Europe

President Tayyip Erdogan accused Europe's top rights court of hypocrisy on Wednesday for calling on Turkey to release a jailed Kurdish politician, saying it was defending a "terrorist," a stance rejected by his defenders as a cover to stifle democracy.

EU leaders meeting on Thursday and Friday should abide by their previous decisions and "send a clear message" to Turkey, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday, referring to the conclusions of the European Council in October.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Friday that Turkey should face consequences if it continues its "provocative actions" against Greece.

Speaking at the online Lisbon Web Summit on Friday, he said that issues between Greece and Turkey concern Europe and NATO as well, as they affect the entire Eastern Mediterranean region.

Turkey has been engaging in a public diplomacy campaign in a bid to avoid European sanctions over its behavior in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece must not take comfort in the righteousness of its cause. 

Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu had a telephone conversation on Wednesday with Kenyan counterpart Raychelle Omamo, at the request of the Kenyan side, a release of the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) informs.

The unexpected move would mean giving up the ability to rule by decree without a time limit — part of a controversial "coronavirus bill" that opponents said also threatened to stifle media independence.

Support in the Moldovan parliament for Prime Minister Ion Chicu's coalition government is slipping away, as the Socialist Party, PSRM, and its Democratic Party, PD, allies now only hold 54 of the 101 seats in the legislature - a majority of three.

Emblazoned with Turkish flags and presidential seals, crates packed with medical equipment are loaded onto planes, part of a major aid campaign by Ankara which has dispatched supplies to dozens of countries since the new coronavirus pandemic erupted.

"As pandemic spreads, rival powers deploy soft power and aid to advance its foreign policy goals", British "The Guardian" reports in an article entitled "Coronavirus diplomacy: how Russia, China and EU vie to win over Serbia".

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has signalled new threats to the mass media sector in Romania and sent the Romanian authorities a protest letter against the mechanism that will place the public employees on furlough for a temporary period, namely during the state of emergency generated by the COVID-19 outbreak.