News in brief

Istanbul

#Turkish President RecepTayyipErdogan on Wednesday urged the world to recognise occupied East Jerusalem as the “capital of Palestine” in response to the recognition of the city by President Donald Trump as Israel’s capital.

“I am inviting the countries who value international law and fairness to recognise occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine,” he told leaders from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) gathered for an emergency meeting

in Istanbul, saying Islamic countries would “never give up” on this demand

Amman

#Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday, the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was the “greatest crime” and a flagrant violation of international law.

“Jerusalem is and always will be the capital of Palestine,” he told an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders in Turkey. He said the United States was giving away Jerusalem as if it were an American city.

Washington

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered to begin direct talks with North Korea without pre-conditions, backing away from a key U.S. demand that Pyongyang must first accept that giving up its nuclear arsenal would be part of any negotiations.

Tillerson’s new diplomatic overture comes nearly two weeks after North Korea said it had successfully tested a breakthrough intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that put the entire United States mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.

“Let’s just meet,” Tillerson said in a speech to Washington’s Atlantic Council think tank early today…

New York

Bangladesh has not found any evidence linking a Bangladeshi man charged with an attempted suicide bombing in New York on Monday with militants in Bangladesh, the country’s counter-terrorism chief said.

“We have collected evidence and information from his family members: his wife, father-in-law and mother-in-law,” Monirul Islam, head of Bangladesh Police’s counter-terrorism unit, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

Cairo

The head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church PopeTawadros II has returned to Cairo and is set to lead the church’s weekly meeting on Wednesday after successfully undergoing spinal microsurgery in Germany two weeks ago, state-run news agency MENA reported.

“The pope has returned to the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo after finishing a period of recovery in Vienna and was received by members of The Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church,” the Church spokesman BolisHalim said on in a statement on Wednesday morning..