A 13-year hiatus ends: Turkish foreign minister attends Arab League summit

Special A 13-year hiatus ends: Turkish foreign minister attends Arab League summit
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit at the league’s foreign ministers meeting in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 10 September 2024
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A 13-year hiatus ends: Turkish foreign minister attends Arab League summit

A 13-year hiatus ends: Turkish foreign minister attends Arab League summit
  • Ankara sees Fidan’s visit as a strategic move to strengthen ties with bloc members while exploring new avenues for cooperation
  • Country’s previous military operations in Libya, Somalia and Syria have strained relations with the Arab League, which has frequently criticized such actions

ANKARA: As Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends the 162nd Ordinary Council of Foreign Ministers of the Arab League in Cairo on Tuesday, attention is focused on how this will impact Turkiye’s ongoing efforts to further normalize relations with its Arab neighbors after years of strained ties.

It has been 13 years since a Turkish foreign minister attended a summit of the 22-member Arab League. Ankara sees the visit as a strategic move to strengthen Turkiye’s regional ties with the members on a more institutionalized basis, while exploring new avenues for cooperation and mutual benefit.

The country’s previous military operations in Libya, Somalia and Syria have strained relations with the Arab League, which has frequently criticized such actions.

Fidan’s presence at the summit is particularly noteworthy because, as the former head of intelligence, he was instrumental in initiating the normalization process with Gulf countries in 2020.

Since becoming foreign minister last year, he has continued his efforts to improve relations with the region, holding several meetings with Arab diplomats and Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

Political consultations were also held in Ankara in February between Deputy Foreign Minister Ambassador Ahmet Yildiz and Arab League Deputy Secretary-General Ambassador Hossam Zaki.

More recently, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi made a long-awaited visit to Turkiye after years of bitter rivalry.

In response to the Gaza conflict, Turkiye has joined a joint contact group formed at a summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to seek an end to the violence.

On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed an alliance among Islamic countries to counter Israeli “expansionism.”

Soner Cagaptay, senior fellow at The Washington Institute, told Arab News: “There seems to be a wide consensus among Arab League members that the Syrian regime should be rehabilitated and integrated into the international system. One piece of this is Turkish-Syrian normalization.

“Key members of the Arab world, including those that have financial ties with Turkiye such as Saudi Arabia and UAE, have long insisted that Ankara also normalize ties with Egypt, which has happened, but I think that those two countries are also driving the normalization process between Ankara and Damascus.”

In the meantime, Turkiye and the Gulf Cooperation Council are currently negotiating a free trade agreement.

Syria’s return as a full member of the Arab League last year and Damascus’s approval of Turkiye’s participation in the summit are also significant for the latter’s ongoing normalization talks with Syria since the countries broke off relations in 2011.

While Turkiye has improved relations with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, its efforts to normalize ties with Damascus are progressing gradually.

Galip Dalay, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, thinks Fidan’s presence at the summit reflects the level of normalization achieved between Turkiye and the Arab world so far.

“Recent developments had tested this to some extent, not least the Gaza war. Rather than undermining it, the war has underpinned this normalization process as Turkiye has pursued a policy prioritizing Arab agencies on the subject,” he told Arab News.

Dalay thinks this also signifies revisiting Turkiye’s pre-Arab Spring regional policies, favoring good relations with Arab governments and elites.

“It indicates a gradual, economy-focused regional policy centered on positive interactions with Arab elites. Syria, in any case, had no luxury to reject Turkiye’s participation in the Summit,” he added.

According to widespread rumors over the summer, Turkiye is expected to extend an invitation to Syrian President Bashar Assad “any time” for possible talks to restore bilateral relations. Alternatively, both parties could meet in a third country. Speaking at the NATO summit in July in Washington, Erdogan said he had assigned Turkiye’s foreign minister to follow up on this issue.

In the meantime, the country’s spy chief, Ibrahim Kalin, recently visited Libya to help overcome the ongoing political impasse over oil exports.

