The question no one dares ask: what if Britain has to defend itself from the US?
George Monbiot
So much of our intelligence and military systems are shared or reliant on the US – if it becomes the enemy, it is already inside the gates
All the talk now is of how we might defend ourselves without the US. But almost everyone with a voice in public life appears to be avoiding a much bigger and more troubling question: how we might defend ourselves against the US.
As Keir Starmer visits the orange emperor’s court in Washington, let’s first consider the possibilities. I can’t comment on their likelihood, and I fervently hope that people with more knowledge and power than me are gaming them. One is that Donald Trump will not only clear the path for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, but will actively assist him. We know that Trump can brook no challenge to his hegemony. Russia is no threat to US dominance, but Europe, with a combined economy similar to that of the US, and a powerful diplomatic and global political presence, could be.
Putin has long sought to break up the EU, using the European far right as his proxies: this is why he invested so heavily in Brexit. Now Trump, in turn, could use Putin as his proxy, to attack a rival centre of power. If Trump helps Russia sweep through Ukraine, Putin could then issue an ultimatum to other frontline and eastern European states: leave the EU, leave Nato and become a client state like Belarus, or you’re next. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán might agree to this. If Călin Georgescu wins in Romania in May, he might too.
What form could US support for Putin in Ukraine take? It could involve intelligence sharing. It could involve permanently withdrawing Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service from Ukraine, which is strategically crucial there, while making it available to the Russian armed forces. Already, the US government has threatened to nix the service if Ukraine doesn’t hand over its minerals, as reparations for being invaded. This is how Trump operates: blackmailing desperate people who are seeking to defend themselves against an imperial war, regardless of past alliances. In the extreme case, Trump’s support for Russia might involve military equipment and financial backing, or even joint US-Russian operations, in the Arctic or elsewhere.
Now consider our vulnerabilities. Through the “Five Eyes” partnership, the UK automatically shares signals intelligence, human intelligence and defence intelligence with the US government. Edward Snowden’s revelations showed that the US, with the agreement of our government, conducts wholesale espionage on innocent UK citizens. The two governments, with other western nations, run a wide range of joint intelligence programmes, such as Prism, Echelon, Tempora and XKeyscore. The US National Security Agency (NSA) uses the UK agency GCHQ as a subcontractor.
All this is now overseen by Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, in charge of the CIA, NSA and 16 other agencies. After she recited conspiracy fictions seeded by the Syrian and Russian governments, she was widely accused of being a “Russian asset” or a “Russian puppet”. At what point do we conclude that by sharing intelligence with the US, the UK might as well be sharing it with Russia?
Depending on whose definitions you accept, the US has either 11 or 13 military bases and listening stations in the UK. They include the misnamed RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, actually a US air force base, from which it deploys F-35 jets; RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, in reality a US NSA base conducting military espionage and operational support; RAF Croughton, part-operated by the CIA, which allegedly used the base to spy on Angela Merkel among many others; and RAF Fylingdales, part of the US Space Surveillance Network. If the US now sides with Russia against the UK and Europe, these could just as well be Russian bases and listening stations.
Then we come to our weapon systems. Like everyone without security clearance, I can make no well-informed statement on the extent to which any of them, nuclear or conventional, are operationally independent of the US. But I know, to give just one example, that among the crucial components of our defence are F-35 stealth jets, designed and patented in the US. How stealthy they will turn out to be, when the US has the specs, the serial numbers and the software, is a question that needs an urgent answer.
Nor can I make any confident statement about the extent to which weapons designed here might be dependent on US central processing units and other digital technologies, or on US systems such as Starlink, owned by Musk, or GPS, owned by the US Space Force. Which of our weapons systems could achieve battle-readiness without US involvement and consent? Which could be remotely disabled by the US military? At the very least, the US will know better than any other power how to combat them, because our weapons are more or less the same as theirs. In other words, if the US is now our enemy, the enemy is inside the gate.
