Region

GENEVA — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched Yemen peace talks in Geneva on Monday with a call for a humanitarian truce after warplanes from a Saudi-led Arab coalition pounded the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa overnight.

More than 2,600 people have been killed since the coalition began military operations in March to stop the Iranian-backed Houthi militia moving on Aden and to shore up embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, then in the southern city.

Ban said the truce, called to mark the start of the holy month of Ramadan later this week, should last for at least two weeks to allow life-saving supplies into the country.

"Today Yemen's very existence hangs in the balance. While the parties bicker, Yemen burns," he told reporters.

However, Yemeni Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla dismissed the possibility of any ceasefire soon.

"If they [the Houthis] are still occupying Yemen, they are still killing innocent people, if they are still destroying everything, what kind of ceasefire?" Abdulla said in Geneva.

But he said his exiled government might consider a "limited" truce if the Houthis agreed to withdraw from cities, including Aden and Taiz, and free more than 6,000 prisoners.

Representatives of Hadi’s government were in Geneva for the talks, but a plane carrying delegates from Sanaa, including the Houthis’ Ansarullah group, had to land in Djibouti after what Yemeni political sources said was Egypt’s refusal to give the plane overflight rights.

The plane left Djibouti late in the evening for Geneva, Yemeni political sources in Sanaa said.

“It is clear this was a result of Saudi pressure on Egypt and Sudan to block the delegation and humiliate them,” Seif Al Washli, an adviser to the Houthi team, told Reuters in Geneva.

Egyptian civil aviation officials denied Cairo had any objections to the Houthi delegation using its airspace.

The Geneva talks are expected to last two to three days, with the UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, shuttling between the delegations.

Analysts have said there is little sign so far that either the Houthis and their ally, former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, or Hadi, now based in Riyadh, are ready to compromise.

Saudi Arabia, echoing the Hadi government, said the Geneva talks should focus on implementing a UN Security Council resolution demanding that the Houthis leave cities they have seized since last year.

Ban also called for the withdrawal of armed forces from the cities, saying the fighting was bolstering Islamist militants.

“The region simply cannot sustain another open wound like Syria and Libya,” Ban said.

While Western countries have largely backed the air campaign as a way of pushing the Houthis to the negotiating table, they have more recently started to press Saudi Arabia to agree to a humanitarian pause to allow aid in and to negotiate.

Combat

The crisis began when the Shiite Muslim Houthis seized Sanaa last September, saying they wanted to end corruption and discrimination. Hadi fled to Aden in February and then to Saudi Arabia as Houthi forces closed in on the southern port city.

Although the conflict is rooted in local rivalries, it has also become part of a wider regional struggle between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Middle East affairs will discuss the conflict on Tuesday at a meeting of the pan-Islamic Organisation of Islamic Cooperation hosted by Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, the Iranian Mehr news agency reported.

The crisis has also forced the United States to withdraw its military personnel from Yemen, seen by Washington as a frontline in its war against Islamist militants.

Fighting raged throughout Yemen’s south and centre on Monday, in clashes pitting tribesmen and pro-Hadi militiamen against the Houthis and their army allies.

Air strikes hit Houthi positions in Saana and in the nearby province of Al Dhalea to back up local armed fighters, who exchanged heavy artillery salvos with the Houthis.

A humanitarian crisis has worsened due to an air and sea blockade imposed to stop arms supplies to the Houthis but which also cut off many citizens’ access to food, medicine and fuel.

More than 3,000 cases of dengue fever have been recorded in five provinces since the conflict began, with three confirmed deaths, the World Health Organisation said.

Medical sources in Aden say dozens have died from the illness, which has spread from mounting piles of uncollected rubbish and intense summer heat.

CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi ordered that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip remain open in both directions for a further two days, state news agency MENA reported on Monday.

Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing on Saturday for an initial three days to allow Palestinians to travel in and out of the territory for the first time in three months.

The order to extend the operation to Wednesday was in "solidarity with Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip in order to relieve their suffering, in accordance with agreed upon measures", MENA said.

Egyptian state television said the extension came on the occasion of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, which is due to start later this week.

