this is you don't reduce live from berlin britain and the european union take a step closer to brings it to the news chief negotiator mission about abuses the two sides have reached an agreement on a two year transition period will make life easier for citizens and businesses our business correspondent has all the details also coming up your foreign ministers condemned the attempted murder of a former russian spy and his daughter they say they take extremely seriously london's assessment that moscow is to blame and turkey promises to push on with

this offensive against the kurds in syria after its seized control of the city of i think displacing around one hundred fifty thousand people. on little rock thanks for your company everyone we begin with that briggs it breaks through the european union and britain are one step closer to a greeting a divorce settlement the u.k.'s negotiators says there's been significant progress towards a final deal well according to e.u. chief negotiator michaud about the end the two sides have agreed on a large part of britain's were drawled deal including to the terms of a post briggs it transitional period lasting until the end of twenty twenty and although tensions do remain over the irish border britain's brags that negotiators at the twenty one month transition gave the certainty demanded by businesses and

citizens across britain and the european union. well with that negotiators shaking hands on this transitional deal and it has been hailed by some as a milestone well let's find out just how much of a breakthrough this is with our brussels correspondent garrick amount to say good to see you gay or what exactly did they agree on today i think the key thing they have agreed on today is the transition phase in other words the period after march next year when the u.k. drops out of the e.u. and then remains if you want as though it is inside the you so all the rules and regulations remain to apply by the way also all the obligations of the u.k. so in that period the u.k. will have to follow all the rules of the e.u. but has no voting rights in other words it will be a rule taker and the interesting thing here is that basically the u.k. has given for that transition period it's crossed all the red lines it set itself

so the jurisdiction of the european court of justice will apply for that transition period all the e.u. citizens who arrive in that period of time will be treated as though they have arrived before the transition phase and also in fisheries no taking back of control ok now garrick so why this change of heart from britain right now. i think the simple answer here is that the cliff of threats it is coming closer and closer we're almost just one year away from it now people are basically asking if i want to sell a car from the u.k. into the e.u. after march next year will it still be possible will the legal standards be applied people have been thinking about booking for flight tickets will they will that be still be possible so a lot of questions here pushing the u.k. government really to agree to all these conditions in order to ensure that for business there is some sort of real road reliability for

a few more years basically pushing that terrible cliff edge and the possibility of a crashing out of the e.u. further and further away but garrett they're still not there because there's still a major stumbling block that they have to overcome absolutely or quantity is not quality and the biggest stumbling block the irish bar has not been resolved one good example here is that they have agreed on a backstop solution so in other words if in the if there would be a hard breck's it where the u.k. creches out of the of the customs union and the internal market in other words it's a hard border would occur and then the agreement is things remain as they are there will be no hard border but the problem is of course that nothing is agreed on july everything is agrees so this is written down on paper that there is a back a so-called backstop solution but of course until there is an idea how to

guarantee that there is no hard border in reality this paper is that is not worth a lot and that's the real problem they haven't moved forward on keeping the irish border between the republic of ireland and northern ireland open as it is now in any way. this reporting from brussels thank you. well meantime both the european union and nato have express their solidarity with britain and its row with russia over the attempted murder of a former spy while moscow has denied any involvement in the attack on the sergei script all and his daughter says britain needs to prove its claim or apologize while the case has proved a baptism by fire for germany's new foreign minister. there was no honeymoon period for the new german foreign minister got straight to work in brussels and russia was top of the cage and the election results in russia came as no surprise and the apparent irregularities in the votes weren't masses only gripe

you tops the cities of it's unacceptable that the election was also conducted in an extreme media point. of us which for that reason we assume that russia will remain a difficult partner. britain's barra's johnson keeps up his war of words with russia relations between london and moscow are near an all time low following a nerve agent attack on a former russian double agent and solsbury for britain's foreign minister the attack has russia written all over the russian grew increasingly absurd. but one time they say that they never may not be joking all the time they say that they did not make nor be tropical storms have been destroyed and then again they say that they made a stop to be destroyed but some of them had mysteriously escaped the e.u. assures britain of its own divided solidarity but member states austria is hesitant

to jump to conclusions. in three different for you as far as i know an investigation into the substance is currently underway so i imagine this will take a great deal of time. i would try to have a name of it meanwhile paris makes no qualms about taking a position standing in solidarity with the u.k. . we see eye to eye with the british on this but if the next one i gave you there's no ways that the russians can deny its roots he pulled who said it was. britain want sanctions but a you foreign ministers have yet to take that step preferring to wait and see how the investigation develops. our want to tell you now about some of the other stories making news around the world. israel has charged a french consulate worker with arms smuggling and accused him of using an official car to transport guns from the gaza strip to the west bank israeli officials say they believe the employee of the friends of the french consulate in jerusalem was

