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U.N. says U.S.-Russia talks on Syria crucial as aid stops rolling in

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian government has effectively stopped aid convoys this month and the besieged city of Aleppo is close to running out of fuel, making U.S.-Russian peace talks in Geneva on Friday even more urgent, the United Nations said.

“Convoys are not rolling at the moment in Syria,” the U.N. humanitarian chief told reporters in Geneva, although an air bridge to the Kurdish-controlled northeastern city of Hasaka has continued operating, and there have been a handful of evacuations from the besieged towns of Foua and Madaya.

Syria’s government vets U.N. aid plans on a monthly basis, and its late and partial approval of the program for this month meant no aid had yet gone in, Stephen O’Brien said.

“We are on Sept 9, and the supplies under the September plan have not yet started.”

As he spoke U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were meeting nearby for a third time in as many weeks to clinch a nationwide ceasefire deal.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, with de O’Brien, said the talks were “addressing complex, delicate and difficult issues. “The conclusions could make, lets’s be frank, a major difference,” he said.

Helping around 250,000 people besieged in eastern Aleppo, where a battle for control has escalated in the past month, was becoming urgent, he said.

“There is a growing concern about eastern Aleppo: the issue about food, the issue about the possibility that within perhaps the next few days it will turn out to be dark because there is no fuel, problems of water.”

Opposition groups say Russia, which co-sponsors the U.N. peace process, is part of the problem and not the solution, because it has provided strong air support for fighters loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We ask any party which has influence on any of the warring parties to ensure that they recognize that the demand for humanitarian access is paramount and rises above all the other vested interests,” O’Brien said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Yemen’s Houthi leader says U.S. provides political cover for Saudi strikes

SANAA (Reuters) – The leader of Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi faction accused the United States of providing logistical support and political cover for Saudi-led air strikes in the 18-month Yemeni conflict.

In his first published interview since the start of the civil war, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi also told the Houthis’ quarterly magazine his group was open to a peaceful solution of the conflict, in which at least 10,000 people have died.

“The United States plays a major role in the aggression … including logistical support for air and naval strikes, providing various weapons … and providing complete political cover for the aggression, including protection from pressure by human rights groups and the United Nations,” he said.

The United States is a key ally of Saudi Arabia, which has come under fire from human rights groups over the air strikes that have repeatedly killed civilians in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and its allies, which have intervened in the conflict in support of the exiled government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, see the Houthis as proxies of their archrival Iran.

The Houthis deny this and say Hadi and Saudi Arabia are pawns of the West bent on dominating their impoverished country and excluding them from power.

U.N.-sponsored talks to try to end the fighting collapsed last month and the Houthis and allied forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh have resumed shelling attacks into Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s large northern neighbor.

In his interview, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said his opponents did not understand the meaning of real dialogue.

“The hurdle facing negotiations and dialogue is that the other party wants to achieve through the talks what it wanted to achieve through war, not understanding that the path of dialogue and peace is different to the path of war,” he said.

Last month U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he had agreed in talks in Saudi Arabia with Gulf Arab states and the United Nations on a plan to restart peace talks for Yemen with a goal of forming a unity government.

Both the Houthis and the exiled government have welcomed the idea of a return to talks since then.

(Reporting By Mohammed Ghobari; Writing By Maha El Dahan; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Slow EU aid puts Syrian children’s lives on hold in Turkey

Muhammed Mazin Mekansi poses with his family at their home in Ankara

By Dasha Afanasieva

ANKARA (Reuters) – Their faces so burned by a rocket blast they cannot fully close their eyes, 13-year-old Gheis Mekansi and his sister Limar, both Syrian refugees, wait in limbo in Turkey for surgery they need to return to life and school.

A year and a half after they were caught in the attack on an opposition-controlled area of Damascus, the siblings may become victims again as 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in aid promised by the European Union has been held up by political wrangling and red tape.

