Region

ABU DHABI — Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in the United Arab Emirates Monday for the first time in nearly a decade, to revive relations that were long strained by regional disputes.

Erdogan arrived in the capital Abu Dhabi, where he was greeted by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, reported the official WAM news agency.

Turkey and the oil-rich Emirates have backed opposing sides in the Libyan civil war and in a Gulf diplomatic crisis, and they have sparred over issues such as gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.

But those tensions eased after Sheikh Mohammed travelled to Ankara in November, the first high-level visit to Turkey since 2012.

That trip "marked the beginning of a new era in relations," Erdogan told journalists at Istanbul airport before leaving for his two-day trip.

The Turkish president's visit to the UAE, meanwhile, is his first since 2013, when he was prime minister, and it is his first as head of state.

"We are planning to take steps that will bring relations back to the level they deserve," Erdogan said, adding that Turkey-UAE dialogue and cooperation are "important to the peace and stability in our region".

His trip comes as the Emirates face a growing threat from Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who have launched several drone and missile attacks on the Gulf country, prompting stepped up UAE defence cooperation with the United States and France.

To greet Erdogan on his trip, which will take him to the Expo 2020 Dubai world fair on Tuesday, the host country was lighting up the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, in the colours of the Emirati and Turkish flags.

Following Sheikh Mohammed’s visit in November, the UAE announced a $10 billion fund for investments in Turkey, where the economy has been reeling and inflation last month surged to a near 20-year high.

During this week’s visit, Erdogan was expected to sign 12 agreements with UAE partners, ranging from media and communications to economic and defence deals, Turkish media reports said.

His trip “will open a new, positive page in bilateral relations”, Anwar Gargash, adviser to the UAE president, said in a tweet.

Erdogan said in a weekend op-ed in the Emirati English-language daily Khaleej Times that “Turkey and the UAE together can contribute to regional peace, stability and prosperity”.

“As Turkey, we do not separate the security and stability of the UAE and our other brothers in the Gulf region from the security and stability of our own country.

“We believe wholeheartedly in the importance of deepening our cooperation in this context in the future.”

Turkey-UAE relations were particularly tense after Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Bahrain in 2017 cut all links with Qatar, a close ally of Ankara. Those relations were restored in January 2021.

Erdogan has since last year sought to improve ties with regional rivals in the face of increasing diplomatic isolation that has caused foreign investment to dry up, particularly from the West.

Last month he said he would visit Saudi Arabia in February, the first trip to Riyadh since relations soured over the 2018 murder of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

In the op-ed this weekend, Erdogan said Turkey also wanted to advance cooperation with the UAE on several fronts, including tackling “climate change, water and food security”.

“I believe that both sides are eager to set new targets for further investment and cooperation,” he said, predicting benefits “at the regional level”.

Turkey-UAE trade topped 26.4 billion dirhams ($7.2 billion) in the first half of 2021. The UAE hopes to double or triple trade volume with Turkey, which it sees as a route to new markets.

About 400 Emirati companies operate in Turkey, the UAE’s 11th largest trading partner, WAM said.

Abdul Khaleq Abdallah, a political science professor in the UAE, tweeted on Sunday that the two countries should aim to bolster a “strategic political partnership”.

SILAT AL HARITHIYA, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenager in West Bank clashes, during what the army on Monday described as an operation to demolish the home of a suspected “terrorist”.

The Palestinian health ministry identified the youth as Mohammed Abu Salah, 17, who was killed after Israeli forces late Sunday entered the village of Silat Al Harithiya near the flashpoint town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

Salah’s mother, Rafika Abu Saleh, told AFP that when her son left their home in the nearby village of Al Yamun he said he was going to a wedding party, but in fact went to the scene of the clashes, where he was shot in the head.

The Israeli forces said soldiers and border police had entered the village “to demolish the floor of the residence in which the terrorist...resided”. The family identified the resident as Mahmoud Jaradat, after the army had earlier said in a statement that his first name was Muhammad.

Israel has blamed Jaradat and others for the fatal shooting of a Jewish settler in the illegal West Bank outpost of Homesh in December.

The army said “violent riots” broke out ahead of the planned demolition, “with the participation of hundreds of Palestinians”, some of whom hurled explosives at Israeli forces.

“The forces identified a number of armed rioters, and fired towards them in order to neutralise the threat,” the Israeli forces said of the operation which continued in the early hours of Monday. The military did not comment directly on Abu Salah’s death.

The teenager’s body, draped in a white sheet, was hoisted by mourners ahead of his funeral, with the burial attended by hundreds of people, including masked gunmen who fired into the air.

Demolitions 

The army had set up checkpoints in the area, removing rubbish bins that had been set on fire by Palestinian protesters.

