Tag: InternationalNews

{Nine-nation meeting in Switzerland fails to agree on any concrete action to stop the violence in Syria.}

A new round of diplomatic talks has failed once again to break a tense deadlock on how to end fighting in Syria, as a nine-nation meeting in the Swiss city of Lausanne did not agree on any concrete action to stop the violence.

With clashes still raging in Aleppo, Saturday’s talks, convened by US Secretary of State John Kerry, concluded after more than four hours without any joint statement from the participating countries.

Kerry was seeking a new path to peace after failing to secure a ceasefire in direct talks with Russia amid increasing international outrage over the Russian and Syrian bombardment of Aleppo’s rebel-held east.

Kerry hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and seven foreign ministers from the region, as well as top diplomats from the United Nations, only weeks after the collapse of a US-Russia brokered truce.

After the meeting, Kerry told reporters that the talks were “constructive”, but admitted that the parties had failed to agree on any concrete action.

He also said the next contact between sides at the talks would be on Monday to discuss future steps.

Lavrov, on the other hand, told Russian news agencies that the countries discussed several “interesting ideas”.

“I think Lavrov and Kerry were trying to put a brave face on what happened here,” Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from Lausanne, said.

“They came to the table again to sort out the situation in morthern Syria, particularly the bombardment of Aleppo, and once again diplomacy failed the people of Aleppo.

“No breakthrough, no concrete developments at all from these talks.”

Ahead of the talks, Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN ambassador, said that a key aim of the Lausanne meeting was to get countries that support “moderate” opposition groups to use their influence to work for a new ceasefire.

Kerry and Lavrov were joined in Lausanne by Staffan de Mistura, the UN Syria envoy, along with the top diplomats of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – all backers of Syrian opposition forces.

Iran, a key supporter of the Syrian government, also sent its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to take part in the talks.

London meeting

European countries were not represented at the meeting, which was held in a luxury hotel on Lake Geneva.

But French officials confirmed that foreign ministers of like-minded nations planned to meet Kerry in London on Sunday to discuss the Syria crisis.

Al Jazeera’s Bays said ministers from the UK, France and Germany are expected to discuss what happened in Lausanne, but also “talk about some wider issues”.

“The UK and France have been discussing military options. We know that the US under President Obama are reluctant to look at the military option,” our correspondent said.

“We know France has been pushing for a war crimes investigation in to Syrian government and Russia’s aerial bombardment – those things will now be discussed in London.”

{{Aleppo bombardment}}

Several major international efforts have failed to secure a political solution to Syria’s brutal war, which has cost more than 400,000 lives since 2011.

Russia and the US reached a ceasefire agreement last month, before it quickly collapsed amid a Moscow-backed Syrian assault on the rebel-held part of Aleppo.

The offensive has prompted accusations of potential war crimes from Western countries.

More than 370 people, including nearly 70 children, have been killed in Syrian government and Russian bombardment of east Aleppo since September 22, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Before Saturday’s talks were set to begin, dozens of overnight air strikes struck east Aleppo, the SOHR said on Friday.

Three hospitals in Aleppo were hit by suspected Russian air strikes on Friday, killing seven people, Al Jazeera has learned.

The latest bombardment has prompted four leading charities to call for a ceasefire in Aleppo.

The nongovernmental organisations issued on Saturday a joint plea “to establish a ceasefire of at least 72 hours in east Aleppo”, where an estimated 250,000 people are living under bombardment siege.

“This will allow the sick and wounded to be evacuated, and for food and medical aid to enter the besieged area,” said a statement from one of the charities, Save the Children.

{Three attacks rock areas north of Baghdad, including an ISIL-claimed bombing targeting Shia mourners at a funeral tent.}

A series of attacks has killed at least 47 people in Iraq, including a suicide bombing claimed by ISIL that was the deadliest to hit the capital Baghdad in months.

In Saturday’s most violent attack, a suicide bomber targeted a funeral gathering in northern Baghdad, killing at least 35 people and wounding 63, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.

A witness told The Associated Press news agency that the bomber entered the funeral tent and blew himself up as lunch was being served.

Blood stained the ground at the scene of the attack, which was littered with the remains of plastic chairs.

ISIL, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIS, issued later an online statement claiming the attack, saying it had been carried out by a man who detonated an explosive vest.

ISIL frequently carries out suicide bombings targeting Iraq’s Shia majority, whom it considers heretics.

