Greece and Turkiye press ahead with talks in effort to smooth often volatile relations

Update Greece and Turkiye press ahead with talks in effort to smooth often volatile relations
Above, Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis, right, welcomes his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan before their meeting in Athens on Nov. 8, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 08 November 2024
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Greece and Turkiye press ahead with talks in effort to smooth often volatile relations

Greece and Turkiye press ahead with talks in effort to smooth often volatile relations
  • Issues between NATO allies Turkiye and Greece are not limited to disagreements over maritime boundaries and jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean

ATHENS: Recent efforts to smooth the frequently volatile ties between neighbors and regional rivals Greece and Turkiye are bearing fruit, their foreign ministers said Friday, although significant differences remain between the two countries as they seek ways to prevent spats from escalating dangerously.
Despite both being members of NATO, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues, including complex maritime boundary disputes that led them to the brink of war in 1987 and in 1996. In 2020, tension over drilling rights led to Greek and Turkish warships shadowing each other in the eastern Mediterranean.
Over the past 16 months, the two sides have made concerted efforts to reduce tensions, with the Greek and Turkish leaders meeting six times. Last December, the two countries signed more than a dozen cooperation deals during a meeting in Athens between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“I am not claiming that through the dialogue we have developed, all the problems in the two countries’ relations have been magically resolved,” Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said in statements to the media after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Athens. The ministers didn’t take any questions.
“There were indeed difficult moments during the past year,” Gerapetritis said. “But in all cases, there was an immediate and honest channel that prevented escalation.”
With two brutal conflicts raging in the wider region, in Ukraine and in the Middle East, mending ties and preventing flare-ups in tension between the two neighbors has become all the more essential.
“We are working to understand each other better on critical issues. The region we are in has many problems,” Fidan said. “Turkiye and Greece need to be able to act with mutual trust in this difficult geography. Through a win-win approach, we can contribute to the prosperity and peace of our people.”
Despite the positive climate, the two sides remain far apart on some of the thornier issues, notably on territorial rights in the Aegean Sea. The two disagree on the delineation of the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, which determines exploitation rights for resources, as well as on the extent of territorial waters.
Turkiye has said that any move by Greece to extend its territorial waters around its islands in the Aegean Sea from six nautical miles to 12 nautical miles, which Greece insists it has the right to do at any time, would be a cause for war.
Turkiye also doesn’t recognize that Greek islands off its borders have a continental shelf, while Greece insists that position is in contravention of international law.
Athens insists the issue of the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone is the only dispute it has with Turkiye and is willing to bring it to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Friday’s talks “included the evaluation of the conditions for the start of a fundamental discussion for the delineation of the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean,” Gerapetritis said. “It is an initial, honest approach of a difficult but also crucial issue.”
Fidan stressed that all areas of disagreement connected to the Aegean, the sea that lies between the two countries, must be tackled.
“There are many problems that are interconnected in the Aegean. These disputes cannot be reduced to the issues of the continent shelf and exclusive economic zones,” Fidan said. “We must address all issues that have the potential to create tensions and crises on the basis of mutual respect and cooperation.”
“As Turkiye, we continue to defend the principle of equitable sharing in the eastern Mediterranean,” he added.
Migration has been a source of tension between the two countries for years. Tens of thousands of people make their way each year from Turkiye to nearby Greek islands, using European Union-member Greece as a gateway to more prosperous countries in the 27-nation bloc.
While thousands of migrants continue to arrive in Greece, risking sometimes fatal sea crossings, the two ministers stressed the need to crack down on illegal migration and smuggling networks.
The two “emphasized the importance of acting together to combat irregular migration,” Fidan 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
Updated 26 November 2024
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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
  • Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry

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.