Region

KAMPALA — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Kenya and Uganda on Wednesday on a mission to strengthen ties as he embarked on the first trip by an Iranian leader to Africa in 11 years.

The visit comes as the Islamic Republic tries to shore up diplomatic support to ease its international isolation, with Raisi due to travel to Zimbabwe on Thursday.

Raisi met Kenyan President William Ruto early Wednesday, describing his visit to the East African powerhouse as "a turning point in the development of relations" between the two countries.

He then flew to the Ugandan city of Entebbe, where he was welcomed with a gun salute and military parade before heading into talks with President Yoweri Museveni, public broadcaster UBC showed.

He is due to meet with his Zimbabwean counterpart Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday.

Africa has emerged as a diplomatic battleground in recent months, with Russia and the West vying for support over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which has had a devastating impact on the continent, sending food prices soaring.

Western powers have also sought to deepen trade ties with the continent, along with India and China, which has been on an infrastructure spending spree in Africa.

Raisi said his talks with Ruto reflected “the determination and resolve of both countries for expansion of economic and trade cooperation, political cooperation, cultural cooperation”.

Ruto described Iran as “a critical strategic partner” and said the two sides had signed five memoranda of understanding covering information technology, investment, fisheries and other areas.

“These memoranda will enhance and further deepen our bilateral relations for sustainable growth and development,” he said.

Ruto told reporters that Raisi had also shared plans for Iran to set up a plant in the port city of Mombasa “to manufacture an indigenous Iranian vehicle that has now been given the Kiswahili name, ‘Kifaru’, meaning rhino”.

‘Common

political views’

Iran’s official IRNA news agency said Raisi’s delegation includes the foreign minister as well as senior businesspeople.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani earlier expressed optimism that the trip could help bolster economic and trade ties with African nations.

He also said on Monday that Tehran and the African continent share “common political views”, without elaborating further.

Iran has stepped up its diplomacy in recent months to reduce its isolation and offset the impact of crippling sanctions reimposed since the 2018 withdrawal of the United States from a painstakingly negotiated nuclear deal.

On Saturday, Raisi welcomed Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf in a bid to boost ties with Algiers.

Last week, Iran became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which includes Russia, China and India.

In March, Tehran agreed to restore ties with regional rival Saudi Arabia under a China-mediated deal. It has since been looking to re-establish relations with other countries in the region including Egypt and Morocco.

In June, Raisi undertook a Latin American tour that included Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba before a trip to Indonesia.

BATABO, Syria — Syrians in the country’s last rebel enclave expressed alarm on Wednesday after the United Nations Security Council failed to renew an aid delivery mechanism to the area, imperilling critical humanitarian assistance.

The UN largely delivers relief to northwest Syria via neighbouring Turkey through the Bab Al Hawa crossing, but the deal to do so expired on Monday.

Russia on Tuesday vetoed a nine-month extension of the agreement, and then failed to muster enough votes to adopt just a six-month extension, during a vote at UN headquarters in New York.

From a bleak displacement camp near the town of Batabo in the Idlib bastion, Ghaith Al Shaar, 43, expressed dismay at the political bickering and the crushing impact any interruption to aid supplies could have on his family.

Without the UN assistance, “it’s impossible for anybody to cope, particularly if they have children”, said the father of five, who was displaced from Damascus’s Eastern Ghouta area five years ago.

“Even though it was just simple assistance, it helps support us,” Shaar said.

Syria’s conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

The 15 Security Council members had been trying for days to find a compromise to extend the cross-border aid deal, which since 2014 has allowed for food, water and medicine to be trucked to north-western Syria without the authorisation of Damascus.

Negotiations were continuing at the UN on Wednesday to try to find a solution to the impasse.

‘Political issue’ 

Damascus regularly denounces the aid deliveries as a violation of its sovereignty, and Russia has been chipping away at the deal for years.

Moscow is a major ally of Damascus, and its intervention in Syria since 2015 helped to turn the tide in the regime’s favour.

Shaar, who receives food, medical and other assistance from international organisations, expressed anger at the Russian veto.

