FRANKFURT, Germany — Germany and other countries want European Union leaders to endorse a declaration saying that EU sanctions on Russia will not be eased unless Moscow complies with a Ukraine cease-fire deal, two officials said Saturday.
EU leaders, who will meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, will discuss the sanctions imposed on Russia’s financial, energy and defense sectors last July over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Ukraine.
The cease-fire deal, which was signed last September in Minsk, Belarus, called for an end to hostilities between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line.
Tikrit offensive pauses
BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces and mainly Shiite militia battling to wrest full control of the city of Tikrit from Islamic State militants paused their offensive for a second day Saturday as they awaited reinforcements.
A source in the local military command center told Reuters that military commanders had “reached a decision to halt the operation until a suitable, carefully set plan is in place” to break into central Tikrit.
Chemical-arms accusation
CAIRO — Iraq’s Kurdish authorities Saturday claimed to have evidence that Islamic State militants used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon.
The Security Council of the autonomous Kurdistan region said in a statement on its Twitter account that samples taken after a suicide attack Jan. 23 against the Kurdish peshmerga forces in northern Iraq showed traces of chlorine gas.
Official seeks U.S. asylum
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Sierra Leone’s Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana said he had requested asylum at the U.S. Embassy in Freetown after soldiers surrounded his residence Saturday following his expulsion from the ruling party last week.
Mr. Sam-Sumana was expelled from President Ernest Bai Koroma’s All People's Congress party after an investigation accused him of creating his own rival political movement and fomenting violence in his home region of Kono, in diamond-rich eastern Sierra Leone.
Nun raped in robbery
NEW DELHI — A nun in her 70s was raped during the robbery of a convent school in West Bengal, India, before dawn Saturday, police and church officials said.
There were contradictory accounts in the hours after the attack, with some Indian news outlets describing the attack as a gang rape.
Also in the world …
Tensions between China and Myanmar deepened Saturday when a Chinese military commander warned of a strong response unless Myanmar prevented warfare with ethnic rebel groups from spilling into Chinese territory. … U.S. oil workers operating in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia may be targets for kidnapping or other attacks, according to a warning issued Friday by the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh. … An Egyptian disciplinary court ordered 41 judges into compulsory retirement Saturday for supporting the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, judicial sources said, the latest move in a sweeping crackdown on political dissent.