DAMASCUS: Damascus said Thursday it strongly rejects a proposed US-Turkish buffer zone for northern Syria, blaming the "aggressive" project on Syria's Kurds, who gave the proposal a guarded welcome.
Turkish and US officials agreed on Wednesday to establish a joint operations centre to oversee the creation of a safe zone to manage tensions between Ankara and US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria.
No details were provided on the size or nature of the safe zone, but the deal appeared to provide some breathing room after Turkey had threatened an imminent attack on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which control a large swathe of northern Syria.
"Syria categorically and clearly rejects the agreement between the American and Turkish occupiers on the establishment of a so-called safe zone" in northern Syria, a foreign ministry source told state news agency SANA.
"Syria's Kurds who have accepted to become a tool in this aggressive US-Turkish project bear a historical responsibility," the source added, urging Kurdish groups to return to the fold.
Turkey has already carried out two cross-border offensives into Syria in 2016 and 2018, the second of which saw it and allied Syrian rebels overrun the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in the northwest.
The deployment of Turkish troops and their proxies in Afrin has drawn accusations of a Turkish military occupation.
Damascus said the planned buffer zone further east serves "Turkey's expansionist ambitions," accusing both Ankara and Washington of violating its sovereignty.
A senior Syrian Kurdish official gave the Turkish-US agreement a guarded welcome.
"This deal may mark the start of a new approach but we still need more details," Aldar Khalil told AFP on Thursday.
"We will evaluate the agreement based on details and facts, not headlines."
Turkey's foreign minister on Thursday said the deal was "a very good start".
But Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country would not allow the agreement to turn into a "delaying manoeuvre".
"The accord must be implemented," he said at a press conference in Ankara, without giving a specific timeline.
Wednesday's deal describes the planned safe zone as a "peace corridor" that can "ensure that our Syrian brothers will be able to return to their country".
Turkey has the highest number of Syrian refugees in the world at more than 3.6 million, and has faced increasing pressure domestically to speed up repatriations to peaceful parts of Syria.
While the Kurds have largely stayed out of the conflict between various rebel groups and the Damascus government, they have taken advantage of the war to set up an autonomous region in the northeast.
Across the border, Turkey has eyed this push for increased independence with suspicion, regarding its Kurdish leaders as "terrorists".
Ankara views the YPG as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a bloody insurgency inside Turkey for the past 35 years.
But the YPG has been a key US ally in the fight against Daesh.
As the fight against Daesh winds down in northeastern Syria, the prospect of a US military withdrawal has stoked Kurdish fears of a long threatened Turkish attack.
To allay these fears, Washington earlier this year proposed setting up a 30-kilometre (18-mile) "safe zone" on the Syrian side of the border.
The Kurds have agreed to a buffer zone, but disagree with the Turks on how wide it should be, or who should control it.
Earlier this week, Khalil said the Kurds had agreed to a buffer zone around five kilometres wide, but Turkey rejected the proposal.
He also said the Kurds had opened channels with the Russia-backed government, but it had not yet "made its true position clear despite the urgency of the situation".
Wednesday's deal comes at a delicate moment between Turkey and the US, who have grown increasingly estranged over a number of issues, including American support for the Kurds and Turkey's decision to buy a Russian S-400 missile defence system.
It is also a tricky moment for Erdogan domestically after his party lost control of Istanbul and Ankara in municipal elections this year, and has seen high-profile defections.
In recent weeks, Turkish media have repeatedly shown images of military convoys heading for the border area, carrying equipment and fighting units.
Damascus rejects Turkey-US plan, Kurds give guarded welcome
Damascus rejects Turkey-US plan, Kurds give guarded welcome
- Damascus said the planned buffer zone further east serves "Turkey's expansionist ambitions," accusing both Ankara and Washington of violating its sovereignty
- Turkey has the highest number of Syrian refugees in the world at more than 3.6 million, and has faced increasing pressure domestically to speed up repatriations to peaceful parts of Syria
Middle East in ‘shadow of uncertainty due to regional conflicts’
WASHINGTON: Economies in the Middle East and North Africa face a “shadow of uncertainty” from ongoing tensions in the region, a senior IMF official said.