Much as I hate to admit it, the UK needs to rearm (though cutting the aid budget to find the money, as Keir Starmer intends, is astonishingly shortsighted). I reluctantly came to this conclusion as Trump’s numbers began to stack up last July. But, if they are fatally compromised by US penetration, rearmament might have to begin with the complete abandonment of our existing weapons and communications systems.
This may need to start very soon. On 24 February, the UN general assembly voted on a Ukrainian resolution, co-sponsored by the UK and other European nations, condemning Russia’s invasion. Unsurprisingly, Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Hungary and several small and easily cowed states voted against it. But so did the US and Israel. This, more clearly than any other shift, exposes the new alignment. An axis of autocracy, facilitating an imperial war of aggression, confronts nations committed (albeit to varying degrees) to democracy and international law.
For many years, we have been urged to trust the UK’s oppressive “security state”. Yes, this security state is yanked around like a fish on a line by the US government, with such catastrophic outcomes as the US-UK invasion of Iraq. Yes, it is engaged in mass surveillance of its own citizens. But, its defenders have long argued, we should suck all this up because the security state is essential to our defence from hostile foreign actors. In reality, our entanglement, as many of us have long warned, presents a major threat to national security. By tying our defence so closely to the US, our governments have created an insecurity state.
I hope you can now see what a terrible mistake the UK has made, and how we should have followed France in creating more independent military and security systems. Disentangling from the US will be difficult and expensive. Failing to do so could carry a far higher price.
The question is, will Trump honour treaties or not.
Yesterday an unvaccinated child in Texas died of measles as nearly 140 people in Texas and New Mexico have been reported ill with the disease. This is the country’s first measles death since 2015.
Measles cases appear almost every year, but usually the government works to suppress measles, as well as other contagious diseases. It’s not clear the Trump administration intends to do that. Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting to select the strains of flu to be included in next season’s vaccines. This year’s flu season has been severe: according to NBC News health and medical reporter Berkeley Lovelace Jr., 86 children and 19,000 adults so far have died from the flu this year and 430,000 adults have been hospitalized. On February 20, Lovelace reported that a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scheduled for February 26–28, was cancelled.
Speaking earlier this month in favor of confirming anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and who is a doctor himself, assured his colleagues that Kennedy had promised to notify the Senate before making changes to vaccine programs and that “if confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without change.”
Cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have made it hard for the country to confront the bird flu that is sweeping the poultry industry and now infecting dairy herds, as well. Marcia Brown of Politico reported today that the Trump administration is trying to rehire government employees who were working on combating the disease after widespread cuts to employees in the Agriculture Department during the first purge of government workers gutted research on it. Now some of the employees in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network program, and so on, have been offered their jobs back, but those offers are haphazard, and not all employees are keen to take jobs that are clearly not secure.
Indeed, health does not seem to be a top priority of the administration. Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times noted today that during his remarks at the Cabinet meeting yesterday, billionaire Elon Musk, who the administration has claimed in court is only an advisor to the president and neither leads nor is employed by DOGE, admitted that DOGE had made some initial mistakes, such as when it “accidentally canceled very briefly” efforts to contain an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda. But Musk reassured his audience that mistaken decisions were quickly reversed. DOGE “restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.” Except they didn’t: in theory, USAID workers could get a waiver to continue work, but in reality, money did not resume and much of the work was forced to stop.
The administration continues to insist it is cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” but the reality that it is cutting programs on which Americans depend is becoming clearer. During yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump indicated that the next major round of workforce cuts will be at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by Congress in 1970 at the urging of Republican president Richard M. Nixon to protect clean air, land, and water. Trump said that 65% of the 15,000 people who work there will be fired; an official later clarified that the president meant that the budget would be cut by 65%.
Today, three former heads of the EPA warned in a New York Times op-ed that Americans would miss the agency “when it’s gone.” William K. Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman, who headed the EPA under Republican presidents, and Gina McCarthy, who headed it under a Democratic president, recalled how between 1970 and 2019 the EPA “cut emissions of common air pollutants by 77 percent, while private sector jobs grew 223 percent and our gross domestic product grew almost 300 percent.” The EPA minimizes exposure to dangerous air during wildfires, cleans up contaminated lands, and tests for asbestos, lead, and copper in water,, delivering health benefits that outweigh its costs, the authors say, by more than 30 to 1.
