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SRINAGAR, India (AP) — There was guarded optimism among military experts in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump outlined plans to ramp up sales of defense systems to New Delhi, including F-35 stealth fighter jets, to deepen the U.S.-India strategic relationship.

“Defense sector is a big money, and India happens to be one of the top buyers in the world,” said Lt. Gen. Vinod Bhatia, India’s director-general for military operations from 2012 to 2014. “As long as we buy, Trump will be happy but it’s surely going to expand our conventional deterrence.”

The meeting signaled that “defense diplomacy is the core of diplomacy these days,” Bhatia said.

In a joint statement at the White House, the two leaders announced plans to sign a new 10-year framework later this year for the U.S.-India Major Defense Partnership.

Modi and Trump “pledged to elevate military cooperation across all domains — air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace — through enhanced training, exercises, and operations, incorporating the latest technologies,” the statement said.

The leaders also “committed to break new ground to support and sustain the overseas deployments of the U.S. and Indian militaries in the Indo-Pacific, including enhanced logistics and intelligence sharing,” the statement said.

While Indian military experts have long sought to diversify national defense procurements, analysts say it will take years to reduce New Delhi’s dependency on Russian arms, even with expanded defense cooperation with the U.S.

Raja Mohan, an analyst at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore, said expansion in defense cooperation would take time.

“What India wants is coproduction and more research and development in India. It’s a long-term project,” he said.

It is difficult for India to remain dependent on Russia for defense equipment owing to difficulties obtaining parts and upgrades. However, a deal with the U.S. for F-35 stealth fighter jets will not fill India’s immediate need for more than 100 aircraft, said Rahul Bedi, an independent defense analyst based in India.

“They are not going to come tomorrow,” Bedi said. “It’s going to take several years to start arriving,” he added.

As its geostrategic competition with China has grown manifold in recent years, India has diversified defense acquisitions from the U.S., Israel and France while seeking to move toward self-reliance in this sector. But New Delhi is still far from getting over its dependence on supplies and spare parts from Russia that makes up to 60% of Indian defense equipment.

With vast borders and protracted border conflicts with neighboring countries Pakistan and China, India also relies hugely on Moscow for military upgrades and modernization.

“India faces threats from China and Pakistan, and a threat from collaborative Pakistan-China. We need technologically capable systems to counter these threats and one country that can give such systems is America,” said Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, who from 2014 to 2016 headed the Indian military’s Northern Command.

China’s rise as a global power also has pushed India closer to the U.S. and to the Quad, a new Indo-Pacific strategic alliance among the U.S., India, Australia and Japan.

The growing strategic alliance accuses China of economic coercion and military maneuvering in the region, upsetting the status quo, and has ruffled feathers in Beijing, which sees the relationship as a counterweight against China’s rise.

Indian fears of Chinese territorial expansion are bolstered by the growing presence of the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean and Beijing’s efforts to strengthen ties with not only Pakistan but also Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

“The major threat is from China which is outstripping India’s capability,” Hooda said.

In the early 1990s, about 70% of Indian army weapons, 80% of its air force systems and 85% of its navy platforms were of Soviet origin. From 2016 to 2020, Russia accounted for nearly 49% of India’s defense imports while French and Israeli shares were 18% and 13%, respectively, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Major Indian purchases from the U.S. included long-range maritime patrol aircraft, C-130 transport aircraft, missiles and drones.

The defense sales also can potentially offset the trade deficit between the two countries, Hooda said.

“It’s a win-win for all. America will get more business, and we’ll get modern weapons,” Hooda said. “It will also help to ease pressure on the tariff issue and trade deficit.”

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Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.

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(Reuters) – Moves by President Donald Trump’s administration to cut U.S. foreign aid funding risk destabilising two camps in northeastern Syria holding tens of thousands of people accused of affiliation with the Islamic State, aid officials, local authorities and diplomats say.

