- Israel embassy pulls ‘inappropriate’ video imagining Hamas attack on Seoul Al Jazeera English
- Israeli embassy shares, quickly deletes video of hypothetical Hamas attack on Seoul The Times of Israel
- The Israeli embassy in South Korea has removed a video showing an imaginary scenario in which Koreans are attacked by masked assailants in Seoul, a reference to Hamas, Seoul’s foreign ministry says The Mountaineer
- Israeli Embassy’s video depicts what Oct. 7 would have been like in Korea The Korea JoongAng Daily
- Israeli embassy pulls video imagining Hamas attack in Seoul Wyoming Tribune
Tag Archives: embassy
Afghanistan consulates scotch claim embassy shutting down – IndiaTimes
- Afghanistan consulates scotch claim embassy shutting down IndiaTimes
- India Host To Only Pro-Taliban Diplomats Now? Big Claim As Afghan Govt’s Embassy Shuts Down Hindustan Times
- Afghan consul generals announce they’ve ‘assumed leadership’ of embassy, hrs after ‘permanent closure’ ThePrint
- The Afghan Embassy says it’s permanently closing in New Delhi over challenges from India Yahoo News
- Afghanistan embassy in India shuts down citing lack of support from India | WION Originals WION
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Iranians march for Gaza on anniversary of US embassy takeover – Al Jazeera English
- Iranians march for Gaza on anniversary of US embassy takeover Al Jazeera English
- Iranians mark the anniversary of the 1979 US Embassy takeover while calling for a cease-fire in Gaza ABC News
- Iran Celebrates US Embassy Attack, Hostage Crisis Of 1979; ‘Death To Israel’ Protest Amid Hamas War Hindustan Times
- ‘Death to Israel, death to America’: Iran marks anniversary of 1979 embassy takeover The Times of Israel
- Iranian hostage crisis anniversary: Students held 52 Americans hostage in US embassy Al Jazeera English
- View Full Coverage on Google News
One person killed in armed attack on Azerbaijan embassy in Iran | News
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
Azerbaijani foreign ministry say a guard has been killed in the attack.
A guard has been killed in an armed attack on Azerbaijan’s embassy in Iran’s capital Tehran, the country’s foreign ministry has said.
“The attacker broke through the guard post, killing the head of security with a Kalashnikov assault rifle,” it said.
Friday’s attack has also injured two people, the ministry added. An investigation has been launched.
Police in Tehran said they have arrested a suspect and are investigating the motive behind the attack.
The suspect entered the embassy with two young children and may have been motivated by “personal issues”, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, citing the police chief.
A video shared by Iranian state-owned news outlet Press TV on social media showed what appeared to be the gunman entering the embassy and firing shots inside the building, before scuffling with one man who tries to stop him.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu condemned the “treacherous attack” on Twitter. “Azerbaijan is never alone,” he said, sending his condolences to the relatives of the victim and wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.
Iran, home to millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis, has long accused Baku of fomenting separatist sentiments in its territory.
Relations between Baku and Tehran have been traditionally sour, as Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan is a close ally of Iran’s historical rival Turkey.
Iran is also suspicious of Azerbaijan’s military cooperation with Israel – a major arms supplier to Baku – saying Tel Aviv could potentially use Azerbaijani territory as a bridgehead against Iran.
Spanish Police Arrest Suspect in Mystery of Ukraine Embassy Letter Bombs
Spanish authorities have reportedly nabbed a suspect behind a spate of letter bombs sent to targets including the Ukrainian ambassador and Spanish prime minister: a 74-year-old man described by law enforcement sources as “lonely” and “strange.”
The news, reported by local outlets El Pais, ABC, and La Sexta, comes more than a month after the mysterious packages sparked a wave of panic in Europe as all those supporting Ukraine appeared to find themselves under threat. In addition to a Ukrainian embassy staffer being injured when one such device exploded in Madrid, an air base handling aid flights to Ukraine was also targeted, along with a factory producing grenade launchers for use by Ukraine’s armed forces.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón was also the would-be recipient of one explosive package, but authorities intercepted it before it actually reached him.
Now, with a suspect in custody, the motive remains unclear. Police have not yet named their suspect, but local reports describe him as a retiree with no previous criminal record who previously worked as a civil servant.
Sources cited by ABC said the man was “very active” on social media and espoused “pro-Russian” views. But investigators reportedly believe he was working alone, and they don’t suspect him in other menacing packages sent to Ukrainian embassies throughout the European Union, including the ones containing bloody animal tissue and eyeballs.
