and south korea. but he made it clear that us will continue to put pressure on north korea until the pyongyang regime gives up its nuclear weapons. after meeting donald trump at the white house, the german chancellor, angela merkel, said she would continue to be in very close talks with the us as president trump took a decision on the nuclear deal with iran. the gaza health ministry says israeli forces have shot dead three palestinian protesters during mass demonstrations on the border with israel that have been held for the fifth friday in a row. hundreds more protesters were injured. the swedish pop stars abba have recorded two new songs, their first since the 805. the group said the new material was a consequence of their recent decision to put together a "virtual reality" tour. now on bbc news it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur.

the recent us—led missile strikes on several military installations in syria changed precious little in that country's horrific civil war. is syria as we knew it broken beyondfl'epair? fares shehabi in beirut today, welcome to hardtalk. you described how syrians came onto the streets of damascus and, indeed, aleppo as well, and you said they were chanting, they were singing, they were feeling victorious.

it is hard for me to understand how syrians, in the current context, of all that's happening in your country, can be celebrating and feeling victorious. can you explain that to me? well, the same feeling you had when hitler was bombing you in world war ii, and you were chanting on the streets with all this destruction and aggression, becoming on your head, and you felt victorious, and also, you felt like one country and you kept yourself together in one piece, and that's what we're doing. and when you introduced me, i have one remark about this — i am not close to any regime. i'm close to a state, i'm close to an army, i'm close to the people who elected me, just for a short remark on this one. no, i respect the fact that you are an independent mp, but i also know the history of you and your family. you've had long relationships with the assad regime, very friendly relationships,

and if one looks back to 2011 onward, you have offered staunch and loyal support to the measures taken by bashar al—assad from the very beginning of this conflict. exactly, exactly, because we were threatened byjihadi terrorism, we've seen, in our city, aleppo, people from a hundred nations, we've seen people from central asia, we've seen people from northern africa coming through the turkish border, robbing ourfactories — we lost, like, 40,000 factories — destroying our historical sites, targeting our christian and ethnic — other ethnic groups, armenian groups in my city. of course we will ask for our army, which is a secular army, to protect us. and, stephen, let me say something — as i speak to you now, there are 280 brits on their way from douma now to europe, they're going back to england.

when they were getting on the buses, we collected the information of 280 british passports among the jihadis with the nusra front, or isis, which used to be isis, and now they got on the bus and they went to northern syria now. yeah, well, we'll get to what happened in douma later on in this interview, and i know that you've always characterised those who took the rebellious stance against the assad regime, you've always characterised them as terrorists going back to 2011. but it is interesting to note that opposition, human rights and civil rights organisations, from the very beginning, claimed that you were actually financing and arming supporters of bashar al—assad in aleppo to try to take on and confront and kill the demonstrators who were taking to the streets, demanding democracy, going back to 2011. laughs.

absolutely nonsense, because i played a very positive role in protecting demonstrators and i helped a lot of demonstrators not being arrested. bear in mind, in aleppo, there was no violence at the time, there was nothing. i mean, we were the ones who witnessed violence against us from the early days, from the early hours actually. we were against violence and we are with demonstrations, as long as they are peaceful demonstrations, not demonstrations carrying weapons and rpgs and demonstrations, you know, letting your beards grow and chanting radical slogans. of course we will be against them. i never supported anything, any crackdown of demonstrations at the time. it's interesting then that as early as september 2011, the european union slapped sanctions, personal targeted sanctions on you as a key supporter of the regime. yes, yes, they were putting everybody on sanctions,

they put the whole syrian people on sanctions. no, no, they actually weren't putting everyone on sanctions. they put four of syria's biggest businessmen on sanctions and you were one of them. yes, exactly, based on what? no evidence. when i spoke with the european court, i said, shown me any evidence, any hard—proof evidence not based on gossip, not based on your plan, orchestrated plan to make us defect, to force us to defect against our country. give us any evidence that we really paid one penny, one penny only to anyone to crack down demonstrations, to the army or to the state. they did not give us anything. and guess what? we're not going to do that. at the time, what happened in eastern aleppo, stephen, was really tremendous, was really tremendous. please, let me finish this point. we have now documents

that can put the british government in jail, my friend. we have documents that the foreign office financed through what's called the cssf — the capability — the capability, the stability conflict fund, £200 million at the time in aleppo went to whom? went to the nusra front. the thing is, for the last seven years, you've insisted that terror comes from those trying to remove president assad from power. the truth is you have become a defender of terror tactics, haven't you, not least in your own city. let's not forget you're an mp representing aleppo. i just wonder, as the mp for aleppo, how you felt about the consistent use of chlorine gas as a weapon by government forces during that offensive by the assad military forces in the fall of 2016 — how do you feel about that?