Gheis has six months to wait for facial reconstruction and needs prosthetic fingers available in Europe but not in Turkey. Until then, he and his sister stay indoors, unwilling to go outside where others laugh and stare at their disfigured faces.

“I just want to get my real face back,” Gheis said sitting next to his mother and sister in the small apartment they share in an Ankara suburb filled with Syrian refugee families.

In return for billions in cash for refugees taken in from Syria, visa liberalization and revitalized EU accession, Turkey has agreed to cooperate in stopping migrants crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece and take back those who do not qualify for asylum.

However, months after the deal was signed the EU now expects 182 million euros will have been disbursed by the end of August.

Asked why so little money had been put to use, an EU official pointed to the vast scale of the program, as well as the need to ensure that NGOs earmarked to receive the aid are up to the task.

But last month’s attempted coup in Turkey has also heightened tensions between Ankara and Brussels. Angry Turkish officials perceive a lack of sympathy from Western officials and last month President Tayyip Erdogan questioned the EU’s commitment to promises made in the migrant deal.

One Turkish NGO director who did not want to be named said disagreements between the EU and Turkey were partly to blame for delays in payments.

“The government’s perception is that the EU side is using this money as a political tool instead of wanting it to go to refugees,” he said, adding that the government does not trust the NGOs partnered with the EU.

Two government officials declined to comment, while a presidency official said only that it was important for the EU to live up to its side of the deal.

MONEY WAITING TO BE SPENT

Turkey says it is now host to 2.72 million Syrian refugees, plus tens of thousands of asylum seekers, including Iraqis and Afghans who are fleeing violence in their homelands.

It has argued it would be easier to give the money directly to the government – something the EU rejects, saying it always channels humanitarian aid through specialized agencies and non-governmental institutions so it goes directly to those in need.

However the EU official said that some NGOs in Turkey are unused to the needs and extraordinary scope of the current refugee crisis, and may lack capacity, meaning that extra checks and preparation are needed before the money is disbursed.

In the past ECHO, the European Commission’s aid arm, would typically spends around 1 billion euros backing humanitarian projects globally every year. This year it may spend that in Turkey alone.

Far from EU and Turkish bureaucracy and diplomatic tensions, Gheis and his six-year old sister Limar look at a photograph of their brother Muhammed, who died after an agonizing 10 days in hospital following the rocket attack.

Photographs showing the children building a snowman in happier times are stark contrast to their lives since the blast. In the three months Limar and Gheis were in hospital they underwent four operations each but are still unrecognizable. Gheis has no fingers and Limar can’t breathe properly.

Kerem Kinik, president of the Turkish Red Crescent, told Reuters he expected EU funds would allow children like Gheis and Limar to go to special schools and get treatment faster.

“We were expecting UN agencies and Europe to build up new capacities for at least primary health care but unfortunately we could not receive contributions.”

While Gheis’ family is getting some support from a local NGO, aid workers say there are thousands of devastated families with serious medical problems not receiving adequate help.

Muhammed Elhacmansur and his wife Meryem Elseyh hope to get their four-year-old son Ali, who was blinded by a landmine as the family fled Islamic State, to Europe for an operation to give him back his sight. Four of Ali’s siblings were killed in the explosions.

“We didn’t have any time to even bury them and gather their pieces on the field,” 42-year old Muhammed said.

While Turkey does not officially grant Syrians refugee status, a temporary protection status, in theory, allows them access to healthcare and education for children at least in Turkish. But these efforts cannot make Ali see.

“I don’t need food or clothes or any things,” Ali’s mother said. “I just want my son to recover.”

($1 = 0.8833 euros)

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels and Orhan Coskun in Ankara; editing by Patrick Markey and Dominic Evans)

Water shortages hit West Bank Palestinians, provoking war of words

By Sabreen Taha

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – At the peak of a searing summer, Palestinians living in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank are suffering from severe water shortages, prompting a war of words between Palestinian and Israeli officials over who is responsible.