It later said it had completed the demolition and withdrawn from the village.

Israel regularly destroys the homes of individuals it blames for attacks on Israelis.

The practice, which often fuels tensions, has been condemned by critics as a form of collective punishment. Israel insists it deters attacks.

The Israeli forces  said Jaradat was responsible for the death of Yehuda Dimentman, killed when gunmen sprayed a settler car with roughly a dozen bullets as it drove out of Homesh in December. Two others were injured in the attack.

A married father, Dimentman was studying at a religious school in the Homesh, which has remained open despite Israel not recognising the settlement.

Homesh had been evacuated by Israeli forces in 2005 but settlers have nevertheless continued to operate there, fuelling tensions with Palestinians.

Israel arrested four people days after the December shooting.

Around 475,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, alongside some 2.9 million Palestinians, in communities widely regarded as illegal under international law.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is the former head of a settler lobbying council who opposes Palestinian statehood.

He has ruled out any formal peace talks with Palestinians during his tenure but said he will work to improve economic conditions in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 June War.

KHARTOUM — Sudanese security forces fired tear gas Monday at protesters rallying against last year's military coup and the arrest of several political figures and pro-democracy activists, an AFP correspondent said.

Regular mass protests have rocked the troubled northeast African nation since an October 25 military takeover led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

The power grab derailed a fragile power-sharing agreement between the army and civilians negotiated after the 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir, and despite international pressure, authorities have shown little inclination to compromise, as arrests of civilian leaders have proliferated lately.

Thousands of demonstrators rallied in the capital Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman on Monday, AFP reporters said, while protests also took place in the eastern city of Port Sudan and in the western Darfur region, according to witnesses.

In Khartoum, protesters carried Sudanese flags and red balloons as well as banners that read: “Today is the nation’s love day” as the rallies coincided with Valentine’s Day.

Other shouted slogans demanding authorities release figures arrested since the October military power grab.

“We are demanding the release of resistance committee members and politicians who were unjustly arrested and some of whom are facing fabricated charges,” protester Khaled Mohamed told AFP.

Security forces fired tear gas at crowds who rallied near the presidential palace in central Khartoum, an AFP correspondent said.

Tear gas was also fired at protesters in Omdurman and North Khartoum, witnesses said.

Detainees in Soba prison in Khartoum’s periphery entered a hunger strike to protest against prison conditions, the independent Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said.

“Some have been detained without facing charges and others still await investigations,” this group said in a statement.

Since the coup, authorities have arrested many activists who belong to so-called resistance committees who have been instrumental in organising protests.

“The number of people detained arbitrarily and without criminal charges has exceeded 100,” the Sudanese Professionals Association said Monday.

The group, which also calls for anti-coup protests, said the detainees are aged between 16 and 60.

On Sunday, Sudanese authorities arrested Mohamed Al Fekki, a civilian former member of the ruling Sovereign Council which led the country under the 2019 power-sharing agreement.

Last week, authorities arrested ex-minister Khaled Omar Youssef and Wagdi Saleh, the spokesman of Sudan’s main civilian bloc, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC).

Those arrests came just a day after they joined an FFC delegation for talks with UN Special Representative Volker Perthes, as part of efforts launched last month to resolve Sudan’s deepening crisis.

Demonstrators on Monday also held up pictures of protesters killed since the October coup.

The doctors’ committee says at least 79 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in a crackdown on the pro-democracy demonstrators.

On Saturday, Burhan said investigations were underway to determine who was behind those deaths.

TUNIS — Thousands of Tunisians protested on Sunday after President Kais Saied gave himself sweeping powers over the judiciary, his latest step in what opponents say is a slide towards autocracy.

A decree published in the early hours officially replaced a judicial watchdog he had vowed to dissolve, and gave him powers to block judicial appointments, sack judges and ban them from going on strike.

Hours later, more than 2,000 protesters gathered in central Tunis, many waving large Tunisian flags and chanting slogans against the president.

"The people want what you don't want," went one chant, echoing a slogan of the country's revolt against the regime of Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali over a decade ago: "The people want the regime to fall."

Some protesters carried signs reading “save our democracy!” and “don’t touch the judiciary!”

Saied’s decree came a week after he said he would dissolve the High Judicial Council (CSM), prompting a nationwide strike by judges saying the move would infringe on their independence.

Sunday’s ruling establishes a new “Temporary Supreme Judicial Council” with 21 members, who must swear “by God almighty to preserve the independence of the judiciary”. Nine are directly appointed by the president.

The rest, all judges, are indirectly under his control in view of his new powers to dismiss “any judge failing to do his professional duties”.

