Region

DUBAI/ANKARA — Iran welcomed the most senior French trade delegation in years on Monday, telling more than 100 executives that the far-sighted among them stood to win the race for business following an easing of some economic sanctions.

The prospect of a relaxation of commercial restrictions has whetted the appetite of French firms eager to win back business in an oil- and gas-producing country of about 80 million people where some previously had extensive operations.

“A new chapter has begun in relations between Iran and Europe,” Mohammad Nahavandian, President Hassan Rouhani’s chief of staff, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

“You should carry the message back that potential for cooperation with Iran is real and not to be overlooked,” he told the delegation. “Those with longer foresight stand to win this race.”

The delegation of more than 100 executives from Medef, the French employers’ association, on a February 2-5 trip, met Nahavandian and members of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, IRNA said.

A source close to the delegation told Reuters it was the most senior group of entrepreneurs and financiers to visit Iran since the 1979 revolution, representing the defence, aviation, petrochemicals, automotive, shipping and cosmetics sectors.

Among the companies represented were Safran, Airbus , Total, GDF-Suez, Renault, Alcatel, Alstom, Amundi and L’Oréal, the source said.

“Many of these firms have worked in Iran before and their goal now is to restore links,” the source said. “The very make-up of the delegation shows that these people are here to evaluate potential for cooperation.”

A French embassy source in Tehran said the visit was merely exploratory and “nothing is to be signed this time around”.

“The delegation is scouting for potential grounds of cooperation and possibly revive their old presence. Our investors never entirely abandoned Iran. They just cut down their presence and are now looking for a comeback.”

Former French ambassador to Iran Francois Nicoullaud told Reuters that French firms that operated in Iran before the sanctions wanted to return.

Peugeot and Renault had already sent executives to Iran for an automotive conference last year.

Russia also in talks 

Under November’s interim deal between Iran and six world powers, Teheran agreed to stop production of 20 per cent enriched uranium by January 20.

In return, some sanctions imposed over the nuclear programme — which Western countries suspect is aimed at developing arms despite Iranian denials — were relaxed from that date.

Iran will be able to spend $4.2 billion in unfrozen funds over six months, although most sanctions remain pending a long-term agreement.

In the short term, business opportunities are limited, but the potential of Iran’s market is a magnet for foreign firms seeking long-term opportunities.

BEIRUT — A suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt inside a minibus south of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Monday, wounding two people, medical and government officials said.

“A man wearing an explosive belt boarded a public minibus in Choueifat and blew himself up,” Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told Lebanon’s Mayadeen television channel.

The blast is the fifth to hit Lebanon this year, and comes after at least four people were killed on Saturday in a suicide bombing in the eastern town of Hermel.

Footage from the scene broadcast on television showed the mangled remains of a vehicle surrounded by shards of glass and other objects strewn across the road.

Red Cross communications director Ayad Monzer told AFP: “The bomber was killed, and two others were injured — a man, who is in critical condition, and a woman with moderate injuries.”

Ali Mcheik said on LBC television that his brother was the man injured in the blast and had been driving the bus.

“When the bomber got on, he noticed that his stomach area looked bulky and asked him about it, then the bomber detonated his explosives,” he said.

He told the channel that his brother Hussein Mcheik was undergoing surgery in a nearby hospital after surviving the attack. 

Choueifat lies south of Beirut, not far from the suburbs of the city, which have been targeted in multiple bomb attacks in past months.

It is home to a mixed Christian and Druze population.

Previous blasts have largely targeted areas sympathetic to Lebanon’s powerful Shiite group Hizbollah, which has dispatched fighters to battle alongside the Syrian regime against a Sunni-dominated uprising.

Jihadist groups believed to be linked to those fighting in Syria have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks, saying they will continue for as long as Hizbollah battles in Syria.

But while the attacks have apparently targeted Hizbollah, the victims have been civilians.

ABU DHABI — UAE-Qatar relations remain strong despite Doha’s ambassador being summoned over remarks by a cleric linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan said Monday.

“There are no disputes between the brothers” said Abu Dhabi’s strongman, who is also deputy commander of the UAE armed forces, in remarks carried by WAM state news agency.

“Differences take place between brothers in one family, but nothing can separate between us and our brothers in Qatar,” he said, stressing that he enjoys strong links with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.

Abu Dhabi summoned Doha’s envoy on Sunday to protest against “insults” to the UAE made by Egypt-born cleric Yusef Al Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar.

The spat was the first of its kind by a member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — against another GCC state since the bloc’s formation in 1981.

