ANKARA: Iraqi Kurdistan’s drive for independence and new efforts to end the conflict in Syria dominated talks in Tehran on Wednesday when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began an official visit.
Erdogan met Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, with cooperation on transport, trade, energy and border crossings also on the agenda.
Ankara and Tehran, with Russia, have driven the most recent peace efforts in Syria. They have established new cease-fire and de-escalation zones, and have deployed 500 observers each to monitor them.
Turkey and Iran also share borders with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and they vehemently opposed last month’s controversial referendum in which Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence. With Iraq, they fear that the vote will lead to greater regional instability and disrupt counter-terrorism efforts against Daesh.
The three countries are conducting military drills on the border in a show of force, and further punitive measures against the idea of an independent Kurdistan will follow, Erdogan said on Wednesday at a joint press conference with Rouhani. “There is no country in the world that recognizes it other than Israel. The decision made by sitting at the table with Mossad cannot be legitimate, it is illegitimate,” he said.
Rouhani said terror groups such as Daesh and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) would not be allowed in the region, and Turkey and Iran supported the territorial integrity of both Syria and Iraq.
Two days before Erdogan’s visit, Turkish military Chief of Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar went to Tehran to meet his Iranian counterpart, Gen. Mohammed Hossein Bagheri, to discuss border security issues and joint efforts against terrorism.
During yesterday’s visit, Turkey and Iran also agreed to conduct bilateral trade through their own national currencies, in an effort to shore them up and reduce dependency on the US dollar.
“The Turkish lira went into free fall after the coup attempt last year, and President Erdogan has since pushed for trade in local currency, not only with Iran but also with other key trading partners such as Russia and China,” said Ahmad Majidyar, a fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington.
“As far as Iran is concerned, existing US sanctions still limit Tehran’s access to dollars. As a result, the Iranian government seeks to establish its bilateral trade with key partners in local currency.”
The two countries also agreed to work more closely on mutual tourism to boost their economies, and Iran will make it easier for Turkish entrepreneurs to work there.
Three customs gates on the border between the countries will be now operational 24 hours a day with the aim of increasing bilateral trade volume from $10 to $30 billion, and Turkey will import more natural gas from Iran.
Convergence of interests and threat perception has compelled Tehran and Ankara to reconcile some of their differences and cooperate more to tackle regional challenges that threaten both countries, Majidyar told Arab News.
“Iran and Turkey both fiercely oppose the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq as they fear such a move would strengthen separatism within their own sizable Kurdish minorities,” he said.
“Ankara has also realized that Washington is unwilling to take meaningful measures to topple the Assad regime or counter Iran’s influence in Iraq and Syria. Continued US support for Syrian Kurds has added to Ankara’s worries. As a result, Turkey is seeking to address some of its concerns by working with Iran, Russia and other regional and international players.”
However, despite a thaw in relations, there is still deep-seated mistrust between Tehran and Ankara and their transactional partnership in Syria and Iraq is unlikely to develop into a strategic alliance, Majidyar said.
Both countries perceive security threats from the instability that could arise from the Kurdish referendum, as this could result in a vacuum filled by terrorist groups such as the PKK and its Iranian offshoot the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), Prof. Nursin Atesoglu Guney, dean of the faculty of economics, administrative and social sciences at Bahcesehir Cyprus University in Iran, told Arab News.
“The relations between Turkey and Iran are therefore interest-based and can be labeled an alliance of convenience due to the common threat perception,” he said.
The geopolitical shift in the Middle East and Iran’s deteriorating relations with the West, mainly due to the impact of the Trump administration pressure on Tehran, also led to an improvement of relations between Turkey and Iran, Guney said.
“Throughout history, Turkey and Iran either cooperated on an issue-by-issue basis or got into competition in the region,” she said. “However, instead of competing in Syria, they found a window of opportunity to improve relations and go back to cooperation on a wide range of issues, from security to tourism and trade.”
