My warning to Turkey: keep your troops out of Iraq, President Fuad Masum tells Arab News

Updated 05 April 2018
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My warning to Turkey: keep your troops out of Iraq, President Fuad Masum tells Arab News

  • We have always been interested in working to strengthen our relations with KSA, says Masum
  • If the PKK leave, no foreign troops can come and invade a part of Iraq, says Iraqi president

Fuad Masum, the seventh president of the Republic of Iraq, keeps a relatively simple office set within the grand surroundings of Al-Salam Palace in Baghdad.
A large Iraqi flag hangs on the wood-panelled wall behind his brown chair, while to one side is a modest library of several dozen books and pamphlets. Perhaps the biggest extravagance is the plasma-screen TV, which is playing an Arabic news channel with the volume turned up.
Located near the Tigris, and surrounded by vast green yards decorated with red roses, the palace is one of the most beautiful — yet fortified — government sites in the Iraqi capital.
For a man who was once a Communist Party member, before taking up arms with the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq, it is not surprising that his corner of Al-Salam is so modest.
Masum was born in 1938 near Irbil in Iraq’s Kurdish region, the son of a prominent Muslim scholar from a line of clerics. Masum spent two years in the Communist Party, but left in 1964 to join the Kurdish Democratic Party. He worked as a university professor, teaching philosophy, until 1975 when he decided to quit. A year later he helped to found the Patriotic Union 
of Kurdistan.
He was appointed prime minister of the first Kurdish regional government in 1992 when the international community forced Saddam Hussein to give the Kurds more autonomy.
After the 2003 US-led invasion, which toppled Saddam, he was appointed as a member of the National Assembly, and joined the committee tasked with drafting the constitution of Iraq.
He was elected as a member of the Federal Iraqi Parliament for two terms in 2005-2009 and in 2010-2014, when he was the head of the Kurdistan Alliance parliamentary bloc.
Masum became president of Iraq in July 2014 as Daesh overran large parts of the north of the country. 
Wearing a blue suit, white shirt and blue tie and appearing serious but not tense, Masum spoke to Arab News about the many challenges faced by his country as it emerges from the ruinous war with Daesh. 

What is your assessment of the internal situation in Iraq, especially given it has just emerged from a long war against Daesh and elections are to be held in the coming weeks?
The difference of views is natural in any democratic country in the world where there are many parties and coalitions. When there are elections, there are differences of opinion. Each one expresses his point of view and strives to win more votes. Thank God, the situation is normal now and there are no fears… Raising fears (about electoral fraud) now is not in Iraq’s interests. However, when someone finds that there is use of illegal means (aiming to rig the elections), he/she can raise the matter publicly, and file a complaint to the federal court or other courts. Personally, I have no fears in this regard.

And the problems between Baghdad and the Kurdistan region?
With regards to ties between Baghdad and Kurdistan, relations are normal and there is dialogue between the two sides. A calm and unpublicized dialogue. They do not announce it, but there are delegations that go there and delegations come here. The two parties need each other, so the region will not give up on the federal government nor will the federal government give up on the region. 

What is your assessment of the security situation inside Iraq and do you think you are qualified to start the reconstruction process?
There is a difference between the reconstruction of Iraq and the 
stability of Iraq.
Now the priority is to stabilize Iraq. Work is underway to achieve this and there are many countries that have provided assistance to Iraq to restore 
stability. 
The (internally) displaced people are the big problem. They have to go back to their areas, but reconstruction is another issue that needs huge preparation and huge (financial) possibilities. Iraq is currently unable to rebuild without assistance.
Stabilization is necessary because these displaced people must return to their areas, to their fields ... Many countries have provided assistance (for this purpose), but this aid was too little, not billions, it was $20 million (SR75 million) here and $15 million there. The state also set up assignments for this purpose and assigned many tasks to different ministries.
The Iraq reconstruction conference, which was held in Kuwait in February, was generally good and a good step, but we cannot sit idly by and wait for the rest of the countries to come and rebuild the country ... Iraq must have a key role in the reconstruction of its regions. 
Infrastructure is the hardest hit (by Daesh and the military operation against them). Iraq in its current situation is unable to do this task so it is necessary to look for investors.

