Turkish authorities have expelled the mayors of the three main cities in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, provoking protests and political condemnation. Their expulsion comes as Turkish forces are poised to launch a military operation against Syrian Kurdish militants.

The pro-Kurdish HDP mayors in Van, Mardin, and Diyarbakir, were replaced by state-appointed trustees Monday. The ruling AKP accuses the mayors of supporting the Kurdish insurgent group the PKK, an allegation the HDP denies.

The Turkish Interior Ministry said the personnel action was part of a terrorism investigation.

“For the health of the investigations, they have been temporarily removed from their posts as a precaution,” read an Interior Ministry statement.

More than 400 people were detained Monday in a nationwide operation against the outlawed PKK, which Turkey, the European Union and United States have designated as a terrorist organization.

“This is a new and clear political coup. It also constitutes a clearly hostile move against the political will of the Kurdish people,” read a joint statement by the HDP leadership.

Under emergency powers introduced after a failed coup in 2016, and a subsequent new constitution, which gave sweeping powers to the presidency, the HDP has faced a significant crackdown.

In the past three years, 88 HDP mayors have been removed from office and dozens of members of parliament jailed, including the party’s former leader, Selahattin Demirtas.

The Van, Mardin and Diyarbakir mayors were elected with more than 50% of the vote in local elections last March. Their election ended the rule of state-appointed trustees.

Protests erupted in all three cities as news spread about their expulsion. Security forces using tear gas and water cannons quickly quelled the unrest. Anger over their dismissals also led to demonstrations in other towns and cities.

Ankara strongly defended the mayors’ removals. 

“Action against municipalities that supported terrorism is inevitable in our struggle for democracy,” said Vice President Fuat Oktay.

The main opposition, CHP, was quick to condemn the dismissals. Deputy leader Sezgin Tanrikulu called the action a “coup.” Veli Agbaba, another senior party figure, equated it with fascism.

“Coups are not just made with tanks, cannons and rifles. The removal of three elected mayors in their fourth month in office and replacement with appointed caretakers is a coup against the political preferences of the people,” Tanrikulu wrote in a statement.

Condemnation extended to former close colleagues of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The dismissal of the newly elected mayors is not right for our democracy,” tweeted former President Abdullah Gul.

While Erdogan’s former prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, also criticized the mayors’ dismissal, saying the democratic will has to be respected, both Davutoglu and Gul, now politically estranged from Erdogan, are reportedly working on setting up rival political parties.

Some observers are interpreting Monday’s development as an attempt by Erdogan to reestablish his political authority after suffering a series of political blows, culminating in the loss in March of the mayorship in Istanbul, ending 15 years of rule by his AKP.

“This is a power play by Erdogan,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University, “as he (Erdogan) is facing challenges of new political parties by Gul and Davutoglu, as well as other challenges in and outside Turkey.

“I expect the other HDP mayors to be removed soon, that is another 11 mayors, I think,” Bagci added.

Bagci says he thinks Erdogan needs to explain his actions. “The government says the HDP is linked to terrorism, but the courts allowed the party and these mayors to participate in the elections only a few months ago.”

The HDP is calling on all political parties to take a stand. “All political parties and society should react to this coup against the will of the people,” Garo Paylan, an HDP parliamentary deputy, said on Twitter. “If you remain silent, then the next in line could be Ankara and Istanbul.”

In the aftermath of electoral setbacks, Erdogan is increasingly courting Turkish nationalists. The AKP’s parliamentary coalition partner, the national MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, welcomed Monday’s personnel action against the mayors.

In his early years of rule, Erdogan as prime minister had courted Kurdish voters, granting several concessions on language rights and initiating a peace process with the PKK that collapsed amid mutual recrimination in 2015.

“As he (Erdogan) uttered so many times, he really doesn’t understand why Kurds are still demanding,” said sociology professor Mesut Yegen of Istanbul’s Sehir University.

“He basically thinks all their problems have been solved. He is a man that really can’t understand the basics of the Kurdish question. But Kurdish people are really furious,” Yegen added.

There had been speculation that Erdogan was considering resuming peace talks with the PKK in a bid to rejuvenate his political fortunes. Several opinion polls indicate plummeting support for his AKP, and his presidency.