Trump administration officials claim they are enacting the policies their voters demand, but Melanie Zanona, Jonathan Allen, and Matt Dixon of NBC News reported Tuesday that the blowback on Republican representatives willing to hold town halls during the House recess was so intense that House leaders are urging them simply to stop holding constituent events. If they want to continue to do so, leaders suggest making sure they vet attendees to make sure there won’t be altercations that go viral on social media, as several have done recently. Leadership wants to stop what they say is a developing narrative that paints Republicans in a bad light.
Republican National Committee senior advisor Danielle Alvarez told the NBC News reporters: “The president's policies are incredibly popular, and the American people applaud his success in cutting the waste, fraud and abuse of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars…. Pathetic astroturf campaigns organized by out-of-touch, far-left groups are exactly why Democrats will keep losing.”
But today’s news is unlikely to quiet the blowback. The administration announced cuts of 800 workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors ocean currents, atmospheric changes, and climate change and provides weather and ocean reports. It suggested further cuts tomorrow could bring the total to 1,000. NOAA’s weather reports and marine forecasts are vital to Americans. As climate scientist David Ho pointed out, for example, NOAA operates both of the U.S. tsunami warning centers. Employees from them were fired today.
Also in DOGE’s crosshairs is Social Security. Today the administration announced a major “organizational restructuring” of the Social Security Administration. This restructuring appears to mean large cuts to the agency, even though staffing is already at a 50-year low. It is not clear exactly how many positions will be cut; multiple outlets say half of the agency’s 57,000 employees will be let go, while an executive at the agency told Erich Wagner and Natalie Alms of Government Executive that the initial number of firings will be 7,000. At least five of the eight regional commissioners whose offices oversee and support the agency’s frontline offices across the country are leaving, and former Social Security administrator Martin O’Malley warned: “Social Security is being driven to a total system collapse.”
There are also rumblings of concern among business people about the Trump administration’s approach to the economy. Trump said today that the 25% tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada he paused for a month in early February will take effect on March 4. An additional 10% tariff on goods from China will also go into effect that day. Tariffs are expected to drive up prices, and Bloomberg reported that in this quarter’s earnings calls for 500 of the country’s most valuable businesses, when company managers, investors, and analysts discuss the company’s financial performance, mentions of tariffs reached an all-time high.
Selina Wang of ABC News reported the warning of economists that the mass firings and the Trump tariff threats are having a “chilling” effect on the economy. The tariffs make it hard to plan for future costs, so companies are holding back on investments, while people who lose their jobs or are afraid they’re going to lose their jobs stop spending money. A survey by the Conference Board, a nonpartisan nonprofit that provides insight for business, shows that consumer confidence is dropping dramatically.
When Stanford University announced today that “[g]iven the uncertainty, we need to take prudent steps to limit spending,” adding that “we are implementing a freeze on staff hiring in the university,” Carl Quintanilla of CNBC posted: “‘Here come the multiplier effects.’”
Voters and business people are not the only ones pushing back against Trump’s policies. Rachel Bluth and Melanie Mason of Politico reported today that the country’s 23 Democratic state attorneys general have been working together to stop Trump’s unconstitutional actions. Under the urging of then–attorney general Bob Ferguson of Washington state in February 2024, they began to prepare for cases based on Trump’s campaign statements, taking them seriously as potential policies, and on Project 2025, which they recognized would play a big part in a second Trump administration.
They worked together to figure out the most effective strategies for challenging the administration in court. As Trump issued executive orders at breakneck speed in his first few days in office, they were ready to respond.
Today, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the administration, specifically the Office of Personnel Management, to rescind the mass firing of government workers with probationary status, ruling that the firings were probably illegal. Alsup pointed out that Congress had given personnel decisions to the agencies themselves. “The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency. They can hire and fire their own employees.”