The Palestinians say Israel is preventing them from accessing adequate water at an affordable price, and point out that nearby Israeli settlements have plentiful water supplies. Israel says the Palestinians have been allocated double the amount they were due under an interim 1995 agreement, and have refused to discuss solutions to the current problem.

For Palestinian Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta village council near Hebron, in the south of the West Bank, getting hold of water has become prohibitively expensive.

“The cost of a cubic meter for residents is 12 times higher than the normal price,” he said, shaking his head. “When water is available, it normally costs four shekels (about $1) per cubic meter, but now it costs 50 shekels.”

Israeli settlements are scattered on hillsides all around Masafer Yatta, a low-stone village on dry, rocky land. The settlements, with gardens and greenery, receive water from the Israeli utility provider via dedicated pipelines.

Younis said there was water in the ground near his village, home to around 1,600 people and many animals. But he said Israeli authorities prevented villagers from accessing the water by denying them permits to dig. Israel says unregulated digging of wells would do severe damage to the water table.

The villagers have approached the Palestinian Water Authority, which said it had made appeals to the Israelis, but the requests were apparently unanswered.

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a branch of the military that administers Palestinian civil issues, said Israel provides 64 million cubic meters of water to the Palestinians annually, even though under the 1995 Oslo accords it is only obliged to provide 30 million.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the Palestinians had consistently refused to meet to discuss water issues or work to resolve the long-standing problem.

“The Palestinian allegations… are simply a lie,” he said. “Under the Oslo accords we agreed to establish together a joint working committee on water. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side has refused systematically to participate.”

He added that the water needs in the West Bank, which the Palestinians want for a state together with East Jerusalem and Gaza, are greater than the infrastructure can handle.

Mazen Ghuneim, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, said the Palestinians had halted water negotiations with Israel five years ago because Israel had not frozen settlement building.

RURAL SHORTAGES

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is working with the Palestinian Authority and Italian aid agency GVC to provide water to impoverished areas, has warned that up to 35,000 Palestinians are at risk because of the shortages.

Gregor von Medeazza, the head of UNICEF’s water program, said Israel had prevented villagers from building water-retention facilities and that 33 such structures had been demolished this year because they were built without permits.

Palestinians living furthest from urban areas have been the hardest hit, he said, often having to pay large sums to get private companies to truck water to their villages.

Some Israeli settlers have grown concerned about the lack of water available for Palestinians.

“Israel has not… made an effort to plan a long-term program for the next 10, 20, 30 years that will take into consideration population growth,” said Yochai Damari, head of the Mount Hebron Regional Council, a settlement body.

“Thank God Israel doesn’t have a shortage of water — there is desalinated water, there is water that is located elsewhere that needs to be drilled and extracted using pipelines and infrastructure that will provide water to the Arab community, and of course to the Jewish community.”

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Luke Baker and Dominic Evans)

Harrowing video shows dazed, bloodied boy pulled from Aleppo rubble

(Reuters) – His face bloodied and completely covered in dust, the little boy sits quietly, staring ahead, dazed and shocked after an apparent air strike in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Alone in an ambulance, the boy – identified by doctors as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh – tries to wipe the blood off his head, unaware of the injury he has sustained.

Video of children being pulled from the rubble of a building hit by air strikes in Aleppo has been widely circulated on social media, causing upset and condemnation over the harrowing reality of Syria’s five-year war.

Aleppo, split into rebel- and government-controlled areas, has become the focus of fighting in Syria’s five-year conflict.

Rebel-held areas are suffering heavy air strikes daily as pro-government forces try to retake territory lost to rebels two weeks ago in the southwest of Aleppo.

The video was shot on Wednesday in the rebel-held al-Qaterji neighborhood of the city.

It shows an aid worker carrying the little boy out of a building and placing him on a seat inside an ambulance, before rushing back out to the bombed-out scene. The boy sits alone, stunned, before two more children are brought into the vehicle. A man with blood on his face then joins them.