Gaza, a small impoverished coastal enclave, is under blockade by neighbouring Israel, and Egypt has kept its Rafah crossing largely shut since Cairo's Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was toppled by the army in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Saturday's move, allowing travel in both directions, might signal a cautious improvement in relations between Cairo and Hamas after two years of high tension.

Cairo has accused Hamas, which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, of helping militants in Egypt's Sinai desert, which borders on Gaza, attack its security forces. Hamas denies this.

DAMASCUS — At least 20 people were killed and 100 wounded on Monday in Syrian rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of the city of Aleppo, Syrian state media said.

"The number of martyrs in the massacre carried out by terrorists in Aleppo has risen to 20 dead and more than 100 hurt," state television said in a breaking news alert.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the rocket fire, putting the toll at 13, including two children, and adding that it was expected to rise.

The group also said around 100 people were wounded, among them 20 children.

The Britain-based monitor said rebels had fired some 250 rockets at several districts in western Aleppo city in just four hours, causing massive damage including the collapse of an entire building.

State television broadcast gruesome footage of the wounded being brought into hospital.

One stretcher carried the body of an adult whose face was covered with blood, and a dead child, ghostly with white dust.

Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the conflict that began with anti-government protests in March 2011, before spiralling into a civil war.

The city has been divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting spread to it in mid-2012.

Regime forces regularly bombard the eastern side from the air, dropping crude barrel bombs that rights groups say are indiscriminate and can kill dozens of civilians at a time.

Rights groups have similarly criticised rebels for firing indiscriminately into civilian areas in western Aleppo.

The United Nations envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is currently visiting Damascus to brief government officials on talks he has held on ways to end the conflict.

ALGIERS — He lost an eye in Afghanistan, was earlier reported dead in fighting in Mali and now Libya says he was killed in a US air strike at the weekend. But is the Algerian jihadist dubbed "The Uncatchable" for his decades-long elusiveness really dead?

US officials have yet to confirm Libyan reports that Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in eastern Libya, saying on Monday only that the F-15 jet raid appeared to have succeeded but stopping short of confirming his demise.

Doubts were well placed: Belmokhtar, who was in his early 40s, has been reported dead several times only to reappear in jihadist propaganda claiming responsibility for new attacks.

What is undisputed is that the raid attested to a Libya sliding deeper into armed anarchy since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi that Western nations fear is creating a jihadist safe haven just across the Mediterranean from Europe.

With two rival Libyan governments and their armed factions battling for control, Daesh and other jihadist groups like Belmokhtar's have exploited the chaos to seek refuge, train and expand their influence in the vast North African country.

Libyan military officials said on Monday that up to 17 Al Qaeda insurgents had been killed in the air strike while they were meeting near Benghazi, but did not name any. A US official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said around two dozen militants may have been killed.

"The strike carried out by US forces was on a farm in the industrial district while Belmokhtar was holding a meeting with other militant leaders," a Libya military source told LANA state news agency.

The Pentagon was more cautious on Belmokhtar's fate. "Initial assessments are that it was successful. But we have not finalised our determination," said spokesman Colonel Steve Warren, adding that the United States consulted with the internationally recognised Libyan government before the strike.

Even before Libya began unravelling as a state, its long barely governed southern desert served as a base for Belmokhtar fighters when he masterminded a 2013 attack across the border into Algeria on the In Amenas gasfield. Forty oil workers, mostly foreigners, were killed in the jihadist assault.

Unanswered questions over Belmokhtar's fate would suit a man born in Algeria's central desert who rose through jihadist ranks during its 1990s civil war and survived on the run to become one of the most renowned men in Saharan militant circles.

Once with Al Qaeda's North African branch, he split to form his own militant group called "Those Who Sign in Blood". He was involved in kidnapping several foreigners, took part in Mali's separatist conflict and ran lucrative Saharan smuggling rings.

Well-connected

"Belmokhtar is one of the longest-standing and most connected jihadist leaders of the region, where he has been active for more than a decade," said Chris Chivvis, an associate director at the RAND International Security and Defence Policy Centre and author of "The French War on al Qaeda in Africa".

"His personal ties to the tribes of the region, experience, and authority are very important to the cohesion and success of his current group," Chivvis said of the man called "The Untouchable" by the French intelligence services.