The seven sources told Reuters Washington’s funding freezes and staff changes had already disrupted some aid distribution and services in Al-Hol and Roj, which host people who fled cities where IS was making its last stand between 2017-2019.

They are “closed camps,” meaning residents were not detained or charged as IS fighters but cannot independently leave the camps because of suspicions that they are affiliated with or support the ultra-conservative group. 

Aid workers and camp officials – led by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led force that helps run a semi-autonomous zone in northeastern Syria – have long called for the repatriation of camp residents, among them thousands of foreigners including Westerners.

But the rapid changes to U.S. funding streams have prompted contingency plans for the spread of disease, riots or IS attempts to retrieve residents they see as unlawfully detained, two senior humanitarian sources and a Roj resident said, requesting anonymity.

The humanitarian workers were not authorised to speak to media and the Roj camp resident has an unauthorised phone, which was used to speak to Reuters.      

“If there’s no unfreezing then everything except the camp guards stop. We’re expecting mass rioting, breakout attempts. IS will come for the people they’ve wanted to come for,” one of the senior humanitarian sources said.

Kurdish authorities in the northeast told Reuters last month they expected breakout attempts at detention centres holding IS fighters, and have refused handing control of them to the new Islamist-run transitional government in Damascus.

The anticipated violence adds to the complex security challenges in Syria, where Islamist rebels installed the transitional government after toppling Bashar al-Assad and are holding talks with authorities in the northeast to bring all security forces under Damascus’s control. 

ISLAMIC STATE ‘CAN BENEFIT’

Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of camps and displaced persons in the autonomous administration of northeast Syria, said U.S.-funded organisations had been crucial in “covering the existing gaps” in basic service provision in the camps. 

But if funding halts altogether, IS affiliates “can benefit from these existing gaps and lack of support,” he said. 

At least one of the organisations operating in the two camps, aid contractor Blumont, has received waivers allowing it to keep operating, said a Blumont official who requested anonymity and al-Hol director Jihan Hanan.

The waiver would last throughout the 90 days the Trump administration said it would use to review expenditures by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which distributes billions of dollars of humanitarian aid around the world. 

The organisation has had to shutter other USAID-funded humanitarian and management services at about 100 unofficial “collective centres” for other displaced people, the Blumont official said.

The official said Blumont was trying to keep up daily bread deliveries to 135,000 people in al-Hol, Roj and the other centres but that it was unclear how long they could continue.

The Roj resident said camp management had told residents to ration their food “because it will be our last in a while” and that other camp services had started being wound down because of a lack of funding from the U.S. 

Asked whether that could prompt instability at the camps, the resident said it was likely they would see “more chaos” and frustration from the displaced living there. 

U.S. TOP FUNDER

Other NGOs sought similar waivers but have not heard back from the State Department and are struggling to secure funds from other donor countries, one senior humanitarian official said. 

“Realistically, no one can afford to do what the U.S. was doing. U.S. funding was 10 times the number two in line,” the official said.

The U.S. spent $460 million on humanitarian aid in Syria in 2024, according to the U.S. government’s foreign assistance dashboard. It did not say how much of it went to the northeast.

On Wednesday, acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea told the U.N. Security Council that U.S. aid to al-Hol and Roj camps “cannot last forever.”

She said the U.S. had shouldered too much of the financial burden for too long and urged countries to “repatriate their displaced and detained nationals who remain in the region.”

Camp authorities began organising large-scale returns from the camps in January because of the change of government in Syria, said Hanan, al-Hol camp manager.

More than 2,300 Iraqis have been repatriated from al-Hol this year, she said. 

The U.S. has about 900 troops deployed in Syria – most of them in the northeast – to help prevent an IS resurgence after conducting airstrikes and deploying U.S. special forces to help the SDF defeat IS. 

In 2018, during his first presidential term, Trump announced he wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria but the plan was softened within a year. 

