BAGHDAD/CAIRO: Egypt, Jordan and Iraq agreed to bolster security and economic cooperation at a tripartite summit Sunday that saw an Egyptian head of state visit Iraq for the first time in three decades.
The visits by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II came as Iraq seeks to move closer to Arab allies of the United States in the Middle East.
In recent years, Iraq had signed cooperation deals in the energy, health and education sectors with both countries.
El-Sisi and Abdullah met Iraqi President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, with Saleh saying the encounter was “an eloquent message amid enormous regional challenges.”
“Iraq’s recovery paves the way to an integrated system for our region built on the fight against extremism, respect for sovereignty and economic partnership,” Saleh said on Twitter.
The summit held between Kadhimi and his guests broached regional issues, as well as ways of bolstering cooperation between Iraq, Jordan and Egypt in the fields of security and intelligence, energy, trade, drug trafficking and cybercrime, according to a joint statement released at the end of the meeting.
“This visit is an important message to our people that we are mutually supportive and unified to serve our people and the people of the region,” Al-Kadhimi said, according to a statement from his office.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said in a press conference following the meeting that a wide range of topics had been discussed, including economic and political cooperation, large-scale industrial projects, and trade in medicine and agricultural pesticides.
The leaders discussed a “political solution” to Syria’s 10-year civil war based on UN resolutions “that would preserve its security and stability and provide adequate conditions for the return of refugees.”
The Syria conflict has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, with refugee flooding the borders of neighboring countries including Jordan, which lacks in resources and faces economic hardships.
The leaders welcomed efforts underway to restore stability in Libya and Yemen, and called for the departure of foreign forces and mercenaries from Libya.
They called for renewed efforts to reach a “just and comprehensive peace” between Israel and the Palestinians, and for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
They also hailed Egypt’s role in negotiating an end to deadly hostilities between Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas in May, and Cairo’s pledge to help rebuild the coastal enclave.
Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam project, which Egypt fears will imperil its water supply, was also discussed with Iraq and Jordan siding with Cairo, he added, and all three countries agreed that a political solution and the return of refugees was needed to end the Syrian crisis, said Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.
“The message from the leaders is we stand together in the face of these challenges,” he said.
Kadhimi had set the tone at the start of the summit, saying the three countries would “try to shape a common vision... through cooperation and coordination” regarding Syria, Libya, Yemen and Palestine.
The Egyptian presidency said in a statement that “the leaders stressed the need to intensify consultation and coordination between the three countries on the most important regional issues.”
They also highlighted the importance of re-opening borders to encourage more trade in light of the economic crises brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Iraq must be isolated from regional interventions,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters after the meeting, in an apparent reference to Iran’s powerful influence.
El-Sisi is the first Egyptian president to visit Baghdad since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Relations between Baghdad and Cairo have improved in recent years, and officials from the two countries have conducted visits.
Kadhimi, El-Sisi and Abdullah held a summit in Amman last year and were due to hold another in Baghdad in April, but this was delayed after a deadly train crash in Egypt.
Egypt signed 15 deals and memoranda of understanding in sectors including oil, roads, housing, construction and trade in February after Iraq’s cabinet in December approved renewing its contract to supply the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) with 12 million barrels of Basra light crude for 2021.
Iraq is also planning to build a pipeline that is meant to export 1 million barrels per day of Iraqi crude from the southern city of Basra to Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba.
The Jordanian king visited in early 2019 for the first time in 10 years.
Iraqi analyst Ihsan Al-Shamari said that Sunday’s summit was “a message for the United States that Iraq will not only have relations with Iran at the expense of Arab countries.”
Analysts have long said that Iraq is a battleground for influence between arch-foes Washington and Tehran with whom it maintains good relations.