Qaradawi staunchly backs Egypt’s deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, unlike the UAE which supports the interim government installed in Cairo by the military that overthrew Morsi last July 3.

In a weekly Friday prayers sermon in Doha last month, Qaradawi lashed out at the UAE, accusing it of “standing against Islamist regimes, punishing its leaders and putting them in jail”.

His comments came just days after the UAE jailed a group of 30 Emiratis and Egyptians to terms ranging from three months to five years for forming a Muslim Brotherhood cell.

The Brotherhood is banned in much of the region, and the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia pledged billions of dollars in aid to Egypt after the overthrow of Morsi, who hails from the Islamist organisation.

Qatar, however, has backed the Brotherhood in several countries swept by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, and has criticised Cairo for banning the group and launching a deadly crackdown against it.

On Saturday, Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled Al Attiyah disavowed Qaradawi’s remarks, saying “they do not reflect Qatari foreign policy” and insisting that ties between the two nations are “strategic in all aspects”.

But the UAE foreign ministry said that response “did not reflect a decisive stance rejecting Qaradawi’s speech”, and therefore Abu Dhabi had to take “an unprecedented measure” and summon Doha’s ambassador.

RIYADH — King Abdullah Monday decreed jail terms of up to 20 years for belonging to “terrorist groups” and fighting abroad, as it struggles to deter Islamist Saudis from becoming jihadists.

“Taking part in combat outside the kingdom, in any form” will be punished by jail terms of between three and 20 years, said the decree published by state news agency SPA.

Similar sentences will be passed on those belonging to “extremist religious and ideological groups, or those classified as terrorist organisations, domestically, regionally and internationally,” it said.

Supporting such groups, adopting their ideology or promoting them “through speech or writing” would also incur prison terms, the decree added.

Saudi Arabia set up specialised terrorism courts in 2011 to try dozens of nationals and foreigners accused of belonging to Al Qaeda or being involved in a wave of bloody attacks that swept the country from 2003.

Scores of Saudis are believed to have joined Islamist extremists fighting in Syria, where Riyadh is a strong backer of the nearly three-year rebellion against the regime of President Bashar Assad.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel and Washington were at loggerheads on Sunday after senior Israeli figures attacked US Secretary of State John Kerry for warning of a growing boycott threat if peace talks fail.

The latest spat erupted a day after Kerry warned of the potential economic impact on Israel if the US-brokered negotiations with the Palestinians collapsed, in which he made reference to “talk of boycotts”.

His remarks sparked several outspoken reactions from senior Cabinet ministers in Israel, which prompted an unusually pointed response from the US State Department urging Kerry’s critics to get their facts straight.

“For Israel there’s an increasing de-legitimisation campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There are talk of boycotts and other kinds of things,” the US diplomat warned at a security conference in Munich on Saturday.

His remarks quickly came under attack by a series of hardline Israeli ministers, one describing them as “offensive” and another accusing the US diplomat of working “to amplify” the boycott threat.

And even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Cabinet that “attempts to impose a boycott on the State of Israel are immoral and unjust”.

“Moreover, they will not achieve their goal.”

But US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki hit back at Kerry’s critics.

Kerry, she said, had demonstrated steadfast support of Israel for over 30 years, “including staunch opposition to boycotts” and his remarks in Munich had merely “described some well-known and previously stated facts about what is at stake for both sides if this process fails, including the consequences for the Palestinians”.

“His only reference to a boycott was a description of actions undertaken by others that he has always opposed,” she said.

“Secretary Kerry has always expected opposition and difficult moments in the process, but he also expects all parties to accurately portray his record and statements.”

Earlier, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz lashed out at Kerry in remarks carried by Israel’s army radio.

“What Kerry said is offensive, unfair and intolerable,” he said.

“You can’t expect Israel to negotiate with a gun at its head while it discusses issues critical to its diplomatic and security interests.”

And Economy Minister Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home Party, which is part of the a coalition but against territorial concessions to Palestinians, accused Kerry of taking sides against Israel.

“There is no nation that would give its country up over economic threats, and neither will we,” he said in a statement issued late on Saturday.

“We expect our friends in the world to stand by our side in the face of the anti-Semitic boycott attempts, not amplify them.”

BDS aims for South Africa success

A growing number of governments and businesses have recently said they will not trade with Israeli firms with ties to Jewish settlements, highlighting the creeping success of a Palestinian-led boycott campaign.

The so-called BDS movement — boycott, divestment and sanctions — works to convince governments, businesses and celebrities to cut ties with Israeli companies active in the occupied Palestinian territories, in a bid to repeat the success of the boycott which ended apartheid in South Africa.