Investigators “do not rule out the participation or influence of other people in the events,” however, according to El Pais.
The 74-year-old was detained Wednesday in the city of Burgos and now faces terrorism charges.
Earlier this week, The New York Times cited unnamed U.S. officials who claimed Russian military intelligence was suspected in the letter bombs plot. Officials reportedly believed Moscow had enlisted help from the far-right extremist Russian Imperial Movement to send out the explosives and send a message to Europe that Russia could strike anywhere.
Spanish investigators already had eyes on their 74-year-old suspect at the time that report came out, however, and that theory was ruled out.
Spain letter bombs: Security as prime minister and US embassy targeted
Madrid
CNN
—
Spain said Thursday it was boosting security measures after a series of letter bombs was discovered in the country, including one that was sent to Spain’s prime minister last week and another to the US embassy.
The sixth and latest bomb was detected Thursday afternoon and sent to the US embassy in Madrid. It was intercepted at around 12.30 p.m. local time at the security post of the embassy, a police source told CNN.
The envelope was detonated in a controlled environment, according to two US officials. No one was injured in the process, the officials said.
“We are grateful to Spanish law enforcement for their assistance with this matter,” Jamie Martin, a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Madrid, told CNN.
Security was increased at the embassy after suspicious packages were sent to other embassies Wednesday, a US official said.
A US State Department spokesperson said it “will continue to evaluate the security situation and provide updates as appropriate. The US Embassy in Madrid remains open for American Citizen Services. We thank Spanish law enforcement for their assistance.”
A previous bomb, sent to an air force base near Madrid, was discovered before dawn Thursday, after one exploded at the Ukrainian embassy in the capital Wednesday and another was deactivated at an arms manufacturer.
A device addressed to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arrived in the post at his official Moncloa compound on November 24 and his security detail singled it out as suspicious. After establishing a security perimeter, they conducted a “controlled explosion” of the envelope, an interior ministry statement said.
The bomb “would be similar, for its features and content” to those received on Wednesday at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid and at the arms manufacturer Instalaza in Zaragoza, and on Thursday at Spain’s Torrejon air force base near Madrid, the statement said.
The most recent letter bomb was intercepted just before dawn Thursday after being sent to the Torrejon air force base.
Spanish defense ministry officials said a suspicious envelope was detected by a scanner at the base. The scan indicated the envelope could have “some type of mechanism” inside, a statement said. Police were called to the base to analyze the envelope, which was addressed to the Satellite Center at the air base.
The Spanish defense ministry also received a letter bomb addressed to Defense Minister Margarita Robles, the Secretary of State for Security Rafael Perez said Thursday.
Perez said the letters were likely sent from Spanish territory, and that in four out of the five cases, protection measures worked successfully to neutralize the bombs.
People should remain “calm,” the minister said, and there was no reason yet to justify raising a terror threat.
The latest developments followed the discovery of two letter bombs on Wednesday. The first exploded at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid in the afternoon, injuring an employee, Spanish officials said.
That envelope, addressed to the Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, exploded after being handled by a Ukrainian worker at the embassy, Spain’s foreign ministry said in a statement. Later, in the evening, police deactivated a letter bomb at a weapons manufacturer in northern Spain, a senior Spanish official said.
The envelope sent to the arms maker had the same return address as the envelope that exploded at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, said the official, Rosa Serrano, in an interview with Spain’s radio station SER late Wednesday.
“The return address on the envelope is an email that is the same” on both envelopes, said Serrano, who is the top Spanish government official in the Aragon region where the second letter bomb arrived.
The envelope at the weapons maker in the city of Zaragoza, in Aragon, “apparently came from Ukraine,” Serrano said, adding that authorities suspect the one at the embassy may have also come from Ukraine.
An executive at the arms manufacturer was apparently aware of the Madrid explosion, so when an envelope arrived soon after that no one seemed to recognize, the company called police, Serrano said.
The bomb squad arrived and police determined there were explosives inside the envelope, designed to explode on opening. It was deactivated, Serrano said.
Serrano didn’t identify the firm, but Spanish media reported its name and said it manufactured rocket launchers that Spain has sent to Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion. CNN could not immediately confirm that detail.
“I know the firm has been an arms manufacturer a long time, with state-of-the-art facilities,” Serrano said in the radio interview.
