World

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday asked lawmakers to revoke a resolution allowing him to invade Ukraine in a shock turnabout that Kiev hailed as his “first practical step” towards helping defuse the crisis.

The surprise reversal from the Kremlin strongman comes amid the threat of tougher Western sanctions against Moscow and could help spur fragile peace initiatives to end fighting in eastern Ukraine after pro-Russian rebels agreed Monday to a temporary government ceasefire.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decision to reverse the March 1 vote giving Putin carte blanche to send troops into Ukraine was aimed at “normalising the atmosphere and resolving the situation” where over 370 people have been killed since April.

In a rare sign of agreement Ukraine’s Western-backed President Petro Poroshenko welcomed the announcement as “the first practical step taken by the Russian president in the wake of his decision to officially support Ukraine’s settlement plan for the [eastern] Donbass region”.

Senators in Russia’s rubber-stamp legislative body will vote Wednesday to rescind the decision which saw troops massed along the border in what was seen as a threat of intervention.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told journalists after meeting Poroshenko in Kiev that “appropriate signals” were needed from all sides and that both rebels and the Ukrainian army had to stick to the ceasefire.

On the ground in eastern Ukraine fighting still bubbled away — albeit at a lower intensity — with Poroshenko saying that one serviceman was killed as insurgent attacks continued overnight.

That came despite a prominent rebel leader on Monday reversing his firm rejection of Kiev’s peace overtures by agreeing to a ceasefire and suggesting talks with the authorities.

“We hope that during the period in which both sides halt fire, we will be able to agree and begin consultations about holding negotiations about a peaceful settlement to the conflict,” Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic said in a broadcast by Russian television.

New sanctions threat 

Poroshenko has been lobbying world leaders to follow through with their threat to unleash devastating economic sanctions against Russia should Putin fail to immediately end his perceived military and diplomatic backing of the insurgents.

Putin’s volte-face came shortly ahead of a visit to Vienna Tuesday where he was expected to face renewed pressure from his counterpart Heinz Fischer and Switzerland’s Didier Burkhalter — the current head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

While in the Austrian capital Putin oversaw a deal between state energy giant Gazprom and Austria’s OMV approving a section of a Kremlin-backed pipeline project to Europe that has become the focus of new pressure as tensions have grown over Ukraine.

Putin’s reversal follows a conversation with US President Barack Obama Monday evening, the first since the beginning of the month, in which Obama threatened Putin with new sanctions if Moscow failed to stop the flow of weapons to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s president will sign a historic EU trade pact on Friday that crowns his May 25 election promise to make the decisive move westward — one strongly resisted by Russia and that lies at the heart of the current unrest.

Poroshenko’s office said he told US Vice President Joe Biden on Monday night that the rebels’ ceasefire “must be accompanied by the release of hostages and a sealing of the border to halt the entry into Ukraine from Russia of mercenaries, weapons and drugs.”

“Poroshenko stressed that now, Russia must demonstrate real steps forward,” his office said in a statement.

The European Union warned after a meeting of foreign ministers Monday that it expected to see action from Putin “within days”.

Some analysts believe that Putin is still smarting from the sudden loss of an ally in Kiev — ousted by pro-EU protesters in February — who could have brought Ukraine into a new alliance of post-Soviet nations being assembled by the Kremlin.

The subsequent flow of heavy weapons and gunmen across the porous border into eastern Ukraine seem to indicate that the Kremlin is — at the very least — turning a blind eye to local Russian officials and military commanders’ efforts to support the insurgents.

But the Kremlin chief seems equally determined to avoid steps that could trigger broader sanctions and deal a further blow to a Russian economy that is already teetering on the edge of a recession.

KABUL — A top Afghan election official accused of fraud resigned Monday, raising hopes of ending a political deadlock that threatens to derail the country’s presidential succession as NATO troops withdraw.

Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail, head of the secretariat of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), denied all charges against him but said he was stepping down to save the election process.

Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has boycotted the counting of votes from the run-off election a week ago, accusing the IEC of being biased against him in the contest against his rival Ashraf Ghani.

“Now the door is open for us to talk to the [election] commission and talk about the conditions and circumstances that will help the process,” Abdullah told reporters after Amarkhail resigned.

