Iran president to visit Pakistan, boost ties: Islamabad

Iran president to visit Pakistan, boost ties: Islamabad
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, right, will also visit Lahore and Karachi to meet provincial leaders. (West Asia News Agency via Reuters)
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Updated 21 April 2024
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Iran president to visit Pakistan, boost ties: Islamabad

Iran president to visit Pakistan, boost ties: Islamabad
  • Ebrahim Raisi will be accompanied by ‘a high-level delegation comprising the foreign minister... as well as a large business delegation’

ISLAMABAD: Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi will travel to Islamabad on Monday to meet his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said, as the two countries seek to mend ties following deadly cross-border attacks this year.
Raisi will be accompanied by “a high-level delegation comprising the foreign minister... as well as a large business delegation,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
The tit-for-tat missile strikes in January in the porous border region of Balochistan — split between the two nations — stoked regional tensions already inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.
Tehran carried out the strikes against an anti-Iran group in Pakistan the same week it targeted Iraq and Syria.
Pakistan responded with a raid on “militant targets” in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province, one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim regions in Shiite-dominated Iran.
Both countries have in the past accused each other of sheltering militants.
A visit to Islamabad by Tehran’s foreign minister led to the two sides pledging to improve dialogue and install liaison officers in both countries.
Sistan-Balochistan province has for years faced unrest involving cross-border drug-smuggling gangs and rebels from the Baloch ethnic minority, and Muslim extremists.
Raisi will also visit Lahore and Karachi to meet provincial leaders, according to the statement.
The countries will further strengthen ties and enhance cooperation in “trade, connectivity, energy, agriculture, and people-to-people contacts,” it added.
Pakistan is counting on a joint gas project with Iran to solve a long-running power crisis that has sapped its economic growth.
A $7.5-billion Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline intended to feed Pakistani power plants was inaugurated with great fanfare in March 2013.
But the project immediately stagnated following international sanctions on Iran.
Tehran has built its own section of the 1,800-kilometer (1,100-mile) pipeline, which should eventually link its South Pars gas fields to the Pakistani city of Nawabshah, near Karachi.
In February, Pakistan’s outgoing caretaker government approved the construction of an 80-kilometer section of the pipeline, primarily to avoid the payment of billions of dollars in penalties to Iran due to years of delays.
Washington has warned that Pakistan could face US sanctions, saying it does not support the pipeline going forward.


Sudan army says retakes key district in Khartoum North

Sudan army says retakes key district in Khartoum North
Updated 45 min 58 sec ago
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Sudan army says retakes key district in Khartoum North

Sudan army says retakes key district in Khartoum North
  • Military spokesman Nabil Abdullah said that army forces, alongside allied units, had “completed on Friday the clearing of” Kafouri and other areas in Sharq El Nil
  • The army has in recent weeks surged through Bahri pushing the paramilitaries to the outskirts

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s military said Saturday that it had regained control of a key district in greater Khartoum as it presses its advance against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The district of Kafouri in Khartoum North, or Bahri, had been under RSF control since war between the army and the paramilitaries began in April 2023.
In a statement, military spokesman Nabil Abdullah said that army forces, alongside allied units, had “completed on Friday the clearing of” Kafouri and other areas in Sharq El Nil, 15 kilometers to the east, of what he described as “remnants of the Dagalo terrorist militias.”
The army has in recent weeks surged through Bahri — an RSF stronghold since the start of the war — pushing the paramilitaries to the outskirts.
The Kafouri district, one of Khartoum’s wealthiest neighborhoods, had served as a key base for RSF leaders.
Among the properties in the area was the residence of Abdel Rahim Dagalo, the brother of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and his deputy in the paramilitary group.
The recapture of Kafouri further weakens the RSF’s hold in the capital and signals the army’s continued advance to retake full control of Khartoum North, which is home to one million people.
Khartoum North, Omdurman across the Nile River, and the city center to the south make up greater Khartoum.
On Thursday, a military source told AFP that the army was advancing toward the center of Khartoum, nearly two years after the city fell to the RSF at the start of the war.
Eyewitnesses in southern Khartoum reported hearing explosions and clashes coming from central Khartoum Saturday morning.
The developments mark one of the army’s most significant offensives since the war broke out between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his erstwhile ally Dagalo’s RSF, which quickly seized much of Khartoum and other strategic areas.
The conflict has devastated the country, displacing more than 12 million and plunging Sudan into the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded” according to the International Rescue Committee.


