Region

ISTANBUL — US arms supplies to Syrian rebels may create Somali-style warlords and are undermining Washington’s allies in the rebels’ exile military command, the former Syrian army general who leads it said.

Brigadier General Abdelilah Al Bashir, who defected in 2012 and led rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces in the Golan before becoming chief-of-staff of the FSA’s supreme military council in February, told Reuters that Washington was bypassing the SMC in sending weapons directly to groups that were hard to control.

“The Americans are leading the distribution of weapons on the northern front and in the southern front. We demand that we be responsible,” Bashir, 56, said in an interview in Istanbul.

“Providing support to individual battalions could turn the commanders of these battalions into warlords and they will be difficult to control in future,” he added.

“This could turn Syria into Afghanistan or Somalia.”

His remarks echoed former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who compared Syria to both those countries at the weekend and warned there would be “warlords all over the place”.

The US State Department responded to Bashir’s complaints by saying that military aid was being distributed to “moderate, vetted groups... in coordination with” the SMC.

Formally, the US supplies are “non-lethal” — such as radios, trucks and training. But some US officials have told Reuters small arms and anti-tank missiles are also being given.

Bashir, whose organisation has long been dismissed by many rebels as ineffective, said Washington had sidelined it since an SMC arms depot was seized by Islamists in December. That led to the dismissal of Bashir’s predecessor and to his own appointment — a promotion Bashir himself learned of only from television.

Anti-aircraft weapons

He called on the United States also to supply anti-aircraft weapons — something Washington has repeatedly ruled out for fear they could fall into hostile hands - and said that under his leadership the SMC could be trusted to monitor their use.

Describing last week’s re-election of Syrian President Bashar Assad as “theatre”, Bashir said anti-aircraft weapons would let the rebels turn the tide of the three-year-old war.

But the presence of anti-Western Islamists among the rebels means the United States and its European allies are wary of supplying arms that could be used against their own interests.

A US State Department official noted that President Barack Obama promised more support to the rebels last month and said that the SMC remained involved in the process.

“As part of the State Department’s provision of non-lethal assistance to moderate, vetted groups, we regularly meet and engage with the SMC and Bashir,” the official said. “We are stepping up the pace of deliveries of non-lethal assistance to Free Syrian Army commanders in coordination with the SMC.”

KIRKUK — A roadside bomb followed by a suicide bomber detonating an explosives-rigged truck at a police checkpoint in northern Iraq killed 28 people Monday, while seven people died in other attacks.

Militants have launched major operations in five different provinces in recent days, killing scores of people and highlighting both their long reach and the weakness of Iraq’s security forces.

Iraq is suffering its worst violence in years, and with none of the myriad problems that contribute to the heightened unrest headed for quick resolutions, the bloodshed is likely to continue unabated.

Local official Shallal Abdul Baban said the blasts at the police checkpoint in Tuz Khurmatu killed 28 people, wounded 148 and caused “great destruction”.

The checkpoint that was targeted was near an office of President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Party.

Another suicide car bombing struck an army checkpoint south of the city of Baqouba on Monday, killing two soldiers and wounding five, while two more people died in attacks in Baghdad, officials said.

And an explosives-rigged tanker truck detonated near an army position in the northern city of Mosul, killing three soldiers and wounding 13, a police lieutenant colonel and a morgue employee said.

The violence came a day after a car bomb followed by a suicide bombing near a PUK office and a Kurdish intelligence building in Jalawla, another northern town, killed 18 people.

Powerful jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed the Jalawla attack in a statement posted on Twitter, and said it was carried out by two suicide bombers, one Egyptian and an Iraqi Kurd.

And violence elsewhere in Iraq killed 13 more people on Sunday.

Jihadists have in the past five days launched a series of major operations that have killed dozens of people.

On Saturday, militants took hundreds of hostages at Anbar University in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the last of whom were freed in an assault by security forces that sparked hours of fighting.

And a series of blasts in Baghdad on Saturday night killed at least 25 people.

In Mosul, heavy fighting broke out on Friday and continued into the following day. The clashes, combined with other attacks in the surrounding Nineveh province, killed more than 100 people.

And on Thursday, militants travelling in dozens of vehicles, some mounted with anti-aircraft guns, attacked the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, and occupied multiple areas.