Police notified Spain’s National Court, which investigates terrorism, about each of the letter bombs, the statement said.
The interior ministry has ordered increased security measures at all embassies and consulates in Spain, as well as other sites that require special protection. Security had already been boosted after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Letter bomb injures one at Ukraine’s Madrid embassy, Kyiv ramps up security
MADRID/KYIV, Nov 30 (Reuters) – A security officer at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid was injured when he opened a letter bomb addressed to the ambassador on Wednesday, prompting Kyiv to order greater security at all its representative offices abroad.
The letter, which arrived by regular mail and was not scanned, caused “a very small wound” on one finger when the officer opened it in the embassy garden, Mercedes Gonzalez, a Spanish government official, told broadcaster Telemadrid.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba ordered all of Kyiv’s embassies abroad to “urgently” strengthen security and urged Spain to take investigate the attack, a ministry spokesman said.
The perpetrators, he added, “will not succeed in intimidating Ukrainian diplomats or stopping their daily work on strengthening Ukraine and countering Russian aggression.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to Madrid, Serhii Pohoreltsev, told TVE later that he was working as usual at the embassy “with no fear”.
[1/5] Police stands outside of Ukrainian embassy after, Spanish police said, blast at embassy building injured one employee while handling a letter, in Madrid, Spain November 30, 2022. REUTERS/Juan Medina
“We have instructions from the ministry in Ukraine that given the situation we have to be prepared for any kind of incident… any kind of Russian activities outside the country,” he said.
Russia invaded Ukraine nine months ago in what it calls a “special military operation” that Kyiv and the West describe as an unprovoked, imperialist land grab.
The ambassador declined to give details of how the letter had been handled but said the injured worker had followed protocol and that the embassy would look into improving the system.
Spain’s High Court has opened a probe into the attack as a possible case of terrorism, a judicial source said.
Correos, the Spanish state-run postal company, told Reuters it is cooperating with the investigation.
The residential area surrounding the embassy in northwestern Madrid was cordoned off and a bomb disposal unit was deployed to the scene. Reuters footage showed scores of police officers, armed with assault rifles and blocking roads with vans, in the neighbourhood around the embassy.
Reporting by Belén Carreño, Jesus Aguado, David Latona, Emma Pinedo and Inti Landauro in Madrid, Tom Balmforth in Kyiv; writing by Charlie Devereux; editing by Aislinn Laing, Frank Jack Daniel, Mark Heinrich and Deepa Babington
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Putin will not attend G20 summit in person, Russian embassy says
Hong Kong
CNN
—
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend in person a summit of leaders from the Group of 20 nations in Bali next week, the Russian embassy in Indonesia told CNN on Thursday.
Putin will be represented by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said Yulia Tomskaya, the chief of protocol at the embassy.
Tomskaya added that Putin is still deciding if he will join one of the meetings virtually.
Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, also said that Putin would not attend. Pandjaitan, who is helping to coordinate the summit, said the Russian President would be represented by “senior officials.”
Putin’s decision not to attend the G20 summit in person saves him the embarrassment of being confronted – or shunned – by other world leaders over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The meeting will take place just days after the Kremlin announced Russian forces would retreat from a large swathe of Kherson – one of four Ukrainian regions Putin previously said Russia planned to annex in violation of international law.
In the lead up to the event, Western countries and Ukraine have pressured Indonesia, the G20 host, to step up its condemnation of Moscow and withdraw its invitation to Putin for the summit. Since invading Ukraine in late February, western democracies have treated Russia and Putin as a pariah on the world stage.
US President Joe Biden, who is attending the summit, said in March Russia should be ejected from the G20, a multilateral organization comprised of 19 of the world’s major economies and the European Union. Senior members of Biden’s administration have walked out of G20 events where Russian delegates are present.
When asked if he would meet Putin one-on-one in Bali during an exclusive interview last month, Biden said he did not see a good reason to do so but it would “depend on specifically what he wanted to talk about.” Biden said if Putin wanted to discuss the jailed American basketball star Brittney Griner then he would be open to talking.
Jakarta has resisted pressure to single out Russia and has sought to remain a neutral position. It has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the summit as a guest.
Zelensky has said that Ukraine would not take part in the G20 summit if Putin attends. The Ukrainian President is expected to join the meetings virtually.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who met Putin in Uzbekistan in September, is also expected to attend the summit and meet Biden for the first time since the American President took office nearly two years ago.