Nevertheless, she did not expect joint military intervention by Turkey and Iran in the Kurdistan Region. “They can jointly take harsher measures, such as economic sanctions and an embargo on energy sources, but military action seems to be the last resort.”
Erdogan, Rouhani vow to halt Iraqi Kurds’ secession
Erdogan, Rouhani vow to halt Iraqi Kurds’ secession
Israel to free 737 prisoners in first phase of Gaza truce deal
- Those named by the ministry include men, women and children who it said will not be released before Sunday
It said in a statement on its website that “the government approves” the “release (of) 737 prisoners and detainees” currently in the custody of the prison service.
Israel’s cabinet voted to approve the ceasefire deal early Saturday, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, ending days of uncertainty about whether the truce would go into effect this weekend.
Those named by the ministry include men, women and children who it said will not be released before Sunday at 4:00 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).
It had previously published a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners, the majority women, to be freed in exchange for Israeli captives in Gaza.
Among those on the expanded list was Zakaria Zubeidi, a chief of the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.
Zubeidi escaped from Israel’s Gilboa prison with five other Palestinians in 2021, sparking a days-long manhunt, and is lauded by Palestinians as a hero.
Also to be freed is Khalida Jarar, a leftist Palestinian lawmaker whom Israel arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.
Jarar is a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Detained in late December in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the 60-year-old has been held since then without charge.
Two sources close to Hamas told AFP that the first group of hostages to be released consists of three Israeli women soldiers.
However, since the Palestinian Islamist movement considers any Israeli of military age who has completed mandatory service a soldier, the reference could also apply to civilians abducted during the attack that triggered the war.
The first three names on a list obtained by AFP of the 33 hostages set to be released in the first phase are women under 30 who were not in military service on the day of the Hamas attack.
Justice ministry spokeswoman Noga Katz has said the final number of prisoners to be released in the first swap would depend on the number of live hostages released by Hamas.
Israel’s Cabinet approves a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza
- The Israeli government announced the approval after 1 a.m. Jerusalem time and confirmed the ceasefire will go into effect on Sunday
- Under the deal, 33 of some 100 hostages who remain in Gaza are set to be released over six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Cabinet approved a deal early Saturday for a ceasefire in Gaza that would release dozens of hostages held there and pause the 15-month war with Hamas, bringing the sides a step closer to ending their deadliest and most destructive fighting ever.
The government announced the approval after 1 a.m. Jerusalem time and confirmed the ceasefire will go into effect on Sunday. The hourslong Cabinet meeting went well past the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, a sign of the moment’s importance. In line with Jewish law, the Israeli government usually halts all business for the Sabbath except in emergency cases of life or death.
Mediators Qatar and the United States announced the ceasefire on Wednesday, but the deal was in limbo for more than a day as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted there were last-minute complications that he blamed on the Hamas militant group. On Friday, the smaller security Cabinet recommended approving the deal.
Key questions remain about the ceasefire — the second achieved during the war — including the names of the 33 hostages who are to be released during the first, six-week phase and who among them is still alive.
Netanyahu instructed a special task force to prepare to receive the hostages. The 33 are women, children, men over 50 and sick or wounded people. Hamas has agreed to free three female hostages on Day 1 of the deal, four on Day 7 and the remaining 26 over the following five weeks.
Palestinian detainees are to be released as well. Israel’s justice ministry published a list of 700 to be freed in the deal’s first phase and said the release will not begin before 4 p.m. local time Sunday. All people on the list are younger or female.
Israel’s Prison Services said it will transport the prisoners instead of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which handled transportation during the first ceasefire, to avoid “public expressions of joy.” The prisoners have been accused of crimes like incitement, vandalism, supporting terror, terror activities, attempted murder or throwing stones or Molotov cocktails.
The largely devastated Gaza should see a surge in humanitarian aid. Trucks carrying aid lined up Friday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.
An Egyptian official said an Israeli delegation from the military and Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency arrived Friday in Cairo to discuss the reopening of the crossing. An Israeli official confirmed a delegation was going to Cairo. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.