look, stephen, when are you guys going to really leave this rhetoric, you know, this narrative, this really old narrative that doesn't sell anymore? we never used chemical weapons. we were never... you are entitled to say that, but all of the evidence suggests that the forces of assad... i know what i did! ..consistently used chemical weapons in 2016 during their offensive to wipe out the rebels in eastern aleppo... nonsense, nonsense! ..and you know it's true. you read the reports from human rights watch... no, it's not true! well, you may say it's not true, but the evidence is there. this is not true! the evidence is in front of me in the form of an 0pcw declaration thatjust a couple of months ago, my friend, in february 28, 2018, talking about the same facilities that were just targeted,

and they're saying exactly — "did not indicate — the analysis of samples taken during the inspection did not indicate the presence of scheduled chemicals in the samples and the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the convention during the second round of inspections at the facilities." no, no, fares shehabi, you're deliberately misunderstanding me. i'm saying the evidence is there on the ground in aleppo. the 0pcw has described more than 30 incidents between 2013 and now of chemical weapons used, some of them clearly were in aleppo, and the human rights watch report using extensive evidence from eyewitnesses, from photographs and from video shows the pattern of chlorine attacks, shows they were closely at co—ordinator with the overall military strategy of retaking aleppo. no, no, look, we do not consider

that your white helmets fabricated videos as being credible, and proof of what i said is just what happened in douma, when everybody said the star kid of the video, hassan diab, 11 years old, he said there was no chemical attack, the staff hospital said there was no chemical attack, robert fisk said there's no chemical attack, pearson sharp and other western journalists went there and they said there was no chemical attack. everybody‘s saying there was no chemical attack, but you choose to believe white helmets who are al-qaeda civil arm. i don't know why. there are so many inconsistencies in what you're saying, i can't unpick them all. but if you're going to cite western journalists as misleading, then don't cite one western journalist who happens to suit your opinion and tell me that's proof. the proof is going to be found, if there is, indeed, any conclusive proof by the 0pcw who haven't even written their report yet. so you can't possibly tell me that you know what happened in douma. 0k, excellent.

excellent. no, actually, i can tell you what happened just two months ago in the same facilities, and i'm waiting for the 0pcw report and i can tell you what happened in eastern aleppo, because we don't have chemical weapons, and how can we use chemical weapons on the population we're trying to liberate, one, when our troops are in close proximity, two, do we really have holy powers to protect, to really control the wind factor from all directions? this is aleppo, it's a highly populated area. how could you use chemical weapons in a highly populated area? and bear in mind, stephen, bear in mind the first time chemical weapons were used and now we strongly believe they were used at the orders of some nato countries, including britain. they were used against our troops in 2013 and we submitted the claim to the security council in 2013, asking the security council to send an investigating team to aleppo because we had 20—plus soldiers were killed, plus many other civilians.

and i went to the hospitals at the time. hang on — ijust want to make this... i guess in the end, people watching this around the world have to make a judgement as to the credibility of people like you who are saying chemical weapons were never used in aleppo, douma or anywhere else, and then all of the evidence i can sight. 0n the other side of the fence from the 0pcw, from human rights watch, from amnesty international, from different independent human rights organisations and governments, including the french government, the british, the american, all of whom contradict you. people have to make a decision. but when they make that decision, theyjudge you on your character. you are the man who, during that siege of 2016 in aleppo, responded to the tweets of a 7—year—old girl, the girl who was tweeting about the suffering of her community, describing the barrel bombs, ba na al—abed wrote: "dear assad, dear putin, one day you will stand in front of god to answer for why you killed my friends." and you responded to that tweet

by saying this on twitter — "it is better this little witch die before she starts with her sponsors world war iii." where's your humanity? where's your compassion? actually, look, look, where is your humanity when you use a 7—year—old girl and you give her a twitter account and you abuse her and you make her, like, a puppet, an example, like you do with all of our kids, like you did with the kid, amran, where was your humanity, the western humanity when you based lies on a kid named amran and it turns out to be a big lie, and you... but this is not a lie. we know bana al—abed — we know her. she's been to meet president erdogan in turkey. she's got 300,000 twitter followers. do you know her father? you said, "let this little witch die." oh, really? yes, you did. no, ididn‘t. ineversaid... look, look, please... yes, you did.