Belmokhtar followed a well-worn path to jihad, leaving home to fight in Afghanistan when he was 19, according to interviews on militant websites, and returned to Algeria in the throes of an Islamist militant insurgency.

That was the start of a two-decade career of militancy, first as a member of Algeria's Islamic Armed Group (GIA) in the country's 1990s civil war, then as a joint founder of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

His group later entered the franchise of Al Qaeda's North Africa wing, known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Belmokhtar headed one of two AQIM battalions bordering Mali.

He eventually split with the fellow Algerian leader of AQIM and built his own group. But the Pentagon said Belmokhtar maintained his allegiance to Al Qaeda.

Experts say he was always less of an Islamist ideologue than a "gangster-jihadist" involved in trafficking of arms, smuggling and contraband.

Security experts said his death, if confirmed, could crimp his group's effectiveness in the short-term because of his personal connections in the region, though his organisation will have others well-placed to re-establish its clout.

"More often than not, when the head of the snake is cut off, a more venomous one grows in its place," said Geoff Porter, a North African expert at West Point's Combating Terrorism Centre. "That is certainly a possibility here — and there are no shortage of aspiring jihadis who are likely eager to pick up Belmokhtar's mantle."

But the loss of such a central figure may also trigger more competition between criminal gangs, especially over wealth derived from smuggling in arms and migrants, leading to infighting and possible driving some into rival groups like the ultra-hardline Daesh, also known as ISIS.

"If Belmokhtar is indeed gone, this group, which operates from Mali through Libya, will be less effective and less of a threat," RAND's Chivvis said. "This does not mean it will go away, however. To the contrary, parts of it might decide they now want to throw their lot in with Daesh."

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel has blocked a visit to the Palestinian territories by a UN rights envoy, an official said Monday, just ahead of the publication of a United Nations report on last year's Gaza war.

It was the second time Makarim Wibisono, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, had been barred entry.

"We didn't allow this visit," which was to take place last week, foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told AFP.

"Israel cooperates with all the international commissions and all (UN) rapporteurs, except when the mandate handed to them is anti-Israeli and Israel has no chance to make itself heard."

The UN Human Rights Council, to which Wibisono reports, has been conducting an investigation into the actions of both Israeli and Palestinian fighters during last year's conflict.

Its report is expected to be published in the coming days, and the council is scheduled to debate it on June 29.

The UN's human rights chief, speaking at the opening of the council's 29th session in Geneva on Monday, confirmed the publication was imminent.

"It is my hope the report will pave the way for justice to be done to all civilians who fell victim to the fighting last year, by holding to account those alleged to have committed grave and other serious violations of international humanitarian law," High Commissioner for Human Rights HH Prince Zeid said.

The war killed 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.

While Wibisono reports to the council, his visit was for a separate, annual assessment in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel barred him from entering last year for a similar visit.

In a report released Sunday, Israel defended its conduct in the July-August Gaza war against Islamist movement Hamas, calling it both "lawful" and "legitimate".

The UN has said Israel was responsible for the deadly bombing of several UN institutions, including schools, in which displaced Palestinian civilians were sheltering.

Israel says that fighters’ use of schools to store weapons, and the firing of rockets from the vicinity of the sites, forced it to target those areas.

Israel has long had a stormy relationship with the UNHRC, which it sees as anti-Israeli, and fiercely opposed the Gaza probe from the start.

KHARTOUM — Sudanese President Omar Bashir arrived in Khartoum on Monday to cheers of supporters after leaving South Africa, where a court had ordered his arrest based on an international warrant for war crimes charges.

Bashir raised a stick in the air as he stepped out of the plane, waving to a few hundred supporters who greeted him at the airport. Some chanted "God is Great" while others cried with joy.

A South African court ruled that Bashir, who was attending an African Union summit, should be arrested. The ruling came after he left.

Bashir, in office since a 1989 military coup, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes allegations linked to the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.

At the Khartoum airport, supporters of the president raised posters reading "Lion of Africa" scribbled next to a picture of Bashir in military uniform and carried a coffin with a white sheet wrapped around it reading: "The ICC to its last resting place."

