The main rival to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been formally arrested and charged with corruption.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of the Turkish city of Istanbul, is expected to be selected as the opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) 2028 presidential candidate in a ballot on Sunday.

Polish border guards detained a Ukrainian woman who was sentenced in Kazakhstan to 12 years in prison for participating in an organised criminal group trading in human organs and selling 56 kidneys, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The 35-year-old woman, referred to only as Ksenia P. under Polish privacy laws, was detained at a railway crossing between Poland and Ukraine under an Interpol red notice, Marta Petkowska, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office in Przemysl, said in a statement.

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin apologized to Azerbaijan on Saturday for the crash of a civilian flight carrying passengers from Baku to Grozny in Russia-controlled Chechnya.

Putin had a phone call with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and “apologised for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” the Kremlin said.

Azerbaijan’s president on Sunday demanded that Russia admit responsibility for the incident that led to the Christmas Day crash of a passenger plane that killed 38 people and pay compensation to the government and affected families.

Azerbaijan is proposing to sign a document with Armenia on the basic principles of a future peace treaty as an interim measure as they wrangle over a broader deal, a senior Azerbaijani official said on Sunday.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have repeatedly said they want to sign a peace treaty to end the conflict over the former breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia's foreign minister will travel to Washington on July 9-10 during the NATO summit, his ministry said on Monday, as the country, once a top Russian ally, seeks to build closer ties with the West.

"Minister (Ararat) Mirzoyan will take part in an event with NATO partners on the sidelines of the NATO summit, as well as in other events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the organisation. Bilateral meetings are also planned," a spokesperson for the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

A small crowd of mourners gathered on Friday for the funeral of the Kazakh opposition activist and YouTuber Aidos Sadykov, who was assassinated in Kyiv, Ukraine — a killing that colleagues said had cast a chill over journalists and exiles in Ukraine and the wider region.

A former opposition politician and trade unionist, Mr. Sadykov, 55, lived in Ukraine after fleeing Kazakhstan, his homeland, with his family 10 years ago. He was granted political asylum in Ukraine and, with his wife, ran a widely followed YouTube Channel covering events in Kazakhstan.

Armenia declared Friday that it was recognizing Palestinian statehood, prompting Israel to summon the country’s ambassador for a dressing down.

The Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement that Yerevan supports a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and is “genuinely committed to establishing peace and stability in the Middle East and lasting reconciliation.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that in response to the recognition, the ministry had summoned the Armenian ambassador, Arman Akopian, to be reprimanded.

The U.S. has frozen the assets of three men from Uzbekistan and one from the Republic of Georgia over their alleged ties to ISS and a human smuggling network. The move comes two days after eight people with suspected ties to the terrorist organization were arrested in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

The Treasury Dept. identifies the four as: Adam Khamirzaev, a native of the Republic of Georgia, and three men from Uzbekistan: Muhammadyusuf Alisher Ogli Mirzoev, Muhammad Ibrohimjon Niyazov and Olimkhon Makhmudjon Ugli Ismailov.

On April 17, a column of Russian tanks and trucks passed through a series of dusty Azerbaijani towns as they drove away from Nagorno-Karabakh, the highland territory at the heart of the South Caucasus that Azerbaijan and Armenia had fought over for more than three decades. Since 2020, Russian peacekeepers had maintained a presence there. Now, the Russian flag that flew over the region’s military base was being hauled down.