it was a tweet and you tried to delete it later. ok, i call her a victim, she's a victim of your wicked practices, and when i respond to her tweets, i'm responding to the tweets of the intelligence services that drives her tweets. bana al—abed does not know how to speak english! how can she write tweets in perfect english? please, please, give me a break! when i talk to anything about bana al—abed, you know, we lost kids, we lost 11,000 of our civilians in aleppo actually, a third of which were kids. i have friends who lost kids. we care about our kids. but you use our kids to make points. syria has lost more than 500,000 people, half of the entire country's population has had to flee its home. 5 or 6 million of them are now overseas, which brings me back to the point of you talking about victory and celebration and talking about the degree to which you think

the government of bashar al—assad is going to restore the situation to one that you seem to believe can be just like it was before 2011. do you seriously think that can happen in the context of the syrian conflict? my friend, my friend, my friend, this is not the government of bashar al—assad, this is not the assad regime. stop demonising, stop using the same tactics used in iraq and libya. we are sick of this tactic. come up with a new tactic, please. this is the country of syria, we are defending ourselves. when 2 million people, when 500,000 refugees from eastern aleppo live in our neighbourhoods... and you call... but you are interrupting me. you are interrupting me. you are missing my point. i am not. we are not defending the president. 11 million people at least from your country, pretty much half your country's

population has had to flee its home so when you say to me, this isn't about bashar al—assad, it is about the syrian people defending themselves, half of the syrian people have been forced to flee their homes. your country is ruined. ask the ones, listen to me, ask the ones who left, why did they leave? more than 90% of them left because they wanted to escape from terrorism that nato supports. please, when you have the saudis and the qataris, the most backward fanatical regimes in the world, bringing 250,000 mercenaries to our country, this is what is going to happen. exactly, i agree with you. we will have huge tragedy and big suffering but we have to look at the causes. we are saying, we want reform, we want drastic reform, we want improvement, we want liberty, we want democracy but who is going to give us democracy?

jihadi radicalism? we are not defending bashar al—assad, we are defending secular syria. i am sure you believe in the values of compassion and humanity. let us get back to that. you told me you believe 90% of those syrians who have been forced to flee their homes did so because they were fearful of terror but how can you explain it is compassionate and humane for the syrian government to pass a new law, the law known as law 10, which will see all of those who don't present their property deeds to local law enforcement officials by the 10th of may, all of them who can't do that by the 10th of may, will see their homes confiscated? millions of them don't even live in syria any more. this is nonsense, this is nonsense.

this is nonsense. i have many people... i have not heard of such law and i am a member of the parliament. you haven't heard of this law? why does it... no, no, no, no. this is a law the syrian government... law number 10? by may 10, all citizens... absolutely nonsense. if aleppo was peaceable, stable, as you describe it, how many people who left eastern aleppo have returned ? about a million. returned? about a million. yes! 2012... i read an associated press description which described how the eastern half of the city is in ruins,

and i have not been to aleppo in a long time. the streets have been cleared of rubble but there is little sign of rebuilding. some residents have trickled back but hundreds of thousands have still not returned to their homes in the east of the city. yes, i can give you numbers and i invite you to go there yourself. why don't you organise a fact—finding mission of independentjournalists? they say the syrian army is killing civilians in the eastern parts of aleppo, 250,000, it turned out only 11a,000 were there, only 15,000 left in the green buses which is the islamic brotherhood and al-qaeda fanatics. the rest remained. for two years, we have 700,000—800,000 newcomers to eastern aleppo and i wonder why the western media's interest suddenly stopped after the liberation.

