President Donald Trump announces US withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal

President Trump shows a signed Presidential Memorandum after delivering a statement on the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, 2018. (AP)
Updated 08 May 2018
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President Donald Trump announces US withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal

  • President Trump has campaigned regularly against the Iran nuclear deal
  • Iranians fear pullout will prompt fresh US sanctions as the rial slumps

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump last night pulled the United States out of an international nuclear agreement with Iran and ordered hard-hitting sanctions to be reimposed on the country.

The US president had long pledged to tear up “the worst deal in history,” but any hopes that he may leave a door open to save the agreement were dashed with a searing critique of the deal and condemnation of Tehran as the leading state sponsor of terror.

“I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal,” Trump said at the White House. “In a few moments, I will sign a presidential memorandum to begin reinstating US nuclear sanctions on the Iranian regime. We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanctions."

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015 with world powers placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a waiver on sanctions that had crippled the country’s economy.

But Trump said it was a “horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.

“We cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement.

“If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. In just a short period of time, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

Trump and other critics of the Obama-era deal, including Saudi Arabia, say the agreement fails to address Iran’s ballistic missile program and has empowered Tehran to continue its expansive foreign policy in countries such as Syria and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia said it supported Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal, which the Kingdom had previously supported based on the belief “that it would limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

“However, Iran exploited the economic benefits of lifting sanctions and used it to continue its destabilizing activities in the region, especially through the development of ballistic missiles, and its support for terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and the Houthi militia,” the government said. 

Riyadh accused Iran of using these capabilities to target civilians in the Kingdom — a reference to ballistic missiles that have been fired at Saudi Arabia by Iran’s allies in Yemen. 

Trump repeatedly referred to Iran’s actions in the region as evidence that the deal is “defective at its core.”

“After the sanctions were lifted, the dictatorship used its new funds to build nuclear capable missiles, support terrorism, and cause havoc throughout the Middle East and beyond,” Trump said.

In response, Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, one of the main backers of the deal inside Iran, said his country would remain committed to the agreement.

“If we achieve the deal’s goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place... By exiting the deal, America has officially undermined its commitment to an international treaty,” he said.

Rouhani said he had ordered his foreign ministry to negotiate with European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks.

Trump said the US would institute “the highest level” of economic sanctions and that any country that “helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned.”

The US Treasury said there will be “certain 90-day and 180-day wind-down periods,” but didn’t specify which sanctions would fall under which timelines.

At the end of those periods, the sanctions would be in “full effect.”

The decision creates a major rift between the US and Europe, which lobbied hard for Washington to stay in the deal.

The European Union’s diplomatic chief, Federica Mogherini, said the EU is “determined to preserve” the deal if Tehran sticks to its commitments.

The accord “is delivering on its goal, which is guaranteeing that Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons,” Mogherini said.

Britain, Germany and France urged the US not to take steps that would make life harder for other countries that still wanted to stick to the deal.

“We urge the US to ensure that the structures of the JCPOA (deal) can remain intact,” the leaders of Britain, Germany and France said in a joint statement.

Israel, one of the deal’s biggest critics, described Trump’s decision as “historic.”

Benjamin Netanyahu last week claimed a trove of documents seized in Iran showed that Tehran had lied about not wanting to seek an atomic weapon.

He said leaving the Iran deal unchanged would be “a recipe for disaster, a disaster for our region, a disaster for the peace of the world.”

Trump used his statement to offer an alternative scenario to Iran by highlighting the progress made in negotiations with North Korea. He said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on his way to North Korea to lay the groundwork for the anticipated summit with Kim Jong-un.

He said Iran’s leaders “are going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people.”

The JPCOA took years to negotiate and includes complex layers of timelines, inspection regimes and sanctions relief. The full extent of what the US withdrawal means for banks and businesses is still unclear. 

“After withdrawal, the next question is: What is the next target? Is it a better nuclear deal? Is it regime collapse, or gaining leverage or signalling?” Behnam Ben Taleblu, research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, told Arab News. 

“The president is well-known for his strong belief that you should take a bad deal and turn it into a good deal, so is he going to fix it, mix it or nix it? 

But there are also fears that the US withdrawal could escalate tensions in the region where Iran’s forces and proxies are increasingly antagonizing rival countries.

“He (Trump) is manufacturing a crisis that has serious ramifications for further instability in the Middle East in terms of potentially witnessing nuclear proliferation, not just from Iran, but also other states and also seeing a potential escalation of tensions in Middle East, particularly between Israel and Iran,” said Dr. Sanam Vakil, associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.


Jakarta NGO to rebuild Indonesian hospital as Palestinians return to north Gaza

Updated 5 sec ago
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Jakarta NGO to rebuild Indonesian hospital as Palestinians return to north Gaza

  • Indonesia Hospital in North Gaza was opened in 2015, built from donations of the Indonesian people
  • It was a frequent target of Israeli forces, who accused the facility of sheltering Palestinian armed groups

JAKARTA: A Jakarta-based nongovernmental organization has committed to rebuilding the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza as Palestinians began returning to the area on Monday.

The Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahiya, funded by the Indonesian NGO Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, was one of the first targets hit when Israel began its assault on Gaza in October 2023.

As relentless Israeli attacks pushed the enclave’s healthcare system to the brink of collapse, the Indonesia Hospital had stood as one of the last functioning health facilities in the north.

“Since the war started, the Indonesia Hospital has served as one of the main healthcare centers for residents of Gaza in the north. It has been attacked multiple times, damaging parts of the building itself and also various health equipment,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s board of trustees in Jakarta, told Arab News on Monday.

“We need to rebuild and fill it up with all the necessary health equipment … It is our moral commitment to rebuilding the hospital.”

Israel has frequently targeted medical facilities in the Gaza Strip, saying that they are used by Palestinian armed groups.

The Indonesia Hospital opened in 2015 and was officially inaugurated by the country’s then-Vice President Jusuf Kalla in 2016.

The four-story general hospital stands on a 16,200 sq. meter plot of land near the Jabalia refugee camp in North Gaza, donated by the local government in 2009.

The hospital’s construction and equipment were financed from donations of the Asia nation’s people, as well as organizations including the Indonesian Red Cross Society.

Since it opened almost a decade ago, MER-C continued to send volunteers to help. A couple of them stayed in Gaza until late last year, as MER-C also sent medical volunteers to the besieged enclave since March as part of a larger emergency deployment led by the World Health Organization.

The Indonesia Hospital was treating about 1,000 people at one point during Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 47,300 people and injured over 111,000.

“Many Indonesians are looking forward for the Indonesia Hospital to return to normal operations again, and this is the trust that MER-C keeps close because the hospital is a symbol of unity between Indonesians and Palestinians,” Murad said.

“Healthcare is an urgent need for Palestinians, so we want to offer our support here in our field of expertise.”

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians began returning to the remains of their destroyed homes in north Gaza on Monday, after Israel opened the Netzarim corridor, a 7 km strip of land controlled by Israeli forces that cuts off the enclave’s north from the rest of the territory.

“We hope Israel will continue to give access for Gaza residents to return to their homes in the north peacefully and not breach the ceasefire agreement in any way,” Murad said.


‘Tidal wave of Islamophobia’ in UK, says outgoing MCB chief

Updated 22 min 39 sec ago
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‘Tidal wave of Islamophobia’ in UK, says outgoing MCB chief

  • Zara Mohammed’s 4-year tenure involved responses to nationwide rioting, COVID-19 pandemic
  • ‘There has been such a normalization of Islamophobic rhetoric without it being challenged or condemned,’ she tells BBC

LONDON: The UK is suffering from a “tidal wave of Islamophobia,” the outgoing leader of one of the country’s largest Muslim bodies has warned.

Zara Mohammed has served as the first female leader of the Muslim Council of Britain since 2021, and through her tenure tackled nationwide riots last year, the COVID-19 pandemic, and being frozen out of government contact.

Ahead of her departure as MCB general secretary on Saturday, Mohammed spoke to the BBC about the difficulties she has faced over the last four years.

“It was the Southport riots for us that made it really quite alarming,” she said, referring to nationwide disorder last year in the wake of a stabbing attack in Southport.

“It was so visceral. We were watching on our screens: People breaking doors down, stopping cars, attacking taxi drivers, smashing windows, smashing mosques,” she told the BBC. “The kind of evil we saw was really terrifying and I felt like, am I even making a difference?”

The rioting was partly triggered by false online rumors that the attacker was a Muslim asylum-seeker.

Yet the government at the time had refused to engage with Mohammed, and the largest umbrella Muslim organization in Britain “wasn’t being talked to,” she said.

“The justification was there, the urgency, the necessity of engagement was there, British Muslims were under attack, mosques were under attack.”

In the year since the war in Gaza began, monitoring group Tell Mama UK recorded 4,971 instances of Islamophobic hate in Britain — the highest figure in 14 years.

The MCB had done “a lot of community building and political advocacy” in a bid to tackle the problem, yet this had failed to shift mainstream narratives surrounding British Muslims, Mohammed said.

“There has been such a normalization of Islamophobic rhetoric without it being challenged or condemned,” she added.

“We could say we’re making a difference but then what is being seen in national discourse does not seem to translate.”

Abuse of Muslim politicians across the UK, including former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, demonstrates a broader trend of rising Islamophobia, Mohammed said.

“You’re constantly firefighting. Did we make British Muslims’ lives better? On one hand, yes, because we raised these issues, we took them to a national platform. But with Islamophobia, we’re still having the same conversation,” she added.

“We still haven’t been able to break through, whether it’s government engagement, Islamophobia or social mobility.”


Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer

Updated 27 January 2025
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Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer

  • Imran Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month
  • A special graft court found the pair guilty of ‘corruption and corrupt practices’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi on Monday appealed their convictions for graft, his lawyer said.
Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month in the latest case to be brought against them.
“We have filed appeals today and in the next few days it will go through clerical processes and then it will be fixed for a hearing,” Khan’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said.
The papers were filed at the Islamabad High Court.
A special graft court found the pair guilty of “corruption and corrupt practices” over a welfare foundation they established together called the Al-Qadir Trust.
Khan, 72, has been held in custody since August 2023 charged in around 200 cases which he claims are politically motivated.


Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting

Updated 27 January 2025
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Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Monday it had yet to receive any signals from the United States about arranging a possible meeting between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, but remained ready to organize such an encounter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it appeared a “certain amount of time” was needed before a meeting between the two leaders could take place. He said Russia understood that Washington was still interested in organizing such a meeting.
Putin said on Friday that he and Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the US president has highlighted in the first days of his new administration.


India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital

Updated 27 January 2025
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India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.