ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday he wanted grain from Russia to be exported too, adding Vladimir Putin was right to complain that grain from Ukraine under a UN-backed deal was going to wealthy rather than poor countries.

The grain export agreement aimed to avert a global food crisis by guaranteeing the safe passage of ships in and out of Ukrainian ports, allowing them to export tens of millions of tons of grain that had been blockaded by Russia’s operations.

WASHINGTON: Dozens of international human rights campaigners and legal experts have sent an open letter to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo urging him not to release Iranian former diplomat Assadollah Assadi from prison as part of a recently signed prisoner-exchange treaty with Iran.

A Belgian court convicted Assadi in 2021 of providing explosives to a Belgian-Iranian couple and plotting a foiled terrorist attack on a political event hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris in 2018. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

JERUSALEM: Israel has recalled its top envoy to Morocco amid an internal investigation, a diplomatic source said on Thursday, amid media reports that it was tied to allegations of sexual misconduct.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Monday that a Foreign Ministry delegation had been dispatched to Rabat, following sexual abuse allegations against envoy David Govrin.

An Israeli diplomatic source confirmed that Govrin had been recalled while an investigation gets underway, without detailing the nature of the probe.

QAMISHLI, Syria: The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said two of their fighters were killed and six extremists arrested Thursday following clashes in a volatile Syria camp where a security operation is underway.

“Two of our fighters have succumbed to their wounds following clashes” with Daesh militants in the Al-Hol camp on Wednesday night, the SDF said.

“Two women and five men masquerading as women,” were involved in the attack on SDF fighters in the camp, the force said.

SERRES, Greece: Nearly 120 migrants from the Yazidi minority have been blocked from entering a migrant camp in northern Greece, forcing them to sleep outside for two weeks, members of the group told AFP.

The Yazidi are a Kurdish-speaking minority in Iraq who fled in the thousands as the Daesh group advanced into the country from Syria in 2014.

Hundreds have sought shelter in Greece, which until recently had dozens of camps housing asylum seekers around the country.

But authorities have been shutting most of them down after protests from local communities.