“We are in a context where the overall outlook is cast into shadows,” Jihad Azour, the International Monetary Fund’s director for the Middle East and Central Asia department, said in an interview in Washington.
“The shadow of uncertainty on the geopolitical side is an important one,” added Azour, a recent candidate for the next Lebanese president.
In the face of the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Sudan and a recent cut to oil supplies by Gulf countries, the IMF has pared back its growth outlook for the Middle East and North Africa region once again.
FASTFACT
Economic activity in Gaza has ‘come to a standstill’ and the IMF estimates that economic output in the West Bank and Gaza contracted by six percent last year.
The IMF expects growth in MENA of 2.7 percent this year — 0.2 percentage points below its January forecast — before picking up again next year, the IMF said in its regional economic outlook report.
The risks to growth in the MENA region remain heightened, the IMF said, pointing to the danger of greater regional spillovers from the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.
“We have concerns about the immediate and lasting impact of conflict,” Azour said.
The IMF report said that economic activity in Gaza has “come to a standstill” and estimates that economic output in the West Bank and Gaza contracted by 6 percent last year.
The IMF said the report excludes economic projections for the West Bank and Gaza for the next five years “on account of the unusually high degree of uncertainty.”
The IMF cannot lend to the West Bank and Gaza because they are not IMF member countries.
However, Azour said it has provided the Palestinian Authority and the central bank with technical assistance during the current conflict.
“When we move into the reconstruction phase, we will be part of the international community support to the region,” he added.
Azour also discussed the situation in Sudan, where thousands have been killed in a civil war that has also devastated the economy, causing it to contract by almost 20 percent last year, according to the IMF.
“The country is barely functioning, institutions have been dismantled,” he said.
“And for an economy, for a country like Sudan, with all this potential, it’s important to stop the bleeding very quickly and move to a phase of reconstruction,” he added.
The recent Houthi attacks have particularly badly hit the Egyptian economy on Red Sea shipping, which caused trade through the Egypt-run Suez Canal to more than halve — depriving the country of a key source of foreign exchange.
Egypt reached an agreement last month to increase an existing IMF loan package from $3 billion to $8 billion after its central bank hiked interest rates and allowed the pound to plunge by nearly 40 percent.
A key pillar of the current IMF program is the privatization of Egypt’s state-owned enterprises, many of which are owned by or linked to the military.
“This is a priority for Egypt,” Azour said. Egypt needs to have a growing private sector and give space for the private sector to create more jobs.”
“We have an opportunity to re-engineer the state’s role, to give the state more responsibility as an enabler and less as a competitor,” he said.
Oxfam director urges global support for refugees in Jordan
- Dmitry Medlev speaks of impact of over 3m people from neighboring areas
LONDON: Oxfam’s country director in Jordan said on Friday the global community had a responsibility to support refugees, especially in light of unrest in the Middle East.
In an interview with the Jordan News Agency, Dmitry Medlev described how an influx of over 3 million refugees from neighboring areas had stretched Jordan’s economic resources, disrupted local communities, and burdened public services.
He described the refugee’s experience as harrowing, often involving the painful process of abandoning the individual’s homeland and everything they held dear.
He said: “We are sending a message to the world not to overlook the refugee problem and to keep its focus on the new global disasters created by humans or caused by natural disasters, and the conflicts that have emerged in several countries recently, because the refugee problem is draining host countries and imposing additional burdens on them that they may not be able to bear in the future.”
Medlev called for enhanced international cooperation and adherence to international humanitarian law in supporting refugees, underscoring the need for long-term solutions to the ongoing crisis.
He also spoke of Oxfam’s initiatives in Jordan, such as the Waste to Positive Energy project in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, and the EU, and executed with the German Corporation for International Cooperation. The project focuses on waste management and recycling in Zaatari Camp and Mafraq Governorate, processing about 30 tonnes of waste per day.