part of a palestinian smuggling ring and acted without his employers knowledge. police in austin texas are investigating the latest in a series of bombings in the u.s. city this month authorities say they believe a serial bomber is behind the attacks with the latest explosion injuring two on sunday it follows three other unexplained parcel bombings in austin since march the second. heavy flooding in croatia has plunged homes and roads underwater the country declared a state of emergency yesterday due to the rising water levels the flooding has cut off road access to several hundred people. turkish president rich of tire and one has vowed to expand his country's military campaign in syria to more kurdish held areas stretching eastward towards the border with iraq well you know what comes a day after the war in the country may extend its offensive all the way to northern

iraq if bugged out fails to clear kurdish militants from the region. indeed it. will go on to man beach and co bonnie we will continue until we completely clear this corridor of kurdish held areas or. if necessary we will take permanent control of the terrorist camps in northern iraq we have told the iraqi government if you're going to do it do it and if you can't take care of it one night we might suddenly enter sin jar and clean out the kurdistan workers party. or they can pick up a lot of the terms that. are right for more on these developments i'm now joined by simon maybe who is a mideast analyst and international relations lecturer at lancaster university in the u.k. good of you to spend time with us simon present everyone not mincing his words there says turkey has no intention of invading syria so what are they doing in

syria what's the endgame here well i think it's interesting that he says they have no intention of invading because i think if you had the west lot of international experts and indeed many across syria that's exactly what they would say has been happening that the turkish forces have gone into sovereign syrian territory and indeed invaded because there weren't many people who were actually advocating for their presence so i think that it's interesting what he's saying obviously he's trying to frame things in a particular way but i think that his words and the ones words reveal a great deal not is that he's trying to strengthen to a key southern border and make it far stronger as a state now simon turkey has a voice that its flag in half it in syrian territory why is the mask a sledding this happened and you know let's also focus a little bit on iraq will they just roll over. well i'm not sure that the mosque is

letting this happen i mean if you go back to before the arab uprisings you saw that damascus and they were they had positive relations i mean a sad and had one they used to go on holiday together but things very quickly soured now as for your question i think that it's more of more the issue that damascus can actually do anything about it i mean if britain is is right in the rebel controlled areas so damascus doesn't really have much influence in that part of syria now from baghdad i doubt that that would be would be particularly happy or receptive to turkish forces going into iraq so i think it will it will raise a lot of questions about the construction of security are us talk about the the kurds they played a very pivotal role in the american led coalition that is fighting i-s. are any of their allies now likely going to come to their aid. well i guess that's the million dollar question and going back to my point by regional security

you've got all these different groups each with a vested interest and these alliances that we've seen have often been quite fluid as the case we've seen with the with the kurds and the americans now what we'll see in the days to come is the extent to which that relationship is solid the extent to which the u.s. feels some kind of loyalty or has some kind of responsibility for the kurdish groups and and the type of answer that the u.s. gives will will really have an impact on turkey because if the u.s. decides to back the the kurdish groups in syria then we could very easily have two nato allies going head to head in a new form of standoff or open house even conflict now i don't think that's particularly likely but i think that that it is a really important time right now to see how things will play forward and what the u.s. will do simon talk to us a little bit about the civilians said that the people the residents of what will

happen to those who have been displaced by fighting. well we've heard rumors and and on it go to reports that around one hundred fifty thousand have been displaced from three in and they're obviously going to struggle to find somewhere with with safety and shelter and protection from this fighting because we've also heard that the kurdish fighters aren't just going to give up after in without a fight and that whilst this is not necessarily going to be a conventional form of military battle it will involve. fighting and and more improvised insurgent tactics and they of course have how real humanitarian impacts as well so in addition to the struggle for health for food for shelter then you'll also see increased violence as well so i think it's important and integrity that the u.n. and aid get into into northern syria and provide some type of humanitarian

relief to these people that it once again being displaced from their homes are and this of course all happening as syria enters its eighth year of war thank you so very much simon maven mideast analyst and international relations lecturer lecturer at lancastrian university for. thank you emma for i let you go on to remind you of our main story this hour britain and the european union have reached an agreement on a two year transition phase following britain's were droll from the block all the agreements should provide clarity for businesses and citizens although there does remain some a sticking point over the issue of the irish border. you're watching the use we saw a lot more to tell you about a whistleblower says cambridge analytic got used to data for millions of unwitting facebook users to help donald trump secure the u.s. presidency plus the clock is ticking for u.s. allies scrambling to secure exemptions from trump's terrorists before they come

into effect on a friday germany's economy minister is in washington for talks and helen humphrey will have all the details for you on those stories and a whole lot more coming up in just a few stick around. starting you know with some junk and instructions from a book. that peter fourteen william coming to dream. from oh we wanted to build a wind turbine to provide his village with electricity. on many.