Last year, international sympathy for victims of Syria’s war was heightened by a photo of a drowned 3-year-old refugee from Syria, Alan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish tourist beach. The image of Aylan, who died when a people smugglers’ boat taking his family and other refugees to a nearby Greek island capsized, swept across social media and was retweeted thousands of times.

(This version of the story has been refiled to corrects spelling of boy’s name in last paragraph)

(Reporting by Reuters Television and Beirut newsroom; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Rescuers say toxic gas dropped on Syrian town where Russian helicopter shot down

Video of people affected by chemical attack

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Syrian rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said on Tuesday a helicopter dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town close to where a Russian military helicopter had been shot down hours earlier.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) accused President Bashar al-Assad of being behind the attack. Assad has denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons.

A spokesman for the Syria Civil Defence said 33 people, mostly women and children, were affected by the gas, which they suspect was chlorine, in Saraqeb, in rebel-held Idlib province.

The group, which describes itself as a neutral band of search and rescue volunteers, posted a video on YouTube apparently showing a number of men struggling to breathe and being given oxygen masks by people in civil defense uniforms.

“Medium-sized barrels fell containing toxic gases. The Syrian Civil Defence was not able to determine the type of the gas,” said the spokesman.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies were not immediately available for comment.

Later, state news agency SANA said rebels had fired rockets armed with toxic gas on the government-held old quarter of Aleppo city, killing five people and causing eight breathing difficulties. It gave no further details. Rebels have denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons.

The SNC said of the reported use of poison gas in Saraqeb: “After shelling, besieging and killing civilians and perpetrating war crimes on them, the Assad regime has resorted once again, and in breach of UN resolutions 2118 and 2235, to using chemical substances and toxic gases.

“The daily reality confirms that all the international agreements and previous security council decisions, be they about chemical weapons or otherwise, are meaningless for the Assad regime.”

The Civil Defence spokesman said it was the second time Saraqeb had been hit by toxic gas. The group was aware of around nine suspected chlorine gas incidents across Idlib province since the conflict began, he said.

The U.S. State Department said it was looking into the reported use of chemical weapons in Saraqeb.

“I’m not in a position to confirm the veracity of (the reports),” said spokesman John Kirby. “Certainly, if it’s true, it would be extremely serious.”

Monitors at the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence on all sides in the civil war, said barrel bombs fell on Saraqeb late on Monday, wounding a large number of citizens.

Russia’s defense ministry said a Russian helicopter was shot down near Saraqeb during the day on Monday, killing all five people on board, in the biggest officially acknowledged loss of life for Russian forces since they started operations in Syria.

DENIALS

The helicopter came down roughly mid-way between Aleppo and Russia’s main air base at Hmeimim in the western province of Latakia, near the Mediterranean coast.

Russian air power began supporting Syrian President Bashar al Assad late last year, an intervention which tipped the balance of the war in Assad’s favor, eroding gains the rebels had made that year.

No group has claimed responsibility for downing the Mi-8 military transport helicopter.

Government and opposition forces have both denied using chemical weapons during the five-year-old civil war. Western powers say the government has been responsible for chlorine and other chemical attacks. The government and Russia have accused rebels of using poison gas.

U.N. investigators established that sarin gas was used in Eastern Ghouta in 2013. The United States accused Damascus of that attack, which it estimates killed 1,429 people, including at least 426 children. Damascus denied responsibility, and blamed rebels.

Later that year the United Nations and the Syrian government agreed to destroy the state’s declared stockpile of chemical weapons, a process completed in January 2016.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed in late 2015 that sulfur mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, had been used for the first time in the conflict, without saying which party in the many sided conflict it thought had used it.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Robin Pomeroy)

Up to one million people could flee battle for Iraq’s Mosul

Smoke rises after airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State militants in a village east of Mosul, Iraq

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Up to 1 million people could be driven from their homes in northern Iraq soon as fighting intensifies in a government offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have stepped up their campaign against Islamic State militants in an expected push on Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the militants’ biggest bastion, later this year.

