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MILAS, Turkey — Rescuers used helicopters and water cannon on Wednesday in a fitful fight to save a Turkish power plant from being engulfed by deadly wildfires testing the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

More than 180 wildfires have scorched huge swathes of forest and killed eight people since breaking out east of the Mediterranean vacation hotspot Antalya last on Wednesday and then spreading west.

Their proximity to Turkey’s main vacation destinations has also dented government hopes of a tourist-driven revival of the fragile economy.

The European Union’s satellite monitoring service said their “radiative power” — a measure of the fires’ intensity — “has reached unprecedented values in the entire dataset, which goes back to 2003”.

The Turkish government appears to have been rattled by the scale and ferocity of the flames.

Its media watchdog on Tuesday warned broadcasters that they may be fined if they continue showing live footage of the blazes or air images of screaming people running for their lives.

Most rolling news channels were only showing sporadic reports about the unfolding disaster on Wednesday afternoon.

Erdogan himself has been subjected to days of ridicule on social media for tossing bags of tea to crowds of people while touring one of the affected regions under heavy police escort.

The opposition further accuses the powerful Turkish leader of being too slow to accept offers of foreign assistance — including from regional rival Greece — and failing to properly maintain firefighting planes.

Erdogan prepared to mount a political counterattack in a national television interview scheduled for Wednesday night.

Much of the latest public fear and anger has been directed at a fire that has been threatening the hills around a power plant in the Aegean Sea holiday resort town of Milas.

‘We are hurting’ 

An AFP team in Milas saw Turkish workers dig trenches around the plant to keep the flames away.

Turkish helicopters and two firefighting planes from Spain dumped sea water and fire retardant on the surrounding hills and rows of scorched or burning residential buildings.

A group of locals watched the battle unfold from the relative safety of the beach.

The fire seemed to have been almost fully extinguished by Wednesday morning before breaking out again in the hot afternoon sun.

An AFP reporter said some of the flames appeared to have approached within 500 metres of the plant.

The main opposition party in control of the local mayor’s office said hydrogen tanks used to cool the station had been emptied and filled with water as a precaution.

“We beg, we warn, we’ve been saying it for days — the fire is surrounding the plant,” Milos Mayor Muhammet Tokat wrote above a tweet showing yellow smoke billowing from the scene.

“We are hurting. Milas is burning,” he wrote.

Erdogan’s office blamed the very first blazes near Antalya on arsonists that pro-government media linked to banned Kurdish militants waging a decades-long insurgency against the state.

But more and more public officials now link them to an extreme heatwave that has dried up water reservoirs and created tinderbox conditions across much of Turkey’s south.

Experts warn that climate change in countries such as Turkey increases both the frequency and intensity of wildfires.

Turkey’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said temperatures in the Aegean city of Marmaris reached an all-time record of 45.5ºC this week.

“We are fighting a very serious war,” the minister told reporters. “We need to keep our morale and motivation high in this war. I urge everyone to be patient.”

BEIRUT — Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday accused Lebanese authorities of criminal negligence for failing to secure a shipment of hazardous chemicals that caused last year's monster port blast, despite repeated warnings.

The watchdog recommended an independent UN investigative mission conduct its own inquiry, and advocated for broad international sanctions against top officials.

The August 4, 2020 explosion of a shipment of ammonium nitrate fertiliser haphazardly stored at the Beirut Port for six years killed more than 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital, in one of the world's largest non-nuclear blasts.

Victims' families and the broader public widely saw the explosion as the result of incompetence and corruption on the part of the ruling class, but one year on, no official has been brought to justice.

A 126-page HRW report, released one day before the first anniversary of the tragedy, identified top officials in the government, customs, the army and security agencies who were aware of the shipment and its dangers but failed to take necessary action.

"Multiple Lebanese authorities were, at a minimum, criminally negligent under Lebanese law in their handling of the ammonium nitrate shipment," said the report, which draws on interviews and official correspondence, including previously unpublished material.

"Evidence strongly suggests that some government officials foresaw the death that the ammonium nitrate's presence in the port could result in and tacitly accepted the risk of the deaths occurring," it said.

'Homicide' 

The report, entitled "They Killed us from the Inside: An investigation into the August 4 Beirut blast", accused authorities of violating the right to life and said that their actions could amount to "homicide" under domestic law.

The rights group recommended sanctions against "officials implicated in ongoing violations of human rights related to the August 4 blast and efforts to undermine accountability".

Sanctions, HRW said, would “provide additional leverage to those pressing for accountability through domestic judicial proceedings”.

