BEIRUT: The US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf met several Lebanese officials on Friday, following depositors’ protests against Lebanon’s central bank and other lenders in Beirut.
Accompanied by Dorothy Shea, US ambassador to Lebanon, Leaf met parliament speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, caretaker Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt.
Leaf is reported to have told the officials that the US was pleased with the recent Saudi-Iranian rapprochement and that it encouraged Saudi Arabia to move forward in this regard but the Kingdom had yet to express its intention to restore consular work in Syria.
The diplomat said she did not want to give her opinion on who should be the next Lebanese president as that was responsibility of the country’s lawmakers, but the US welcomed any elected leader.
Leaf told Berri that the situation in Lebanon could not continue as the economic situation was deteriorating and that the country needed to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund as soon as possible.
Ahead of Leaf’s visit to Beirut as part of a Middle Eastern tour, the US State Department urged Lebanese officials to elect a president, form a government and implement decisive economic reforms as soon as possible in order to put the country on the path to stability and prosperity.
Her arrival was preceded by three days of talks in Beirut between the head of the Strategic Council for Iranian Foreign Relations Kamal Kharrazi, Berri, Mikati and Hezbollah. Kharrazi said a new Lebanese president should be elected without outside interference and that the matter was “up to Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah and its allies have named Suleiman Franjieh, head of the Marada Movement, as their candidate, but the sovereign and reformist team has rejected him because of his closeness to the Syrian regime.
Franjieh failed to secure a majority of 65 votes in the first round of voting, and also missed the quorum of two-thirds of members of parliament, 86 out of 128, for the polling session in the second round.
During the talks, Leaf criticized a group of reformist MPs who recently visited the US rather than remaining in Beirut to elect a president. One lawmaker said she told them that although Washington would help to prevent Lebanon’s collapse it “cannot elect a president in their stead.”
Leaf’s visit comes against the backdrop of more economic and monetary deterioration in Lebanon. The IMF warned at the end of its meetings in Beirut that the country “is in a very dangerous situation one year after it committed to reforms it has failed to implement.”
Meanwhile, security forces strengthened their presence in the vicinity of the central bank in Hamra on Friday, after a sit-in by members of the Depositors’ Cry group turned into a riot. Some protesters launched firecrackers at the building, while others tried to storm the Societe General bank, and still more attacked the frontages of the BBAC and Mawarid banks in Hamra Street.
A group of depositors from the United for Lebanon alliance said they tried to enter the building in which Nadim Kassar, general manager of Fransabank, lives in the Jnah area of Beirut.
“Our protests have nothing to do with what the IMF mission had to say,” Alaa Khorshid, head of Depositors’ Cry, said.
“We had already planned to take action and we will continue to do so until we recover our deposits that have been withheld in banks since 2019.”
Joanna Wronecka, UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said on Friday: “Three years after Lebanon announced the suspension of the payment of its sovereign debts, the Lebanese are still waiting for their leaders to take action and save the country.
“People are angry to see their salaries lose value due to inflation and the depreciation of the national currency. The reforms agreed upon with the IMF have become vital and inevitable.”
The final report of the IMF mission, headed by Ernesto Rigo, said that Lebanon was “at a dangerous crossroads.”
“Without rapid reforms, the country will plunge into a crisis that will never end.”
US official meets Lebanon’s leaders as violent protests rage outside banks
https://arab.news/5t5dg
US official meets Lebanon’s leaders as violent protests rage outside banks
- Barbara Leaf urges country to reach deal with IMF to prevent economic crisis worsening
- Lebanon still without president as political opponents continue to wrangle
Hundreds of North Korean troops killed while fighting Ukraine, Seoul says
- Seoul says North Korea has suffered some 4,700 casualties so far, including injuries and deaths
- North Korean labor overseas is known as a source of the regime’s hard currency income
SEOUL: About 600 North Korean troops have been killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine out of a total deployment of 15,000, South Korean lawmakers said on Wednesday, citing the country’s intelligence agency.
North Korea has suffered some 4,700 casualties so far, including injuries and deaths, though its troops have shown signs of improved combat capabilities over about six months by using modern weapons like drones, the lawmakers said.
In return for dispatching troops and supplying weapons to Russia, Pyongyang appears to have received technical assistance on spy satellites, as well as drones and anti-air missiles, they said.
“After six months of participation in the war, the North Korean military has become less inept, and its combat capability has significantly improved as it becomes accustomed to using new weapons such as drones,” Lee Seong-kweun, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, told reporters, after being briefed by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
Pyongyang earlier this week confirmed for the first time that it had sent troops to fight for Russia in the war in Ukraine under orders from leader Kim Jong Un and that it had helped regain control of Russian territory occupied by Ukraine.
North Korea’s unprecedented deployment of thousands of troops, as well as massive amounts of artillery ammunition and missiles, gave Russia a crucial battlefield advantage
in the western Kursk region and has brought the two economically and politically isolated countries closer.
Lee, the lawmaker, added that bodies of dead North Korean soldiers were cremated in Kursk before being shipped back home. Pyongyang is also believed to have sent about 15,000 workers to Russia, said the lawmakers, citing intelligence assessments.
North Korean labor overseas is known as a source of the regime’s hard currency income but UN sanctions prohibit the use of North Korean labor in third countries.
Syria’s foreign minister met State Dept officials in New York, sources say
- Damascus is keen to hear a realistic path forward from the United States for permanent sanctions relief while conveying a realistic timeline to deliver on Washington’s demands for the lifting of the sanctions, one of the sources said
WASHINGTON: Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani met with senior US State Department officials on Tuesday in New York, two sources familiar with the matter said, as Damascus seeks a clear road map from Washington on how to secure permanent sanctions relief.