“By the final months of 2020, not only Ankara but also all the capitals of the Middle East, including Tel Aviv, began initiating normalization processes with one another. This shift was a natural consequence of a pragmatic reassessment of the region’s political climate, which has been tense since 2011,” Betul Dogan-Akkas, assistant professor of international relations at Ankara University’s international relations department, told Arab News.

“Minister Fidan, as the chief of intelligence, has played a key role in shaping strategic normalization efforts with the Gulf, Egypt and Syria. His actions as foreign minister reflect this new era in regional diplomacy,” she added.

“During a critical visit to Ankara last week, President El-Sisi emphasized Egypt’s eagerness to collaborate with Turkiye to strengthen regional peace, including addressing conflicts in Libya and Syria. Initially, his comments were interpreted as an attempt to leverage Cairo’s role in Turkiye-Syria cooperation.”

According to Dogan-Akkas, combining these dynamics suggests that Turkiye has proposed a new diplomatic approach to the Arab world, one that seeks to move beyond political controversies and establish strategically significant diplomatic channels since the end of 2020.

“If Turkiye successfully navigates this process and underscores its constructive role in the region, it could lead to a long-term strengthening of relations with both Syria and Egypt,” she said.


Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off

Updated 4 sec ago
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Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off

Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off
  • Newly-elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian extended an apparent olive branch to the West at the UN
  • Khamenei vowed that Iran’s militant allies, primarily the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, would not “back down”
PARIS: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s undisputed number one, but in the pecking order beneath the supreme leader are different factions competing for influence as the country maps out how to react to growing setbacks and escalating confrontation with Israel, experts say.
While some insiders are seen as favoring negotiation, others believe in using force, with the outcome of the behind-the-scenes debate helping to determine whether the current tit-for-tat cycle spirals into a full-blown war.
In a rare public sermon last week, Khamenei vowed that Iran’s militant allies, primarily the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, would not “back down” in their war against Israel, the Islamic republic’s sworn enemy which he said “does not have long to live.”
Yet last month, newly-elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian extended an apparent olive branch to the West at the UN, proposing the revival of the 2015 international nuclear deal that was unilaterally abandoned in 2018 by then-US president Donald Trump.
Experts say that as Israel prepares its response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack, Khamenei remains keen to avoid all-out war while showing the Islamic republic can still stand up to its enemies.
The supreme leader, who is chosen for life and has been in power since the death of Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, has long been seen as seeking to balance out the various factions in Iran before deliberately and, sometimes slowly, coming to a decision.
“There were certainly dozens of hours of meetings and analysis before deciding on the details of the strike against Israel,” said Pierre Razoux, research director at the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES).
“It’s similar to a chess champion studying all possible moves and openings with their team before making a play.”
While Khamenei is the ultimate decision-maker, Iran’s power structure is deeply complex with the president often only having a limited influence in foreign policy decisions.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s ideological army which maintains links with Iran’s regional proxies, plays a crucial role, as do low-profile but powerful figures within the office of the supreme leader including his son Mojtaba who is sometimes seen as a successor.
“Despite its authoritarian nature, the Islamic Republic has always had fractious factions that disagreed over the way in which they (Iran) should interact with the outside world,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, told AFP.
The president “does not control or set foreign and security policy. Rather, he is there to offer a change in style and not substance,” he added.
While there may be intense debates behind closed doors over strategy, it would be extremely unusual for such splits to be revealed in public.
“Khamenei adopts his decisions after consulting with members of the Iranian Supreme National Council, which, under the leadership of the reformists of the Iranian government, includes both conservative and reformist officials,” explained Eva Koulouriotis, an independent expert on the region.
Positions change with events.
When Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, Khamenei initially supported “a tactical retreat, which was the opinion of the reformists,” says Koulouriotis.
However, when Israel killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September, Khamenei decided that a stronger response was necessary.
“So he adopted the opinion of the conservatives in the IRGC, who called on him to respond to the assassination of Haniyeh to deter Israel,” said Koulouriotis.
This led to the launch of some 200 Iranian missiles on Israel on October 1. Were Israel to now launch a major attack in response, pressure would mount on Khamenei to respond more than just in kind.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah is not just an ally for Iran. It is considered Tehran’s most crucial asset, a so-called “crown jewel” boasting a formidable arsenal of drones, rockets, and missiles of various ranges, and claiming 100,000 fighters.
Some experts suggest that Hezbollah’s long-range missiles are tasked with defending Iran’s nuclear facilities, effectively serving as a sort of remote defense shield.
Iran’s strategy in the coming months and years is therefore likely to depend on a complex mix of regional dynamics, pressure from global powers, and internal factional battles.
“Given Iran’s repeated setbacks abroad, especially the loss of Hezbollah, considered its foreign policy linchpin, the radical wing succeeded in convincing the supreme leader that restoring Iran’s credibility was essential,” said analyst Hasni Abidi, director of the Center for Arab and Mediterranean World Studies (CERNAM) in Geneva.

Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel

Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel
Updated 32 min 11 sec ago
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Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel

Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel
  • Lebanon’s foreign ministry would ask the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for a ‘full and immediate ceasefire’

BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday urged the United Nations to pass a resolution calling for an “immediate” ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
In a televised address, Mikati emphasized his government’s commitment to deploy the army on the border with Israel as part of a cessation of hostilities, and said Hezbollah agreed on the matter.
Mikati said Lebanon’s foreign ministry would ask the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire.”
He said his government was committed to “the full application of Resolution 1701,” which was adopted in 2006 and called for the Lebanese army and peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in the south of the country.
Lebanon is committed to “the deployment of the army in the south and the bolstering of its presence along the border,” he said.
“Hezbollah is in agreement on this issue,” he added.
A government source had previously said that Hezbollah informed Lebanese authorities it had accepted a ceasefire with Israel on September 27, the day an Israeli strike killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Previously, the Iran-backed militant group had said it would only accept a truce if there was also one with its Palestinian ally Hamas in Gaza.
Mikati also condemned attacks on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon as a “crime,” with peacekeepers targeted two days in a row by Israeli forces, according to Lebanese official media and the foreign ministry.
A year of hostilities has killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon and forced more than one million people to flee, according to Lebanese authorities.


Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’

Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’
Updated 11 October 2024
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Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’

Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’
  • Masoud Pezeshkian: ‘I would like to say to Israel: stop killing innocent people. Stop bombing residential buildings, people who have nothing anyway’

MOSCOW: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that Israel should “stop killing innocent people,” and that its actions in the Middle East were backed by the United States and the European Union.
Pezeshkian was speaking to a Russian state TV reporter on the sidelines of an international meeting in Turkmenistan.
Israel in recent weeks has sharply escalated its assault on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, including by killing its top leaders, sending ground troops into southern Lebanon and bombing the capital Beirut.
An Israeli strike late on Thursday in the heart of Beirut killed 22 people and injured more than 100, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel says the operations in Lebanon aim to allow tens of thousands of its residents to return home after being forced to leave northern Israel due to Hezbollah rocket fire over the past year.
Hezbollah is firing at Israel in support of its ally Hamas, which triggered Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza following an Oct. 7 attack on communities in southern Israel.
“I would like to say to Israel: stop killing innocent people. Stop bombing residential buildings, people who have nothing anyway,” said Pezeshkian, accusing Israel of violating every kind of international agreement.
“It does this because it knows that the US and the European Union are behind it,” he said.
The Middle East remains on high alert for further escalation in the region, awaiting
Israel’s response to an Iranian missile strike on Oct. 1.


Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis

Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis
Updated 11 October 2024
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Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis

Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis
  • Jordan’s King Abdullah will join the leaders of the so-called MED9 — including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia
  • Leaders will also focus on helping clinch a ceasefire deal between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Gaza strip

PAPHOS: The leaders of nine southern European Union countries and Jordan are meeting in Cyprus on Friday to come up with ways to de-escalate the crisis in the Middle East that is threatening to engulf Lebanon and trigger a wider humanitarian crisis.
Jordan’s King Abdullah will join the leaders of the so-called MED9 — including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia — as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to brainstorm initiatives aimed at protecting Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The leaders will also focus on helping clinch a ceasefire deal between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Gaza strip in line with a UN Security Council resolution adopted unanimously in June.
Cyprus’ government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said Thursday the Jordanian monarch’s presence at the meeting lends additional weight to the proceedings given his country’s role in helping peace efforts in the region.
The meeting comes amid reports of an international diplomatic effort to degrade Hezbollah’s political hold in Lebanon.
“We want the Lebanese people to decide who their leaders ought to be, bottom line, and that has been our position,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Wednesday. “We certainly don’t want to dictate to the people of Lebanon who their leader is, and we’re not going to ... we want them to be able to do it absent a terrorist organization putting a gun to their head, which is the situation that Lebanon has been in for decades now.”
“Ultimately, we hope that Hezbollah is degraded enough that they are less of a force in Lebanese politics,” he added.
According to Letymbiotis, King Abdullah will also discuss with the leaders way of further bolstering his country’s relations with the EU. The Jordanian monarch and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides will put forward a joint proposal to create a regional firefighting hub in Cyprus through the permanent deployment of fire-fighting aircraft on the island nation to respond to regional emergencies.
Christodoulides will also raise EU efforts to deal with migration flows through the adoption a new asylum policy that would more evenly share the distribution of asylum seekers through all EU members. Cyprus is considered a front-line country that receives a significantly high numbers of asylum seekers relative to its population.
Climate change is also on the agenda as the east Mediterranean and the Middle East are considered particularly vulnerable areas to temperatures changes.
Christodoulides will also highlight Cyprus’ role in helping deliver humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor as well as a waystation for the repatriation of third-country nationals evacuated from Lebanon.
According to Letymbiotis, more than 2,400 third-country nationals from 20 countries have so far used Cyprus as a transfer point to their homeland.


Lebanon says new Israel attack wounds UN peacekeepers

Lebanon says new Israel attack wounds UN peacekeepers
Updated 11 October 2024
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Lebanon says new Israel attack wounds UN peacekeepers

Lebanon says new Israel attack wounds UN peacekeepers
  • Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounces attack as a crime
  • Watchtowers and main UNIFIL base in Ras Naqura and Sri Lankan battalion’s base targeted

BEIRUT: Lebanon on Friday condemned an Israeli attack that it said wounded United Nations peacekeepers in the country’s south, after state media reported a second such attack in as many days.

In a statement, the foreign ministry condemned “the targeting... carried out by the Israeli army” on the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

It said the bombing targeted “watchtowers and the main UNIFIL base in Ras Naqura, and on the Sri Lankan battalion’s base, which led to a number of wounded.”

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced what he said was an attack on the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon on Friday as a crime.

He also said he had discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The official National News Agency said an Israeli “Merkava tank targeted one of the UNIFIL towers on the main road linking Tyre and Naqura,” wounding personnel from a Sri Lankan battalion.

It added that “enemy forces” also “fired an artillery shell, targeting the main entrance of the UNIFIL command center in Naqura, leading to damage to the entrance.”

UNIFIL did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.

On Thursday, UN peacekeepers said Israeli fire on their headquarters in south Lebanon wounded two Blue Helmets, sparking condemnation from European members of the mission.

Israel acknowledged its forces had opened fire in the area, saying the Hezbollah militants on whom it is waging an escalating war operate near UN posts.

UNIFIL, which has about 10,000 peacekeepers stationed in south Lebanon, has called for a ceasefire since an escalation between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on September 23, after almost a year of cross-border fire.

The peacekeepers did not suffer serious injuries Thursday “but they remain in hospital,” UNIFIL had said, while a spokeswoman said those wounded were from Indonesia, a major contributor of troops to the force.