World Briefing: March 25, 2025

Students rallied against the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor, a key rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a sixth night on Monday. The detention of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Wednesday sparked the largest wave of street demonstrations Turkey has seen in more than a decade and deepened concerns over democracy and the rule of law. The demonstrations began after Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu’s March 19 arrest and have since spread to more than 55 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, sparking clashes with riot police and drawing international condemnation. Police have arrested more than 1,130 people over the past six days, including 43 on Monday night, the interior minister said. Among them are journalists, including an AFP photographer. Imamoglu, 53, of the opposition CHP party, is widely seen as the only politician capable of defeating Turkey’s longtime leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box. In just four days he went from being the mayor of Istanbul – a post that launched Erdogan’s political rise decades earlier – to being arrested, interrogated, jailed and stripped of the mayorship as a result of a graft and terror probe. - France 24

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on Monday advised Britons against “all travel to parts of Turkey” due to the growing unrest in Istanbul and other Turkish cities over the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu last week. The foreign office warned that the demonstrations “may become violent” and that the local police have responded by using tear gas and water cannons.“Large demonstrations continue to occur outside diplomatic missions connected to the conflict in major cities, particularly Israeli diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul,” the foreign office said, urging Britons to avoid all demonstrations and leave the area if one develops - The Independent

Trump’s top national security officials laid bare their disdain for Europe in a top-secret group chat that was leaked when a journalist was mistakenly added to the conversation. “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s pathetic” — this is how US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth described the continent in a top-secret operational group chat with the Trump administration’s national security heavyweights. The contents of the chat — which included US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser — were leaked by the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who found himself added to the discussion, likely by accident. In the chat, which the US National Security Council said “appears to be authentic”, the group discussed planned strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, which commenced hours later. Aside from top-secret operational information on strikes, the chat also laid bare US disdain for Europe, which Vance first articulated during his speech at the Munich Security Conference. In the leaked conversation conducted on the Signal app, unauthorised for classified official conversations, Vance said how much he hated “bailing Europe again”, claiming that the strikes on Houthis and the subsequent unblocking of trade routes would benefit Europe most. “Three per cent of US trade runs through the Suez. 40% of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” the US vice president said at the start of the discussion. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance continued, arguing that strikes on Houthis should be delayed for a month. Later in the conversation, Waltz criticised the limited capabilities of European navies. “It will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes. Per the president’s request we are working with DOD and State to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans,” Trump’s national security advisor said. Hegseth responded, saying, “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s pathetic.” - Euronews

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has confirmed that securing safe shipping in the Black Sea was discussed during Monday’s US-Russia talks in Riyadh. Moscow supports renewing the Black Sea Initiative, a deal in place from 2022 to 2023 aimed at ensuring safe grain exports through the strategic waterway, but Lavrov said it must come with “clear guarantees” that Russia believes the US should demand from Ukraine. Moscow withdrew from the initiative in July 2023 over its unmet demands for export restrictions on its farm and fertiliser exports to be eased. “The Russian delegation told the US in Riyadh that Moscow will not tolerate any ambiguity on proposals around the Black Sea,” Lavrov said in comments carried by Russia’s Tass news agency. The head of the delegation, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, just said the discussions have been “productive”. - Al Jazeera

Away from the talks in Riyadh, a powerful cyberattack knocked out the online ticketing system for Ukraine’s state railway service, causing long queues at stations in what Kyiv officials said looked like a Russian attempt to “destabilise” the situation. Ukrainska Pravda reported that more than 100 people were injured in a massive Russian attack on Sumy today. And the United Kingdom and French defence chiefs met again in London to discuss plans for allied countries to safeguard a potential Ukraine ceasefire as part of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s so-called “coalition of the willing”.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko was sworn in for a seventh term on March 25 as human rights groups said the authoritarian leader’s rule was “unconstitutional.” Lukashenko won over 86 percent of the vote in the January 26 presidential election that was widely condemned as a sham by Western countries. “They took place in conditions of a deep human rights crisis, in an atmosphere of total fear caused by repression against civil society, independent media, the opposition, and all dissenters,” said a joint statement by 10 Belarusian rights groups on March 25. Lukashenko was sworn in during a ceremony in the capital, Minsk. On the same day, hundreds of supporters of the Belarusian democratic opposition held rallies across Europe, including in Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, to mark the country’s Freedom Day - RFE/RL

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