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Iran ready for nuclear talks at UN ‘if other parties willing’, foreign minister says

Iran ready for nuclear talks at UN ‘if other parties willing’, foreign minister says
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said said he would not meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (File/AFP)
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Updated 52 min 56 sec ago
Reuters
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Iran ready for nuclear talks at UN ‘if other parties willing’, foreign minister says

Iran ready for nuclear talks at UN ‘if other parties willing’, foreign minister says
  • Indirect talks between Washington and Tehran to revive the deal have stalled
Updated 52 min 56 sec ago
Reuters
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TEHRAN: Iran is ready to start nuclear negotiations on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York if “other parties are willing,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Monday in a video published on his Telegram channel.
The US, under then-President Donald Trump, withdrew in 2018 from a nuclear accord signed in 2015 by Iran and six world powers under which Tehran curbed its disputed nuclear program in return for a lifting of international sanctions.
Indirect talks between Washington and Tehran to revive the deal have stalled. Iran is still formally part of the deal but has scaled back commitments to honor it due to US sanctions reimposed on the Islamic Republic.
“I will stay in New York for a few more days than the president and will have more meetings with various foreign ministers. We will focus our efforts on starting a new round of talks regarding the nuclear pact,” Araqchi said.
He added that messages have been exchanged via Switzerland and a “general declaration of readiness” issued, but cautioned that “current international conditions make the resumption of talks more complicated and difficult than before.”
Araqchi said he would not meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “I do not believe it would be expedient to hold such a dialogue. There were such meetings before but there is currently no suitable ground for that. We are still a long way from holding direct talks.”
Since the renewal of US sanctions during the Trump administration, Tehran has refused to directly negotiate with Washington and worked mainly through European or Arab intermediaries.
Iranian leaders want to see an easing of US sanctions that have significantly harmed its economy. But Iran’s relations with the West have worsened since the Iranian-backed Palestinian Hamas militant group attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, and as Tehran has increased its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has said the United States is not ready to resume nuclear talks with Iran.

Topics: UNGA79 Iran

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British troops in Lebanon training its army as Israeli strikes kill 100

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
Updated 1 min 38 sec ago
Arab News
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British troops in Lebanon training its army as Israeli strikes kill 100

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
  • Lebanese envoy to UK: Armed forces will not ‘stand idly’ by if Israel invades
Updated 1 min 38 sec ago
Arab News

LONDON: Dozens of British troops are in Lebanon to train and advise the country’s armed forces as part of a sensitive mission, The Times reported on Monday.
The report comes as the Israeli military said it struck 300 Hezbollah targets on Monday in Lebanon in one of the most intense barrages of airstrikes in nearly a year of fighting against the group.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said 100 people were killed and more than 400 wounded in what would be the deadliest day in Lebanon since the Gaza war started last October.
There have been no changes to the scale of the program in recent days despite the risk of all-out war, The Times reported, citing UK defense sources.
The Lebanese ambassador to the UK, Rami Mortada, said: “The British Army is a very close partner to the Lebanese armed forces. They have been very active on training, providing equipment and technical advice.
“Specifically on the situation in south Lebanon, the UK was also very proactive in trying to play its role in what we refer to as the de-escalation scheme.”
The scheme is led by the US and considers how to prevent an escalation of skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah near the Israel-Lebanon border, Mortada said.
Lebanon’s armed forces have been trained by the UK for years, although little is known about the program.
The British government has long hoped that by building up the capacity of the armed forces, they would be in a stronger position to maintain security than Hezbollah.
Mortada has said the armed forces would not “stand idly” by if Israel carries out a ground war on Lebanese territory or mounts an extensive aerial attack.
A conflict between Israel and Lebanon would put British diplomats in an extremely difficult position because the UK has tried to maintain a positive relationship with both countries.
UK officials are understood to be considering whether they would assist Israel and help protect its skies should it come under attack as a result of an invasion of Lebanon.
Protecting Israel against a defensive attack carried out by the Lebanese armed forces would be more complicated than responding to an attack by Iran.
Highlighting the deep Lebanese-British relationship, Mortada said the UK has also offered to help his country replicate a “watchtower” scheme along its southern border with Israel — a program that is currently in place along Lebanon’s eastern border to keep watch on Daesh militants.
Under the old watchtower scheme, the UK helped to ship 9 meter towers to Lebanon. Lebanese soldiers, mentored by British veterans, were using the positions to catch or kill hundreds of terrorists trying to cross the border from Syria every month.
Mortada said another option under review with the British is whether they could help train and empower new Lebanese armed forces border regiments that could be sent to the south of the country.
He added that they are currently “over-stretched” and want a more visible and active presence in the south, where clashes with Israel have intensified since the war in Gaza started.
“All the ingredients are coming together for having such a de-escalation scheme, except the Israelis seem to be heading towards the exact opposite direction,” Mortada said.

Topics: War on Gaza UK British troops Israel Hezbollah Lebanon

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Syria’s Assad appoints a new cabinet

Syria’s Assad appoints a new cabinet
Updated 11 min 14 sec ago
Reuters
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Syria’s Assad appoints a new cabinet

Syria’s Assad appoints a new cabinet
  • The new cabinet sees new appointments in the ministries of foreign affairs, finance and electricity among others
  • Another decree appointed ex-foreign minister Faisal Mekdad as Syria’s Vice President
Updated 11 min 14 sec ago
Reuters

DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree forming a new government under Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi Al-Jalali, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported on Monday.
The new cabinet sees new appointments in the ministries of foreign affairs, finance and electricity among others, and replaces an outgoing administration which has been serving in a caretaker role since parliamentary elections in mid-July.
Another decree appointed ex-foreign minister Faisal Mekdad as Syria’s Vice President.
Al-Jalali served as communications minister from 2014-2016. He has been subject to EU sanctions since 2014 for what the bloc called his “responsibility for the regime’s violent repression of the civilian population.”
According to UN figures, at least 350,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 from an uprising against Assad’s rule.

