BAGHDAD: Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region's offer to freeze the results of the referendum on independence will not redress the "devastation" the vote has caused in Iraq.
Yildirim spoke on Thursday, a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi visited Turkey to discuss possible steps against the Iraqi Kurdish leaders.
Yildirim said the two sides discussed the possible opening of a border gate between Iraq and Turkey that would bypass the Iraqi Kurdish region.
Yildirim's remarks came as Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Iraqi Kurdish offer for last month's referendum on independence to be frozen is "not enough," instead urging the Irbil government to cancel the vote.
"It is an important move that the northern Iraqi administration takes a step back but it is not enough. This referendum should be cancelled," Cavusoglu told a press conference in Ankara.
Turkey, along with Baghdad and other neighboring countries, strongly opposed the Iraqi Kurds' non-binding vote on independence.
The Kurdistan Regional Government, led by Massud Barzani, said on Wednesday it would propose to the federal government "the freezing of the results of the referendum... and the start of an open dialogue" on the basis of the constitution.
However, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi said Baghdad would only accept the annulment of the referendum.
The Kurdish offer came after Iraq seized large areas of territory that Kurdish forces had captured over the years beyond the borders of the autonomous region.
Yildirim appeared to dismiss the impact of the offer.
"The northern Iraq administration can take whatever decision it wants from now on, it is obvious the decisions will not produce a result that would compensate for the damage," he said at a press conference in Ankara with Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Al-Abadi was in Ankara on Wednesday where he met Yildirim and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the vote among other regional issues.
The leaders promised to strengthen cooperation as ties between their two countries as ties warm over their shared opposition to the vote.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday offered Turkish support for the reopening of a pipeline that would allow the central Iraqi government to export oil directly to Turkey, bypassing the Iraqi Kurdish region.
The spokesman for the US-led coalition said the fighting between Iraqi government and Kurdish forces has impeded the movement of coalition military equipment in both Iraq and Syria, negatively impacting the campaign against Daesh.
The US uses the border between Iraq's Kurdish region and Syria to access its Syrian allies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces who are battling Daesh.
Sporadic clashes have erupted over the past two weeks as Iraqi government forces moved to retake territory that was under federal control before IS blitzed across the country in 2014. The clashes have recently moved near the border with Syria.
Army Col. Ryan Dillon said on Thursday that the fighting has "negatively impacted Coalition efforts to defeat Daesh, specifically the inability to move military equipment and supplies to our partners both in Iraq and Syria."
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he supported efforts by the Iraqi government to ensure its "unified sovereignty and territorial integrity."
That's according to a report on the official website for Khamenei.
The website quoted Khamenei as making the comments during a visit on Thursday with Al-Abadi.
Khameni also reportedly warned Al-Abadi about US policy toward Iraq, saying: "Be careful about Americans deceit and never trust them."
Al-Abadi reportedly replied: "We protect the unity and integrity of Iraq with high precision ... we will not allow the danger of disintegration to put our country at risk."
Iraqi prime minister has announced a multi-pronged operation to capture a series of towns and villages near the Syrian border from the Islamic State group.
Al-Abadi's statement issued early on Thursday said the operation aims to liberate Al-Qaim and Rawa, as well as other villages — the very last remaining strongholds of IS militants in Iraq.
Al-Abadi, who's in an official visit to Iran, says Daesh terrorists only to choose "death or surrender."
Iraqi state TV aired live footage showing military vehicles advancing in a wide desert area, along with Shiite-dominated paramilitaries known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.
Daesh has been driven out of most of the territories it seized in 2014, from northern Iraq through the country's central region and across the western Anbar province.
The Kurdish leadership is saying that Iraqi troops have launched "an offensive" against Kurdish fighters near the border with Turkey.
From Baghdad, a spokesman for the mostly Shiite militia fighters known as the Popular Mobilization Forces says the Kurdish troops opened fire on the Baghdad-led forces as they moved toward the Iraqi Turkish border on Thursday.
The development is part of a recent government push to deploy forces in areas claimed by both the Kurds and the central government in Baghdad.
The spokesman, Ahmed al-Asadi, told The Associated Press that the clashes did not result in any casualties.
The statement from the Kurdish regional government says the Iraqi forces were "using heavy artillery... advancing toward peshmerga positions."