Earlier this month, imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan issued a statement through his lawyers in which he called for a restart of peace talks. Erdogan did not respond to Ocalan’s call.

The firing of the mayors is being interpreted as Erdogan committing his fortunes to courting Turkish nationalists, who vehemently oppose any peaceful resolution of the decades-long conflict with the PKK.

A further escalation in the conflict against the PKK is looming. Turkish forces are poised to launch a major offensive against the Syrian Kurdish militia the YPG, which Ankara accuses of being affiliated with the PKK.

The YPG is a close ally in Washington’s war against the Islamic State terror group. Earlier this month, in talks in Ankara, U.S. officials tentatively agreed to work together to address Turkish security concerns over the YPG. But many details of that cooperation remain unresolved.

Observers say the latest crackdown on the HDP indicates Erdogan remains determined to step up pressure both inside and outside Turkey on what he perceives as security threats.

Women, peace and security are on the agenda at a military conference in Ghana this week, where experts say deploying women into peacekeeping forces will make missions more effective and make civilian women feel safer in reporting abuses. 

Vida Nyekanga, a warrant officer in Ghana’s military, has been deployed for peacekeeping missions across Africa and in Lebanon. Being a woman, she says, gives her certain access to people and information her male counterparts might not have. 

Women felt more comfortable speaking to other women, she found, especially when they took part in their daily activities. 

“When we see the local women cooking, we try to join them to do the cooking,” Nyekanga said. “In the farms, we go to help them, and in the medical outreach we try to interact with them and we see them coming close, so through that we get vital information from them.”

Ghana is well known for its contributions to peacekeeping forces, and deploys large numbers of women in a field that generally has few. 

Currently, women make up 4.9 percent of global peacekeepers, but the United Nations has a target of 15 percent by 2028. 

At the first day of the Africa Endeavor 2019 conference, female military personnel from across the world gathered to discuss the roles men and women play in peacekeeping operations.

Studies show an increase in the number of female peacekeepers increases mission effectiveness and leads to a higher reporting of sexual- and gender-based violence, as well as lower levels of sexual exploitation and abuse.

Ghana Armed Forces Brigadier General Constance Edjeani-Afenu can attest to this.

“Women have specific roles to play in conflict areas where we have had cases of rape, sexual violence and stuff like that,” Edjeani-Afenu said. “We have women who, when they go on patrols, reach out to these women and they open up and are able to talk and they get help when they are supposed to get help.”

In recent years, there have been widespread allegations of peacekeepers sexually abusing civilians while stationed in African conflict zones. 

The United Nations has launched a project on improving peacekeepers’ performance and behavior, with a strong emphasis on leadership and accountability. 

A Virginia teen volunteering at the Alexandria National Cemetery three years ago noticed a rundown plot nearby where overgrown trees blocked the signed marking it as the Douglass Memorial Cemetery.
 
Sixteen-year-old Griffin Burchard says the cemetery named for abolitionist Frederick Douglass was covered in leaves and had signs of flooding. He soon got his Boy Scout troop, Troop 4077, to help restore the site.
 
They unveiled a new historic marker for the plot Thursday, timing the ceremony to coincide with the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans’ arrival in Virginia. It quotes Douglass: “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.”
 
Burchard led the monthslong restoration as his Eagle Scout project. Spurred by his efforts, the city got state money to determine how people are buried there.

Some schools reopened in Indian Kashmir’s summer capital, Srinagar, on Monday in an effort to ease the unprecedented two-week lockdown in the Himalayan region, but classrooms remained virtually empty as parents were fearful of sending children out.  

“We appeal to parents to send their children wherever schools have been reopened. Security is our responsibility,” Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Srinagar’s top administrative officer, had said.

The government had announced that classes would resume at nearly 200 elementary that were closed after Indian-controlled Kashmir was virtually shut down since it was stripped of its autonomous status and brought under New Delhi’s direct control.

Several residents, however, told reporters that with communication links still down, they preferred to keep children at home due to fears of unrest. “It is better that they first restore mobile phone networks; only then can our child go to school safely,” one parent told an Indian television network.

Some landlines have been restored in the Kashmir valley, but mobile phones and the internet are still cut off.  