According to the HRW investigation, mistakes started soon after the chemicals arrived in Beirut in 2013 onboard the Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship allegedly sailing from Georgia to Mozambique.

“Ministry of Public Works and Transport officials inaccurately described the cargo’s risks in their requests to the judiciary to offload the merchandise,” HRW said.

They also “knowingly stored the ammonium nitrate in Beirut’s port alongside flammable or explosive materials for nearly six years”, even after receiving reports warning that the chemical is “extremely hazardous”, HRW said.

For their part, customs officials who were first alerted to the hazardous chemicals in 2014 and who could have acted unilaterally to remove the material from the port failed to take adequate steps to dispose of it, HRW said.

‘I then forgot about it’ 

The Lebanese army, even after learning that the shipment’s nitrogen grade classified it under local law as material used to manufacture explosives, “took no apparent steps to secure the material”, the report said.

Instead, it brushed off responsibility, saying it was not in need of the chemicals, even though under Lebanese law, army approval is required to import or inspect material used to manufacture explosives.

Lebanon’s State Security agency, which completed an investigation into the ammonium nitrate at the port before the explosion, was slow to report the threat to senior government officials and provided incomplete information about the dangers the chemical posed, HRW said.

Then-prime minister Hassan Diab first started receiving reports of the ammonium nitrate shipment in June.

“I then forgot about it, and nobody followed up. There are disasters every day,” he told HRW.

Diab, along with the president, then received a State Security report at the end of July last year, but both failed to take action.

HRW said that the domestic investigation had been rendered “incapable of credibly delivering justice” and called for an investigation mission mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.

That mission should “identify what triggered the explosion and whether there were failures in the obligation to protect the right to life”, it said.

GENEVA — UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet voiced her concerns about the political turmoil in Tunisia in a phonecall with the foreign minister, and offered her assistance if required, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Othman Jerandi called the high commissioner for human rights after President Kais Saied seized power on July 25 following violent demonstrations against the government.

“It’s a worrying situation. We are following really closely and we know the challenges the country is facing,” Marta Hurtado, a spokeswoman for Bachelet’s office, told reporters in Geneva.

“What we hope is that all the achievements towards democratic reform that they have been doing over the last 10 years can be maintained and preserved, and that there’s no regression in any way.”

Tunisia has often been praised as a rare success story for its democratic transition after the Arab Spring regional uprisings sparked by its 2011 revolution.

But many Tunisians are angered at a political class seen as obsessed with power struggles and disconnected from the suffering of the poor, amid high unemployment and spiralling prices.

In a surprise move, Saied sacked prime minister Hichem Mechichi late last month and suspended parliament for 30 days. He ordered a graft crackdown targeting 460 businessmen and an investigation into alleged illegal funding of political parties.

The move plunged Tunisia into political turmoil, adding to the crippling economic crisis as well as a wave of COVID-19 infections.

Hurtado said former Chilean president Bachelet told Jerandi “that we are here to support them — we have an office on the ground in Tunisia — and we are closely following the situation and we are there to help, should they ask for it.

“We are concerned at what is happening but we trust that the authorities have the capacity to deal with it,” Hurtado added.

“But we are open to any request that they might have for help.”

AMMAN — Margat Castle, also known as Qal’at Al Marqab, located 2 kilometres away from the Mediterranean coast, near Antioch, is one of the largest mediaeval fortifications in the Levant, said a Hungarian archaeologist.

Balazs Major, from the Syrian-Hungarian Archaeological Mission, said in an e-mail interview with The Jordan Times that the castle’s site is on a volcanic mountain above the coastal route.

Major added that the castle was one of the most important strongholds governing the Via Maris, the ancient road that stretched along the Mediterranean in Syria. 

He said that compared with other castles in the region the Margat Castle is relatively new, only established in 1062AD by the local tribes.

For a short time the castle was under Byzantine control, taken by the Crusaders around 1117AD. After 1140AD the castle was in the possession of one of the richest and most influential Latin families; the Mazoirs. In 1181AD, the family sold it to the Order of St John, or the Hospitallers, Major said.

“The Hospitallers were one of the largest mediaeval European organisations and they developed the site into the grandiose fortification we see today,” he said. 

“To illustrate the importance of Margat it is worth mentioning that Sultan Saladin did not attack it during his campaign in the region of 1188, then a few years later Margat was the first point in the Holy Land where Richard the Lionheart landed with the English fleet,” he said.

In 1218, Andrew II, the King of Hungary, visited the castle and ordered a yearly donation of 100 silver marks, equal to 24 kilogrammes of silver, Major said. 