Sporadic clashes have erupted over the past two weeks as Iraqi government forces moved to retake territory that was under federal control before the Islamic State group blitzed across the country in 2014.
The moves follow a controversial referendum last month in which the majority of Kurds voted for independence from Baghdad.
Iraq's prime minister said he would only accept a full cancellation of the Kurdish independence vote and its results, dismissing a proposal by the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region to freeze the referendum results pending negotiations with Baghdad.
Al-Abadi said the central government "will accept only the cancelling of the referendum and following the constitution," according to a written statement released by his office.
Al-Abadi's announcement comes during a visit to Iran on Thursday.
The Kurds' referendum last month overwhelmingly backed independence from Baghdad. Though the vote was non-binding, it has roiled tensions with the central government and the region.
Sporadic clashes have erupted over the past week between Kurdish and Iraqi forces, former allies in the battle against the Islamic State group.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders on Wednesday offered to freeze the referendum results in order to facilitate talks with Baghdad and end the violence.
Al-Abadi was in Iran after recent stops in Turkey and Jordan, and meetings with US officials and allies eager to pull Baghdad into their political orbit.
He first attended an official reception at a government estate north of Tehran and is meeting with Senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri on Thursday.
Regional issues and bilateral ties are expected to dominate the agenda, as well as the Iraqi Kurds' independence referendum last month that both Baghdad and Tehran have dismissed as illegal.
Iran remains a major player in the war against the Islamic State group and culturally across Iraq, its one-time bitter enemy when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein waged an eight year war on Iran in 1980s that left more than one million casualties on both sides.
Turkey: Iraqi Kurdish vote caused 'devastation'
Turkey: Iraqi Kurdish vote caused 'devastation'
Israel builds ‘cyber dome’ against Iran’s hackers
- Israeli cybersecurity agency had thwarted around 800 significant attacks since the Oct. 7 Gaza war erupted
- But some attacks could not be foiled, including against hospitals in which patient data was stolen
TEL AVIV: Israel’s Iron Dome defense system has long shielded it from incoming rockets. Now it is building a “cyber dome” to defend against online attacks, especially from arch foe Iran.
“It is a silent war, one which is not visible,” said Aviram Atzaba, the Israeli National Cyber Directorate’s head of international cooperation.
While Israel has fought Hamas in Gaza since the October 7 attack, it has also faced a significant increase in cyberattacks from Iran and its allies, Atzaba said.
“They are trying to hack everything they can,” he told AFP, pointing to Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement but adding that so far “they have not succeeded in causing any real damage.”
He said around 800 significant attacks had been thwarted since the war erupted. Among the targets were government organizations, the military and civil infrastructure.
Some attacks could not be foiled, including against hospitals in the cities of Haifa and Safed in which patient data was stolen.
While Israel already has cyber defenses, they long consisted of “local efforts that were not connected,” Atzaba said.
So, for the past two years, the directorate has been working to build a centralized, real-time system that works proactively to protect all of Israeli cyberspace.
Based in Tel Aviv, the directorate works under the authority of the prime minister. It does not reveal figures on its staff, budget or computing resources.
Israel collaborates closely with multiple allies, including the United States, said Atzaba, because “all states face cyber terrorism.”
“It takes a network to fight a network,” he said.
Israel’s arch foe Iran is “an impressive enemy” in the online wars, said Chuck Freilich, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, which is affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
“Its attacks aim to sabotage and destroy infrastructure, but also to collect data for intelligence and spread false information for propaganda purposes,” he said.
Iran has welcomed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Regional tensions have soared, particularly after Iran for the first time fired hundreds of missiles directly at Israel last month in retaliation for a deadly Israeli air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
It was the most dramatic escalation yet after a years-long shadow war of killings and sabotage attacks between Israel and Iran.
Freilich argued in a study published in February that Iran was relatively slow to invest in cyberwarfare, until two key events triggered a change.
First, its leaders took note of how anti-government protesters used the Internet as a tool to mobilize support for a 2009 post-election uprising.
In the bloody crackdown that crushed the movement, Iran’s authorities cut access to social media and websites covering the protests.
Then, in September 2010, a sophisticated cyberattack using the Stuxnet virus, blamed by Iran on Israel and the United States, caused physical damage to Tehran’s nuclear program.
Freilich said the attack “demonstrated Iran’s extreme vulnerability and led to a severe national shock.”