How do you view Iraq’s regional and international relations?
Iraq’s relations with the regional countries are good, despite some differences with Turkey recently.
We need to have good relations with all parties, especially those with which we have common borders, and then the farther states … But we have to take into account the sovereignty of Iraq. The sovereignty of Iraq must not be forgotten at any moment ... This sovereignty obliges us not to line up with a party against any other regional party. This is the basis according to which we have worked.

Where do you think Iraqi-Turkish relations are heading?
They came to Bashiqa (without the permission of the Iraqi government). During the days of Saddam Hussein there was an agreement between them (the Baghdad-Ankara agreement allows Turkish forces to operate 150km inside Iraqi territories) 
and this agreement was not 
renewed, but they continue to have a military presence in some areas (in the north). Helicopters land from time to time there. And now this threat to enter Sinjar (to go after the PKK fighters). The group that was there (in Sinjar) and associated with the PKK-opposition to Turkey, decided to exit from Sinjar, but the threats are still ongoing. If the PKK leave, no foreign troops can come and invade a 
part of Iraq. 

What if the Turks insist on their position?
Then we will have our clear and frank positions and hope that we do not get to this point.

Do you worry about this issue, especially as the Turkish government is known for intransigence?
Our fear lies here.

What about Iraq’s relations with Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
We need to have good relations with Saudi Arabia ... and we have always been interested in working to strengthen our relations with them.
Our relations with Iran are excellent, as well as our relations now with Saudi Arabia and other countries … Our relations are strategic and we must deal with these countries through our common interests.
In every meeting with any country, we focus on our interests. It is not in our interest to engage in a conflict with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran or any other country. We are an independent state. Iraq is not a follower to this party or that, so we have to focus on our interests.  All of these countries have provided us with assistance and support in our war against Daesh and we cannot forget their virtue. They gave us aid and we accepted it with all gratitude and we are asking to get more, but Iraq must remain as Iraq.


Monsoon-loving Indian expats chase rain in UAE desert

Updated 3 sec ago
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Monsoon-loving Indian expats chase rain in UAE desert

  • After Muhammed Sajjad moved from India to the United Arab Emirates a decade ago, he missed his native Kerala’s monsoon season, so he embarked on an unlikely quest: finding rain in the desert
SHARJAH: After Muhammed Sajjad moved from India to the United Arab Emirates a decade ago, he missed his native Kerala’s monsoon season, so he embarked on an unlikely quest: finding rain in the desert.
Using satellite imagery, weather data and other high-tech tools, the amateur meteorologist tracks potential rainfall spots across the desert country and, along with other Indians nostalgic for the monsoon season, chases the clouds in search of rain.
“When I came to UAE in 2015, in August, it... was peak monsoon time” in Kerala, the 35-year-old estate agent told AFP, adding that he had struggled to adjust to the change of climate.
“So I started to search about the rainy condition in UAE and I came to know that there is rain happening in UAE during peak summer,” he said, adding: “I started to explore the possibility to chase the rain, enjoy the rain.”
Each week, he forecasts when and where rain might fall and posts a suggested rendezvous to the 130,000 followers of his “UAE Weatherman” page on Instagram.
He regularly posts footage of his rain expeditions out into the desert, hoping to bring together “all rain lovers who miss rain.”
Last weekend, he headed out into the desert from Sharjah at the head of a convoy of about 100 vehicles.
But nothing is certain. The rain “may happen, it may not happen,” Sajjad said. But when it does, “it is an amazing moment.”