“Up to a million more people could be forced to flee their homes in Iraq in the coming weeks and months, posing a massive humanitarian problem for the country,” the Geneva-based ICRC said in an statement.

It said 10 million Iraqis already require assistance, including more than 3 million internally displaced (IDPs) – about one-tenth of the population, and that their numbers could swell with fresh uprooting.

Robert Mardini, ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East, said the aid agency had drawn up contingency plans to pre-position food, medicines and other supplies under several possible scenarios.

An estimated 3 million people live under Islamic State rule in Iraq, he said. Mosul has 1.2-1.4 million, while another 825,000 live in the Nineveh plain and provinces of Kirkuk and Salahuddin, and 250,000 are in Anbar province, he said.

“Be it a massive influx of IDPs out of Mosul city toward the south, or the civilian population being caught up in the fighting inside Mosul, we will try to develop a meaningful humanitarian response that will address needs wherever they are,” Mardini told reporters.

As Iraqi authorities screen people on the run, they must ensure civilians are well-treated, he said. Those detained and investigated for possible links to Islamic State must still be allowed to contact their families.

ICRC officials have visited 33,000 people held in Iraqi detention centers so far this year, but has no contact with Islamic State, Mardini said.

“MANAGEMENT OF THE DEAD”

Suicide bombings in Baghdad, claimed by Islamic State, and other cities in July have killed hundreds, overwhelming morgues, Mardini said. “The management of the dead is pushing the country’s limited forensic capacity to the bring of collapse,” he said, speaking on return from a three-day trip to Iraq.

“The medical legal institute in Baghdad has a capacity to store 150 dead bodies; today they have within their premises 1,000 dead bodies. So you can imagine under temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) what the challenge looks like.”

The ICRC is seeking a further 17.1 million Swiss francs for its program in Iraq, its third largest worldwide, which would bring its budget for the country to 137 million Swiss francs ($140.28 million).

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Attempt at U.S.-Russia cooperation in Syria suffers major setbacks

By Tom Miles and John Walcott

GENEVA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to elicit Russian military cooperation in the fight against Islamic State in Syria suffered two potentially crippling blows on Thursday.

First, the Syrian army said it had cut off all supply routes into the eastern part of the city of Aleppo – Syria’s most important opposition stronghold – and President Bashar al-Assad’s government asked residents to leave the city.

That move, U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity said on Thursday, appeared to be an effort to pre-empt a U.S. demand that Russia and Syria reopen a major road into the divided northern city before talks could begin on creating a joint intelligence center to coordinate air attacks against Islamic State.

Then al Qaeda’s Syrian branch announced on Thursday it was terminating its relationship with the global network created by Osama bin Laden and changing its name to remove what it called a pretext by the United States and other countries to attack Syrians.

Although one U.S. official called it “a change in name only,” the move complicates the American proposal to limit the Russians and Syrians to targeting only Nusra and IS, not other rebel groups supported by Washington and its allies in the coalition against Islamic State.

“By disavowing its ties to al Qaeda – which, incidentally, it did with al Qaeda’s blessing – Nusra has made it harder to isolate it from more moderate groups, some of whose members may join it now because it’s more powerful than some of the groups they belong to now,” said the official.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Washington has been clear about its concerns over the announcement of the humanitarian corridor and that its view of the Nusra Front had not changed despite its name change.

“But we also remain committed to the proposals reached by the United States and Russia to better enforce the cessation of hostilities in Syria and provide the space needed for a resumption of political talks. If fully implemented in good faith, they can achieve a measure of success that has eluded us thus far,” Kirby told Reuters.

“As the secretary made clear, however, we are pragmatic about these efforts, and we will look to Russia to meet its commitments as we will meet ours. That will be the primary, determining factor of success here,” he added.

FALTERING PROPOSAL

The twin U.S. goals in Syria have been ending the violence that already has claimed some 400,000 lives, according to United Nations estimates, and seeking a political process to replace Assad, whom President Barack Obama has said “must go.”

