Oman welcomes Bahrain-Israel normalization decision

Above, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and King Hamad of Bahrain. (AFP)
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Updated 13 September 2020
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Oman welcomes Bahrain-Israel normalization decision

  • Bahrain on Friday became the second Gulf country to normalize ties with Israel

DUBAI: Oman welcomes Bahrain’s decision to normalize relations with Israel and hopes it will contribute to Israeli-Palestinian peace, Oman state media said on Sunday.
Bahrain on Friday became the second Gulf country to normalize ties with Israel after the United Arab Emirates said they would do so a month ago, moves forged partly through shared fears of Iran.
“Oman hopes this new strategic path taken by some Arab countries will contribute to bringing about a peace based on an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and on establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as capital,” the government statement said.
Israel’s intelligence minister said a few days after the UAE-Israel accord was announced on Aug. 13 that Oman could also formalize ties with the country. Oman has welcomed the UAE and Bahraini decisions, but has not commented on its own prospects for normalized relations.
In 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Oman and discussed peace initiatives in the Middle East with then-Omani leader Sultan Qaboos.
In a turbulent region, Oman has maintained its neutrality. It has kept friendly relations with a range of regional actors, including arch-foes the United States and Iran.

 

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Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

Updated 24 January 2026
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Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.

Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.