Blinken: Middle East nations need to use influence to prevent ‘endless cycle of violence’

Turkiye’s President Erdogan (R) shaking hands with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) prior to their meeting at the Vahdettin private residence of the presidency in Istanbul. (AFP/Turkish Presidency Press Office)
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Turkiye’s President Erdogan (R) shaking hands with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) prior to their meeting at the Vahdettin private residence of the presidency in Istanbul. (AFP/Turkish Presidency Press Office)
Blinken: Middle East nations need to use influence to prevent ‘endless cycle of violence’
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C) arrives in Istanbul, Turkiye, on January 5, 2024, a first step of a new tour to the Middle East focused on the conflict in Gaza.(POOL / AFP)
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Updated 07 January 2024
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Blinken: Middle East nations need to use influence to prevent ‘endless cycle of violence’

Blinken: Middle East nations need to use influence to prevent ‘endless cycle of violence’
  • Blinken’s fourth crisis tour since the start of the Israel-Hamas war three months ago comes with fears mounting that the conflict will engulf swathes of the Middle East
  • Turkiye asked Hamas leaders to leave Istanbul after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but has since denounced Israel's reprisal attacks in Gaza

CHANIA, Greece: Middle Eastern nations need to use their influence over regional actors to ensure the Gaza conflict is contained and prevent “an endless cycle of violence,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday.
Blinken spoke late in the day after meeting the leaders of Turkiye and Greece at the start of a week-long trip aimed at calming tensions that have spiked since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October.
It is in the interests of virtually all nations in the Middle East to contain the fighting, Blinken told reporters.
“We want to make sure that countries who feel that way are also using their ties, using their influence, using their relationships with some of the actors that might be involved to keep a lid on things, to make sure that we’re not seeing the spread of conflict,” he said before flying to Jordan.

Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had fired rockets at Israel, and its arch-foe said it had struck a “terrorist cell” in retaliation.
Blinken said it was very important that Israel had security in the north of the country.
“From the perspective of Israel, it’s clearly not interested, does not want escalation ... but they also have to be fully prepared to defend themselves,” he said.
Blinken, who will also visit Arab states, Israel and the occupied West Bank, said if efforts to settle the crisis failed the outcome would be “an endless cycle of violence ... and lives of insecurity and conflict for people in the region.”
He also said he would be looking at what could be done to maximize the protection of civilians in Gaza and increase deliveries of humanitarian assistance.
“Far too many Palestinians have been killed, especially children,” he said.
The war began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 22,700 Palestinians, according to Palestinian officials, and the conflict has spilled into the West Bank, Lebanon and Red Sea shipping lanes.
Blinken earlier met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, a strong critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Blinken and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had earlier discussed Gaza, as well as Turkiye’s process to ratify Sweden’s membership of the NATO military alliance, Turkiye’s foreign ministry said.
US officials have been frustrated by the length of the process, but are confident Ankara will soon approve Sweden’s accession after it won the Turkish parliament’s backing last month, said a senior State Department official traveling with Blinken, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US lawmakers have held up the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkiye until it signs off on Swedish membership.

BLINKEN VISITS GREECE
Blinken later traveled to Crete where he met Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Fellow NATO member Greece is awaiting US Congress approval of a sale of F-35 fighter jets.
Blinken stressed the importance of Greece’s strong alliance with Washington, while Mitsotakis said the two countries could work together to help safeguard security in a turbulent region.




US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (R) meets with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the Prime Minister's Residence in Crete, on January 6, 2024, as part of the first leg of a trip that includes visits to both Israel and West Bank. (AFP)

Greece has condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and backs Cyprus’ initiative for a maritime corridor to help deliver more aid to the enclave. It believes it can play an active role on that front due to its historic ties with the Arab world.
The US official said Turkiye has relationships with many parties in the conflict, a reference to its ties to US adversary Iran and Hamas. Unlike the US, Turkiye does not view Hamas as a terrorist group and hosts some of its members.

Blinken also hopes to make progress in talks on how Gaza could be governed if and when Israel achieves its aim of eradicating Hamas.
Washington wants countries in the region, including Turkiye, to play a role in reconstruction, governance and potentially security in the Gaza Strip, which has been run by Hamas since 2007, the official said.


Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235
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Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 44,235 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,638 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
 

 


Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
  • The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry

THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.


Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
  • The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries

DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.

 

 


Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case
Updated 26 November 2024
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Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case
  • A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.
 

 


11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor
Updated 26 November 2024
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11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor
  • Seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in the attack and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that control swathes of northeast Syria.

BEIRUT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkiye-backed militants in north Syria.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed... in the bombing of a military position... used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkiye,” the Britain-based monitor said.
It said seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swathes of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkiye-backed group’s military position and killed three militants, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew, in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkiye militants but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the Observatory said.
On Sunday, 15 Ankara-backed Syrian militants were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the monitor reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkish troops and allied armed factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.