Turkish security forces are detaining hundreds of people in the aftermath of an Islamic State attack on an Istanbul church. Authorities are warning of further attacks against Jews and Christians. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Category: European Union
European Union news. The place name Euros was first used by the ancient Greeks to refer to their northernmost province, which bears the same name today. The principal river there – Euros (today’s Maritsa) – flows through the fertile valleys of Thrace, which itself was also called Europe, before the term meant the continent
France’s Sarkozy Found Guilty Again Over Campaign Funds
PARIS — A Paris appeals court ruled Wednesday that former President Nicolas Sarkozy was guilty of illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 reelection bid, confirming a previous ruling by a lower court, but his lawyer said he would take his case to France’s highest court.
Sarkozy was handed a one-year prison sentence, half of which was suspended, that can be served through alternative means, such as wearing an electronic bracelet without going to jail.
Sarkozy, 69, had been handed a one-year prison sentence in 2021 when first found guilty, although that was suspended while he launched his appeal. The new appeal will again mean the sentence is placed on hold.
“Today’s ruling is highly questionable. That is why we will appeal to the Cour de Cassation,” his lawyer Vincent Desry told reporters, reiterating that Sarkozy was innocent.
The Cour de Cassation is the country’s highest court, and its rulings typically focus on whether the law has been applied correctly rather than on the facts of the case. Appeals to the court can take years.
Sarkozy was in court on Wednesday to hear the verdict but left without commenting to waiting reporters.
President from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy has remained an influential figure among conservatives and is on friendly terms with President Emmanuel Macron — despite a string of trials and investigations linked to various legal issues surrounding his campaign finances.
He has always denied accusations that his party, Les Republicains, then known as the UMP, worked with a public relations firm named Bygmalion to hide the true cost of his campaign — marked by lavish show events previously unseen in French politics.
During a hearing, Sarkozy put the blame on some members of his campaign team: “I didn’t choose any supplier; I didn’t sign any quotation, any invoice,” he told the court.
France sets strict limits on campaign spending. Prosecutors allege that the firm invoiced UMP rather than the campaign. They say Sarkozy spent $45.9 million on his 2012 campaign, almost double the permitted amount.
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Blinken Talks to American Detained in Russia, Vows Effort to Free Him
Washington — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that he spoke with Paul Whelan, a former Marine detained in Russia, as he vowed sustained efforts to free him as well as jailed journalist Evan Gershkovich.
Speaking alongside his Canadian counterpart at an event on hostage diplomacy, Blinken said he spoke by telephone with Whelan on Monday.
“Our intensive efforts to bring Paul home continue every single day, and they will until he and Evan Gershkovich and every other American wrongfully detained is back with their loved ones,” Blinken said at the Wilson Center, a think tank in Washington.
Whelan, who was working in security for a U.S. vehicle parts company in Russia, was detained in December 2018 and is serving a 16-year sentence for espionage, charges he and the U.S. government deny.
Gershkovich, a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in March 2023 on a reporting trip in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
He is the first Western journalist since Soviet times to be charged by Russia with spying, allegations vehemently denied by Gershkovich, his employer and the U.S. government.
The White House said in December that it was preparing a new proposal to free the two Americans after Russia rejected an earlier offer, which the State Department had described as “substantial.”
Washington has recently carried out two prisoner swaps with Moscow, including for the release of basketball star Brittney Griner, despite a breakdown in most diplomacy due to the Ukraine war.
Putin in an interview released last week with conservative U.S. talk show host Tucker Carlson said that “an agreement can be reached” to free Gershkovich.
Canada in 2021 launched a coalition to oppose the arbitrary detention of foreign nationals for political reasons after the detention of two of its citizens in China.
The pair, freed in late 2021 after three years of imprisonment, were held in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a Chinese tech executive on a U.S. warrant.
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, speaking at the event, said 75 countries had joined the coalition.
“Together we’re sending a strong message that this practice will not be tolerated. Citizens cannot be used as pawns in a geopolitical game,” Joly said.
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Two Armenian Soldiers Killed by Azerbaijani Fire
TBILISI, Georgia — Armenia said on Tuesday that two of its soldiers had been killed by Azerbaijani fire along the heavily militarized border, the first fatal incident since the two sides last year began negotiating a deal to end more than 30 years of intermittent war.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app that two of its soldiers had been killed and several more wounded at a combat post near the southern Armenian village of Nerkin Hand.
Azerbaijan’s border service said in a statement that it staged a “a revenge operation” in retaliation for a “provocation” it said Armenian forces had committed the day before.
It said that further “provocations” would be met with “more serious and decisive measures from now on.”
