Region

TRIPOLI — Libya’s Tripoli-based Presidential Council on Tuesday announced a plan to extract the country from its latest political crisis and hold elections.

“In response to the legitimate demands of the Libyan people and their desire for change, the Presidential Council... agreed on a general framework for a working plan to resolve the country’s political deadlock,” it said in a statement.

The council did not provide details, but said the plan would “preserve Libya’s national unity, end the spectre of war [and] put an end to foreign intervention”.

Abdallah Al Lafi, the deputy head of the three-member council, was charged with holding “urgent consultations with political actors to reach an agreement on the details then lay out a clear roadmap to end the transitional phase via elections”.

Libya fell into more than a decade of crisis after the fall of longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.

Presidential and legislative elections were originally scheduled for December 2021 to cap a UN-sponsored peace process following the last round of large-scale fighting.

But they were postponed indefinitely due to sharp differences over controversial candidates and the rules for participating.

The initiative by the Presidential Council, itself a product of the UN-backed peace process, comes in response to repeated calls by Libyan political actors for it to intervene to find a solution to the crisis and hold elections “as soon as possible”, according to the statement.

Since Friday, several Libyan cities have seen angry protests over poor living standards, long power cuts, soaring inflation and endless queues at gas stations.

Public anger is largely directly at two rival governments and the two chambers of parliament, seen as symbols of the country’s division.

The Presidential Council has also been singlled out and accused of not doing enough to break the deadlock.

ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said he met Sudan's coup leader Abdel Fattah Al Burhan in Nairobi on Tuesday and that both committed to "dialogue" to resolve any differences.

Their talks follow a clash in a volatile border region last month in which Khartoum said that Ethiopian forces had captured and killed Sudanese troops — claims denied by Addis Ababa.

"We have both agreed that our two countries have plenty of collaborative elements to work on peacefully," Abiy said in a Twitter post, accompanied by a picture of the two men.

"Our common bonds surpass any divisions. We both made a commitment for dialogue & peaceful resolution to outstanding issues," he wrote.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of a meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a seven-country regional body.

Burhan said the IGAD meeting gave them an opportunity "to take stock of the response" to challenges in the region, but he did not elaborate.

"We are happy to convene in a very short time to discuss matters of great importance," he said.

Sudan’s ruling sovereign council said only that there had been a “closed-door meeting” between Burhan and Abiy.

IGAD and the African Union (AU) voiced alarm last week over the escalating tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan following the incident in the disputed Al Fashaqa border area.

Khartoum said the Ethiopian army had executed seven Sudanese soldiers and a civilian in a clash on June 22 in Al Fashaqa, and announced it was recalling its ambassador.

But Addis Ababa claimed that Sudanese forces had crossed into Ethiopian territory and that the casualties resulted from a skirmish with a local militia, denying its soldiers were in the area at the time.

Al Fashaqa is a fertile strip of land that has long been a source of friction between Addis Ababa and Khartoum.

The region, which lies close to Ethiopia’s war-torn northern region of Tigray, has long been cultivated by Ethiopian farmers but is claimed by Sudan.

The dispute has sparked sporadic clashes between the two sides, some fatal.

The rift also feeds into wider tensions over land and water between the neighbours, particularly stoked by Ethiopia’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile.

Sudan and Egypt, both downstream countries, have been opposed to the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and pushed for an agreement on the filling of its reservoir and the dam’s operations.

Tensions were heightened after fighting erupted in Tigray in November 2020, sending tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into Sudan.

Burhan was in Kenya a day after announcing that the army, which seized power in a coup in October last year, would make way for civilian rule.

BRUSSELS — Iran has been holding a Belgian man for the past four months under trumped-up “espionage” charges, Belgium’s justice minister said Tuesday, as his country weighed a controversial prisoner swap treaty with Tehran.

The Belgian, a humanitarian aid worker, was seized in Iran on February 24 and has been in “illegal” detention since, the minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, told MPs.

MPs and the Belgian man’s family identified him as Olivier Vandecasteele, 41. 

A relative told AFP that Vandecasteele had lived in Iran from 2015, when he worked for the Norwegian Refugee Council and then another NGO, Relief International, before returning to Belgium last year after a contract was ended. 

He returned to Tehran under a tourist visa in February, was seized several days later and taken to Iran’s infamous Evin prison, where he was being held in solitary confinement.

Quickenborne said officials from Belgium’s embassy in Tehran had twice visited the jailed Belgian to give all possible assistance.

Rights groups and media outlets covering Iran said it appeared to be another case of Tehran grabbing hostages to exchange for Iranians incarcerated in the West. 

Several are held in Evin, in a wing run by the intelligence service of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Among them is a Swedish academic who also holds Iranian citizenship, Ahmadreza Djalali, who taught at a Brussels university. Iran also applied “espionage” charges to Djalali and has sentenced him to death.

Belgium last year convicted and imprisoned an Iranian diplomat for 20 years for plotting a bomb attack outside Paris in 2018.

Belgium’s parliament on Thursday is to vote on whether to ratify a bilateral treaty with Iran that would open the way for prisoners in each country to be repatriated.

Quickenborne on Tuesday said as he presented the proposed treaty to MPs for debate that “if the bill is not fully approved, the threat to our Belgian interests and certain Belgian citizens will increase”.

Some US lawmakers, however, are pressing Belgium to ditch the proposed treaty, which was signed in March.

KHARTOUM — Sudan’s main civilian bloc on Tuesday rejected a proposal by the country’s coup leader to make way for a civilian government as a “giant ruse” and urged more protests.

Army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, whose power grab last October derailed a transition to civilian rule, had vowed in a surprise move Monday to “make room” for civilian groups to form a new transitional government.

But the main civilian umbrella, the Forces for Freedom and Change, called for “continued public pressure” on the streets after days of protests. It dismissed Burhan’s move as a “tactical retreat and a transparent manoeuvre”.

“The coup leader’s speech is a giant ruse, even worse than the October 25 coup,” said FFC leader Taha Othman. “The crisis will end with the coup leaders resigning and the forces of the revolution forming a civil government.”

The transitional government uprooted by Burhan last year had been painstakingly forged between the military and civilian factions in 2019, following mass protests that prompted the army to oust longtime dictator Omar Al Bashir in April that year. 

On the streets of Khartoum, protesters defied security forces and held firm on their makeshift barricades, despite heavy fatalities late last week.

“We don’t have confidence in Burhan,” said Muhammad Othman, perched on a pile of bricks. “We just want him to leave once and for all.”

Security forces — as they have done repeatedly during the long-running protests — sought to break up the crowds by firing barrages of stun grenades and tear gas, according to pro-democracy medics.

‘Core grievances remain’

The FFC has so far refused to take part in talks with military leaders, despite pressure from international brokers that range from the United Nations, to the African Union and regional bloc IGAD. 

Burhan said late Monday the military would no longer participate in the talks, wanting instead “to make room for political and revolutionary forces and other national factions” to form a civilian government.

Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, has seen only rare interludes of civilian rule. The latest coup not only worsened a political crisis but has also pushed the country deeper into a dire economic slump.

Burhan’s televised address came as hundreds of anti-coup demonstrators continued protests.

Pro-democracy medics said nine demonstrators lost their lives on Thursday, the deadliest violence so far this year, bringing to 114 the number killed in the crackdown against anti-coup protesters.

Protester Oumeima Hussein, speaking Monday, said the army chief must be “judged for all those killed since the coup” and vowed to “topple him like we did to Bashir”.

Hours after his surprise announcement, Burhan on Tuesday flew to Kenya for an IGAD emergency summit of East African leaders.

Kholood Khair, of the Khartoum think-tank Insight Strategy Partners, said she believed Burhan’s announcement was made to put “the pressure on the civilians”, but warned that it might change little on the ground.

“There’s no talk of accountability,” Khair said, noting that “core grievances remain”.

Khair warned that protesters feared that, after Burhan had put Bashir-era “Islamists back in government”, the coup leader was setting the military and allied armed groups up to “retain economic privileges”.

New ‘supreme council’

Sudan’s military dominates lucrative companies in sectors from agriculture to infrastructure.

Burhan’s pledge Monday to step aside for a new civilian “government” with “executive” powers was accompanied by another pledge — the establishment of a new “Supreme Council of Armed Forces”. 

This body would be in charge of defence and security, he said, feeding into concerns among opponents that it would not be answerable to any government. 

Burhan said the Supreme Council would combine the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a much feared and powerful unit commanded by Burhan’s deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

He also said that the ruling Sovereign Council — established as a key institution of the post-Bashir transition — would be disbanded. 

While rejected out of hand by the main civilian bloc, Burhan’s announcements were welcomed by an ex-rebel senior commander who signed up to a 2020 agreement seeking to end Sudan’s conflicts and integrate insurgents into the army. 

“Burhan’s speech had some positive points,” said Mubarak Ardol on Tuesday, without elaborating, other than to affirm his own “unconditional” commitment to internationally brokered talks.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The family of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh said on Monday they were "incredulous" after the US reported it was not possible to determine whose gun fired the bullet which killed her.

The condemnation from the family of the prominent Palestinian-American reporter came after Israel said that its experts rather than American ones examined the bullet that killed Abu Akleh on May 11.

