et tilstrekkelig antall personell i Heimevernet, skal det vurderes å opprette en egen utdanningskapasitet».

Denne politikken står i motsetning til Forsvarets langtidsplan for 2021-2024 som ble vedtatt i desember 2020. Der står det at Heimevernet skal «videreføres med elleve heimevernsdistrikter innenfor en ramme på 37.000 befal og mannskaper i områdestrukturen». I tillegg er det 3000 befal og mannskaper i innsatsstyrkene. Om Støre-regjeringen får det som den vil, blir dette en økning på 8000 soldater i Heimevernets områdestruktur. Läs artikel

The hits just keep coming. When Barack Obama’s administration, along with Washington’s NATO allies, launched an air war to overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, expectations were high for the future of that country once Qaddafi was gone. Instead, the result has been an ongoing horror story.

Feuding factions have waged power struggles that created repeated flows of desperate refugees, many of them trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean in overloaded, small boats to reach sanctuary in Europe. Other countries, including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia have become parties to the conflict, backing their favored political and military players, thereby adding to the bloodshed and chaos. Today’s Libya is an arena for cynical proxy wars between the clients of those outside powers.

A new report from the United Nations highlights the extent of the tragedy that U.S. leaders helped unleash. The UN’s fact-finding mission identified war crimes and crimes against humanity on the part of multiple parties just since 2016. “Our investigations have established that all parties to the conflicts, including third States, foreign fighters and mercenaries, have violated international humanitarian law, in particular the principles of proportionality and distinction, and some have also committed war crimes,” Mohamed Auajjar, chair of the fact-finding mission, said in a statement. Läs artikel

NATO exercises “Iron Wolf – 2021 II” begin at the training ground in the Lithuanian city of Pabrade near the border with Belarus, they will last about two weeks, Sputnik Lithuania reports with reference to the press service of the republic’s army.

“In Lithuania, the international exercises” Iron Wolf – 2021 II “(Geležinis vilkas 2021 II) will begin, which will last about two weeks… It is reported that the mechanized infantry brigade of the Lithuanian armed forces” Iron Wolf “announced an increase in combat readiness,” writes Sputnik. […]

“The exercise will last about two weeks, it will be attended by 3,000 soldiers and a thousand pieces of military equipment that are already on their way to Pabrade. The exercises will be attended by servicemen from Lithuania and other NATO countries – Belgium, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Spain, USA, Latvia, Poland, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as soldiers from Ukraine. The main operations that the soldiers will be trained in are attack and defense,” adds Sputnik. Läs artikel

Finland deltar i den Natoledda stabsövningen Steadfast Jupiter 2021 under tiden 19 – 28.10.2021.

Stabsövningen Steadfast Jupiter 2021 (STJU21) leds av Nordatlantiska försvarsorganisationens (Natos) styrkor Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) 19 – 28.10.2021. Från Försvarsmakten deltar ca 30 stabsofficerare i övningen, av vilka ca en tredjedel arbetar i Norge, i Stavanger och resten som förbindelseofficerare i olika stabsstrukturer inom Nato.

Finland deltar i övningen i rollen som kompanjonsland. STJU21 erbjuder Finland en möjlighet att öva samverkan mellan staber med Nato i störningssituationer under normala förhållanden och utvecklar samtidigt samarbetet med flera för Finland viktiga kompanjonsländer och organisationer som deltar i övningen.

Statsrådets försvarsredogörelse ”Finland stärker försvarssamarbetet och utvecklar samverkansförmågan med de mest centrala partnerna för alla säkerhetssituationer som påverkar Finland. Finland bör ha en förmåga att agera tillsammans med sina viktigaste partner, då särskilt beslut om det fattas, även i krissituationer.” Läs pressmeddelande

[…] A significant legal problem faced by the US-administration after the September 11th attacks, as well as by previous US administrations, was that policing risks and punishing wrongdoings unilaterally in the periphery had been outlawed by the UN Charter. The UN Charter had deliberately closed legal loopholes for unilateral great power interventions by setting out a broad prohibition of the use of force in Art. 2 (4) and by restricting exceptions to collective action authorized by the Security Council and to a narrowly worded right to self-defense.

Ironically, it was the US delegation which at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 insisted that Art. 51 UN Charter should be constructed as restrictively as possible. […]

In other words, the endless post-9/11 debates about whether or not Art. 51 UN Charter allows for measures of self-defense against terrorists obscured that the re-interpretation of Art. 51 UN Charter in this context was just another attempt to re-introduce legal justifications for outlawed forms of great power interventionism in the periphery, whenever vital interests of a great power were at stake. Accordingly, subsequent US interventions in the Middle East, including the 2018 missile strikes punishing the Syrian government for chemical attacks in Douma, and the more recent US killing of the high ranking Iranian general Soleimani in Iraq proved that the application of the new cored self-defense doctrine was by no means limited to threats created by non-state actors. Unfortunately, this claimed right to police und punish in the periphery on the basis of undisclosed intelligence information about potential threats as “self-defense” would bring back the old “measures short of war”, at a time when great powers like the Russian Federation and China have begun to assert regional prerogatives in a much more robust fashion. Without a concerted rejection of a right of unilateral military self-help, retaliation and punishment as “self-defense”, the 2001 US intervention in Afghanistan could eventually go down in history as the beginning of the end of the assertion of a broad UN-Charter based prohibition of the use of force. Läs artikel

Over 100 state delegations attended a ceremony here on Monday marking the 60th anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), issuing a joint call for multilateralism in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and in international relations in general.

The event, co-organized by Serbia and Azerbaijan, opened at the Belgrade Fair complex on Monday in front of the presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers of the NAM member countries, representatives of the observer countries and nine international organizations.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is the current chair of the NAM, addressed the participants via a video link. He said that his country ”will spare no effort” to strengthen the NAM’s role in ”addressing global challenges in international relations and defend justice and international law,” especially when it affects the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the NAM member states.

”Unfortunately, double standards and selective approaches applied in respect to the norms and principles of international law and the decisions of international organizations have been negatively affecting the just and fair settlement of conflicts throughout the world,” he said. […]

The Non-Aligned Movement, which today includes 120 member states and 18 observer states, was established in Belgrade in 1961. Läs artikel