Region

WASHINGTON — Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria who has been Washington’s main pointman in efforts to end the war working with opposition leaders battling President Bashar Assad, stepped down Friday.

“Robert Ford is retiring from the foreign service today after nearly 30 years of distinguished service,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

She admitted that the departure of Ford, who over the past three years has built up extensive contacts with the opposition leaders and was instrumental in helping to bring them to the Geneva peace talks, would be a loss.

“His extraordinary leadership has guided our response to one of the most formidable foreign policy challenges in the region,” Psaki said.

“From the outbreak of the crisis, Ambassador Ford has worked tirelessly in support of the Syrian people in their pursuit of freedom and dignity.”

A fluent Arabic speaker, Ford became Washington’s first ambassador to Damascus in five years when he was named in late 2010.

But just a few months into his post, Ford was abruptly pulled out of the country in October 2011 amid fears for his safety when he became a vocal critic of the Assad regime and its crackdown on the pro-democracy uprising that erupted in March that year. He never returned full-time to Syria.

Ford was increasingly criticised by the regime, which accused him of helping incite violence and was angered when he visited protest hubs outside the capital in a show of solidarity with pro-democracy demonstrators.

In late September 2011, Ford was blocked inside a building for a few hours during a meeting with opposition member Hassan Abdel Azim when nearly 100 angry pro-regime protesters tried to storm the offices.

Washington decided to close the embassy in 2012 as the uprising descended swiftly into a bloody civil war.

Since then, Ford has shuttled between the United States and Turkey, spending hours huddled with opposition leaders based out of Istanbul as he sought to help them form a more cohesive and inclusive body.

Legacy to guide bid 

to end war

Ford has also spoken passionately and angrily about the mounting atrocities in the war, which will enter its fourth year next month and in which more than 136,000 people have been killed and millions displaced.

A career foreign service officer, Ford also served as deputy chief of mission in Baghdad from 2008-2009. He was ambassador to Algeria from 2006 to 2008 and had postings in Bahrain, Cairo and Yaounde.

But he often spoke of his love for Syria, its culture, heritage and people.

“There’s no question that his departure is a loss, not just because of his contacts, but because of his expertise, because of his knowledge,” Psaki said.

She announced that for the time being, as the White House mulls a replacement for Ford, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Lawrence Silverman would take up the helm.

“There will be a continuity, given that there [is] a range of officials who will still be in place,” Psaki said.

“Obviously, part of what I’m sure will be looked at is the role that the next person will play in terms of their engagement with the opposition.”

The UN-led Geneva II peace talks broke down on February 15 and no new date has yet been set for them to reconvene.

But Psaki insisted that as the United States seeks to prepare for “a new Syria”, Ford’s “legacy will guide our efforts to support Syrians and lay the foundation for a more hopeful future”.

“The president and the secretary [John Kerry] of course are both incredibly grateful for his service.”

ZINTAN, Libya — There was confusion Thursday over the trial of Seif Al Islam, son of slain Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi, after a scheduled hearing on charges of threatening national security did not take place.

Seif, whose charges stem from the 2011 uprising that ousted his father, last appeared in court in the western city of Zintan on December 12.

His lawyer said then that the next hearing was scheduled for Thursday, and prosecution spokesman Seddik Al Sour confirmed that as recently as Wednesday.

But Sour retracted that Thursday. He said the hearing had actually been scheduled for last Thursday but had then been postponed because it coincided with voting for an assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution.

“It is up to the Zintan court to fix a new hearing date,” he said.

On October 24, a Tripoli court indicted Seif and 36 other Qadhafi aides for a raft of alleged offences during the uprising.

But Zintan rebels refused to have him transferred to the capital, despite a request from Libya’s prosecutor general and even though the authorities say his jail is under state control.

Seif, Qadhafi’s former heir apparent, is still wanted for trial by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the uprising.

In May, the ICC rejected Tripoli’s request to try him in Libya because of doubts over a fair trial. Tripoli has appealed the decision.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch called on Libyan authorities to provide proper defence counsel to Seif and his codefendants to ensure they receive a fair trial.

