JEDDAH/GENEVA: The Syrian opposition on Friday urged the international community to pressurize President Bashar Assad’s regime to engage with the political process.
The opposition also rejected claims that it was seeking to undermine the talks, and said it sought a “political solution.”
The regime negotiator earlier said that his team was quitting UN-led peace talks in Geneva and might not return next week, blaming the opposition’s rejection of any role for President Bashar Assad in a transition.
Opposition groups met in Riyadh last month to hammer out a unified position ahead of the Geneva talks after two years of Russian military intervention that has helped Assad’s regime recapture all of Syria’s main cities. This gave Damascus the upper hand after more than six years of war.
“As long as the other side sticks to the language of Riyadh 2 ... there will be no progress,” Bashar Jaafari said after a morning of talks, adding that the Damascus government would decide if his delegation would return next week.
“For us (this) round is over, as a government delegation. He, as mediator, he can announce his own opinion,” he said, referring to UN mediator Staffan de Mistura.
Pressed about whether the regime’s delegation would return to Geneva next week, Jaafari replied: “Damascus will decide.”
Nasr Hariri, the opposition delegation chief, said on Friday his side had come to Geneva for serious, direct negotiations with Assad’s regime. The opposition was to have talks with de Mistura later on Friday.
“The regime’s game of opposing everything” proposed to it must stop, he said in a statement.
Reacting to the development, Yahya Al-Aridi, spokesman of the Syrian High Negotiations Committee, said in a statement: “We will continue to engage in the political process. We are exchanging ideas and thoughts with the UN envoy. We have presented a list of basic principles that may constitute a light at the end of the tunnel and not the path to the political transition…”
He said the implementation of the UN resolution 2254 is a necessity for the future of Syria. It is not a precondition as the Assad regime claims.
De Mistura separately consulted delegations from the regime and the opposition. He said direct talks were not a priority for that round.
Al-Aridi told Arab News from Geneva: “We are doing our job, we are involved in the political process, and we know it is the way out from this tragedy for our country. And if somebody is not interested in the Syrian people but only interested in remaining in power under the protection of Iran and Russia, that’s their problem. There is international law they have to stand before.”
Asked how any progress could be achieved in the absence of direct talks, Al-Aridi, said: “We are one delegation and are ready with no preconditions. They do not want to talk directly, but seven times in history they were ready for it with the Israelis. We are not Israelis.”
He said in the 1990s, there were direct Syrian-Israeli talks. “But here we have somebody who is not ready for direct talks with the Syrians.”
He added: “We have a UN Security Council resolution and a Geneva communique to report to if there is no advancement.”
Responding to Amnesty International’s accusation that the Assad regime used cluster munitions in attacks on Eastern Ghouta, Al-Aridi said: “This is no accusation. They have done so, and this is a reflection of reality. It is high time for the international community to react and stop it.”
On the resumed shelling by the regime on Eastern Ghouta following the announcement of a 48-hour truce at the start of the talks, Al-Aridi said the regime was not traditionally committed to its words. “This has turned into a habit. They tell the world they are committed to something and they do the opposite. So we are used to that.”
Bahia Al-Mardini, a UK-based Syrian journalist and human rights activist who fled the regime’s persecution, told Arab News: “When I was the director of media for the Syrian opposition in Geneva, I saw firsthand how the regime stalled progress at every turn, despite our enormous determination and hopes for democracy.”
She said: “The Syrian regime is not engaging because they want to keep the status quo, not deliver true change for ordinary Syrians. These talks are absolutely vital to delivering long-term progress for Syria and so if we want to see genuine democratic change, the talks must involve direct negotiation between the regime and the opposition at the same negotiating table.”
Al-Mardini added: “There is no legitimacy in any statement from Assad and his allies on Syria’s future. Seven years ago, ordinary Syrians in towns like Raqqa rejected Assad’s oppressive regime — only for Daesh to then inflict a new tyranny on them. But across Syria, civilians have now said “enough” to the brutality of both Assad and Daesh — and civilians are renewing their demands for freedom, democracy and human rights.”
She said: “Assad and the Syrian regime must be held to account for their crimes, and so must the terrorists. Daesh has now crumbled — and we truly celebrate this. But until the misery inflicted on Syrians by the Assad regime is put to an end, the country can never be called ‘liberated’.”