They were only dislodged after heavy house-to-house fighting and helicopter strikes.

Violence is running at its highest levels since 2006-2007, when tens of thousands were killed in sectarian conflict between Iraq’s Shiite majority and Sunni Arab minority.

More than 900 people were killed last month, according to figures separately compiled by the United Nations and the government.

So far this year, more than 4,600 people have been killed, according to AFP figures.

Officials blame external factors for the rising bloodshed, particularly the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

But analysts say widespread Sunni Arab anger with the Shiite-led government has also been a major factor.

GAZA CITY — Hamas on Monday slammed the Palestinian government in a wages dispute, demanding that President Mahmoud Abbas step in to ensure the Islamist movement’s Gaza-based government workers were paid.

The row, the first hitch for a new unity government sworn in last week, came to a head on Thursday when Hamas government workers clashed with their Palestinian Authority-employed rivals after the latter were paid and the former were not.

“[Prime minister Rami] Hamdallah’s government is not behaving well and made a mistake regarding its employees. It is violating the clauses of the reconciliation agreements,” senior Hamas official Khalil Al Hayya told journalists in Gaza.

“We demand that the president, Abu Mazen [Abbas], not hesitate in instructing the national consensus government to quickly pay the salaries of Gaza [government] employees, all of whom are under the leadership of Hamdallah,” he said.

Hamas demanded on Thursday that the PA take employees of the disbanded Gaza government onto its payroll, after scuffles broke out at banks in the Palestinian territory.

The unrest was the first hitch for the unity government, which was sworn in on June 2 under a reconciliation deal between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership to end seven years of rival administrations in the two territories.

Scuffles broke out at banks in Gaza City late on Wednesday as angry Hamas government workers tried to stop their PA counterparts withdrawing their salaries.

The PA had paid its Gaza-based employees as usual on Wednesday.

But Hamas employees, who were expecting the PA to start paying them immediately after the reconciliation deal, did not receive their wages, sparking the protests.

Hamas’ 50,000 civil servants are not registered as PA employees because they were appointed after the Islamist movement ousted Abbas loyalists from Gaza in 2007.

But Hamas has been unable to pay most of its workers for several months, after severe pressure from neighbouring Egypt strangled its cash flow.

The PA said it would “study” the possibility of taking the Hamas workforce onto its payroll.

TRIPOLI — Libya’s supreme court Monday ruled as unconstitutional the election of premier Ahmed Miitig in a chaotic parliamentary session, ending a month-long political crisis that saw two rival Cabinets jostling for power.

Miitig said he would respect the ruling, hailing the decision as a “boost for the conservation of the rule of law” in Libya.

The standoff started when parliament in early May voted Miitig as new premier to replace Abdullah Al Thani, who resigned after an attack on his family.

Thani, however, refused to recognise the parliamentary vote, which came days after gunmen stormed the building to interrupt an earlier ballot.

Several liberal lawmakers accused Islamist blocs within the interim parliament of allowing late arrivals at the session to cast their votes after the initial result was announced to make up the 121 votes needed, after Miitig had garnered only 113 votes.

Thani insisted he would await a decision by the judiciary before handing over power.

But Miitig convened his first Cabinet meeting last week despite Thani’s objections, and the two rival premiers disputed power in Tripoli, laying claim to the largely lawless North African nation’s huge reserves of oil and gas.

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued its ruling.

“The court has judged the election of Miitig at the General National Congress [the interim parliament] as unconstitutional,” a judge at the court said after a short hearing, without elaborating.

Miitig, 42, an independent backed by the Islamists, had been due to lead the country for a short interim period until June 25, when the country is due to hold an election to replace the congress.

Constitutional law expert Abdelgader Gdoura told AFP the “Supreme Court’s decision is final... Miitig’s government is finished”.

The GNC had also said it would comply with the decision, and confirmed that Thani would head the interim government.

“The congress complied with the judiciary’s decision,” Salah Al  Makhzum, a vice president of the GNC, told a press conference shortly after the court ruling.

Simmering political standoff 

Thani announced his resignation earlier this year after an armed attack on his family, but insisted his successor be chosen by a new parliament rather than its contested predecessor.

