Italiy is to host a meeting in Rome next month of nations that are united against the IS group, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni has said.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said yesterday that Italy would not join the U.S.-led coalition in attacking IS targets in Syria.
Cavusoglu Says Turkey Has Duty To Protects Its Soldiers In Iraq
Turkey has said that it has a duty to protect its soldiers around the IS-controlled Iraqi city of Mosul and that they were there on a training mission, Reuters reports.
Iraq yesterday threatened to go to the United Nations if Turkey fails to withdraw its forces, which it sent last week to a camp in the Bashiqa region of northern Iraq.
Baghdad says the move was made without consultation. But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the Iraqi government had made repeated requests for more active Turkish support against IS.
"It is our duty to provide security for our soldiers providing training there," Reuters quoted Cavusoglu as saying in an interview on Turkey's Kanal 24 television.
"Everybody is present in Iraq ... The goal of all of them is clear. Train-and-equip advisory support is being provided. Our presence there is not a secret," he added.
Turkey has pulled 350 troops back from the Turkey-Iraq border, Turkish daily Hurriyet is reporting.
Iraq threatened yesterday that it would go to the United Nations if Ankara did not withdraw soldiers it sent to areas near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
The 350 troops are waiting on the border and will be sent to Iraq if Ankara and Baghdad come to an agreement on the matter, Hurriyet reports.
The suspect in a purported terrorist stabbing in a London subway station had "IS images on his phone," a court in London has heard, according to AFP.
Muhaydin Mire, 29, of Leytonstone, is appearing in custody at Westminster Magistrates Court today accused of the attempted murder of a 56-year-old man on Saturday.
A terror suspect who allegedly stabbed a 56-year-old man in a London subway station on December 5 has been remanded in custody this morning, the Courtnews.co.uk website reports.
Muhaydin Mire, 29, has been charged with attempted murder.
Tensions with Russia could cost the Turkish economy $9 billion in the worst case scenario of "zero relations," Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simset told the private NTV television station today.
The current tensions are likely to cut 0.3 to 0.4 percent off Turkey's gross domestic product (GDP), Simset said, according to AFP.
Russia has imposed economic sanctions on Turkey in the wake of the November 24 downing by Turkish F-16s of a Russian war plane near the Syrian border.
Iraqi PM: Most Oil Smuggled By IS Groes Through Turkey
Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said that most oil smuggled by the IS group goes through Turkey.
Abadi stressed the "importance of stopping oil smuggling by (IS) terrorist gangs, the majority of which is smuggled through Turkey," a statement from his office said, according to AFP.
Russia and Iran have accused Turkey of involvement in IS oil smuggling while the United States has said that IS oil smugging through Turkey is not significant.
Turkey has summoned Russia's ambassador in Ankara following an incident on Sunday in which a Russian war ship sailed through the Bosphorus Strait with a soldier allegedly holding a rocket launcher on his shoulder, the CNN Turk news station reports.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called the incident "openly provocative."
The Bosphorus is a major sea access route for Russia's Black Sea fleet. Turkey's Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said Sunday that the Russian serviceman holding a surface-to-air missile launcher on the warship had violated the 1936 Montreux Convention regulating the transit of naval vessels through the Bosphorus.
Relations between Moscow and Ankara have deteriorated since the November 24 downing by Turkey of a Russian jet near the Syrian border.
'People Join IS Out Of Hunger'
A Syrian who fled with his family to Turkey from IS's de facto capital, Raqqa, has told CNN that daily life in the Syrian city had become unbearable.
"You can count the number of doctors on one hand and they only service IS. Every day hundreds gather for free food hand outs. It's not a lot. You stand there being humiliated trying to get something to eat," Suleiman, a former teacher, said.
"IS gives anything for free to people who join them. The rest of us get nothing. There is no food, electricity or money. The people join IS out of hunger"
Russia's TASS news agency has been given a copy of an anti-IS recruitment brochure designed by the CIS Antiterrorism Center and Russia's Civic Chamber to help parents and teachers.
The brochure includes indicators that are intended to help parents realize that their children have been influenced by IS recruiters.
The indicators include "enthusiasm for religious literature" and "using Arabic words and Islamic terminology."
Russian is the "third most popular among recriuters" and "terrorists believe that Russia is a good prospect for recruiting youth," according to Elena Sutormina, who leads the Civic Chamber's "Opposing IS Recruitment in Russia" project.
The CIS Antiterrorism Center and the Civic Chamber also spoke to TASS about its new monitoring program to detect IS recruitment websites, named Laplace's Demon.