The World in Brief

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, shakes hands with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, right, during  a brief ceremony in the president's residence, on Monday, April 20, 2015 in Jerusalem.  Netanyahu has received a two-week extension to form a new governing coalition following his election victory last month. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, shakes hands with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, right, during a brief ceremony in the president's residence, on Monday, April 20, 2015 in Jerusalem. Netanyahu has received a two-week extension to form a new governing coalition following his election victory last month. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)

Netanyahu gets more time on coalition

JERUSALEM — Israel’s president on Monday gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until May 6 to form a new government, as negotiations continue among political parties.

President Reuven Rivlin tasked Netanyahu with forming a coalition after the March 17 elections, when 67 parliament members from six right-leaning parties recommended that he continue as prime minister. Netanyahu’s original deadline was this week, but it is not unusual for an Israeli leader to request an extension and use the full 42 days provided under the law to form a coalition, as negotiators use the ticking clock to increase their leverage.

Netanyahu told Rivlin that he had “made progress” but required “additional time in order for the government to be stable and so that we might reach agreement on important issues that will aid us in meeting the challenges facing the state of Israel.”

Rivlin, who called for a unity government after the elections, wished Netanyahu success and urged him to act quickly.

U.S., Ukraine join for military training

YAVORIV, Ukraine — Troops from the United States and Ukraine kicked off joint training exercises Monday intended to help bolster Ukraine’s defenses against incursions from Russian-backed separatists in the east.

Speaking at a military base in the western region of Lviv, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the country’s armed forces need to be rebuilt to deter foreign threats.

The exercises sparked an outcry from Russia, which described them as a potential cause of destabilization.

The 300 U.S. Army paratroopers involved in the training traveled to Ukraine last week and will be working alongside 900 national guardsmen.

“The majority of the participants here from the Ukrainian side have endured difficult trials on the front,” Poroshenko said at a ceremony for the exercises.

Fighting in the east has ebbed substantially since the signing of a February cease-fire deal, but sporadic clashes still break out along the front line separating government and rebel forces.

Training for Ukrainian troops is part of a broader package of assistance being provided by the U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it will provide Ukraine’s military with $75 million in nonlethal aid, but it has refrained from offering lethal equipment.

Russia says terror-group leader killed

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — Russian special forces have killed the leader of an al-Qaida-linked group operating in the Caucasus region of southern Russia, the national counterterrorism agency said Monday.

Aliaskhab Kebekov took over the leadership of the Caucasus Emirate last year after the death of its founder, Doku Umarov, who had claimed responsibility for major attacks in Russia. Kebekov pledged allegiance to al-Qaida and last month was added to a U.S. government list of global terrorists.

The Caucasus Emirate is a loose alliance of rebel groups seeking to create an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus, a predominantly Muslim region that includes Chechnya and Dagestan.

Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee announced Monday that special forces killed Kebekov and two other suspected militants after trapping them inside a private home in Buinaksk, Dagestan, the day before.

Turkish premier knocks calls of genocide

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday extended condolences to the descendants of Armenians killed 100 years ago by Ottoman Turks, saying Turkey shared their pain and announcing that a service will be held at the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul to remember the victims.

But in the message released ahead of centenary commemorations Friday, Davutoglu stopped short of calling the killings a genocide and criticized efforts to press Turkey to recognize them as such.

“To reduce everything to a single word, to load all of the responsibility on the Turkish nation … and to combine this with a discourse of hatred is legally and morally problematic,” Davutoglu said.

Historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey however, denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

— Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports

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