Refugees
Moves by Trump envoys are ticking off other nations
LONDON (AP) — Do not antagonize one’s opponents unnecessarily, a basic principle of diplomacy says. But as the United States faces a trade war with China and various tensions overseas, President Donald Trump’s emissaries are increasingly ticking off allied countries and being called to account.
Just this week, no fewer than three U.S. envoys scrambled to extricate themselves from diplomatic hot water.
Denmark’s foreign minister summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country to answer for reports that at least three people with connections to Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland, a Danish territory. France summoned the U.S. ambassador, Trump in-law Charles Kushner, over his letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country has not done enough to fight antisemitism. And the American ambassador to Turkey, longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack, apologized Thursday for using the word “animalistic” while calling for a gaggle of reporters to quiet down during a press conference in Lebanon.
But in the other two cases, the Trump administration stood pat. Kushner did not show up for his summonsing, leaving the French to take it up with his No. 2. The top diplomat in Denmark did attend his meeting in Copenhagen, and the State Department said a “productive conversation” ensued. But behind the scenes in Washington, the Trump administration — through an official who spoke only on condition of anonymity — had a far more casual response.
“The Danes,” the official said, “need to calm down.”
A pattern emerges
There was much tsk-tsking from the diplomatic world over the indelicate exchanges, which would perhaps have been minor on their own.
But they’re consistent with Trump’s blunt-spoken style, his “America First” approach to foreign policy and his attitude toward reporters — all of which appeal to broad swaths of his political base. And they track with the president’s record of upending norms. Indeed, the State Department has offered little in response, except to say that it supports Kushner’s letter to Macron and that the government “does not control or direct” the actions of private citizens in Greenland.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly dismissed the notion that the recent diplomatic kerfuffles have undercut Trump’s global standing or dimmed his trust in his envoys.
“President Trump has restored America’s standing on the world stage, and his foreign policy accomplishments speak for themselves,” Kelly said, citing Trump’s trade deals, his strike on Iran ‘s nuclear facilities and the freeing of Americans detained in other countries as examples. “He has full confidence in his entire team to advance his America First foreign policy agenda.”
The trifecta of ire against American diplomats in recent days was only the latest against Trump’s overseas appointees, several of whom raised eyebrows during the president’s first term. That’s in part due to the particularly American practice — in both parties — of handing coveted postings to campaign donors and presidential friends regardless of their diplomatic experience.
Trump’s diplomats have something of a track record of annoying foreign governments. During his first term, numerous U.S. ambassadors from Iceland to Germany and South Africa as well as the European Union got under the skin of their host governments, prompting summonses if not private complaints.
One former senior State Department official said Trump loved the publicity these incidents received and often sent the ambassadors in question congratulatory notes when their actions produced news coverage.
The main exception to that was Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the EU whom Trump fired just days after Sondland testified on Capitol Hill during Trump’s first impeachment proceedings over Ukraine.
The hearings touched on another messy diplomatic matter — Trump’s ousting of his ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who testified that she felt pressured to issue statements of support for Trump. “The woman,” Trump said during a phone call with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “she’s going to go through some things.”
Still, the recent dustups were striking for their risk of amplifying tensions among Western allies as the U.S. and China vie for economic superiority and talk of a meetup between their leaders as soon as this fall.
“The Trump administration stresses, I think rightly, that the U.S.-China rivalry is now the major axis around which international affairs turn,” Iver B. Neumann, director of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, an independent think tank in Norway, wrote in an email. “One of the major assets of the U.S. in that rivalry is that it has a high number of allies, whereas China only has one (North Korea). Present U.S. policy alienates allies on purpose, which risks losing them.”
What happened with France?
It started with Macron’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state, which angered Israel and the U.S. because it revived the prospect of a two-state solution to the seemingly endless conflict.
Kushner’s response, published Sunday by The Wall Street Journal, alleged that such “public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence and endanger Jewish life in France.” Kushner urged Macron, among other things, to “abandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its allies.”
France’s Foreign Ministry said it “firmly refutes” Kushner’s allegation and declared that it fell “short of the quality of the transatlantic relationship between France and the United States and the trust that should result from it between allies.”
(Trump has said several times and in several contexts, “I don’t trust anybody,” including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.)
The ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador on Monday, a formal and public notice of displeasure. He did not show, so French officials met with the embassy’s No. 2 instead. Kushner, a real-estate developer, is the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
What about Denmark?
Trump has been relatively quiet recently about his desire to acquire Greenland, the Danish territory in the Arctic, for security purposes. In March, Greenland voted to decide its own future as it moves toward independence from Denmark.
But Trump’s hint that he could invade the massive island stands. So when Denmark’s main broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to Trump had been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland, Denmark’s Foreign Ministry summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country, Mark Stroh, a career member of the foreign service, for an explanation.
