Washington: The White House said on Sunday that a senior advisor of US President Donald Trump visited Turkey on February 10 and 11 amid escalating tensions of the two NATO allies over Turkey's attack in Afrin, Syria.

Citing a White House statement, Xinhua reported that H.R. McMaster, Trump's National Security Advisor, met with Ibrahim Kalin, Deputy Secretary General and Spokesperson of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his visit to Istanbul.

During their meeting, Kalin and McMaster affirmed the bilateral strategic partnership and discussed the "priorities and concerns" and common strategic challenges of both countries, said the White House.

It added that they addressed issues affecting bilateral relations in detail and explored ways to expand the joint fight against all forms of terrorism.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will also visit Turkey next week in his Middle East trip and US Secretary of Defense James Mattis is also due to meet his Turkish counterpart Nurettin Canikli in Brussels.

Relations between Washington and Ankara have been highly strained, in part due to US support for the the People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.

Turkey sees the YPG as Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the EU.

 

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Barwani (MP), Jan 28 (PTI) Police on Wednesday detained a 17-year-old relative of a seven-year-old girl in Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh for allegedly raping her and killing her by throwing her into a canal, a police official said.

Superintendent of Police Jagdish Dawar told reporters that the body of the child was recovered from the Indira Sagar Canal on January 26, following information from residents of a village in the Rajpur police station area of the district.

He said the post-mortem report concluded severe injuries to the girl’s private parts and attributed her death to drowning.

Dawar said a 17-year-old boy, a close relative of the girl, has been detained in connection with the rape-murder.

The teenager told the police that he kidnapped the girl from her home on the night of January 25 while her family members were asleep, took her to a nearby canal and raped her, according to the official.

When the girl started screaming during the sexual assault, the minor boy allegedly threw her into the canal, with the intention of killing her. The child drowned in the water body, the official said.

The detained minor will be produced in a juvenile court.

A case has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and an investigation is underway, he added.