He added that Margat Castle withstood numerous sieges from the Ayyubides and Mamluks. However, in 1285AD the Sultan Qalawun took the castle after a five weeks long siege. 

The sultan immediately realised the importance of the site and did not destroy it, like other Crusader sites, but made several additions. His additions provide some very good examples of Mamluk military architecture, the archaeologist said.

One of the most important achievements of the Syrian-Hungarian Archaeological Mission was identifying the functions of the Al Marqab spaces, Major pointed out. He noted that now the team knows where the kitchen, bakery and dormitories were.

Major added that another important discovery was the expansive wall paintings in the church, located at the castle site. Major said that these paintings depict scenes of heaven and hell and the life of St John the Baptist. 

Furthermore, the excavations highlighted the immense quantities of pottery fragments and other archaeological artifacts, which provide a good representation of materials from the mediaeval and Ottoman periods, the archaeologist said.

The research on Margat Castle also studies how water was collected, stored and distributed, Major said. He added that the architects of Margat developed an intricate water system. This system, Major said, which still works today, is at critical importance given the water scarcity in the Near East today.

TEHRAN — Iran vowed on Monday to respond to any "adventurism", its foreign ministry said, after the US and Britain joined Israel in blaming it for a deadly tanker attack, claims Tehran denies.

The MT Mercer Street, managed by prominent Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer, was attacked on Thursday off Oman.

A British security guard and a Romanian crew member were killed in what the United States, Britain and the vessel's operator Zodiac Maritime said appeared to be a drone strike.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday Iran should face consequences.

Analysts said the attack bore all the hallmarks of tit-for-tat exchanges in the "shadow war" between Israel and Iran, in which vessels linked to each nation have been targeted in waters around the Gulf.

Israel blamed Iran for the attack, accusations rejected by Tehran, with Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh saying Sunday that Israel "must stop such baseless accusations".

The US and Britain on Sunday also then blamed Iran for the attack, with Washington vowing an "appropriate response".

Iran "will not hesitate to protect its security and national interests, and will immediately and decisively respond to any possible adventurism," ministry spokesman Khatibzadeh said in a statement.

He dismissed the US and Britain's statements as "contradictory", and said "if they have any evidence to support their baseless claims, they should provide them".

Khatibzadeh also accused them of effectively supporting "terrorist attacks against and sabotage of Iran's commercial ships" through their "silence".

On Monday, Britain summoned Iran's ambassador to London in response to what it called "the unlawful attack", a government statement read.

"Iran must immediately cease actions that risk international peace and security," it added, saying that "vessels must be allowed to navigate freely in accordance with international law".

Iran's foreign ministry also summoned the British charge d'affaires to "protest remarks" made by the UK's foreign secretary, state news agency IRNA reported.

He was told that "these hasty, contradictory, and baseless remarks are rejected and strongly condemned", the agency said.

"The source of insecurity in the Persian Gulf is not Iran, but the presence of ships and military forces of countries not from this region," IRNA added.

Romania's ambassador was also summoned and told that Tehran rejected Bucharest's "baseless accusations" over "the Mercer Street ship accident".

Such charges “lack legal standing and are unacceptable”, the envoy was told, according to IRNA.

Later on Monday, the British premier said Iran should face consequences for its “unacceptable and outrageous attack”.

“I think that Iran should face up to the consequences of what they’ve done,” Johnson told reporters in London, stressing it was “absolutely vital” that Iran respect freedom of navigation.

US Navy forces came to the aid of the tanker’s crew in response to an emergency distress call and saw evidence of Thursday’s attack, a US military statement said.

There have been several recent reported attacks on Iranian ships that Tehran has linked to Israel.

Iran has also accused Israel of sabotaging its nuclear sites and killing a number of its scientists.

The arguments over the tanker attack come as Tehran and world powers are engaged in talks in Vienna in an effort to return Washington to a 2015 nuclear deal and lift sanctions, and bring Iran back in compliance with nuclear commitments it waived in retaliation to sanctions.

The accord was strained when in 2018 former US President Donald Trump withdrew the US unilaterally and reimposed sanctions.

MARMARIS, Turkey — The European Union sent help to Turkey on Monday and volunteers joined firefighters in battling a week of violent blazes that have killed eight people.

Turkey's struggles against its deadliest wildfires in decades come as a blistering heatwave grips southeastern Europe creating tinderbox conditions that Greek officials blame squarely on climate change.

The fires tearing through Turkey since last Wednesday have destroyed huge swathes of pristine forest and forced the evacuation of panicked tourists from seaside hotels.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu thanked Brussels on Monday for sending a water bomber from Croatia and two from Spain.