“Probationary employees are the lifeblood of these agencies,” the judge added. “They come in at the low level and work their way up, and that’s how we renew ourselves and reinvent ourselves.”
Meanwhile, Trump and his team appear to be trying to undermine the rule of law in the United States. Today, Rebecca Crosby and Judd Legum of Popular Information reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission has stopped its prosecution of Justin Sun, a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur who had been charged in March 2023 with securities fraud. After Trump was elected in 2024, Sun bought $30 million worth of Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto tokens, putting $18 million directly into Trump’s pockets. Since then, he has invested another $45 million in WLF. Altogether, Sun’s investments have netted Trump more than $50 million.
Crosby and Legum note that the SEC also appears to have dropped its case against the crypto trading platform Coinbase after the platform donated $75 million to a political action committee associated with Trump and donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
And, after Trump issued blanket pardons to those convicted of crimes associated with the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including those who attacked police officers, his administration now appears to have put pressure on Romania to lift a travel ban on social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate. The brothers were under investigation in Romania for rape, human trafficking, and money laundering and are under similar allegations in the U.K.
MAGA Republicans attracted followers by claiming they would stand up for law and order. So the arrival in the U.S. of the Tates was not universally popular among them. A number of MAGA Republicans rushed to distance themselves from the Tates. When news broke that they were headed for Florida, Florida’s attorney general said that Florida has “zero tolerance for human trafficking and violence against women,” and Florida governor Ron DeSantis appeared angry as he said he learned of the Tate brothers’ arrival through the media.
BRUSSELS — The European Union said on Thursday it was ready to deploy its strongest trade weapon against the U.S. after President Donald Trump threatened to impose sweeping tariffs and scorned the EU as having been created to “screw” America.
“We have an Anti-Coercion Instrument, and we will have to use it,” Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen said in Paris after meeting with his French counterpart Annie Genevard at the Salon de l’Agriculture farming exhibition.
Designed following the first Trump administration from 2017 to 2021, the bloc's “trade bazooka” provides for broad retaliation in response to trade discrimination, such as quotas and tariffs or restrictions on foreign investment.
The commissioner’s comments came a day after Trump threatened to hit the EU with sweeping 25-percent tariffs "on cars and all other things," provoking fury across the Atlantic — with politicians saying the time had come for Brussels to retaliate.
“We will not let ourselves be bullied, not with tariffs nor with threats about our legislation,” said Bernd Lange, a usually mild-mannered German Social Democrat who chairs the European Parliament’s international trade committee.
Trump’s broadside was a distillation of the trade grievances he had aired on the campaign trail and that he has stepped up since taking office a month ago. He again complained that Europe didn’t buy U.S. cars or food and lamented America's huge transatlantic trade deficit, which he pegged at a vastly exaggerated $300 billion.
Although the U.S. supported a united Europe after World War II within a strategic plan to create a democratic bulwark against the Soviet Union, Trump offered a different account: “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States,” he said. “That’s the purpose of it. They have done a good job of it, but now I am president.”
For European leaders, that crossed a line.
"The EU wasn’t formed to screw anyone," retorted Polish PM Donald Tusk in a post on X. "Quite the opposite. It was formed to maintain peace, to build respect among our nations, to create free and fair trade, and to strengthen our transatlantic friendship. As simple as that."
Hansen’s threat to use the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI) also went beyond the previous position taken by EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, who on his first visit to Washington last week said deploying the ACI was only a hypothetical possibility.
Poking the bear
Trump plans to reinstate tariffs on steel and aluminum from March 12. More wide-ranging tariffs could land as soon as the start of April.
From there, things could escalate quickly.
“The European Commission must take swift countermeasures in reaction to Trump’s tariff war,” Belgian lawmaker Kathleen Van Brempt, vice chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, posted on X.
“Giving in to this bullying behaviour is not an option. We must now protect European companies and families from the impact of the American measures.”
