ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said Turkiye and Lebanon would work together on Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad by militants.
“A new era has now begun in Syria. We agree that we must act together as two important neighbors of Syria,” Erdogan told a news conference, alongside Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
“The stability of Syria means the stability of the region,” he said, adding that reconstruction of the war-ravaged country on their borders would be their priority.
Assad fled to Russia after a lightning offensive spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) wrested city after city from his control until the militants reached the Syrian capital earlier this month.
The ousting of Assad sparked celebrations around Syria and beyond, and has prompted many refugees to begin returning home.
Turkiye and Lebanon are home to a large number of Syrian refugees.
To rebuild Syria, Erdogan said: “This is a critical period in which we need to act with unity, solidarity and mutual reconciliation.”
Erdogan says Turkiye, Lebanon agree to act together on Syria
https://arab.news/bsvzj
Erdogan says Turkiye, Lebanon agree to act together on Syria
- “The stability of Syria means the stability of the region,” Erdogan said
- Turkiye and Lebanon are home to a large number of Syrian refugees
Harness momentum from Assad’s fall and Lebanon ceasefire to end war in Gaza, says UK envoy
- Ambassador James Kariuki also calls on Israel to halt illegal expansion of settlements on Palestinian lands
- Report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says Israel’s actions in besieged northern Gaza is making life untenable for Palestinians there
NEW YORK CITY: The UK’s deputy permanent representative to the UN on Wednesday told members of the Security Council that the fall of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and November’s ceasefire agreement in Lebanon offer a moment of hope to the people of the region.
He called for the momentum generated by these developments to be harnessed and used to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, secure the release all Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other militant groups, and end the humanitarian crisis and the suffering of civilians in the battered enclave.
Ambassador James Kariuki was speaking during a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the latest report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the implementation of the council’s Resolution 2234. Adopted in 2016, it demands that Israel cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and calls for immediate steps to prevent violence against civilians, including acts of terror.
Kariuki called on Israeli authorities to halt the illegal expansion of settlements on Palestinian land and to hold violent settlers to account.
“Continued instability and settler violence in the West Bank should not be tolerated by Israel, and the culture of impunity must end,” he said. “This does nothing to bring about peace and security for Palestinians or Israelis.”
The secretary-general’s quarterly report, covering the period from September to December, states that the “relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the large number of civilian casualties, the blanket destruction of Palestinian neighborhoods, and the worsening humanitarian situation by the day are appalling.”
The Israel’s military operations in Northern Gaza, which has been under siege since early October, “are making the conditions of life untenable for the Palestinian population,” it adds.
Kariuki said northern Gaza must not be cut off from the south.
“The UK is clear: There must be no forcible transfer of Gazans from, or within, Gaza. There must be no reduction of the territory of the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“Israel’s expansion of military infrastructure and the destruction of civilian buildings and agricultural land across the Strip is unacceptable.”
In his report, Guterres condemned Israel’s use of “explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas, that has caused massive casualties and damage to residential buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques and UN premises.”
He again denounced the terror attacks by Hamas that targeted Israeli towns on Oct. 7, 2023, and the taking of more than 250 hostages.
Kariuki echoed this condemnation and reiterated his country’s demand for “the immediate and unconditional release” of all hostages.
The envoy also described the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza as appalling. More than 45,000 Palestinians have died since the Oct. 7 attacks, and the past two months have been the worst for aid efforts since the conflict began, he said.
“The UN has reported a shocking increase in cases of acute malnutrition in children, and that Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees, per capita, in the world,” Kariuki added.
“The UK continues to urge Israel to do much more to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and to abide by their international obligations. This includes facilitating rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian aid and basic services to the Palestinian people.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees plays a crucial role in delivering this life-saving aid, he said, and the UK has committed an additional $16.5 million of funding for the agency, raising its total contributions since April to $52 million.
Paramilitary shelling of besieged Darfur city kills 10
PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed and 20 wounded in paramilitary shelling of North Darfur’s besieged capital El-Fasher which hit the city’s main hospital and other areas, activists said.
The attack left “10 civilians killed and 20 others injured ... as a result of recent shelling inside the city of El-Fasher and the Saudi Hospital,” said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups that have been coordinating aid across Sudan during 20 months of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Sudanese doctor Mohamed Moussa has grown so accustomed to the constant sound of gunfire and shelling near his hospital that it no longer startles him. He continues attending to his patients.
“The bombing has numbed us,” the 30-year-old general practitioner said by phone from Al-Nao Hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum.
Gunfire rattles in the distance, warplanes roar overhead and nearby shelling makes the ground tremble, more than a year and a half into a grinding war between rival Sudanese generals.
Embattled health workers “have no choice but to continue,” said Moussa.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a war between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces.
Blinken to announce more funding for Sudan at UN on Thursday, official says
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will announce at the United Nations on Thursday additional funding for humanitarian assistance to Sudan and efforts to support civil society in the country, where a conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.
Deputy US Representative to the United Nations Ned Price told reporters on Wednesday that Blinken will make a number of announcements when he chairs on Thursday a UN Security Council meeting on Sudan, which will focus on humanitarian assistance and protection of civilians.
The announcements will include additional funding for humanitarian assistance, and efforts to support civil society and, ultimately, the transition back to democracy, Price said.
“Sudan, unfortunately, has risked becoming a forgotten conflict,” Price said.
“So part of the reason the secretary ... opted to convene a signature event on this very topic is to make sure it remains in the spotlight,” Price said.
Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months, triggering a profound humanitarian crisis in which more than 12 million people have been driven from their homes and UN agencies have struggled to deliver relief.
The war erupted in April 2023 amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule.
US-mediated talks in Geneva this year failed to achieve progress toward a ceasefire as the army refused to attend, but did secure promises from the warring parties to improve aid access.
Price said the United States would continue to work with allies for improved humanitarian access in Sudan and ultimately a cessation of hostilities before the end of President Joe Biden’s term next month.
“We are going to leave nothing on the field in our efforts to work with allies, with partners, with the Sudanese stakeholders themselves, on the issues that matter most — humanitarian access, the provision of humanitarian assistance, ultimately, the process by which we can work to get to a cessation of hostilities, which is most urgently needed,” he said.
Syria rescuers say bodies found in warehouse
- “We received a report about the presence of bodies, bones and a foul smell at the site,” White Helmets official Ammar Al-Salmo said
DAMASCUS: A Syrian civil defense official said Wednesday that White Helmets rescuers discovered unidentified bodies and remains in a medicine warehouse in a Damascus suburb, 10 days after Bashar Assad’s ouster.
An AFP video journalist at the scene said the warehouse strewn with medicine boxes was located just around 50 meters (yards) from the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, a revered site for Shiite Muslims.
“We received a report about the presence of bodies, bones and a foul smell at the site,” White Helmets official Ammar Al-Salmo told AFP.
South Damascus’s Sayyida Zeinab suburb was a stronghold of pro-Iran fighters including Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group before militants took the capital on December 8 in a lightning offensive.
“In the warehouse, we found a refrigerated room containing decomposing corpses,” Salmo said, adding that some appeared to have died more than a year and a half earlier.
He said human bones were also scattered on the ground, estimating there were around 20 “victims.”
AFP saw men in white suits removing bodies and remains in black bags and placing them onto a truck.
Salmo said the words Aleppo-Hraytan — Syria’s second city in the north, and a nearby location — and numbers were written on bags where the unidentified bodies were found.
“We are going to establish the age of the victims” then take samples for DNA tests “and try to locate their families,” Salmo added.
AFP was unable to independently ascertain the reason for the presence of the remains or the identities of the bodies.
Since Assad’s ouster, a number of mass graves have been uncovered in the country.
The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing parts of the Syrian conflict, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives.
In 2022, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor estimated that more than 100,000 people had died in prison, mostly due to torture, since the war began.
UN calls for ‘free and fair’ elections in Syria
- UN special envoy Geir Pedersen said “there is a lot of hope that we can now see the beginning of a new Syria”
- Calling for immediate humanitarian assistance, he also said he hoped to see an end to international sanctions
DAMASCUS: The UN envoy to Syria called on Wednesday for “free and fair” elections after the ouster of president Bashar Assad, as he voiced hope for a political solution for Kurdish-held areas.
Assad fled Syria following a lightning offensive spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), more than 13 years after his crackdown on democracy protests precipitated one of the deadliest wars of the century.
He left behind a country scarred by decades of torture, disappearances and summary executions, and the collapse of his rule on December 8 stunned the world and sparked celebrations around Syria and beyond.
Years of civil war have also left the country heavily dependent on aid, deeply fragmented, and desperate for justice and peace.
Addressing reporters in Damascus, UN special envoy Geir Pedersen said “there is a lot of hope that we can now see the beginning of a new Syria.”
“A new Syria that... will adopt a new constitution... and that we will have free and fair elections when that time comes, after a transitional period,” he said.
Calling for immediate humanitarian assistance, he also said he hoped to see an end to international sanctions levied against Syria over Assad’s abuses.
Pedersen said a key challenge was the situation in Kurdish-held areas in Syria’s northeast, amid fears of a major escalation between the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkiye-backed groups.
Turkiye accuses the main component of the SDF, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), of being affiliated with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants at home, whom both Washington and Ankara consider a “terrorist” group.
The United States said Tuesday it had brokered an extension to a fragile ceasefire in the flashpoint town of Manbij and was seeking a broader understanding with Turkiye.
“I’m very pleased that the truce has been renewed and that it seems to be holding, but hopefully we will see a political solution to that issue,” Pedersen said.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a terrorist organization by several Western governments, HTS has sought to moderate its rhetoric by assuring protection for the country’s many religious and ethnic minorities.
It has appointed a transitional leadership that will run the country until March 1.
HTS military chief Murhaf Abu Qasra said Kurdish-held areas would be integrated under the country’s new leadership, adding that the group rejects federalism.
“Syria will not be divided,” he told AFP, adding that “the Kurdish people are one of the components of the Syrian people.”
He said HTS would be “among the first” factions to dissolve its armed wing and integrate into the armed forces, after the leader of the group ordered the disbanding of militant organizations.
“All military units must be integrated into this institution,” Abu Qasra said.
HTS has also vowed justice for the crimes committed under Assad’s rule, including the disappearance of tens of thousands of people into the complex web of detention centers and prisons that was used for decades to silence dissent.
“We want to know where our children are, our brothers,” said 55-year-old Ziad Alaywi, standing by a ditch near the town of Najha, southeast of Damascus.
It is one of the locations where Syrians believe the bodies of prisoners tortured to death were buried — acts that international organizations say could constitute crimes against humanity.
“Were they killed? Are they buried here?” he asked.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, more than 100,000 people died or were killed in custody from 2011.
