ANKARA, 20 August 2022, (TON): Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said “he discussed possible ways of ending the war between Ukraine and Russia in a trilateral meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.N. chief Antonio Guterres.”

Speaking after the meeting in Ukraine’s Lviv, Erdogan said they discussed using the positive atmosphere created by a U.N.-brokered grain export deal to establish lasting peace.

He also said “they discussed the exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia, and that he would later raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Erdogan said “we attach great importance to this issue…of what happened to the exchange of these captives.”

MANILA, 20 August 2022, (TON): US Sen. Edward Markey, who was once banned from the Philippines by former President Rodrigo Duterte met a long-detained Filipino opposition leader, whom he says was wrongfully imprisoned under Duterte and should be freed.

Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and a group of US legislators met former Sen. Leila de Lima for more than an hour in her high-security detention cell in the main police camp in Metropolitan Manila, according to her lawyer, Filibon Tacardon, and police.

Details of their court-authorized meeting were not immediately available.

Duterte had banned Markey and two other American legislators from traveling to the Philippines after they called for de Lima’s release and raised alarm over human rights violations under his presidency. Duterte’s turbulent six-year term ended in June.

JERUSALEM, 20 August 2022, (TON): Israel said “it plans to grant more work permits to Palestinians in blockaded Gaza, reviving a pledge made ahead of a visit by US President Joe Biden but later scrapped.”

The military said in a statement “a further 1,500 people from the impoverished and overcrowded Gaza Strip would be allowed to work in Israel from Sunday.”

COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry said “the decision will take effect on condition that the security situation remains quiet in the area.”

The move to boost to 15,500 the total number of work permits was initially announced on July 12, on the eve of Biden’s visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

CANBERRA, 20 August 2022, (TON): Australia’s leader said Friday that it’s upsetting Indonesia has further reduced the prison sentence of the bombmaker in the Bali terror attack that killed 202 people which could free him within days if he’s granted parole.

The most recent reduction of Umar Patek’s sentence takes his total reductions to almost two years and means Patek could be released on parole ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bombings in October.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told media “this will cause further distress to Australians who were the families of victims of the Bali bombings.”

“We lost 88 Australian lives in those bombings.”

Albanese said “he would continue making diplomatic representations to Indonesia about Patek’s sentence and a range of other issues, including Australians currently jailed in Indonesia. Albanese described Patek as abhorrent.”

LONDON, 20 August 2022, (TON): Head of Britain’s GCHQ intelligence service said “Russia has failed to gain ground in cyberspace against Ukraine almost six months after its invasion of the country.”

Jeremy Fleming, the intelligence head, in an op-ed in The Economist, wrote that both countries have been using their cyber capabilities in the war in Ukraine.

Fleming wrote “so far, president Putin has comprehensively lost the information war in Ukraine and in the West. Although that’s cause for celebration, we should not underestimate how Russian disinformation is playing out elsewhere in the world.”

“Just as with its land invasion, Russia’s initial online plans appear to have fallen short. The country’s use of offensive cyber tools has been irresponsible and indiscriminate.”

WASHINGTON, 20 August 2022, (TON): Senior Official for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Liz Allen will travel to Amman, Beirut, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv from August 19-26, 2022. 

Her week-long trip underscores the United States’ strategic commitment to people-to-people diplomacy, which brings people together beyond the confines of government to address shared challenges and advance peace and prosperity worldwide.

In Jordan, Senior Official Allen will meet with senior government officials to discuss enhancing U.S. partnerships in the education and communications sectors. 

To show the United States’ longstanding commitment to promoting economic opportunity in the Kingdom, Senior Official Allen will also meet with members of the film industry and students aspiring to become leaders in science, technology, and mathematics.

In Beirut, Senior Official Allen will engage Lebanese leaders advancing disability rights and meet with alumni of U.S.-funded academic exchanges as well as independent media thought leaders. 

BEIJING, 20 August 2022, (TON): Chinese and Russian leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 summit in Bali in November, Indonesian President Joko Widodo told Bloomberg News.

“Xi Jinping will come. President Putin has also told me he will come,” Jokowi, as he is popularly known, told the news agency.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Indonesia presidential palace officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Indonesia is chairing the Group of 20 major economies and has faced pressure from Western countries to withdraw its invitation to Putin over his country’s invasion on Ukraine, which his government calls a special military operation.

KYIV, 20 August 2022, (TON): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “there was still much more to do to ensure full global access to Ukrainian food products and Russian food and fertilizers after a UN-brokered food export deal.”

At a briefing in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, Guterres said developing countries needed help to purchase such grain and called for unimpeded access to global markets for Russian food and fertilizers which are not subject to sanctions.

He said “this is an agreement between two parties locked in bitter conflict. It is unprecedented in scope and scale. But there is still a long way to go on many fronts.”

He said “it is time for massive and generous support so developing countries can purchase the food from this and other ports and people can buy it.”

KUWAIT CITY, 20 August 2022, (TON): Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister, Ambassador Majid Al-Dhafiri, met with Charge d’Affairs of the US Embassy in Kuwait Jim Holtsnider, state news agency reported.

During the meeting, both officials discussed bilateral relations and reviewed the latest regional and global developments of common interest.

WASHINGTON, 20 August 2022, (TON): Washington said “it was concerned by the Israeli government’s forced closure of several Palestinian NGOs operating in the occupied West Bank.”

The Israeli military announced earlier in the day that it had conducted overnight raids of seven organizations in Ramallah, the West Bank city where the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters are located.

Six of the Palestinian organizations were labeled last October as terrorist organizations by Israel for their alleged links to the leftist militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, though Israeli officials have not publicly shared any evidence of the links.

The NGOs have all denied any links to the PFLP, which many western nations have designated a terrorist group.