ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish party should back the main opposition candidate instead of fielding its own against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May elections, its elder statesman told AFP from jail.

“I am in favor of backing a joint candidate” Selahattin Demirtas, who ran against Erdogan twice, told AFP through a lawyer from his jail in the western city of Edirne.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party or HDP — parliament’s third-largest — faces the threat of being banned ahead of polls in which Erdogan will seek to extend his rule into a third decade.

RAQQA: Syrian Kurdish-led forces captured a local commander of Daesh in eastern Syria as part of an ongoing operation targeting sleeper cells in the city of Raqqa, the US-backed forces announced on Thursday.

The commander served as the chief of the extremist group’s faction for Raqqa and was among the 68 militants detained in the operation, the Syrian Democratic Forces said.

The operation started earlier this week, in response to a December attack by Daesh that targeted military and security buildings in Raqqa and killed at least six Syrian Kurdish fighters. 

DUBAI: The first Arab long-duration astronaut mission is scheduled to launch on Feb. 26, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center has announced.
A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket will carry UAE astronaut and mission specialist Sultan Al-Neyadi, along with two NASA astronauts — mission commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren Hoburg — and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
Key mission information, such as the launch time and launch opportunities, was announced during the NASA Crew-6 mission overview media briefing, Emirates News Agency reported on Thursday.

CAIRO: Egypt’s most renowned archaeologist has announced the discovery of dozens of new finds, including two ancient tombs, at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside Cairo.

Zahi Hawass, a former government minister and director of the excavation, said the finds in Saqqara, close to the pyramids of Giza, dated back to the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties of the Old Kingdom, which ran from about 2500-2100 B.C.

LONDON: Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Wednesday met with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad in Doha to discuss bilateral relations and prospects for expanding political, economic, and investment cooperation.

“King Abdullah and Sheikh Tamim stressed the importance of maintaining consultation and coordination between the two countries on issues of mutual concern and in service of Arab causes and regional stability and cooperation,” Jordanian state news agency Petra reported, citing a royal court statement.