“Russia forced us from our homes and today it is... turning humanitarian assistance into a political issue,” he charged.

The cross-border aid accord originally allowed for four entry points into rebel-held Syria before being reduced to one — Bab Al Hawa — after years of pressure from China and Russia at the Security Council.

Bab Al Hawa crossing is controlled on the Syrian side by group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS).

After a deadly earthquake in February, Syria agreed to open two additional crossings, which are in areas under the control of Turkish-backed rebel forces.

Authorisation for those two crossings is set to expire in mid-August.

But Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, warned on Tuesday that those two crossings “cannot match” Bab Al Hawa, which handles 85 per cent of the aid

“That door is shut right now,” said Dujarric, noting that “UN agencies did preposition supplies... to ensure that humanitarian needs will continue to be met in the immediate future”.

On Wednesday, he said that “the secretary-general is not giving up on the possibility of keeping” Baba Al Hawa open.

‘War on food?’ 

The UN says more than four million people are in need in northwest Syria, while it and its partners have been reaching 2.7 million people a month with aid there.

Since the quake, more than 3,700 UN trucks carrying aid have crossed through the three checkpoints.

Most have passed through Bab Al Hawa, including 79 on Monday.

Save the Children’s Kathryn Achilles warned that “the lives of millions of children are entirely dependent on aid through the Bab Al Hawa crossing”.

“The UN Security Council must urgently reconvene and reverse this fatal decision,” she said in a statement.

Russian representative Vassily Nebenzia on Tuesday accused Western countries of “artificially” provoking Moscow into vetoing.

He also threatened to “close down” the aid delivery mechanism if support for his country’s proposed six-month renewal was not forthcoming.

At the displacement camp near Batabo, Jaziyah Al Hamid, 55, expressed distress at the Russian position.

“Do they want to fight us for our food?” asked Hamid, who lost her husband and daughter in the earthquake and now lives with her five children in tough conditions.

She said that even the little assistance she has been receiving helped her family cover the bare minimum.

“We want more aid,” not less, she said.

“Russia must not close the crossing.”

VILNIUS — NATO's efforts to present a united front at a summit focused on helping Ukraine defeat Russia and Kyiv's push to join the alliance were undermined Monday by a shock Turkish ultimatum on Sweden's membership bid.

As Ukraine's forces claimed more advances against Russian positions, NATO's 31 members agreed to simplify Kyiv's eventual accession bid by dropping a requirement that it complete a formal road map of reforms.

Alliance leaders gathering in Vilnius on the eve of Tuesday's summit were hoping a meeting between Erdogan and Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson would see the Turkish leader lift his veto on Sweden's membership.

But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared in no mood to compromise, declaring that he would only back Sweden's NATO candidacy if European Union members — most of whom are also NATO allies — agree to revive Turkey's negotiations to join the EU.

Sweden 'meets requirement' 

The demand, never before made in public, threatened to open a new rift between Ankara and its Western partners, even as NATO and the EU tackle Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the continent's worst security crisis since World War II.

"Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years," Erdogan said, before boarding his flight for the Lithuanian capital.

"First, open the way to Turkey's membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland."

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a powerful figure in both NATO and the EU, was quick to stress there was no link between Sweden’s bid and Turkey’s EU application, which was formally launched in 2005 but has stalled.

“Sweden meets all the requirements for NATO membership,” he said in Berlin.

“The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also expressed caution, recalling that at previous NATO talks in Madrid, Turkey had agreed a set of conditions for Swedish membership that made no mention of EU membership.

“It’s still possible to have a positive decision on Swedish membership here in Vilnius,” Stoltenberg said, at an appearance with Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda.

“We don’t have any certainty, we don’t have any guarantees, but of course now we have the momentum of the summit with the leaders here and we will use that momentum to ensure as much progress as possible.”

As Turkey sparred over Sweden, Ukraine welcomed an apparent step forward in its fight for a guarantee that it will be able to join the Western alliance as a full NATO member if and when it wins its wars against the Russian invasion.