Government offices reopened Monday and a smattering of traffic returned to the city’s heavily guarded streets. Some public buses are operating in rural areas and officials say they have begun to lift restrictions.  

 “It’s a step-by-step calibrated process, but the movement is certainly in the direction of further easing,” said Rohit Kansal, principal secretary in Srinagar, on Sunday.

But on the ground, the region continues to be largely shuttered. Markets are still closed and few people are venturing out of their homes amid reports of scattered protests in several parts of the city.

Authorities reimposed curbs in Srinagar on Sunday after reports of weekend clashes involving hundreds of residents and police in several neighborhoods.

Officials have given little information about the demonstrations that have taken place or the number of people who have been arrested since the strict security clampdown. India has defended the crackdown, saying it is necessary to avoid violence.

Hundreds of activists, politicians and separatist leaders are under arrest. The French news agency (AFP) has quoted an unidentified local official as saying that 4,000 people are in detention.

India’s dramatic move to end Kashmir’s autonomy has deepened tensions with its rival Pakistan, which has fiercely opposed the step in the disputed region that is split between the two but claimed by both.

New Delhi appeared to toughen its stand with Pakistan on Sunday with Defense Minister Rajnath Singh stating that there would be no talks with its rival until Pakistan clamped down on anti-India militant groups based in its territory. He also said any negotiations would only focus on Pakistani Kashmir.

India has defended its move to change Kashmir’s status saying it was necessary to integrate it with the rest of the country and end terrorism, but critics fear it could deepen resentment and anger in the region where a three-decade violent separatist insurgency has killed tens of thousands.

Kashmir has been a regional flashpoint for decades. India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, have fought wars over Kashmir since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.

The U.S. on Monday gave Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei another 90 days to buy supplies it needs from U.S. companies to build its electronic products, for the moment brushing aside concerns that Huawei was a U.S. national security risk.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told the Fox Business Network that the reprieve for Huawei would help U.S. customers, many of whom operate networks in rural America. Huawei spent $70 billion on component purchases in 2018, $11 billion of it from U.S. companies.

“We’re giving them a little more time to wean themselves off” sales to Huawei, Ross said.

At the same time as granting the delay in ending sales to Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, Ross added 46 Huawei affiliates to the Entity List, an economic blacklist covering restrictions on U.S. transactions with the Huawei-related ventures.

The 90-day extension on U.S. sales to Huawei extends to Nov. 19, giving it the ability to maintain existing telecommunication networks and offer software updates for electronic products it has already sold.

Ross dismissed concerns about what happens in three months, saying, “Everybody has had plenty of notice of it. There have been plenty of discussions” with President Donald Trump.

The U.S. first blocked Huawei from U.S. purchases earlier this year, part of the lengthy and so far unsuccessful trade negotiations between the U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest economies. But Trump, after an appeal from Chinese President Xi Jinping, eased the sanctions against Huawei, allowing continued limited sales.

Huawei is still blocked from buying American parts for new products without special U.S. licenses. Ross said more than 50 companies have sought waivers to sell to Huawei, but none has been granted.

The U.S. has claimed that Huawei’s smartphones and network equipment could be used to spy on Americans, an allegation the company has rejected.

“Technically, Huawei says they’re a privately owned company, ” Ross said, “but under Chinese law, even private companies are required to cooperate with the military and with the Chinese intelligence agencies, and they’re also required not to disclose that they are doing so.”

Even as his administration granted the reprieve on Huawei transactions, Trump said Sunday, “I don’t want to do business at all, because it is a national security threat.”

The U.S. has also alleged that Huawei is linked to foreign policy risks for the U.S.

As part of the blacklist designation against Huawei, the U.S. cited a pending federal criminal case accusing Huawei of violating the U.S. prohibition against business transactions with Iran. Huawei has pleaded not guilty in the case.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are commemorating the 30th anniversary of the “Pan-European Picnic,” an event on the border of Austria and Hungary considered to have helped lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Both leaders are expected to make speeches during a religious ceremony Monday in the border town of Sopron before holding bilateral talks over lunch.

Merkel on Saturday thanked Hungary for “having contributed to making the miracle of German reunification possible” by briefly opening the Iron Curtain on Aug. 19, 1989, allowing 700 refugees from Communist-ruled East Germany to cross the border into the West.