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour said: "The president will continue his participation [in international events] as usual and the attempts to distract us will not sway us."

In Geneva, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the International Criminal Court's authority must be respected.

However, a Pretoria court's ruling that Bashir should be arrested came after he had left the country and in defiance of an earlier court order that he should remain in the country while judges deliberated on the matter.

Judge Dunstan Mlambo criticised the South African government for failing to heed the instructions of the court.

"It is of concern to this court that we issued orders and then things just happened in violation of those orders," Mlambo said.

ICC Deputy Prosecutor James Stewart said in an interview with The Associated Press in the Hague, where the court is based, that "in our view it was very clear" that South Africa should have detained Bashir so he could have been brought to trial in the Hague.

"Their obligation was to arrest President Bashir," Stewart told AP.

"I think, however, what is important to remember is that we act really in the interest of victims," he added. "The concern of the prosecutor is for the victims of dreadful atrocities and these victims are Africans."

The ICC’s charges against Bashir stem from reported atrocities in the conflict in Darfur in which 300,000 people were killed and 2 million displaced in the government's campaign, according to UN figures.

South African officials have declined to comment, though William Mokhari, an attorney for the South African government, said African leaders at the summit in Johannesburg had immunity.

Leaders of the African Union are cautious about interfering in each other's affairs and highlighting alleged human rights abuses on a continent with a history of conflict. Critics of the ICC also say it has unfairly targeted African leaders. But Stewart said most of the African cases were initiated by African governments themselves.

At one point, Mokhari, the South African government lawyer, told the judges that there was no risk of Bashir "disappearing" while he attended the summit.

But soon after he uttered those words, South African journalist Erika Gibson tweeted photographs of what she said was Sudan's presidential jet taking off from a South African military base. Sudanese state media then said Bashir had left South Africa and that a news conference will be held at the Khartoum airport upon his arrival.

Elise Keppler, international justice acting director for US-based Human Rights Watch, said an opportunity to bring Bashir to justice had been missed.

"By allowing this shameful flight, the South African government has disregarded not only its international legal obligations, but its own courts," she said in a statement.

Bashir appeared in a group photo with other African heads of state on Sunday at the summit. The African Union had previously asked the ICC to stop proceedings against sitting presidents and said it will not compel any member states to arrest a leader on behalf of the court.

In a government notice published June 5, South Africa's minister of international affairs, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, signed an agreement granting diplomatic immunity to delegates participating in the African Union summit.

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre, a rights group, had gone to court to press for Bashir's arrest.

SANLIURFA, Turkey/BEIRUT — Kurdish-led militia backed by US-led air strikes fought Daesh militants near a Syrian town at the Turkish border on Sunday, a monitoring group and a Kurdish official said, in an advance that has worried Turkey.

Concerned about an expansion of Kurdish sway in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Kurdish groups were taking over areas evacuated by Arabs and Turkmen, saying that might eventually threaten Turkey's borders.

The Kurdish-led YPG, working with the US-led alliance and small Syrian rebel groups, has pushed into Daesh's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa province, threatening one of its supply lines to the militants’ de facto capital, Raqqa city.

While dealing a blow to Daesh, seizing Tel Abyad would also help the YPG to link up Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria. Turkey is worried about the risk of separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority in the southwest.

At least 13,000 people have fled into Turkey over the past week to escape the fighting near Tel Abyad.

On Sunday, Turkish authorities reopened the border after a few days of closure, a security source said, adding that they expected as many as 10,000 people to come across.

Local media said Daesh militants had tried to prevent refugees from crossing into Turkey.

“[Daesh] doesn’t want people to flee. They are telling them the coalition forces would bomb the town if the civilians left,” the security source said.

Deash militants had forced refugees who fled the fighting back to the town of Tel Abyad late on Saturday, television footage from the scene showed.

YPG fighters were battling Daesh militants on the eastern outskirts of the town on Sunday, YPG spokesman Redur Xeili told Reuters. Coordination with the US-led alliance was “excellent” with air strikes conducted according to need.

“The road connecting Tel Abyad and Raqqa city is in our firing range,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict, said there were only around 150 Daesh militants in Tel Abyad.