Medlev also pointed out Oxfam’s efforts in promoting economic and climate justice through grants aimed at empowering local projects led by women and youngsters. These grants help enhance project efficiency, ensure sustainability, and connect beneficiaries with supportive institutions.
He outlined Oxfam’s five-year strategy in Jordan, which focuses on gender justice, climate justice, and economic justice, and aims to bolster the country’s preparedness for disasters, enhance employment opportunities, and provide humanitarian support for refugees.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II told the UN General Assembly in September that the world must not abandon Palestinian refugees to the forces of despair.
Sudanese rue shattered dreams as war enters second year
- Bashir’s ouster in April 2019 ushered in a civilian-led transition that saw an outpouring of “hope, inspiration and vibrancy” among young Sudanese, said Samah Salman, who worked in corporate venture capital then
DUBAI: Lawyer Omar Ushari still remembers the hope that gripped Khartoum after the uprising that overthrew President Omar Bashir in 2019. Now, after a year of war between rival generals, much of the Sudanese capital lies in ruins.
The 46-year-old, then detained for his activism, celebrated behind bars when Bashir was toppled in a palace coup.
In the heady days that followed, as the army promised a transition to elective civilian rule, Ushari was released and set to work on his dream project: a literary cafe near the banks of the Nile.
Named Rateena, his cafe swiftly became known as a safe haven for young activists eager to contribute to building a “better Sudan.”
But on April 15 last year, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces went to war, and Ushari watched both his project and his dreams for the country “fade, bit by bit.”
BACKGROUND
Omar Bashir’s ouster in April 2019 ushered in a civilian-led transition that saw an outpouring of ‘hope, inspiration and vibrancy’ among young Sudanese, says Samah Salman, who worked in corporate venture capital then.
For months, he braved raging street battles to visit Rateena, “sit in the dark, take stock of what had been looted since my last visit, and reminisce.”
He did not understand how “the music that filled the space, the lectures and debates people shared, had been replaced with stray bullets strewn around me and the sound of tank fire outside.”
Now, as the war has entered its second year, with thousands dead and millions more driven from their homes, Ushari says he is “only one of the thousands of dreams shattered” — a microcosm of “a stolen revolution.”
Bashir’s ouster in April 2019 ushered in a civilian-led transition that saw an outpouring of “hope, inspiration and vibrancy” among young Sudanese, said Samah Salman, who worked in corporate venture capital then.
Startups were “springing up all across Sudan,” she said from the US, “all building extraordinary solutions to real needs ordinary Sudanese people were facing.”
Salman reviewed over 50 startups in telehealth, agritech, renewable energy, logistics, and fintech solutions, crediting the boom to “the energy of the revolution.”
According to Ushari, “hopes were high that Sudan was finally on the right path, out of the shadows and heading toward democracy, toward freedom.”
Like countless others, communications expert Raghdan Orsud, 36, wanted to play her part.
She co-founded Beam Reports to investigate disinformation in Sudan — “out of the belief in the role media can play in democratic transition,” she said from London.
But that transition ended in October 2021, two months after Beam Reports launched.
The same generals who would later go to war — army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his then-deputy RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — ousted civilians from the transitional administration.
“Nothing was the same after the coup,” Ushari said.
“It was a painful time. They were killing protesters every week, but still, we had hope.”
Then, one fateful Saturday at the end of Ramadan, the people of Khartoum awoke to the sounds of air strikes and shelling as their worst fears came true: the erstwhile allies had turned their guns on each other.
Bodies began piling up on the streets as vicious urban warfare drove millions to flee.
Orsud had just bought studio-grade recording equipment, “still in their boxes,” when RSF paramilitaries seized and looted her offices.
Ushari was piecing together a life in Cairo when he received a video message showing a massive fire.
“That’s how I found out Rateena had burned down,” he said.
Countless Sudanese in the diaspora — who had spent decades saving up to build their Khartoum homes — have been forced to watch from afar as the RSF looted them.
“At some point, he was praying for an airstrike to hit the house,” pastry chef Shaimaa Adlan, 29, said in Cairo, referring to her father in Saudi Arabia.
