Region

TRIPOLI — With the world focused on Ukraine, UN mediators are trying to avoid a political crisis degenerating into new violence in Libya, where Russia has long been a major player.

The war-battered North African country found itself with two governments earlier this month after the eastern-based house of representatives appointed ex-interior minister Fathi Bashagha in a challenge to the Tripoli-based premier, Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

Bashagha came to power on the back of an alliance with eastern Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar, Moscow’s main ally in Libya with backing from the Kremlin-linked Wagner paramilitary group.

But Dbeibah, who was installed last year as part of a United Nations-led peace process, has insisted he will only cede power to an elected administration.

Bashagha has ruled out using force to dislodge his rival, but the stand-off has sparked fears of a return to violence in a country that has seen a decade of chaos since the 2011 revolt that toppled Muammar Qadhafi.

On March 10, pro-Bashagha armed groups deployed on the edges of the capital, raising fears of a confrontation that would end a fragile ceasefire in place since October 2020.

But Khaled Al Montasser, an international relations professor at the University of Tripoli, said Bashagha had placed a losing bet against Dbeibah.

“He thought that as long as he had the vote of confidence from parliament, he could easily get rid of the internationally-supported government,” said Montasser.

“It quickly became clear he was wrong.”

‘Parallel governments’ 

The UN, keen to avoid the collapse of a hard-won ceasefire in place for the past 17 months, has called for calm and offered to mediate in the standoff.

Last week, the permanent members of the UN Security Council avoided taking sides in the dispute — except Russia, which openly backed Bashagha.

Undersecretary General Rosemary DiCarlo warned in a briefing to the Security Council that “the Libyan executive is facing a crisis that could, if left unresolved, lead to instability and parallel governments in the country”.

Stephanie Williams, the world body’s top Libya official, has been urging the sides to accept mediation over a new constitutional basis for elections, a key bone of contention.

She is set to meet representatives of the Tripoli-based High State Council in the Tunisian capital on Tuesday, but parliament has yet to respond publicly to her mediation offer or appoint its own delegates.

Oil blockade? 

Analyst Faraj Al Dali told AFP that to avoid two rival administrations taking root, foreign actors should push for peaceful solutions and dialogue.

That would clearly show that “the international community and the United States don’t want to see war return in Libya, especially in the current context of the war between Russia and Ukraine”, he said.

US Ambassador Richard Norland, who met Bashagha in Tunis on Sunday, said “choosing one camp at the expense of the other is not an option”.

While diplomats are not openly discussing the possibility that Russia would push Haftar to install Bashagha in Tripoli by force, some believe he could use his control over oil export terminals as a weapon by halting shipments — at a sensitive time for European energy markets.

Pro-Haftar groups last week threatened to do just that, even as industrialised nations are pushing OPEC countries, including Libya, to boost production amid record high prices due to the conflict in Ukraine.

“Such a blockade would certainly serve Russia’s interests, as it would drive oil prices higher still,” said Libya analyst Wolfram Lacher.

Yet, Bashagha, who has considerable backing from armed groups in Tripoli, could “theoretically” resort to force regardless of Russia’s next move, according to Montasser.

That would however “sign the death warrant” of his government, hurling it into “an armed conflict that could last months or even years”, he said.

The one hope for Libya could be that neither side has anything to gain — and both have much to lose — from a return to violence, he said. That could favour some form of political dialogue leading to a compromise.

JBEL JELLOUD, Tunisia — A head-on collision between two passenger trains injured 95 people on Monday in the south of the Tunisian capital, emergency services said.

“The injured were taken to hospitals and there were no deaths,” civil defence spokesman Moez Triaa told AFP, adding that only one of the trains was carrying passengers.

Most of the injured suffered bruises or fractures, none of them life-threatening, he said. 

Many passengers were in shock, he added, saying around 15 ambulances had been dispatched to treat the wounded or take them to hospital. 

The collision happened at 9:30am local time (0830 GMT) in the Jbel Jelloud area, on the approach to a terminus in central Tunis.

An AFP reporter at the site saw the front of one of the trains had been caved in.

The cause of the accident was not yet clear and the SNCFT national train company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Transport Minister Rabi Majidi visited the site of the accident but did not speak to journalists.

Tunisia’s ageing railway system has seen several deadly crashes in recent years. 

Between 2017 and 2021, the country saw 173 train accidents which killed 229 people and injured 345, said Achraf Yehyaoui, spokesman for a governmental agency for preventing transport accidents.