The European Union said it "stands in full solidarity with Turkey at this very difficult time", a message designed to show goodwill after more than a year of heated disputes

Firefighters on Monday also battled local blazes on the Greek island of Rhodes and city of Patras as well as in parts of Italy and Spain.

Fanned by soaring temperatures and swirling winds, with experts saying that climate change increases both the frequency and intensity of such blazes, EU data show this year's fire season has been significantly more destructive than most.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece is suffering under its worst heatwave since 1987.

"We are no longer talking about climate change but about a climate threat," Greek Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said.

The Turkish presidency initially blamed the fires on arsonists that pro-government media linked to outlawed Kurdish militants waging a deadly insurgency against the state.

But that theory began being abandoned as the number of fires grew and the toll mounted.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said his office was investigating all options but would draw firmer conclusions once the fires were out.

“We should avoid falling into the trap of polarising the situation,” he said on a visit to one of the worst-hit coastal cities.

Turkey’s forestry directorate reported more than 130 fires in dozens of towns and cities across the country in six days.

It said seven, most of them not far from the southern resort cities of Antalya and Marmaris, continued to burn on Monday.

An AFP team in Marmaris on the Aegean Sea saw flames over the crests of forest-covered hills.

The night sky glowed amber and the smoke-filled air was hard to breathe in stifling heat of around 40ºC.

“This is a disaster,” resident Evran Ozkan said at a makeshift centre set up to help firefighters rest and recover by the side of a road leading to the burning hills.

“Like me, many inhabitants of Marmaris cannot put their heads on their pillow to sleep peacefully while these fires burn,” Ozkan said.

Firefighters with flashlights on their foreheads sat eating and drinking bottled water that locals gathered from neighbouring towns.

Emergency rescue boats stood on standby by the Marmaris shoreline to evacuate anyone should the fires spread and the town be cut off.

“We must be responsible for our land to prevent our future from burning,” said Ozkan, “but the situation is really bad now”.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s supreme court delayed a decision on Monday in the case of Palestinian families facing expulsion by Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem, an issue that exploded into armed conflict in May.

Palestinians said the offer was made that they remain in their properties in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood as “protected tenants” who would recognise Israeli ownership of the homes and pay a symbolic annual rent, but they refused.

“They placed a lot of pressure on us to reach an agreement with the Israeli settlers in which we would be renting from the settler organisations,” said Muhammad Al Kurd, from one of four Palestinian families at the heart of the case.

“Of course this is rejected,” he said.

Justice Isaac Amit called for further documentation and said “we will publish a decision later”, but without setting a date.

Monday’s hearing was part of a years-long legal battle waged by Jewish Israeli organisations trying to reclaim property owned by Jews in occupied East Jerusalem prior to Israel’s founding in 1948.

Palestinian residents say Jordan granted them homes on the property after they were expelled from towns that became Israel.

Lawyer Sami Irshid, representing the Palestinians, insisted on Monday that his clients would reject the Jewish Israeli claims in any arrangement.

“We are willing to be listed as protected tenants while retaining our rights,” he said in court. “We will request recognition of the property rights the government of Jordan gave us.”

Ilan Shemer, representing the Jewish Israelis, said: “This arrangement will be an empty arrangement.”

The case has become an international cause, with dozens of people demonstrating outside the court on Monday.

11-day Gaza war 

Clashes in May over possible Sheikh Jarrah evictions spread to Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound, sparking an Israeli crackdown that escalated into an 11-day war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

The families in Monday’s case appealed to the supreme court after two lower courts ruled that under Israeli property law, the homes in question belonged to the Jewish owners who purchased the plots before 1948.

In 1956, when occupied East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control, Amman leased plots of land to families in Sheikh Jarrah, and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees built homes for them.

Jordan promised to register the properties in their names, but did not complete the process before Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

In 1970, Israel enacted a law under which Jews could reclaim land in occupied East Jerusalem they lost in 1948, even if Palestinians by then already lived on it.

No such option exists for Palestinians who lost homes or land.

Jerusalem deputy mayor Arieh King, who supports the Jewish Israeli claims in the neighbourhood, decried the court’s delay.

“As long as the court drags this on, there is more room for Arabs to make riots,” King told AFP.

Instead, he said the court should rule the land is Jewish “and end of story”.

The Palestinians’ lawyer Irshid told AFP after the hearing “there is reason for optimism”.

Israeli anti-settlement group Ir Amim says that more than 1,000 Palestinians are at risk of losing their homes to Jewish settler groups and individuals in Sheikh Jarrah and the Silwan neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.