“The military and political leadership of Armenia is fully responsible for the incident.”
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said that Armenian forces Monday evening fired at Baku’s positions along a northwestern section of the border, around 300 kilometers from Nerkin Hand. Armenia’s Defense Ministry denied that such an incident took place.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in conflict for over three decades over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan in September retook Karabakh in a lightning offensive, prompting a rapid exodus of almost all of the territory’s Armenian inhabitants, and a renewed push from both sides for a treaty to formally end the conflict.
Although fatal exchanges of fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan have been common for decades, the border had become more peaceful since the start of talks, with little serious fighting since the collapse of Karabakh in September 2023.
The peace talks have in recent months appeared to stagnate, with both sides accusing the other of sabotaging the diplomatic process.
your ad hereAnalysts See Limits to China, Iran, Russia Collaboration With Taliban
washington — Since the Taliban seized control in August 2021, China, Iran and Russia have been steadily courting Afghanistan’s de facto government for influence. The three countries have kept their embassies open in Kabul and were among the first to hand over Afghan embassies to the Taliban at home.
Last month, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran were the most high-profile participants at the Taliban’s first conference on regional cooperation in Kabul.
But what are the real prospects of China, Russia, Iran and the Taliban cooperating in the region?
Analysts tell VOA that while Beijing, Moscow and Tehran may be united in a common goal to oppose the U.S. in the region, that is perhaps the only area where their interests align, analysts say.
“Anti-Americanism is the one idea” that brings China, Iran and Russia together, said Alex Vatanka, founding director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
He told VOA that Tehran, Moscow and Beijing “want to push the United States out of Eurasia and Central Asia … [but] how much can they on the operational level cooperate? That’s a big question.”
He added that “anti-Americanism” alone cannot keep the partnership together as there “is nothing ideological to bring them together.”
According to a newly released U.S. State Department’s strategy document, China, Iran and Russia seek “strategic and economic advantage, or at a minimum, to put the U.S. at a disadvantage.”
“China, Iran and Russia have cultivated very close ties with the Taliban,” said Nilofar Sakhi, a lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, adding that they are trying to “have political and economic influence in the region.”
Despite close ties, none of the three countries has formally recognized the Taliban’s government and their interests in the region all differ.
Pragmatic approach
Late last month, China was the first country to formally accept the credentials of the Taliban’s ambassador.
Some former diplomats and analysts say the move was akin to formal recognition. Sun Yun, the director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington does not agree.
China still has to “formally extended political recognition to the Taliban’s government,” Sun told VOA. Even so, compared to Western countries, China has established “very close” relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“China adopts a pragmatic approach in Afghanistan,” said Sun, adding that early on Beijing realized that the U.S.-backed former Afghan government did not have “the popular support to continue” governing Afghanistan.
Beijing had been cultivating ties with the Taliban for years before the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul.
Sun said that “what has happened in the past two and a half years substantiated that assessment that the Taliban regime is not going anywhere.”
She added that security, economic and political factors are “all part of a broader consideration that comes to the foundation of China’s policy toward Afghanistan.”
For China, one key concern is about any breach of militancy from Afghanistan into its western region of Xinjiang.
Beijing also has economic interests in Afghanistan, including extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative, to Afghanistan and investing in minerals in Afghanistan.
China has also been vocal in criticizing the U.S. and NATO for freezing Afghanistan’s assets and “leaving the Afghan people in a serious humanitarian crisis” in the country.
Complicated past
Though Iran has not formally recognized the Taliban, it handed over the Afghan embassy in Tehran to the Taliban in February 2023.
The Middle East Institute’s Vatanka said that the Iranian regime has not recognized the Taliban because of some bilateral issues, including border security and water distribution.
Last year, tensions between Iran and the Taliban over the Helmand River’s flow of water escalated to a deadly clash, which killed two Iranian security guards and one Taliban border guard.
Iran and the Taliban have had complicated relations in the past.
During the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s, Iran was supporting the forces fighting against the Taliban, particularly after the Taliban killed nine Iranian diplomats in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif in 1998.
“It is still too early for the Iranians to forget what the Taliban was” when it was in power in the 1990s, said Vatanka.
Full of contradiction
Like Iran, Russia was another country that supported forces fighting the Taliban during the civil war in the 1990s.
Ghaus Janbaz, a former Afghan diplomat to Moscow, told VOA that Moscow’s policy toward Afghanistan has been “full of contradictions” in recent years.
Janbaz added that Russia is politically supporting the Taliban, but at the same time, its “military and security officials criticize the Taliban and cite an uptick in terrorist activities in Afghanistan.”