At least five people were killed and more than 50 injured in late 2016 when a train slammed into a public bus near the site of Monday’s crash.

An official said signals and safety gates had been out of service at the time of the crash.

The 2016 accident prompted the sacking of SNCFT chief Sabiha Derbal.

The previous year, the North African country experienced one of its worst railway disasters, with 18 people killed when a train hit a lorry and derailed at a level crossing south of the capital because of a signals failure.

The country of just under 12 million people also has a poor road safety record, with some 980 deaths and more than 6,500 injuries last year according to the interior ministry.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday urged Israel to abandon its effort to maintain neutrality following Russia's invasion, saying the time had come for the Jewish state to firmly back his country.

Zelensky, who is Jewish, made the appeal during an address to Israeli lawmakers, the latest in a series of speeches by videoconference to foreign legislatures.

In remarks that at several points compared Russian aggression to the Holocaust, Zelensky said that "Ukraine made the choice to save Jews 80 years ago."

"Now it's time for Israel to make its choice."

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has walked a careful diplomatic line since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.

Stressing Israel's strong ties to Moscow and Kyiv, Bennett has sought to preserve delicate security cooperation with Russia, which has troops in Syria, across Israel's northern border.

Bennett has held regular phone calls with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, including a three-hour meeting with Putin at the Kremlin on March 5.

While Ukrainian officials have voiced appreciation for Bennett's mediation, Zelensky on Sunday implied that his efforts had proved to be a misstep.

"We can mediate between states but not between good and evil," the Ukrainian leader said.

'Nazi terminology' 

Zelensky, whose family lost relatives during the Holocaust, claimed the Kremlin had used "Nazi terminology" in characterising its objectives in Ukraine.

"The Nazis talked about a 'Final Solution' to the Jewish question," he said. "Now Moscow is talking about a final solution for Ukraine."

His comparison drew immediate criticism from some Israel officials, including Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel from the right-wing New Hope Party.

"We cannot rewrite the history of the Holocaust, a genocide that was also committed on Ukrainian soil. This war is terrible, but comparing it to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Final Solution is outrageous," Hendel tweeted, while also voicing support for Ukrainians.

Zelensky has said he was not religiously raised, and he did not put his Judaism at the forefront of his presidential campaign.

But he has increasingly invoked his faith to rally support for Ukraine among Jews and within Israel, including through social media posts in Hebrew.

Israel has not joined Western sanctions against Russia, but some members of its coalition government have voiced a tougher line than Bennett.

'Ashamed'

They include Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who has repeatedly condemned Russia's actions.

"I reiterate my condemnation of the attack on Ukraine and thank President Zelensky for sharing his feelings and the plight of the Ukrainian people," Lapid said after the speech.

Zelensky's appearance was also shown at Habima Square in central Tel Aviv, the scene of several recent anti-Russia rallies.

Ahead of the speech, Tel Aviv's left-wing Mayor Ron Huldai said Israeli neutrality was no longer tenable.

"Putting any political consideration aside, we are witnessing an event where it is clear what the bad and what the good is; who the aggressor is and who the assailant is," Huldai said.

"There are moments when one cannot stay quiet; and today, now, is exactly one of these moments."

Watching the speech at Habima Square was 45-year-old Ukraine-born Victor Vertsner, who said he was "ashamed" by Israel's response.

"We're doing too little and doing it too late. We have to do more. We don't have the right to stand aside and watch, as Jewish people who lived through the Holocaust and who survived," he told AFP.

More than 1 million of Israel's 9.4 million residents have roots in the former Soviet Union.

Israel has provided humanitarian support to Ukraine but has so far rebuffed Kyiv's requests for military assistance.

BEIRUT — A surprise visit by Syria's Bashar Assad to the oil-rich United Arab Emirates opens the door to his regime's return to the embrace of the Arab world, analysts say.

The president's trip also showed that a more assertive UAE is willing to upset its ally Washington with a rapprochement with Assad.

The Syrian president’s visit to the UAE capital Abu Dhabi last Friday was his first to an Arab state in more than a decade of brutal civil war.

Assad and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's de facto ruler, discussed the "fraternal relations" between the two countries, the official news agency WAM reported.

Washington was "profoundly disappointed and troubled by this apparent attempt to legitimise Bashar Assad," said US State Department spokesman Ned Price, who stressed that "we do not support efforts to rehabilitate Assad".

Badr Al Saif, a history professor at Kuwait University, said the UAE has pushed for Syria's return to the Arab fold "regardless of the role of the regime in the death and displacement of many Syrians".

