European Union

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had secured a pledge from Russia to provide comprehensive assistance if needed to ensure the security of his country in a phone call with President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15.   

Turkey rescued 26 asylum seekers who were pushed back by the Greek Coast Guard into Turkish territorial waters in the Aegean, security sources said on Aug. 15. 

They were rescued from a dinghy off the coast of Foça district in Turkey's western İzmir province, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Turkish security forces "neutralized" at least nine PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, the Defense Ministry announced on Aug. 15.

Three of the terrorists were neutralized in air-backed operations in Haftanin, and another six terrorists in the Zap and Avasin regions, the ministry said on Twitter.

Turkey is fully focused on protecting its rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya, and the Aegean, the nation's president said on Aug. 15.

Turkey is also focused on stopping terrorist groups in Syria and northern Iraq, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in Rize on the Turkish Black Sea, speaking to the public and local members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

A big fire at a plastics factory in the northern Athens suburb of Metamorfossi has shut down the highway to Thessaloniki, as well as the Attiki Odos ring road, near its junction with the highway.

Early in the afternoon, the direction to the north was opened to traffic.

Tolls on the Attiki Odos open segment to the airport are free.

During an EU teleconference of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) on Friday, Greece and Germany disagreed on the content of the statement officials had planned to issue after the talks, according to diplomatic sources.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias told Friday's emergency meeting of the European Union Council of Foreign Affairs that Turkey is the only one to blame for the escalation of tension in the Eastern Mediterranean and must leave the Greek continental shelf immediately.

European Union foreign ministers were holding urgent talks Friday on military tensions between Greece and Turkey as the neighboring countries' navies continued a game of brinkmanship over eastern Mediterranean drilling rights.

The speed and path of the economic recovery are uncertain, conditional on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated restrictive measures, as well as on the economy's response to fiscal and monetary stimuli, according to the minutes of a monetary policy meeting of the board of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) of August 5, 2020.

European Union foreign ministers prepared Friday for urgent talks on military tensions between Greece and Turkey as the neighboring countries' navies continued a game of brinkmanship over eastern Mediterranean drilling rights.