The United Nations reacted positively, describing Amarkhail’s resignation as “a step that helps protect Afghanistan’s historic political transition”.

Abdullah had called for Amarkhail’s removal since the June 14 vote, which was at first hailed by the US and other international allies as a successful part of the country’s first democratic transfer of power.

A smooth election is seen as a benchmark of success for the US-led coalition that has fought against the Taliban and donated billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan since 2001.

Abdullah’s campaign team on Sunday released telephone recordings that it said were conversations of Amarkhail arranging ballot-box stuffing using the code words “sheep stuffing”.

“I have resigned only to protect the election process, and so that Dr Abdullah Abdullah can put an end to his boycott and resume his relationship with the IEC,” Amarkhail said at a press conference.

“The audio recordings regarding fraud were fake,” he added.

UN warns of dangers 

Reports of the ongoing vote count suggest that Ghani has made a surprise comeback after finishing behind Abdullah in the first-round election on April 5.

The preliminary result is due on July 2 and the final result, after adjudication of complaints, is scheduled for July 22.

International diplomats expressed alarm over the prospect of a disputed outcome and the risk of civil unrest as military assistance and civilian aid declines.

The threat of ethnic friction erupting is a constant concern for Afghanistan, where tribal loyalties are still fierce after the 1992-1996 civil war.

Abdullah’s support is based among the Tajik minority and other northern tribes, while Ghani is a Pashtun — Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, which is strongest in the Taliban heartlands of the south and east.

Ghani’s campaign said it also welcomed Amarkhail’s resignation for “the sake of stability”, and denied he was working to commit fraud on Ghani’s behalf.

Outgoing President Hamid Karzai has vowed to deliver a successful election as his “legacy”, though it is unclear if he has played a role in behind-the-scenes efforts to end the deadlock, and he has not named his preferred successor.

Abdullah’s allegations that in several provinces there were more votes than eligible voters have yet to be resolved, and neither candidate looks likely to concede defeat.

DONETSK, Ukraine — Insurgents in eastern Ukraine promised Monday to honour a ceasefire declared by the Ukrainian president and engage in more talks to help resolve the conflict that has left hundreds dead in eastern Ukraine.

The announcement came on the first day of talks between a former Ukrainian president, the Russian ambassador, European officials and the eastern separatists who have declared independence.

The negotiations were launched in line with President Petro Poroshenko’s peace plan, which started with a weeklong unilateral ceasefire Friday to uproot the mutiny that has engulfed the nation’s industrial east. Hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting and tens of thousands have fled their homes.

Alexander Borodai, one of the rebel leaders who took part in Monday’s talks in Donetsk, said they would respect the ceasefire declared by Poroshenko, which lasts through 0700 GMT (2am EDT) Friday.

The rebels, who have declared their border regions independent and fought government troops for two months, also promised to release the observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe whom they have held hostage.

President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, talked on the phone Monday with President Barack Obama, urging direct talks between warring parties in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said Putin underlined in Monday’s conversation that in order to normalise the situation in eastern Ukraine it’s necessary to “effectively end fighting and start direct talks between the conflicting parties”.

Monday’s talks involved Ukraine’s ex-president Leonid Kuchma, the Russian ambassador to Ukraine and an envoy from the OSCE. Poroshenko has ruled out talks with those he calls “terrorists”, so inviting Kuchma to mediate offered a way to conduct talks without the government’s formal engagement.

The insurgents had previously demanded the Ukrainian military withdraw its troops from the east as a condition for any talks, so Borodai’s statement represented a softened stance that raised expectations that the ceasefire could hold.

Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of fomenting the rebellion in the east by sending troops and weapons across the border, but Moscow has denied that and insisted that Russian citizens who joined the insurgents were volunteers.

The Ukrainian government has accused the rebels of firing at government forces’ positions since the unilateral ceasefire was announced, while insurgents have accused the Ukrainian forces of failing to observe it. Poroshenko has said that government troops will fire back if attacked.

Poroshenko’s office said Monday that he had offered Russia a chance to send its own observers to join the OSCE mission in Ukraine to see that government troops were observing the ceasefire.

Kuchma, who served as president from 1994-2005, comes from the east and is an astute political player respected by both sides. His ex-chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk, has lived in Russia and reportedly has close ties to Putin, was also at the talks.

