Reuters, Kabul
The Taliban warned on Friday against sending more Western troops to Afghanistan, while pledging that it sought only independence under Islamic rule and rejecting concerns it would harbor foreign militants. In a statement marking Eid al-Fitr, the festival at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada combined defiant calls for the United States to get out of Afghanistan with more conciliatory messages.
Kazakhstan denies it’s in talks to send troops to Syria
Reuters, Astana
Kazakhstan is not conducting negotiations on sending peacekeeping troops to Syria and would only despatch troops there under a United Nations mandate, the Kazakh foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.
On Thursday, Russia’s RIA news agency had quoted the head of the defense committee in the lower house of Russia’s parliament as saying that proposals were being drafted for troops from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to join a Russian-led peacekeeping operation in Syria.
Xi visit to HK confirmed
AFP, Hong Kong
President Xi Jinping will come to Hong Kong next week to mark 20 years since the city was handed back to China by Britain, local media said, in a visit that will be incendiary to activists. Although widely expected, officials have not so far said whether Xi will make the trip, his first to Hong Kong since becoming president in 2013..
UK safety operation underway after London fire
AP, London
British authorities are studying samples of similar to that used on the west London apartment building that caught fire, killing at least 79 people. Eleven buildings have now been identified as having combustible cladding such as that used on the Grenfell Tower.
