Day: November 14, 2022

The EU will introduce a new sanctions package that will also include 30 Iranian individuals for their role in the security clampdown in Iran, Luxembourg’s foreign minister said on Monday.

Speaking to the media ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Jean Asselborn said that among the individuals are members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Today Iran is going to a dictatorship, military dictatorship. 80 million people live in Iran and I think 90 percent of the people live in a very bad situation,” he said.

Iran has been rocked by deadly protests since mid-September after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code.

“We cannot change the world by sanctions alone. That is clear but it is all we have,” Asselborn said.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the new EU sanctions should be regarded as a clear signal to the government in Tehran for its brutal security crackdown on pro-freedom protesters.

“We are sending a new and unmistakable signal to the Iranian regime: human rights are indivisible,” said Baerbock earlier in the day in Brussels.

The minister said new sanctions target particularly the inner circle of power of the Revolutionary Guards and the structures that finance them.

“We are also working on further measures. It’s not just about reading out political declarations. In order for the sanctions to be legally secure, an intensive examination is necessary,” said Baerbock, adding the legal situation was “extremely complicated.”

She also emphasized how important it is that Germany, along with 16 other countries, has put the situation in Iran on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

A meeting of the UN Human Rights Council is scheduled to take place during the week starting Nov. 21.

The council’s 47 member countries cannot impose sanctions but can adopt a resolution condemning the violence and set in motion a mechanism to investigate the situation more closely.

Source: Anadolu Agency

US President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, discussed on Monday efforts to wind down simmering tensions in their bilateral relationship while managing increasing competition.

During their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Biden objected to what the White House said are China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan,” which it said undermine “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity.”

Biden “explained that the United States will continue to compete vigorously with the PRC,” but maintained “this competition should not veer into conflict and underscored that the United States and China must manage the competition responsibly and maintain open lines of communication,” the White House said in a statement, referring to China by its formal acronym.

“The two leaders discussed the importance of developing principles that would advance these goals and tasked their teams to discuss them further,” it added.

The meeting is Biden and Xi’s first face-to-face sit-down since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and comes as already strained US-Sino relations have soured further in recent months following an August visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

China views the visit as a threat to its claims of sovereignty over the self-governing island, and retaliated by suspending its cooperation with the US on a number of areas, including climate change.

During their meeting, Biden emphasized that the US and China have to work together to “address transnational challenges,” including climate change, the global economy, health security and the global food crisis “because that is what the international community expects,” the White House said.

“The two leaders agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen constructive efforts on these and other issues,” it said.

“They welcomed ongoing efforts to address specific issues in U.S.-China bilateral relations, and encouraged further progress in these existing mechanisms, including through joint working groups,” it added.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The guarantors of the Astana format talks on Syria will convene for the 19th time in the Kazakh capital next week, on Nov. 22-23, Kazakhstan announced on Monday.

“Delegations from Türkiye, Russia, Iran, the Syrian (Assad) regime, and the Syrian opposition will take part in the talks. Representatives of the UN, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq are expected to arrive as observers,” Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Aybek Smadiyarov told an official press briefing.

Smadiyarov said the meeting will discuss the situation “on the ground” in Syria, including humanitarian and socioeconomic conditions, the promotion of Syria’s political process, confidence-building measures, including the release of hostages and the search for missing persons, and the international community’s mobilization of efforts in line with UN Security Council resolutions, mentioning no. 2642, which calls for “the post-conflict reconstruction of Syria and the creation of conditions for the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland.”

“On day one, bilateral and trilateral consultations of the guarantor countries, negotiations with the Syrian parties, and contacts with the delegations of the observer parties are expected. On day two, further consultations, a plenary session, and a press conference are planned,” the spokesman added.

He said a meeting of a working group on forcibly detained persons, with the participation of the guarantor countries, UN experts, and the Red Cross, is also planned.

The Astana format talks were launched in 2017 in a bid to restore peace and stability in the Arab country, which has been ravaged by war since 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protesters.

The last Astana format talks on Syria were held this June.

Source: Anadolu Agency