NBC News reported this month that the Pentagon was developing plans for a U.S. troop pull-out from Syria after Trump expressed interest in revisiting the idea.

The SDF said it was not aware of such plans. Aid officials said a pull-out would make all their operations unsustainable. 

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Orhan Qereman in Qamishli, Syria; Jonathan Landay and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; John Irish in Paris; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that her government wouldn’t rule out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if it maintains its stance of calling the stretch of sea between northeastern Mexico and the southeastern United States the “Gulf of America.”

The area, long named the Gulf of Mexico across the the world, has gained a geopolitical spotlight in recent weeks after President Donald Trump declared he would change the Gulf’s name.

Sheinbaum, in her morning press conference on Thursday, said the president’s decree is restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the Gulf. “We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.

Sheinbaum said that despite the fact that her government sent a letter to Google saying that the company was “wrong” and that “the entire Gulf of Mexico cannot be called the Gulf of America,” the company has insisted on maintaining the nomenclature.

It was not immediately clear where such a suit would be filed.

Google reported last month on its X account, formerly Twitter, that it maintains a “long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

An Associated Press analysis shows that as of Thursday, the user’s location and other data was dependent on how the Gulf appeared on Google Maps. If the user is in the United States, the body of water appeared as Gulf of America. If the user was physically in Mexico, it would appear as the Gulf of Mexico. In many other countries across the world it appears as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”

Sheinbaum has repeatedly defended the name Gulf of Mexico, saying its use dates to 1607 and is recognized by the United Nations.

She has also mentioned that, according to the constitution of Apatzingán, the antecedent to Mexico’s first constitution, the North American territory was previously identified as “Mexican America”. Sheinbaum has used the example to poke fun at Trump and underscore the international implications of changing the Gulf’s name.

In that sense, Sheinbaum said on Thursday that the Mexican government would ask Google to make “Mexican America” pop up on the map when searched.

This is not the first time Mexicans and Americans have disagreed on the names of key geographic areas, such as the border river between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. Mexico calls it Rio Bravo and for the United States it is the Rio Grande.

This week, the White House barred AP reporters from several events, including some in the Oval Office, saying it was because of the news agency’s policy on the name. AP is using “Gulf of Mexico” but also acknowledging Trump’s renaming of it as well, to ensure that names of geographical features are recognizable around the world.

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By Renju Jose

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s iron ore export hub, the world’s largest, braced on Friday for a powerful tropical cyclone, forcing the closure of all of the major commodity ports in the country’s northwest as residents rushed to stock up on essential supplies.

Cyclone Zelia, located in the Indian Ocean about 115 km (72 miles) north of Port Hedland, has been upgraded to a category five storm, the highest rating on the scale, Australia’s weather bureau said in its latest warning note.

The system is expected to make landfall on Friday evening near Port Hedland in the Pilbara region, packing wind gusts of up to 320 kph (200 mph) and bringing heavy rains across a 550 km sparsely populated stretch, the weather bureau said.

“We haven’t seen the worst of the weather yet but we’ve already started to see the rainfall numbers tick up and some strong wind gusts along the coast,” forecaster Angus Hines said.

Port Hedland’s port, the world’s biggest iron ore export point, was closed on Wednesday, while the ports of Dampier and Varanus Island, a gathering and processing hub for oil and gas, were shut down on Thursday evening. Cape Lambert was also shut.

Port Hedland is used by BHP Group, Fortescue and billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, while the Dampier and Cape Lambert ports ship iron ore from Rio Tinto.

The potential disruptions to supply from Western Australia did not impact Dalian iron ore futures on Thursday, which snapped a two-day rise amid concerns over the U.S. steel tariffs and potential Indian taxes.

Iron ore is the primary raw material used to make steel.

Port Hedland’s 15,000 residents, most of whom are mining company employees, have been advised to seek shelter indoors, while non-essential staff have been moved to safe locations.

Some supermarkets have been closed, ABC News reported, after essential supplies ran out as people stocked up.