The New York-based watchdog said that during visits by its staff last month, both Seif and former spy chief Abdullah Senussi had complained they had no representation at all during interrogations and pre-trial hearings in their prosecution for gross abuses during the uprising.

The charges include murder, kidnapping, complicity in incitement to rape, plunder, sabotage, embezzlement of public funds and acts harmful to national unity.

NEW DELHI — Iran’s nuclear negotiations are “going well”, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday, ahead of a crucial meetings to negotiate a comprehensive nuclear deal.

Iran and a group of world powers agreed last week on a timetable and framework for the negotiations for an accord that would allay Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of crippling sanctions.

Under a landmark interim deal clinched in November, Iran agreed to curb parts of the programme for six months in exchange for limited sanctions relief. The agreement came into effect on January 20.

“The [nuclear] negotiations are going well ... I’m hoping by the first deadline [July 20] we will reach an agreement,” Zarif told reporters on the sidelines of an event in New Delhi.

Leading a high-ranking delegation, Zarif is scheduled to hold talks with top Indian officials to open a “new chapter” with New Delhi on his two-day visit that began Thursday.

Negotiators hope to reach a final accord by July 20, when the interim agreement reached in November is due to expire.

A top Iranian negotiator told IRNA news agency that Iran and world powers would hold technical talks on the sidelines of a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors next week.

He did not specify dates, but the board is set to meet in Vienna from March 3 to 7.

Political directors from the P5+1 group of world powers — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany — are set to resume talks with Iranian nuclear negotiators on March 17 in Vienna.

Western nations and Israel have long suspected Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons capability alongside its civilian programme, charges denied by Tehran.

“From our point of view it is essential for the world to accept that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful,” said Zarif in his speech at the New Delhi event.

“We do not have an interest in possession of nuclear weapons.”

MALAKAL, South Sudan — House after house has been burned to the ground. Hospital patients have been shot by armed rebels while lying in their beds. Dozens of corpses litter the streets.

“This is about revenge now. There is no humanity here,” said Col. Jan Hoff, an officer in Norway’s army who has served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

South Sudan, he said, is the worst he’s seen.

“It’s absolutely horrific,” Hoff said this week as he led a heavily armed UN convoy through the streets of Malakal, the capital of oil-producing Upper Nile state. “This is tribe against tribe. In Syria it was foreign fighters against the government. Here I don’t think it’s about the government.”

A corpse nearby is already a skeleton wrapped in a soldier’s uniform. Hoff said he counted 30 bodies on a recent day. A colleague had counted 70. The dead include both civilians and soldiers.

Human Rights Watch said Thursday that both government and rebel forces are responsible for serious abuses that may amount to war crimes for atrocities committed in Malakal and Bentiu, another capital of an oil-producing state, despite a ceasefire signed in January. Reprisal killings, based on ethnicity, are common place.

“Armed forces from both sides have extensively looted and destroyed civilian property, including desperately needed aid facilities, targeted civilians, and carried out extrajudicial executions, often based on ethnicity,” said Human Rights Watch, which called the destruction and violence against civilians “shocking”.

A week ago forces loyal to former vice president Riek Machar retook Malakal in a bloody assault that forced the government army to make what it labelled a tactical withdrawal.

Government officials this week said they would retake the town, but on Wednesday, as the UN convoy drove through, there was no sign of South Sudan’s army. The only talk was how rebels were pushing north towards the oil fields that provide the world’s newest nation it’s only income.

After the UN personnel alighted from their vehicles to tour the Malakal hospital, the smell of death and sight of destruction overwhelmed. The hospital, now filled with heavily armed rebel soldiers, is ransacked and empty of patients. Inside is a scattering of dead bodies, including those clearly executed in their beds. Flies are everywhere.

The UN has classified South Sudan as a Level 3 emergency that puts it on par with Syria’s crisis. As South Sudan’s rainy season approaches there are fears that the hundreds of thousands displaced by fighting will not be able to plant crops, an event that the UN aid chief here says could precipitate a famine.

Church leaders, analysts and government leaders have played down the ethnic dimension to the conflict, but more often than not the violence is being carried out by one ethnic group against another.

