Iran’s acting president addresses new parliament

Iran’s acting president addresses new parliament
Mokhber also asserted that the country’s economy remained stable under Raisi when Iran took military actions in Iraq, Israel and Pakistan in recent months. (REUTERS)
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Updated 27 May 2024
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Iran’s acting president addresses new parliament

Iran’s acting president addresses new parliament
  • Mohammad Mokhber’s first public speech since last week’s helicopter crash that killed his predecessor and seven others
  • Asserts the country’s economy remains stable when Iran took military actions in Iraq, Israel and Pakistan

TEHRAN: Iran’s acting President Mohammad Mokhber addressed the country’s new parliament Monday in his first public speech since last week’s helicopter crash that killed his predecessor and seven others.
His speech comes as Iran prepares for a presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi in just a month, a vote that could see the previously behind-the-scenes bureaucrat potentially run alongside others. Meanwhile, Iran’s new hard-line parliament is expected to select its new speaker Tuesday.
In his remarks, Mokhber praised Raisi’s time in office, noting that Iran’s crude oil production— a key source of hard currency for the country — climbed to more than 3.6 million barrels a day. That comes after Oil Minister Javad Owji said Sunday that Iran was now exporting around 2 million barrels a day, despite Western sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic.
Mokhber also asserted that the country’s economy remained stable under Raisi when Iran took military actions in Iraq, Israel and Pakistan in recent months.
“Three countries were hit. We hit Israel, people find that figures and indexes are the same in the morning when they wake up, price of hard currency is the same, inflation is the same, liquidity is the same and the market is full of people’s needs,” Mokhber claimed. “This strength, this settlement and this power is not a usual thing, they all were because of guidance by the supreme leader and the sincere efforts of Ayatollah Raisi.”
The Iranian rial has tumbled from a rate of 32,000 rials to $1 at the time of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Today, it stands around 580,000 to $1 in the wake of the US’ unilateral withdrawal from the accord and a series of attacks on shipping in the Mideast, first attributed to Iran and later involving Yemen’s Houthi rebels as Israel’s war against Hamas on the Gaza Strip began over seven months ago.
On May 20, rescuers recovered the bodies of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others in a mountainous region in northwestern Iran following a fatal helicopter crash.
Iran will hold presidential elections on June 28 to replace Raisi. On Thursday, a five-day registration period for candidates will open. Analysts have suggested that Mokhber could be one of those to register.
Meanwhile, Monday marked the first day for Iran’s newly elected parliament, following a March election that saw the country’s lowest turnout since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Of those elected to the 290-seat body, hard-liners hold over 230 seats, according to an Associated Press survey.
Iran’s parliament plays a secondary role in governing the country, though it can intensify pressure on a presidential administration when deciding on the annual budget and other important bills. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, has the final say in all important state matters.


Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’

Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’
Updated 59 min 16 sec ago
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Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’

Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’
  • It was in Homs that rebels first took up arms to fight Assad’s crackdown on protests in 2011
  • Since Assad’s ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled

HOMS, Syria: Once dubbed the capital of the revolution against Bashar Assad, Homs saw some of the fiercest fighting in Syria’s civil war. Now, displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods, only to find them in ruins.
It was in Homs that rebels first took up arms to fight Assad’s crackdown on protests in 2011.
The military responded by besieging and bombarding rebel areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin and French journalist Remi Ochlik were killed in a bombing in 2012.
Since Assad’s ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled following successive evacuation agreements that saw Assad take back control.
“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.
“We removed the rubble, lay a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.
“Despite the destruction, we’re happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”
Her husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.
The siege of Homs lasted two years and killed around 2,200 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
During the siege, thousands of civilians and rebels were left with nothing to eat but dried foods and grass.
In May 2014, under an evacuation deal negotiated with the former government, most of those trapped in the siege were evacuated, and two years later, Assad seized the last rebel district of Waer.
“We were besieged... without food or water, under air raids, and barrel bombings,” before being evacuated to the rebel-held north, Turki said.
AFP journalists saw dozens of families returning to Homs from northern Syria, many of them tearful as they stepped out of the buses organized by local activists.
Among them was Adnan Abu Al-Ezz, 50, whose son was wounded by shelling during the siege and who later died because soldiers at a checkpoint barred him from taking him to hospital.
“They refused to let me pass, they were mocking me,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“I knew my house was nearly destroyed, but I came back to the precious soil of Homs,” he said.
While protests and fighting spread across Syria over the course of the 13-year war, Homs’s story of rebellion holds profound symbolism for the demonstrators.
It was there that Abdel Basset Al-Sarout, a football goalkeeper in the national youth team, joined the protests and eventually took up arms.
He became something of a folk hero to many before he joined an Islamist armed group and was eventually killed in fighting.
In 2013, his story became the focus of a documentary by Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki named “The Return to Homs,” which won international accolades.
Homs returnee Abu Al-Moatasim, who remembers Sarout, recounted being detained for joining a protest.
When he saw security personnel approaching in a car, he prayed for “God to drop rocket on us so I die” before reaching the detention center, one of a network dotted around the country that were known for torture.
His father bribed an officer in exchange for his release a few days later, he said.
In Baba Amr, for a time early in the war a bastion of the rebel Free Syrian Army, there was rubble everywhere.
The army recaptured the district in March 2012, following a siege and an intense bombardment campaign.
It was there that Colvin and Ochlik were killed in a bombing of an opposition press center.
In 2019, a US court found Assad’s government culpable in Colvin’s death, ordering a $302.5 million judgment for what it called an “unconscionable” attack that targeted journalists.
Touring the building that housed the press center, Abdel Qader Al-Anjari, 40, said he was an activist helping foreign journalists at that time.
“Here we installed the first Internet router to communicate with the outside world,” he said.
“Marie Colvin was martyred here, targeted by the regime because they did not want (anyone) to document what was happening,” he said.
He described her as a “friend” who defied the “regime blackout imposed on journalists” and others documenting the war.
After leaving Homs, Anjari himself became a rebel fighter, and years later took part in the offensive that ousted Assad on December 8, 2024.
“Words cannot describe what I felt when I reached the outskirts of Homs,” he said.
Now, he has decided to lay down his arms.
“This phase does not call for fighters, it calls for people to build a state,” he said.


Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza, countering Trump’s call to depopulate the territory

Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza, countering Trump’s call to depopulate the territory
Updated 18 February 2025
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Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza, countering Trump’s call to depopulate the territory

Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza, countering Trump’s call to depopulate the territory
  • The proposal comes after an international uproar over Trump’s call for the removal of Gaza’s population of some 2 million Palestinians
  • Egyptian officials have been discussing the plan with European diplomats as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates

CAIRO: Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza without forcing Palestinians out of the strip in a counter to President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate the territory so the US can take it over.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said the proposal calls for establishing “secure areas” within Gaza where Palestinians can live initially while Egyptian and international construction firms remove and rehabilitate the strip’s infrastructure.
Egyptian officials have been discussing the plan with European diplomats as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, according to two Egyptian officials and Arab and Western diplomats. They are also discussing ways to fund the reconstruction, including an international conference on Gaza reconstruction, said one of the Egyptian officials and an Arab diplomat.
The officials and diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal is still being negotiated.
The proposal comes after an international uproar over Trump’s call for the removal of Gaza’s population of some 2 million Palestinians. Trump said the United States would take over the Gaza Strip and rebuild it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” though Palestinians would not be allowed back.
Palestinians have widely said they will not leave their homeland, while Egypt, Jordan – backed by Saudi Arabia – have refused Trump’s calls for them to take in Gaza’s population. Rights groups have widely said the plan amounts to forced expulsion, a potential war crime. European countries have also largely denounced Trump’s plan. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the idea and says Israel is preparing to implement it.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday in a tour of the region, has said the United States was up to hearing alternative proposals. “If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great,” Rubio said Thursday on the US radio program “Clay and Buck Show.”
Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper said the proposal is designed to “refute American President Trump’s logic” and counter “any other visions or plans that aim to change the geographic and demographic structure of Gaza Strip.”
Gaza is nearing a critical juncture with the first phase of a ceasefire due to run out in early March. Israel and Hamas must still negotiate a second phase meant to bring a release of all remaining hostages held by the militants, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a long-term halt to the war.
Any reconstruction plan will be impossible to implement without a deal on the second phase, including an agreement on who will govern Gaza in the long term. Israel demands the elimination of Hamas as a political or military force in the territory, and international donors are unlikely to contribute to any rebuilding if Hamas is in charge.
Central in Egypt’s proposal is the establishment of a Palestinian administration that is not aligned with either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority to run the strip and oversee the reconstruction efforts, according to the two Egyptian officials involved in the efforts.
It also calls for a Palestinian police force mainly made up of former Palestinian Authority policemen who remained in Gaza after Hamas took over the enclave in 2007, with reinforcement from Egyptian- and Western-trained forces.
Asked about the possibility of deploying an Arab force in Gaza one Egyptian official and the Arab diplomat said Arab countries would only agree if there were a “clear path” for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected any Palestinian state as well as any role for Hamas or the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in governing Gaza, though he has not put forward any clear alternative.
Hamas has said it is willing to give up power in Gaza. Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif Al-Qanou told The Associated Press on Sunday that the group has accepted either a Palestinian unity government without Hamas’ participation or a committee of technocrats to run the territory. The Palestinian Authority, which governs pockets of the West Bank, has so far opposed any plans for Gaza that exclude it.
The Western diplomat said France and Germany have backed the idea of Arab countries developing a counterproposal to Trump’s plan, and that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi discussed his government’s efforts with the French president in a phone call earlier this month.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty also briefed the German foreign minister and other EU officials on the sidelines of last week’s Munich security conference, one of the Egyptian officials said.
Officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan will discuss Egypt’s proposal at a gathering in Riyadh this week, before introducing it to the Arab summit later this month, according to the two Egyptian officials and the Arab diplomat.
Isarel’s 16-month campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, devastated the territory. Around a quarter million housing units have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN estimates. More than 90 percent of the roads and more than 80 percent of health facilities have been damaged or destroyed. Damage to infrastructure has been estimated at some $30 billion, along with an estimated $16 billion in damaged to housing.
Egypt’s plan calls for a three-phase reconstruction process that will take up to five years without removing Palestinians from Gaza, the Egyptian officials said.
It designates three “safe zones” within Gaza to relocate Palestinians during an initial six-month “early recovery period.” The zones will be equipped with mobile houses and shelters, with humanitarian aid streaming in.
More than two dozen Egyptian and international firms would take part in removing the rubble and rebuilding the strip’s infrastructure. The reconstruction would provide tens of thousands of jobs to Gaza’s population, the officials said.


Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war
Updated 18 February 2025
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Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war
  • The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks
  • The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: A mother weeping for a teenaged daughter shot dead by a Turkish sniper and a father mourning a son killed by PKK militants are among countless families hoping that a new peace drive can end Turkiye’s four-decade-old Kurdish conflict.
Both live in the Kurdish-majority southeast, where tens of thousands of lives have been lost in violence between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed.

Fahriye Cukur (L) and Mustafa Cukur hold a portrait of their daughter Rozerin, who was killed in 2016 during fierce clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016, during an interview in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

At her home in the city of Diyarbakir, Fahriye Cukur, 63, cannot take her eyes off a picture on the wall of her daughter Rozerin in school uniform. She was killed during clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016.
The collapse of a truce in 2015 sparked a new round of the conflict when many government curfews were imposed, including in the city’s Sur district.
Cukur said her daughter — who was passionate about photography — had gone to Sur during a break in a curfew to collect exam papers from friends. But the authorities suddenly reduced the break from five hours to three and the fighting reignited.
“People were stuck there, including my daughter. She took refuge at the home of an elderly couple, but when she tried to leave, she was shot by a sniper,” her mother told AFP.
The family found out about the death through a news bulletin.

It took five months, several protests and a hunger strike for the grieving parents to get her body back.

A women walks next to the Four-Legged Minaret Mosque where Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was shot dead at the historical Sur district in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

Cukur said the authorities had mixed up their teenage daughter with a female PKK fighter, codenamed Roza, who had been hiding in the same district.
They claimed she had been trained in the mountains, but her mother told AFP: “My daughter was never engaged in political activism.
“She loved school, she wanted to become a psychiatrist and help her people,” she added, indicating the “TC” insignia — meaning “republic of Turkiye” — on her school uniform.
The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks.
Many families hope this will end the conflict and spare other families from the pain they live with.
“We can’t forget what happened but we have to hope. I have two more kids: how do I know the same thing won’t happen to them tomorrow?” she said.
Last month, the International Crisis Group said clashes between the militants and Turkish troops were largely confined to northern parts of Iraq and Syria, with violence on Turkish soil at its lowest level since 2015.
“At least we can breathe a bit now,” she said.
“I want the bloodshed to stop. I want a ceasefire. And I am not alone.”

In the nearby province of Mardin, Sehmuz Kaya, a 67-year-old Kurd, recalled how his son Vedat, a police officer, was kidnapped by PKK militants in eastern Turkiye in July 2015.
Vedat Kaya, wearing civilian clothes, was in a car with his brother and four others when militants blocked the road.
“They only kidnapped Vedat,” he told AFP, saying it was months before the family saw a PKK video of him in the Kandil mountains of northern Iraq.
The family tried every possible channel, through the state and the main pro-Kurdish party, to secure his release.
But after six years, they received a devastating call from the authorities, who said he was one of the 13 “Gara martyrs.” The 13, all but one of whom were soldiers or police, had been killed by the PKK in the Gara region of northern Iraq.
“I was devastated,” he said, struggling for words, saying his son had been tortured before his death.
“They have no faith nor conscience. My son was just doing his job,” he said.
Pinned on the ceiling is a huge Turkish flag, and on the walls are photos of Vedat, whose name has been given to a nearby park.
Although he wants peace more than anything, he admitted he has little faith.
“They are not honest,” he snapped, referring to DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party that is relaying messages from Ocalan to the government. He suspects they have ties to the PKK.
“The families of the martyrs are heartbroken. Enough is enough,” he said. “We support the process but we want something real.”
 

 


Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
  • Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans, after Israel expressed commitment to a US proposal to take over the Palestinian territory and expel its residents.
“Defense Minister Israel Katz held a meeting today (Monday) on the voluntary departure of Gaza residents, at the end of which he decided that a directorate for the voluntary departure of Gaza residents would be established within the ministry of defense,” a ministry statement said.
Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the world.”
An initial plan presented during the meeting on Monday “includes extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land,” the statement added.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza,” also promising that after the war, “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.
Trump’s repeated proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail but has triggered widespread international outrage.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war and resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.


Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan
Updated 17 February 2025
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Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he had arrived in Turkiye for talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on prisoner exchanges and other matters.
“Official visit with the First Lady to Turkiye. Meetings with President Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan,” Zelensky said on his Telegram account.