Region

GENEVA — A stand-off between Russia and Western powers left their rival Syrian allies deadlocked in talks in Geneva on Thursday as fighting that has left tens of thousands under siege and hoping for relief from abroad went on.

Russia said it had presented a draft UN resolution on fighting “terrorism” in Syria and its own plan for improving aid access, throwing down a challenge to Western states in the Security Council which proposed another formulation that Moscow said would open the way for Western military intervention.

In Geneva, where a second round of peace talks has made little progress since Monday, Western diplomats and the Syrian opposition delegates complained that President Bashar Assad’s government was refusing to discuss international proposals for a transition of power and hoped Russia would press it to do so.

Mediator Lakhdar Brahimi was meeting senior Russian and US diplomats in Geneva on Thursday, hoping the three-week-old process’ co-sponsors could salvage negotiations which some Western diplomats said were already in danger of collapse.

US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov were also expected to meet Syrian negotiators during their time in Geneva.

“What we have seen so far is that the regime is not serious,” opposition delegate Anas Al Abdah said. “The sooner the Russians can put enough pressure on the Syrian regime side, the better. And they are positioned to do that.”

Western diplomats also said they hoped Moscow could apply pressure on the Damascus government to do more to compromise. If not, some feared a planned third round of talks might not follow any time soon after this week’s discussions are completed.

Opposition activists say the rate of killing has increased in the three weeks since talks began — averaging a record of more than 230 a day — as both sides have sought to shore up their bargaining positions by gaining territory.

On Thursday, activists said government forces dropped crude barrel bombs from the air on rebel-held areas around Damascus and Aleppo, as well as the town of Al Zara near Homs. There were clashes in Hama province near a highway, that rebels have been trying to block to cut the government’s supply lines.

World powers

Russia has been Assad’s most powerful international ally during the three-year-old conflict, using its veto in the Security Council to block bids to pressure him with condemnation or the threat of sanctions.

US President Barack Obama criticised Russian attitudes to the latest UN efforts to provide aid. The Russian foreign ministry hit back on Wednesday, calling that a “distortion”.

Moscow’s new push for a resolution condemning acts of “terrorism” is in tune with rhetoric from Damascus, which uses the term to describe all those fighting to oust Assad in the conflict that has killed more than 130,000 people.

The Syrian government delegation has resisted efforts to discuss a transition of power in Geneva this week, saying fighting “terrorism” must be addressed first.

“Terrorism is certainly no less acute a problem” than the humanitarian crisis in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference. He added that “terrorist groups” fighting there were a growing threat.

He accused Western countries that have lent support to the opposition and rebel groups, which are fighting alongside Al Qaeda and other Islamist militants, of “de facto attempts to justify terrorism” by arguing it cannot be eradicated from Syria as long as Assad remains in power.

The National Coalition, Syria’s main opposition group, which is backed by the West and began talks with a government delegation in Geneva last month, accuses Assad of supporting terrorists on the ground in Syria as he fights the rebels.

‘Eating cat’

In the city of Homs, a key battleground for much of the war, the evacuation of hungry civilians and rebel fighters from the besieged old quarter was continuing for a seventh day and a ceasefire was extended until Saturday, the governor said.

In all, 1,400 people had been evacuated since Friday, when a UN-brokered ceasefire came into force. It was an early achievement of the Geneva process begun on January 22.

Of these, 220 were still being detained for questioning. While women and children have been free to leave, men and youths aged between 15 and 55 are deemed of fighting age by the Syrian authorities and are being vetted by the security forces.

A US State Department spokesman said on Wednesday that the government had pledged to release men after screening.

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday endorsed Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s undeclared bid to head the strife-torn North African nation as the two leaders negotiated a massive Moscow weapons deal.

Sisi came to Moscow with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy for talks aimed at securing Russian assistance — stagnant since the late Soviet era — that could replace subsiding support from Cairo’s more recent ally Washington.

Putin told Sisi that he fully backed Egypt’s new constitution and crucially made no mention of Cairo’s crackdown on protests or the army-backed overthrow in July of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

“I know that you, mister defence minister, have decided to run for president of Egypt,” Putin told Sisi in televised remarks.