Israeli forces will also pull back from many areas in Gaza during the first phase of the ceasefire and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will be able to return to what’s left of their homes.
“Once Sunday comes around, we would be happier, God willing,” one of Gaza’s displaced people, Ekhlas Al-Kafarna, said during the wait for word on the Israeli Cabinet decision.
Israel’s military said that as its forces gradually withdraw from specific locations and routes in Gaza, residents will not be allowed to return to areas where troops are present or near the Israel-Gaza border, and any threat to Israeli forces “will be met with a forceful response.”
Ceasefire talks had stalled repeatedly in previous months. But Israel and Hamas had been under growing pressure from both the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump to reach a deal before Trump takes office on Monday.
Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack into Israel that killed some 1,200 people and left some 250 others captive. Nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel responded with a devastating offensive that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and militants but say women and children make up more than half the dead.
Fighting continued into Friday, and Gaza’s Health Ministry said 88 bodies had arrived at hospitals in the past 24 hours. In previous conflicts, both sides stepped up military operations in the final hours before ceasefires as a way to project strength.
The second — and much more difficult — phase of the ceasefire is meant to be negotiated during the first. The remainder of the hostages, including male soldiers, are to be released during this phase.
But Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal, while Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it dismantles the group and to maintain open-ended security control over the territory.
Longer-term questions about postwar Gaza remain, including who will rule the territory or oversee the daunting task of reconstruction.
The conflict has destabilized the Middle East and sparked worldwide protests. It also highlighted political tensions inside Israel, drawing fierce resistance from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.
On Thursday, Israel’s hard-line national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened to quit the government if Israel approved the ceasefire. He reiterated that Friday, writing on social media platform X: “If the ‘deal’ passes, we will leave the government with a heavy heart.”
There was no immediate sign early Saturday that he had done so.
Ben-Gvir’s resignation would not bring down the government or derail the ceasefire deal, but the move would destabilize the government at a delicate moment and could eventually lead to its collapse if Ben-Gvir were joined by other key Netanyahu allies.
International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor meets with Syrian leader in Damascus
- Rights groups estimate at least 150,000 people went missing after anti-government protests began in 2011, most vanishing into Assad’s prison network
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan made an unannounced visit Friday to Damascus to confer with the leader of Syria’s de facto government on how to ensure accountability for alleged crimes committed in the country.
Khan’s office said he visited at the invitation of Syria’s transitional government. He met with Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the leader of Syria’s new administration who was formerly known as Mohammad Al-Golani, and the foreign minister to discuss options for justice in The Hague for victims of the country’s civil war, which has left more than half a million dead and more than six million people displaced.
Al-Sharaa is a former Al-Qaeda militant who severed ties with the extremist group years ago and leads Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, the group leading the new authority in Syria. The former insurgent group, considered a terrorist group in the US, led the lightning offensive that toppled longtime dictator Bashar Assad last month and is now the de facto ruling party in the country.
Assad, who fled to Russia in December, waged an oppressive campaign against anyone who opposed him during his more than two decades in power.
Rights groups estimate at least 150,000 people went missing after anti-government protests began in 2011, most vanishing into Assad’s prison network. Many of them were killed, either in mass executions or from torture and prison conditions. The exact number remains unknown.
The global chemical weapons watchdog found Syrian forces were responsible for multiple attacks using chlorine gas and other banned substances against civilians.
Other groups have also been accused of human rights violations and war crimes during the country’s civil war.
The new authorities have called for members of the Assad regime to be brought to justice. It is unclear how exactly that would work at this stage.
Syria is not a member of the ICC, which has left the court without the ability to investigate the war. In 2014, Russia and China blocked a referral by the United Nations Security Council which would have given the court jurisdiction. Similar referrals were made for Sudan and Libya.
Khan’s visit comes after a trip to Damascus last month by the UN organization assisting in investigating the most serious crimes in Syria. The International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria was created to assist in evidence-gathering and prosecution of individuals responsible for possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.
