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BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani condemned on Saturday the Israeli killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as a “crime.”
The Friday attack on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold that killed the Iran-backed group’s leader was a “shameful attack” and “a crime that shows the Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines,” Sudani said in a statement, calling Nasrallah “a martyr on the path of the righteous.”
DAMASCUS: Syria wants to contribute to “regional peace,” the country’s new authorities said late Friday, after a meeting between leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa and a US diplomatic delegation.
“The Syrian side indicated that the Syrian people stand at an equal distance from all countries and parties in the region and that Syria rejects any polarization,” the statement said.
It said the new authorities wanted to “affirm Syria’s role in promoting regional peace and building privileged strategic partnerships with countries in the region.”
A Syrian official had previously told AFP that the meeting between Al-Sharaa — known previously by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani — and the US delegation led by Barbara Leaf, head of the Middle East at the State Department, was “positive.”
Al-Sharaa, the leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group that seized power in Damascus, was previously the target of US sanctions.
But after their first formal contact in Damascus on Friday, Washington announced it had dropped a bounty for his arrest.
“Based on our discussion, I told him that we were dropping the offer of a reward,” Leaf told reporters.
She said she told the new Syrian leader of the “critical need to ensure that terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside Syria or outside, including to the United States and our partners in the region.”
He “committed to doing so,” she said, adding he had appeared to her as “pragmatic.”
HTS, which leads the victorious coalition of armed groups in Damascus, claims to have broken with jihadism and has sought to reassure people of its ability to revive the country after nearly 14 years of civil war.
France, Germany, Britain, and the United Nations have also sent emissaries to Damascus in recent days to establish contacts with the new authorities.
The West is wary of the risk of fragmentation of the country and the resurgence of the jihadist group Islamic State, which has never been completely eradicated there.
ANKARA: Security for the Kurdish people is critical for Syria to have a secure future, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told her Turkish counterpart in Ankara on Friday.
“Security, especially for Kurds, is essential for a free and secure future for Syria,” she told journalists after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, warning of the dangers of any “escalation” with Kurdish forces in Syria.
Earlier Friday, Baerbock raised the alarm over fresh violence in northern Syria, where Turkish troops and Ankara-backed fighters have been battling the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led group supported by the US.
Ankara sees the SDF as an extension of its domestic nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has led a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisting Friday it was “time to neutralize the existing terror organizations in Syria.”
Her comments came as concerns grew over a possible Turkish assault on the Kurdish-held border town of Kobani, also known as Ain Al-Arab, after pro-Turkish fighters seized Manbij and Tal Rifaat, two other key Kurdish-held towns.
As Islamist-led rebels pressed their lightning that toppled Bashar Assad, Turkish-backed fighters began a parallel operation against Kurdish-led forces in the north, sparking clashes that left hundreds dead in just a few days.
“Thousands of Kurds from Manbij and other places are on the run in Syria or are afraid of fresh violence,” the German minister said.
“I made it very, very clear today that our common security interests must not be jeopardized by an escalation with the Kurds in Syria.”
But she expressed understanding for Ankara’s “legitimate” security concerns, saying “northeast Syria must not pose a threat to Turkiye” while also warning that Islamic State (IS) group jihadists must not be allowed to regain a foothold in Syria.
“No one would be helped if the real winner of a conflict with the Kurds turned out to be the terrorists of IS: that would be a security threat for Syria, Turkiye and also for us in Europe.”
According to a foreign ministry source, Fidan told her the PKK and the YPG — the main force within the SDF — did not represent the Kurdish people.
“The view that the PKK/YPG represents the Kurds in Syria is wrong,” the source quoted him as saying, stressing Turkiye would never allow such “terrorist organizations to abuse the situation in Syria.”
“We expect all our allies to respect Turkiye’s security concerns,” he added.
Baerbock also said Berlin would judge Syria’s new Islamist-led HTS rulers on the basis of their actions amid concerns over the group’s Al-Qaeda origins.
“A radical Islamist order will only lead to new fragmentation, new oppression and therefore new violence,” she said.
“We will judge the new rulers by their actions.”
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council on Friday extended a long-running peacekeeping mission between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights for six months and expressed concern that military activities in the area could escalate tensions.
Since a lightning rebel offensive ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier this month, Israeli troops have moved into the demilitarised zone — created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war — that is patrolled by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
Israeli officials have described the move as a limited and temporary measure to ensure the security of Israel’s borders but have given no indication of when the troops might be withdrawn.
In the resolution adopted on Friday, the Security Council stressed “that both parties must abide by the terms of the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic and scrupulously observe the ceasefire.”
It expressed concern that “the ongoing military activities conducted by any actor in the area of separation continue to have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic, jeopardize the ceasefire between the two countries, and pose a risk to the local civilian population and United Nations personnel on the ground.”
Armed forces from Israel and Syria are not allowed in the demilitarized zone — a 400-square-km (155-square-mile) “Area of Separation” — under the ceasefire arrangement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday: “Let me be clear: There should be no military forces in the area of separation other than UN peacekeepers – period.” He also said Israeli airstrikes on Syria were violations of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and “must stop.”
CAIRO: Israeli airstrikes killed at least 25 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Friday, medics said, including at least eight in an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp and at least 10, including seven children, in the town of Jabalia.
Mediators have yet to secure a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas after more than a year of conflict.
Sources close to the discussions told Reuters on Thursday that Qatar and Egypt had been able to resolve some differences between the warring parties but sticking points remained.
Israel began its assault on Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel says about 100 hostages are still being held, but it is unclear how many are alive.
Authorities in Gaza say Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and displaced most of the population of 2.3 million. Much of the coastal enclave is in ruins.