“If both sides hopefully observe it [the ceasefire], then a normal peace process could start,” Kuchma told reporters after Monday’s talks.

Putin publicly expressed support Sunday for Ukraine’s declaration of a ceasefire and urged both sides to negotiate a compromise, which must guarantee the rights of the Russian-speaking residents of eastern Ukraine.

Putin clearly intends to maintain pressure on the Ukrainian government in Kiev to give the country’s eastern industrial regions more powers, which would allow them to keep close ties with Russia and serve the Kremlin’s main goal of preventing Ukraine from joining NATO.

But the Russian leader also wants to avoid more crippling sanctions from the US and particularly from the European Union, whose leaders will meet Friday in Brussels, and therefore needs to be seen as cooperating with efforts to de-escalate the conflict.

HONG KONG — Hong Kong citizens cast their ballots in an unofficial referendum on democratic reform Sunday, as booths opened across the territory in a poll that has enraged Beijing and drawn nearly 650,000 votes since it opened online.

Tensions are growing in the former British colony over the future of its electoral system, with increasingly vocal calls from residents to be able to choose who can run for the post of chief executive.

Hong Kong’s leader is currently appointed by a 1,200-strong pro-Beijing committee. China has promised direct elections for the next chief executive in 2017, but has ruled out allowing voters to choose which candidates can stand.

Beijing and Hong Kong officials have dismissed the poll as illegal, but participation since voting began online Friday has beaten all expectations — despite a major cyberattack that the organisers have blamed on Beijing.

On Sunday, thousands of voters, some toting umbrellas in the pouring rain, turned out to physically cast their ballots at the 15 polling booths set up around the city.

“I am just acting in accordance with my conscience and this is for our next generation too. As I am not familiar with computers, I came to the voting booth,” a 68-year-old retired teacher told AFP at a station set up at a teachers’ union.

Another voter, 18-year-old Lau I-lung, said: “I am happy I can use a vote to determine the future system of elections. I think it can make a difference.”

“People were lining up to vote. It shows that Hong Kong people have a strong desire for genuine democracy,” said Benny Tai, one of the founders of the Occupy Central movement which organised the ballot.

The roughly 647,400 who had voted both online and at the polling booths as of Sunday afternoon represent a sizeable chunk of the 3.47 million people who registered to vote at elections in 2012.

Voters have until June 29 to cast their ballot either online or at the polling booth.

The poll allows residents to choose between three options on how the 2017 chief executive ballot should be carried out — each of which would allow voters to choose candidates for the top job, and all, therefore, considered unacceptable by Beijing.

The “PopVote” website (https://www.popvote.hk/), built by the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, suffered a large-scale attack last week that Tai and the pro-democracy press said could only have been carried out by Beijing.

Although the unofficial referendum will have no legal effect, activists hope that a high turnout will bolster the case for reform.

“If the government decided to ignore people’s call, indeed there may be a possibility of more radical action. I hope the government does not push Hong Kong people to that point,” Tai told reporters.

Rimsky Yuen, the city’s secretary for justice, on Sunday echoed the official stance that the vote “cannot be regarded as legally-binding, let alone be regarded as a so-called ‘referendum’.”

“For that reason, it can only be regarded as no more than an expression of opinion by the general public,” Yuen said.

ANDRIYIVKA, Ukraine — Ukraine’s unilateral ceasefire hung in the balance Saturday as clashes spread across the separatist east and Moscow rankled Kiev by putting its central forces on full combat alert.

The resurgence of violence in the 11-week pro-Russian uprising threatening to splinter the ex-Soviet state came as Washington slapped sanctions on top separatist leaders and warned the Kremlin against sending forces into Ukraine.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared ready to continue sabre-rattling in the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War by ordering units from the Volga to western Siberia to conduct snap military drills.

“There is no ceasefire,” a woman named Lila Ivanovna said just four kilometres southwest of the battled-scarred rebel stronghold city of Slavyansk.

“They were shooting last night and I heard mortar and machinegun fire at four this morning. Nothing has changed.”

Ukrainian border guards said the militia used sniper fire and grenade launchers to strike a base in the eastern Donetsk region four hours after President Petro Poroshenko declared a unilateral halt to hostilities that have claimed more than 375 lives.