“He would have rather seen it destroyed than know his life’s work was being used as a paramilitary base.”
Adlan had started a catering business in Khartoum before finding herself in Egypt — uprooted and jobless.
But barely a year later, she sprints through a bustling kitchen in Cairo, shouting orders to her staff and fussing over dishes.
Back home, Salman says the war has not crushed Sudanese entrepreneurialism, just redirected it.
She said tech entrepreneurs now crowdsource real-time safety updates instead of protest plans and optimize evacuation paths instead of delivery routes.
The same young people organizing demonstrations now coordinate aid, becoming what the UN calls “the front line” of humanitarian response.
And in displacement centers and the diaspora, the dream of a new Sudan has not been forgotten.
“No matter where we’ve been exiled or what remote Sudanese state we’ve ended up in, there’s still a spark of the revolution left in every heart,” Ushari said.
“Sudan is ours, it’s all of ours,” said Orsud, whose fact-checking team has resumed operations from Nairobi.
“What else would we do besides rebuild it, over and over?“
Deaths from heavy rains in UAE rise to four
- Scientists blame human-led global warming for increasingly common extreme weather events, such as the rains in UAE and Oman
DUBAI: Deaths from heavy rains earlier this week in the UAE rose to four, authorities said on Friday, as well as flooding roads and jamming Dubai’s international airport.
The storm first hit Oman at the weekend, killing at least 20 people, before pounding the UAE on Tuesday with its heaviest rains in 75 years of records.
Two Philippine women and one man died in their vehicles during flooding, the government in Manila said. An Emirati man in his 70s had also died when his vehicle was swept away by floods in the northern Ras Al-Khaimah emirate.
BACKGROUND
Dubai International Airport was still struggling on Friday to clear a backlog of flights three days after the storm.
Scientists blame human-led global warming for increasingly common extreme weather events, such as the rains in UAE and Oman.
Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest and a hub for travel around the Middle East, was still struggling to clear a backlog of flights three days after the storm.
It was limiting arrivals for two days until Sunday.
Flagship carrier Emirates, one of the world’s biggest international airlines, said check-in was suspended for people planning to transit via Dubai though those with the city as a final destination could travel as usual.
According to aircraft flight tracking website FlightRadar24, as of Friday morning, 1,478 flights to and from Dubai had been canceled since Tuesday, approximately 30 percent of all flights.
In Abu Dhabi, state carrier Etihad said flight operations were normal.
The main road connecting Dubai, the most populous emirate, with Abu Dhabi remained partially closed on Friday, while an alternative route saw vehicles driving through low water on the hard shoulder past abandoned cars and buses.
In the UAE’s north, including in the emirate of Sharjah, local media reported people were reportedly still trapped in homes. Residents said there was extensive damage to businesses.
The UAE’s National Center of Meteorology said rain may return by late on Monday, though predicted it would be light with a chance of heavy rain again on Tuesday in some areas.
West Bank villagers vigilant but vulnerable after settler attacks
- “Hundreds of settlers entered the village, followed by more than 300 Israeli soldiers who stormed the village and declared it a closed military zone,” said Suleiman Dawabsha, head of Duma’s village council
RAMALLAH: Sitting around a fire in the hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Ibrahim Abu Alyah and some friends stood watch over his herd in the aftermath of a settler attack on their village.
“We are here so that we can put away the sheep and tell people to protect their homes in case settlers come,” said Abu Alyah.
After 14-year-old Israeli herder Benjamin Achimeir went missing on April 12 in the nearby illegal settler outpost of Malachi Hashalom, dozens of Jewish settlers raided his village of Al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah.
Armed with rifles and Molotov cocktails, they set houses ablaze, killed sheep, wounded 23 people, and displaced 86, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA.
One Palestinian was also killed in the violence.
Abu Alyah, a shepherd, lost “20 or 30 sheep” and the cash he made from selling milk products when his house was set alight.
We currently have more than 70 prisoners inside Israeli prisons on charges of joining protection committees or trying to form an organized body.