He said the bold move reflects the way the UAE — a wealthy state that has militarily intervened in conflicts in Libya, Yemen and elsewhere — now sees itself as a regional powerbroker.

"The UAE's self-perception is at the heart of its policymaking," Saif said. "It sees itself as the leader of the Arab world, where it initiates and hopes the rest will follow.”

"Its reception of Bashar Assad is best understood in this light."

Overture to Damascus 

When Assad first launched his crackdown on mostly peaceful demonstrations, plunging the country into civil war from 2011, most Arab countries severed ties with Syria.

Several Gulf states supported rebels fighting against Assad's forces. The regime had all but lost the war when Russia's military intervened on its side in 2015, allowing Damascus to regain most of the territory it had lost.

The UAE has made clear that it opposes the so-called Arab Spring movements, especially in Syria where Islamism, its biggest enemy, was gaining power through terrorist groups.

In recent years Abu Dhabi has led an Arab overture to Damascus as the Assad regime has consolidated power.

The UAE reopened its embassy there in 2018. Hours later, Bahrain said it planned to follow suit. Last November the UAE foreign minister, Abdullah Bin Zayed, visited Damascus.

The Syrian government, for its part, is desperate to revive economic ties with wealthy Arab states after years of war and US sanctions. At least 90 per cent of Syrians live in poverty and more than half have been displaced by war.

"Syria faces huge economic challenges and needs the support of Arab countries," said Bassam Abu Abdullah of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Damascus University.

'Quite a message' 

The struggle over Syria's role is playing out in an era when the United States has signalled a strategic "pivot to Asia", and weeks after Russia stunned the world by launching its Ukraine invasion.

Assad's trip came shortly after a Moscow meeting between the Emirati foreign minister and his counterpart Sergei Lavrov, and weeks after Russia launched its war, which the Assad regime vocally supported.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have shied away from taking sides, despite calls by Western allies to condemn Moscow, and also resisted pleas to boost energy output to bring down global prices.

Nicholas Heras of the Newlines Institute said the UAE, by embracing Assad, is positioning itself as "the powerbroker in the Middle East, and in wider Eurasia, that all sides to conflicts can turn to".

In fostering closer ties with Syria, the Emiratis "see an opportunity to broker a future order in the Middle East that stabilises the region, because Assad won his civil war and a nuclear weapons power backs him fully", he said.

The UAE sees Russia as "an important player in the Middle East for years to come, and a more predictable external power than the Americans", Heras added.

Al Saif, the historian, said the UAE's moves are actually in line with US calls for its allies in the region to assume more responsibility for their own security.

"The UAE has been engaging in just that, and it means there will not always be total alignment with the US as each state pursues its interests," he said.

He added that relations between the US and UAE, a strategic partner that has hosted American troops, will ultimately not suffer from the rapprochement with Syria.

Dalia Dassa Kaye, senior fellow at UCLA Burkle Centre for International Relations, pointed out on Twitter that the UAE-Syria normalisation had been underway for some time.

But, she added, "for the UAE to host this close Putin ally in the midst of the Ukraine war, where Russia is repeating its brutal Syria playbook, is quite a message".

NEFTA, Tunisia — A remote oasis in Tunisia’s desert was exhausted by decades of wasteful water use for agriculture — but now pioneers around an eco-lodge are reviving the spot with innovative projects.

They hope their back-to-basics approach can keep alive the ancient Saharan caravan stop and its traditions as a sustainable alternative to the region’s high-irrigation date plantations.

“Among the palm trees, everything can grow,” said Mohamed Bougaa, 63, a farmer in the remote Nefta oasis, a seven-hour drive from the coastal capital Tunis.

“There’s everything you need here: Vegetables, fruit. We can plant peppers, tomatoes, carrots — everything grows when there’s sun and water.”

The problem has been that the Nefta spring — which once delivered some 700 litres of water per second — has been exhausted to irrigate the region’s famous dates, called “deglet nour”.

“The Nefta springs dried up 20 years ago,” said Bougaa.

As underground water sources have failed and summer temperatures peaked at a scorching 55ºC  last August, the season’s crop has been disappointing.

Mimicking nature 

Patrick Ali El Ouarghi, who runs an eco-tourism lodge in the oasis, said date palm plantations, at the right scale, can be run sustainably.

He called them an ideal demonstration of permaculture, a system for producing food organically by mimicking natural ecosystems.

“The palm trees protect the fruit trees, and the fruit trees protect the vegetable patches, it’s natural in an oasis,” El Ouarghi said.

