‘Knowledgeable’ UN envoy gains international support to end Yemen war 

Hans Grundberg has received support from regional and international countries along with Yemeni factions. (File/@EUinYemen)
Short Url
Updated 07 August 2021
Follow

‘Knowledgeable’ UN envoy gains international support to end Yemen war 

  • Grundberg has been the European Union ambassador to Yemen since September 2019
  • Saudi FM said Kingdom would stand by the new UN envoy and backed all peace efforts to end the war

ALEXANDRIA: Acclaimed as an experienced diplomat who has handled conflicts in the Middle East for two decades, the UN special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg has received support from regional and international countries along with Yemeni factions to end the war in Yemen. 

On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres named the Swedish diplomat Grundberg as his special envoy for Yemen, succeeding Martin Griffiths, a Briton. 

The UN chief said the new envoy would draw on more than 20 years of experience in international affairs to help resolve the war in Yemen. He cited his role in helping Yemenis broker the Stockholm Agreement that defused fighting in the western province of Hodeidah in late 2018. 

Shortly after the announcement, the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia, the US and other countries congratulated the new envoy and expressed support for his mission to end the war in Yemen. 

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the Kingdom would stand by the new UN envoy and backed all peace efforts to end the war. 

“We wish him success in his new role and look forward to working with him. The Kingdom will continue to support all efforts to reach a political solution that helps bring peace and prosperity to Yemen,” Prince Faisal said on Twitter. 

The internationally recognized government of Yemen also expressed support for the new UN envoy and repeated demands for resuming the peace process and reaching a political settlement that would end the Houthi takeover of power. 

“The Yemeni government will continue to extend its hand to a just and sustainable peace based on the three references agreed upon nationally, regionally and internationally,” Yemen’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official news agency SABA. It praised the new envoy as a “knowledgeable diplomat about the Yemeni crisis.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was great international support for addressing the humanitarian crisis and ending the Yemen conflict. 

“There is unprecedented consensus on resolving the conflict and a real opportunity for peace. Only a durable agreement among Yemenis can reverse the dire humanitarian crisis,” Blinken said in a statement. 

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said the new envoy was an “excellent” diplomat and her country backed UN diplomatic efforts to end the suffering of the Yemeni people. 

“Sweden looks forward to continuing our close collaboration with the UN in support of a durable cease-fire and a political solution to the conflict in Yemen,” she tweeted. 

Peace efforts to reach a peaceful settlement in Yemen, sponsored by the Griffiths, failed as Iran-backed Houthis refused to put into place a nationwide truce and stop their deadly offensive on the central city of Marib. 

The Omani foreign ministry, whose mediators visited Sanaa in June and failed to convince the Houthis to accept the UN peace initiative, hoped that the new envoy’s expertise on Yemen would help to push for peace, stating that the sultanate would back his mission to solve the Yemeni crisis “as soon as possible.”

Since the start of the Houthi offensive in February, the former UN envoy pushed for a truce for all battlefields in exchange for opening Sanaa airport and easing restrictions on ports under Houthi control, followed by peace talks between warring factions in Yemen. 

The rebels demanded that the Arab coalition first stop its air support to the Yemeni government to accept the proposal. 

On Saturday, Hussein Al-Azzi, a Houthi official, welcomed the appointment of the UN envoy and urged him to solve the humanitarian crisis and to create “a supportive atmosphere for constructive and fruitful talks.” 

During the past seven years, Houthis have boycotted two UN envoys to Yemen and accused them of being biased. 

Other Yemeni key factions such as the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the National Resistance have also promised to comply with UN peace efforts to end the war.

Yemen experts and political analysts argue that the Houthi reluctance to end their military operations across Yemen might impede the UN envoy’s efforts to end the war. 

“The biggest challenge facing the new envoy is convincing the Houthis to accept a cease-fire. All other parties, including the legitimate government, have accepted the peace initiative,” Najeeb Ghallab, undersecretary at Yemen’s Information Ministry and a political analyst, told Arab News. 

Another challenge is dealing with powerful forces that have emerged during the war, such as the STC, which calls for partitioning Yemen into two states.


Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Updated 7 sec ago
Follow

Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

  • The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry

THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.


Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

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

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

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

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

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

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

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.