"With respect to today's announcement by the State Department — on July 4, no less — that a test of the spent round that killed Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen, was inconclusive as to the origin of the gun that fired it, we are incredulous," the Abu Akleh family said in a statement.

The journalist, who held US citizenship, was killed while covering an Israeli army operation in the Jenin camp in the north of the occupied West Bank.

"We will continue to advocate for justice for Shireen, and to hold the Israeli forces and government accountable, no matter the attempts to obfuscate the reality of what happened on May 11," the statement added.

The Palestinian Authority had given the bullet extracted from Abu Akleh to US representatives on Saturday.

They said the Americans, but not the Israelis, could study it.

But following the release of the US probe, Israeli forces said: “A ballistic examination was conducted in a forensic laboratory in Israel.”

“Israeli experts examined the bullet in order to determine the connection between the bullet and the weapon from which it was fired.”

US “representatives were present throughout the entire process”, the army statement said.

The United States said the veteran reporter was likely killed by gunfire from Israeli positions, but that there was no reason to believe her death was intentional.

Abu Akleh was wearing a vest marked “Press” and a helmet when she was shot in the head.

The State Department said that the US could not make a “definitive conclusion” on the origin of the bullet that killed her.

A senior PA official condemned attempts to “conceal the truth” over Abu Akleh’s killing.

“We will continue our procedures at the international courts. We will not allow attempts to conceal the truth or to have shy references in pointing the finger of accusation [at] Israel,” Hussein Al Sheikh wrote on Twitter.

Reacting to the US findings, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz said: “It is not possible to determine the source of the shooting — and as such, the investigation will continue.”

BRUSSELS — Concerns are being voiced in Belgium that an Iranian diplomat serving a 20-year sentence for plotting a bomb attack outside Paris could be repatriated in a possible prisoner swap.

An opposition MP and lawyers for a dissident Iranian group said a bilateral Belgium-Iran treaty due to be voted on this week would pave the way for Assadollah Assadi, convicted of terror charges and sentenced in February 2021, to be sent home.

The treaty’s text “is tailored to Mr Assadi”, said the MP, Georges Dallemagne.

He predicted the Belgian government would present any release of Assadi as a “humanitarian operation”, a trade for a Swedish-Iranian academic, Ahmadreza Djalali, who is being held in Iran under sentence of death. Djalali taught at a Brussels university.

The matter has also caught the attention of US lawmakers.

One, Randy Weber, a Republican representative in Texas, tweeted he was “shocked to find out that the Belgian government has cut a deal with the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism & plans to send Iranian terrorists back to Iran to plot more terroristic acts”.

He called on other congressmen and women to join him in raising the alarm over the treaty text before the Belgian parliament.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said “there is no connection with Mr Djalali’s case”.

He added that the minister would “explain his point of view” to parliament on Tuesday. The spokesman declined to give further details.

Assadi was found guilty of supplying explosives for a planned June 30, 2018 bomb attack on an event outside Paris held by the dissident National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) group.

Belgian police thwarted the 2018 attack when they intercepted a car carrying the bomb, acting on information gathered by several European intelligence services.

No diplomatic immunity 

Attached to Iran’s embassy in Austria, Assadi was arrested in Germany where his claim for diplomatic immunity was denied.

Investigators who conducted a two-year probe determined he was an Iranian agent working under diplomatic cover. The Belgian court convicted him of attempted “terrorist” murder and “participating in the activities of a terrorist group”.

Assadi’s sentence was upheld in May 2021 when he opted not to appeal. Tehran has protested his conviction.

The NCRI, whose core is made up of a militant organisation known as the MEK, was a civil party in Assadi’s trial. Its lawyers said the treaty was designed to allow Assadi to go back to Iran.

A copy of the treaty obtained by AFP showed it was signed on March 11 by the Belgian justice ministry and the Iranian ambassador to Belgium.

It says that “the best way” to boost cooperation with Iran in justice matters was to allow convicts to serve out their sentences in their home countries.

It also allows that each jurisdiction might pardon the returned convicts or commute their sentences.

Debate on the treaty was to start on Tuesday, with the full parliament to vote whether to adopt it on Thursday.

The controversy in Belgium over the text was happening at a time that European powers were trying to bring Iran and the United States back into compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal.

That pact, badly weakened when then-president Donald Trump pulled America out in 2018, is largely moribund. Iran has leapt ahead with its uranium enrichment to a level putting it close to the point where it could produce nuclear weapons.

Talks last week in Qatar failed to produce a breakthrough, with Iran in particular said to be holding fast to a new demand that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be taken off a US terror list.