But while Washington and Moscow have both expressed hope they can find a way to cooperate against IS, Kerry’s proposal was already in trouble due to the competing objectives of the Cold War-era foes as well as resistance from U.S. military and intelligence officials.

U.S. officials questioned Russian and Syrian claims that their aim in evacuating civilians from Aleppo was to clear the way for humanitarian assistance to reach the besieged city, where 200,000-300,000 civilians remain with only two to three weeks of food on hand.

“Why would you evacuate a city that you wanted to send humanitarian aid to?” asked one official. “At first glance, that would appear to be a unilateral effort by Moscow and Assad to pre-empt Kerry’s demand for ending the siege of Aleppo before starting negotiations on the larger issues. If the proposal isn’t dead, it seems to be pretty badly wounded.”

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura wants a deal as soon as possible so he can restart peace talks within a month and aid flows can resume.

(Reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and John Walcott in Washington, additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed; editing by G Crosse)

China says to hold drills with Russia in South China Sea

BEIJING (Reuters) – China and Russia will hold “routine” naval exercises in the South China Sea in September, China’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday, adding that the drills were aimed at strengthening their cooperation and were not aimed at any other country.

The exercises come at a time of heightened tension in the contested waters after an arbitration court in the Hague ruled this month that China did not have historic rights to the South China Sea and criticized its environmental destruction there.

China rejected the ruling and refused to participate in the case.

“This is a routine exercise between the two armed forces, aimed at strengthening the developing China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership,” China’s defense ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told a regular monthly news conference.

“The exercise is not directed against third parties.”

China and Russia are veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, and have held similar views on many major issues such as the crisis in Syria, putting them at odds with the United States and Western Europe.

Last year, they held joint military drills in the Sea of Japan and the Mediterranean.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims.

China has repeatedly blamed the United States for stoking tension in the region through its military patrols, and of taking sides in the dispute.

The United States has sought to assert its right to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea with its patrols and denies taking sides in the territorial disputes.

Russia has been a strong backer of China’s stance on the arbitration case, that was brought by the Philippines.

Yang said China and Russia were comprehensive strategic partners and had already held many exercises this year.

“These drills deepen mutual trust and expand cooperation, raise the ability to jointly deal with security threats, and benefit the maintenance of regional and global peace and stability,” he said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Writing by John Ruwitch and Brenda Goh; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Pope says attacks show ‘world is at war’

ope Francis shakes hands with Polish President Andrzej Duda at a welcoming ceremony at Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow

ABOARD PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) – Pope Francis said on Wednesday that a string of recent attacks, including the murder of a priest in France, was proof that the “world is at war”.

However, speaking to reporters aboard a plane taking him to Poland, the pope said he was not talking about a war of religion, but rather one of domination of peoples and economic interests.

“The word that is being repeated often is insecurity, but the real word is war,” he said in brief comments to reporters while flying to southern Poland for a five-day visit.

“Let’s recognize it. The world is in a state of war in bits and pieces,” he said, adding that the attacks could be seen as another world war, specifically mentioning World War One and Two.

“Now there is this one (war). It is perhaps not organic but it is organized and it is war,” he said. “We should not be afraid to speak this truth. The world is at war because it has lost peace.”

About 15 minutes later, after greeting journalists individually, Francis took the microphone again and said he wanted “to clarify” that he was not referring to a war of religion.

“Not a war of religion. There is a war of interests. There is a war for money. There is a war for natural resources. There is a war for domination of peoples. This is the war,” he said.

“All religions want peace. Others want war. Do you understand?” he said.

He called Jacques Hamel, the priest forced to his knees by Islamist militants on Tuesday who then slit his throat, “a saintly priest”, but said he was just one of many innocent victims.

He thanked the many people around the world who have sent their condolences over the killing of Father Hamel, particularly French President Francois Hollande, who spoke to the Pope on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Larry King)

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