“I wish you luck both from myself personally and from the Russian people.”

The 59-year-old Egyptian field marshal has not officially declared his presidential ambitions but is overwhelmingly expected to run in elections likely to be held before the end of April.

A Kuwaiti newspaper had quoted Sisi as saying last week that he felt obliged “to meet the demands of the Egyptian people” and run for head of state. The army later denied the report.

Sisi and Fahmy had earlier on Thursday met their Russian counterparts to negotiate a $2-billion arms deal the two sides initially discussed in Cairo in November — a month after Washington suspended millions of dollars in assistance to the Egyptian army over Morsi’s ouster.

“Our visit offers a new start to the development of military and technological cooperation between Egypt and Russia,” Sisi told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

“We hope to speed up this cooperation,” Sisi said.

Top officials revealed no details of Thursday’s military discussions while signalling that both sides were interested in the speedy conclusion of a deal.

“It was decided to accelerate preparations on an intergovernmental agreement on military and technological cooperation,” a joint statement released by the Russian foreign ministry after the talks said.

Air defence systems

The head of Russia’s state industrial holding company had said after the Cairo meeting that Moscow was on the verge of reaching a landmark agreement to deliver air defence systems to Egypt’s army.

Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov said on November 18 that “some contracts [with Egypt] have already been signed — particularly one concerning air defence systems.”

But he later clarified that he was referring only to a framework deal and not to firm delivery contracts.

Moscow’s authoritative Vedomosti business daily on November 15 said the deals under discussion were worth more than $2 billion and could be financed by Saudi Arabia.

Some Gulf media have reported that the United Arab Emirates — a strong Egyptian backer since Morsi’s fall — was also ready to fund a part of the purchase.

The Soviet Union was the main supplier of arms to Egypt in the 1960s and early 1970s. Cooperation between the two sides dropped after Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty and Cairo began receiving generous US aid.

Russia is now keen to revive those ties and Shoigu made clear on Thursday that Moscow fully supported the tough measures taken by Sisi against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement.

“We cannot but celebrate the adoption of the new Egyptian constitution,” the Russian defence minister told Sisi.

“We view your efforts at achieving stability as effective.”

Shoigu added that the two sides had touched on the possibility of Russia and Egypt conducting joint military exercises and the option of the North African country’s officers undergoing military training in Moscow.

MAALEH ADUMIM, Palestinian Territories — Thousands of young Israeli hardliners marched Thursday to demand the government build new settler housing units in E1, a highly sensitive strip of West Bank land near Jerusalem.

Security officials said more than 6,000 people, almost all of them teenagers, joined the march which began in Maaleh Adumim settlement and ended at E1 — an undeveloped stretch of land just to the west, which borders annexed East Jerusalem.

“Kerry = persona non grata,” read one of the signs, referring to US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is currently trying to coax Israel and the Palestinians towards a peace agreement.

Israel has been planning construction in E1 since the early 1990s but nothing has ever been built there due to heavy international pressure. Plans for building 1,200 units unveiled in December 2012 were quickly put on the back burner after the announcement triggered a major diplomatic backlash.

The Palestinians say construction in E1 would effectively cut the West Bank in two and prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.

“We will keep [the] promise to build in E1,” Housing Minister Uri Ariel told a crowd composed almost entirely of high schoolers.

Last April, Ariel, who belongs to the far-right national religious Jewish Home Party, pledged to build new apartments in E1 within 18 months.

In January 2013, a group of more than 200 Palestinian activists had set up a protest encampment called Bab Al Shams in E1 as a way of drawing attention to Israel’s plans to settle there.

Israel and Palestinians began a nine-month track of direct peace talks at Kerry’s urging in July 2013, but there has been little visible sign of progress.

Kerry, who has repeatedly come under fire from Israeli hardliners in recent weeks, is currently focusing his efforts on hammering out a framework agreement which would allow for the talks to be extended, likely until the end of the year.

SANAA — Attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at the main prison in Yemen’s capital on Thursday in a failed attempt to free inmates, security sources and witnesses said.