Since then, Iran has gained substantial expertise to become “one of the most active countries in cyberspace,” he said
While Israel is considered a major cyber power, Iran was only likely to improve, said Freilich.
He pointed to assistance from Russia and China, as well as its much larger population and an emphasis on cyber training for students and soldiers alike, adding that the trend was “concerning for the future.”
Atzaba insisted that the quantity of hackers is secondary to the quality of technology and the use it is put to.
“For the past two years, we have been developing a cyber dome against cyberattacks, which functions like the Iron Dome against rockets,” he said.
“With cyber dome, all sources are fed into a large data pool that enables a view of the big picture and to invoke a national response in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.”
The Israeli system has various scanners that continuously “monitor Israeli cyberspace for vulnerabilities and informs the stakeholders of the means to mitigate them,” he said.
Israel’s cyber strength relied on close cooperation between the public, private and academic sectors, as well as Israel’s “white hat” hackers who help identify weaknesses.
“We work hand in hand,” he said.
Kurds deny torturing detainees in north Syria camps
- Rights group alleges cruelty against Daesh militant prisoners and their families
JEDDAH: Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria on Thursday denied claims by Amnesty International that they tortured Daesh militants and their dependents detained in internment camps.
More than 56,000 prisoners with links to the Islamist militant group are still being held five years after Daesh were driven out of their last territory in Syria. They include militants locked up in prisons, and Daesh fighters’ wives and children in Al-Hol and Roj camps.
Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard said Kurdish authorities had “committed the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment, and probably committed the war crime of murder.”
The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northeast Syria said it “respects its obligations to prevent the violation of its laws, which prohibit such illegal acts, and adheres to international law.”
Any such crimes that may have been perpetrated were “individual acts,” it said, and asked Amnesty to provide it with any evidence of wrongdoing by its security forces and affiliates.
“We are open to cooperating with Amnesty International regarding its proposed recommendations, which require concerted regional and international efforts,” it said.
Kurdish authorities said they had repeatedly asked the international community for help in managing the camps, which required “huge financial resources.”
Al-Hol is the largest internment camp in northeast Syria, with more than 43,000 detainees from 47 countries, most of them women and children related to Daesh fighters.
Hamas is sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks in the latest sign of progress
- US and Egyptian mediators have put to Hamas a proposal -– apparently with Israel’s acceptance — that sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages
BEIRUT: Hamas said Thursday that it was sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks, in a new sign of progress in attempts by international mediators to hammer out an agreement between Israel and the militant group to end the war in Gaza.
After months of stop-and-start negotiations, the ceasefire efforts appear to have reached a critical stage, with Egyptian and American mediators reporting signs of compromise in recent days. But chances for the deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas.
The stakes in the ceasefire negotiations were made clear in a new UN report that said if the Israel-Hamas war stops today, it will still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed by nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza. It warned that the impact of the damage to the economy will set back development for generations and will only get worse with every month fighting continues.
The proposal that US and Egyptian mediators have put to Hamas -– apparently with Israel’s acceptance — sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages, but also negotiations over a “permanent calm” that includes some sort of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, according to an Egyptian official. Hamas is seeking guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal and complete end to the war.
Hamas officials have sent mixed signals about the proposal in recent days. But on Thursday, its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a statement that he had spoken to Egypt’s intelligence chief and “stressed the positive spirit of the movement in studying the ceasefire proposal.”
The statement said that Hamas negotiators would travel to Cairo “to complete the ongoing discussions with the aim of working forward for an agreement.” Haniyeh said he had also spoken to the prime minister of Qatar, another key mediator in the process.
The brokers are hopeful that the deal will bring an end to a conflict that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, caused widespread destruction and plunged the territory into a humanitarian crisis. They also hope a deal will avert an Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought shelter after fleeing battle zones elsewhere in the territory.
If Israel does agree to end the war in return for a full hostage release, it would be a major turnaround. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack stunned Israel, its leaders have vowed not to stop their bombardment and ground offensives until the militant group is destroyed. They also say Israel must keep a military presence in Gaza and security control after the war to ensure Hamas doesn’t rebuild.
Publicly at least, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that is the only acceptable endgame.
He has vowed that even if a ceasefire is reached, Israel will eventually attack Rafah, which he says is Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza. He repeated his determination to do so in talks Wednesday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Israel on a regional tour to push the deal through.