(With AFP, AP and Reuters)
Iraq, Egypt and Jordan hold tripartite summit in Baghdad
https://arab.news/gtyad
Iraq, Egypt and Jordan hold tripartite summit in Baghdad
- Kadhimi said the three countries would 'try to shape a common vision... through cooperation and coordination' regarding Syria, Libya, Yemen and Palestine
- Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam project, which Egypt fears will imperil its water supply, was also discussed with Iraq and Jordan siding with Cairo
Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
- The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries
DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.
Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case
- A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.
11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor
- Seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in the attack and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that control swathes of northeast Syria.
BEIRUT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkiye-backed militants in north Syria.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed... in the bombing of a military position... used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkiye,” the Britain-based monitor said.
It said seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swathes of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkiye-backed group’s military position and killed three militants, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew, in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkiye militants but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the Observatory said.
On Sunday, 15 Ankara-backed Syrian militants were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the monitor reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkish troops and allied armed factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.
Sudan women facing ‘epidemic of sexual violence’: UN
PORT SUDAN: The United Nations humanitarian chief raised the alarm on Monday over an “epidemic of sexual violence” against women in war-torn Sudan, saying the world “must do better.”
“I feel ashamed that we have not been able to protect you, and I feel ashamed for my fellow men for what they have done,” Tom Fletcher, who heads the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on his first visit to Port Sudan.
The Red Sea city has become Sudan’s de facto capital since April 2023, when Khartoum was engulfed by war between the regular military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced more than 11 million people and created what the UN says is the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.
Nearly 26 million people — around half the population — face the threat of mass starvation, as both warring sides have been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war.
During his visit, Fletcher met army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and discussed efforts to “increase the delivery of aid across borders and across conflict lines.”
Aid workers and humanitarian agencies say Burhan’s army-aligned government has enforced severe bureaucratic hurdles to their work.
At an event in a Port Sudan school to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Fletcher said the world “must do better” by the women of Sudan, who have been exposed to systematic sexual violence.
The UN’s independent international fact-finding mission for Sudan last month documented escalating sexual violence, including “rape, sexual exploitation and abduction for sexual purposes as well as allegations of enforced marriages and human trafficking.”
“The sheer scale of sexual violence we have documented in Sudan is staggering,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the fact-finding mission.
“The situation faced by vulnerable civilians, in particular women and girls of all ages, is deeply alarming and needs urgent address,” he added.
EU offers Morocco €200 million in quake reconstruction aid
- Relations between Morocco and the EU are strained after the European Court of Justice annulled fishing and agricultural deals between the two parties over products from disputed Western Sahara
RABAT: The European Union plans to offer Morocco 200 million euros ($210 million) to help with post-earthquake reconstruction, EU commissioner for neighborhood and enlargement Oliver Varhelyi said on Monday, as the two parties navigate judicial headwinds.
The 6.8 magnitude quake, Morocco’s deadliest since 1960, struck on Sept. 8, 2023, killing more than 2,900 people and damaging vital infrastructure. Morocco said it would invest In a post-earthquake reconstruction plan that includes the upgrade of infrastructure in five years.
The EU will increase its total quake reconstruction aid to Morocco to 1 billion euros, Varhelyi told a press conference in Rabat following talks with foreign minister Nasser Bourita.
Morocco was a “reliable” partner, receiving 5.2 billion euros in EU investments over the last five years, he said.
Relations between Morocco and the EU are strained after the European Court of Justice annulled fishing and agricultural deals between the two parties over products from disputed Western Sahara.
The long-frozen conflict, dating back to 1975, pits Morocco, which considers Western Sahara its own territory, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front independence movement, which seeks a separate state there.
Following the verdict, the European Council and the Commission said they attached “high value” to relations with Morocco.
The EU’s relationship with Morocco needs to be protected from judicial harassment, Bourita said, adding that “there will be no partnerships at the expense of Morocco’s territorial integrity.”
The challenges facing Morocco-EU relations contrast with the stronger economic and political ties Rabat has forged with Madrid and Paris, after the two former colonial powers backed a Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara. ($1 = 0.9499 euros)
