KUWAIT CITY/BEIRUT: Kuwait’s foreign minister on Saturday strongly condemned a statement made by Lebanon’s economy minister on Wednesday, saying it was incompatible with “political norms.”
The Kuwait News Agency cited minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah as saying that Lebanese Economy and Commerce Minister Amin Salam’s comments “contradicted political norms, portraying insufficient understanding (of) how decisions are made in Kuwait,” particularly regarding humanitarian grants and loans offered to “sisterly and friendly” states.
Salam suggested on Wednesday that Kuwait could fund the reconstruction of Lebanon’s main wheat silos, which were destroyed in the Beirut Port explosion three years ago, “with the stroke of a pen.” The silos’ original construction was funded by Kuwait in 1969 through a loan from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development.
“Kuwait boasts a historic record of supporting sisterly and brotherly peoples and states, however it emphatically rejects any intervention in its decision making and domestic affairs,” Al-Sabah said on Saturday, urging the Lebanese minister to withdraw his statement for the sake of “maintaining bilateral relations.”
Salam later held a press conference in Beirut and issued a clarification. According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, Salam claimed that what he actually meant by his use of a “normal Lebanese colloquial phrase” was that a decision to rebuild the silos could be taken swiftly.
The Lebanese minister stressed that his use of the phrase “was not intended to transgress the principles and constitutional and legal mechanisms in force in Kuwait or in Lebanon.”
Salam added that he hoped the Kuwaiti parliament would accept his clarification, saying: “I had a clear conscience in my request because I appealed to a brotherly country that has always stood by Lebanon … I am aware of the risks to food security, especially since the World Bank has classified Lebanon as the most (vulnerable country) in terms of food-security challenges because it does not have a strategic stockpile.”
Kuwait’s FM decries statement by Lebanese economy minister on aid
https://arab.news/ygq97
Kuwait’s FM decries statement by Lebanese economy minister on aid
- Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah said Lebanese Economy and Commerce Minister Amin Salam’s comments ‘contradicted political norms’
- Salam said his comments were ‘not intended to transgress the principles and constitutional and legal mechanisms in force in Kuwait’
Israeli military prepares plan to ensure Iran cannot threaten country, defense minister says
- Longtime enemies engaged in 12-day air war in June
- Israel and Iran agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire on June 24
DUBAI: The Israeli military is preparing an enforcement plan to “ensure that Iran cannot return to threaten Israel,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told senior military officials.
He said the military must be prepared, both in intelligence and operations, to ensure Israel has air superiority and to prevent Tehran from reestablishing its previous capabilities.
He made his remarks following a 12-day air war between the longtime enemies in June, during which Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities, saying the aim was to prevent Tehran developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies seeking nuclear arms and that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.
Israel and Iran agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire that ended hostilities on June 24.
Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal
- Israel has earlier agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.
The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.
Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalize a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.
He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”
A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.
A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a US takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”
Abraham Accords
Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.
“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.
Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.
Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’
- Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war
KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.
The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.
“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.
Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.
“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.
“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.
Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.
Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says
- The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally,” the Irbil airport authority said
IRBIL, Iraq: An explosive drone was shot down near Irbil airport in northern Iraq on Thursday, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement.
There were no casualties reported, according to two security sources.
The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally and the airport was not affected by any damage,” the Irbil airport authority said in a statement.
The incident only caused a temporary delay in the landing of one aircraft, the statement added.