The agreement’s immediate fate hinges on whether Hamas will accept uncertainty over the final phases to bring the initial six-week pause in fighting — and at least postpone what it is feared would be a devastating assault on Rafah.
Egypt has been privately assuring Hamas that the deal will mean a total end to the war. But the Egyptian official said Hamas says the text’s language is too vague and wants it to specify a complete Israeli pullout from all of Gaza. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the internal deliberations.
On Wednesday evening, however, the news looked less positive as Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas official, expressed skepticism, saying the group’s initial position was “negative.” Speaking to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, he said that talks were still ongoing but would stop if Israel invades Rafah.
Blinken hiked up pressure on Hamas to accept, saying Israel had made “very important” compromises.
“There’s no time for further haggling. The deal is there,” Blinken said Wednesday before leaving for the US
An Israeli airstrike, meanwhile, killed at least five people, including a child, in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. The bodies were seen and counted by Associated Press journalists at a hospital.
The war broke out on Oct. 7. when Hamas militants broke into southern Israel and killed over 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, taking around 250 others hostage, some released during a ceasefire on November.
The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Hamas is believed to still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has wreaked vast destruction and brought a humanitarian disaster, with several hundred thousand Palestinians in northern Gaza facing imminent famine, according to the UN More than 80 percent of the population has been driven from their homes.
The “productive basis of the economy has been destroyed” and poverty is rising sharply among Palestinians, according to the report released Thursday by the United Nations Development Program and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
It said that in 2024, the entire Palestinian economy — including both Gaza and the West Bank -– has so far contracted 25.8 percent. If the war continues, the loss will reach a “staggering” 29 percent by July, it said. The West Bank economy has been hit by Israel’s decision to cancel the work permits for tens of thousands of laborers who depended on jobs inside Israel.
“These new figures warn that the suffering in Gaza will not end when the war does,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said. He warned of a “serious development crisis that jeopardizes the future of generations to come.”
Syria says Israeli strike outside Damascus injures eight troops
- A security source said the strike hit a building operated by government forces
- Defense ministry acknowledged only that the strike caused some material damage
An Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Damascus injured eight Syrian military personnel late on Thursday, the Syrian defense ministry said, the latest such attack amid the war in Gaza.
The Israeli strike, launched from the occupied Golan Heights toward “one of the sites in the vicinity of Damascus,” caused some material damage, the Syrian defense ministry said in a statement.
The strike hit a building operated by Syrian security forces, a security source in the alliance backing Syria’s government earlier told Reuters.
The Israeli military said it does not comment on reports in the foreign media.
Israel has for years been striking Iran-linked targets in Syria and has stepped up its campaign in the war-torn country since Oct. 7, when Iran-backed Palestinian militants Hamas crossed into Israeli territory in an attack that left 1,200 people dead and led to more than 250 taken hostage.
Israel responded with a land, air and sea assault on the Gaza Strip, escalated strikes on Syria and exchanged fire with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah across Lebanon’s southern border.
The security source said the location struck in Syria on Thursday sat just south of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine, where Hezbollah and Iranian forces are entrenched.
But the source said the site struck was not operated by Iranian units or Hezbollah.
Turkiye halts all trade with Israel, cites worsening Palestinian situation
- Turkiye’s trade ministry: ‘Export and import transactions related to Israel have been stopped, covering all products’
- Israel’s FM Israel Katz said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was breaking agreements by blocking ports to Israeli imports and exports
ANKARA: Turkiye stopped all exports and imports to and from Israel as of Thursday, the Turkish trade ministry said, citing the “worsening humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territories.
“Export and import transactions related to Israel have been stopped, covering all products,” Turkiye’s trade ministry said in a statement.
“Turkiye will strictly and decisively implement these new measures until the Israeli Government allows an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
The two countries had a trade volume of $6.8 billion in 2023.
Turkiye last month imposed trade restrictions on Israel over what it said was Israel’s refusal to allow Ankara to take part in aid air-drop operations for Gaza and its offensive on the enclave.
Earlier on Thursday, Israel’s foreign minister said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was breaking agreements by blocking ports to Israeli imports and exports.
“This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted on X.
Katz said he instructed the foreign ministry to work to create alternatives for trade with Turkiye, focusing on local production and imports from other countries.