The attack was the deadliest to hit the Iraqi capital since early July, when a suicide bombing in central Baghdad sparked fires in a crowded shopping area, killing more than 300 people.

Also on Saturday, armed men attacked two other areas north of Baghdad, killing a further 12 people, according to police.

In Malha, an area east of the city of Tikrit, suicide bombers attacked a federal police position, killing eight and wounding 11, officers said.

And in the Ishaqi area south of Samarra, two armed men shot dead the wife and the three children of the commander of local tribal forces, before fleeing and blowing themselves up when they were cornered by Iraqi troops.

ISIL has previously increased attacks inside government-held territory far from the front lines after suffering territorial losses on the battlefield.

An attack on October 9 killed at least five people, while two more earlier in the month left at least 10 dead.

On Friday, the ISIL crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul led by one of its commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the city to Iraqi forces.

ISIL executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week.

Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in Mosul that have phone services, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.

The latest attacks come as Iraqi forces prepare for an offensive in northern Iraq to retake Mosul from ISIL.

Iraqi officials say a massive ground assaultcould begin this month, backed by US air power, Kurdish security forces and Shia and Sunni irregular units.

The United Nations says the operation could create the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, in a worst case scenario uprooting up to one million people.

{October 8 air strike, which killed more than 140 people in Sanaa, was based on incorrect information, says inquiry team.}

The Arab coalition battling Houthi fighters in Yemen has admitted one of its warplanes had “wrongly targeted” a funeral in Sanaa that killed more than 140 people, and announced disciplinary proceedings.

The October 8 strike in the Yemeni capital prompted an international outcry and strong criticism even from Saudi Arabia’s closest Western allies.

“Because of non-compliance with coalition rules of engagement and procedures, and the issuing of incorrect information, a coalition aircraft wrongly targeted the location, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries,” said an inquiry team of the Arab coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia.

“Appropriate action … must be taken against those who caused the incident, and … compensation must be offered to the families of the victims.”

The UN released a statement saying the organisation’s humanitarian coordinator, as well as the community of nongovernmental organisations in Yemen, were outraged and shocked by the strikes.

{{Funeral reception}}

In addition to the more than 140 deaths, more than 500 people were wounded in the strikes on the funeral reception for the father of Brigadier Jalal al-Ruweishan, interior minister in the self-proclaimed Houthi-led government.

Hundreds of mourners had gathered in the grand hall of ceremonies on al-Khamseen Street to take part in the ceremony.

The death toll was one of the largest in any single incident since the Arab coalition began military operations to try to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power following his removal by the Houthis in March 2015.

The Arab coalition initially denied that it was responsible for the strikes.

“Absolutely no such operation took place at that target,” a source within in the coalition told Reuters news agency on the day of the attack.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said the coalition’s admission could jeopardise the peace process and put more pressure on Saudi Arabia.

Ruweishan had sided with the Houthi group when Hadi fled Yemen after the Iran-allied fighters advanced on his headquarters in the southern port city of Aden in March 2015.

The Arab coalition has been providing air support for Hadi’s forces in a civil war that has killed an estimated 6,700 people since March 2015 and displaced more than three million.

{{Intense fighting}}

Fighting has intensified since August when UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait ended without an agreement.

The Arab coalition had been blamed for several attacks on medical centres, including some run by international aid group, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), schools, factories and homes in the past 18 months that have killed scores of civilians.

In August, MSF said it was evacuating its staff from six hospitals in northern Yemen after a coalition air strike hit a health facility operated by the group, killing 19 people.

The coalition, which says it does not target civilians, has expressed deep regret over the decision and said it was trying to set up “urgent meetings” with the medical aid group.

The coalition’s admission came a day after Britain announced it was planning to put forward a draft Security Council resolution calling for an immediate truce in Yemen and a resumption of peace talks.

The 15-member body this week failed to agree on a statement condemning the October 8 air strike. Russia dismissed the statement as too vague and diplomats said Russia refused to engage any further on it.

Security Council statements must be approved by consensus.

{Dozens dead as bomber detonates explosive vest inside tent where Shia faithful were commemorating day of Ashura.}

A suicide bombing targeting a funeral gathering in northern Baghdad killed at least 35 people and left another 63 wounded, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.

The attack occurred at around lunchtime, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group frequently carries out suicide bombings targeting members of Iraq’s Shia majority, whom it considers heretics.