Shibani has been in the United States for meetings at the United Nations, where he raised the three-star flag of Syria’s uprising as the official Syrian flag 14 years after the country’s civil war erupted. Syria’s long-time oppressive ruler, Bashar Assad, was ousted by a lightning rebel offensive in December.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first between US officials and Shibani to take place on US territory and comes after Syria responded earlier this month to a list of conditions set by Washington for possible partial sanctions relief.
It was not immediately clear who Shibani met with from the State Department, although one of the sources earlier said he was expected to meet with a group of US officials including Dorothy Shea, acting US ambassador to the United Nations.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce confirmed that “some representatives of the Syrian interim authorities” were in New York for the UN meetings, but declined to say whether any meetings with American officials were planned.
“We continue to assess our Syria policy cautiously and will judge the interim authorities by their actions. We are not normalizing diplomatic relations with Syria at this time, and I can preview nothing for you regarding any meetings,” she said.
Damascus is keen to hear a realistic path forward from the United States for permanent sanctions relief while conveying a realistic timeline to deliver on Washington’s demands for the lifting of the sanctions, one of the sources said.
The United States last month handed Syria a list of eight conditions it wants Damascus to fulfill, including destroying any remaining chemical weapons stockpiles and ensuring foreigners are not given senior governing roles.
Reuters was first to report that Natasha Francheschi, deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, handed the list of conditions to Shibani at an in-person meeting on the sidelines of a Syria donor conference in Brussels on March 18.
Syria is in desperate need of sanctions relief to kickstart an economy collapsed by years of war, during which the United States, Britain and Europe imposed tough sanctions in a bid to put pressure on Assad.
In January, the US issued a six-month exemption for some sanctions to encourage humanitarian aid, but this has had limited effect.
In exchange for fulfilling all the US demands, Washington would extend that suspension for two years and possibly issue another exemption, sources told Reuters in March.
In its response to US demands, Syria pledges to set up a liaison office at the foreign ministry to find missing US journalist Austin Tice and detail its work to tackle chemical weapons stockpiles, including closer ties with a global arms watchdog.
But it had less to say on other key demands, including removing foreign fighters and granting the US permission for counterterrorism strikes, according to the letter.
Iraq drone attacks wound 5 Kurdish security personnel
IRBIL: Five Iraqi Kurdish security personnel were wounded in two drone attacks in northern Iraq in less than 48 hours, authorities in the autonomous Kurdistan region said on Tuesday.
Authorities blamed a “terrorist group” for the separate attacks in a region that has seen repeated clashes between Turkish forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
“A terrorist group launched two separate drone attacks yesterday (Monday) and this morning targeting peshmerga bases” in Dohuk province, the region’s security council said. The attacks wounded five peshmerga, it added.
Kamran Othman of the US-based Community Peacemakers Teams, who monitor Turkish operations in Iraqi Kurdistan, confirmed the attacks but was unable to identify the perpetrators.
He added that the peshmerga were establishing a new post in a “sensitive area” that has long been the site of tension between the PKK and Turkish forces. There was no immediate claim for the attacks, which came weeks after the PKK announced a ceasefire with Turkiye in response to their jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan’s historic call to the group to dissolve and disarm.
Blacklisted as a “terrorist group” by the EU and the US, the PKK has fought the Turkish state for most of the past four decades.
US hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since mid-March
- Since March 15, “USCENTCOM strikes have hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders...,” Parnell said
- CENTCOM on Sunday had put the figure at more than 800 targets
WASHINGTON: US forces have struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since Washington launched the latest round of its air campaign against the Houthi militants in mid-March, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The Houthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in late 2023 and the United States responded with strikes against them starting early the following year.
Since March 15, “USCENTCOM strikes have hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders... and degrading their capabilities,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement, referring to the military command responsible for the Middle East.
CENTCOM on Sunday had put the figure at more than 800 targets hit since mid-March, saying hundreds of Houthi fighters had been killed as a result.
Hours after that announcement, Houthi-controlled media said US strikes had hit a migrant detention center in the city of Saada, killing at least 68 people, while a United Nations spokesperson later said preliminary information indicated that those killed were migrants.
A US defense official said the military is looking into reports of civilian casualties resulting from its strikes in Yemen.
Attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal — a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of the world’s shipping traffic.
The militants say they are targeting shipping in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s military after a shock Hamas attack in October 2023.
Iran fire contained after blast at key port; 70 killed
TEHRAN: Firefighters have brought under control a blaze at Iran’s main port, following a deadly explosion blamed on negligence, authorities said.
The explosion, heard dozens of kilometers away, hit a dock at the southern port of Shahid Rajaee on Saturday.
At least 70 people were killed and more than 1,000 others suffered injuries in the blast and ensuing fire, which also caused extensive damage, state media reported.
Red Crescent official Mokhtar Salahshour told the channel that the fire had been “contained” and a clean-up was underway.
State television aired live footage on Tuesday showing thick smoke rising from stacked containers.
Iran’s ILNA news agency quoted Hossein Zafari, spokesman for the country’s crisis management organization, as saying the situation had improved significantly since Monday.
However, “the operation and complete extinguishing process may take around 15 to 20 days,” the agency reported.
Iran’s customs authority said port operations had returned to normal, according to the IRNA news agency.
The port of Shahid Rajaee lies near the major coastal city of Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil output passes.
Hormozgan provincial governor Mohammad Ashouri ruled out sabotage.
“The set of hypotheses and investigations carried out during the process indicated that the sabotage theory lacks basis or relevance,” he told state television.
The port’s customs office said the blast may have started in a depot storing hazardous and chemical materials.
Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said there were “shortcomings, including noncompliance with safety precautions and negligence.”
