ALGIERS: Veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi will chair a conference on the country’s political future proposed by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a government source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Bouteflika earlier abandoned plans to stand for a fifth term amid mass protests
The conference will include demonstrators’ representatives as well as participants from Algeria’s 1954-1962 independence war, the source said.
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Diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi to chair transitional conference on Algeria
Diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi to chair transitional conference on Algeria
- Representatives of protestors and Algerian independnce war veterans will attend the conference
Erdogan visits opposition party headquarters for first time in 18 years
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the opposition CHP party headquarters on Tuesday, the first time in 18 years, after his party’s dramatic defeat in the March local elections.
Erdogan last visited the party in 2006 when he was prime minister.
The one-and-a-half-hour meeting between Erdogan and CHP leader Ozgur Ozel in the capital Ankara comes more than a month after their first encounter in May.
As a result of the local elections, Ozel’s CHP retained control of major cities including Istanbul and Ankara and expanded into some Anatolian provinces previously considered Erdogan territory.
Erdogan has signalled “softening” in politics after the March vote observers called his worst defeat since his Islamic-rooted AKP party took power in 2002.
Many blamed soaring inflation, currently at above 75 percent, and a crashing devaluation of the lira currency over the past year.
Erdogan has long called for a civilian constitution, saying the current one is a “product of the (1980) coup.” But he needs the support of at least 37 opposition lawmakers to take a new charter to a referendum.
CHP’s Ozel however remains cool toward a new charter. He has argued that it would be redundant, accusing the government of having failed to abide by the current document.
The recent removal of an elected mayor from his post in the Kurdish-majority southeast was expected to figure high on the agenda of the Erdogan-Ozel meeting.
Mehmet Siddik Akis served as mayor of the southeastern province of Hakkari for pro-Kurdish DEM party. The authorities accuse it of links to the outlawed PKK Kurdish militants, a charge it has denied.
A Turkish court earlier this month jailed Akis for terror-related crimes and he was replaced by a government-appointed local governor, prompting protests.
It was the first dismissal of a pro-Kurdish mayor since the March local elections, in which the DEM party won control of 77 municipalities across Turkiye.
DEM is the third-largest political party in the parliament after Erdogan’s ruling AKP and the main opposition CHP.
Ozel protested the removal of the elected mayor, calling for “respect in national will.”
US military says it destroyed 2 missile launchers in Houthi-held area of Yemen
The US military said on Tuesday that its forces had destroyed two anti-ship cruise missile launchers in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen.
US Central Command said on the social media site X that the missile launchers “presented an imminent threat to US and coalition forces and to merchant vessels transiting the region.”
Palestinian health ministry says 6 killed in Israeli army raid in West Bank
- The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had transported six dead people from Kafr Dan, at least three of them from a “targeted house”
KFAR DAN, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian health ministry and Red Crescent said six Palestinian men were killed Tuesday during an Israeli army raid in the northern occupied West Bank village of Kfar Dan.
The Israeli military said it conducted a “counterterror activity” in the area during which four militants were killed.
The men aged between 21 and 32 were “shot by the occupation forces in the town of Kafr Dan, Jenin district,” the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said in a statement.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had transported six dead people from Kafr Dan, at least three of them from a “targeted house.”
The Israeli army said troops “encircled a structure used” by Palestinian militants, killing four “during exchanges of fire” and injuring “additional ones,” while an Israeli air force helicopter “struck the area of the structure.”
The statement added that soldiers had found weapons “and a vehicle containing numerous explosives.”
The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has experienced a surge in violence for more than a year, but especially since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza erupted on October 7.
At least 542 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war broke out, according to Palestinian officials.
Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 14 Israelis in the West Bank over the same period, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel says Hamas rejects key elements of US ceasefire plan for Gaza
- On his 8th visit to region, US Secretary of State Blinken said world supported the plan
- Hamas ‘changed all of the main and most meaningful parameters,’ Israeli official said
JERUSALEM/CAIRO: Hamas formally responded on Tuesday to a US ceasefire proposal for the eight-month-old war in the Gaza Strip, and Israel said the response was tantamount to a rejection while a Hamas official said the Palestinian group merely reiterated longstanding demands not met by the current plan.