It said troops had to return fire when the same rebel unit mounted a second attack near a different Russian border crossing a few minutes later.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s “anti-terrorist operation” confirmed the fighting around Slavyansk while the defence ministry said one of its anti-aircraft bases was attacked by “50 men in camouflage”.

Ukraine’s SBU security service said nine border guards were wounded in violence overnight.

But the separatist leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic told reporters that Slavyansk had absorbed a heavy air and artillery assault from Ukrainian troops.

Poroshenko ordered his forces to hold fire for a week on Friday evening as part of a broader peace plan that would eventually give more rights to the eastern industrial region which has strong Russian ties.

But the Western-backed leader also cautioned that “this does not mean that we will not fight back against aggression toward our troops”.

“We know how to protect our nation,” he told wounded soldiers during a visit on Saturday to a Kiev military hospital.

Russia dismissed Poroshenko’s plan as an “ultimatum” that left rebels with a choice between complete surrender or an even more aggressive Ukrainian army push.

“The fact that the so-called counter-terrorist military operation has intensified in parallel with the advancement of a peace plan is a cause for much alarm and concern,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on a visit on Saturday to Saudi Arabia.

‘Destabilising Russian presence’

Just two weeks into his term, Poroshenko’s attempts to resolve the country’s worst post-Soviet crisis have also been complicated by a new deployment of Russian forces along parts of the border where the rebels mount the most frequent attacks.

Putin appeared to be stirring tensions further on Saturday by ordering troops stretching from the Volga region in central Russia to the Ural Mountains and swathes of Siberia to go on “full combat alert” as part of an unannounced readiness check.

The Russian defence ministry said military exercises in the expansive region whose western-most edge lies 400 kilometres east of Ukraine would involve 65,000 soldiers along with 60 helicopters and 180 jets.

But both Kiev and its Western allies are also anxious about the presence of new Russian forces along the border amid charges of growing flows of heavy weapons crossing into rebel-held parts of the industrial east.

Foreign ministry spokesman Yevgen Perebiynis told AFP that Putin’s order for snap drill in central Russian “cannot but also raise concern if it is in any way linked to earlier deployments near the border”.

Ukrainian officials have told EU and G-7 teams in Kiev that they have evidence of 10 additional tanks and sealed trucks coming over the border close to the eastern city of Lugansk since Thursday.

A Russian defence ministry source told the RBK news agency this week that troops were prepared to enter Ukraine’s insurgent regions in order to “put up barriers between the civilian population and the Ukrainian army”.

“We will not accept the use, under any pretext, of any Russian military forces in eastern Ukraine,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki noted that most of the equipment being gathered in southwest Russia was no longer used by its military.

“We believe that Russia may soon provide this equipment to separatist fighters,” Psaki said.

The US Treasury Department also blacklisted seven Ukraine separatists whom it accused of being a threat to the country’s peace and sovereignty.

But the measure was largely symbolic because none is known to have US assets that would be frozen under Treasury Department rules.

KABUL — The United Nations on Saturday urged Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah to return to the electoral process after he dropped out earlier last week, accusing the organisers and the president of fraud.

Abdullah withdrew by declaring his camp would regard any outcome as illegitimate and recalling his observers from the vote count for last week’s run-off election. He also invited the UN to intervene.

“We believe that the task ahead of us is to have the candidates re-engage fully in the electoral process,” UN deputy chief Nicholas Haysom told reporters in Kabul.

“We would want to emphasise that there is no other way of electing a legitimate leader.”

The run-off had pitted Adbullah against Ashraf Ghani, neither of whom gained the 50 per cent of the vote needed to win outright in the first round of elections on April 5.

Abdullah’s withdrawal has intensified longstanding concerns about a struggle for power along ethnic lines, casting doubt on Afghanistan’s attempt to transfer power democratically for the first time in its history.

While the vote count is continuing, Abdullah’s withdrawal has heightened tension across the country. At least one deadly gun battle erupted between rival supporters this week.

The election comes as most foreign troops are planning to leave Afghanistan by the end of the year. The fragile state of the society they will leave behind was underscored on Saturday by a suicide bombing aimed at a government official.