After refusing to hand over power, Thani convened his Cabinet last week even as Miitig’s government held its first session, reportedly in a luxury hotel since his predecessor was at the time occupying the seat of government.

The political standoff between the rival Cabinets amid rising unrest across the country allowed rogue general Khalifa Haftar to press an offensive against Islamists in the restive eastern city of Benghazi.

Haftar launched the attack, dubbed “Operation Dignity”, last month with troops from his so-called National Army. He has rallied support among the public and members of the security forces have joined his forces.

Near daily attacks in the eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of the 2011 revolt against dictator Muammar Qadhafi, have killed dozens of members of the security forces. No group has claimed the attack, but they have been blamed on radical Islamist militias based in the city.

Benghazi was relatively calm over the weekend, but an exchange of rocket fire between Haftar’s forces and the Islamists killed two civilians in the suburbs.

Some politicians and armed groups in the country had warned they would not endorse Miitig’s government, including autonomist rebels who have been blockading eastern oil terminals.

Ibrahim Jodhran, self-declared head of the Cyrenaica Political Bureau, a group demanding greater autonomy for eastern Libya, told AFP he was satisfied with the Supreme Court judgement.

Integrity of judiciary hailed 

He hailed the move as proof of the “integrity and independence of the Libyan judiciary”.

Miitig would have been Libya’s fifth premier since the revolution that ousted Qadhafi.

Successive governments in Tripoli have failed to stamp their authority on militias that fought Qadhafi and have refused to surrender their arms or join the regular army.

The GNC was elected in July 2012, in Libya’s first ever free polls, almost one year Qadhafi’s ouster.

Its legitimacy was challenged after the GNC prolonged its mandate, due to expire last February, until December 2014.

GENEVA — Senior Iranian and US officials began direct talks in Geneva on Monday, urgently trying to find common ground over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme as a July deadline for a lasting deal looms.

For the Islamic republic, the goal is to make a leap towards ending the international sanctions that have battered its economy.

Washington and its allies are seeking solid commitments that will ensure Iran’s stated desire for a peaceful atomic power programme is not a covert attempt to build a nuclear bomb.

The two-day Geneva meeting began on Monday afternoon, Iranian media reported. US officials said there were no plans to brief reporters, who were left guessing about the venue.

Time is running out for the negotiations between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group. A deadline of July 20 has been set to turn a temporary deal struck in November into a permanent agreement.

Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and nuclear pointman, said on Monday he remained optimistic about meeting the deadline.

“If this does not happen, we’ll have to resort to extending the Geneva agreement for another six months so the negotiations can continue,” Iran’s IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Both sides had already raised the prospect of an extension.

The Geneva meeting marks the first time since the 1980s that Tehran and Washington have held official, direct talks on the nuclear issue outside of the P5+1 process, which includes the five permanent members of the Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany.

Need for flexibility 

With the last round of talks in Vienna in May yielding little, there has been concern that the process is stalling.

“The negotiation has now entered the deep-water zone, involving more complicated and sensitive issues,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing on Monday.

“All parties need to take a flexible and practical attitude in order to seek common ground and shelve differences,” she added.

Iran was expected to hold a similar meeting with Russian negotiators in Rome on Wednesday and Thursday, before a P5+1 session in Vienna from June 16-20.

The Geneva meeting appeared to confirm the need for broader discussions to close the gaps between Tehran and Washington.

“Most of the sanctions were imposed by the US, and other countries from the P5+1 group were not involved,” IRNA quoted Araqchi as saying Sunday.

The US side in Geneva was led by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Jake Sullivan, a top White House adviser — part of a small team who spent months in secret talks in Oman that finally coaxed Iran to the negotiating table last year.

The overall P5+1 talks are chaired by the European Union, whose foreign policy spokesman Michael Mann said the US-Iran meeting was part of an “intensified negotiating process”.

A senior US administration official said the Geneva talks would “give us a timely opportunity to exchange views” before next week’s Vienna meeting.

After decades of hostility, Iran and the US made the first tentative steps towards rapprochement after the election of self-declared moderate Hassan Rouhani as president last June.

Rouhani called his US counterpart Barack Obama shortly after taking office, a move followed by a meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

 ‘Stubbornly recalcitrant’

The interim deal struck last November led the US and its partners to release $7 billion (5.1 billion euros) from frozen funds in return for a slowdown in Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment.