Moreover, the decree forbids “judges of all ranks to go on strike or hold any organised collective action that could disturb or delay the normal working of the courts”.

‘He’s on his own’

Saied last July sacked the government, suspended parliament and seized a range of powers before moving to rule by decree, sparking fears for what had been seen as the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings.

His moves had initially been welcomed by many Tunisians tired of political parties seen as corrupt and self-serving, but his critics accuse him of moving the country back towards autocracy.

Ezzeddine Hazgui of the “Citizens Against the Coup” movement pointed to the size of the demonstration and said resistance to the president was growing.

“On July 25, [Saied] had lots of people behind him, now he’s on his own,” he said.

Saied, who has put battling corruption at the centre of his agenda, has insisted he has no intention of interfering with the judiciary, but rights groups and world powers have criticised his move.

Said Benarbia, the regional director of the International Commission of Jurists, told AFP that the decree “enshrines the subordination of the judiciary to the executive”.

“If implemented, it would effectively end judicial independence and the separation of powers in Tunisia, and, with it, the democratic experiment in the country,” he said.

“It gives the president wide-ranging powers to manage the careers of judges, in particular to suspend or remove them. This violates the most basic principles of the rule of law, the separation of powers and judicial independence.”

‘ No legal basis’

The CSM, established in 2016, used to have the final say over judicial appointments.

It has firmly rejected decrees that “infringe on the constitutional structure of the judiciary” and said any alternative would have “no legal basis”.

Saied had long accused the CSM of blocking politically sensitive investigations and being influenced by his nemesis, the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha Party.

Ennahdha supporters were among the protesters in Tunis on Sunday, some carrying placards demanding the release of former justice minister Noureddine Bhiri and former interior ministry official Fathi Baldi.

Both were arrested by plainclothes police officers on December 31 and later accused of possible “terrorism” offences, and have been held largely incommunicado, according to rights groups.

The 63-year-old Bhiri, who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition, has been on a hunger strike since he was detained and was hospitalised shortly after his arrest.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's supreme court on Sunday ruled out a bid by veteran politician Hoshyar Zebari to run for president after a complaint filed against him over corruption charges.

Zebari, 68, who served as foreign minister for a decade after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, had already been suspended temporarily from the contest on February 6, the eve of the scheduled presidential vote in parliament. He was one of two frontrunner candidates.

Postponement of that vote exacerbates war-scarred Iraq's political uncertainty because the president — a largely ceremonial post — names a prime minister from the largest bloc in parliament. Months after legislative elections, the head of government still hasn't been named.

Following the court's decision, Zebari on Sunday protested what he called an "injustice" based on a political decision to keep him out of the race, and stressed his innocence.

"Our behaviour and good conduct are cleaner and purer than the snow on Iraq's highest summit," he told a news conference.

Iraq's highest judicial body made its ruling after MPs submitted a complaint against Zebari. The complaint said his participation would have been "unconstitutional" because of the outstanding corruption charges, leaving him without the required "good reputation and integrity".

"The federal court decided in its verdict to invalidate the candidacy of Hoshyar Zebari to the post of president of the republic," state news agency INA announced.

Controversial history 

The February 7 voting session was not held due to lack of a quorum after several political blocs and parties announced boycotts — against the backdrop of competing claims to a parliamentary majority.

Zebari was initially tipped as a favourite, along with incumbent President Barham Saleh, out of a total of roughly 25 candidates.

The complainants to the court cited Zebari’s 2016 dismissal from the post of finance minister by parliament “over charges linked to financial and administrative corruption”.

Public funds worth $1.8 million were allegedly diverted to pay for airline tickets for his personal security detail.

The complaint also cited at least two other judicial cases linked to Zebari.

“I have not been convicted in any court,” Zebari said in an earlier television interview, as the charges resurfaced on the eve of the scheduled parliamentary vote, alongside forecasts that he would unseat Saleh for the four-year posting.

On Tuesday, parliament announced the reopening of registration for presidential candidates, a post reserved for Iraq’s Kurds.

Zebari said on Sunday that his movement, the Kurdistan Democratic Party which runs the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, does not for the moment have an alternative candidate.

Controversially, Zebari was a keen supporter of Iraqi Kurdistan’s ill-fated 2017 referendum on independence which sparked a crisis between Baghdad and the KDP, almost resulting in bloodshed between the two camps.

Iraqi politics have been in turmoil since general elections were held in October. The polls were marred by a record-low turnout, post-election threats and violence, and a delay of months until final results were confirmed.

Intense negotiations among political groups have since failed to form a majority parliamentary coalition to name a new prime minister to succeed Mustafa Al Kadhemi.