Ghani’s team has said it is in favour of any process that increases the transparency of the electoral bodies but wants the election to remain under local control.

“We respect the role of the UN... but any solution should be Afghan-led, and shouldn’t affect the work of the Independent Election Commission and Complaints Commission,” said spokesman Abbas Noyan.

The commissions were heavily criticised in the first round for lacking transparency. Both candidates say they failed to properly adjudicate cases of fraud, allowing hundreds of thousands of fake votes to be included in the final tally.

However, Afghan officials and diplomats alike want candidates to give the electoral bodies a chance to prove they have reformed. A statement by President Hamid Karzai on Friday backing Abdullah’s call for UN intervention was met with dismay by those advocating the institutions be respected.

“He has lost his marbles,” said one Afghan official on condition of anonymity, who said he was seriously worried the electoral process would collapse.

Abdullah’s supporters have organised protests in the capital this week and there are fears that demonstrations could turn violent and take on an ethnic dimension. Most of Abdullah’s supporters are Tajiks, the second-largest ethnic group. Ghani’s are mainly Pashtun, the largest group in Afghanistan.

So far, protests have been small, but they have taken on a nasty tone. Several hundred people gathered near the airport on Saturday, for example, where they chanted “we will defend our vote to the last drop of blood”, and brandished banners with slogans like “Death to Karzai” and “Death to Ghani”.

The tone of the debate on social media and in public has alarmed the UN, among others. It has urged the candidates and the public to behave responsibly, and avoid inciting ethnic divisions.

“Should any violence emanate from the demonstrations it could set back the process, make the task of trust-building more difficult,” Haysom said, “It could lead to a spiral of instability”. He called the use of social media to inflame divisions “disturbing”.

ANDRIYIVKA, Ukraine — A ceasefire announced by Ukraine’s new president had barely begun when residents of Andrivka, caught in the crossfire between government and rebel forces in eastern Ukraine, heard mortar fire.

“Nothing has changed,” said Lila Ivanova, head of the village council in Andriyivka.

“The ceasefire was supposed to come into force at 22:00 yesterday. Mortar fire began shortly after, followed by bursts of automatic gunfire. This morning started with cannon shots. It’s continuing now,” said 57-year-old Ivanova.

Andriyivka has an unenviable location. The village of 1,400 inhabitants is caught in the crossfire, just 600 metres from the frontline of the Ukrainian army and not much further from the pro-Russian separatists holed up in the rebel bastion of Slavyansk.

“This morning, the Ukrainian artillery fired in the direction of the Slavyansk train station. It was cannon fire — nowadays I know how to tell the difference,” said Ivanova. While she speaks, a few shots ring out from Ukrainian guns mounted on the hillside that overlooks the village.

The roofs of around a dozen houses have been destroyed by these barrages.

“A neighbour was killed by one bombardment a few days ago. I found shrapnel in my vegetable garden and my house and the windows were broken,” Ivanova continued.

The locals have learned to adapt to the chaos since the fighting began on May 2.

“When a helicopter hovers overhead, we now know that the bombardments will resume and we must be careful. It means that they have brought munitions to the Ukrainian forces stationed next to the village,” she added.

‘Can’t escape your destiny’ 

Curiously, not one local has bothered to reinforce their windows to avoid being injured by shattering glass.

“You can’t escape your destiny,” was the philosophical response of one resident, Vera Alexandrovna.

But daily life is tough. There has been no gas or electricity for two months since the fighting started.

“We cook on fires over bricks. We live on what we had stored in the basement and what grows in the garden. Fortunately, we have wells to provide water,” said Alexandrovna.

The locals say the Ukrainian forces prevent any technicians arriving in the village to restore water or electricity.

At the edge of the village, around 200 metres from the hillside cannons, lies small Orthodox church. Father Alexander, who has come from a neighbouring village to say mass, is also sceptical about the ceasefire that Ukraine’s new president, Petro Poroshenko, declared on Friday.

“Ukrainian President Poroshenko announced that a truce should be called,” he said. “But in fact, barely an hour later, they started with the artillery fire, heavy machineguns and people were killed.”

BANNU, Pakistan — Around 30,000 people fled a major military offensive against the Taliban in a Pakistani tribal area Wednesday, after authorities eased a curfew in a sign the campaign is likely to intensify.