Last week, US actress Scarlett Johansson was forced to chose between being an ambassador for Oxfam and taking on a new role as the public face of Israel’s SodaStream, which has a factory in the West Bank, after the international aid group said the two roles were “incompatible”.

She resigned her position at Oxfam.

On the same day, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund blacklisted two Israeli companies involved in construction in annexed East Jerusalem.

Since January 1, the European Union has blocked all grants and funding to Israeli entities operating beyond the pre-1967 war lines, sparking growing alarm in Israel.

Kerry coaxed Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table in late July 2013 for nine months of direct talks which will end in April. So far, there has been very little visible progress.

MUNICH — Iran’s foreign minister held rare private talks with his US counterpart on Sunday and said it would be a “disaster” if Tehran did not turn a provisional agreement to defuse a decade-old dispute over its nuclear programme into a permanent deal.

In a sign of the thawing climate between the Islamic Republic and the West, Iran’s Mohammad Javad Zarif said he had held bilateral talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as with other ministers from the six powers negotiating with Tehran, during a three-day security conference in Munich.

His talks looked forward to negotiations starting in Vienna on February 18 when Iran and the six powers will attempt over a period of six months to build on an interim agreement on Tehran’s nuclear activities to reach a definitive deal.

“What I can promise is that we will go to those negotiations with the political will and good faith to reach an agreement because it would be foolish for us to only bargain for six months,” Zarif told the conference.

“That would be a disaster for everybody — to start a process and then to abruptly end it within six months,” he said after his meeting with Kerry, who also pressed Zarif on Iran’s role in helping to end the conflict in Syria.

Zarif said Iran and the West had an historic opportunity to improve relations. “I think we need to seize it,” he said.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful but Western countries have long suspected Tehran of seeking the ability to develop a nuclear weapon.

Under a landmark preliminary deal with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany sealed last November, Iran agreed to halt its most sensitive nuclear operations in return for winning some relief from sanctions.

Sanctions

Kerry stressed to Zarif the importance of both sides negotiating in good faith and of Iran abiding by its commitments under the November deal, a US State Department official said.

The United States and the European Union have suspended some sanctions on Iran under the interim deal, but Kerry told Zarif the United States would continue to enforce other sanctions.

Kerry and Zarif have met several times since the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, last June paved the way for the thaw in ties with the West after years of confrontation and hostile rhetoric.

Zarif said Iran was ready to address important outstanding questions in the nuclear negotiations but added there was still a lack of trust on both sides, including mistrust among Iranians about the West’s intentions.

Zarif told Reuters on Saturday, however, that Iran was not prepared to give up research on centrifuges used to purify uranium as part of a final nuclear deal.

Zarif held out an olive branch to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, saying he was ready for talks at any time.

“I believe Iran and Saudi Arabia share a common interest in a secure environment,” he said. “Neither one of us will benefit from sectarian divisions, neither one of us will benefit from extremism in this region ... We can work together in order to have a safer neighbourhood. There is no need for rivalry.”

The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, said possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme needed to be clarified and he said his agency also wanted to clarify the issue of small amounts of polonium-210 that had been produced by the Tehran research reactor.

“Polonium can be used for civil purposes like nuclear batteries but can also be used for a neutron source for nuclear weapons,” Amano told the Munich Security Conference.

Come clean

Iran sealed a cooperation pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency last November, pledging to be more open about its nuclear activities. The IAEA and Iran are due to meet again in Tehran on February 8 to discuss future measures.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who is due to visit Tehran soon, urged Iran to “come clean” on its past nuclear activities, saying some intelligence agencies believed Iran had a nuclear weapons programme until early 2003.

US Senator Christopher Murphy, a Democrat, told the conference he did not believe the US Senate would vote on a new Iran sanctions bill. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any legislation that threatens the talks with Iran.

But Republican US Senator John McCain was more sceptical, saying Iran had a long history of deception.

“There are three components to nuclear weapons — warhead, delivery system and the material itself. They are... cheating on the first two without any constraint whatsoever,” he said.

A senior State Department official said Kerry had raised with Zarif his concerns about the delay in moving Syria’s chemical weapons to the port of Latakia and about humanitarian conditions on the ground, especially in besieged areas.

Kerry urged Iran, a staunch ally of President Bashar Assad, to play a constructive role in bringing an end to the three-year conflict, the official said, adding that Zarif made clear he did not have the authority to discuss Syria.

DAMASCUS — At least 85 people were killed in 24 hours of Syrian regime air raids on the city of Aleppo, a monitoring group said Sunday, after 10 days of inconclusive peace talks.

