Category: Politics

DOHA: Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held talks with Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh on Monday to discuss efforts to reach a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. The discussions dwelt on Palestinian developments and Qatari efforts to reach an immediate and durable cease-fire in Gaza, the Emiri Diwan said in a statement. Sheikh Tamim reiterated Qatar's 'unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their just cause and the significance of the Palestinian unity to regain their legitimate rights, primarily the right to establish their independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,' the statement said. According to a Hamas statement, Haniyeh said his group showed flexibility and positively responded to efforts by mediators to end the Israeli war on Gaza. 'Hamas sees that the Israeli enemy is stalling, something the group will not accept in any way,' he added. The Hamas leader called for halting Israeli 'massacres' against Palestinian children, women and civilians, t he statement said. An Israeli delegation is scheduled to arrive in the Qatari capital, Doha, later Monday for talks on a possible hostage-prisoner swap deal with Hamas. Qatar, along with Egypt and the US, is mediating between Hamas and Israel to put an end to a deadly Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7. Hamas is believed to be holding more than 130 Israeli hostages following its cross-border attack on Oct. 7, while Israel holds at least 8,800 Palestinians in its prisons, according to official sources from both parties. The Palestinian group demands an end to Israel's ongoing onslaught on Gaza in return for any hostage deal. A previous deal in November saw the release of 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners in exchange for 240 Palestinians, including 71 women and 169 children. Nearly 29,800 Palestinians have been killed and over 70,000 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7 amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been kil led. The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN. Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza. Source: Anadolu Agency

ANKARA : Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz will travel to the UK on Monday to attend meetings with investors. On the first day of his contacts, Yilmaz will meet with Trkiye's Ambassador Osman Koray Ertas in London, as well as Turkish business representatives, at the envoy's residence, according to the vice president's press office. Separate meetings with British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development President Odile Renaud Basso, and representatives of the Turkish Cypriot Community are expected Tuesday. He is also slated to attend a high-level round table organized by the Confederation of British Industry. Yilmaz, who will meet with representatives of the Turkish community at the Yunus Emre Institute Turkish Cultural Center, will hold a meeting with investors at the London Stock Exchange for talks on investment opportunities in Trkiye. Presidential Investment Office President Ahmet Burak Daglioglu will be accompanying Yilmaz. Source: Anadolu Agency

BERLIN: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was forced to cut short her tour of a waterworks facility in southern Ukraine after the spotting of a Russian drone, German media reported Sunday. Baerbock had been visiting the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv when members of the delegation were asked to promptly return to armored vehicles in Baerbock's convoy after a Russian drone was sighted flying over the facility, German news agency dpa quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesperson as saying on the sidelines of the visit. The drone had initially followed Baerbock's convoy, but then turned away. A short time after the minister's departure, air raid sirens went off in the Mykolaiv region. On Saturday evening, Baerbock had to go to a shelter in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa after another alarm triggered at 9.48 p.m. local time (1948GMT). While the alert was canceled about 20 minutes later, Baerbock remained in the shelter of her hotel together with members of her delegation and other guests, according to dpa. Sources from the German delegation said it was a missile alarm that had sounded, and that an explosion was later heard in the Odesa region, though it was unclear whether or not Ukrainian air defenses succeeded in blocking the projectile. Details on possible damage or victims remain unknown. Two Russian drone attacks left reportedly a total of four dead and several injured in Odesa city shortly before Baerbock's visit. Source: Anadolu Agency BELGRADE: In London on Monday, the territorial dispute between Kosovo - a sovereign state since 2008 - and Serbia - which calls Kosovo its own territory - broke out into full view. The dispute began at a panel organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), when Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said Kosovo is an internal part of Serbia, calling it by its pre-2008 name, "Kosovo and Metohija." But Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti shot back: "The name of my country is the Republic of Kosovo, not Kosovo and Metohija.' He added that Kosovo is recognized as an independent country by three of its four neighboring countries and 117 countries around the world, including 22 EU members and 26 NATO countries as well as Trkiye and the United States. In response Brnabic claimed that "such a statement does not correspond to reality." Before Kosovo's independence, Kosovo and Metohija was an autonomous province in southernmost Serbia. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, wit h most UN member states including the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Trkiye recognizing it as an autonomous country. Serbia, however, still considers Kosovo its territory. The last two years have seen tensions and violence flare along the countries' shared border, with Serbian troops last fall amassing at the frontier with Kosovo before pulling back. Source: Anadolu Agency