Beijing has not officially confirmed whether Xi will attend the summit or meet with Biden. But on Wednesday, Biden told a news conference at the White House following the midterm elections that he will be having talks with Xi in Bali.
Biden said he’s not planning to make any “fundamental concessions” and that they will discuss the economy and trade. But he declined to reveal what his message would be on US military support to Taiwan should China move on the self-governing island.
“I’m gonna have that conversation with him,” Biden added, noting that they’ll lay out “what each of our red lines are.”
Their much-anticipated meeting comes as relations between US and China hit their lowest point in decades in a downward spiral that started under the former presidency of Donald Trump, as the two countries ramp up their rivalry in trade, technology, geopolitics and ideology.
In recent months, tensions have reached new highs following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the Biden administration’s ban on the sale of advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China.
Meanwhile, under Xi, China has moved closer to Russian, united by their plummeting relations with the US and other Western countries. Weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin declared their countries share a “no-limits” friendship. Beijing has since refused to condemned the war in Ukraine, or referred to it as an “invasion.”
After G20, Xi will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, which kicks off next Friday, according to Thailand’s Foreign Ministry. Biden is not expected to attend the event, while Putin has yet to confirm his attendance.
WNBA star Brittney Griner meets with U.S. Embassy officials in Russia
Griner has been sentenced to 9½ years in prison for bringing less than a gram of cannabis oil, which is illegal in Russia, into the country. She has been imprisoned since her Feb. 17 arrest.
Last week, a Russian court rejected Griner’s appeal of her prison sentence.
Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Russia has continued to refuse a “significant offer” from the United States to “resolve the current unacceptable and wrongful detention” of Griner and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine also imprisoned in Russia. Just last month, Jean-Pierre told reporters that Russia had yet to respond to the “serious” proposal the Biden administration made in July to free Griner.
“Despite a lack of good-faith negotiation by the Russians, the U.S. government has continued to follow up on that offer and propose alternative potential ways forward with Russians through all available channels,” Jean-Pierre said on Thursday. “This continues to be a top priority.”
Jean-Pierre, however, offered no details on any alternative proposal offered to Russia.
In a tweet Thursday, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. Embassy representatives who met with Griner “saw firsthand her tenacity and perseverance despite her present circumstances.”
“We continue to press for the immediate release of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan and fair treatment for every detained American,” Price said.
Spokespeople for Griner’s family did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the embassy officials’ visit.
The U.S. government has long characterized Griner’s arrest as a “wrongful detainment.”
Last week, after the Russian court’s dismissal of her appeal, Griner’s attorneys said they would confer with their client about the possibility of further appeals, and that they intended to make use of “all the available legal tools.” Once the appeals process is over, she is set to be transferred to a penal colony.
Griner, a 6-foot-9 center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained in February while trying to enter Russia at the Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow, where she plays during the WNBA offseason. She turned 32 last month while in prison, an occasion family and friends used to call for her release and safe return to the United States.
In August, Russia acknowledged for the first time that negotiations were underway to release Griner and Whelan, but it did not confirm media reports indicating a potential swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year sentence in the United States.
Griner and Whelan’s families met with President Biden at the White House in September to discuss their relatives’ imprisonment. At the time, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Biden is “not going to let up” in his efforts to get Russia to free Griner and Whelan.
“We want these two individuals home back where they belong with their families,” Kirby said.
Maite Fernández Simon and Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.
Russia says ready for U.S. prisoner swap talks but scolds embassy
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s foreign ministry said on Monday that it was ready for talks on a prisoner exchange to free U.S. citizens jailed in Russia, but that the American embassy in Moscow was “not fulfilling its official duties” to maintain dialogue.
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “We have stated many times that we are ready for negotiations to resolve the fate of U.S. citizens convicted in Russia and Russian citizens in the U.S.”
Russia has previously suggested that it is open to a prisoner exchange which could include U.S. Marine Corps veteran Paul Whelan, basketball star Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer jailed in the United States.
Griner is serving a 9 year jail sentence for possession and smuggling of cannabis, while Whelan is serving a 16 year term for espionage.
U.S. President Joe Biden met the families of Whelan and Griner at the White House on Friday, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying that the administration is committed to “working through all available avenues to bring Brittney and Paul home safely”.
The Kremlin has repeatedly said that what it called “megaphone diplomacy” from Washington would not help efforts to organise a prisoner exchange, urging closed talks instead.
(Reporting by Reuters;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne/Guy Faulconbridge)