Latest news with #DarenButler
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Turkey and PKK face a tricky path determining how militants will disband
By Daren Butler and Jonathan Spicer ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey is embarking on a hazardous path to ensure the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group implements its decision to disband after 40 years of conflict, facing obstacles that need to be overcome in neighbouring Iraq and Syria. Thousands of heavily armed PKK fighters in northern Iraq, where the group is based, are now expected to surrender their weapons at numerous locations across the region, with many then returning to NATO-member Turkey, according to Ankara's plans leaked to pro-government media. But there is also pressure on President Tayyip Erdogan's government to take the next step on what all sides call a delicate path toward possible peace, closing a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984. Turkish officials have declined to comment on how the process will happen. The PKK and Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the third largest in parliament, expect Ankara to address Kurdish political demands, potentially before weapons are handed over. After a cabinet meeting on Monday evening, Erdogan said the disarmament decision should also apply to U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria that Ankara regards as part of the PKK. In Syria, Kurdish forces head Mazloum Abdi said the PKK decision is "worthy of respect" and "will pave the way for a new political and peaceful process in the region". But he gave no indication of planned steps, and earlier said the PKK disarmament does not apply to his Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which signed a deal to join Syria's institutions after President Bashar al-Assad's fall in December. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara said Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the PKK move a "turning point" and conveyed support to Turkey in a call with Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan. While Washington and Ankara both deem the PKK a terrorist group, the U.S. alliance with Kurdish fighters in Syria that Turkey sees as an affiliated group has frayed bilateral ties. "Had there not been unconditional U.S. arms support for the PKK in 2014, the earlier peace process at that time could have yielded results - and the terrorist group might have laid down weapons back then," Harun Armagan, vice chair of foreign affairs in Erdogan's AK Party, told Reuters. The SDF has been the main U.S. ally against Islamic State in Syria and U.S. officials have in the past distinguished between the Syrian Kurdish forces and the PKK, emphasising that their relationship is tactical and focused on counter-terrorism. WEAPONS, AMNESTY The PKK launched its insurgency with the original aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. But in recent years, as it was pressed deeper into Iraq, it urged more Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in Turkey. Baghdad and Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq are expected to play a role monitoring the disarmament process in coordination with Turkey's MIT intelligence agency. Iraq's foreign ministry welcomed the PKK decision as a "positive and important step" for regional stability in a statement also apparently referring to Turkey's long-standing military presence in Iraq to fight the PKK. It said this was an opportunity to reconsider "the pretexts and justifications that have long been used to justify the presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil." Turkish media reports said PKK militants descending from the Iraqi mountains will surrender their weapons in the areas of Sulaimaniyah, Erbil and Dohuk. They said the disarmament was aimed to be completed by the summer, after which some 2,000-4,000 militants without Turkish criminal records will be gradually returned to Turkey, while others could head to third countries. One columnist close to the government wrote in Hurriyet newspaper that while some 60% of those in Iraq had not committed a crime in Turkey, the top 30 people in the PKK were wanted on criminal warrants. Turkish officials declined comment on the reports. The PKK took its decision at a congress held in response to a February call to disband from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999. It said on Monday that he would manage the process.
