Region

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday his call for a state of Palestine to become a “full member” of the United Nations, state media reported.

Xi expressed Beijing’s position during a summit with Arab countries in Saudi Arabia in December, although the latest call comes as the Asian powerhouse works to strengthen its role as mediator in the Middle East.

Xi met Abbas during the December trip and pledged to “work for an early, just and durable solution to the Palestinian issue”.

Beijing has since positioned itself as a mediator in the Middle East, brokering the restoration in March of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia — rivals in a region where the United States has for decades been the main powerbroker.

“China supports Palestine in becoming a full member State of the United Nations,” Xi said during a meeting with Abbas in Beijing, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

“The fundamental way out of the Palestinian issue lies in the establishment of an independent Palestinian State,” he said. 

Abbas will be in the Chinese capital until Friday, his fifth official visit to the world’s second-largest economy.

Xi told Abbas at a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People that China was “ready to strengthen coordination and cooperation with the Palestinian side”.

“Today, we will jointly announce the establishment of a China-Palestine strategic partnership, which will be an important milestone in the history of bilateral relations,” Xi said.

Abbas arrived in Beijing on Monday to hold talks with top Chinese leaders including Xi and Premier Li Qiang. 

The two sides are using the opportunity to discuss ways to advance relations and resolve longstanding challenges to the Palestinian-Israel relationship.

Beijing has sought to boost its ties in the Middle East, challenging US influence — efforts that have sparked unease in Washington.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called long-time Palestinian leader Abbas an “old and good friend of the Chinese people” during a regular media briefing last week.

Finding a lasting solution to Israeli-Palestinian tensions may prove elusive, as peace negotiations between the two sides have been stalled since 2014.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts in April that his country was willing to aid peace negotiations, Xinhua reported.

And Qin told Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al Maliki that Beijing supports the resumption of talks as soon as possible, according to the state news agency.

In both calls Qin emphasised China’s push for peace talks on the basis of implementing a “two-state solution”.

BEIRUT — Lebanese lawmakers on Wednesday failed for a 12th time to elect a new president, as bitter divisions between the Iran-backed Hizbollah and its opponents risk miring the country in a protracted power vacuum.

Crisis-hit Lebanon has already been without a head of state for more than seven months, and the previous attempt to elect a president was held on January 19.

The vote for the presidency, reserved for a Maronite Christian under Lebanon's delicate sectarian power-sharing system, pitted the Hizbollah-backed Sleiman Frangieh against financial official Jihad Azour, who has mainly been endorsed by Christian and independent legislators.

But neither had enough support to get across the line, with Azour garnering 59 votes and Frangieh 51 in the 128-seat parliament.

All lawmakers showed up for the election, but many left the chamber after placing their ballots in the box and quorum was lost before a second round of voting — where the winner only requires 65 ballots — was able to go ahead.

"Enough passing the buck... for prolonging the vacuum," parliament speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement after the session.

"Only consensus and dialogue" will speed up the election of a president, he added, without immediately scheduling a new ballot.

Analysts said the vote risked further entrenching a political stalemate, dimming hopes of saving the economy after three years of meltdown.

"At this stage, the most likely scenario is a prolonged vacuum," analyst Karim Bitar said.

'Threats' 

The international community has urged politicians to elect a consensus presidential candidate who can help the country enact reforms required to unlock billions of dollars in loans from abroad.

On top of lacking a president, Lebanon has been governed by a caretaker Cabinet with limited powers for more than a year.

By convention, the premiership is reserved for a Sunni Muslim and the post of parliament speaker goes to a Shiite Muslim.

In past sessions, Hezbollah and its allies repeatedly posted spoilt ballots to disrupt the vote, then left so quorum was lost and a second round could not take place.

They adopted a similar tactic in the last presidential election, a move that left Lebanon without a president for more than two years, until Michel Aoun's 2016 win.

Samy Gemayel, head of the Christian Kataeb party, called on Wednesday’s support for Azour an “uprising” against “diktats and threats”, in reference to accusations Hizbollah is seeking to impose its preferred candidate.

The Shiite movement has described Azour as the “defiance and confrontation candidate”, and pro-Hizbollah daily Al Akhbar’s front page on Wednesday featured just one word: vacuum.

Hizbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said that “the country cannot be led by... confrontation”.

“Dialogue is essential for electing a president,” he told AFP, calling for “understanding”.

‘Third-man solution’? 