Explosions and gunfire between security forces and the attackers could be heard several kilometres away from the prison in northern Sanaa, which has Al Qaeda members among its inmates. The biggest explosion rattled windows in the area.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Yemen is grappling with a growing threat from one of Al Qaeda’s most active wings, which has killed hundreds of people in assaults on state and military facilities in the past two years.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but witnesses saw ambulances driving towards the high-security prison, which police secured after the 30-minute gunfight.

Attackers fired at least one rocket at a police patrol vehicle outside the main prison gates, a police officer at the scene said.

Police sealed off the road to the airport which runs through the neighbourhood where the prison is located, close to the interior ministry.

Special forces and armed personnel carriers were being sent in to chase the attackers, a security source said. The attackers failed to enter the prison.

Earlier on Thursday, a British teacher was reported missing in Sanaa in what a Yemeni security source suggested could have been a kidnapping. The abduction of foreigners in Yemen is common.

The US ally, with a population of 25 million, is trying to end nearly three years of political unrest, which began when mass protests erupted in 2011 against Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of 33 years, who stepped down.

Interim President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has been facing other challenges in trying to restore stability to Yemen, which shares a long and porous border with top world oil exporter, Saudi Arabia.

Apart from security, Yemen is trying to deal with demands by southern separatists for independence and incorporate rebels from the Shiite Muslim Houthi movement, which has been on an offensive to extend its control over the north.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s advisers consulted a top Saudi Arabia official ahead of Obama’s visit to Riyadh in late March in a flurry of White House activities relating to the Middle East.

Obama will visit Saudi Arabia as part of a trip that will also take him to Europe. He has some fence-mending to do with the Saudis, who have been concerned that the US drive for a nuclear agreement with Iran will end sanctions against Tehran too quickly.

Two top White House officials — national security adviser Susan Rice and homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco — met on Wednesday with Saudi Arabia’s powerful Interior Minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef.

They discussed security cooperation and efforts to address violent extremism and terrorism across the Middle East, a White House statement said on Thursday.

“They also exchanged views on regional issues and committed to continuing to strengthen our cooperation on a range of common interests,” said the statement from Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.

Obama is engaged in Middle East policy on a number of fronts.

He will meet His Majesty King Abdullah on Friday at the historic Walter Annenberg estate called Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California, where Obama held talks last June with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At that session, the two leaders are expected to discuss the civil war in Syria, Middle East peace and other regional issues.

Thousands of Syrian refugees have fled the war and have spilled into Jordan, putting pressure on the Kingdom.

Obama will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 3 in Washington, for discussions likely to include Iran’s nuclear programme as a key topic. Netanyahu has deep concerns about an interim nuclear deal achieved between the United States and other Western powers and Iran.

GAZA CITY — Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the Gaza health ministry said.

“Ibrahim Suleiman Mansur, 26, died after he was shot by Israeli occupation forces while he was collecting gravel... east of Gaza City,” ministry spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra told AFP.

The Israeli army said the man had been seen behaving suspiciously in a restricted area close to the border fence, where explosive devices had been detonated close to troops since the beginning of this year.

“Several Palestinians approached the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip and began tampering with the fence,” a military spokesman told AFP, adding that troops shouted warnings and fired in the air before shooting one of the suspects.

“After exhausting all other means... they fired towards the main instigator,” the spokesman said.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel allows “civilian access on foot to areas up to 100 metres from the perimeter fence for agricultural purposes only, and vehicular access to a distance of 300 metres.”

Israeli soldiers often fire at Palestinians who enter the prohibited zone, which borders southern Israel.

An Israeli army officer was killed on February 4 in a friendly fire incident along the tense frontier. 

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli newspapers bristled Thursday after the European Parliament president criticised the Gaza Strip blockade and suggested that Israelis received four times more water than Palestinians.

The spat erupted Wednesday after the far-right Jewish Home Party stormed out of parliament in protest during a speech by Martin Schulz, and it made the front pages of Israel’s main newspapers.

Most commentators were furious about figures mentioned by Schulz over water usage.

“How can it be that an Israeli is allowed to use 70 litres of water per day, but a Palestinian only 17,” Schulz asked.

But he also admitted he had not had time to verify the numbers.

Shortly afterwards, Schulz criticised settlements as an obstacle to peace and warned that the Gaza blockade could “undermine, rather than strengthen, Israel’s security”.

This prompted a barrage of heckling from Jewish Home MPs, who then walked out.

“Jewish Home demands an apology from the president of the European Parliament, who repeated two lies fed to him by the Palestinians,” party chairman Naftali Bennett said.

He denounced both assertions as “deceitful propaganda”.

Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waded in, accusing Schulz of being quick to cast blame without checking his facts.

“What was disturbing in Schulz’s speech was the selective hearing that is becoming prevalent in many circles in Europe,” he said in remarks published on parliament’s website.

“These are figures which are not true. [Schulz] said he didn’t check the figures but it didn’t stop him from straight away casting blame.”

The headline in the Israel HaYom freesheet, which is close to Netanyahu, read: “Shock in parliament over slander of Israel.”

The Palestine Liberation Organisation said average daily Palestinian domestic consumption was 70 litres per person, while the World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of 100 litres.

“In the southern West Bank, there are communities that use less than 15 to 20 litres per capita per day,” it added.

Schulz taken aback

In an interview with German daily Die Welt published Thursday, Schulz said he was taken aback by the tirade.

“The angry reaction from some parliamentarians in Jerusalem surprised me and made me concerned,” he said, adding that he considered his Jerusalem address to be “pro-Israel”.

“The people who disturbed my speech belong to a party of hardliners who answer each critical word that bothers them in this way.”

Israel HaYom accused Schulz of choosing to use “false libel” provided by anti-Israeli groups.

Other papers published figures showing a completely different picture of Israeli-Palestinian water usage.

The spat prompted several NGOs to publish their own figures on water usage, with Friends of the Earth Middle East citing statistics from 2011 showing the ratio was close to four to one.

“The municipal water consumption per capita per day in Israel in 2011 was 250 litres, while among Palestinians in the West Bank, after taking into consideration an average loss of approximately 30 per cent of the water — due to theft and lack of infrastructure — it was 70 litres,” the group said.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem also said there was “discrimination in water allocation”, with Israelis receiving “much more water than Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”.

According to the Israeli national water company, Mekorot, the average household water consumption in Israel is between 100 and 230 litres per person per day.

For Palestinians in the West Bank connected to the water mains, the average daily consumption is about 73 litres.

Those not connected to the network — around 113,000 people — rely on stored rainwater and water sold from tanker trucks, which is very expensive.

Typically, they consume less than 60 litres per person per day with shepherding communities in the northern Jordan Valley consuming just 20 litres, the group said.

Average consumption in Gaza is 70-90 litres per person daily, but the water quality is extremely poor, with 90 per cent of supplies pumped there unpotable, according to World Health Organisation standards.

GAZA CITY — A life-size bronze statue of the Greek god Apollo, which recently surfaced in Gaza, has prompted the territory’s Hamas rulers to seek international archaeological help to unravel the mystery behind it.

According to Gaza’s antiquities authority, the rare statue, which weighs 450 kilogrammes and is 1.7 metres tall, could be worth as much as 250 million euros ($340 million.)

And now the Hamas government is seeking expertise, notably from France, to uncover the mystery of this 2,500-year-old naked sculpture which was reportedly discovered by a handful of fishermen in August.

“We have started an investigation into the background of the statue and its origins,” deputy prime minister Ziad Al Zaza told AFP.

“At the end of the investigation, the statue will be returned to the ministry of tourism and antiquities which will initiate contact, through the government, with interested international parties, especially in France which is particularly interested in such matters,” he added.

Mohammed Khalla, deputy minister for tourism and antiquities, said the find could open up channels of diplomatic communication for Hamas, which has been isolated since it took over the Gaza Strip in 2007.

“The statue might be loaned out to a well-known French or British museum, which could lead to contacts between Gaza’s government and other governments overseas,” he told AFP.

Since Hamas forcibly took over the Gaza Strip, ousting forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, it has been almost completely boycotted by the international community, including by France.

At the moment, as the investigation proceeds, the statue is being held at the interior ministry, Zaza said.

“We are looking into all aspects of where it came from, that’s to say whether it was discovered in the sea or brought here from somewhere else,” he said, acknowledging the possibility it could have been smuggled in.

“We want to know the truth before getting in touch with the relevant [archaeological] authorities here and overseas,” he said.

MOGADISHU — At least six people were killed Thursday in a suicide car bomb attack targeting a United Nations convoy close to Mogadishu’s heavily-fortified international airport, officials said.

Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels, who are fighting to overthrow the country’s internationally backed government, told AFP that one of their suicide bombers carried out the attack.

The bomb went off near a checkpoint at the entrance to the airport complex, which also houses the base of AMISOM — the African Union force fighting Shebab rebels — as well as a number of foreign diplomatic missions and United Nations offices.

A statement from UNSOM, the UN mission in Somalia, said the bomb went off near a convoy of UN vehicles shortly after midday.

“A UN car was damaged but no UN staff were injured. Four Somali security escorts were lightly injured,” UNSOM said, expressing “deep sorrow at the reported deaths and injuries of Somali bystanders”.

Police and witnesses said the victims included Somali guards, passers-by and shop owners.

“At least six people, most of them civilians, died in the car bomb explosion. There are many casualties, serious injuries. We are still investigating the incident, the toll could rise,” a Somali police official, Said Mohamed, told AFP.

A Shebab spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack.

“This was an operation carried out by Shebab. It was a brother who took a sacrificial act to defend the people of Somalia,” Shebab military spokesman Sheikh Abdul Aziz Abu Musab told AFP.

“The target was a UN convoy,” he said, claiming “several invaders” were also killed.

Another witness told an AFPTV journalist at the scene that as many as 14 people were killed and saw six others being taken away to hospital. An AFP photographer saw the burning wreckage of a vehicle and several destroyed shops.

“I saw and counted at least 14 people, including women working small restaurants, who were killed and also I saw six wounded people,” said one eyewitness, Mohamed Abdi.

“The bomb inflicted more casualties on the people at shops and small restaurants,” said another witness, Mahad Kuuriya.

The airport is considered to be among the safest parts of Mogadishu, and is ringed by checkpoints and large numbers of armed guards.

DUBAI — Pro-democracy demonstrators clashed with police in Bahrain Thursday as they marked the third anniversary of an Arab Spring uprising that was crushed with the help of Saudi-led troops.

It was the first of three days of protests called by the Shiite-led opposition to mark Friday’s anniversary as they seek to give new momentum to their campaign for a constitutional monarchy in the Sunni minority-ruled Gulf state.

Clouds of tear gas billowed from the streets of several Shiite villages outside the capital Manama as security forces attempted to dismantle roadblocks of burning tyres, witnesses, who asked that their names not be printed for fear of retribution, told AFP.

Amnesty International condemned Bahrain’s “relentless repression” of dissent and said it feared a violent crackdown on the demonstrations.

The opposition, supported by much of the Gulf state’s Shiite majority, has been demanding that the ruling Khalifa family surrender its grip on all key Cabinet posts in favour of an elected government.

“Down with Hamad,” the protesters chanted, referring to the king. “Only to Allah we kneel.”

The protesters defied a heavy security presence to set up makeshift roadblocks of felled trees and burning tyres in several villages, where persistent demonstrations have sparked repeated clashes with police.

The interior ministry said police “confronted groups of vandals and cleared blocked roads”.

The main Shiite opposition party Al Wefaq, which has boycotted parliament since the uprising, posted images of protesters being tear-gassed and police in riot gear patrolling deserted streets.

Al Wefaq said several areas observed a complete shutdown following its call for a strike on Thursday — the last day of the working week in Bahrain — ahead of a mass rally planned for Saturday.

The underground February 14 youth coalition has called on its supporters to try on Friday to reach Pearl Square, where demonstrators camped out for a month before being violently dispersed by Saudi-backed troops.

Saudi-led Gulf troops deployed in Bahrain on the eve of the March 2011 crackdown, manning key positions while its own security forces carried out the crackdown.

The Pearl Square roundabout and its central monument, which were a symbol of the uprising, were later razed and the site remains heavily restricted.

At least 89 people have been killed in the three years since the launch of the uprising, according to the International Federation for Human Rights.