(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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By Humeyra Pamuk, Stephen Eisenhammer and Laura Gottesdiener

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has vowed to destroy Mexican cartels and end the U.S. fentanyl epidemic, but his sweeping freeze on foreign aid has temporarily stopped U.S.-funded anti-narcotics programs in Mexico that for years have been working to curb the flow of the synthetic opioid into the United States.

All of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) programs in Mexico are currently halted due to the funding freeze, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters. These programs focus heavily on dismantling the fentanyl supply chain, according to State Department budget documents reviewed by Reuters. Their activities include training Mexican authorities to find and destroy clandestine fentanyl labs and to stop precursor chemicals needed to manufacture the illicit drug from entering Mexico.

In Mexico, INL also donates drug-detecting canines that helped Mexican authorities seize millions of fentanyl pills in 2023 alone, according to a March 2024 INL report.

“By pausing this assistance, the United States undercuts its own ability to manage a crisis affecting millions of Americans,” said Dafna H. Rand, former director of the Office of Foreign Assistance at the State Department from 2021 to 2023. “U.S. foreign assistance programs in Mexico are countering the fentanyl supply chain by training local security services and ensuring maximum U.S.-Mexican cooperation in the fight against this deadly drug.”

The State Department and Mexico’s presidency and foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the freeze.

More than 450,000 Americans have died of synthetic opioid overdoses over the past decade, with millions more addicted. A Reuters series last year penetrated the fentanyl supply chain and revealed how drug traffickers bring Chinese-made fentanyl ingredients into the U.S. and Mexico and then synthesize them in clandestine Mexican labs.

Through INL projects, the U.S. partners with Mexican authorities operating on the counternarcotics frontline, including the military, prosecutors and police. Beyond narcotics, INL in Mexico also provides support to combat illegal migration and human smuggling.

Hundreds of projects covering billions of dollars in assistance around the world came to a halt, including much of INL’s work globally, after Trump on January 20 ordered a freeze on most U.S. foreign aid, saying he wanted to ensure the spending was aligned with his “America First” policy.

While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued waivers for what he called “life-saving humanitarian assistance” to be exempt from the freeze, aid workers and U.N. staff have said most of the programs remain shut and that confusion persists as to what is or isn’t permissible.

One source familiar with the situation said the administration was considering a waiver to permit funding for some foreign anti-narcotics programs, but it wasn’t clear if INL’s Mexico projects were among them. Two of the sources said INL’s Mexico projects have not at present been given exemptions.

During his campaign, Trump vowed to combat fentanyl arguing the previous administration had been weak in clamping down on the trafficking of the synthetic opioid and the precursor chemicals needed to make it. Fentanyl deaths soared during Trump’s own first term in office as well, however.

Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico if the country does not stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. and control illegal immigration. He has also ordered the State Department to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that could increase the reach and funding of U.S. authorities to go after organized crime groups in Mexico. The Trump administration has not yet specified which cartels it will designate as terrorist groups.

Since Trump took office, both the U.S. and Mexico have sent additional troops to their shared border in a bid to stop drug smuggling and illegal migration.

The terrorist designation and the freezing of foreign assistance have raised concern among some U.S. officials and security analysts that the Trump administration is shifting from bilateral cooperation with Mexico to a more unilateral approach to combating drugs and the cartels.

During the campaign, Trump called for a “military operation” against Mexico’s cartels and said U.S. strikes on the organized crime groups were “absolutely” on the table. On Thursday, the top U.S. general overseeing troops in North America said the military had increased its airborne surveillance of Mexican drug cartels to collect intelligence to determine how to best counter their activities.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington, Stephen Eisenhammer in Mexico City and Laura Gottesdiener in Monterrey, Mexico)

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PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – The United States deported 119 people of different nationalities to Panama as part of an agreement between the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and the Central American nation, Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino said on Thursday.