In the past the ISIL group has increased attacks inside government-held territory far from the front lines after suffering territorial losses on the battlefield, including one on October 9 that killed at least five people, and two more earlier in the month that left at least 10 dead.

Iraq has seen several bombings in recent months, though most have had lower death tolls than Saturday’s attack.

In July, a massive car bomb in central Baghdad’s popular shopping district of Karradah killed about 300 people and forced the resignation of the country’s interior minister.
On Friday, the ISIL crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul led by one of its commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the city to Iraqi forces.

ISIL executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week.

Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in Mosul that have phone services, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.

Iraqi officials say a massive ground assaultcould begin this month, backed by US air power, Kurdish security forces and Shia and Sunni irregular units.

The United Nations says the operation could create the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, in a worst case scenario uprooting up to one million people.

{At least 24 people die in a stampede at a religious gathering on the outskirts of the northern Indian city of Varanasi.}

At least 24 people have been killed and dozens injured in a stampede at a Hindu religious ceremony in northern India, according to police.

Saturday’s crush happened on the outskirts of Varanasi, a city in Uttar Pradesh state known for its temples, as people tried to cross a crowded bridge over the Ganges river.

Police officer S.K. Bhagat said that organisers were expecting 3,000 Hindu devotees at the ceremony, but that more than 70,000 thronged the ashram of a local Hindu religious leader, Jai Baba Gurudev, on the banks of the Ganges River.

Millions of Hindus go to Varanasi every year to pray and wash away their sins by taking a dip in the river.

“We were not prepared for such a large crowd,” Raj Bahadur, a spokesman for the organisers, told the AP news agency.

The stampede occurred as police started turning back people from the overcrowded Rajgahard bridge, the Press Trust of India news agency cited Bahadur as saying.

That triggered a rumour among the devotees that the bridge had collapsed, and they started running for safety, he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was deeply saddened by the tragedy. “I have spoken to officials and asked them to ensure all possible help to those affected,” he tweeted.

Two police officers at the scene of the stampede said that officials were now struggling to deter pilgrims from entering a religious site near the bridge.

“We are deploying over 100 police officers to control the crowd. People are in a state of panic,” Ravi Tyagi, a police officer, told Reuters news agency.

Ravindra Sharma, who was injured in the stampede, said his teenage daughter was missing and the authorities were unable to trace her.

“We came to seek the blessings of our god, only god can help me find her,” he said.

Deadly stampedes are fairly common during Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas with few safety or crowd control measures.

In October 2013, a stampede in Madhya Pradesh state in central India killed more than 110 people, mostly women and children.

{Palestinian leaders reject Israeli criticism and urge UNESCO chief to implement will of cultural body’s member states.}

Palestinian leaders have rejected Israeli criticism over a UNESCO draft resolution that condemned Israel’s policies around al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while supposedly denying Jewish ties to the holy site in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel suspended cooperation with UNESCO on Friday, a day after the UN cultural body criticised it for restricting Muslim access to the site, and for aggression by Israeli police and soldiers. UNESCO also recognised Israel as the occupying power.

In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, the Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs said it welcomed the adoption of the resolution that reflected “the majority of member states commitment to confront [the Israeli] impunity and uphold the principles upon which the UNESCO was founded”.

The statement added: “Rather than spending millions to spin the illegal colonisation into normalcy and distort reality, Israel, the occupying power, must understand that the only way to be treated like a normal state, is if starts acting like one, by ending its occupation of Palestine and seizing its irresponsible and illegal actions in the occupied land of the state of Palestine especially East Jerusalem.”

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki also criticised Irina Bokova, UNESCO director-general, after she distanced herself from Thursday’s vote.

“The heritage of Jerusalem is indivisible, and each of its communities has a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city,” she said in a statement.

Jerusalem’s Old City was designated a World Heritage site because of its “universal value … which is an appeal for dialogue, not confrontation”, Bokova said.

In response, Maliki said Bokova had “outstepped the scope of her mandate” and described her declaration as “completely unacceptable”.

“The Palestinian government expects Ms. Bokova to focus her efforts on implementing the will of member states and preserving Jerusalem from the Israeli systematic colonisation and assault on its Palestinian character,” said Maliki.

Israel and the US denounced the UNESCO resolution, which was submitted by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan – and passed with 24 votes in favour, six against, and 26 abstentions.

Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the UK and the US voted against the resolution, while China, Russia, Mexico, South Africa and Pakistan among others voted in favour.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said in a statement on Thursday that UNESCO has lost its legitimacy by adopting this resolution.

“The theatre of the absurd at UNESCO continues and today the organisation adopted another delusional decision which says that the people of Israel have no connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall,” Netanyahu said.

Palestinian critics argue that Israel uses the Jewish connection to Jerusalem as a cover for its political policies that have displaced Palestinians from their homes.

“We commend the vote at the UNESCO that denied any historic claims between Jews and the al-Aqsa Mosque and its Western Wall,” Izzat al-Risheq, spokesman for Hamas, said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera.

“We also appreciate all the countries that have sponsored and voted in favour of this resolution.”

Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is the third-holiest site in Islam. It is located in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed following its invasion in 1967 – in a move never recognised by the international community – as part of its subsequent military occupation of the West Bank.

Jewish settlers and Zionist organisations have called for complete Jewish control over the mosque compound.

Jewish groups refer to the site as the “Temple Mount” and their increased incursions into the mosque compound have continuously led to Palestinian protests across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military and armed settler incursions have resulted in Palestinian deaths and injuries in recent years in particular. Muslim access to the religious site has also been tremendously limited by the army.

{As head of king’s advisory council, Prem automatically becomes regent while nation in mourning awaits new monarch.}

Thailand’s government has named a former prime minister as regent, who will act as caretaker of the monarchy, while the country mourns the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

There was no official statement on Saturday about the appointment of Prem Tinsulanonda as regent, but as head of the advisory council to the king, he automatically becomes the caretaker until a new monarch is crowned, according to the country’s constitution.

The 96-year-old Prem, head of the Privy Council, was one of Bhumibol’s principal confidants and has ties to Bhumibol’s popular daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

In an appearance on Friday evening, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam made the announcement explaining the temporary succession, without mentioning Prem’s name.

“There must be a regent for the time being in order not to create a gap,” Wissanu was quoted by Thai media as saying.

Prem, who has been the head of the Privy Council since 1998, has a reputation for clean governance and for favouring compromise over confrontation.

He came up through the ranks of the powerful military and became prime minister in 1980, staying at the helm for eight years, while guiding the country through economic problems and a series of military challenges, including two coup attempts.

But Prem had been accused by supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of instigating the coup that removed the populist leader in 2006.

On Thursday, the government unexpectedly announced that Bhumipol’s heir apparent, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, did not want to be immediately named king to give the nation time to mourn his father’s death.

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Bangkok, said there is no deadline set for the succession to take place.

{{Days of mourning}}

For ordinary Thais, however, the overwhelming focus was on grieving for Bhumibol, not the succession.

“I haven’t even started to think about that; I’m still in mourning over the king,” said Rakchadaporn Unnankad, a 24-year-old Bangkok office worker.

“My tears started flowing out of me without my realizing,” she said, recalling the news of Bhumibol’s death. “I didn’t even want to hear the announcement.”

Buddhist funeral ceremonies began Friday night after a royal motorcade brought Bhumibol’s body from nearby Siriraj Hospital to the Grand Palace complex.

Al Jazeera’s Fawcett said more Thai mourners will be allowed into the royal palace in the coming days.

In the Thai resort island of Phuket, police and soldiers dispersed a mob of several hundred people seeking a confrontation with a man they believed insulted the country’s king.

Video shot Friday evening shows the crowd blocking the road outside a soy milk shop and waving placards with slurs such as “buffalo,” a local slang word for stupidity. Some shouted for the man to come out.

Thai media reported that the crowd’s anger stemmed from online comments that were made by the man long before the king’s death.

Thailand has draconian lese majeste laws that impose stiff prison sentences for actions or writings regarded as derogatory toward the monarch or his family.

Bhumibol’s death after 70 years on the throne was a momentous event in Thailand, where the monarch has been glorified as an anchor for a fractious society that for decades has been turned on its head by frequent coups.

{At least 20 people killed when FSA checkpoint destroyed by a car bomb as world powers prepare for weekend truce talks.}

At least 20 people, most of them rebels, were killed in a car bomb attack on Thursday that targeted an opposition checkpoint in northern Syria.

The blast – which hit a checkpoint run by a Free Syrian Army (FSA) affiliate near the city of Azaz, near the border with Turkey – sent dozens of wounded to nearby hospitals.