The deaths came as a suicide car bombing in a Hizbollah stronghold across the border in Lebanon killed four people on Saturday, in the latest regional spillover of the conflict.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime helicopters hit rebel-held areas of Aleppo with barrels packed with explosives.

The so-called barrel bombs are a controversial weapon, condemned by rights groups as indiscriminate.

“At least 85 people were killed, including 65 civilians, 10 of whom were children,” on Saturday, the observatory said.

The group said 34 people were killed in one neighbourhood alone, and 10 of the dead were jihadists from Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

Once Syria’s economic hub, Aleppo is now divided between regime and rebel-held areas, with large swathes of the city devastated by the fighting that began there in mid-2012.

In December, government aircraft launched a sustained blitz on the city that killed hundreds of people, mostly civilians.

Regime forces have launched an offensive on rebel-held areas in the east of the city, with Defence Minister General Fahd Al Freij visiting the province on Friday.

Quoted by state news agency SANA, he praised the army for its “great victories and their liberation of many areas in Aleppo”.

On Sunday, Al Watan newspaper, which is close to the regime, said the army had “cleansed” most of Karam Al Turab on the eastern outskirts of Aleppo, and Bani Zeid in the north.

It said the army planned to take three eastern and three northern neighbourhoods to seize the city in a pincer movement.

It said “vast military operations” were also underway to capture the majority Turkmen town of Zara in central Homs province, near the famed Krak des Chevaliers castle and the Lebanese border.

The observatory confirmed the army had seized most of Karam Al Turab, and said fierce fighting was under way around Zara.

It also said seven people, six men and a women, had been killed in a regime air raid on the town of Mleha, southeast of Damascus. 

Opposition sank talks — Syria official 

The latest violence came the day after Syrian government and opposition delegations wrapped up peace talks in Geneva without tangible results or a government committment to return to the table.

On Sunday, state news agency SANA carried scathing remarks from Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Al Moqdad, who accused the opposition of being “mercenaries manipulated by foreign forces”.

Al Watan added that the conflict had “transferred to the political and diplomatic field, which is one that the Syrians know well”.

“Syria has a strong army of diplomats and politicians who can defeat all those they face,” the paper said.

A top international goal for the talks was greater humanitarian access, particularly in besieged areas like the Old City of Homs.

No deal was forthcoming and Western nations are now planning a UN Security Council resolution on the issue, as well as possibly on the slow pace of a programme to move Syria’s chemical weapons out of the country.

Despite not being on the agenda at the talks, aid has entered the besieged Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk on the outskirts of Damascus.

On Sunday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA distributed hundreds of food parcels for the fourth consecutive day.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said 3,420 food parcels had been delivered to the estimated 18,000 people trapped in the camp since the agency gained access to it on January 18.

More than 136,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict began in March 2011, and the fighting has raised tensions in neighbouring Lebanon.

On Saturday, a bomb killed four people and injured at least 15 others in the eastern town of Hermel.

The town is a stronghold of the Shiite movement Hizbollah, which has come under attack since dispatching fighters to battle alongside Syria’s regime.

The attacks have largely killed civilians.

Al Nusra Front in Lebanon, a group named after the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate but whose links to its namesake are unclear, claimed the latest attack, saying it was a response to Hizbollah’s involvement in Syria.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi government forces pressed their assault on militant strongholds in Anbar province Sunday as attacks elsewhere killed 21 people, with intensifying violence fuelling fears of a return to all-out conflict.

The effort to win back parts of Ramadi, capital of the western province of Anbar and one of two cities that either entirely or partly fell out of government control weeks ago, comes with violence at its highest level since 2008.

Soldiers and police fought alongside armed pro-government tribesmen in southern Ramadi in some of the heaviest clashes of recent weeks, a police officer and an AFP journalist said.

They were making slow progress in retaking militant-held neighbourhoods as acting Defence Minister Saadun Al Dulaimi visited to oversee operations.

Two police officers said the assault enabled government forces to wrest back control of parts or most of several key areas of Ramadi, including the Malaab, Street 60, Humeirah and Albu Jabar districts.

On Saturday, the defence ministry announced that warplanes and artillery had hit a neighbourhood of northern Fallujah, a rare military operation inside the city itself.

The army has largely stayed out of Fallujah, a short drive from Baghdad, fearing major incursions could ignite a protracted conflict with massive civilian casualties and damage to property.

US battles in the city, a bastion of militants following the 2003 US-led invasion, were among their bloodiest since the Vietnam War.

