AP | Apr 19, 2018, 20:39 IST

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Reuters file photo)

ANKARA: Turkey‘s weak opposition is scrambling to mount a meaningful challenge against strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with just nine weeks to prepare for snap elections.

One party leader is in jail. Another doesn’t have a candidate. A third might face eligibility issues for her party.

Erdogan set the presidential and parliamentary elections for June 24, in a move that will usher in a new system cementing the president’s grip on power more than a year ahead of schedule. Turkey is switching from a parliamentary system to an executive presidential system after a narrowly approved referendum last year, in the wake of a failed 2016 coup attempt.

The changes take effect with the next election, which had originally been set for November 2019.

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SEOUL: South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday that his rival, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, isn’t asking for the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula as a precondition for abandoning his nuclear weapons. If true, this would seem to remove a major sticking point to a potential nuclear disarmament deal.

North Korea, a small, authoritarian nation surrounded by bigger and richer neighbors, has always linked its pursuit of nuclear weapons to what it calls a “hostile” US policy that is embodied by the 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea, the 50,000 stationed in Japan, and the “nuclear umbrella” security guarantee that Washington offers allies Seoul and Tokyo.

Although Moon reported that North Korea isn’t asking for the US troops to leave, he said the North still wants the United States to end its “hostile” policy and offer security guarantees. When North Korea has previously talked about “hostility” it has been linked to the US troops in South Korea.

It won’t be until Moon and Kim meet next week, and then when Kim is to meet US President Donald Trump sometime in May or June, that outsiders might know just what North Korea intends. Until then, caution is needed over the statements the various leaders are using to set up their high-stakes negotiations.

Moon and Kim’s summit on April 27 will be only the third such meeting between the countries’ leaders. Moon, a liberal who is committed to engaging the North despite being forced to take a hard line in the face of repeated North Korean weapons tests last year, is eager to make the summit a success and pave the way for Kim and Trump to settle the deep differences they have over the North’s decades-long pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Many analysts believe that Kim sees the meeting with Trump as a way to bestow legitimacy on his own leadership and on a rogue nuclear program that he has built in the face of international criticism and crippling sanctions. Many say it is unlikely that the North will trade away its hard-won nuclear weapons without getting what it wants in return.

“North Korea is expressing a commitment to a complete denuclearization,” Moon said during a meeting with the heads of media organizations in South Korea on Thursday. “They are not presenting a condition that the US cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of the American troops in South Korea. … North Korea is only talking about the end of a hostile policy against it and then a security guarantee for the country.”

Trump revealed Tuesday that the US and North Korea had been holding direct talks at “extremely high levels” in preparation for their summit. Trump also said that North and South Korea are negotiating an end to hostilities before next week’s summit.

North Korea has long sought a peace treaty with the United States to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. Some South Koreans fear the North could use such a treaty as a pretext for demanding the withdrawal of the American troops in the South. Some worry that potential discussions on formally ending the war may distract from already difficult efforts to rid the North of nuclear weapons and apply robust verification of that process.

The armistice that halted fighting in the war was signed by the US-led United Nations Command, North Korea and China. South Korea was a member of the U.N. Command but was not a direct signatory.

In their previous summit in 2007, the Koreas declared a commitment toward ending the war and vowed to pursue discussions with others. But the efforts faltered and relations between the rivals worsened after a conservative government took office in Seoul in February 2008.

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled her willingness to find compromises with France when it comes to reforming the European Union, as she hosted French President Emmanuel Macron for talks Thursday in Berlin.

Macron has outlined ambitious plans for greater economic integration across the 28-nation bloc, but his proposals have met resistance in some member countries, including among conservatives in Merkel’s party.

Merkel, who was recently confirmed for a fourth term at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy, said at the very least she is willing to talk.

“There are of course always different starting points when it comes to the opinions of Germany and France,” she told reporters at a joint news conference with Macron. “We need open debates _ and in the end we need the ability to compromise.”

While Germany and France agree on the need to better protect the EU‘s external borders and forge a common asylum policy, it’s unclear how much backing Macron can expect from Germany for his plans to reform the bloc’s financial structure.

In their deal to form a new German government, Merkel’s conservative party and its center-left partners agreed that Germany like France is prepared to pay more into the EU budget.

But Berlin has been skeptical in its response so far to the possibility of a shared budget and Merkel is lukewarm about Macron’s idea of a eurozone finance minister.

The French president made clear he won’t drop his demand for greater financial solidarity, particularly among the 19 countries that share the euro as a currency, which includes both Germany and France.

“No currency union can survive if there aren’t instruments for convergence,” Macron said, citing the need for a banking union something Germany has resisted for fear of being held liable for future bailouts abroad.

Merkel said Germany would be willing to agree in the long term to a pan-European deposit insurance scheme, but insisted that solidarity shouldn’t undermine economic competitiveness among the bloc’s economies.

Macron’s flying visit to Berlin started at the unfinished Humboldt Forum, a museum that’s being built on the site where the German Kaiser’s palace stood until it was largely destroyed in World War II. The forum is named after the brothers Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, two 19th-century German intellectuals who spent many years in Paris.

Both leaders noted the intentional symbolism of their visit to the building site at a time when Europe is being reshaped.

Closed doors talks between Merkel and Macron later Thursday were likely to touch on Europe’s stance on the crisis in Syria and the fate of the nuclear deal with Iran.

Both leaders fly to Washington next week for separate meetings with President Donald Trump at which those issues will play a central role.

France and Germany were part of the six-nation group that negotiated the 2015 deal to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and both countries are keen to prevent it from falling apart when Trump’s May 12 deadline for major changes to the pact expires.

On Syria, Berlin’s decision not to join the U.S., Britain and France in attacking suspected chemical weapons sites last week highlighted Germany’s hesitancy when it comes to military action abroad. Berlin has stressed the need for a diplomatic solution to the war that’s seen more than 700,000 Syrians seek refuge in Germany at considerable political cost to Merkel, who insists that giving them shelter has been the right thing to do.