At least 14 of the dead were believed to be rebel fighters, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The death toll was likely to rise because of the number of seriously injured, according to the Observatory, which uses a network of sources on the ground to monitor the five-year-old conflict.

The checkpoint was operated by the Levant Front, a group connected to the FSA that is active in Aleppo province. It was on the road to the Bab al-Salamah crossing into Turkey.

The area is a stronghold of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels involved in a major operation aimed at clearing Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) from the border region.

ISIL has regularly targeted rebel factions with bombings, including an October 6 attack at a border crossing in neighbouring Idlib province which killed 29 opposition fighters.

{{‘Safe passage’}}

Elsewhere, air strikes continued to pound rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo on Thursday, where as many as 100 people have been killed by Russian and Syrian government missiles over the past three days.

As world powers prepared for new truce talks at the weekend, Russia announced it was ready to give rebels safe passage out of the eastern sector of Aleppo, where more than 275,000 people are under a government siege.

“We are ready to ensure the safe withdrawal of armed rebels, the unimpeded passage of civilians to and from eastern Aleppo, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid there,” Russian Lieutenant-General Sergei Rudskoy said in a televised briefing.

Early morning raids in east Aleppo killed at least seven civilians, the Observatory said, and government forces captured high ground overlooking opposition areas on the northeastern outskirts of the city.

The Observatory said five children were killed by rebel rocket fire on western government-held neighbourhoods, with state television saying a school had been hit.

Residents in the west said they had been forced to pull over in their cars to take shelter in buildings because of the barrage of rebel fire.

{{Fresh truce talks }}

Moscow has come under mounting international pressure over the rising civilian death toll from President Bashar al-Assad’s Russian-backed campaign to take east Aleppo, including Western accusations of possible war crimes.

Analysts said Thursday’s safe passage offer was simply a gambit to relieve the pressure by appearing to present diplomatic alternatives.

“There is no change in the Russian strategy: the goal remains the destruction of rebel presence in Aleppo,” Syria analyst Thomas Pierret told AFP news agency.

“Blowing hot and cold allows them to reduce the pressure and empower those who want a strictly diplomatic approach to the Syrian question.”

Since the army’s assault began in late September, Russian and government bombardment has killed more than 370 people, including 68 children, according to an Observatory toll.

Shelling by rebel groups, meanwhile, has killed 68 people in government-held areas.

Several major international efforts have failed to secure a political solution to Syria’s brutal war, which has cost more than 400,000 lives since 2011.

As key powers geared up for a new round of talks, newly appointed UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday was time to overcome divisions over ending the war.

“Whatever divisions might exist, now it’s more important to unite,” Guterres said. “It is the moral obligation of us all to stop the suffering of the Syrian people.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are expected to be joined at talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Saturday by their counterparts from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – all backers of Syrian opposition forces.

Then in London on Sunday, Kerry is likely to meet his European counterparts from Britain, France and Germany.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura will also attend the Lausanne talks.

{Crowds of people have taken to the streets wearing black to publicly grieve King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s death.}

Thailand has officially entered a one-year period of mourning, following the death of the country’s beloved monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, at the age of 88.

Bhumibol, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, died in hospital in the capital Bangkok on Thursday.

He had been in poor health for several years but his death plunged the Southeast Asian nation of 67 million people into grief.

The streets of Bangkok were busy as usual on Friday morning, 12 hours after news of the king’s death broke. Most people dressed in black but shops opened for business.

Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler, reporting from outside the Bangkok hospital where the king was pronounced dead, said that “throngs of mourners” had shown up “wearing muted colours, mostly black.

“We are expecting even more people to come here,” our correspondent said.

Later in the day, crowds of mourners lined up pavements along the route of a royal motorcade that will bear the king’s body from the hospital to the nearby palace complex.

Thousands of others, many holding his portrait, waited at the palace compound, mourning the loss of the only king most have ever known and expressing anxiety about the future.

Some gathered outside the hospital fainted in the heat and were carried away on stretchers.

Phongsri Chompoonuch, 77, clutched the late monarch’s portrait as she walked towards the palace.

“No matter how far it is, I can walk,” she told AFP news agency. “We no longer have him. I don’t know whether I can accept that. I fear, because I don’t know what will come next,” she added.

At the palace, the Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn was to preside over the bathing of the king’s body, a traditional Buddhist funeral rite.

Months of palace rituals are to follow, including at least 100 days of chanting by monks.