The military has deployed troops, tanks and jets in North Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan, in a long-awaited crackdown on the Taliban and other militants in the tribal area.

Adding to the pressure on the insurgents, two US drone strikes hit compounds in the area early on Wednesday.

The military eased a curfew in parts of North Waziristan to let civilians leave, indicating a new and more intense phase of the anti-militant drive in which ground forces will play a greater role.

Tens of thousands of people had already fled the operation, which the military says has killed more than 200 militants, and a fresh exodus is under way.

“Some 30,000 people arrived in Bannu from Mir Ali town of North Waziristan since this morning,” Arshad Khan, director general of the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) Disaster Management Authority, told AFP.

Khan said 92,000 people have now fled North Waziristan since the military began air strikes against the Taliban last month.

Most have gone to the town of Bannu, just across the border from North Waziristan in neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and a traditional haven for those fleeing violence in the tribal area.

Registration points and camps have been set up to deal with the influx of people, but most prefer to travel on to stay with relatives in other areas.

A senior security official in northwest Pakistan told AFP the curfew was lifted to let people flee before a more concerted ground operation.

“Miranshah and Mir Ali have already been cordoned off. Ground troops will move in after civilians move to safe places,” the official said.

“First, ground troops will enter in major towns and will then move towards the suburban areas,” after strengthening their positions.

“We will then go to the villages and to the mountains,” he added, saying the operation would continue until every militant had been eliminated.

A second security official in the northwest confirmed the details.

At least five suspected militants were killed in two separate US drone missile strikes in North Waziristan, according to local officials.

Strikes in the tribal area a week ago ended a nearly six-month pause in Washington’s controversial drone campaign against militants in Pakistan.

Coming just days before the launch of the full-scale Pakistani military operation, they also triggered talk of collaboration between the US and Pakistan.

Pakistan condemned the strikes and said it regarded them as “a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

“These strikes also have a negative impact on the government’s efforts to bring peace and stability in Pakistan and the region”, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Islamabad has previously described drone attacks in similar terms, although leaked documents have shown cooperation on them with the US in the past.

The number and identity of those killed in the military operation cannot be verified, and some residents who have fled the area spoke of civilian casualties from aerial bombing before the offensive officially began on Sunday.

Aziz-ur-Rehman, a 42-year-old teacher at a school in Mir Ali, fled the town riding on the bonnet of a truck.

“It’s like doomsday for people in Mir Ali, where death is everywhere since Saturday,” he told AFP, accusing the military of killing numerous civilians.

“They start the day with artillery shelling early in the morning. Gunship helicopters come for shelling during the day and jets strike at around 2:00-2:30 in the night.”

He said the onslaught killed two children in his neighbourhood and left a third girl badly wounded.

VIENNA — He is believed to top the list of elusive Iranian officials the UN nuclear watchdog wants to query. Exiled foes of the Islamic state cite him as the mastermind of clandestine efforts to design an atomic bomb. Tehran is mum about him, while denying having any nuclear arms agenda.

Probably living under tight security, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh did not join this week’s talks in Vienna between Iran and six world powers directed at striking a deal by late July to end a decade-old dispute over Tehran’s nuclear aspirations.

But Western officials and experts think the shadowy military figure played a pivotal role in suspected Iranian work in the past to develop the means to assemble a nuclear warhead behind the facade of a declared civilian uranium enrichment programme.

They say shedding light on his alleged activities is critical for understanding how far Iran advanced and ensuring they are not continuing now, which the West wants any settlement with the Islamic republic to guarantee.

But that will be easier said than done: An aura of deep mystique surrounds a man who rarely — if ever — seems to surface in public. Few outside Iran know with any certainty what he looks like, let alone have met him.

“If Iran ever chose to weaponise [enrichment], Fakhrizadeh would be known as the father of the Iranian bomb,” said a Western diplomat who is critical of Iran’s nuclear programme but is not from any of the powers now negotiating with Tehran.

Iran says it is refining uranium only for a planned network of nuclear power plants, not as fuel for nuclear bombs and dismisses such allegations as fabrications by Western enemies.

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has long wanted to meet Fakhrizadeh as part of a protracted investigation into whether Iran carried out illicit nuclear weapons research.