Human Rights Watch said that despite the ceasefire both rebels and government have launched attacks, and that credible reports indicate government forces supported by Uganda’s military have attacked locations in Unity state. The group said it has credible reports that rebel fighters killed civilians at the Malakal hospital, where Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday said it found 14 dead bodies.

“A clear pattern of reprisal killings based on ethnicity, massive destruction, and widespread looting has emerged in this conflict,” Human Rights Watch said.

At Christ is King Malakal Catholic Church, where three white UN tanks guard people — mainly from a group called Shilluks — Ko Aduk Peter said no one is safe regardless of tribe.

“Yesterday some soldiers took our girls by power. Six women, about 20 years, from the church,” he said. “Now we don’t know where they are.”

Toby Lanzer, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, who travelled to Malakal on Wednesday, said the town is in a “terrible state that was really quite shocking”.

The UN camp in Malakal has hosted up to 20,000 people since fighting broke out in December. Ethnic conflict broke out inside the camp at one point, resulting in the deaths of 10 people.

While Lanzer was promoting peace talks, the UN has been preparing for more fighting in the north, near South Sudan’s oil fields.

“The conflict in South Sudan is far from over, with civilians still at risk of further abuse even inside UN compounds,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Military commanders from both sides have an obligation to immediately and unequivocally order their forces to stop attacking civilians and civilian property, and the commanders need to hold abusive soldiers to account.”

DOHA — Twelve people including two children were killed on Thursday when a gas tank exploded at a Turkish restaurant in the Qatari capital Doha, authorities in the Gulf Arab state reported.

About 30 others were injured in the blast at the Istanbul Restaurant that one security source said was accidental.

Another security source at the scene said two Asian children were among the dead.

Major General Saad Bin Jassim Al Khalifi, Qatar’s head of public security, said non-Qatari Arabs, Asians and one Qatari were among the dead and wounded.

Preliminary investigations suggested a gas tank exploded, setting off a fire and causing part of the building to collapse, he told a news conference. But investigations were continuing to discover why the gas tank exploded.

“It was a very big blast,” he said. “It blew away cars and shrapnel was scattered 50 to 100 metres away.”

Chunks of masonry, metal debris and shattered glass lay outside the restaurant in a northwestern district of the city. Cars nearby were apparently crumpled by the explosion.

The incident was the deadliest in Qatar since May 2012, when at least 19 foreign nationals, including 13 children, were killed by a fire in an upscale shopping mall.

In a separate incident on Thursday, medics and security sources at the Hamad medical city in Doha said dozens of people were hurt in the afternoon due to a gas leak at a chemical plant in an industrial area near Doha.

They gave no figures or details on their condition, but said helicopters were despatched to fly victims of the leak to the Hamad medical centre quickly as ambulances had been caught in heavy traffic caused by the restaurant incident.

The gas- and oil-rich Gulf Arab state with an estimated national population of at least 200,000 has one of the highest standards of living in the world. The bulk of the two million population of Qatar are foreigners.

The restaurant is on the outskirts of the capital near Landmark mall, a well-known shopping complex usually busy with families.

“I was eating in a restaurant close by and suddenly heard a big [blast] and everything around me exploded,” Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Kareem, an Indian driver, told Reuters at Hamad Hospital. “I have too much damage now, my legs are broken and my head is [wounded].”

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Thursday strongly denied it had any plans to send weapons to Syrian rebels, following reports that Saudi Arabia was holding talks with it about arming the opposition.

A Saudi source said Sunday that Riyadh was seeking Pakistani anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets for forces fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

But Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs, denied the claim, telling reporters Pakistan has not considered such a proposal.

“The reports about arms supply to Syria are totally baseless,” Aziz said.

Rebels have long sought anti-aircraft rockets to defend themselves against Syrian warplanes, which regularly bomb rebel-held areas with barrels loaded with TNT and other ordnance.

The United States has opposed arming the rebels with such weapons, fearing they might end up in the hands of extremists.

But Syrian opposition figures say the failure of peace talks in Geneva seems to have led Washington to soften its opposition.

Pakistani foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam said at a regular briefing that Islamabad did not supply arms to “entities”, meaning rebel groups, and respected Syria’s sovereignty.

“The policy guidelines for the sale of arms that we have are in line with the adherence to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter,” she said.