Before triggering the ACI, which would need the backing of 15 out of the EU's 27 member countries, the bloc’s first resort would be to reinstate punitive duties that it imposed in response to Trump’s first-term tariffs — on Harley Davidson motorbikes, Kentucky bourbon or Florida orange juice. These would likely be expanded to reflect the scale of Trump’s new tariffs.
European automakers have everything to fear from Trump’s trade grievances — not merely that Europe’s tariff of 10 percent is four times that of the U.S., but also his team’s tendentious claim that value-added taxes of around 20 percent also represent a trade barrier.
If the Commission makes good on its promises to inflict equal pain on the U.S., German luxury carmaker BMW would be the first to be caught in the crossfire. Its plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina — a conservative bastion that voted for Trump last November — exported nearly 225,000 vehicles last year, the company said before Trump’s remarks.
Short half-life
All the more mind-boggling for European leaders is just how quickly their diplomacy wears off on Trump.
Only 24 hours before, French President Emmanuel Macron had put on a masterclass in how to handle an irascible potentate. He even gave an interview on Fox News, Trump’s favorite TV channel, urging him to prosecute a trade war against China — and not against Europe.
Macron’s charm offensive gave way to grim realism on Thursday, with French budget minister Eric Lombard warning that should Trump confirm the tariffs, “Europe will do the same.”
“It is a scenario we are getting prepared for,” Industry Minister Marc Ferracci told reporters at a press conference in Paris after hosting a meeting of EU ministers on how to rescue the bloc’s struggling steel industry.
Italy’s Industry Minister Adolfo Urso, speaking alongside Ferracci, suggested that Europe could avoid U.S. tariffs by yielding to Trump’s demands — while also calling for unity and warning against a trade war. One way to placate Trump, he hinted, would be to accommodate his demands to boost European defense spending.
“Tariffs are the tip of the iceberg, but the answer to tariffs is in other aspects,” he said.
I've never seen anything like that before. And I couldn't even imagine that something like what happened today in the Oval Office would happen. Unbelievable.
How will the other US allies be treated now?
Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats
Recent incidents indicate US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cybersecurity threat, marking a radical departure: ‘Putin is on the inside now’
The Trump administration has publicly and privately signaled that it does not believe Russia represents a cyber threat against US national security or critical infrastructure, marking a radical departure from longstanding intelligence assessments.
The shift in policy could make the US vulnerable to hacking attacks by Russia, experts warned, and appeared to reflect the warming of relations between Donald Trump and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Two recent incidents indicate the US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cyber security threat.
Liesyl Franz, deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the state department, said in a speech last week before a United Nations working group on cyber security that the US was concerned by threats perpetrated by some states but only named China and Iran, with no mention of Russia in her remarks. Franz also did not mention the Russia-based LockBit ransomware group, which the US has previously said is the most prolific ransomware group in the world and has been called out in UN forums in the past. The treasury last year said LockBit operates on a ransomeware-as-service model, in which the group licenses its ransomware software to criminals in exchange for a portion of the paid ransoms.
In contrast to Franz’s statement, representatives for US allies in the European Union and the UK focused their remarks on the threat posed by Moscow, with the UK pointing out that Russia was using offensive and malicious cyber attacks against Ukraine alongside its illegal invasion.
“It’s incomprehensible to give a speech about threats in cyberspace and not mention Russia and it’s delusional to think this will turn Russia and the FSB (the Russian security agency) into our friends,” said James Lewis, a veteran cyber expert formerly of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. “They hate the US and are still mad about losing the cold war. Pretending otherwise won’t change this.”
The US policy change has also been established behind closed doors.
A recent memo at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) set out new priorities for the agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and monitors cyber threats against US critical infrastructure. The new directive set out priorities that included China and protecting local systems. It did not mention Russia.
A person familiar with the matter who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity said analysts at the agency were verbally informed that they were not to follow or report on Russian threats, even though this had previously been a main focus for the agency.
The person said work that was being done on something “Russia-related” was in effect “nixed”.
