CAIRO: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call on Sunday that preventing regional escalation is tied to stopping Israeli “aggression” in the Gaza Strip, Iraqi state media said.
https://arab.news/pw3nt
CAIRO: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call on Sunday that preventing regional escalation is tied to stopping Israeli “aggression” in the Gaza Strip, Iraqi state media said.
RIYADH: Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has accepted the resignation of Deputy Prime Minster and Oil Minister Emad Al-Atiqi, Kuwait News Agency reported on Sunday.
Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Economic and Investment Affairs Nora Suleiman Al-Fassam was appointed as acting minister of oil.
PARIS: The head of a UN body investigating crimes by Daesh in Iraq expressed regret over “misunderstandings” that led to the premature end of its crucial mission, at Baghdad’s request.
Daesh seized vast swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014, carrying out abductions, beheadings, ethnic cleansing, mass killings and rapes.
The Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh, also known as UNITAD, was set up in September 2017 — as Daesh was being driven out of its last major strongholds in Iraq.
In an interview with AFP, UNITAD head Ana Peyro Llopis reflected on its seven-year effort to bring the terrorists to justice, and said “misunderstandings” with the Baghdad authorities contributed to the mission’s closure later this month.
Peyro Llopis noted it has been the only such international investigation mission to be established on the ground.
“There are not many who would have opened their doors to us in such a generous way” to investigate crimes, she said in the telephone interview.
“We could have publicly recognized, more clearly, that the good work we were able to do was only possible because we were invited and that it is unique.”
UNITAD’s mission will end on Sept. 17, years ahead of its expected completion, after the Security Council last year renewed its mandate for only one year at the request of Iraq’s government.
“The Iraqis have seen concrete results in foreign jurisdictions, and got the impression that UNITAD cooperated more with foreign states than with Iraq,” said Peyro Llopis. “Everything could have been better explained,” she added.
A major bone of contention with Baghdad was the sharing of evidence.
“The UN has strict rules of confidentiality and respect for the consent of those who testify,” she said, meaning that not all evidence was passed on to the Iraqis.
Media reports spoke of tensions between UNITAD and the Baghdad government.
CAIRO: The Qatar Red Crescent and the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) signed an agreement on Sunday, with $4.5 million from a Qatari state development fund, to aid more than 4,400 stranded Palestinian workers and patients from Gaza in the West Bank.
“Cash assistance will represent vital support for those displaced who have not been able to return to the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Strip last October,” a statement from the Qatar’s state news agency said.
“Thousands of Palestine refugees from Gaza remain trapped in the West Bank, trapped in this crisis situation, stranded from their loved ones and livelihoods,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said.
Since Israel’s blockade of Gaza began in 2007, movement in and out of the Strip has been heavily restricted, forcing individuals to seek medical care, education, or jobs in the West Bank, while escalating violence often closes borders, trapping those in need of essential services.
CAIRO: Egypt condemned the killing of US-Turkish activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi by Israeli forces in the West Bank.
Ahmed Abu Zeid, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, condemned the killing of Eygi, which occurred south of Nablus.
In a statement issued by the ministry, Abu Zeid extended his condolences to the Turkish government and people and offered his sympathies to the family of the deceased.
He said the death is a further example of the daily Israeli violations against Palestinian civilians and their supporters, adding to the various forms of violence and disregard for human rights they face in the occupied Palestinian territories.
He also condemned the moral crisis faced by the international community due to the atrocities committed against civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories over decades.
Eygi, 26, was shot and killed on Friday in the village of Beita, near Nablus, during a nonviolent protest against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and escalating settler violence against Palestinian homes and landowners.
ANKARA: The body of an eight-year-old girl who had been missing in Turkiye for 19 days has been found after an enormous manhunt, the interior minister said on Sunday.
The body of Narin Guran was found in a bag in a river in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, around one kilometer from the village where she lived with her family, Diyarbakir governor Murat Zorluoglu told reporters.
“Unfortunately, the lifeless body of Narin, who went missing in the village of Tavsantepe... has been found,” Turkish interior minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
She disappeared on August 21, sparking a huge search effort in Turkiye, with a number of well-known figures joining a social media campaign called “Find Narin.”
“Narin Guran was found dead wearing the same clothes as the last time she was seen,” said Zorluoglu.
“Based on the first observations, she was put into a bag after she was killed. The bag was then placed in the river, hidden under branches and rocks so as not to raise suspicion,” he added.
Diyarbakir prosecutors have detained 21 people, said Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc.
The girl’s uncle was arrested last week on suspicion of murder and “deprivation of liberty.”
“Our president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is following the case closely to guarantee that the ongoing investigation continues thoroughly and that those who took Narin’s life answer before the law,” the president’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said on X.
Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish party DEM has called for a march to take place in Diyarbakir on Sunday evening.
“Narin was killed in an organized manner. Those responsible for this murder, which has saddened us all, must be revealed and held accountable before an impartial and independent justice system,” DEM wrote on X.
Tunc said on X that “those responsible for Narin’s death will be brought to justice.”