But a long-term accord remains a long way off, experts say.

Cyrus Nasseri, a member of Iran’s negotiating team when it was led by Rouhani between 2003 and 2005, said Washington had to drop its “stubbornly recalcitrant” outlook.

“It’s all a matter of whether the US will be prepared to take the next step to accept a reasonable solution which will be win-win for both,” he said.

“The US has to bite the bullet after 10 years of wrongful accusations. It has to accept Iran will at the end of day, no matter how the settlement is made, have peaceful nuclear fuel production.”

DAMASCUS —  Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday announced a “general amnesty” for all “crimes” committed to date, a week after a controversial election held amid raging conflict, state television said.

The amnesty decree is the most wide-ranging since the beginning of a revolt against Assad in March 2011, and for the first time extends to those accused under Syria’s controversial July 2012 anti-terrorism law.

The government has dubbed all those opposed to Assad’s rule — armed opposition fighters and peaceful activists alike — of “terrorism”, and used the law to imprison high-profile dissidents.

Should the amnesty be applied, tens of thousands of prisoners held because of their opposition to the regime are expected to be freed.

But rights groups have said previous amnesties were not fully implemented, leaving tens of thousands still languishing in jail.

Previous amnesties had excluded “terrorists” and “fugitives”.

A human rights lawyer and activist in Damascus said the decree should extend to both those who have been sentenced and to the many thousands being held without charge in security establishments across the country.

It is also the first amnesty that offers clemency to foreign jihadists fighting for the opposition, as long as they hand themselves in within a month.

State news agency SANA published the full text of the decree, and said those accused of “plotting, meaning those who carried out terrorist acts or set up a group aimed at changing the economic or social... nature of the state” are to be given a full pardon.

Also promised a pardon to those who “plotted to carry out any crime” as listed under the anti-terrorism law, as well as those accused of joining “a terrorist organisation or of forcing someone to... join a terrorist organisation”.

The amnesty also covers those accused of “weakening national sentiment”, and people accused of “inciting... an armed rebellion against the authorities”.

Also included are those who “promoted terrorist acts” — terms frequently used by the regime to justify jailing media activists working independently or on the side of the opposition.

Significantly, those who deserted from the army, said the text, will be extended a full pardon if they hand themselves in within three months of the decree.

State television cited Justice Minister Najem Al Ahmad as saying the decree was issued in the context of “social forgiveness, national cohesion calls for coexistence, as the army secures several military victories”.

BERLIN — Syria is descending into a Somalia-style failed state run by warlords which poses a grave threat to the future of the Middle East, former peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said.

Brahimi, who stepped down a week ago after the failure of peace talks he mediated in Geneva, said that without concerted efforts for a political solution to Syria’s brutal civil war “there is a serious risk that the entire region will blow up.”

“The conflict is not going to stay inside Syria,” he told Der Spiegel magazine in an interview published at the weekend.

More than 160,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which grew out of protests against President Bashar Assad in March 2011, inspired by uprisings in the wider Arab world.

Brahimi said many countries misjudged the Syrian crisis, expecting Assad’s rule to crumble as some other Arab leaders’ had done, a mistake they compounded by supporting “the war effort instead of the peace effort”.

The civil war has drawn in powerful regional states, with Sunni Gulf monarchies and Turkey supporting the rebels and foreign jihadis. Shiite Iran, Lebanon’s Hizbollah and Iraqi Shi’ites back Assad.

Major powers at the United Nations have also been divided, paralysing diplomatic efforts. Assad’s Western foes have pressed for action against Syrian authorities, but Russia and China have vetoed draft resolutions against Syrian authorities.

Brahimi, who resigned as United Nations special envoy for Afghanistan in 1999, drew comparisons between Syria now and Afghanistan under Taliban rule in the lead-up to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

“The UN Security Council had no interest in Afghanistan, a small country, poor, far away. I said one day it’s going to blow up in your faces. It did,” he said. “Syria is so much worse.”

He also compared it to Somalia, which has suffered more than two decades of conflict. “It will not be divided, as many have predicted. It’s going to be a failed state, with warlords all over the place.”