Pakistan recognised the right of all states to protect their security, she said, and wanted an end to the bloodshed in Syria.

She stressed that “regime change from outside by any means is something that Pakistan has persistently and very strongly opposed”.

“We also have what is known as end users’ certificate which ensures that our weapons are not resold or provided to a third country,” she said.

“Our position on Syria has been very clear and has been articulated again and again.”

The nearly three-year conflict in Syria has torn the country apart, killing more than 140,000 people including some 50,000 civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Aslam said Pakistan had taken note of the humanitarian situation in Syria and wanted to see the Syrian people getting the supplies they needed.

Russia, a key ally of Syria, on Tuesday warned Saudi Arabia against supplying the rebels with shoulder-launched rocket launchers, saying it would endanger security across the Middle East.

On Wednesday, Syria shipped out a consignment of mustard gas for destruction at sea under a disarmament deal approved by the UN Security Council to dispose of its chemical weapons.

RABAT/PARIS — Morocco has halted judicial cooperation with France, blocking procedures from prisoner transfers to joint investigations, officials said on Thursday, in a growing dispute with its former colonial ruler over allegations of human rights abuses.

French President Francois Hollande spoke to the Moroccan king this week to try to defuse the rare row with Rabat, an ally under fire from rights groups over police abuses, press freedom and judicial independence.

Rabat on Saturday summoned the French ambassador after French police went to the Moroccan Embassy in Paris seeking to question the head of the domestic intelligence service (DRT) over torture allegations, following lawsuits filed against him in France by French-Moroccan activists.

“We haven’t received any explanation regarding the seven French police officers who went to question the head of the territorial surveillance,” Moroccan government spokesman Mustapha Khalfi told reporters.

“That damaged the integrity of the Moroccan judiciary system... That is why we decided to suspend the whole judicial cooperation with France until an update of those agreements.”

Lawyers and officials said the move affected cooperation on penal matters such as joint investigations, prisoner transfers and extraditions. Also blocked will be civil procedures for dual French-Moroccan nationals, who number almost 700,000, such as marriages, custody of children issues and divorces. There are about 170 French citizens held in Moroccan prisons.

Morocco’s justice ministry had earlier said it had recalled one of its judges who had been liaising on judicial matters.

France’s foreign minister had said on Wednesday he hoped the dispute was in the past after speaking to his Moroccan counterpart. “We are continuing our close dialogue with the Moroccan authorities to overcome the recent difficulties,” France’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

France, Morocco’s top economic partner, is keen to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible, officials said.

In 2012, the United Nations said torture against people suspected of national security crimes in Morocco was systematic and urged it to end ill-treatment of detainees. US-based Human Rights Watch has urged Morocco to investigate accusations that police tortured pro-democracy activists.

Joseph Breham, a lawyer for one of those who filed a complaint in Paris, said the suspension would block prisoner transfers to France. Several of his clients had been jailed on drug-trafficking charges and had asked for transfers to France after making claims of torture following arrest, he said.

“The Moroccans have realised that prisoners file legal complaints once they get back to France,” he said.

But analysts said the diplomatic row may also be linked to the long-running Western Sahara dispute.

One of Africa’s oldest territorial feuds, it has been a sensitive issue for Morocco since the United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991 that ended a war between the North African kingdom and the Algerian-backed Polisario movement.

The United Nations will vote in April on extending the mandate of a UN mission in Western Sahara for another year.

France has long supported Rabat’s position on Western Sahara. Last year, Paris pushed the United States to modify a draft resolution that aimed to have UN peacekeepers monitor human rights in the territory. The draft prompted Morocco to cancel joint US-Moroccan military exercises.

BIRZEIT, Palestinian Territories — A Palestinian died during an Israeli army raid on his home in the West Bank town of Birzeit Thursday, the military and a Palestinian security source said.

The death came as Amnesty International criticised Israel’s killing of dozens of Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank over the past three years.

“After the army left the house and the town, the body of Motaz Washaha was found,” the Palestinian source said.

The army confirmed the death of a “Palestinian suspected of terror activity.”

“After the suspect was called to turn himself in, he barricaded himself inside his house,” it said.

Soldiers responded with “live fire” and recovered an assault rifle, it added.

