UKRAINIAN president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said his country will “happily” investigate whether there was any interference in the 2016 US election.
Zelenskiy said “we can’t say yes or no” as to whether there was any interference from Ukraine without an investigation, and added it is in his nation’s interests to determine what happened.
US President Donald Trump asked Zelenskiy for such an investigation in a July phone call that has helped prompt an impeachment inquiry in Washington. Trump claims Ukraine allied with the Democrats in a plot to derail his 2016 presidential campaign, though no evidence of such a plot has emerged.
Zelenskiy said the US has not provided any details of such interference and said he will not publish the Ukrainian transcript of the phone call.
READ MORE: Trump impeachment: US President warned about 'treason' comments
MEANWHILE, top German officials are visiting the scene of an attack on a synagogue in the city of Halle, seeking to reassure an unsettled Jewish community.
The attack, in which two people were killed outside the synagogue and in a kebab shop, stoked renewed concern about rising far-right extremism and questions about the police response.
Josef Schuster, the head of Germany’s Jewish community, called the absence of police guards outside the synagogue on the holy day of Yom Kippur “scandalous”, as members of the congregation described waiting behind locked doors for the police to arrive for more than 10 minutes.
ELSEWHERE, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said 109 “terrorists” have been killed since Ankara launched an offensive into Syria.
He also warned the EU not to call the operation an “invasion” and renewed his threat to let Syrian refugees flood Europe.
He hit out after Finnish prime minister Antti Rinne, whose country currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, condemned the offensive and urged the cessation of hostilities.
Turkish forces began a ground offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria on Wednesday under the cover of airstrikes and artillery shelling.
FINALLY, a knife-wielding man who may have been influenced by a radical Islamic group has injured Indonesia’s security minister, a local police chief and a third person in an attack.
Security minister Wiranto, who goes by one name, was stabbed in the abdomen in the attack in Banten province, national police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said.
The 72-year-old was airlifted to the capital Jakarta and remains in a stable condition.
Wiranto, who was armed forces chief in the late 1990s, had just stepped out of his car and was being welcomed by the police chief in Pandeglang when the attacker dashed towards them, wounding both along with the third man.
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