The French-Tunisian set up his Dar Hi lodge 11 years ago — including the so-called “Palm Lab” where engineers, architects and artists discuss how to conserve the oasis.

The ecology project aims “to make investors and farmers want to reinvest in the oasis, because it’s decaying a bit”, he said.

A key theme is tackling the severe water shortages by experimenting with technology such as drip irrigation.

The current system of flooding orchards with water, pumped from 100 metres  below ground, is wasteful, he said.

Date sugar 

Not far from Dar Hi, others are trying different ways of creating value in the oasis.

American Kevin Klay, 35, a former resident of Sousse in northern Tunisia, says he fell in love with dates during a visit to the south.

“We realised that many dates, up to 20 to 30 per cent, were thrown out and not used because of a small visual blemish,” he said.

So he bought a few kilogrammes, removed their seeds, dried them and then put them through a coffee grinder.

The result, he said, was a sweetener “with a fifth of the calories of white sugar” that is full of fibre and contains “more potassium than bananas”.

Armed with this knowledge, Klay in 2018 launched “Dateible”, selling his “date sugar” produced from the organic-certified desert fruits for export.

He now employs nine people, seven of them women.

“We’ve seen huge demand, particularly in the US where our main market is,” he said.

The firm is exporting dates in bulk and also starting to sell on online retail site Amazon.

Several firms are producing other date derivatives such as a coffee substitute made of date pips and a form of molasses for use in pastries.

Unknown flavours 

Back at the lodge, the restaurant is reviving traditional desert cuisine.

“It’s very simple and dates from the arrival of nomads,” when Nefta, today regarded as a spiritual home of Sufism, was a key stop on Saharan desert routes, El Ouarghi said.

They brought “unknown flavours and spices that have remained here as a tradition”, he said.

Chef Najah Ameur says residents create their own unique spice mixes.

“It’s not the same as buying them at the market: Cleaning the leaves, the smell, the flavour, you have to know exactly how to do it,” the 40-year-old said.

She cooks a menu of dishes she learned from her mother and from French celebrity chef Frederick Grasser Herme, the recipes collated in a recently published book on oasis cuisine.

“Many ingredients come from the palm groves: Parsley, celery, chard, green beans, peas,” she said.

Some recipes are also adapted to use Moringa, an Indian tree famed for its nutritional and medicinal qualities and its ability to thrive in arid conditions.

The tree species may be new to the oasis, but residents are hoping that a mix of old and new can keep both their community and their ecosystem in good health.

TUNIS - More than 2,000 Tunisians rallied on Sunday, the country’s independence day, against President Kais Saied and a project he launched to gauge public opinion on proposed constitutional reforms.

Protesters in the capital shouted “the people want to overthrow the president” and “no to consultations”.

The demonstration was organised by the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha Party and a movement named “Citizens Against the Coup” — in reference to a power grab by Saied last year.

Many of the demonstrators were people who had voted for Saied, among them blogger and rights activist Mounira Bouazizi.

“I thought that he believed in democracy and the gains of the revolution, but he did the complete opposite,” she told AFP.

Mohammed, a retiree, echoed her, saying: “We cannot call this a democratic process. Today, the people are divided between pro- and anti-Kais Saied. This harms freedoms and democracy.”

Sunday’s rally was the latest in a series of demonstrations in the North African country since Saied seized a host of powers after dismissing the government and freezing parliament on July 25. 

Critics have dubbed the move a “coup” and rights groups have warned that the country — seen as the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring protests — is sliding towards autocracy. 

Demonstrators marched on parliament in the Bardo neighbourhood of Tunis, many waving national flags, but a large police deployment blocked their path. 

“We will not accept the results of the consultation, this farce against the people,” Samira Chaouachi, the vice president in the frozen parliament, told the crowd.

 ‘Save the country’

Sunday marked the final day of an online poll launched by Saied in January in a process to help rewrite the country’s constitution, with the results set to be presented to a committee of experts. 

So far only 508,000 people, about 7 per cent of the seven million eligible voters, have taken part, according to official statistics. 

A referendum on the constitutional reforms, which Saied hopes will bolster his authority, is scheduled for July, exactly a year after his power grab, with parliamentary elections scheduled for December. 

“Our condolences for the constitution, President Saied,” demonstrators chanted on Sunday, mocking the low turnout. 

Saied had blamed the low turnout on “technical obstacles” and “attempts by the old system to abort this experiment” — in an apparent reference to his arch rivals Ennahdha.