The group’s head, Robert Petit, highlighted the urgency of preserving documents and other evidence before they are lost.
Ban on UNRWA will make plight of Gazans much worse and undermine ceasefire, agency’s chief warns
- Philippe Lazzarini tells Arab News we are witnessing a ‘crisis of impunity’ and international humanitarian law is becoming irrelevant in absence of ways to address this impunity
- UNRWA’s mandate and capacity to provide services ‘far exceed any other entity’ and they could only be transferred to a functioning Palestinian state institution, he says
NEW YORK CITY: The head of the largest aid agency for Palestinians has warned that the full implementation of a new Israeli law preventing its workers from operating within the country would be “catastrophic” for Gaza, “massively” weaken the international humanitarian response there, and make already “dire and catastrophic” living conditions “immeasurably” worse.
It would also undermine the Gaza ceasefire agreement, said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees.
He was speaking in New York where he earlier briefed the UN Security Council on the plight of the UNRWA, less than two weeks before the Israeli ban on the agency is due to take effect.
Lazzarini welcomed the recent ceasefire agreement and hostage-release deal in Gaza as a “starting point,” and stressed the “absolute” need for “rapid, unfettered” access for humanitarians to respond to the “tremendous suffering” in the territory.
The anti-UNRWA legislation, approved overwhelmingly by the Knesset in October, would bar the agency from operating within Israel and ban the country’s authorities from any contact with it.
The delivery of aid to Gaza and the West Bank requires close coordination between UNRWA and Israeli authorities. If the legislation is implemented as planned, Israel would no longer issue agency staff with work or entry permits, and the coordination with the Israeli military that is essential for ensuring safe passage for aid deliveries will no longer be possible.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has relentlessly condemned and attacked the aid agency. More than 260 of its staff have been killed; its schools, where displaced Palestinians sought shelter, were bombed; and a coordinated Israeli media campaign has attempted to discredit the agency by portraying it as a tool of Hamas.
Lazzarini said that though the Israeli government suggests the services provided by UNRWA could be delivered by other agencies, its mandate and capacity to provide public services to an entire population — including education for more than 600,000 Palestinian children, and healthcare — are “unique and far exceed any other entity.”
This means “these services, in reality, can only be transferred to a functioning state public institution,” said Lazzarini, adding that this is in line with the aims of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, initiated last year by Saudi Arabia, the EU and the Arab League.
“UNRWA’s services are also tightly woven into the social fabric of Gaza,” he said. “The disintegration of the agency would intensify the breakdown of social order. So dismounting UNRWA outside the political process would undermine the ceasefire agreement, and sabotage Gaza’s recovery and the political transition.”
Turning to the situation in the West Bank, Lazzarini said the Palestinian Authority has stated clearly that it does not have the financial resources or capacity to make up for any loss of UNRWA services.
“A chaotic dismantling of UNRWA will irreversibly harm the lives and the future of the Palestinians, and I believe it will obliterate their trust in the international community and any solution it attempts to facilitate,” he added.
He reminded the Security Council during his briefing earlier in the day of “the fierce global disinformation campaign” mounted against the agency, and what he described as “the intense diplomatic lobbying by the government of Israel, as well as affiliated nongovernmental organizations, targeting UNRWA and governments of donor countries.”
According to Knesset figures, Israel has allocated an additional $150 million to its 2025 propaganda budget in an effort to reshape global opinions about its actions in Gaza, which critics allege amount to genocide.
Lazzarini said that “misinformation campaigns” have endangered UNRWA staff in the West Bank and Gaza, where 269 of them had been killed as of Friday.
“It has also created a permissive environment for the harassment of UN representatives wherever they are, including in Europe and in the United States,” he added.
Lazzarini said he urged the Security Council and UN member states to do what they can to persuade Israel not to implement the new legislation, and to ensure that the funding crisis the UNRWA faces does not abruptly halt the life-saving services it provides.
The agency was established by UN General Assembly in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War to provide direct relief and works programs for Palestinian refugees.