After driving in the desert for hours, the group arrived at the designated spot just as a downpour started.
The rain lovers leapt out of their vehicles, their faces beaming as the rain droplets streamed down their cheeks in a rare reminder of home.
“They feel nostalgic,” Sajjad said proudly.
Most UAE residents are foreigners, among them some 3.5 million Indians who make up the Gulf country’s largest expatriate community.
Despite the use of advanced cloud-seeding technology, the UAE has an average yearly rainfall of just 50 to 100 milliliters.
Most of it falls during short but intense winter storms.
“While long-term averages remain low, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events has been increasing and is due to global warming,” said Diana Francis, a climate scientist who teaches at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.
In the summer, the country often gets less than five milliliters of rain, she said, usually falling away from the coastal areas where most of the population lives.
So rain-seekers must drive deep into the desert interior to have a chance of success.
An Indian expatriate, who gave her name only as Anagha and was on her first expedition into the desert last weekend, said she was “excited to see the rain.”
“All of my family and friends are enjoying good rain and good climate and we are living here in the hot sun,” she said.
The UAE endured its hottest April on record this year.
By contrast, April last year saw the UAE’s heaviest rains in 75 years, which saw 259.5 mm of rainfall in a single day.
Four people died and the commercial hub of Dubai was paralyzed for several days. Scientists of the World Weather Attribution network said the intense rains were “most likely” exacerbated by global warming.
“We couldn’t enjoy it because it was flooded all over UAE,” Anagha said. “This time we are going to see... rain coming to us in the desert.”

‘What wrong did he do?’ Gaza family mourn three-year-old shot dead

Updated 11 June 2025
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‘What wrong did he do?’ Gaza family mourn three-year-old shot dead

  • In Gaza, “There’s no hope or peace”

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: Gazan mother Amal Abu Shalouf ran her hand over her son’s face and hair, a brief farewell before a man abruptly sealed the body bag carrying the three-year-old who was killed just hours earlier on Tuesday.
“Amir, my love, my dear!” cried his mother, struggling to cross the crowded courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, where several bodies lay in white plastic shrouds.
According to the civil defense agency, at least nine people were killed on Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip as Israeli forces carried out military operations, more than 20 months into the war triggered by Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel.
Contacted by AFP, the military did not respond to a request for comment about Amir Abu Shalouf’s death.
At the hospital, a man carried the boy’s body in his arms through a crowd of dozens of mourners.
“I swear, I can’t take it,” his teenage brother, Ahmad Abu Shalouf, said, his face covered in tears.
“What wrong did he do?” said another brother, Mohammad Abu Shalouf. “An innocent little boy, sitting inside his tent, and a bullet struck him in the back.”
Mohammad said he had “found him shot in the back” as he returned to the tent that has become the family’s home in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area near Khan Yunis that is now a massive encampment for displaced Palestinians.
The devastating war has created dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned that the entire population is at risk of famine.
The grieving mother, comforted by relatives, said her young son had been begging for food in recent days and dreaming of a piece of meat.
“There is no food, no water, no clothing,” said Amal, who has eight children to take care of.
Amal said she too was injured in the pre-dawn incident that killed her son.
“I heard something fall next to my foot while I was sitting and baking, and suddenly felt something hit me. I started screaming,” she said.
Outside the tent at the time, she said she tried crawling and reaching for other family members.
“Then I heard my daughter screaming from inside the tent...  found them holding my son, his abdomen and back covered in blood.”
A group of men formed lines to recite a prayer for the dead, their words almost drowned out by the noise of Israeli drones flying overhead.
In the second row, Ahmad Abu Shalouf held his hands over his stomach in prayer, unable to hold back a stream of tears.
Similar scenes played out at the hospital courtyard again and again over several hours, as the day’s dead were mourned.
At one point, an emaciated man collapsed in front of the shrouded bodies.
One mourner pressed his head against one of the bodies, carried on a stretcher at the start of a funeral procession, before being helped up by others.
At a distance, a group of women supported Umm Mohammad Shahwan, a grieving mother, with all of them in tears.
“We need the war to end,” said Amal Abu Shalouf.
In Gaza, she lamented, “there’s no hope or peace.”


Syria rescuers say two killed in drone strikes on northwest

Updated 11 June 2025
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Syria rescuers say two killed in drone strikes on northwest

  • During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh

DAMASCUS: Two people were killed in separate drone strikes Tuesday on a car and a motorcycle in the northwestern bastion of the Islamist former rebels who now head the Syrian government, rescuers said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the twin drone strikes in the Idlib region but a US-led coalition in Syria has carried out past strikes on terrorists in the area.
Earlier this year, the United States said it killed several commanders of Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Hurras Al-Din in the area.
The group had recently announced it was breaking up on the orders of the interim government set up by the rebels after their overthrow of Bashar Assad in December.
US troops are deployed in Syria as part of a US-led coalition to fight the Daesh group.
When contacted by AFP, a US defense official said they were aware of the reports but had “nothing to provide” at the time.
During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh.
 