Assad’s forces have consolidated their grip over central Syria but swathes of its northern and eastern provinces are controlled by hundreds of rebel brigades including the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and other powerful Islamist groups.

Opposition ‘likely used chemical weapons’

War crimes were committed daily by both sides in Syria, with starvation used as a weapon of war, civilians held as human shields and chemical weapons used in battle, Brahimi said.

Rebels appeared to have been behind at least one incident in Aleppo province in March 2013, he said.

“From the little I know, it does seem that in Khan Al Assal, in the north, the first time chemical weapons were used, there is a likelihood it was used by the opposition.”

UN investigators have not made direct accusations about responsibility for several chemical attacks, including a sarin attack which killed hundreds outside Damascus last August.

But a team of human rights experts said three months ago the Khan Al Assal and Damascus perpetrators “likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military”.

Brahimi’s failed peace effort focused on persuading the United States and Russia to bring together the government and opposition in Geneva. In the end, getting them to sit down in the same room yielded nothing.

“Neither Russia nor the US could convince their friends to participate in the negotiations with serious intent,” he told the magazine, adding that the two parties came “screaming and kicking”, against their will.

The government negotiating team only went to Geneva to please Moscow, he said, believing that they were winning the war militarily. Most of the opposition also preferred to settle the conflict on the battlefield and arrived completely unprepared.

Brahimi said Saudi Arabia and Iran, the main powers on either side of the region’s Sunni-Shiite Muslim divide, had “to start discussing not how to help warring parties, but how to help the Syrian people [and] their neighbours”.

But despite hints at rapprochement the two powers remain wary of each other. Saudi Arabia also refused to meet Brahimi, making his task of forging a consensus nearly impossible.

“I think they didn’t like what I was saying about a peaceful and negotiated settlement with concessions from both sides,” Brahimi said.

DAMASCUS — The Damascus neighbourhood is known as “Berry Place,” but its bucolic name hides its difficult reality — it is the front line between rebels and soldiers loyal to President Bashar Assad.

The area is an island in the eastern district of Jobar, where rebels hold the east and the army controls the west.

On the two streets on the edge of the regime-held portion, lined with modest one-storey homes, children play, shouting and laughing, their voices occasionally drowned out by the rumble of artillery or the crack of a sniper’s rifle.

“They [the rebels] threatened us to try to make us flee but we have stayed despite the bombings,” said Um Imad Al Masri, a woman in her forties in a black robe and turquoise headscarf.

“Despite the deaths of our neighbours, Karim, Marc, Abu Mohamed, killed in their homes by mortars, we haven’t left. Anyway, where would we go?”

The government considers Berry Place a strategic area because it provides access to the capital’s central Abbasid Square. If the rebels took the square, they could take the heart of Damascus.

So residents of Berry Place have found themselves trapped, trying to go about their lives in the crossfire.

“When the bombing starts, we tell the children to come inside, and when it calms down, they return to the street,” Masri said.

“We can’t keep them locked up,” she adds, insisting she will stay “so long as the army is here”.

For Wafic Kamshi and some of his Christian neighbours, the situation is even worse.

“I live between the army and the Free Syrian Army,” he said.

He lives just east of Berry Place, in a no-man’s-land in Jobar that nearly no one enters.

He works as a taxi driver near Abbasid Square, but rides his bicycle to work each day for fear a car could attract the snipers’ attention. Sharpshooters riddled a vehicle with bullets near Kamshi’s home, where it still lies abandoned.

Seven months ago, Kamshi was injured by a sniper while he was sitting in front of his home.

“I don’t know where the bullet was fired from, but it hit me in the back and it came out from my stomach,” he said.

After he was discharged from hospital, however, Kamshi returned to the home where he was wounded.

“In three years, I’ve gotten used to the war and the bombing doesn’t even stop me sleeping now.”

A refuge for some

But the same can’t be said for the children living in the front-line homes in Berry Place, where a tank is stationed at the entrance to the two streets.

“When the bombing starts every day, they are really afraid. And then when it calms down they give the impression that they’ve forgotten everything and they start to smile again,” said Fariza Lahham, an elegant 25-year-old dental assistant.

Jobar was built in the 1960s and was a bustling commercial district before the conflict.