Relations between Berlin and Budapest have grown frostier in recent years amid Orban’s hard-line stance against refugees and German criticism of Hungary’s authoritarian policies.

Italy’s ruling League party would seek tax cuts in the 2020 budget by rising the country’s deficit a little bit, its economics spokesman said on Monday.

League chief Matteo Salvini pulled the plug last week on its coalition government with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, starting a potential countdown to elections, which the country may need to tackle alongside preparing its budget in the fall.

“We need to pursue a tax cut and it is obvious that a small proportion will be funded with the deficit”, League’s economics chief Claudio Borghi said in an interview with state-owned television RAI.

Thousands of protesters in Indonesia’s West Papua province have set fire to a local parliament building.

 Vice Gov. of West Papua province Mohammad Lakotani said Monday’s demonstration was sparked by accusations that security forces arrested and insulted dozens of Papuan students in the East Java province cities of Surabaya and Malang on Sunday.He said an angered mob set fire to tires and twigs in Manokwari, the provincial capital. Television footage showed orange flames and gray smoke billowing from the burning parliament building.

Several thousand protesters also staged rallies in Jayapura, the capital city of the neighboring province of Papua, where an insurgency has simmered for decades. Many in the crowd wore headbands of a separatist flag.

Violence was largely averted in Portland, Oregon, where police established concrete barriers, closed streets and bridges, and seized a multitude of weapons to preempt clashes between right-wing groups and anti-fascist counterprotesters. on Saturday. But at least 13 people were arrested and the protesters vowed to return to the West Coast city

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he has spoken with Apple Inc’s Chief Executive Tim Cook about the impact of U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports as well as competition from South Korean company Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Trump said Cook “made a good case” that tariffs could hurt Apple given that Samsung’s products would not be subject to those same tariffs. Tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, including consumer electronics, are scheduled to go into effect in two stages on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15.

“I thought he made a very compelling argument, so I’m thinking about it,” Trump said.

Trump made the comments while speaking with reporters on the Tarmac at the Morristown, New Jersey, airport.

Apple was not immediately available for comment outside normal business hours.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would likely wait until after Israel’s Sept. 17 elections to release a peace plan for the region that was designed by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is the main architect of a proposed $50 billion economic development plan for the Palestinians, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon that is designed to create peace in the region. 

Thousands of people were left homeless when a fire raged through a slum in Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka.

“According to our investigation committee 1,200 shanties were damaged and out of this 750 shanties burnt totally,” said Enamur Rahman, junior minister for Disaster Management and Relief on Sunday.

The official count put the number rendered homeless at 3,000, but most media reports said at least 10,000 were left without shelter and some even put the count as high as 50,000.

Officials said four people were injured in the fire but luckily there were no fatalities since most people were away celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

As the government tries to find a more sustainable solution for those who lost their homes, it is also trying to address immediate needs.

“We are providing them with food, water, mobile toilets and electricity supply,” municipal official Shafiul Azam told The Guardian.

Fires at factories, slums and markets are common in Bangladesh.

At least 25 people were killed in March this year when fire broke out in a 22-story commercial building in Dhaka’s upscale area of Banani.

 

Secret British government documents have warned of serious disruptions across the country in the event that the U.K. leaves the European Union without a trade deal on Oct. 31, according to a report.

The Sunday Times newspaper published what it said was what the British government expects in the case of a sudden, “no-deal” Brexit. Among the most serious: “significant” disruptions to the supply of drugs and medicine, a decrease in the availability of fresh food and even potential fresh water shortages due to possible interruptions of imported water treatment chemicals.

Although the grim scenarios reportedly outlined in the government documents have long been floated by academics and economists, they’ve been repeatedly dismissed as scaremongering by Brexit proponents.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he is ready to leave the EU regardless of whether he is able to renegotiate the Brexit deal struck with Brussels by his predecessor, Theresa May.

His own officials, however, have warned that with a no-deal Brexit, the sharing of law enforcement data and the health of Britain’s crucial financial services industry could be in jeopardy after Oct. 31.