Frangieh, a former lawmaker and minister who is a friend of Syrian President Bashar Assad, hails from a storied dynasty, like many of Lebanon’s prominent political figures.

On Sunday, he promised to be “the president of all Lebanese” despite his polarising alliances.

Azour was finance minister from 2005 to 2008 and has stepped aside from his role as the director of the Middle East and Central Asia department at the International Monetary Fund in view of the presidential contest.

On Monday as he announced his bid for the post, he said he wanted to “contribute to a solution” not a crisis, adding that he was “not defying anyone”.

The analyst Bitar said Wednesday’s vote, like the previous 11 attempts, was likely “a way for political forces to gauge their respective electoral weight” and see how many votes they could get.

A stalemate could pave the way for protracted negotiations “that would ultimately reach a third-man solution”, he told AFP before the ballot.

The United States and France on Tuesday renewed calls for Lebanese lawmakers to cooperate and elect a new president.

French foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre had urged MPs to “take this date seriously” and “not to waste another opportunity”.

KHARTOUM — Sudan's army chief is not ready to meet the enemy general he's been at war with for eight weeks, a government official said on Tuesday after a regional bloc proposed a face-to-face encounter between the two.

At a summit held in Djibouti on Monday, the East African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) announced it would expand the number of countries tasked with resolving the crisis, with Kenya chairing a quartet including Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.

Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemeti, have been at war since April 15 after they fell out in a power struggle following a 2021 coup that derailed Sudan's transition to democracy.

A draft communique of the IGAD meeting released by the office of Kenyan President William Ruto said the quartet leaders would "arrange [a] face-to-face meeting between [Burhan and Daglo]... in one of the regional capitals".

The Sudanese government official, not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP that, "in the current circumstances Burhan will not sit at the same table as Hemeti", who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The two generals early in the war described each other as criminals, and both sides have failed to respect multiple truces.

On June 1 the United States imposed sanctions on the two warring groups, but fighting has continued, including in Khartoum on Tuesday where witnesses reported artillery strikes in the north of the capital and its suburbs.

More than 1,800 people have been killed since battles began, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

Fighting has forced nearly 2 million people from their homes, including 476,000 who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, the United Nations says.

A record 25 million people — more than half the population — are in need of aid and protection, according to the UN.

Prior to the announcement of the IGAD quartet, the president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, had led the regional bloc's committee on Sudan, which did not include Ethiopia.

Sudan's foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it had reservations about some points in the IGAD statement, and the Sudanese delegation demanded that Kiir stay on as head of the committee.

NICOSIA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan redoubled his call on Monday for the international recognition of northern Cyprus, making the Mediterranean statelet his first port of call since his reelection.

Erdogan met the north’s leader Ersin Tatar, whose rule is recognised only by Turkey, two weeks after extending his two-decade rule until 2028.

“If there is to be a return to the negotiating table, the way to do this is through recognition” of the north, Erdogan declared.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when the Turkish army invaded the northern third of the island in response to a coup that had sought to unite the entire island with Greece. 

United Nations peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone separating the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) from the internationally recognised south.

Turkey’s calls for a “two-state solution” to the Cyprus issue have been rejected by Greek Cypriots who comprise a majority in the south. The Republic of Cyprus along with the international community favours a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation in line with a UN framework.

Although Erdogan comfortably won last month’s runoff, he lost to his secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu by 15 points in the northern Cyprus portion of the vote.

Nearly 144,000 voters were registered in northern Cyprus, including Turkish settlers and troops and Turkish Cypriots who hold Turkish citizenship.

Erdogan’s performance was hurt in part by an economic crisis that has swept across Turkey and undermined the north’s economy, which relies on Ankara for support.

But some analysts also attributed it to a more accommodating stance taken on the status issue by Kilicdaroglu’s party during the campaign.

Erdogan rejected compromises during his joint appearance with Tatar.

“The just demands of the Turkish Cypriots are clear and unequivocal,” Erdogan said. 

“There are two separate peoples in Cyprus,” Tatar added. 

The island’s status is one of the world’s longest-running disputes. It has been a source of tension across the Mediterranean region for decades, heating up in more recent years because of the discovery of large energy deposits in the region.

It has also contributed to Turkey’s uneasy relations with Greece and the rest of the European Union.

Ankara maintains more than 35,000 troops in the north.

There have been no formal UN-sponsored peace talks for nearly six years.

Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides, who won his own runoff election in February, wants a greater EU role on the Cyprus issue.