Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for November 16, 2022
Newsline: Iran summons Australian ambassador
Australia’s ambassador was summoned by Tehran over comments made by the Australian prime minister regarding Iran’s internal developments, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday according to the semi-official Nournews news agency. “It seems that the prime minister of Australia has taken a wrong approach based on false information, which does not help the relations between the two countries,” Nasser Kanaani said. (https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-summons-australian-ambassador-nournews-2022-11-16/) Since nationwide protests began over two months ago in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police, the country has summoned several foreign ambassadors over comments regarding protests made by their officials.
Newsline: Turkish embassy accused of spying in Greece
A police liaison officer assigned to the Turkish embassy in Athens ran a covert operation to collect intelligence in Athens and Thessaloniki, a secret Turkish government document obtained by Nordic Monitor has revealed. (https://en.protothema.gr/turkish-embassy-police-spied-in-greek-cities-of-athens-and-thessaloniki-secret-document-reveals/) The document, sent by the Security General Directorate (Emniyet) on September 2, 2020 to nearly a dozen provincial police departments, said the Turkish Foreign Ministry had passed on intelligence gathered by a police officer who works at the Turkish embassy. The communiqué, classified as secret, mentioned six business establishments in Athens and Thessaloniki and 13 residents who are allegedly linked to the Gülen movement, a group critical of the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The document noted that the intelligence was part of a broader clandestine operation launched by the Turkish government in Greece to identify targets from the Gülen group, confirming that multiple agencies were involved in spying in a foreign territory. The spying activity shows that the Erdoğan government not only disregards the law in a NATO ally — a neighboring country — by engaging aggressive spying activities but also does not feel bound by Turkish laws that prohibit Turkish police from carrying out such work.
Newsline: Israel summons Ukrainian ambassador
Israel said it had summoned the Ukrainian ambassador for a dressing down after Kyiv voted in favour of a resolution to open an international probe into Israel’s prolonged occupation of the West Bank. The resolution, approved at U.N. headquarters in New York last week, asks that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “urgently” weigh in on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory”, which it said were violating the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Israel “expressed its dissatisfaction” with Ukraine’s decision to vote in favour of the resolution in a conversation with Ambassador Yevgen Korniychuk, according to a statement released by the Israeli foreign ministry. “It was clarified to the ambassador that this behaviour does not embody friendly behaviour,” the statement said. (https://news.yahoo.com/israel-admonishes-ukrainian-ambassador-over-135245644.html) In a statement about the meeting on Facebook, the Ukrainian embassy in Israel wrote: “The ambassador expressed disappointment with the position of Israel, whose representative abstained during the vote in the U.N. General Assembly on the issue of Russian reparation payments to Ukraine.” While the Israeli statement said the ambassador had been “summoned”, Ukraine said the meeting had been prearranged and was not a summons.
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