An activist group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, said on its Twitter feed that Daesh had stripped a Tel Abyad hospital of all its equipment and had moved it to Raqqa city. It also said militants were ordering people away from the border area.

Erdogan sees possible border threat

The YPG has emerged as the main partner on the ground in Syria for the US-led alliance that has been bombing Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Its advance into Raqqa province follows a campaign that drove Daesh from wide areas of neighbouring Hasaka province.

Turkey views the YPG as part of the PKK, which has fought a decades-long insurgency against Ankara and is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Erdogan, in comments published on Sunday, reiterated his view that Arabs and Turkmen were being targeted by the advance.

Kurdish groups were “being placed into regions that they are evacuating. This is not a good sign. Because it means paving the way for a structure which could threaten our border”, he said.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the observatory, said the people who had fled into Turkey were escaping fighting and there was no systematic effort to force people out.

He said also said there were no Turkmen in the area: “There are violations by individuals from the YPG, but not in a systematic way.”

SANAA — A delegation of Yemeni rebels headed Sunday for UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva as their forces gained ground by seizing a provincial capital near the border with Saudi Arabia.

After repeatedly delaying their departure, the delegation left from the capital Sanaa aboard a UN plane for the Swiss city, where the talks are due to start on Monday, a day late.

The UN’s peace envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said in a statement that Monday would see the start of “preliminary inclusive consultations” bringing together the country’s warring factions for the first time.

He appealed for participants to take part “in good faith and without pre-conditions, and in a climate of trust and mutual respect”.

Yemen has been wracked by conflict between Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels and the internationally recognised government of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

The rebels, supported by military units loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, have seized control of large parts of the country including Sanaa, forcing Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia.

Fearing an Iran-friendly regime on its southern border, Riyadh has been leading a campaign of air strikes against the rebels since March 26 but has so far failed to force them from territory they have seized.

On Sunday the rebels faced little resistance as they took control of Al Hazm, the main city of Jawf province, residents and pro-government fighters said.

The city lies only 150 kilometres south of the border with Saudi Arabia. 

In Yemen’s main southern city of Aden, coalition air strikes on Sunday killed 13 rebels, a military source close to them said.

Fighting raged on across several districts of Aden, residents said, accusing the rebels of firing Katyusha rockets on residential areas and destroying at least six homes.

And in Daleh farther north, six rebels and four pro-government fighters died in 24 hours of clashes, the province’s deputy governor said. 

Analysts say the conflict has reached a deadlock and pressure has been mounting for an attempt at a political solution.

Calls for humanitarian truce 

The rebel delegation that left Sanaa on Sunday included five representatives from the Houthis and Saleh’s General People’s Congress Party, an aviation official and a source close to the rebels told AFP.

Hassan Zaid, the head of Shiite opposition party Al Haq, was also in the delegation and two other Houthis were heading to Geneva from neighbouring Oman.

Representatives of Hadi’s government had arrived on Saturday for the talks, which had been due to start on Sunday but were delayed after the rebels refused to board a UN plane that had been scheduled for a stopover in Saudi Arabia.

The talks had first been due to take place on May 28 but were postponed.

In Geneva on Sunday for preliminary meetings, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is to take part in the opening session of the talks.

He has said the negotiations are aimed at securing a ceasefire, agreeing on a withdrawal plan for the Houthis and stepping up humanitarian aid deliveries.

The delegations would “start with what we call proximity talks in two separate rooms with the hope they can be brought together,” UN spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told reporters in Geneva.

The UN Security Council and Ban have both called for a renewed humanitarian halt in the fighting following a five-day truce last month.

The Security Council this week heard a report from new UN aid chief Stephen O’Brien describing Yemen’s humanitarian crisis as “catastrophic”, with 20 million civilians in need of aid — 80 per cent of the population.

The World Health Organisation said Friday that 2,584 people had been killed in fighting in Yemen as of June 7, with 11,065 wounded.

International powers are keen for a resolution to the conflict, fearing the growing power of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni branch of the jihadist network which has taken advantage of the chaos to seize territory including the southeastern city of Mukalla.