Now, most of its shops are shuttered, its buildings deserted and the pavement pockmarked by shrapnel.

The fight between the regime and rebels even goes on below ground, with both sides using tunnels to attack the other.

“We used to do our shopping in Jobar Al Balad,” said Berry Place resident Bassam Zarqi, referring to a district in eastern Jobar, now under rebel control.

“We’ve had to change that and go to Abbasid Square instead,” adds the 70-year-old, sitting in front of his house with his granddaughter in his arms.

Despite the danger, for some the neighbourhood has become a refuge.

Um Mohamed fled the eastern Damascus suburb of Ain Terma because the rebel-held district was under such fierce regime bombardment.

“I was living with my cousin there. He left his house with his family when a mortar shell came in through their house,” she said.

“I decided to come here because I felt it was less dangerous than where I was coming from,” she said.

Nearby, soldiers are on patrol.

“We’re here to protect civilians and children in the Abbassid region,” one said.

“It’s a strategic position to ensure the security of all of Syria.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved changes in a law that could block amnesty for Palestinians imprisoned for murdering Israelis.

The amendment, which needs to be approved by parliament before passing into law, would give the courts power to prevent Israel’s president from granting clemency or shortening the jail term of anyone imprisoned for murder.

Ayelet Shaked of the far-right Jewish Home Party who initiated the change said it was aimed at preventing the release of Palestinian militants who killed Israelis as well as other murderers.

“The mass release of terrorists through diplomatic deals makes a mockery of the Israeli public as does shortening the prison terms of criminal murderers,” she said in a statement.

The latest round of US-led peace talks collapsed in April after Israel refused to release a fourth and last round of 26 long-term prisoners imprisoned for killing Israelis, breaching a commitment made in 2013.

Throughout the talks, Israel released 78 of the promised 104 prisoners, in a move which angered hardliners.

Zehava GAl On of the dovish Meretz Party said the amendment would tie Israel’s hands in future talks and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “capitulating to the extreme right and supporting a demagogic law”.

In 2011, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was freed from more than five years of captivity in Gaza in exchange for the release of 1,027 Palestinians.

In a separate development, the Israeli government is also seeking to push through legislation which would allow for the forced medical treatment, including feeding of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike.

The bill, which must pass two more readings in parliament before becoming law, came as 285 Palestinian prisoners were observing a mass hunger strike in protest against their being held without charge under a procedure called administrative detention.

Of that number, 125 have been refusing food for more than six weeks, with 65 of them being treated in hospital, the Israeli Prisons Service said on Sunday.

In a mass show of solidarity, shops, businesses and restaurants went on strike in Ramallah and El Bireh, as well as in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem on Sunday, AFP correspondents said.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged Israel to either charge or release the striking prisoners without delay.

Some 5,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli jails, nearly 200 of whom are being held in administrative detention.

RAMALLAH — The Palestinian foreign ministry on Sunday summoned Australia’s diplomatic representative after a top judicial official said Canberra would no longer refer to annexed East Jerusalem as “occupied”.

Last week, Australian Attorney General George Brandis sparked Palestinian fury by saying Canberra would not use such “judgemental language” to describe an area which was the subject of negotiations.

Israel hailed the remarks as “refreshing”, but the Palestinian leadership denounced them as “disgraceful and shocking”, with the ministry making a formal diplomatic protest on Sunday.

“The Palestinian foreign ministry summoned the Australian representative Thomas Wilson over the recent comments by the Australian attorney general asking to stop referring to East Jerusalem as occupied territories,” a ministry statement said.

Speaking to reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Foreign Minister Riyad Al Malki said he was “worried” about the remarks which contravened the position of the international community.

He demanded that Canberra “give an official clarification of its position on East Jerusalem in the next few days”.

Describing it as a “radical change in the Australian position on Palestine”, Malki said the shift was made clear in a January interview with an Israeli website given by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in which she questioned whether Jewish settlements built on Palestinian land were illegal.

Israel seized East Jerusalem during the 1967 war and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

The Palestinians claim Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.

The international community views all Israeli construction on land seized in 1967, including the West Bank, as illegal and a major obstacle to a negotiated peace agreement.

“Palestine is a state and its capital is under occupation, something that the United Nations and all its bodies are agreed on,” Malki said.