Syrian regime blasted for quitting Geneva talks
Syrian regime blasted for quitting Geneva talks
Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah
- Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details
- It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border
BEIRUT: At least two people were wounded by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to state media. The Israeli military said it had fired at people trying to return to certain areas on the second day of a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group.
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal
- “The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said
- The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release”
PARIS: Politicians, writers and activists have called for the release of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, whose arrest in Algeria is seen as the latest instance of the stifling of creative expression in the military-dominated North African country.
The 75-year-old author, who is an outspoken critic of Islamism and the Algerian regime, has not been heard from by friends, family or his French publisher since leaving Paris for Algiers earlier this month. He has not been seen near his home in his small town, Boumerdes, his neighbors told The Associated Press.
“The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Wednesday.
He added Sansal’s work “does honor to both his countries and to the values we cherish.”
The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release.”
Algerian authorities have not publicly announced charges against Sansal, but the APS state news service said he was arrested at the airport.
Though no longer censored, Sansal’s novels have in the past faced bans in Algeria. A professed admirer of French culture, his writings on Islam’s role in society, authoritarianism, freedom of expression and the civil war that ravaged Algeria throughout the 1990s have won him fans across the ideological spectrum in France, from far-right leader Marine Le Pen to President Emmanuel Macron, who attended his French naturalization ceremony in 2023.
But his work has provoked ire in Algeria, from both authorities and Islamists, who have issued death threats against him in the 1990s and afterward.
Though few garner such international attention, Sansal is among a long list of political prisoners incarcerated in Algeria, where the hopes of a protest movement that led to the ouster of the country’s then-82 year old president have been crushed under President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Human rights groups have decried the ongoing repression facing journalists, activists and writers. Amnesty International in September called it a “brutal crackdown on human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”
Algerian authorities have in recent months disrupted a book fair in Bejaia and excluded prominent authors from the country’s largest book fair in Algeria has in recent months, including this year’s Goncourt Prize winner Kamel Daoud,
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is no more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud wrote in an editorial signed by more than a dozen authors in Le Point this week.
Sansal has been a polarizing figure in Algeria for holding some pro-Israel views and for likening political Islam to Nazism and totalitarianism in his novels, including “The Oath of the Barbarians” and “2084: The End of the World.”
Despite the controversial subject matter, Sansal had never faced detention. His arrest comes as relations between France and Algeria face newfound strains. France in July backed Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, angering Algeria, which has long backed the independence Polisario Front and pushed for a referendum to determine the future of the coastal northwest African territory.
“A regime that thinks it has to stop its writers, whatever they think, is certainly a weak regime,” French-Algerian academic Ali Bensaad wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports
DUBAI: Iranian Revolutionary Guards Brig. Gen. Kioumars Pourhashemi was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo by “terrorists” linked to Israel, Iran’s SNN news agency reported on Thursday without giving further details.
Rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham on Wednesday launched an incursion into a dozen towns and villages in northwest Aleppo province controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief
- Richard Dearlove: Agreement suits both parties in ‘short to medium term’
- Deal leaves Iran ‘exposed’ as its Lebanese ally is temporarily incapacitated
LONDON: The ceasefire deal struck this week between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to hold, a former head of MI6 has warned.
Richard Dearlove, who headed the British intelligence service from 1999 to 2004, told Sky News that the deal, which came into effect on Wednesday, is a “retreaded agreement from 2006.”
That initial deal was designed to keep Hezbollah away from the border region with Israel, overseen by the Lebanese military and the UN, but in effect it “did absolutely nothing,” he said.
This week’s deal suits both Israel and Hezbollah “in the short to medium term,” Dearlove said, adding: “The Israelis must know how much of the infrastructure of Hezbollah they’ve taken down … They haven’t taken it down completely, but maybe the Lebanese state can reassert some of its authority as the government of Lebanon and keep Hezbollah to an extent under control. We just have to wait and see what happens.”
He said the ceasefire deal will be a blow to Hezbollah’s backer Iran, leaving the latter “exposed” with one of its allies temporarily incapacitated.
But he warned that this could escalate into “direct” confrontation between Israel and Iran were the latter to launch another ballistic missile attack.
Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders
- The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives”
PRAGUE: Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that the ICC had “no justification” for issuing arrests warrants for Israeli leaders, in a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar told Reuters Israel has appealed the decision and that it sets a dangerous precedent.
The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and ensuring the Iranian-backed group no longer controls the strip. Saar said Israel does not intend to control civilian life in Gaza and that he believes peace is “inevitable” but can’t be based on “illusions.”