Showing no sign it will heed the request, Iran several years ago acknowledged Fakhrizadeh’s existence but said he was an army officer not involved in the nuclear programme, a diplomatic source with knowledge of the matter said.

There was no immediate comment from Iran or the IAEA.

Multiple passports, support of Khamenei 

A high-ranking Iranian source, however, described Fakhrizadeh as “an asset and an expert” dedicated to Iran’s technological progress, and enjoying the full support of its most powerful man, clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The source added that Fakhrizadeh had three passports and travelled a lot, including in Asia, to obtain “the latest information” from abroad, but would not elaborate. Western security sources say Iran has been adept in obtaining nuclear materials and know-how from the international black market.

The assassinations of four Iranian scientists associated with the nuclear programme between 2010 and 2012 may have stiffened Tehran’s unwillingness to give the IAEA access to Fakhrizadeh — for fear this could lead to information about him and his whereabouts leaking. Iran accused its arch-adversaries the United States and Israel of being behind the killings.

A landmark IAEA report in 2011 identified Fakhrizadeh as a central figure in suspected Iranian work to develop technology and skills needed for atomic bombs, and suggested he may still have a role in such activity.

Believed to be a senior officer in the elite Revolutionary Guards, Fakhrizadeh was the only Iranian the report identified.

‘Most-wanted list’ 

“If the IAEA had a most-wanted list, Fakhrizadeh would head it,” Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the non-proliferation programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank in London, said.

He was also named in a 2007 UN resolution on Iran as a person involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities.

“Dr Fakhrizadeh is considered to be the leader of Iran’s nuclear weaponisation programme that existed before 2003,” said Gary Samore, until last year the top nuclear proliferation expert on US President Barack Obama’s national security staff.

“The IAEA would like to interview him about his past and current activities,” he said.

A senior Western official said the possibility that Iran may be continuing secret work related to atomic bomb research while negotiating with the powers was hardly a surprise.

Pressing ahead with the talks was all the more important, the official said, because Tehran must end any bomb-related activity to get the sanctions relief it seeks. “They want something and we need something in return.”

One intelligence source from an IAEA member state said Fakhrizadeh seemed to be a “very qualified manager” inspiring loyalty among those working for him.

The Iranian official commented: “He is a very modest person who supports the team working for him.”

An exiled Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in May issued a report with what it said was a photograph of Fakhrizadeh, with dark hair and the customary beard stubble sported by backers of Iran’s Islamic leadership. It was not possible to independently verify it. A NCRI spokesman said it was “not very recent” but gave no detail.

The NCRI said Fakhrizadeh was born in 1958 in the holy Shi’ite Muslim city of Qom, is a deputy defence minister and a Revolutionary Guards brigadier-general, holds a nuclear engineering doctorate and teaches at Iran’s University of Imam Hussein. It said he was the head of a secretive body which it called “the command centre” behind atomic bomb-related activity.

“The information is consistent with the mainstream view that Fakhrizadeh ran and may still be running some kind of programme, where the parts look related to nuclear weaponisation development,” nuclear expert David Albright said.

Transparency key
issue in talks

The NCRI exposed Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak in 2002. But analysts say it has a mixed track record and an agenda of regime change in Iran.

Tariq Rauf, a former senior IAEA official who is critical of the UN agency’s inquiry, said the NCRI might be trying to stymie the negotiations between Iran and the powers.

“I would doubt that nuclear weapon-related work is still going on,” Rauf, now at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), said in an e-mail to Reuters.

The IAEA has for years been investigating what it calls the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran says the allegations are false but has offered to help clarify them since pragmatist Hassan Rouhani became president last year.

However, Western officials say Iran should step up the pace of cooperation with the Vienna-based UN agency and that this is crucial for the chances of a successful outcome of the separate negotiations between Iran and the global powers on curbing the nuclear programme and lifting sanctions on Tehran, a deal that would head off the risk of a new Middle East war.

“Interviewing Fakhrizadeh is critical. If not, there will always remain strong suspicions that Iran is hiding a capability to build nuclear weapons,” Albright said.

Nuclear yields, nuclear triggers

Citing information from member states and other sources, the IAEA’s 2011 document painted a picture of a concerted weapons programme that was halted in 2003 — when Iran came under increased Western pressure — but some activities later resumed.