The first flight from the U.S., carrying people from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, arrived on Wednesday, and two more will land soon, Mulino said at a press conference. In total the U.S. will send Panama 360 people on the three flights.

Before being returned to their respective countries, the deportees will be transferred to a shelter near the Darien – the jungle separating Central America from South America which countless migrants traverse in a bid to reach the U.S.

“Through a cooperation program with the U.S. government … yesterday (Wednesday) a U.S. Air Force flight arrived with 119 people of the most diverse nationalities in the world,” Mulino said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mulino stressed that sovereignty over the Panama canal is not up for debate. However, he outlined the possibility of repatriating more migrants.

Mulino at that meeting also announced that a memorandum of understanding signed in July with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could be expanded so Venezuelans, Colombians and Ecuadoreans can be returned from the perilous Darien Gap at U.S. cost, through an airstrip in Panama.

Panama deputy minister for security Luis Icaza said that thanks to bilateral collaboration between Panama and the U.S. the flow of migrants crossing the Darien was reduced by 90% in January, compared with the same month a year earlier.

(Reporting by Elida Moreno; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington DC and Diego Ore in Mexico City; Editing by Nia Williams)

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MOSCOW (AP) — Alexander Vinnik, a Russian cryptocurrency expert who faced Bitcoin fraud charges in the United States, returned to Russia on Thursday after being freed in a swap that saw Moscow release American Marc Fogel, Russian news agencies reported.

Vinnik arrived in Moscow after being released from custody in California, Russia’s state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies reported.

They initially cited Russian aviation officials and his lawyer saying that he was flown in from Turkey, but RIA Novosti later quoted Vinnik as saying that he actually arrived in Moscow on board a U.S. government plane via Poland.

He thanked both Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump for his release.

“I’m already at home with my family, and I can’t quite believe it yet,” RIA-Novosti quoted him as saying.

Vinnik, who operated cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the U.S. on cryptocurrency fraud charges and was later extradited to the United States where he pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Trump, left Russia with Fogel earlier in the week and brought him to the White House, where Trump greeted him on Tuesday.

Fogel, an American history teacher who was deemed wrongfully detained by Russia, was arrested in August 2021 for possession of marijuana and was serving a 14-year prison sentence. The White House said his release was part of a diplomatic thaw that could advance negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump suggested that prisoner swap could help anchor a peace deal on Ukraine, saying: “We were treated very nicely by Russia, actually. I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war.”

The following day, Trump and Putin had a lengthy phone call to discuss Ukraine and other issues.

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By Erin Banco

MUNICH (Reuters) – A senior U.S. official on Thursday said the United States had not ruled out potential NATO membership for Ukraine or a negotiated return to its pre-2014 borders, contradicting comments made this week by the U.S. defense secretary ahead of possible peace talks to end the Ukraine war.

“Right now, that is still on the table,” said John Coale, President Donald Trump’s deputy Ukraine envoy, when asked whether the U.S. had ruled out possible NATO membership for Ukraine. Speaking in an interview with Reuters in Munich, he added that a possible return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 lines was also still on the table.

On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a different message, telling Ukraine’s military allies in Brussels that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was unrealistic and that the U.S. does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of a solution to the nearly three-year-old Ukraine war. His comments sparked concern that the U.S. had made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin even before the start of talks.

Speaking after Coale’s comments, Trump told reporters in the White House that he did not believe Russia would “allow” Ukraine NATO membership, blaming President Joe Biden’s administration for broaching the subject in the first place.

“I believe that is the reason the war started,” Trump said. “Biden shouldn’t have said that.”

Earlier on Thursday, Hegseth appeared to backtrack on his own remarks, telling a press conference that “everything is on the table” for Ukraine war negotiations and that it was up to Trump to decide what concessions will be made.

Trump on Wednesday ordered his top officials to begin talks on ending the war.