War-torn Lebanon forms its first government in over 2 years

War-torn Lebanon forms its first government in over 2 years
Updated 08 February 2025
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War-torn Lebanon forms its first government in over 2 years

War-torn Lebanon forms its first government in over 2 years
  • Salam’s cabinet of 24 ministers, split evenly between Christian and Muslim sects, was formed less than a month after he was appointed
  • Lebanon is also still in the throes of a crippling economic crisis, now in its sixth year

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s new prime minister on Saturday formed the country’s first full-fledged government since 2022.
President Joseph Aoun announced in a statement that he had accepted the resignation of the former caretaker government and signed a decree with new Prime Minister Nawaf Salam forming the new government.
Salam’s cabinet of 24 ministers, split evenly between Christian and Muslim sects, was formed less than a month after he was appointed, and comes at a time where Lebanon is scrambling to rebuild its battered southern region and maintain security along its southern border after a devastating war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. A US-brokered ceasefire deal ended the war in November.
Lebanon is also still in the throes of a crippling economic crisis, now in its sixth year, which has battered its banks, destroyed its state electricity sector and left many in poverty unable to access their savings.
Salam, a diplomat and former president of the International Court of Justice, has vowed to reform Lebanon’s judiciary and battered economy and bring about stability in the troubled country, which has faced numerous economic, political, and security crises for decades.
Though Hezbollah did not endorse Salam as prime minister, the Lebanese group did engage in negotiations with the new prime minister over the Shiite Muslim seats in government, as per Lebanon’s power-sharing system.
Lebanon’s new authorities also mark a shift away from leaders that are close to Hezbollah, as Beirut hopes to continue improving ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations that have been concerned by Hezbollah’s growing political and military power over the past decade.
In early January, former army chief Aoun was elected president, ending that position’s vacuum. He was also a candidate not endorsed by Hezbollah and key allies.
Aoun has shared similar sentiments to Salam, also vowing to consolidate the state’s right to “monopolize the carrying of weapons,” in an apparent reference to the arms of Hezbollah.


Hamas accuses Israel of ‘slow killing’ of Palestinian prisoners

Hamas accuses Israel of ‘slow killing’ of Palestinian prisoners
Updated 08 February 2025
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Hamas accuses Israel of ‘slow killing’ of Palestinian prisoners

Hamas accuses Israel of ‘slow killing’ of Palestinian prisoners
  • Seven prisoners were transferred to hospitals immediately after their release
  • The Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed that seven inmates had been admitted to hospitals

GAZA CITY: Hamas accused Israel of adopting a policy it described as the “slow killing” of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails after seven inmates freed on Saturday were admitted to hospital.
“The fact that seven prisoners were transferred to hospitals immediately after their release... reflects the systematic assaults and mistreatment of our prisoners by the Israeli prison authorities,” Hamas said in a statement, adding that it was “part of the policy of the extremist Israeli government, which pursues the slow killing of prisoners inside the prisons.”
Meanwhile Abdullah Al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club told AFP: “All the prisoners who were released today are in need of medical care, treatment, and examinations as a result of the brutality they were subjected to during the past months. There are seven who were transferred to the hospital.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed that seven inmates had been admitted to hospitals.


Kingdom’s security ‘red line’ for Egypt, says Cairo

Kingdom’s security ‘red line’ for Egypt, says Cairo
Updated 08 February 2025
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Kingdom’s security ‘red line’ for Egypt, says Cairo

Kingdom’s security ‘red line’ for Egypt, says Cairo

CAIRO: Egypt condemned on Saturday as “irresponsible” statements by Israeli officials suggesting establishing a Palestinian state on Saudi territory, according to a statement by Egypt's foreign ministry.

The foreign ministry said it considered the suggestion a “direct infringement of Saudi sovereignty”, adding that the Kingdom's security was a “red line for Egypt”. 


Head of UN chemical weapons watchdog to meet Syrian leader: authorities

Fernando Arias, Director General. (X @OPCW)
Fernando Arias, Director General. (X @OPCW)
Updated 08 February 2025
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Head of UN chemical weapons watchdog to meet Syrian leader: authorities

Fernando Arias, Director General. (X @OPCW)
  • The OPCW has asked the authorities in Syria to secure all relevant locations and safeguard any relevant documentation

DAMASCUS: The head of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog will meet Syria’s new leader Saturday, in a first visit since the ouster of Bashar Assad, who was repeatedly accused of using such weapons during Syria’s 13-year civil war.

“We will broadcast the President of the Syrian Arab Republic Ahmad Al-Sharaa and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad Al-Shaibani receiving a delegation from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),” an official Syrian Telegram channel said in a statement.

The statement said the delegation was headed by OPCW chief Fernanado Arias.

In 2013, Syria agreed to join the OPCW shortly after a suspected chemical gas attack killed more than 1,000 people near Damascus.

It handed over its declared stockpile for destruction, but the OPCW has always been concerned that the declaration made by Damascus was incomplete and that more weapons remained.

Assad’s government denied using chemical weapons.

But in 2014, the OPCW set up what it called a “fact-finding mission” to investigate chemical weapons use in Syria, subsequently issuing 21 reports covering 74 instances of alleged chemical weapons use.

Investigators concluded that chemical weapons were used or likely used in 20 instances.