He said that before the Taliban’s takeover, Moscow had diplomatic relations with the former Afghan government, but it also supported “the Taliban at all the levels.”
“It is similar now. Russia has ties with the Taliban, but an anti-Taliban leader was invited to Moscow,” Janbaz said. “They say it was not an invitation by the government, but nothing happens without the approval of the government in Russia.”
An Afghan anti-Taliban leader, Ahmad Masoud, participated in a conference on Afghanistan in Russia in November 2023.
Janbaz says that despite Moscow’s close ties with the Taliban, “I do not think that in the near future, Moscow will extend recognition to the Taliban’s regime.”
He said that similar to China and Iran, Russia’s policy toward the Taliban is driven by regional geopolitics.
“Tactically they might have an alliance against the West, but there are strategic differences” between these countries, Janbaz said.
This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
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Russian Bill Targets Assets of People Who Spread ‘Fake News’ About Military
A new bill allowing authorities to confiscate the property of Russians convicted of deliberately spreading what is deemed as fake news about Russia’s armed forces could soon become law. If signed into law, it would also allow the state to seize the property of Russian emigres who criticize the war in Ukraine. Kateryna Besedina has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: David Gogokhia.
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Pastries, Biscuits as Argentina’s Milei Makes Up With Pope Francis
VATICAN CITY — Argentina’s President Javier Milei visited his compatriot Pope Francis in the Vatican on Monday, bearing pastries and gifts as he seeks to make up with the pontiff he had long dismissed and derided.
Milei, a maverick right-wing libertarian, had heaped insults on Francis during his vote campaign, calling him an “imbecile who defends social justice.” But he has shifted tone in office as he tries to shore up support at home amid mounting challenges.
He hailed the pope as “the most important Argentine in history” in an interview at the weekend. On Monday, he brought alfajores de dulce de leche pastries and a brand of lemon biscuits the pope likes, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said.
Francis and Milei met as Argentina faces its worst economic crisis in decades, with inflation at more than 200% and the newly installed Milei in difficulty following parliamentary rejection of a major reform package.
They spoke for about one hour, the Vatican said.
Francis, a former archbishop of Buenos Aires who has angered some of his compatriots by not visiting his homeland since becoming pope in 2013, has said he may finally visit “suffering” Argentina in the second half of this year.
Securing such a visit could help Milei shore up support from his conservative Catholic base, and help the president push ahead with his reforms.
On the weekend, Milei stressed Francis’ moral leadership role for a majority-Catholic country like Argentina.
Francis has previously said he did not want to be politically exploited by Argentinian politicians. On Friday, he said “radical individualism” permeates society like a “virus,” in words that may jar with Milei’s radical free-market instincts.
Francis and Milei exchanged warm words on Sunday, at the end of a canonization Mass in St Peter’s Basilica for the first female Argentine saint, Maria Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, an 18th century consecrated lay woman better known as “Mama Antula.”
Francis, who is 87 and has difficulty walking, was in a wheelchair as he went to greet Milei after the service. He smiled at him, extended his hand and told him, “You cut your hair!”
Milei, who still wears his hair unconventionally long for a politician, joked about having cleaned up his act and asked if he could hug and kiss the pope. A smiling Francis replied: “Yes, son, yes.”
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Closer Turkey-EU Relations Must Come Through Us, Says Cyprus
NICOSIA — Closer relations between Turkey and the European Union are contingent on Turkish engagement in solving the decades-old partition of Cyprus, the EU country’s president said on Monday.
Turkey has been an official candidate to join the EU for decades, but accession talks have stalled in recent years over EU concerns about Ankara’s record on human rights and respect for the rule of law.
Cyprus, an eastern Mediterranean island that was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 prompted by a brief Greek-inspired coup, has veto rights over Turkey’s EU ambitions, like all other members of the bloc.
The Republic of Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, while the northern half of the island is a self-declared state recognized only by Turkey.
“Cyprus is a strong supporter of closer relations between the EU and Ankara; [such] closer relations pass through developments and a solution to the Cyprus problem,” Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters after meeting Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s president in Nicosia.
Steinmeier, on an official visit to the island, said Turkish actions on Cyprus should be taken into account in assessing its overall relations with the EU.
“Member states should send this message to Turkey,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.
Peace talks to resolve the longstanding conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots collapsed in 2017. Nicosia wants the EU to appoint an emissary to oversee attempts to revive talks, though says it would be supportive of any role of the United Nations, which takes the lead in Cyprus peacemaking.