A Western official told AFP that the allies will drop the requirement that Kyiv complete a “Membership Action Plan”, a kind of road map to military reform that some members have had to follow to join the alliance.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the concession — which Moscow warned would have serious consequences for European security — would reduce Kyiv’s path to NATO membership.

“I welcome this long-awaited decision that shortens our path to NATO,” Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.

“It is also the best moment to offer clarity on the invitation to Ukraine to become member.”

But NATO leaders remain divided over offering Ukraine a clear route into the alliance in Vilnius.

While Eastern European allies are pushing for Kyiv to get an explicit commitment on when it will join, the United States and Germany are reluctant to go beyond an earlier vow Ukraine will become a member one day.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar said Kyiv’s troops had established fire control over the “entrances, exits and movement of the enemy around the city” of Bakhmut.

Elsewhere, an aid hub in the town of Orikhiv in southern Ukraine was hit by Russian shelling, which killed three women and a man, regional governor Yuriy Malashko said on social media.

“They hit a humanitarian aid delivery spot in a residential area... Four people died on the spot: women aged 43, 45 and 47 and a 47-year-old man,” Malashko said, calling the attack “a war crime”.

TEHRAN — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will embark on Tuesday on a rare Africa tour in the latest diplomatic efforts to reduce the Islamic republic's isolation by forging new alliances.

The three-day trip — which includes Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe — will be the first by an Iranian president to Africa in 11 years.

Raisi will head a delegation that includes Iran's foreign minister as well as senior businesspeople. He is scheduled to meet with presidents from the three countries, according to the official IRNA news agency.

On Monday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani described the trip as "a new turning point" which could bolster economic and trade ties with African nations.

He also said the rapprochement is based "on common political views" between Tehran and the three African countries.

Iran has stepped up its diplomacy in recent months to reduce its isolation and offset the impact of crippling sanctions reimposed since the 2018 withdrawal of the United States from a painstakingly negotiated nuclear deal.

On Saturday, Raisi welcomed Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf in a bid to boost relations with Algiers.

Last week, the Islamic republic became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which includes Russia, China, and India.

In March, Iran agreed to restore ties with its regional rival Saudi Arabia under a China-mediated deal. It has since been looking to reestablish ties with other countries in the region including Egypt and Morocco.

In June, Raisi set out on a Latin America tour that included Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba before a trip to Indonesia.

BEIRUT — A US drone strike has killed an Daesh group leader in Syria after Russian warplanes harassed MQ-9 drones over the war-torn country, the US Central Command said on Sunday.

The strike on Friday resulted in the death of Osama Al Muhajer, Daesh leader in eastern Syria, Centcom said in a statement.

"We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of ISIS throughout the region," Centcom chief General Michael Kurilla was quoted as saying, using another acronym for the Daesh group.

"ISIS remains a threat, not only to the region but well beyond," he added.

According to Centcom, no civilians were killed in the operation but coalition forces are "assessing reports of a civilian injury".

Friday's strike, Centcom said, "was conducted by the same MQ-9s [drones] that had... been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours".

US drones taking part in operations against Daesh in Syria were harassed on Thursday, for the second time in 24 hours, by Russian military aircraft, a US commander said at the time.

Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich said the planes “dropped flares in front of the drones and flew dangerously close, endangering the safety of all aircraft involved”.

In another incident on Wednesday, three Russian jets dropped parachute flares in front of US drones, forcing them to take evasive action, Grynkewich has said, calling on Moscow to “cease this reckless behaviour”.

Russia is a key ally of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad.

With the support of Moscow as well as Iran, Assad has clawed back much of the ground lost in the early stages of the Syrian conflict that erupted in 2011 when the government brutally repressed pro-democracy protests.

The last pockets of armed opposition to the regime include large swathes of the northern rebel-held Idlib province.

The United States has about 1,000 troops deployed in Syria as part of international efforts to combat Daesh militants, who were defeated in Syria in 2019 but still maintain hideouts in remote desert areas and conduct frequent attacks.

JENIN — A European envoy blasted Israel Saturday over the "proportionality" of the force it uses, as international envoys toured Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank following this week's deadly raid.