The opposing messages on Ukraine come as Coale is in Munich this week with General Keith Kellogg, Trump’s lead Ukraine envoy, for the annual Security Conference. Kellogg’s name did not appear on a Wednesday announcement from the president that listed which cabinet officials would lead the formal peace talks.

Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Middle East envoy, will now be helping on negotiations, taking the lead on talks with Russia, Coale said. Kellogg and Coale are both involved in talks with the Europeans and Ukrainians, he said.

Asked about Kellogg’s role in peace talks, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that Kellogg “remains a critical part of this team and this effort.”

EUROPEAN INVOLVEMENT

Coale said that formal negotiations on Ukraine had not yet begun and that the U.S. was still working through discussions with the Europeans and Ukrainians about how best to end the conflict.

“Where do the Ukrainians and Europeans fit into all of this? At this point we don’t know,” Coale said, adding that you “have to have the Europeans involved.”

“The Europeans want this war stopped,” he said. “They are more than willing to participate (in supporting Kyiv militarily). There are doubts … as to whether they are going to give 100 percent. But everything I am hearing indicates they are willing to really get in there.”

It is unclear what exactly Washington has communicated to the Kremlin about negotiations. But Coale said Putin appears to be willing to enter negotiations with Ukraine, without preconditions.

“There’s been a lot of talk about the trip Steve Witkoff took to Moscow and how he met with Putin,” Coale said. “Putin seems to be willing to play ball, but we’re not sure what that means. I think he’s ready to talk.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned Western officials on social media on Thursday not to trust Putin, who launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Officials in Europe have expressed deep concerns about Hegseth’s Wednesday comments.

“We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started. Because it plays to Russia’s court,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, told reporters on Thursday.

“It is appeasement. It has never worked.”

Asked if the U.S. was conceding too much to Putin upfront, Coale said: “Some people talked out of turn, but I don’t think we’re conceding anything.”

“You don’t know with Putin and the Russians,” Coale said. “Are they trying to play us? Or are they sincere? And then you get to a table and you find out fast.”

(Reporting by Erin Banco; Editing by Don Durfee and Rosalba O’Brien)

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COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka extended power cuts for a third day on Thursday as it scrambled to restore its national grid to full capacity after a monkey triggered a widespread blackout over the weekend that disrupted supply to the island’s 22 million people.

An outage lasting six hours on Sunday was blamed by power minister, Kumara Jayakody, on a monkey that disrupted a grid station in a Colombo suburb. No power cuts were implemented on Wednesday, which was a holiday in Sri Lanka.

The animal had come into contact with the transformer at the station, disrupting supply to the entire country. There were no immediate details on whether the monkey survived the incident.

One-hour power cuts will be implemented from 6 p.m. (1230 GMT), the island’s state-run power monopoly, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), said in a statement.

Sunday’s disruption also affected the island’s only 900 MW coal fired power plant, causing it to operate in safe mode, the CEB said.

“All efforts are being made to restore the grid to full capacity but power cuts will be implemented to manage peak demand hours in the night,” the CEB statement added.

Ninety-minute power cuts were implemented on Monday and Tuesday to manage demand. An investigation into the outage was being conducted by the energy ministry.

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Editing by YP Rajesh and Bernadette Baum)

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday at his office in Islamabad to discuss the situation in Gaza and a range of bilateral issues.

They will sign several agreements for boosting trade and economic ties between the nations, officials said.

Erdogan left his hotel amid tight security, and was welcomed by people in traditional Turkish and Pakistani dresses who lined a key city road that had been decorated with Turkish and Pakistani flags. The crowds danced to the beat of drums as the Turkish leader’s convoy passed through the streets.

Erdogan and his wife, Emine Erdogan, were welcomed by Sharif on their arrival at his office. A band played the national anthems of both countries before a ceremony that saw the leaders inspecting a guard of honor.

Erdogan will jointly chair bilateral strategic cooperation talks and the two sides are expected to sign a number of agreements, according to a government announcement.

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