The documents published by the Times also quote officials as warning that up to 85% of all trucks wouldn’t be ready for French customs at the critical English Channel crossing that day, causing lines that could stretch out for days. Some 75% of all drugs coming into Britain arrive via that crossing, the memos warned, “making them particularly vulnerable to severe delays.”

The officials foresee “critical elements” of the food supply chain being affected that would “reduce availability and choice and increase the price, which will affect vulnerable groups.”

Britain’s Cabinet Office didn’t return a message seeking comment on the documents, but Michael Gove, the British minister in charge of no-deal preparations, insisted that the files represented a “worst case scenario.”

Very “significant steps have been taken in the last 3 weeks to accelerate Brexit planning,” he said in a message posted to Twitter.

But the documents, which are titled “planning assumptions,” mention a “base scenario,” not a “worst case” one. The Times quoted an unnamed Cabinet Office source as saying the memos were simply realistic assessments of what was most likely to happen.

The opposition Labour Party, which is trying to delay Brexit and organize a government of national unity, held up the report as another sign that no-deal must be avoided.

“It seems to me is what we’ve seen is a hard-headed assessment of reality, that sets out in really stark terms what a calamitous outcome of no-deal Brexit would mean for the United Kingdom,” lawmaker Nick Thomas-Symonds told Sky News television. “The government is reckless in the way it’s been pushing forward with no-deal planning in this way.”

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said the country is ready for Brexit, even without a deal to smooth the transition.

Merkel said Sunday during an open house at the chancellery in Berlin that she would “try everything in my power to find solutions” and that “I believe that it would be better to leave with an agreement than without one.”

But she added that “should it come to that we are prepared for this eventuality too.”

Last week, militants affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terror group stormed into a Christian village in northern Mozambique, burning houses and forcing residents to flee their homes, local reports said.

A few days before that, militants entered another village in the same province, torching houses throughout the region.

IS has claimed responsibility for both attacks via its social media outlets.

The recent attacks in the southeast African country signals a growing presence of IS militants who have carried out similar attacks against the military and local residents in the Muslim-majority northern part of Mozambique.

“We were no longer safe in the village,” said Mariamo Assy, a resident of Ntuleni village in Cabo Delgado, who was displaced due to last week’s violence.

She told VOA that they sought refuge in a nearby village to avoid getting caught up in the militants’ onslaught.

North Mozambique

Since 2017, such attacks in northern Mozambique have increased, killing more than 200 people and wounding hundreds more, local sources said. Militants also have burned or destroyed over 1,000 homes over the past two years.

Experts say that economic grievances, which have particularly increased in recent months following tropical cyclones that have struck Mozambique, have made many young Mozambicans more prone to terrorism and criminal activities.

The U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says the situation in the northern part of the country, especially in the Cabo Delgado province, “has been deteriorating at a rapid pace.”

“Terrorist and organized crime groups are taking advantage of the precarious situation for their illicit trade or recruit locals who are desperate to compensate for their losses,” Cesar Guedes, the UNODC Representative in Mozambique, said in a statement in July.

Several radical militant groups have been active in Cabo Delgado in recent years. One of such group is Ansar al-Sunna, which has been responsible for dozens of terror attacks against civilians and government forces in northern Mozambique.

The group is known locally as al-Shabab and also goes by Ahlu al-Sunna and Swahili Sunna.

With suspected links to IS, little is known about Ansar al-Sunna and its political objectives.

“Usually groups such IS, Al Shabab [in Somalia] and others have a clear purpose, but in the case of Cabo Delgado, we don’t know what these militants are fighting for,” said Liazzat Bonate, a Mozambican lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago.

However, she added that ill-treatment by local authorities in northern Mozambique has led many young Muslims to pick up arms against government forces.

There is a “narrative of suffering [from government policies] among the rural population there and some groups have resorted to armed violence as a response,” Bonate told VOA.

IS expansion

After losing all the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, IS seems to be shifting its strategy and focusing on local militant groups in Africa and elsewhere that have pledged allegiance to the terror group.

IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared in a video in April, encouraging his followers to wage attacks on behalf of IS throughout the world. He referenced IS affiliates that have been active in several African countries.