“Russia and China are our biggest adversaries. With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cyber security personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this,” the person said.
The person added: “People are saying Russia is winning. Putin is on the inside now.”
The New York Times has separately reported that the Trump administration has also reassigned officials at Cisa who were focused on safeguarding elections from cyberattacks and other attempts to disrupt voting.
Another person who previously worked on US Joint Task Forces operating at elevated classification levels to track and combat Russian cyber threats said the development was “truly shocking”.
“There are thousands of US government employees and military working daily on the massive threat Russia poses as possibly the most significant nation state threat actor. Not to diminish the significance of China, Iran, or North Korea, but Russia is at least on par with China as the most significant cyber threat,” the person said.
The person added:“There are dozens of discrete Russia state-sponsored hacker teams dedicated to either producing damage to US government, infrastructure, and commercial interests or conducting information theft with a key goal of maintaining persistent access to computer systems.”
Cisa and the State Department did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment.
The change is not entirely surprising, given that the Trump administration has made it clear that it is seeking to make amends with Moscow. Earlier this week at the United Nations, the US voted with Russia against an EU-Ukrainian resolution that condemned Russia on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The US has long assessed Russia, China and Iran as leaders in cyberthreats. To see a US representative in an international setting erase Russia’s role altogether comes as a bit of a shock – though consistent with the sudden US alignment with Russia and its satellites on the global stage,” said Scott Horton, an American lawyer who previously worked in Moscow and advised Russian human rights advocates.
The US has long warned that Russia posed a cyber threat to US infrastructure, including in the annual threat assessment published by US intelligence agencies last year. The report stated that Russia posed an “enduring global cyber threat” even as it has prioritized cyber operations against Ukraine. Moscow, the report concluded, “views cyber disruptions as a foreign policy lever to shape other countries’ decisions and continuously refines and employs its espionage, influence and attack capabilities against a variety of targets”. Russia was able to target critical infrastructure, industrial control systems, in the US and in allied and partner countries.
Few lawmakers have previously been as outspoken on the issue as Marco Rubio when he was still a Florida senator. In 2020, as chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Rubio – who now serves as Trump’s secretary of state – said the US would retaliate for a massive and ongoing cyberattack that had compromised companies and federal agencies, including the energy department’s National Nuclear Security Administration. At the time he said the attacks were “consistent with Russian cyber operations”.
But there was no sign of that kind of rebuke from Franz, who now reports to Rubio at the state department. The change in language at the recent UN speech was not only remarkable for omitting Russia and LockBit, said Valentin Weber, senior research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, but also for leaving out any mention of allies and partners.
“For a quarter century Putin’s Russia pushed an autocratic agenda in the UN cybersecurity negotiations, while engaging in nonstop cyberattacks and information operations around the world, and the US and other democracies pushed back,” said William Drake, director of international studies at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information in Columbia Business School. “But now the Trump administration has abandoned the liberal international order… [and] the US is no longer a global power trying to maintain an open and rules-based international system, it’s just a great power with narrower self-interests that happen to be impacted by China’s cyberattacks.”
Jailed Kurdish leader calls for PKK to disarm – in shift that could shake up Turkey and Middle East
Abdullah Öcalan’s message, which follows four decades of guerrilla warfare, will have far-reaching implications
The ageing leader of a Kurdish militant group imprisoned on a remote Turkish island has called on the group to disarm and dissolve itself, opening the door to a fragile peace with Turkey after four decades of guerrilla warfare, attacks and reprisals.
Abdullah Öcalan, a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a group long regarded as a terrorist organisation in Turkey as well as in Britain and the US, issued the message in a letter read out by allies in Istanbul.
“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,” Öcalan was quoted as saying. “All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”
Öcalan’s message will have far-reaching implications across the Middle East, not least in Syria where Kurdish forces control significant territory, but also in Iran and Iraq.
The 75-year-old is serving a life sentence at an island prison south of Istanbul, after being captured by Turkish special forces in Kenya in 1999.