The cabinet declared a government holiday for mourning, but the Stock Exchange of Thailand said it and “other financial institutions” would operate as normal.

The stock market soared 3.7 percent at the open of Friday, paring huge losses built up through the week as news filtered out that the king was gravely ill. The baht climbed more than 1 percent against the dollar.

{{‘Immeasurable grief’}}

A constitutional monarch with no formal political role, Bhumibol was widely regarded as Thailand’s unifying figure on the nation’s fractious political scene.

Since 1932, Thailand has witnessed 19 coups, including 12 successful ones. The latest was in 2014 and installed the current military government led by former army general Prayuth Chan-ocha.

The king stepped in to calm crises on several occasions during his reign and many Thais worry about a future without him.

The military has for decades invoked its duty to defend the monarchy to justify its intervention in politics.

Prayuth, the prime minister in the military government, said on Thursday that the country was in “immeasurable grief … profound sorrow and bereavement”.

He said security was his top priority and called for businesses to stay active and stock investors not to dump shares.

Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn is expected to be the new king, but he does not command the same adoration that his father earned over a lifetime on the throne.

Prayuth said Vajiralongkorn wanted to grieve with the people and leave the formal succession until later, when the parliament will invite him to ascend the throne.

“Long live His Majesty the new king,” Prayuth said.

Thailand’s strict lese-majeste laws have left little room for public discussion about the succession.

The military government has promised an election next year and pushed through a constitution to ensure its oversight of civilian governments. It looks firmly in control for a royal transition.

The government has set up a telephone hotline to help people cope with grief, a spokesman said.

King Bhumibol’s picture is hung in almost every house, school and office. Until his later years, he was featured on television almost every evening, often trudging through rain, map in hand and camera around his neck, visiting a rural development project.

His wife, Queen Sirikit, 84, has also been in poor health over recent years.

Thais around the world were also in mourning.

“I just know that I loved my king. He is the king that helped everybody, helping the poor, everything,” Stella Boonyawan, a member of the Thai community in California, the largest in the world outside Thailand, told the Associated Press news agency.

“You’ll never find a king like our Thai king in the whole world. Our king (was) the best,” she said outside the Buddhist Wat Thai Temple in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.

In Bangkok, Prayuth warned against anyone taking advantage of the situation to cause trouble. Politicians from all sides will be in mourning.

Thai stocks and the baht currency are likely to be volatile in the short term and consumers could cut spending, but assuming a smooth transition, major economic disruption was not expected, the Eurasia Group of risk analysts said in a report before the king’s death.

{Any attempt to change Mosul’s demographic composition would be a direct threat to Turkey’s security, analysts say.}

Only weeks before Iraqi troops and their local and international partners start their push to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), the leaders of Turkey and Iraq have been caught in a war of words that could derail the Mosul liberation efforts.

“You are not my interlocutor. You are not at my level. You are not my equivalent. You are not of the same quality as me,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, in response to a demand from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that Turkey withdraw its troops from Iraq.

“Your screaming and shouting in Iraq is of no importance to us,” he said in a speech to Muslim religious leaders from the Balkans and Central Asia in Istanbul. “You should know that we will go our own way.”

Mosul, home to up to 1.5 million people, has been the headquarters of ISIL’s self-declared caliphate in northern Iraq since 2014. The battle for the city, expected later this month, is likely to shape the post-ISIL Iraq.

Erdogan also said that Turkey is determined to participate in the operation to retake Mosul from ISIL, with or without Baghdad’s approval. Turkish media later reported that Turkey is planning to participate in the Mosul operation with an invitation from the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masoud Barzani.

Turkey’s parliament voted two weeks ago to extend the deployment of an estimated 2,000 troops across northern Iraq by a year to combat “terrorist organisations”. Around 500 of these troops are stationed in the Bashiqa camp in northern Iraq, training local fighters who will join the battle to recapture Mosul.

Iraq condemned what it called a “Turkish incursion”, and Abadi warned that Turkey risked “triggering a regional war”.

Abadi’s government requested an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the issue, and both countries summoned each other’s ambassadors in a mounting diplomatic standoff. “It is hard to take Baghdad’s threats seriously,” Ali Faik Demir, an expert on Turkish foreign policy from Istanbul’s Galatasaray University, told Al Jazeera.