Topics: Syria

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UN ‘extremely concerned’ as Mideast conflict moves to new level

UN ‘extremely concerned’ as Mideast conflict moves to new level
Updated 13 min 58 sec ago
AFP
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UN ‘extremely concerned’ as Mideast conflict moves to new level

UN ‘extremely concerned’ as Mideast conflict moves to new level
Updated 13 min 58 sec ago
AFP

GENEVA: The United Nations voiced alarm Monday at the escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, warning that actions and rhetoric was catapulting the Mideast conflict “to another level.”
“We are extremely concerned, deeply worried about the escalation in Lebanon,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN rights office, told AFP.
“The attacks that we saw on the communication devices, the pagers, followed by rocket attacks and rocket fire being exchanged on both sides ... marks a real escalation,” she said.
“What we’ve been warning about all along, the regional spillover of the conflict, it appears that both the actions and the rhetoric of the parties to the conflict is taking the conflict to another level.”
After nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, the strikes since the weekend are the most intense since the outbreak of war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip last October 7.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on the south killed 100 people and wounded more than 400 others on Monday, while Lebanese official media said people were receiving Israeli phone warnings telling them to move away from Hezbollah targets.
Israel meanwhile said more than 300 Hezbollah sites had been targeted on Monday in dozens of strikes.
That came after at least 39 people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded last week when hand-held communications devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated across Lebanon. Hezbollah has blamed Israel, which has not commented.
On Friday the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, told the Security Council the attack on Hezbollah communications devices violated international law and could constitute a war crime.
Without attributing the attack on the communications devices, Shamdasani stressed that “it is a war crime to commit violence that is intended to spread terror among civilians.”
“The simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether they are civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge of where these people will be ... this is not acceptable under international law.”
Shamdasani highlighted the calls from across the international community “pleading for a deescalation.”
“But instead of a deescalation, what we have seen ... is further rhetoric with further plans of an escalation,” she said. “This needs to stop.”

Topics: Lebanon United Nations (UN)

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Iraq’s top Shiite cleric calls for end to Israeli ‘aggression’ on Lebanon

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric calls for end to Israeli ‘aggression’ on Lebanon
Updated 23 September 2024
Reuters
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Iraq’s top Shiite cleric calls for end to Israeli ‘aggression’ on Lebanon

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric calls for end to Israeli ‘aggression’ on Lebanon
  • Sistani called for “the exercise of every possible effort” to end tensions
Updated 23 September 2024
Reuters

BAGHDAD: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Shiite Islam’s highest authority in Iraq, appealed Monday for “every possible effort” to end Israeli “aggression” against Lebanon, where it is targeting the Shiite Hezbollah movement.
Sistani called for “the exercise of every possible effort” to end this “barbaric aggression and to protect the Lebanese people.”
Lebanon said 50 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in Israeli strikes on the south on Monday, the heaviest daily toll in nearly a year of cross-border clashes.
“Continued Israeli enemy raids on southern towns and villages... killed 50 people and wounded more than 300, with children, women and emergency workers among the dead and wounded,” a health ministry statement said, adding that the toll was provisional.

Dozens of Israeli air strikes hit Lebanon’s south and east Monday as Israel’s military warned Lebanese to move away from Hezbollah targets.

Topics: Iraq Lebanon Israel

Cholera is spreading in Sudan as fighting between rival generals shows no sign of abating

Cholera is spreading in Sudan as fighting between rival generals shows no sign of abating
Updated 23 September 2024
AP
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Cholera is spreading in Sudan as fighting between rival generals shows no sign of abating

Cholera is spreading in Sudan as fighting between rival generals shows no sign of abating
Updated 23 September 2024
AP

CAIRO: Cholera is spreading in war-torn Sudan, killing at least 388 people and sickening about 13,000 others over the past two months, health authorities said, as more than 17 months of fighting between the military and a notorious paramilitary group shows no sign of abating.
The disease is spreading in areas devastated by recent heavy rainfall and floods especially in eastern Sudan where millions of war displaced people sheltered.
The casualties from cholera included six dead and about 400 sickened over the weekend, according to Sunday’s report by the Health Ministry. The disease was detected in 10 of the country’s 18 provinces with the eastern Kassala and Al-Qadarif provinces the most hit, the ministry said.
Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when not treated, according to the World Health Organization. It is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.
The disease is not uncommon in Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about 22,000 in less than two months in 2017.
Sudan was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open warfare across the country.
The fighting, which wrecked the capital, Khartoum, and other urban areas has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.
It has killed at least 20,000 people and wounded tens of thousands others, according to the UN However, rights groups and activists say the toll was much higher.
The war also has created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 13 million people have been forced to flee their homes since the fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. They include over 2.3 million who fled to neighboring countries.
Devastating seasonal floods and cholera have compounded the Sudanese misery. At least 225 people have been killed and about 900 others were injured in the floods, the Health Ministry said. Critical infrastructure has been washed away, and more than 76,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged, it said.
Famine was also confirmed in July in the Zamzam camp for displaced people, which is located about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from North Darfur’s embattled capital of Al-Fasher, according to global experts from the Famine Review Committee. About 25.6 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — will face acute hunger this year, they warned.
Fighting, meanwhile, rages in Al-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur that is still held by the military. The RSF has been attempting to retake it since the start of the year.
Last week, the paramilitary force and its allied Arab militias launched a new attack on the city. The military said its forces, aided by rebel groups, managed to repel the attack and kill hundreds of RSF fighters, including two senior commanders.

Topics: Sudan Unrest Cholera outbreak

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