His message was greeted with joy in the Istanbul conference room where Öcalan’s allies gathered to broadcast his call, after displaying a photo of supporters visiting the white-haired septuagenarian. A group of older Kurdish peace activists ululated as the call to lay down arms was read out.
“This is the breaking point of history and it is a positive one,” said Sırrı Süreyya Önder of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) party. “We are here with a compass to find a possible route out of these dark, chaotic days.”
Önder hinted at some of the potential problems to come, adding that while Öcalan called for the PKK’s dissolution and to lay down arms, this “requires the recognition of democratic politics”, and legal support for a sustained peace.
DEM politicians said they were hoping for a reprieve in government pressure after the announcement. Authorities in Ankara have sought to replace politicians and mayors affiliated to the group, particularly in the majority-Kurdish south-east.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has sought unilateral disarmament from the PKK, publicly quashing suggestions that Öcalan’s announcement would herald the start of peace talks.
Some in government responded to Öcalan’s announcement with caution. “We will look at the result,” said the deputy head of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development party.
The PKK has been responsible for a string of attacks since its founding in 1978, notably car bombings and shootings primarily aimed at Turkish military and security targets. The group claimed responsibility for an attack on a state-owned arms company near Ankara last October, killing at least five people and wounding 22 more.
A ceasefire between the PKK and Turkey collapsed in 2015, prompting Ankara to renew attacks on the group using drones and airstrikes, targeting fighters across the mountains of northern Iraq. The International Crisis Group thinktank estimates that more than 7,152 people have been killed in clashes or attacks in Turkey and northern Iraq in the years since, including 646 civilians, more than 4,000 militants, and almost 1,500 members of Turkish security forces.
Öcalan’s message will ripple across factions of Kurdish armed groups spread across north-eastern Syria and northern Iraq with links to the PKK, particularly the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who battled IS militants and remain in control of a swath of territory including two large cities in eastern Syria.
The group is in talks with the new authority in Damascus after the overthrow of the former president Bashar al-Assad, negotiating control over north-eastern Syria as well as their future role in a nationwide military force. Öcalan’s announcement is likely to further pressure and isolate the SDF, who have clashed with Turkish-backed militias in Syria and long been targeted by Turkish strikes.
“The announcement for PKK to dissolve and lay down its arms, to be clear this only concerns the PKK and is nothing related to us here in Syria,” the SDF commander-in-chief, Mazloum Abdi, told a press conference.
Even so Abdi said should peace flourish between Ankara and the PKK, it would remove any pretext for Turkish attacks on areas under SDF control. Negotiations with Damascus remain their “top priority,” he added.
Gönül Töl, an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Öcalan most likely decided the time was right to call for an end to hostilities as “he thinks things are not going well for the PKK right now”.
“It’s about his legacy,” she said. “He wants to be the one who ended this fight, and the PKK doesn’t have many options. There is a new authority in Syria, and the Syrian Kurds don’t have a strong hand. In Iraq, there’s a new central government that is more willing to work with Turkey to squeeze the PKK.”
Berkay Mandıracı, of the International Crisis Group, said the PKK appeared to be “weakened” after a decade of intensive fighting.
“Turkish officials now appear to assess it is a good time to end the 40-year conflict with the PKK through a mix of military force and political manoeuvring,” he said, spurred by regional shifts across the Middle East. With Ankara poised to play a major role in Syria and the wider region, he said, Turkish officials wanted to remove any potential impediments.
Rumours of a declaration have rumbled for months while the DEM party shuttled between different Kurdish factions and Öcalan’s island prison for negotiations.
How the different factions within the PKK might respond to Öcalan’s call also remained opaque. The head of the Syrian branch of the PKK told Al Arabiya that disarmament must be accompanied by the group being “allowed to work politically”.
“If the reasons for carrying weapons disappear, we will lay them down,” he said, adding that Turkish attacks necessitated the group carrying weapons. The group would consult among themselves about how to implement Öcalan’s call, he said.