“A country that cannot protect its territorial integrity and eliminate terrorist elements within itself cannot threaten a neighbour for protecting its own interests. Especially when that neighbour was invited in to the country by Mosul’s former governor to train Sunni militias who are preparing to fight ISIL.”

According to analysts the legitimacy of the government in Baghdad is slowly eroding amid sectarian tensions, foreign interventions and the ISIL occupation. Abadi, say analysts, is trying to use Turkey’s presence in Northern Iraq to fuel a new brand of Iraqi nationalism to keep at least certain parts of the country intact in the post-ISIL era.

“Baghdad knows that it cannot stand up to Iran or the US,” Metin Gurcan, a security analyst and former adviser to the Turkish military, told Al Jazeera. “But it feels that it can use Turkey as a new ‘other’, against which it can build a new, primarily Shia national identity and band at least 60 percent of the country’s population together.”

Turkey is concerned that once ISIL fighters are pushed out of Mosul, the government in Baghdad will make it difficult for Sunni residents of the city to live there. Erdogan previously said that Mosul, which was seized by ISIL two years ago, belongs to “its Sunni residents”.

After Mosul is recaptured, Erdogan added, “only Sunni Arabs, Turkmen and Sunni Kurds should remain there”. His comments prompted the government-backed Shia militias, known as the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces), to issue a statement condemning Erdogan’s “racist proposal to change Mosul’s demographics”.

But analysts believe that Turkey’s concerns about the future of Mosul should not be interpreted as an attempt to reshape a sovereign country’s demographic make-up. “We have to remember Iraq’s current borders were drawn in the Sykes-Picot agreement,” Demir said.

“Those borders are nothing more than arbitrary lines drawn in the sand by the British. So the situation can only be analysed realistically from a city-centric perspective. Mosul is a historically Sunni city and any attempt to change its demographic composition would be a direct threat to Turkey’s security,” he said.

According to Iraqi analysts, Turkish military presence in Bashiqa represents “a clear violation of national sovereignty. Baghdad views the Turkish forces as an occupation force because the troops were sent to Bashiqa with no prior coordination – or agreement – with the Iraqi government,” said Wathiq al-Hashimi, head of the Baghdad-based Iraqi group for strategic studies, an Iraqi think-tank. Al-Hashimi added that Turkey wanted to “control Mosul in order to create a buffer zone that will allow it to target PKK fighters”.

Analysts emphasised that Turkey’s uneasiness about the prospect of having sectarian militias help Iraqi army in the Mosul liberation operation should not be dismissed simply as a desire to protect fellow Sunnis in the region. “If [these forces] push into Mosul, where will the Sunni residents of the city go?” asked Demir. “Of course they cannot go to Syria, so they will move north, into Turkey. ”

Turkey is already hosting 2.7 million refugees, he said. “Turkey simply cannot absorb another wave of refugees, so the Turkish government and military need to take necessary precautions to make sure residents of Mosul can stay in Mosul after ISIL is ousted from their city.”

The US recently told Turkey to respect the Iraqi government’s wishes regarding its military presence in the country. “All of Iraq’s neighbours need to respect Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday. “We call on both governments to focus on their common enemy, our common enemy, which is Daesh,” Kirby said, referring to ISIL by an Arabic acronym.

But analysts believe that US’ position on this issue is nothing more than a piece of rhetoric. “All actors in the region, including the US, are currently trying to reposition themselves for the post-ISIL setting,” Gurcan said.

“They may talk about the importance of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but none of the actors are keen to go back to the status quo before the emergence of ISIL. They know that this is not possible in practice.”

The US believes that Turkey is trying to create a Sunni power-house around Mosul and it is not necessarily against this idea, said Demir.

“A Sunni entity in northern Iraq may reduce Iran’s influence in this region, and the US would appreciate that,” he said. “But Ankara has been trying to exclude Washington from this game. It has been trying to act as an independent actor by aligning itself with sub-state actors, and that is the source of the US’ frustration with Turkey,” Gurcan explained.

“There is no right and wrong in northern Iraq at the moment and what happens to Mosul may start a domino reaction that can change all regional maps. All we can do is to wait and see.”

Al-Hashimi said that the Iraqi government should keep self-restraint and not get involved in any military activity against the Turkish troops in Bashiqa. “The Bashiqa military camp is situated in a crossfire once the battle [for Mosul] starts. And here, the Iraqi government has to inform Ankara, and the whole world, that Baghdad can’t be held responsible for any possible targeting of the Turkish troops.”