Iran dissidents praise ‘groundbreaking’ Macron talks, urge action

French President Emmanuel Macros is shown with Iranian dissidents in Paris in this picture posted on social media. (Twitter: @Sima_Sabet)
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Updated 13 November 2022
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Iran dissidents praise ‘groundbreaking’ Macron talks, urge action

PARIS: Iranian women dissidents who met President Emmanuel Macron praised the talks on Saturday as a historic move from Paris, while urging France to lead concrete action against the Islamic republic.

Macron had on Friday held a previously unpublicized meeting with four prominent women campaigners as anti-regime protests sweep Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested by the morality police.

The four included US-based activist Masih Alinejad who for years has led a campaign encouraging Iranian women to remove their obligatory headscarves.

She held a one-on-one meeting with Macron at the Elysee Palace, before being joined by the three other campaigners, participants told AFP.

They were Shima Babaei, who has campaigned for justice for her father who has disappeared in Iran, Ladan Boroumand, the co-founder of Washington-based rights group Abdorrahman Boroumand Center and Roya Piraei whose mother Minoo Majidi was killed by security forces at the start of the protest crackdown.

“The meeting was very important. In 43 years (since the 1979 Islamic Revolution) not one Iranian dissident had a meeting with official status with a French president,” Boroumand told AFP.
“It was groundbreaking,” she added.

“What matters most in this historic meeting is the psychological impact of acknowledging the legitimacy of the ongoing struggle inside Iran. We need now to push the government to action.”

The four presented a list of demands for the French government including recalling its ambassador from Tehran, reducing diplomatic relations to a minimum and sanctioning officials responsible for the crackdown on protesters, according to the document obtained by AFP.

After the meeting, Macron on Friday told a conference in Paris of his “respect and admiration in the context of the revolution they are leading.”

Alinejad commented to AFP: “President Macron recognized the Iranian revolution and that’s a truly historical decision. It’s time to stand on the right side of history and for universal values.”

“I’m sure it was not easy but he has clearly taken a brave and principled stance.”

Macron last month said France “stands by” the protesters in Iran and expressed his “admiration” for women and youths demonstrating in the country.

The Iranian foreign ministry retorted that his comments were “meddlesome” and served to encourage “violent people and lawbreakers.”

France Inter radio will broadcast an interview with Macron on the Iran issue on Monday.

Alinejad and other activists were previously bitterly critical of Macron’s decision to meet Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September as he sought to revive the 2015 deal on the Iranian nuclear program.

Babaei, who is campaigning to learn the whereabouts of her father Ebrahim who has been missing in Iran since late last year, said she told Macron that the Islamic republic “has occupied my country” just like Russia has done to Ukraine.

“So do the same to the Islamic republic as you did to (President Vladimir) Putin. Recognize the revolution of the Iranian people,” she wrote on Twitter.

Piraei has now left Iran after a photo went viral of her with cropped hair and bare-headed standing by her mother’s grave in Iran. She held the hair she had cut off in a symbol of solidarity with the protests.

Babaei tweeted a photo of the four women locked in a tight embrace at the Elysee Palace.

“This is the moment when we defeated the propaganda of the Islamic republic and became the voice of the Iranian people in the Elysee Palace,” she said.
 


Daesh attack kills seven pro-regime fighters in Syria

Updated 52 min 42 sec ago
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Daesh attack kills seven pro-regime fighters in Syria

  • Daesh attacks have killed at least 385 members of pro-regime forces and 165 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

BEIRUT: Seven members of pro-regime forces were killed in Syria on Friday in an attack by the Daesh group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The attackers were on motorbikes when they opened fire on a military post, “killing at least seven pro-regime fighters,” in the vicinity of Boukamal on the border with Iraq, the NGO’s director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
This year, Daesh attacks have killed at least 385 members of pro-regime forces and 165 civilians, according to the Observatory, which has a vast network of sources in Syria.
Rahman said those killed on Friday included both Syrians and “foreigners.”
After rising to power in 2014 in parts of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” waver after successive offensives against it in both countries, which were launched with the support of an international anti-jihadist coalition.
The defeat of IS in Syria was declared in 2019, but the coalition remained in the country to fight against jihadist cells that continue to operate there.
The conflict in Syria, sparked in 2011 by the iron-fisted repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, has left more than half a million dead.
More than twelve years of bloody conflict have divided the country into zones of influence.
President Bashar Assad’s regime has regained control of a large part of the country, with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies.
 

 

 


Palestinian president says Gaza war must end, conference needed to reach settlement

Updated 09 December 2023
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Palestinian president says Gaza war must end, conference needed to reach settlement

RAMALLAH: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and an international peace conference to work out a lasting political solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Ramallah, Abbas, 87, said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers.
Besides Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, he said Israeli forces have intensified their attacks everywhere in the occupied West Bank over the past year with settlers escalating violence against Palestinian towns.
He reiterated his longstanding position in favor of negotiation rather than armed resistance to end the longstanding occupation.
“I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said.
Abbas was speaking as Israel increased its strikes on Gaza. In two months of warfare, it has killed more than 17,000 people, wounded 46,000 and forced the displacement of around 1.9 million people, over half of them now sheltering in areas in central Gaza or close to the Egyptian border.
A senior US official said the idea of an international conference had been discussed among different partners but the proposal was still at a very preliminary stage.
“It’s one of many options on the table that we and others would consider with an open mind, but no decision has been made about that,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Israel launched its campaign to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules Gaza after Hamas fighters went on a rampage through Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Abbas said that based on a binding international agreement, he would revive the weakened Palestinian Authority, implement long-awaited reforms and hold presidential and parliamentary elections, which were suspended after Hamas won in 2006 and later pushed the PA out of Gaza.
He said the PA had abided by all the peace deals signed with Israel since the 1993 Oslo Accord and the understandings that followed over the years but that Israel had reneged on its pledges to end the occupation.