His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II on Thursday met with representatives of think tanks in Washington, DC. Held at the premises of Jordan's Embassy in Washington, DC, the meeting covered key regional and international developments, and Jordan's positions toward various issues. Crown Prince Al Hussein called for adopting a new approach in dealing with regional conflicts and geopolitical instability, based on building models and innovative solutions to resolve regional conflicts, stressing the need for collaborative efforts between official and non-official stakeholders. His Royal Highness commended the role of think tanks in shaping public policies and strategic planning at the state level. Jordan's Ambassador in Washington, DC, Dina Kawar and Director of the Office of the Crown Prince Zaid Baqain attended the meeting.

Source: Jordan News Agency

Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh, on Friday, met with Egyptian Senate Speaker Abdel Wahab Abdel Razeq and the accompanying delegation, who is currently visiting the Kingdom. In a meeting attended by Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Wajeeh Azaizah, Minister of State for Prime Ministry Affairs Ibrahim Al-Jazi, Senator Ahmad Tubishat and Egyptian Ambassador in Amman Mohammad Sameer, the prime minister stressed the government's keenness for a complementary relationship between Amman and Cairo. Al-Khasawneh also stressed the importance of the role played by the executive and legislative authorities in strengthening bilateral relations and the process of joint cooperation. The premier pointed out the importance of the tripartite cooperation mechanism linking Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, and cooperation within the framework of the industrial partnership between Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain. For his part, Abdel Razeq praised the level of cooperation between the legislative institutions in the two brotherly countries and their role in strengthening bilateral relations and areas of joint cooperation.

Source: Jordan News Agency

The Ministry of Expatriate Affairs blessed the steps that the revolutionary leadership intends to take to bring about a radical change in state institutions.

In a statement issued by it, the Ministry expressed the support of the Ministry’s leaders and cadres for any decisions and steps taken by the leader of the revolution, al-Sayyed Abdul Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, to reform state institutions.

It stressed that the expected changes come from leader’s keenness to bring about a renaissance at the administrative and institutional levels in all state institutions.

Source: Yemen News Agency

In a significant step toward breaking the ice in relations between Iran and Azerbaijan, the countries' top diplomats discussed the normalization of their bilateral relations, regional issues, and developments in the region following the second Karabakh war.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian discussed different issues in their phone conversation, with a primary focus on bilateral and regional issues.

The ministers exchanged views on various "bilateral and regional topics, as well as developments in the region following the 2nd Karabakh war," Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Sunday.

They also discussed issues raised by recent meetings of the co-chairs of the Azerbaijan-Iran Joint State Commission, as well as future steps.

They also highlighted the contributions of recent contacts between the prosecutor general and senior military officials of the two countries to the development of bilateral relations.

Along with that, they also discussed actions required for Azerbaijan and Iran's relations to fully normalize.

The peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan has suffered setbacks due to provocative actions by the Yerevan administration, Bayramov said, citing the presence of over 10,000 armed Armenian forces in the Karabakh region that pose a serious threat to the region.

Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

In the fall of 2020, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages, and settlements from Armenian occupation during 44 days of clashes. The war ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire.

Tensions between the two nations, however, continue despite ongoing talks over a long-term peace agreement.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that the topic of the Russia-Ukraine peace talks has turned into "a plot" against Moscow.

Speaking at a roundtable on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict with the participation of ambassadors of 35 countries in Moscow, Lavrov said the West is trying "to turn everything upside down."

"There is a real plot around the topic of the so-called (peace) negotiations, as well as attempts to turn everything upside down through pseudo diplomacy," he said.

Russia is ready to respond to all serious initiatives on the Russian-Ukrainian settlement, and this position has not changed, he said and added that "all the balls" regarding the organization of the process between Russia and Ukraine are on the side of Kyiv.