The State Department said “the U.S. government does not control or direct the actions of private citizens,” values its relationship with Denmark and “respects the right of Greenlanders to determine their own future.”
Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the nonprofit Stimson Center in Washington, said Trump’s envoys are unlikely to be reprimanded or change their agendas. But the incidents might serve as a warning “to watch what they are saying and doing more carefully.”
“The ball is in other countries’ court to decide whether they are willing to jeopardize the diplomatic relations with (the) U.S. further,” Sun wrote in an email. Doing so would “have significant repercussions over much more critical domains.”
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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this story from Washington.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Council of Europe delegation on Friday denounced the arrest of a Turkish human rights and LGBTQ+ activist who was detained after delivering a speech critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government at a session of Europe’s leading human rights body.
Enes Hocaogullari, who took part in a March meeting of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, as one of Turkey’s youth delegates, was arrested last month after he criticized the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and other opposition figures.
The 23-year-old activist also spoke out against alleged police violence during protests that erupted following Imamoglu’s arrest.
Marc Cools, president of a delegation of the Council of Europe’s local and regional authorities congress, said there was no legal justification for Hocaogullari’s prosecution or detention.
“Silencing Enes is silencing youth — and silencing youth is silencing democracy itself,” Cools said after visiting Hocaogullari in prison Friday and meeting a day earlier with Turkey’s deputy justice minister and other officials in Ankara.
Hocaogullari was taken into custody at Ankara’s Esenboga airport in August and later charged with “publicly disseminating misleading information” and “inciting hatred and enmity among the public.”
The first hearing of his trial is scheduled for Sept. 8.
“We hope that justice will prevail, that all charges will be dropped, that he will be immediately released,” Cools said.
Imamoglu, a popular opposition figure seen as the main rival to Erdogan in the presidential elections, was arrested in March over allegations of corruption, which he strongly denies. He was officially nominated as the presidential candidate for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, following his imprisonment.
Several other CHP mayors and municipal employees have also been arrested as part of investigations into alleged corruption. The CHP denies the accusations.
Critics view the arrests as a politically motivated crackdown on the CHP, which made significant gains in local elections last year. The government denies the accusation, asserting that the judiciary operates independently and that the investigations target serious corruption allegations.
Opposition parties and human rights organizations have accused Erdogan of undermining democracy and curbing freedom of expression during his more than two decades in power.
Defending champion Spain is already out. That means a new EuroBasket champion will be crowned in a few days.
And there are plenty of candidates.
Reigning World Cup champion Germany, Olympic silver medalist France, Olympic bronze medalist Serbia and unbeaten Turkey are perhaps the headliners in the field of 16 teams that remain in the hunt for the European title.
Among others still in the mix: Luka Doncic and Slovenia, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Greece, an upstart team from Israel and host Latvia — which has neighbor Lithuania awaiting this weekend.
“We didn’t come here to win a group,” said Turkey guard Shane Larkin, the former University of Miami standout. “We came here to win a medal. … We have a lot more work to do.”
Sergio Scariolo, after his tenure as Spain’s coach ended with a group-stage loss Thursday, was asked about the rest of the tournament and he quickly reeled off a half-dozen teams that he would consider favorites.
Yes, it does seem that wide-open.
“Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Germany, France, Slovenia … I said five or six,” Scariolo said. “For sure, among those, the European champion will come out.”
Group stage recap
The tournament started with 24 teams, and 16 advanced to Riga, Latvia for the knockout stage that starts on Saturday.
Group A saw Turkey (5-0), Serbia (4-1), Latvia (3-2) and Portugal (2-3) advance, while Estonia (1-4) and Czechia (0-5) were eliminated.
Group B had Germany (5-0), Lithuania (4-1), Finland (3-2) and Sweden (1-4) moving on, while Montenegro (1-4) and Great Britain (1-4) fell short.
In Group C, it was Greece (4-1), Italy (4-1), Bosnia and Herzegovina (3-2) and Georgia (2-3) advancing, with Spain (2-3) and Cyprus (0-5) ousted.
And in Group D, France (4-1), Poland (3-2), Slovenia (3-2) and Israel (3-2) advanced, with Belgium (2-3) and Iceland (0-5) out.
Round of 16 matchups
Saturday’s games — Turkey vs. Sweden, Germany vs. Portugal, Lithuania vs. Latvia, Serbia vs. Finland.
Sunday’s games — Poland vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, France vs. Georgia, Italy vs. Slovenia, Greece vs. Israel.