Egypt and Qatar said they had received Hamas’ response to a proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden on May 31 but did not disclose the contents.
The Hamas official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters the response reaffirmed its stance that a ceasefire must lead to a permanent end to hostilities in Gaza, withdrawal of Israeli forces, reconstruction of the Palestinian enclave and release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. “We reiterated our previous stance. I believe there are no big gaps. The ball is now in the Israeli courtyard.”
The United States has said Israel accepted its proposal, but Israel has not publicly said this. Israel, which has continued assaults in central and southern Gaza, among the bloodiest of the war, has repeatedly said it would not commit to an end of its campaign in Gaza before Hamas is eliminated.
An Israeli official said on Tuesday the country had received Hamas’ answer from the mediators and that Hamas “changed all of the main and most meaningful parameters.”
The Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hamas “has rejected the proposal for a hostage release that was presented by President Biden.”
Earlier a non-Israeli official briefed on the matter, who declined to be identified, said Hamas proposed a new timeline for a permanent ceasefire with Israel and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, including Rafah.
The UN Security Council on Monday backed a US resolution supporting the proposal outlined by Biden. Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Tuesday before mediators received the group’s response that Hamas accepted the Security Council resolution and was ready to negotiate over the details of a ceasefire.
Also on Tuesday, Hamas and its ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad expressed “readiness to positively” reach a deal to end the war in Gaza in a joint statement on Tuesday, which some interpreted as acceptance of Biden’s proposal.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Tel Aviv to meet Israeli officials, called this a “hopeful sign” but said it was not conclusive.
More important “is the word coming from Gaza and from the Hamas leadership in Gaza. That’s what counts, and that’s what we don’t have yet,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.
CEASEFIRE PLAN
Biden’s proposal envisages a ceasefire and phased release of Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war. This would be a three-phase plan starting with an initial six-week ceasefire with an Israeli military withdrawal from populated areas of Gaza and the release of some hostages while “a permanent end to hostilities” is negotiated through mediators. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Israeli official’s remarks on Tuesday. Earlier US officials said they were reviewing Hamas’ response, as did Qatar and Egypt.
For months, negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have been trying to mediate a ceasefire in the enclave of 2.3 million people.
Israel is retaliating against Hamas, which rules Gaza, over an Oct. 7 attack by its militants.
More than 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages are believed to remain captive in Gaza.
Israel launched an air, ground and sea assault on the Palestinian territory, killing more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Iraq’s top Christian leader reinstated as head of church
- Sako, in turn, said the parliamentarian aimed to gain legitimacy as the sole representative of the Christian community
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s prime minister reinstated Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic church, paving the way for his return to Baghdad a year after a dispute with the president.
Sako, Iraq’s top Christian leader and the architect of Pope Francis’ historic visit to the country in 2021, is a key interlocutor between the Iraqi government and its Christian minority.
In July last year, Sako left Baghdad and settled in the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq after President Abdul Latif Rashid canceled a decree recognizing him as head of the Chaldean church.
But the church on Tuesday published a recent decree by Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani naming Sako as the patriarch, adding that he “will be responsible” for the church’s endowment and properties.
“I will return to Baghdad,” Sako told AFP.
“I am very pleased because the rule of law prevailed, which gives more hope to Christians about the respecting of their rights,” added the cardinal, who met Sudani in April during a rare visit to Baghdad.
For several months before the presidential decree last year, Sako had been embroiled in a war of words with a Christian lawmaker, Rayan Al-Kildani.
Kildani is the leader of the Babylon Movement, whose armed wing is part of Hashed Al-Shaabi — a network of largely pro-Iran paramilitaries that were integrated into Iraqi security forces in recent years.
In a country ravaged by repeated conflicts and plagued by endemic corruption, Sako and Kildani both accused each other of illegally seizing Christian-owned properties.
Kildani, who has been under US sanctions since 2019, accused the cardinal of assuming a political role beyond his religious mandate.
Sako, in turn, said the parliamentarian aimed to gain legitimacy as the sole representative of the Christian community.
Iraq’s Christian population has drastically declined since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled strongman Saddam Hussein, dropping from more than 1.5 million people to around 400,000 today.
Many have fled the violence that has plagued the country over the past 20 years.
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