“There is absolutely a link between ISIS’s territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria and the rising threats in Mozambique and elsewhere,” said Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center in New York, using another acronym for IS.

IS “is expanding as a way of hedging its bets, seeking to build redundant and resilient networks in areas where the group previously did not maintain a presence. Mozambique is one example,” he told VOA.

Regional spillover

Violent attacks carried out by radical militant groups in Mozambique could have an impact on neighboring countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, which have their own struggles with terrorist groups in recent years, some experts warn.

“I’d be particularly concerned about IS in Mozambique making inroads or connections to jihadists in Kenya, especially as IS might look to poach fighters from al-Shabab,” said analyst Clarke.

And “if [what’s happening in northern Mozambique] is in fact jihadism, then it could take years to fight them, because these militants can get financial support from [jihadist networks] to continue the fight,” Bonate said.

U.S. stance

U.S. officials also have acknowledged that Mozambique has been facing challenges in dealing with violent extremism in the northern part of the country.

“The United States and other regional and international partners have been engaged in helping the government develop a holistic security, community engagement and communication approach,” Stephanie Amadeo, director of the Office of Southern African Affairs at the U.S. State Department, said in June during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

“The goal for this approach is to address governance and development issues and provide increased training to build the capabilities of Mozambican security forces,” she added.

But analyst Clarke says “the U.S. seems to be reducing its military footprint in Africa even as [the U.S. military is] highlighting the threat to the continent posed by jihadist groups.”

“A pivot toward great power competition will inevitably mean that the U.S. will have fewer resources to dedicate to the counter-terrorism mission in Africa,” he said.

“This could lead to a resurgence of jihadist violence in sub-Saharan Africa which will have destabilizing effects in already weak states,” Clarke added.

Authorities in Gibraltar on Sunday rejected the United States’ latest request not to release a seized Iranian supertanker, clearing the way for the vessel to set sail after being detained last month for allegedly attempting to breach European Union sanctions on Syria.

The ship was expected to leave Sunday night, according to a statement on Twitter by Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran’s ambassador to Britain.
 
The tanker’s release comes amid a growing confrontation between Iran and the West after President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers over a year ago.
 
Shortly after the tanker’s detention in early July near Gibraltar — a British overseas territory  — Iran seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero, which remains held by the Islamic Republic. Analysts had said the Iranian ship’s release by Gibraltar could see the Stena Impero go free.
 
Gibraltar’s government said Sunday it was allowing the Iranian tanker’s release because “The EU sanctions regime against Iran  — which is applicable in Gibraltar  — is much narrower than that applicable in the US.”

In a last-ditch effort to stop the release, the U.S. unsealed a warrant Friday to seize the vessel and its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of light crude oil, citing violations of U.S. sanctions as well as money laundering and terrorism statutes.
 
U.S. officials told reporters that the oil aboard the ship was worth some $130 million and that it was destined for a designated terror organization to conduct more terrorism.
 
The unsealed court documents argued that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are the ship’s true owners through a network of front companies.
 
Authorities in Gibraltar said Sunday that, unlike in the U.S., the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is not designated a terrorist organization under EU, U.K. or Gibraltar law.
 
The Iranian ship was detained while sailing under a Panamanian flag with the name Grace 1. As of Sunday, it had been renamed the Adrian Darya 1 and had hoisted an Iranian flag. Workers were seen painting the new name on the side of the ship Saturday.
 
Iran has not disclosed the Adrian Darya 1’s intended destination and has denied it was ever sailing for Syria.
 
The chief minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, said he had been assured in writing by the Iranian government that the tanker wouldn’t unload its cargo in Syria.
 
Baeidinejad, Iran’s ambassador to Britain, said in a series of tweets that “round-the-clock efforts to carry out port formalities and deploy the full crew onto the ship” had taken place since Gibraltar lifted the vessel’s detention Thursday.
 
The Astralship shipping agency in Gibraltar, which has been hired to handle paperwork and arrange logistics for the Adrian Darya 1, had told The Associated Press that a new crew of Indian and Ukrainian nationals were replacing the sailors on board.
 
Astralship managing director Richard De la Rosa said his company had not been informed about the vessel’s next destination.
 
Messages seeking comment from the Iranian Embassy in London were not immediately returned.