don't you care about the civilians? and that's why i refer to an eyewitness report from two months ago, the eyewitness report i quoted that says while there has been a trickle of people back, hundreds of thousands have not returned to their homes. hundreds of thousands? 0k. you say you are not a defender of assad in person, you are a defender of the nation of syria. would you welcome... yes. everybody is. would you welcome bashar al—assad facing war crimes charges after all the evidence gathered together by the international independent impartial mechanism team

working under the auspices of the un which says it has an overwhelming volume of evidence including testimony, images, videos documenting atrocity committed by both the government and the anti—government forces. would you welcome bashar al—assad facing a court one day? of course not, we don't trust your evidence, your mechanisms and your so—called international bodies. what you call civil arms, are rescuers and what you calljihadis with long red beards, moderate rebels, how can we trust you? after everybody now knows with hard proof evidence that lies were made to the british people and violated international law, wasted money, launched an attack based on a hoax. would you put them injail? would you put tony blair in jail after admitting he made a mistake by killing a million iraqi citizens.

would you put trump or 0bama injail for killing thousands of thousands of civilians in raqqa. why do laws only apply to us? we are the ones who willjudge and bear in mind, no—one puts me in the parliament? 200,000 of my people elected me. are you telling me those 200,000 people are all brainwashed and don't know what's going on and they should have listened to cnn or bbc or to other media and get there i do about me or people like me? we were surrounded by the same people you put on the terror lists. what i'm asking you is whether you seriously think that they can be

peace, stability and ultimately democracy in syria under bashar al—assad. i believe this happen once nato countries and especially the united states and the uk and france move their hands off my country. leave us alone and end the flood of terrorism and stop intervening in our affairs. we had been living in peace and we were one of the four safest countries in the world for 17 or 15 years before this aggression. didn't we live in peace and prosperity at the time? and whether assad remains in power, it's up to us. we decide whether he will be judged or remain president, lose presidency based on the ballot boxes. isn't that what democracy is all about? show me how we can really practise democracy in this condition

when we have these jihadis around us and you support them. how can we move forward? we have to end terrorism first. fares shehabi, we have run out of time but i thank you forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you, thank you, stephen. hello. let's bring you up—to—date with how the weather is going to pan out across the british isles for the weekend and the start of next week. friday was none too sparkling for many parts of the british isles.

this is pretty typical of what most of you had to endure. when you look at how the chart is shaping up for the start of saturday, the closer you are, generally speaking, to that area of low pressure, the cloudier your weekend is going to be. a lot of cloud around again. some sunshine across northern and western parts. we finish the weekend with an introduction from the south—east of some pretty wet and windy weather. so a chilly start to saturday across scotland and northern ireland. further south, a blanket of cloud helps to keep the temperatures up, and delivers the prospect of a little bit of rain as we get through saturday morning. i'm just going to take you into the south, with our detailed model, to take a look at how we see the showers developing. you will see there's no great organisation about it. many will stay dry. pretty cloudy, as i say. the cloud thick enough through yorkshire and lincolnshire and some of the neighbouring counties. further north, into northern ireland and much of scotland, especially away from the eastern shores, there is a good chance of seeing one or two sharp showers.

now we are into the bigger picture. the temperatures profile shows you it will not be very warm on saturday. if you are stepping out in the evening those showers will tend to die away, that rain is hanging on through good parts across the eastern side, until late on. going to keep the cloud across the east. that will keep temperatures up. notice the blue, extensive across northern and western parts, especially in scotland, northern ireland and the north—west of england. a cold and bright start there. elsewhere, as i say, a lot of cloud. eventually that will thicken up in the south—eastern quarter and before the day is over we'll see rain and gathering wind, all of which will combine again to suppress the temperatures below what we would expect at this time of year. now, all of that wind and rain is coming from a big area of low pressure, it's not just the south—east that will see that combination of wet and windy weather. a good part of the near continent

and northern parts of germany, getting up to denmark as well, and even at this range there is a bit of concern about it because it will be pretty filthy, just for the start of the commute and the school day. disruption is likely. bbc local radio will keep you up to date. there you can see the extent of it. it could be cool enough for a little bit of sleetiness across the higher ground and the midlands. seven, eight, nine degrees or so. this is bbc news. i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: no more war. world powers welcome the promise of peace by north and south korea as their leaders conclude historic talks. donald trump says the summit‘s a good thing, but adds there'll be no letup on pyongyang yet. maximum pressure will continue until denuclearisation occurs. i look forward to our meeting. it should be

quite something. kim jong—un and moonjae—in produce a peace plan and a promise to rid their countries of nuclear weapons. there will be no korean war. a new era of peace will open. we have suffered so much, but now we stand together.