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS
Asked whether he would risk holding elections given the possibility that Hamas could win as it did in 2006, he said: “Whoever wins wins, these will be democratic elections.”
Abbas said he had planned to hold elections in April 2021 but the European Union envoy told him before the due date that Israel was objecting to voting in East Jerusalem so he was forced to call it off.
He insisted that there would not be elections without East Jerusalem, saying the PA held three rounds of elections in the past that included East Jerusalem before Israel imposed the ban.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed it, declaring the whole of the city as its capital, a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Abbas did not give a concrete vision of a post-war plan discussed with US officials under which the PA would take over control of the strip, home for 2.3 million people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not accept rule over Gaza by the Palestinian Authority as it stands.
“The United States tells us that it supports a two-state solution, that Israel is not allowed to occupy Gaza, to keep security control of Gaza or to expropriate land from Gaza,” he said in reference to a plan floated by Israel to establish a security zone in Gaza after the war.
“America doesn’t force Israel to implement what it says.”
He said the PA was still present in Gaza as an institution and still pays monthly salaries and expenses estimated at $140 million for employees, pensioners and for needy families. The PA still has three ministers present in Gaza, he added.
“We need rehabilitation, we need big support to return to Gaza,” Abbas said.
“Gaza today is not the Gaza that you know. Gaza was destroyed, its hospitals, its schools, its infrastructure, its buildings, its roads and mosques were destroyed. There is nothing left. When we return we need resources, Gaza needs reconstruction.”
“The United States which fully supports Israel bears the responsibility of what is happening in the enclave,” Abbas said.
“It is the only power that is capable of ordering Israel to stop the war and fulfil its obligations, but unfortunately it doesn’t. America is an accomplice of Israel.” 

 


WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers

Updated 09 December 2023
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WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers

  • The member states expressed their “grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip”

GENEVA: More than a dozen member states of the World Health Organization submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarian workers in Gaza.
War erupted in Gaza after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory air and ground assault on Gaza has killed 17,487 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The text of the draft resolution is due to be examined on Sunday during a special session of the WHO’s Executive Board convened to discuss “the health situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
It was proposed by Algeria, Bolivia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkiye, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Palestinian representatives have WHO observer status, and were also signatories to the proposal.
The member states expressed their “grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip.”
They called for Israel to “respect and protect” medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.
Separately, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters on Friday that Gaza’s health system was on its knees and could not afford to lose another ambulance or a single hospital bed.
“The situation is getting more and more horrible by the day... beyond belief, literally,” he said.
The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA said late on Thursday that only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity.
 

 


Hamas says US veto blocking Gaza cease-fire ‘unethical and inhumane’

Updated 09 December 2023
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Hamas says US veto blocking Gaza cease-fire ‘unethical and inhumane’

  • “The US obstruction of the issuance of a cease-fire resolution is a direct participation with the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing,” Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of the group’s political bureau, said

CAIRO: Hamas strongly condemns the US veto that blocked a proposed United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, a senior Hamas official said late on Friday in an official statement, saying that the group considers Washington’s move “unethical and inhumane.”
“The US obstruction of the issuance of a cease-fire resolution is a direct participation with the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing,” Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of the group’s political bureau, said.

 


US secretary of state and Qatari prime minister discuss Gaza ceasefire, hostages and aid

Updated 09 December 2023
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US secretary of state and Qatari prime minister discuss Gaza ceasefire, hostages and aid

  • The officials pledged to continue to work together to ‘facilitate the safe return of all remaining hostages while sustaining humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza’

LONDON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday held talks with Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani about the latest developments in the Gaza crisis.

“The secretary expressed appreciation for Qatar’s critical efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and the recent humanitarian pause in Gaza,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Both officials “reiterated the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading, and committed to continuing close coordination on ongoing efforts to facilitate the safe return of all remaining hostages while sustaining humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” he added.

Sheikh Mohammed said that Doha and its mediation partners remain committed to the continuing efforts to restore calm in Gaza, leading to a permanent ceasefire. But he added that the resumption of the Israeli bombardment of the territory following the end of the recent humanitarian pause is complicating mediation efforts and exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged enclave.

He also stressed the need to open up sustainable humanitarian corridors to help deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza, and to provide the necessary protection for relief convoys.

The prime minister reiterated his country’s condemnation of all forms of violence that involve the targeting of civilians, and said that the killing innocent civilians, especially women and children, and the practice of collective punishment are not acceptable in any circumstances.

The two officials also reaffirmed the strength and importance of the US-Qatar relationship, Miller added.

The meeting took place in Washington before Blinken met a delegation from a joint Arab League-Organization of Islamic Cooperation contact group, which was on a rare mission to the US in an effort to persuade the Biden administration to drop its opposition to a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The US subsequently vetoed the resolution during a vote at the UN in New York on Friday. The Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee includes ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkiye.