GENEVA: An Iranian lawmaker offered a $3 million reward to anyone who killed US President Donald Trump and said Iran could avoid threats if it had nuclear arms, ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday amid Tehran's latest standoff with Washington.
U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood dismissed the reward as "ridiculous", telling reporters in Geneva it showed the "terrorist underpinnings" of Iran's establishment.
Tensions have steadily escalated since Trump pulled Washington out of Tehran's nuclear agreement with world powers in 2018 and reimposed US sanctions. The standoff erupted into tit-for-tat military strikes this month.
"On behalf of the people of Kerman province, we will pay a $3 million reward in cash to whoever kills Trump," lawmaker Ahmad Hamzeh told the 290-seat parliament, ISNA reported.
He did not say if the reward had any official backing from Iran's clerical rulers.
The city of Kerman, in the province south of the capital, is the hometown of Qassem Soleimani, a prominent Iranian commander whose killing in a drone strike ordered by Trump on Jan. 3 in Baghdad prompted Iran to fire missiles at US targets in Iraq.
"If we had nuclear weapons today, we would be protected from threats ... We should put the production of long-range missiles capable of carrying unconventional warheads on our agenda. This is our natural right," he was quoted as saying by ISNA.
The United States and it Western allies have long accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran insists it has never sought nuclear arms and never will, saying its nuclear work is for research and to master the process to generate electricity.
The 2015 nuclear agreement overall was designed to increase the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Parties to the deal believed, at the time, Iran could produce enough material in two to three months if it wanted.
Under the deal, known as the JCPOA, Iran received sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear activities. In response to Washington's withdrawal from the pact and pressure from US sanctions, Iran has rolled back its commitments to the deal.
This month, Iran announced it was scrapping all limits on its uranium enrichment work, potentially shortening the so-called "breakout time" needed to build a nuclear weapon.
Reports issued by the UN nuclear watchdog have suggested Tehran is still far from sprinting ahead with its work.
After Iran's latest step, Britain, France and Germany triggered a dispute mechanism in the nuclear pact, starting a diplomatic process that could lead to reimposing UN sanctions.
Iran said on Monday that Tehran would pull out from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if international sanctions were reimposed.
The US envoy Wood said Iran's threat to quit the treaty, the foundation of global nuclear arms control since the Cold War, would send a "very, very negative message".
US calls Iran’s $3m reward to kill Trump ‘ridiculous’
https://arab.news/5hhy3
US calls Iran’s $3m reward to kill Trump ‘ridiculous’
Syrian caretaker government to hike public sector salaries by 400 percent next month
- The increase will be financed by existing state resources plus a combination of regional aid, new investments, and efforts to unfreeze Syrian assets held abroad
DAMASCUS: Syria’s finance minister said on Sunday the government would hike salaries for many public sector employees by 400 percent next month after completing an administrative restructuring of ministries to boost efficiency and accountability.
The increase, estimated to cost 1.65 trillion Syrian pounds, or about $127 million at current rates, will be financed by existing state resources plus a combination of regional aid, new investments, and efforts to unfreeze Syrian assets held abroad.
“(This is) the first step toward an emergency solution to the economic reality in the country,” Mohammed Abazeed, the finance minister in Syria’s caretaker government, told Reuters, adding that this month’s wages for public sector staff would be paid out this week.
Israel blocks food supply to northern Gaza’s Indonesian hospital to force out doctors
- Patients, doctors forced out from Kamal Adwan hospital are sheltering in Indonesia Hospital
- The facility has been sheltering critically ill patients with no electricity, water, UN says
JAKARTA: Israeli forces have blocked food and water supply to the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza to force out the doctors who are refusing to leave their patients behind, the nongovernmental organization that funded it said on Sunday.
The hospital in Beit Lahiya, a four-story building located near the Jabalia refugee camp, was built from donations organized by the Jakarta-based Medical Emergency Rescue Committee.
It has been sheltering more than a dozen patients, caregivers and health workers from Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, which was destroyed in December after months of relentless Israeli attacks.
The remaining doctors are defying orders to leave the Indonesia Hospital, MER-C said, adding that they last received food aid from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“They are still holding out. The condition is deteriorating, there’s a lack of water and food,” Marissa Noriti, a MER-C volunteer in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, told Arab News via WhatsApp.
“The Israeli occupation forces are blocking supply … The doctors are staying for the patients. They refuse to leave them behind.”
Indonesia Hospital is no longer in service after it was severely damaged by frequent Israeli attacks since October 2023. But the facility was still sheltering critically ill patients, despite not having electricity, water or supplies, according to UNOCHA.
The hospital operated under limited capacity last year, but Israeli bombardments forced the patients and medical staff to transfer to the Al-Shifa hospital in southern Gaza last December, with only a few doctors staying behind.
On Friday, as the hospital was surrounded by Israeli forces attacking the area, the doctors were ordered to leave the facility and the patients.
“We are monitoring the situation. Israel’s occupation forces are cutting off all supplies to force them out; this is their strategy to empty north Gaza, to empty all the hospitals in the north so the people have no place to go to seek help,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s board of trustees in Jakarta, told Arab News.
“We ask that the international community act by any means to save Palestine from the crimes of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).”
Israel has frequently targeted medical facilities in the Gaza Strip, saying that they are used by Palestinian armed groups. The attacks have pushed the enclave’s healthcare system to the brink of collapse.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and wounded over 108,000 since Oct. 7, 2023. The real death toll is believed to be much higher, with estimates published by medical journal The Lancet indicating that, as of July, it could be more than 186,000.
Sudan’s army chief welcomes Turkish offer to resolve conflict: FM
- The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million more
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Sudan’s army chief has welcomed a Turkish offer to resolve the brutal 20-month conflict between his forces and their paramilitary rivals, the Sudanese foreign minister said.
In early December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a phone call with Sudan’s Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan that Ankara could help establish “peace and stability” in the war-torn African state.
At a meeting in Port Sudan on Saturday, Burhan asked Turkiye’s deputy foreign minister Burhanettin Duran to “deliver the Sudanese leadership’s welcoming of the initiative” to Erdogan, Sudanese foreign minister Ali Youssef said in a briefing after the meeting.
“Sudan needs brothers and friends like Turkiye,” Youssef said, adding that “the initiative can lead to... realizing peace in Sudan.”
Erdogan said in his December call with Burhan that Turkiye “could step in to resolve disputes” and prevent Sudan from “becoming an area of external interventions,” according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
Following his meeting with Burhan on Saturday, Turkiye’s Duran said that the peace process “entails concerted efforts,” and that his country was ready to play a “role in mobilizing other regional actors to help overcoming the difficulties in ending this conflict.”
In a statement last week, the UAE welcomed “diplomatic efforts” by Turkiye to “resolve the ongoing crisis in Sudan.”
“The UAE is fully prepared to cooperate and coordinate with the Turkish efforts and all diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Sudan and find a comprehensive solution to the crisis,” its foreign ministry said.
The war in Sudan, which has pitted Burhan against his former deputy and RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million more.
It has also pushed the country to the brink of famine, with analysts warning involvement from other countries will only prolong the suffering.
Syrian FM visits Qatar as new authorities seek regional and global diplomatic ties
- The Syrian minister’s visit to Qatar is his second foreign trip less than a month since former President Bashar Assad was ousted
DOHA: DAMASCUS: Syria’s new foreign minister met with his Qatari counterpart and Qatar’s prime minister in Doha on Sunday, as Syria’s new de facto authorities under Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham establish diplomatic ties with regional and global governments.
Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani posted on X that he’s also set to visit Jordan and the United Arabs Emirates to develop strategic partnerships, and support Syria’s security and economic recovery.
Al-Shibani met with his Saudi counterpart in Riyadh on Thursday. And he also welcomed the foreign ministers of Germany and France in Damascus on Friday.
HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted President Bashar Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.
Much of the world ended diplomatic relations with Assad because of his crackdown on protesters, and sanctioned him and his Russian and Iranian associates.
Now, Syrian authorities hope to reestablish those ties and lift sanctions slapped on HTS and leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa to help make Syria’s battered economy viable again. Assad was backed by Russia, Iran and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. HTS now hopes Syria can strengthen ties with Arab countries in the region.
“We conveyed to Doha our concerns about the challenges related to the economic sanctions imposed on the Syrian people, and we renew our call on the United States to lift those sanctions,” Syrian radio station Sham FM quoted Al-Shibani as saying.
Around 90 percent of Syrians live in poverty, while more than half of the population doesn’t know where their next meal will come from, according to the United Nations.
Al-Sharaa has said he will hold a national dialogue summit that includes different groups across Syria to agree upon a new political road map leading to a new constitution and an election.
He vowed to dissolve HTS during the summit and has said in an interview with Saudi television network Al Arabiya that the de facto rulers are all of the same political background during this transitional phase for the sake of efficiency in running the country.
Still, it’s unclear whether Washington will lift sanctions anytime soon. Europe, meanwhile, appears hesitant because of fears over how religious minorities and women will be treated.
Red Cross says determining fate of Syria’s missing ‘huge challenge’
- The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria’s civil war
- Red Cross working with the caretaker authorities, NGOs and the Syrian Red Crescent to collect data to give families answers
DAMASCUS: Determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war will be a massive task likely to take years, the president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said.
“Identifying the missing and informing the families about their fate is going to be a huge challenge,” ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric said in an interview.
The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of the conflict that started in 2011 when president Bashar Assad’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests.
Many are believed to have been buried in mass graves after being tortured in Syria’s jails during a war that has killed more than half a million people.
Thousands have been released since Islamist-led militants ousted Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of relatives and friends who went missing.
Spoljaric said the ICRC was working with the caretaker authorities, non-governmental organizations and the Syrian Red Crescent to collect data to give families answers as soon as possible.
But “the task is enormous,” she said in the interview late Saturday.
“It will take years to get clarity and to be able to inform everybody concerned. And there will be cases we will never (be able) to identify,” she added.
“Until recently, we’ve been following up on 35,000 cases, and since we established a new hotline in December, we are adding another 8,000 requests,” Spoljaric said.
“But that is just potentially a portion of the numbers.”
Spoljaric said the ICRC was offering the new authorities to “work with us to build the necessary institution and institutional capacities to manage the available data and to protect and gather what... needs to be collected.”
Human Rights Watch last month urged the new Syrian authorities to “secure, collect and safeguard evidence, including from mass grave sites and government records... that will be vital in future criminal trials.”
The rights group also called for cooperation with the ICRC, which could “provide critical expertise” to help safeguard the records and clarify the fate of missing people.
Spoljaric said: “We cannot exclude that data is going to be lost. But we need to work quickly to preserve what exists and to store it centrally to be able to follow up on the individual cases.”
More than half a century of brutal rule by the Assad family came to a sudden end in early December after a rapid militant offensive swept across Syria and took the capital Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.