Earlier this month, one PKK commander told a television channel close to the faction that much of the group would only regard the command as serious if Öcalan demanded they disarm after walking free from prison.
“This work cannot be done only through a call,” he said. “We are a movement with tens of thousands of armed people. These fighters are not on a payroll to be sacked. These are ideological fighters.” Öcalan, he said, “has to speak while free. If not, how can [PKK militants] be convinced to lay down their arms?”
Although the U.S. supported a united Europe after World War II within a strategic plan to create a democratic bulwark against the Soviet Union, Trump offered a different account: “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States,” he said. “That’s the purpose of it. They have done a good job of it, but now I am president.”
Today, President Donald Trump ambushed Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in an attack that seemed designed to give the White House an excuse for siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine. Vice President J.D. Vance joined Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office—his attendance at such an event was unusual—in front of reporters. Those reporters included one from Russian state media, but no one from the Associated Press or Reuters, who were not granted access.
In front of the cameras, Trump and Vance engaged in what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo called a “mob hit,” spouting Russian propaganda and trying to bully Zelensky into accepting a ceasefire and signing over rights to Ukrainian rare-earth minerals without guarantees of security. Vance, especially, seemed determined to provoke a fight in front of the cameras, accusing Zelensky, who has been lavish in his thanks to the U.S. and lawmakers including Trump, of being ungrateful. When that didn’t land, Vance said it was “disrespectful” of Zelensky to “try to litigate this in front of the American media,” when it was the White House that set up the event in front of reporters.
Zelensky maintained his composure and did not rise to the bait, but he did not accept their pro-Russian version of the war. He insisted that it was in fact Russia that invaded Ukraine and is still bombing and killing on a daily basis. His refusal to sit silent and submit meekly to their attack seemed to infuriate them.
Trump appeared to become unhinged when Zelensky suggested that the U.S. would in the future feel problems, apparently alluding to the new U.S. relationship with Russia. “You don’t know that. You don’t know that,” Trump erupted. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.”
Zelensky answered that he was just answering the questions Vance was showering on him. “You are in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel,” Trump said. “We’re going to feel very good.”
Zelensky answered: “You will feel influenced.”
Trump disagreed. “We are going to feel very good and very strong.”
“I am telling you,” Zelensky said. “You will feel influenced.”
Trump appeared to lose control at that point, ranting at Zelensky that Ukraine was losing and that he must accept a ceasefire, but also complaining about former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama and echoing Putin’s talking points. When he could get a word in, Zelensky reiterated that he would not accept a ceasefire without guarantees of security and pointed out that Putin had broken a ceasefire agreement in the past.
Later, when a reporter picked up on that question and asked what would happen if Russia broke a ceasefire agreement, Trump became enraged. Among other things, he said: “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt….” Trump referred to what he calls the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” that Russia had worked to elect him in 2016. That effort, though, was not a hoax: the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 released an exhaustive report detailing that effort.
One of the things Russian operatives believed Trump’s team had agreed to, the report said, was Russia’s annexation of the parts of eastern Ukraine it is now trying to grab through military occupation.
Then Trump continued to rant at the reporter, rehashing his version of the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop at some length, tying in former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) in a larger stew that brought up Trump’s history with both Russia and Ukraine and their roles in his quest to hold power. Clinton ran against Trump in 2016, when Russia worked to elect him, and Zelensky came across Trump’s radar screen when, in July 2019, Trump tried to force Zelensky to say he was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden in order to smear Biden’s father Joe Biden before the 2020 election. Only after such an announcement, Trump said, would he deliver to Ukraine the money Congress had appropriated to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s 2014 invasion.
Zelensky did not make the announcement. A whistleblower reported Trump’s phone call, leading to a congressional investigation that in turn led to Trump’s first impeachment. Schiff led the House’s impeachment team.
After unloading on the reporter, Trump abruptly ended today’s meeting, saying it was “going to be great television.” Shortly afterward, he asked Zelensky and his team to leave the White House.
This afternoon, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) posted: “Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day—when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”