Zawya
09-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Turkey's capital market board sets reserve audit standards for crypto asset platforms
ISTANBUL: Turkey's capital markets board released rules for proof of reserve audit standards that crypto asset platforms have to meet to apply for operational licences in Turkey. According to the board's statement, published late on Thursday, these audits must be conducted by independent information systems audit firms every quarter. Audit reports will include detailed lists of crypto currencies, their current value for customers, the networks they are stored on, storage models, access controls, wallet addresses as well as the platform's own crypto and cash reserves, the board said. The auditor will take information to compare customer assets with distributed ledger network assets, the board said. If the total reserve protection ratio is found to be below 100%, this must be immediately reported to the capital markets authority. In March, the board introduced capital and capital adequacy ratio standards for crypto asset service providers and custody institutions in Turkey. Last year, Turkey passed regulations for crypto asset platforms setting rules on their responsibilities to customers, security standards and how they operate within the country. (Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Daren Butler)
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Victims of Turkey's Kurdish militant conflict long for peace
By Daren Butler KIZILTEPE, Turkey (Reuters) - Cihan Sincar clings to hope that Turkey's bid to end a decades-old Kurdish insurgency brings the peace her lawmaker husband sought before his assassination - one of hundreds of political killings at the height of the conflict. Mehmet Sincar, one of Turkey's first pro-Kurdish party lawmakers, was gunned down in the southeastern city of Batman in 1993 as he himself investigated unsolved killings. His wife has waited in vain for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. His is one of tens of thousands of deaths during a conflict which jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan is calling on his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to end. Many Kurds like Cihan are torn between distrust of the government and longing for peace. "We want to see those days. He really gave his life for peace, for the struggle for peace and democracy," she said in the city of Kiziltepe, near the Syrian border, where she has served as mayor since her husband's murder. "But I also have doubts. They (the Turkish state) have deceived me many times," she said before visiting the cemetery where her husband is buried, caressing the gravestone bearing his picture. Clandestine paramilitary groups are suspected of having carried out extra-judicial killings in the 1990s, mostly related to the PKK conflict, human rights groups say. The PKK conflict has killed more than 40,000 people since it began in 1984, leaving tens of thousands wounded, including Turkish security force members, militants and civilians alike. One Turkish military veteran of the conflict, Major Mehmet Bedri Aluclu, lost his eyesight and both forearms when a PKK mine that he was defusing exploded in Siirt province in 2007. Aluclu, with books that he has since written about the PKK on the table beside him, is sceptical about peace prospects. "If only the PKK would dissolve itself... The probability of such a thing is zero," he said at his home in Ankara. "It has a history of 50 years. These things don't happen in one day." MOTHERS OF PKK RECRUITS In Diyarbakir, main city in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, mothers of youths believed to have joined the PKK have protested in recent years against Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, accusing it of helping the PKK recruit their children. The party denies this. Guzide Demir said her son, Aziz, left home in Diyarbakir nine years ago when he was 17. She said he called six years ago, saying he was in hospital with a wounded leg in Syria, where the Kurdish YPG militia – which Turkey says is part of the PKK – has fought against both Islamic State militants and Turkey-backed forces. Since then she has not heard from him again, but said "God willing this peace will happen and all our children will come". Rahime Tasci's son Faruk was 15 when he left home in Kars province 11 years ago to go to the market and did not return. "Surrender to justice. Do something Faruk. Put down that gun," she said, clutching a photo of her only child. "These children must be brought home. God willing, with the power of the state, there will be peace."
Zawya
02-03-2025
- Business
- Zawya
China's DeepSeek claims theoretical cost-profit ratio of 545% per day
BEIJING: Chinese AI startup DeepSeek on Saturday disclosed some cost and revenue data related to its hit V3 and R1 models, claiming a theoretical cost-profit ratio of up to 545% per day, though it cautioned that actual revenue would be significantly lower. This marks the first time the Hangzhou-based company has revealed any information about its profit margins from less computationally intensive "inference" tasks, the stage after training that involves trained AI models making predictions or performing tasks, such as through chatbots. The revelation could further rattle AI stocks outside China that plunged in January after web and app chatbots powered by its R1 and V3 models surged in popularity worldwide. The sell-off was partly caused by DeepSeek's claims that it spent less than $6 million on chips used to train the model, much less than what U.S. rivals like OpenAI have spent. The chips DeepSeek claims it used, Nvidia's H800, are also much less powerful than what OpenAI and other U.S. AI firms have access to, making investors question even further U.S. AI firms' pledges to spend billions of dollars on cutting-edge chips. DeepSeek said in a GitHub post published on Saturday that assuming the cost of renting one H800 chip is $2 per hour, the total daily inference cost for its V3 and R1 models is $87,072. In contrast, the theoretical daily revenue generated by these models is $562,027, leading to a cost-profit ratio of 545%. In a year this would add up to just over $200 million in revenue. However, the firm added that its "actual revenue is substantially lower" because the cost of using its V3 model is lower than the R1 model, only some services are monetized as web and app access remain free, and developers pay less during off-peak hours. (Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Daren Butler)