JOHANNESBURG — A South African judge barred Sudan's indicted president from leaving the country on Sunday, in a deepening rift between Africa and the West over what Pretoria called anti-poor country bias in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

President Omar Al Bashir, visiting South Africa for an African Union summit, stands accused in an ICC arrest warrant of war crimes and crimes against humanity over atrocities committed in the Darfur conflict. He was first indicted in 2009.

A judge is expected on Monday to hear an application calling for Bashir's arrest, though this appears unlikely as South Africa's government has granted legal immunity to all African Union delegates.

South African President Jacob Zuma's ruling African National Congress (ANC) responded furiously to Sunday's court order, accusing the Hague-based ICC of seeking to impose selective Western justice by singling out Africans.

"The ANC holds the view that the International Criminal Court is no longer useful for the purposes for which it was intended," the ANC said in a statement.

"Countries, mainly in Africa and Eastern Europe... continue to unjustifiably bear the brunt of the decisions of the ICC, with Sudan being the latest example."

A human rights group, the Southern African Litigation Centre, earlier petitioned the Pretoria High Court to force the government to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir.

Judge Hans Fabricius postponed the hearing until 0930 GMT on Monday to allow the government time to prepare its case, urging South African authorities to "take all necessary steps" to prevent Bashir leaving the country.

Sudan's government defended the South African visit of Bashir, who was sworn in this month in Khartoum for another five-year term, and said the court order had "no value".

"We contacted South Africa in advance and informed them that the president would participate and they highly welcomed his participation," Sudan's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal Ismail told reporters in Khartoum.

“What is being mentioned in the media is a propaganda campaign against Sudan,” Ismail added.

Guarantees

The conflict in Darfur has killed as many as 300,000 people and displaced two million, the United Nations says.

“He [Bashir] would be a fool if he had not sought guarantees that he would not be transferred before leaving for South Africa,” one ICC official told Reuters, asking not to be named.

The ICC issued a statement asking Pretoria “to spare no effort in ensuring the execution of the arrest warrants”.

It said the court’s members had “deep concern” about the negative consequences if any signatory state failed to assist in detaining Bashir.

A foreign ministry spokesman in South Africa, which is an ICC signatory and therefore obliged to implement arrest warrants, did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The ANC called for a review of ICC statutes to make them apply to all United Nations members to ensure a “fair and independent court for universal and equitable justice”.

The United States’ decision not to sign the ICC’s Rome Statute has caused resentment among African states.

DUBAI — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gave a vigorous defence of nuclear negotiations to a domestic crowd on Sunday, pledging to reach a deal that would lift the hardship of sanctions as the talks enter their final weeks.

Speaking at a televised rally in the northeastern city of Bojnord, to mark the second anniversary of his 2013 election victory, Rouhani used sweeping rhetoric to play up the benefits of easing Iran's long international isolation.

"With the guidance of the supreme leader and the support of the people, we will enrich both uranium and the economy in Iran," he told a crowd of thousands.

"We want the nation to be happy and productive, to have a bright economy and social welfare — and to have centrifuges too."

While Iran's negotiating team has crisscrossed the globe trying to seal a nuclear deal, Rouhani in recent months has spent much of his time in provincial cities selling the nuclear talks to a population that harbours deep mistrust of the West.

"We will go to the United Nations, where the sanctions against us were written, and there we will have them lifted," he said, portraying the progress in nuclear talks as a diplomatic victory for the Islamic republic.

Iran is aiming to strike an accord with six powers by June 30 that would secure sanctions relief in exchange for some curtailment of its nuclear programme, but the negotiators have faced criticism from conservatives who say they are making too many concessions.

Rouhani has aimed to portray such critics as out of touch with the daily reality faced by Iranians under sanctions.

"Those who say sanctions are not important don't know what is happening in people's pockets," he said, alluding to the high cost of foreign-made goods.

Following the pattern of his previous provincial speeches, the president said his government had taken steps on issues including healthcare, food security and the environment, arguing that lifting sanctions would lead to more progress.

On Saturday, at a news conference also marking the anniversary of his election, he was more measured about the prospects for the talks, warning that a deal could be delayed if world powers brought new issues into play.

He also said it could take weeks or months for sanctions to be lifted after reaching a deal — comments notably absent from his soaring rhetoric to the cheering crowd in Bojnord.