 


Gaza-bound activist convoy enters Libya from Tunisia

Updated 11 June 2025
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Gaza-bound activist convoy enters Libya from Tunisia

  • Convoy members were heard chanting “Resistance, resistance” and “To Gaza we go by the millions” in a video posted on the organizing group’s official Facebook page

BEN GUERDANE, Tunisia: Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists taking part in a convoy crossed the Tunisian border on Tuesday into Libya, aiming to keep heading eastwards until they break Israel’s blockade on the Palestinian territory, organizers said.
This comes after Israel intercepted an aid ship attempting to breach its blockade on Gaza, which was carrying 12 people, including campaigner Greta Thunberg and European parliament member Franco-Palestinian Rima Hassan.
The “Soumoud” convoy, meaning “steadfastness” in Arabic, set off from Tunis on Monday morning, spokesman Ghassen Henchiri told Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM.
He said it includes 14 buses and around 100 other vehicles, carrying hundreds of people.
Convoy members were heard chanting “Resistance, resistance” and “To Gaza we go by the millions” in a video posted on the organizing group’s official Facebook page.
Henchiri also told Jawhara FM radio channel the convoy plans to remain in Libya for “three or four days at most” before crossing into Egypt and continuing on to Rafah.
Organizers have said Egyptian authorities have not yet provided passage to enter the country, but Henchiri said the convoy received “reassuring” information.
Organizers said the convoy was not bringing aid into Gaza, but rather aimed at carrying out a “symbolic act” by breaking the blockade on the territory described by the United Nations as “the hungriest place on Earth.”
Algerian, Mauritanian, Moroccan and Libyan activists were also among the group, which is set to travel along the Libyan coast.
After 21 months of war, Israel is facing mounting international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.
The Madleen aid boat, which set sail for Gaza from Italy on June 1, was halted by Israeli forces on Monday and towed to the port of Ashdod.
The 12 people on board were then transferred to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the foreign ministry said, adding that Thunberg had been deported.
Five French activists were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily.
 

 


Algeria man’s self-immolation investigated as ‘terrorism’

A general view shows the Justice Ministry in the Algerian capital, Algiers. (AFP file photo)
Updated 11 June 2025
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Algeria man’s self-immolation investigated as ‘terrorism’

  • The charges include “endangering the lives and physical safety of others” and “publishing and promoting false and malicious news”

ALGIERS: Algerian authorities have launched a counterterrorism investigation after a man had set himself on fire, an act investigators suspect was part of coordinated plot with links abroad, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Faouzi Zegout was injured as a result of the self-immolation on June 1 outside the justice ministry to protest a case he was involved in.
A video of the incident in the capital Algiers circulated on social media, showing Zegout saying he had done it “because of a judge... who arbitrarily threatened me with a 10-year prison sentence.”
At an Algiers court on Tuesday, a prosecutor said that five people had been detained in the case, without specifying whether Zegout was one of them.
One of the five has been released under judicial supervision, and the case has been transferred to a counterterrorism division, the court heard.
According to the prosecutor, investigators had found that the act was orchestrated by an “organized criminal group” with suspected ties abroad.
The prosecutor said the group had allegedly plotted the act and assigned roles, including filming and publishing the self-immolation online, to “disturb public order and disrupt institutions.”
The charges include “endangering the lives and physical safety of others” and “publishing and promoting false and malicious news.”
The person who filmed the incident had “communicated with people abroad,” had “multiple bank accounts” and “received money transfers from people,” the prosecutor said, without specifying when the alleged transfers had occurred or who made them.
Zegout has said that he recently appeared in court for launching a fundraiser without official authorization to help cover medical costs for sick people.
A court in Frenda, his hometown about 340 kilometers (200 miles) west of Algiers, was scheduled to deliver its decision the same day he set himself on fire.