Amin Abu Alyah, Al-Mughayyir’s mayor
Al-Mughayyir’s mayor, Amin Abu Alyah, said the settlers, who were part of the search party for Achimeir, burnt “everything they found in front of them,” including houses, a bulldozer, and vehicles.
He said several citizens tried to organize protection committees to defend themselves from raids but were prevented.
“We currently have more than 70 prisoners inside Israeli prisons on charges of joining protection committees or trying to form an organized body,” he said.
In the nearby village of Duma, 5 km north of Al-Mughayyir, old fears came true on Saturday when hundreds of settlers entered the surrounding fields.
That day, Achimeir’s body was found bearing marks of a stabbing attack.
People watched powerless as settlers rampaged through the village.
“Hundreds of settlers entered the village, followed by more than 300 Israeli soldiers who stormed the village and declared it a
closed military zone,” said Suleiman Dawabsha, head of Duma’s village council.
Mahmud Salawdeh, a 30-year-old iron worker whose house was torched in the attack, felt vulnerable when he realized the soldiers were not stopping the attack.
“We feel helpless because we are unable to protect ourselves, and the army protects the settlers,” he said.
“I lost all my money and my future,” he added from the ground floor of his charred house on the outskirts of Duma, near the fields the attackers came through.
At his feet, burnt furniture and shattered glass covered the floor, while walls black with soot served as a reminder of the firebombs thrown at the building.
His workshop in the adjacent room was torched, charred remnants of old tools lay around, and a large wooden box where he had been raising 70 chicks was now empty.
The incident opened old wounds for Duma residents, who remember the tragedy that struck the Dawabsha family.
In 2015, the family’s home was set ablaze by a settler extremist, killing the couple and their toddler and leaving only one surviving member, four-year-old Ahmed Dawabsha.
Duma residents, like many West Bank villagers, say they are protected neither by Palestinian security, which is only allowed to operate in 40 percent of the territory, nor by Israel, which controls the rest.
Israeli soldiers do not always restrain settlers from attacking Palestinians, OCHA said.
In January, “in nearly half of all recorded incidents (of settler violence) after 7 October, Israeli forces were either accompanying or reported to be supporting the attackers,” it said.
OCHA recorded 774 instances of Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians since war broke in Gaza on Oct. 7, and said 37 communities had been affected by violence between April 9 and 15, “triple the number” of the preceding week.
At least 462 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank during that period, according to Palestinian official figures.
Meanwhile, the administration of US President Joe Biden imposed sanctions on two entities accused of fundraising for extremist Israel settlers already sanctioned, as well as the founder of an organization whose members regularly assault Palestinians.
Included in the Friday sanctions are two entities — Mount Hebron Fund and Shlom Asiraich — accused of raising funds for sanctioned settlers Yinon Levi and David Chai Chasdai. Both men were previously sanctioned by the Biden administration for violently attacking Palestinians in the West Bank.
The penalties aim to block them from using the US financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them.
The fundraising campaigns established by Mount Hebron Fund for Levi and by Shlom Asiraich for Chasdai generated the equivalent of $140,000 and $31,000, respectively, according to US Treasury.
In Levi’s case, the fund now sanctioned by the Biden administration is linked to the settler council in the area, a body that receives state money.
The Biden order on Friday stopped short of sanctioning the settler council itself.
The West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, has seen a surge in violence since early last year, which has intensified since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza erupted.
Despite the hardships, “we will never leave,” said the herder Abu Alyah.
But the 29-year-old already had to move in September from his former herding grounds on the other side of Al-Mughayyir, closer to the settlement outpost.
The weekend’s attacks marked a peak in violence due to the sheer number of people who took part in them, but also reflects a wider trend in the West Bank, NGOs said.
“It is clear that the escalation of violence in the West Bank has occurred in tandem with the crisis in Gaza,” charity ActionAid said in a statement.
On Wednesday evening, settlers were planting Israeli flags along the road that runs between Al-Mughayyir and Malachi Hashalom.