For weeks, anti-government forces have held parts of Ramadi and all of Fallujah, the first time they have exercised such open control in cities since the peak of violence that followed the 2003 invasion.

Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has been involved in the fighting, as have other militant groups and anti-government tribes.

The police and the army have recruited their own tribal allies.

The standoff has prompted more than 140,000 people to flee their homes, the UN refugee agency said, describing it as the worst displacement in Iraq since the peak of the 2006-2008 sectarian conflict.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday, attacks in and around Baghdad and north of the capital killed 21 people, security and medical officials said.

The deadliest violence struck in the town of Baiji, where a coordinated attack on an encampment of anti-Al Qaeda Sunni militiamen, or Sahwa fighters, killed eight people in all, security and medical officials said.

An initial gun attack on the base was followed by a suicide car bomb, with 17 others wounded.

Attacks in the areas of Baghdad, Balad, Taji, Mosul and Kirkuk killed 13 more people.

Violence has spiked markedly in recent months, with more than 1,000 people killed in January, the highest toll for a month since April 2008, according to government data.

SANAA/DUBAI — An Iranian embassy official kidnapped in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in July is still alive, a Yemeni security official said on Sunday, disputing an earlier report that he had been found beheaded.

Last month, a provincial official said local people had found the body of the diplomat in an area north of oil fields in Maarib province.

At the time Iran’s Student News Agency quoted an Iranian embassy official as denying that the headless body belonged to the missing employee.

On Sunday, a Yemeni security official who declined to be named told Reuters: “Contacts with the Iranian diplomat’s kidnappers through tribal mediators confirm that he [the diplomat] is still alive and that the body found did not belong to him,” the security official told Reuters.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency on Sunday quoted Yemen’s charge d’affaires in Tehran, Abdullah Al Sari, as saying: “Yemen’s interior ministry and security forces are following up on the fate of kidnapped Iranian diplomat, Noor Ahmad Nikbakht, and according to latest information he is alive and in good health.”

He added: “Our security forces are looking for ways to help and secure his release. We hope good news on this will be announced soon.”

Last month, another Iranian diplomat was fatally wounded when he resisted gunmen who tried to kidnap him. 

TEHRAN — Six months after the inauguration of Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani, Western diplomats and businessmen are racing to Tehran hoping that a diplomatic thaw will reopen lucrative markets.

A landmark agreement reached with world powers on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme in November has raised hopes that Western sanctions could be lifted on the oil-rich country with a population of 76 million.

A delegation of 110 members of MEDEF — France’s largest employers’ union — is due in Tehran on Monday to resume talks after an absence of several years.

No contracts will be signed due to the strict international sanctions still in place, but the visit is seen as a key step towards regaining a foothold in the country.

Iran’s auto market was once dominated by French giants including Peugeot, which halted operations in 2012, and Renault, which sharply scaled back its presence due to US sanctions on spare parts deliveries in June 2013.

The French firms hope to regain their share against Asian rivals, particularly Chinese firms, which are not bound by the Western sanctions.

The number of cars produced in Iran was more than halved between 2011 and 2013, from 1.7 million to just 500,000.

Iran clinched the interim deal in November with the P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — under which it agreed to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

The six-month agreement, which took effect January 20, is aimed at buying time for a comprehensive agreement.

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

The breakthrough in the talks has been largely attributed to the election last year of Rouhani, a reputed moderate who had vowed to pursue a diplomatic solution to the nuclear impasse.

“Among the regional countries and compared to Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya, Iran is paradoxically known to enjoy a remarkable stability,” an Iranian analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

Western diplomats return

Iran has also seen recent high-profile political visits, including by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who led a delegation last week aimed at boosting economic ties between the two countries, which back opposite sides in Syria’s civil war.

Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino visited Tehran in December.

And Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is due to arrive in Tehran on Monday, while his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski is expected in late February.

The recent visits of former British foreign minister Jack Straw and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan could be also added to the list.

Iran’s diplomatic ties with Western countries were severely strained under Rouhani’s predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his hard line on the nuclear programme and incendiary rhetoric towards Israel.

“These visits are a sign that the taboo of sanctions has been shattered,” Amir Mohebian, a political analyst, told AFP.

“This is already a major success for the diplomacy of President Rouhani.”

There is no sign of any diplomats from the United States — still dubbed the “Great Satan” by Iran’s hardliners — making their way to Tehran.

But US Secretary of State John Kerry has met repeatedly with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, and on Sunday the two met on the sidelines of a Munich security conference to discuss the next round of nuclear talks.

Iran is set to resume negotiations with the P5+1 in Vienna on February 18.