Violence between the two Cypriot communities broke out in 1963, prompting the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force that still patrols a 180-km (116-mile) long cease-fire line.
Germany’s cabinet last week approved the dispatch of police officers who will join the civilian police contingent of the U.N. force, Steinmeier said.
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Protesters Opposed to Same-Sex Marriage Bill Rally in Greek Capital
ATHENS, Greece — More than 1,500 protesters gathered in central Athens on Sunday to oppose legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage in Greece. The bill is set for a vote in parliament in the coming days.
Greece’s conservative government is sponsoring the bill, but it will require votes from center and left opposition parties to be approved. However, even some center-left lawmakers have gone on record as opposing the bill.
Organizers of Sunday’s rally — religious groups — described the bill as a threat to the traditional family. Many of the protesters chanted “hands off our children.”
“Unfortunately, the woke agenda has also reached Greece and that agenda includes the marriage of homosexuals,” Dimitris Natsios, leader of the far-right and strongly religious Niki party told The Associated Press.
“Greece is a Christian Orthodox country, and our tradition does not allow this. … We know and respect one type of marriage: The Orthodox Christian wedding. Our Constitution also does not provide for this, so this bill is unconstitutional and runs counter to our faith in Christ,” Natsios said.
The Niki party, founded in 2019, entered Parliament in 2023. In the most recent election, in June, it came in sixth, with 3.70% of the vote and elected 10 lawmakers to the 300-member assembly.
Many same-sex couples in Greece seeking to start a family currently get married in countries where same-sex weddings are legal.
Greece has legalized “cohabitation contracts” for same-sex couples since December 2015. It also allowed sex identity change by simple declaration without mandating psychiatric evaluation and sex reassignment surgery in October 2017.
If the bill is approved, Greece would become the first majority Orthodox country to legalize same-sex marriage.
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Greece to Increase ‘Golden Visa’ Amount to $862,000
ATHENS, Greece — Greece has announced new measures to protect locals from a deluge of mainly Chinese nationals purchasing homes and property in exchange for residency rights in the West — what is commonly known as a “Golden Visa” scheme.
For many of China’s newly well-off citizens, the incentive to emigrate has been rising, feeding what is being dubbed worldwide as “investment migration” businesses.
In recent years, there has been a massive rush of Chinese nationals to Greece, and that has created a serious housing crisis.
On Friday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he would increase the threshold of real estate investment from $269,491 to $862,372 in certain pockets of the country to ease the crisis.
“It is a major investment boost for the country but also a serious measure we are considering to shield the local market,” he told lawmakers in the Greek parliament.
In a rare show of bipartisan support, opposition leaders sided with the plan.
Because of a lingering housing shortage, they are now urging the government to block foreign homebuyers, like the Chinese, from making a fortune off their investments, leasing them for short-term rentals rather than occupying them for residential purposes alone.
A local near the foot of the Acropolis, Greece’s star attraction and the hub of Chinese and other tourists — says finding an affordable apartment to lease in the area has become difficult.
“All you see are tourists staying in these flats. The prices for locals have become excessively high,” he said.
Since launching the Golden Visa program in 2014, Greece has been granting five-year renewable residence permits to foreigners in exchange for a minimum property investment of nearly $270,000.
In the last year alone, the number of permits issued has quadrupled, with Chinese nationals topping the list at 80 percent. Turks fleeing the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are second, with Lebanese nationals and Israelis both taking third position, according to data released from the Bank of Greece.
Government sources tell VOA the highest charges for Greece’s Golden Visas will apply for the country’s most coveted property — in central Athens and glitzy Greek islands like Mykonos and Santorini — a favorite among Chinese nationals.
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Antifascists in Hungary Oppose Annual Far-Right Event, Italian Activist Still Jailed
Budapest, Hungary — Antifascist activists gathered in Hungary’s capital Saturday to oppose an annual commemoration held by far-right groups, underscoring diplomatic tensions between Budapest and Rome over the detention of an Italian citizen in a Hungarian jail.
Hundreds of activists marched through central Budapest alongside a heavy police presence and called for “freedom for every antifascist.” They said they sought to prevent the far-right from observing the “Day of Honor,” an annual event marking the failed attempt by Nazi and allied Hungarian soldiers to break out of Budapest during the Red Army’s siege of the city in 1945.
The demonstration came as an Italian antifascist activist is being held in a Hungarian jail for allegedly being involved in assaults against suspected participants in the Day of Honor commemoration in Budapest last year.
Images of the activist, Ilaria Salis, chained and shackled at a Budapest court hearing sparked official protests by the Italian government. Prosecutors are seeking an 11-year sentence for the woman.