In the quarterfinals, the Lithuania-Latvia winner will play the Greece-Israel winner, the Turkey-Sweden winner will play the Poland-Bosnia and Herzegovina winner; the Germany-Portugal winner will play the Italy-Slovenia winner, and the Serbia-Finland winner will get the France-Georgia winner.
That means it’s not possible that Serbia and France — both medal-winning teams behind the U.S. at the Paris Olympics last summer — to both medal at EuroBasket. At least one of them will be ousted before the semifinals.
The NBA impact
Not surprisingly, NBA stars are making a huge impact on EuroBasket with all the expected names — the likes of Doncic, Antetokounmpo, Serbia’s Nikola Jokic, Turkey’s Alperen Sengun and Finland’s Lauri Markkanen — showing up and putting up big numbers on their home continent.
Doncic leads all scorers, averaging 33.4 points per game (along with a tournament-best 42 assists). Antetokounmpo is averaging 27.7 points, Markkanen is averaging 25.4.
There are four players shooting better than 65% in the tournament — Antetokounmpo (69.6%), Lithuania’s Jonas Valanciunas (66%), Sengun (65.6%) and Jokic (65.5%).
Want a breakout performance? Try Israel’s Deni Avdija, who is averaging 24.4 points and led his team through the group stage, with hopes of delivering the country’s first EuroBasket medal since winning silver in 1979.
The picks
Round of 16 winners: Latvia, Greece, Turkey, Poland, Germany, Italy, Serbia, France.
Quarterfinal winners: Latvia, Turkey, Germany, Serbia.
Semifinal winners: Latvia, Serbia.
Bronze medal game: Germany over Turkey.
Gold medal game: Serbia over Latvia.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports
Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic scored 23 points to lead Montenegro to a much-needed 87-81 victory over Sweden at the EuroBasket tournament. Also on Monday, Turkey extended its record to four group phase wins with a comfortable victory over Estonia.
Vucevic also grabbed 15 rebounds and delivered four assists in Tampere, Finland, as Montenegro overcame a blip in the third quarter to post its first win at the continental tournament, keeping its hopes of reaching the round of 16 alive.
Pelle Larsson led the Swedes with 28 points.
Montenegro had a 40-34 half-time lead but Sweden was the better team returning from the locker room and out-scored their rivals in the third quarter 31-24 to take the lead. A strong effort by Kyle Allman, who scored 10 points in less than two minutes to give his team a 80-77 lead with 1:50 left, helped Montenegro recover and win the contest in Group B.
The group phase of 24 teams is being played in four different countries. The top four teams from each group will advance to the knockout phase in Riga, Latvia, from Sept. 6-14.
Montenegro can qualify with another victory against Britain, arguably the weakest team in the group.
Turkey extends perfect start
Already qualified from Group A, Turkey made light work of Estonia in a 84-64 victory in Riga. Turkey dominated from the start and built a 12-point lead after 10 minutes.
Houston Rockets center Alperen Sengun was again decisive for Turkey with 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
It was the first time since 2009 that Turkey managed to secure four wins in a single EuroBasket tournament. Estonia dropped to 1-3 ahead of its final group game against Portugal on Wednesday. Turkey will face Serbia in a game that determines the group winner.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports
ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey announced Friday it was closing its airspace to Israeli government planes and any cargo of arms for the Israeli military while closing its ports to maritime trade between third countries and Israel.
The announcement by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan came on top of a ban on direct trade between Turkey and Israel announced in May of 2024.
“We have completely cut off our trade with Israel. We have closed our ports to Israeli ships,” Fidan told a special parliamentary debate on Gaza in Ankara. “We do not allow container ships carrying weapons and ammunition to Israel to enter our ports, nor do we allow aircraft to enter our airspace.”
Ankara has been a harsh critic of Israeli attacks on Gaza, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly referring to Israel’s actions as genocide and likening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler.
Turkey severed direct trade ties with Israel in May last year, demanding a permanent ceasefire and the immediate entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza. In 2023 the two countries carried out $7 billion in trade.
Turkish media reported last week that a ban on maritime traffic linked to Israel had been imposed, although there was no official statement at the time.
Last November, Turkish authorities denied permission for Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s plane to enter Turkey’s airspace for a trip to an international summit in Azerbaijan. “As Turkey, we have to take a stance on certain issues,” Erdogan later said when asked about the incident.
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Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Jose Mourinho’s fall from grace in elite soccer accelerated Friday when the charismatic Portuguese coach left Turkish club Fenerbahce, two days after failing to get back into the Champions League after a long absence.
His latest short managerial spell — this one lasted barely a year, in a second-tier European league — leaves the 62-year-old Mourinho’s career at a crossroads, with top teams potentially no longer wanting to take a chance on a coach whose best days might be behind him.