His remarks echoed UN chief Antonio Guterres who on Thursday told reporters "there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces" in its 48-hour operation, the largest Israel has staged in the Palestinian territory for years.

It included air strikes and armoured bulldozers ripping up streets.

Jenin is a centre for multiple armed Palestinian groups, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the refugee camp a "terrorist nest".

European Union representative to the Palestinian territories Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorff made his comments as he led a delegation of UN officials and diplomats from 25 countries to the camp in the northern West Bank.

"We are concerned about the deployment of weaponry and weapons systems which question the proportionality of the military during the operation," Kuehn von Burgsdorff said of the operation in which 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.

"This cycle of violence has to end, it cannot continue. If there is no political solution to the conflict, we are going to stand here in a week's time, in a month's time, in a year's time, with nothing changed," he added.

As the delegation toured the camp, residents peered out of holes left in the walls by Israeli rockets, and local authorities tested a new camp-wide alarm system to warn of future raids.

Jenin camp has been the site of several large-scale raids by the Israeli military this year, but this week’s was the biggest such operation in the West Bank since the second Palestinian “Intifada” or uprising of the early 2000s.

The camp’s infrastructure was severely damaged during the raid, which Israel said was targeting militants. 

Eight kilometres of water pipes and three kilometres of sewage pipes were destroyed, the UN said. More than 100 houses were damaged and a number of schools were also lightly damaged.

The refugee camp in one of the poorest and most densely populated in the West Bank, with some 18,000 people living in just 0.43 square kilometers. 

UN officials on Saturday made a plea for funds to help rebuild the camp.

“To restore services and scale up support to the children, we need cash ... our appeal is desperately underfunded,” Leni Stenseth, deputy commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said.

“I would urge you to consider announcing your support for the work we are going to do here in Jenin camp in the coming weeks and months as soon as possible,” she added.

On Thursday Algeria announced $30 million to “help rebuild the Palestinian city of Jenin after the barbaric and criminal attack” by Israel, and the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020, said Wednesday it “will provide $15 million”.

TRIPOLI — Rivals in politically divided Libya have agreed to form a committee on sharing oil revenues, a move welcomed on Saturday by the UN, after military strongman Khalifa Haftar sought a "fair" split.

Haftar, who backs the country's eastern administration, had last Monday called for a committee to address the issue. He threatened military action unless oil proceeds were divided fairly by the end of August.

Libya sits on Africa's biggest oil reserves, but the wedge between the eastern government and the United Nations-backed administration in Tripoli has hampered Libya's efforts to sharply ramp up output in response to a surge in European demand for non-Russian oil and gas.

The "Financial High Committee" has now been formed, Libya's Presidential Council, the North African country's highest executive body, said in a decree published Friday by local media.

UNSMIL, the UN Support Mission in Libya, said in a statement that it "welcomes the decision announced by the Presidential Council to establish a High Financial Oversight Committee to address fundamental issues of transparency in the spending of public funds and fair distribution of resources."

UNSMIL noted “the political consensus” reflected in membership of the Committee, which will include nominees from the eastern-based House of Representatives, its Tripoli-based rival the High Council of State, the UN-backed Tripoli government, and Haftar’s forces.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation and central bank, which manage oil revenues and are both based in Tripoli, will also have representatives on the body to be headed by Mohamed Al Manfi, who leads the Presidential Council.

That body was formed in February 2021 as part of a UN-sponsored political process. It consists of three members, each representing one of Libya’s three regions.

UNSMIL said the financial oversight committee’s “inclusive approach” will also help enable “a level-playing field for all candidates in the elections”.

Ballots in Libya had been due in December 2021 but disputes including who should stand in the polls meant they were never organised.

The UN has been working to ease the sticking points, in the hopes that elections could take place this year.

Crude oil is the main revenue source for Libya, which has been torn by more than a decade of stop-start conflict, involving foreign powers and a myriad of militias, since a NATO-backed revolt toppled Muammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Pro-Haftar forces have in the past blockaded the country’s oilfields, which in May produced around 1.2 million barrels per day, according to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.