They included alleged computer studies regarding nuclear yield calculations and a nuclear trigger — activities that may have been carried out after 2003, some as late as 2009.

Around 2002-03, the IAEA said, Fakhrizadeh was the executive officer of the so-called AMAD Plan, which according to its information conducted studies related to uranium, high explosives and the revamping of a missile cone to accommodate a nuclear warhead.

More recently, he became head of a body called the Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research, according to intelligence from one unidentified country cited by the report.

“The Agency is concerned because some of the activities undertaken after 2003 would be highly relevant to a nuclear weapon programme,” added the IAEA document.

A source familiar with intelligence information on the issue said Fakhrizadeh appeared to have objected to the decision by the leadership to shelve bomb research over a decade ago, indicating that he was personally committed to the project.

“There is no chance that Iran will make him available. They will argue that it would expose him to danger and he may well be on a real hit list,” Fitzpatrick said.

ANKARA — Former army chief Kenan Evren, 96, who came to symbolise the military’s dominance over Turkish political life, was sentenced to life in jail on Wednesday for leading a 1980 coup that resulted in widespread torture, arrests and deaths.

The sentencing of general Evren, even if age and sickness spare him from jail, marked a strong symbolic moment in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s taming of an army that had forced four governments from power in four decades. Hundreds of officers were convicted in 2012 over an alleged plot to topple him.

Evren, who also served as president after three years of military rule, never expressed regret for the coup. He said it saved NATO member Turkey from anarchy after thousands were killed in street-fighting by militant left-wingers and rightists.

“Should we feed them in prison for years instead of hanging them?” he asked in a speech in 1984, defending the hanging of political activists after the army take-over.

Fifty people were executed, some 500,000 were arrested and many disappeared in a country which, bordering the Soviet Union, was on the front line of the Cold War.

Too frail to attend court sessions, Evren was sentenced to life in prison along with former Air Force chief Tahsin Sahinkaya, 89. Both were accused of setting the stage for an army intervention, then conducting the coup.

Some critics argued nationalist militants or US agencies engineered street clashes to justify army action on September 12, 1980, a charge echoed in a 2012 conspiracy trial dubbed Sledgehammer. Officers then were accused of plotting to bomb mosques and trigger a conflict with Greece to pave the way for a coup against Erdogan, viewed warily by the military for his Islamist past.

However, a ruling by Turkey’s top court on Wednesday that the rights of 230 officers were violated in the case could open the way now for a retrial, and a move to conciliation between the prime minister and the generals, nicknamed “Pashas” in a nod to Turkey’s Ottoman past.

‘Pashas’

Evren and Sahinkaya participated in the hearings via video links from military hospitals in Ankara and Istanbul. Media reports said the two former commanders would be stripped of their ranks as a result of the ruling.

Oral Calislar, a columnist for Radikal newspaper, was jailed for four years and spent another four as a fugitive after his arrest in 1980 for leading a legal left-wing party.

“This is the first time those who have staged a coup have been convicted. We had other coups, but those responsible continued to run the country with impunity,” he said.

The generals were long considered ultimate guarantors of the country’s secular constitution, a constant presence overshadowing political parties and leaders.

Their last successful intervention was in 1997 when they forced Turkey’s first Islamist-led government from office through a combination of political pressure and display of military power but without seizing power outright.

That government was backed by the man who as prime minister has drawn on huge personal popularity to purge the officer corps and diminish the role of the military in political decision-making bodies. That process now appears irreversible, though Erdogan is accused by political enemies of increasingly authoritarian conduct.

A 2010 amendment to the constitution, drafted by technocrats under Evren, lifted barriers to the trial of Evren and Sahinkaya.

Erdogan, who served a brief prison sentence himself for Islamist activity not long before he took office in 2003, is expected to seek the presidency in an August election in a move which is expected to consolidate his power.

Throughout the trial, Evren largely maintained a silence, watching proceedings by video link from his hospital bed. On Wednesday, he again declined to speak on his own behalf.

“It is not important whether they go to jail. What matters is that those behind the coup are held responsible for all of the uprooted lives and dozens who were executed,” Calislar said.

It is unclear whether Evren and Sahinkaya will serve their sentences in prison due to their poor health.