Fenerbahce’s elimination at the hands of Benfica in a Champions League qualifying playoff on Wednesday was another blow to the status of Mourinho, who once was considered one of the world’s best coaches and famously had a heated rivalry with Pep Guardiola during their time in Spain with Real Madrid and Barcelona, respectively.
A Champions League winner with Porto and Inter Milan, Mourinho has not coached in the main stage of the marquee competition for six seasons. He won the third-tier Conference League with Roma in 2022 but his time at the Italian club from 2021-24 was pock-marked with squabbles that resurfaced in his brief and chaotic spell in Turkey.
Turbulent times in Turkey
There was an incident in April when he grabbed the nose of Galatasaray coach Okan Buruk in the Istanbul derby, earning a three-match ban and a fine.
Indeed, the fiery matches between the two local rivals brought out the worst in Mourinho. Two months earlier, he was handed a four-match ban after making an incendiary comment in the aftermath of a league match against Galatasaray, which announced its intention to start legal proceedings against Mourinho.
Mourinho, who often railed against what he perceived to be poor refereeing in Turkey, wore the look of a frustrated and unhappy man during his time with Fenerbahce.
Gone was the charm and self-confidence that oozed out of the self-styled “Special One” during the peak years at his first spell at Chelsea from 2004-07, for example.
In October, he even said: “I think the best thing I have to do is when I leave Fenerbahce I go to a club that doesn’t play UEFA competitions. So you find a club in England from the bottom of the table, needs a coach in two years, I am ready to go.”
Who knows, that might be where Mourinho ends up after his departure from Fenerbahce, whose own absence from the Champions League now stretches to 17 seasons.
“We have parted ways with Jose Mourinho,” Fenerbahce posted to its millions of followers in a short statement on its X and Instagram accounts. “We thank him for his efforts for our team and wish him success in his future career.”
There was no immediate statement on the club’s official website.
What next for Mourinho?
Mourinho was once a serial trophy winner, a guarantee of silverware.
Yet that’s now two clubs — Tottenham (from 2019-21) and Fenerbahce — where he hasn’t guided his team to a title. His career trajectory, meanwhile, is heading downwards: from Real Madrid, to Manchester United, to Tottenham, to Roma and then to Fenerbahce.
Coaching the national team of his native Portugal might be one future option for Mourinho, who established a strong reputation for being a pragmatic, tactically astute manager with an uncanny ability to win one-off matches. Those attributes might serve him well in international soccer.
The days of him leading teams to success in the Champions League or in the top European leagues seem a long way away, however.
Solskjaer also out in Turkey
It hasn’t been a good couple of days for former Man United managers in Turkey.
On Thursday, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who replaced Mourinho in charge of United in 2018, was fired by Besiktas hours after a loss to Swiss team Lausanne in the Conference League playoffs.
Solskjaer had been in charge since January.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
BEIRUT (AP) — A U.S. diplomat apologized Thursday for using the word “animalistic” while calling for a gaggle of reporters to quiet down during a press conference in Lebanon earlier this week.
Tom Barrack, who is the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and envoy to Syria and has also been on a temporary assignment in Lebanon, said he didn’t intend to use the word “in a derogatory manner” but that his comments had been “inappropriate.”
Barrack visited Beirut along with a delegation of U.S. officials on Tuesday to discuss efforts by the Lebanese government to disarm the Hezbollah militant group and implementation of the ceasefire agreement that ended the latest war between Israel and the Hezbollah in November.
At the start of a press conference at the presidential palace, journalists shouted at Barrack to move to the podium after he started speaking from another spot in the room. After taking the podium Barrack told the crowd of journalists to “act civilized, act kind, act tolerant.” He threatened to end the conference early otherwise.
“The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone,” said Barrack.
The comment sparked an outcry, with the Lebanese press syndicate calling for an apology and calling for a boycott of Barrack’s visits if none was issued. The Presidential Palace also issued a statement expressing regret for the comments made by “one of our guests” and thanking journalists for their “hard work.”
In an interview with Mario Nawfal, a media personality on the X platform, an excerpt of which was published Thursday, Barrack said, “Animalistic was a word that I didn’t use in a derogatory manner, I was just saying ‘can we calm down, can we find some tolerance and kindness, let’s be civilized.’ But it was inappropriate to do when the media was just doing their job.”
He added, “I should have been more generous with my time and more tolerant myself.”
Barrack’s visit came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces could begin withdrawing from territory they hold in southern Lebanon after the Lebanese government’s decided to disarm Hezbollah. When, how and in what order the Hezbollah disarmament in Israeli withdrawal would take place remain in dispute.
The Israeli army on Thursday launched airstrikes in southern Lebanon that it said were targeting “terrorist infrastructure and a rocket platform” belonging to Hezbollah.
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