Neighbours said the dead man was a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The army entered Birzeit, north of the West Bank administrative centre of Ramallah, Thursday morning and used “riot dispersal means” to clear stone-throwing Palestinians from their path to the house.

The Palestinian government slammed what it said was a “new escalation” by Israel, adding that the army had “deliberately” killed the man.

“The forces of the occupation surrounded Washaha’s house, evacuated its other inhabitants and then fired several rockets at it, destroying parts of it whilst firing [with guns],” a statement said.

DOHA — Al Jazeera television on Thursday organised a “global day of action” in solidarity with its four journalists detained in Egypt over accusations of supporting the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Dozens of staff of the Doha-based satellite news channel staged a five-minute gathering at the network’s headquarters.

“It is not a crime to be a journalist,” read banners carried by Al Jazeera staff, some of them with their mouth taped, an Al Jazeera journalist told AFP.

The channel said protests were held in other cities in support of the campaign.

In Khartoum, around 100 Sudanese journalists and activists staged a silent vigil on a street near the office of the satellite channel, an AFP journalist reported.

Al Jazeera declared Thursday a “global day of action” in support of its staff and for media freedom in general.

The detained Al Jazeera staff in Egypt include Australian journalist Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian colleague Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed.

They have been held since December in a case that has sparked an international outcry.

Their trial began in a Cairo court last week, against the backdrop of strained ties between Cairo and Doha, which backed deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Morsi was ousted by the army in July.

The government has designated the Brotherhood a “terrorist organisation”, although the group denies involvement in a spate of bombings since Morsi’s overthrow.

The three journalists are accused of supporting the Brotherhood and broadcasting false reports, charges denied by the television network.

A fourth Al Jazeera journalist, Abdullah Al Shami, has been held since August.

FRANKFURT — German tour operators started bringing hundreds of holidaymakers back from Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh Red Sea resort on Thursday after Germany’s foreign office advised against travel to the entire Sinai peninsula.

German authorities on Wednesday recommended its citizens refrain from travelling to the beach resorts on the peninsula and said those already there should make arrangements with their travel agent to return early.

Alltours said it would bring back 120 holidaymakers in Sharm El Sheikh this evening, while TUI Deutschland and Thomas Cook Germany said they were organising travel back to Germany for its customers there.

“We want to bring them back by the weekend. They will be refunded for the days of their trip they did not use,” a Thomas Cook Germany spokesman said.

Another big German tour operator, DER, said it had booked a plane for Friday morning to bring back all 85 guests from its different tour operator brands that were in Sharm El Sheikh.

The recent bombing of a coach carrying Korean holidaymakers across the peninsula has led to renewed concerns for tourism in Egypt, an industry which provides a livelihood for millions and the government with much-needed foreign currency.

Germans and Russians are the most numerous visitors to the country, which saw tourism revenue plunge 41 percent to $5.9 billion last year due to the waves of unrest that have disrupted the country since the Arab Spring uprising in 2011.

The advice from Germany was not equivalent to a full warning that would force all tour companies to repatriate German holidaymakers immediately.

For German travellers the resorts of Hurghada and Marsa Alam on Egypt’s mainland Red Sea coast, which are not affected by the latest travel advice, are more popular destinations. TUI Germany said 90 per cent of its holidaymakers in Egypt were in Hurghada.

DER said overall bookings to Egypt were down by between 30-40 per cent since the start of the Arab Spring, while bookings to Sharm El Sheikh were down 90 per cent, mainly due to its location nearer trouble hotspots.

The Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday it was “important” that Russian tourists stay inside tourist areas and refrain from travelling around the country, urging them to avoid big cities and the interior of the Sinai Peninsula in particular, confirming earlier advice.

France and Britain, two other major sources of tourists for Egypt, also advise against travelling to the peninsula but have so far exempted Sharm el-Sheikh.

The German tour operators said guests with holidays booked over the next few weeks to Sharm El Sheikh would be offered the chance to switch bookings to another destination or to cancel their trip entirely for free.

TUI Germany, Thomas Cook Germany and DER said the rebooking or cancellation offer was valid on holidays until March 14, while Alltours said those with travel booked until the end of March could alter their plans for free.