Luca Kruczynski, 35, a participant at the antifascist march Saturday, said he had
traveled from Berlin with friends “to protest against the neo-fascist groups that are
having their events here now every year.”
He said he had concerns that Salis’ prosecution would be a “political trial.”
“We see that Nazis are going to group up on different occasions and in different cities all over Europe,” he said. “There are people who say no to this, and who have a close eye on this and tell them, ‘Here and no further.’”
A separate group of activists gathered in Milan on Saturday to call attention to Salis’ case. Hungary’s government has denied that Salis is being held in inappropriate conditions.
Italy’s government has called on Hungary to observe European and international law, which calls for the need to respect the dignity of prisoners, “including the way in which defendants are transferred to court and the guarantees of a fair trial.”
Last week, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni spoke about Salis’ detention with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The case is delicate for the far-right-led government of Meloni, who has forged friendly ties with the nationalist Orban.
Italy’s foreign and justice ministers have refused a request to seek pre-trial detention at home in Italy or in the Italian embassy in Budapest for Salis, citing the sovereignty of Hungary’s court system.
Salis’ father met with Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Justice Minister Carlo Nordio on Monday in a bid to persuade them to intervene on his daughter’s behalf but walked away disappointed.
In a joint statement Monday, Nordio said he suggested to the father that Salis’ Hungarian lawyer make the case in court to change the conditions of her confinement, while Tajani said that he has twice personally intervened with the Hungarian government on her behalf.
The leader of the Italian opposition, Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein, noted Monday that Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led government only moved on behalf of Salis after seeing “the chains and shackles.”
“It is difficult not to think that Meloni is embarrassed” in front of her European ally, Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, Schlein said.
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Russian Drones Attack Ukraine as US Aid for War Faces Hurdles
Russia attacked Ukraine with another barrage of drones. This comes as additional U.S. funding for Kyiv’s efforts to defend itself faces hurdles in a divided U.S. Congress. As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, the two U.S. presidential front-runners have diametrically opposed views on Ukraine and NATO.
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UK’s King Charles III Attends Church for First Time Since Revealing He Has cancer
London — King Charles III attended Sunday services for the first time since his cancer diagnosis, offering a cheerful wave as he walked out of the parish church that has regularly served as a place of worship for the royal family.
Charles and Queen Camilla went to St. Mary Magdalene Church, close to Sandringham House in eastern England where the king retreated to recuperate following his first treatment for an unspecified form of cancer. The estate, some 110 miles (180 kilometers) north of London, offers the monarch a place of shelter where he can isolate from the risk of infection.
The appearance came a day after he expressed thanks for the messages of support he has received from the public. In a statement issued late Saturday, the monarch said that such thoughts are “the greatest comfort and encouragement.”
“It is equally heartening to hear how sharing my own diagnosis has helped promote public understanding and shine a light on the work of all those organizations which support cancer patients and their families across the U.K. and wider world,” he said in a statement.
“My lifelong admiration for their tireless care and dedication is all the greater as a result of my own personal experience.”
Buckingham Palace announced the diagnosis on Monday. Charles was last seen on Tuesday as he left his home at Clarence House in London after starting his treatment.
Sandringham, the private home of the past six British monarchs, sits amid parkland, gardens and working farms. It has been owned by the royal family since 1862.
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In Bid to Curb Immigration, France to Scrap Birthright Citizenship in Mayotte
Paris — Children of immigrants born in Mayotte, the French overseas territory situated between Madagascar and the African mainland, will no longer automatically become French citizens, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said late on Sunday.
“It will no longer be possible to become French if one is not the child of French parents,” Darmanin told journalists upon his arrival on the island, announcing the scrapping of birthright citizenship there — a first in recent French history.
Located close to the impoverished Comoro islands off the East African coast, the former French colony has become the center of fierce social unrest, with many residents blaming undocumented immigration for the deteriorating conditions.
Much poorer than mainland France, Mayotte has been shaken by gang violence and social unrest for decades. The situation has recently worsened amid a water shortage.
Since January, island residents have been staging strikes and erecting roadblocks to protest against what they say are unacceptable living conditions, paralyzing large parts of local infrastructure.
The reform, which Darmanin said was the idea of French President Emmanuel Macron, will require a change of the constitution.
It comes less than three weeks after France’s highest court scrapped large parts of a new immigration law designed to toughen access to welfare benefits for foreigners and curb the number of new arrivals into the country.
Immigration is a hot-button issue in France, one of Europe’s strongholds for far right anti-immigration parties.
Darmanin said, however, that “there is no question of doing this for other territories of the Republic.”
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