He said the problem is that instead of promoting a fair process, the West is trying to pull the countries of the global majority towards supporting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's initiative, which he called a "peace formula."

"The West has been saying for months that this 'peace formula' is the only basis for negotiations. It starts from innocent topics ... and then comes to the purpose for which it was concocted - inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, to restore the borders of Ukraine as they were in 1991, court-martial the Russian leadership, force Russia to pay reparations, and then 'mercifully' agree to sign a peace agreement," he said.

According to the diplomat the West is trying to persuade the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to support Zelenskyy's initiative "only in those points that they like," which is "an open deception."

Lavrov described such actions as "an attempt to drag normal countries into an absolutely unrealistic, Russophobic, ultimatum undertaking" with the purpose of using their names to show "growing support."

"These are exactly the dirty methods that the West uses not only in relation to Ukraine but in many other areas of global politics," he criticized.

Commenting on remarks by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said Ukraine would be ready for negotiations when Russia agrees, Lavrov asked whether Blinken knows that Ukraine's president prohibited peace talks with any Russian officials during Vladimir Putin's presidency.

"I hope that countries that come to us with peace initiatives know about this ban," he stressed.

International peace efforts, grain deal

The Russian side is ready to meet with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the Conference of Italian Bishops, to discuss the Ukrainian crisis, Lavrov said.

The minister reminded that Russia held several meetings with the Turkish and African representatives on Ukraine.

"We appreciate the efforts that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have made without much advertising, primarily in organizing the exchange of prisoners of war," he noted.

"Now the efforts of the Vatican, whose envoy is going to come again, are continuing. We are ready to meet with everyone, we are ready to talk to everyone," he said.

Sergey Lavrov criticized the Ukrainian side for seeking ways to export its grain, which will not lead to the lifting of sanctions on Russia.

"When now some of our colleagues, including the heads of the UN Secretariat, say that everything will be fine with the Russian part of the deal, no one pays attention to the fact that the Kyiv regime claims this -- 'we will never agree to the resumption of this deal in such a way that both Russian grain and fertilizers would be exempt from illegal sanctions'," he said.

The minister also alleged that the US buys out all weapons for sending them to Ukraine with the goal of freeing the market for American arms producers.

"The market is being freed up for the supply of American military products for the rearmament of the EU and NATO countries through the allocation of large funds, and the purchase of American weapons produced by American corporations," he said.

Russia launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine in February last year to "denazify" and "demilitarize" Ukraine, and protect the Russian-speaking population of the neighboring country. The West, however, calls it "a war of aggression."

Source: Anadolu Agency

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other leaders and heads of delegations at Rajghat in the Indian capital New Delhi.

G20 leaders paid their respects at a memorial site dedicated to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi on Sunday, a day after the forum added a new member and reached agreements on a range of issues but softened their language on Russia's war in Ukraine.

They signed a Peace Wall and laid wreaths at international Indian icon Mahatma Gandhi's memorial before attending a tree-planting ceremony.

The third and final session of the summit, "One Future," will take place at the newly inaugurated Pragati Maidan conference center at the Bharat Mandapam culture corridor, where a statue of Nataraja, the Hindu God of dance, as an important symbol of cosmic energy, creativity and power -- is located.

Turkish President Erdogan will have sideline meetings with participating leaders following the session, and he is expected to gather with international journalists at a news conference.

At the closing session, term president India will hand over the presidency to Brazil.

The G20 presidency will be handed to Brazil in 2024 and South Africa in 2025.

Leaders, in the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, attended the "One Earth" and "One Family" sessions Saturday to make progress on trade, climate and other global problems.

The African Union (AU), a bloc of 55 countries, formally took a seat Saturday as a member of G20 at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"This will strengthen the G20 and also strengthen the voice of the Global South," said Modi.

At its core, the G20 is an intergovernmental forum primarily concerned with economic issues made up of the world’s 20 largest economies -- 19 countries and the European Union. It plays an important role in shaping and strengthening global architecture and governance on all major international economic issues.

Source: TRTworld.com