Lazzarini said the attacks against the agency are attacks on the international multilateral system itself. While UN member states and donor countries, including EU countries, continue to publicly assert that UNRWA is irreplaceable in the absence of a Palestinian state, these statements of support have not been backed up by pressure on Israel to rethink its ban on the agency.
Asked by Arab News about this discrepancy between public statements of support and meaningful action, and whether or not it means Western countries are, through lack of action, undermining the very multilateral values upon which they were founded, Lazzarini said: “The same question could be asked about the importance of international humanitarian law and the blatant and constant disregard of that law.
“You can ask the same question about the disrespect for the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly. And you can ask the same question about” the International Court of Justice’s ruling that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal, and the court’s call for its withdrawal.
“And so it’s obviously frustrating,” Lazzarini added. “What we have witnessed is an extraordinary ‘crisis of impunity,’ to the extent that international humanitarian law is almost becoming irrelevant if no mechanism is put in place to address this impunity.”
US Centcom chief meets Kurdish-led forces in Syria, urges repatriation of foreign Daesh fighters
- 9,000 Daesh detainees from over 50 different countries remain in SDF guarded detention facilities in Syria, CENTCOM said
- Supported by the US, the SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted Daesh jihadists from Syria in 2019
BEIRUT: US Central Command said its chief met with Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria and urged the repatriation of foreign Daesh fighters, as Kurds battle Turkiye-backed groups in the region.
General Michael Kurilla met US military commanders and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Thursday “to get an assessment” of efforts to defeat Daesh and prevent its regional resurgence, as well as “the evolving situation in Syria,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
The United States and other Western countries as well as Syria’s neighbors have emphasized the need for the country’s new rulers to combat “terrorism and extremism.”
Supported by Washington, the SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted Daesh (also known as IS) group jihadists from Syria in 2019 and controls dozens of prisons and camps where thousands of militants and their suspected relatives, including foreigners, are held.
SDF chief Mazloum Abdi said in a statement that he met Kurilla “recently” for a meeting that “was crucial for assessing Syria’s current situation and joint operations” against Daesh.
The SDF “reaffirmed the importance of strengthening partnerships and the critical role of the US in achieving a permanent ceasefire in Northeast Syria and ensuring security and stability across the entire country,” he added.
CENTCOM, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said Kurilla visited the Al-Hol camp which, together with a smaller facility, houses more than 40,000 people, many of them with ties to Daesh.
It added that “without international repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration efforts,” such camps “risk creating the next generation” of Islamic State members.
An additional 9,000 Daesh detainees “from over 50 different countries remain in over a dozen SDF guarded detention facilities in Syria,” CENTCOM said.
Neighbouring Turkiye, a key backer of Islamist-led rebels who ousted longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad last month, sees the main component of the SDF, the YPG People’s Protection Units, as affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Both Turkiye and the United States consider the PKK a “terrorist” group. It has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.
Turkiye has been threatening to launch a military operation against the SDF, prompting US-led diplomatic efforts to avert a major confrontation even as fighting continues.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Friday that battles between the SDF and Turkiye-backed fighters in the Manbij region and near a strategic dam had killed 401 people since December 12, most of them combatants.
Turkiye has offered Syria’s new leadership operational support in the fight against jihadist groups, and even offered to help run prisons holding IS fighters.
Earlier this month, the SDF said it held talks with Syria’s new authorities and expressed support for Syrian “unity.”
During a visit to Ankara this week, Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani said Syria would never allow its territory to be used as a staging ground for threats against Turkiye.
Syria would “work on removing these threats,” he said, referring to the SDF, the de-facto army of the semi-autonomous Kurdish-led administration that controls swathes of northeastern Syria.
On Thursday in Iraq, Abdi met Masoud Barzani, who heads the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, a statement from Barzani’s office said.
It noted the need for Syria’s Kurds “to reach understandings and agreements with the new authorities.”
The United States maintains troops in northern Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition.