“We want early presidential and legislative elections,” said Ennahdha member Yamina Zoghlami.

“We are in the midst of a political crisis and we must have a political dialogue to save the country,” she added, warning of a “Lebanese scenario” in the North African country.

Tunisia, like Lebanon, has been in the throes of an economic downturn and is seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, amid rising prices and inflation.

Demonstrators also called for the release of the former head of the bar association, Abderrazek Kilani, arrested in early March on the orders of a military court on charges of “disturbing public order with the intent to obstruct the application of the law”. 

Kilani is a member of the defence committee for former justice minister and senior Ennahdha figure Noureddine Bhiri, who has been under house arrest since December. 

Earlier in March, 13 international rights groups called on Tunisia to scrap a draft law that would restrict freedoms gained by civil society during the 2011 revolution.

The leaked draft law could permit authorities to dissolve civil society groups at will without going through the courts, the rights groups said.

In a speech in February, Saied had accused civil society groups of serving foreign interests and trying to meddle in Tunisian politics, saying he would move to ban all foreign funding for such groups.

DUBAI — Syrian President Bashar Al Assad held talks in the United Arab Emirates on Friday, his first official visit to an Arab country since civil war erupted in 2011, UAE state media said.

The meeting is the latest sign of warming relations between Syria and the UAE, which had broken ties with Damascus in February 2012.

Assad met with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, discussing "fraternal relations" between the two countries, the WAM news agency reported.

They also discussed efforts to "contribute to the consolidation of security, stability and peace in the Arab region and the Middle East", it added.

Sheikh Mohammed said he hoped the visit would "pave the way for goodness, peace and stability to prevail in Syria and the entire region", WAM said.

The two leaders also discussed ways of "preserving the territorial integrity of Syria and the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country," it said, as well as means of providing "political and humanitarian support for Syria".

Syria's SANA state news agency said the meeting helped "strengthen cooperation" between the two sides.

Photographs released by the Syrian presidency also showed Assad meeting with Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum during the one-day visit.

Washington alarmed 

Assad's visit to the United Arab Emirates left the US "profoundly disappointed", it said on Saturday, urging allies to avoid normalising ties with a regime accused of "horrific atrocities".

"We are profoundly disappointed and troubled by this apparent attempt to legitimise Bashar Al Assad," US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said in a statement sent to AFP on Saturday.

Assad, he said, “remains responsible and accountable for the death and suffering of countless Syrians, the displacement of more than half of the pre-war Syrian population, and the arbitrary detention and disappearance of over 150,000 Syrian men, women and children.

As US Secretary of State Antony “Blinken has reiterated, we do not support efforts to rehabilitate Assad and we do not support others normalising relations,” Price said.

“We have been clear about this with our partners... [and] we urge states considering engagement with the Assad regime to weigh carefully the horrific atrocities visited by the regime.”

Sanctions on Syria 

Syria’s economy has been battered by a decade of conflict and gruelling sanctions, and the Arab League suspended Damascus after the war broke out 11 years ago.

In December 2018, the UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus, suggesting an effort to bring the Syrian government back into the Arab fold.

The move was followed by the UAE’s calling in March last year for Syria to return to the Arab League, having been a key backer of its suspension.

In November, the UAE’s top diplomat met Assad in the Syrian capital for the first time since the conflict started, a move that triggered US denunciations of efforts to normalise ties with a “dictator”.

About half-a-million people have died and millions have been displaced since the conflict erupted in 2011, after nationwide protests against the government were met with a brutal crackdown.

It escalated into a devastating and complex war that drew in numerous actors including extremist groups and regional and international powers.

The UAE is one of the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states that took a tough stance against Damascus in 2012 and eventually recognised an opposition umbrella group as the representative of Syria.

Damascus has struggled to secure international aid, namely from oil-rich Arab states.

But in recent years, some regional powers see warming up to Damascus as a way of luring Syria away from the exclusive regional influence of Iran, a staunch supporter of Assad’s government that has expanded its military footprint in Syria throughout the course of the conflict.

Earlier this month, the UN commission for inquiry on Syria called for “a review of the implementation and impacts of sanctions currently imposed on Syria” in light of deteriorating living conditions.

But on Tuesday, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States said in a joint statement that they do “not support efforts to normalise relations with the Assad regime”.

The statement was made to commemorate 11 years since the start of the anti-government uprising in Syria, which was marked by thousands of protesters in Syria’s rebel enclave of Idlib.