The YPG claims the Turkish president failing to win another term would be payback for Ankara’s counter-terrorism operations in Syria

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s defeat in this month’s presidential election would serve as “revenge” for Türkiye’s military operations in Syria, a top official of the People’s Defense Units (YPG) has said.

Salih Muslim, one of the leaders of the YPG — a Syrian militant group affiliated with the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and designated by Ankara as a terrorist organization — said in an interview with Medya Haber Kurdish TV channel that his organization has grown frustrated with Türkiye’s counterterrorism operations ongoing in the northern part of Syria since 2016, Daily Sabah reported.

“Now, we have an opportunity in our hands,” Muslim said, stressing that the YPG is eager to see Erdogan unseated. “It’s the first time we have such a thing happening in elections.” He added that “If we can win at the ballot box, we will take all the revenge from [the defeat of] one person.”

Muslim’s statement comes as several members of the YPG and the PKK have openly expressed support for Erdogan’s main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, as the two head into a runoff election on May 28. In the previous round, held on May 14, both candidates failed to secure an outright majority with Erdogan gaining just over 49.4% of the vote while Kilicdaroglu received 44.96%.

Kilicdaroglu has vowed to mend Ankara’s relations with NATO and revive Türkiye’s EU membership talks, which have been effectively stalled since 2016. He has also accused Russia of spreading “conspiracies” and “deep fakes” apparently referring to footage circulating online purportedly linking him to the PKK, and told Moscow to get its “hands off the Turkish state.” Russia has rejected the accusations.

Somalis cheer on Türkiye’s Erdogan to win re-election

Erdogan has repeatedly accused his rival of “colluding with terrorists” and threatening to undo Türkiye’s achievements in its war on terror. He has also blasted Kilicdaroglu for trying to “detach” the country from Russia.

Türkiye has been waging low-intensity warfare against Kurdish militias along its Syrian and Iraqi borders for four decades, in a back-and-forth campaign that has claimed the lives of over 40,000 people.

The PKK and its affiliates have been waging an insurgency since 1984 demanding political and cultural autonomy with the final goal of establishing an independent Kurdish State, laying claim to territories in southeast Türkiye and northern parts of Iraq and Syria.

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Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ordered the release of former prime minister Imran Khan, whose arrest earlier this week triggered deadly protests across the country, Geo TV news channel has reported.

The court considered an appeal by Khan’s legal team on Thursday, ruling that the arrest of the opposition figure was illegal, according to the broadcaster.

The leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was detained on an order from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday as soon as he arrived at a lower court in connection with a graft case against him. He has been held at a police compound in the capital, Islamabad, since then.

Khan’s spokesperson told Al Jazeera that the 70-year-old was apprehended in court before he could even appear before the judges, which was “in violation of all laws.” The PTI party claimed that it was not an arrest, but “an abduction,” and called on its supporters to take the streets.

Pakistan deploys army after Imran Khan’s arrest

Pakistan has been gripped by violent protests for the last three days, with demonstrators clashing with security forces and setting government buildings on fire in major cities across the country. The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has deployed the military in an attempt to curb the unrest.

Some 2,500 of Khan’s supporters, including some top figures in his party, have been arrested so far. Local media have reported at least 11 protesters killed and hundreds of police officers wounded.

Numerous criminal cases have been launched against Khan since his removal from office after a no-confidence vote in April 2022. The PTI leader, who remains highly popular in the country, denies all accusations against him.

The politician claimed a year ago that he had been deposed as a result of a US-led “international conspiracy” and accused his opponents of receiving money from foreign forces.

Khan has been making active attempts to return to power since then, staging massive rallies across the country. The former premier survived an assassination attempt last November, escaping with a non-life-threatening leg wound after several bullets were fired at him.

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The US vice president will ask AI execs to evaluate the safety and fairness of their models

US Vice President Kamala Harris has been appointed to head a new artificial intelligence initiative in partnership with leading companies in the field, the White House announced in a press release on Thursday.

Harris and other senior officials in the administration of President Joe Biden will meet with the CEOs of Alphabet, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI to remind them of their “responsibility to make sure their products are safe before they are deployed or made public.”

The meeting is intended to keep the companies on track toward “driving responsible, trustworthy and ethical innovation with safeguards that mitigate risks and potential harms to individuals and our society,” according to the White House, which referenced recent executive orders and official statements reminding tech companies that their products were subject to civil rights law and other protections against unlawful discrimination.

Biden convenes advisers to decide AI’s future

The four companies, along with Hugging Face, NVIDIA, and Stability AI, will also submit to a public evaluation of their capabilities by thousands of industry experts and other curious members of the public at DEFCON 31, the Las Vegas hacking convention that has repeatedly put the insecurity of the US’ voting machines on display by giving children a chance to hack them.

The White House also announced the creation of seven new National AI Research Institutes focusing on climate, agriculture, energy, public health, education, and cybersecurity, explaining the new institutes would “support the development of a diverse AI workforce” with $140 million in funding from the National Science Foundation.

The administration is also giving the public the chance to weigh in on government AI policy starting this summer, according to the press release.

Tasked with stemming the flow of migrants over the US’ southern border upon taking office in 2021, Harris instead presided over a record amount of illegal immigration, earning her the lowest approval rating of any modern US vice president. Last year, she was assigned with developing a blueprint for fighting “disinformation,” harassment and abuse online despite having no experience in the technology sector.

While hundreds of experts in the AI field have called for a moratorium on, or at least a dramatic slowdown of, AI development until internationally agreed-upon safety measures can be put in place, the US has thus far shied away from issuing any strong statements about the technology. Last month, Biden met with his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to discuss the “risks and opportunities” in the field but declined to address the experts’ warnings while admitting AI “could be” dangerous.

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