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.


Iran’s oil minister visits key oil terminal amid Israel strike fears

Updated 8 sec ago
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Iran’s oil minister visits key oil terminal amid Israel strike fears

Iran’s oil minister visits key oil terminal amid Israel strike fears
TEHRAN: Iran’s Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad landed on Kharg island, the oil ministry’s news website Shana reported on Sunday, amid concerns that Israel could target Iran’s largest oil terminal there.
An Israeli military spokesman said on Saturday that Israel would retaliate, following last week’s missile attack by Tehran, “when the time is right.”
Following Iran’s attack, Axios cited Israeli officials as saying that Iran’s oil facilities could be hit in response. US President Joe Biden said on Friday that he did not think Israel had yet concluded how to respond.
“Paknejad arrived this morning in order to visit the oil facilities and meet operational staff located on Kharg island,” Shana reported, adding that the oil terminal there has the capacity to store 23 million barrels of crude.
China, which does not recognize US sanctions, is Tehran’s main client and according to analysts imported 1.2 to 1.4 million barrels per day from Iran in the first half of 2024.

Israel army encircles Gaza’s Jabaliya as Hamas rebuilds

Israel army encircles Gaza’s Jabaliya as Hamas rebuilds
Updated 36 min 18 sec ago
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Israel army encircles Gaza’s Jabaliya as Hamas rebuilds

Israel army encircles Gaza’s Jabaliya as Hamas rebuilds
  • Israeli forces have bombarded Jabaliya regularly since the war in Gaza started, displacing almost all of its residents

GAZA: The Israeli military said Sunday its forces surrounded the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza in response to indications Hamas was rebuilding despite nearly a year of strikes and fighting.
“The troops of the 401st Brigade and the 460th Brigade have successfully encircled the area and are currently continuing to operate in the area,” the military said in a statement.
The military said it had intelligence indicating the “presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the area of Jabaliya... as well as efforts by Hamas to rebuild its operational capabilities in the area.”
“Prior to and during the operation, the IAF (air force) struck dozens of military targets in the area to assist IDF (army) ground troops,” the military said, adding targets hit were weapons storage facilities, underground infrastructure sites and other militant infrastructure sites.
Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that multiple strikes rocked Jabaliya through the night and there were many casualties.
Israeli forces have bombarded Jabaliya regularly since the war in Gaza started, displacing almost all of its residents.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.


UAE delivers $100 mln humanitarian aid for Lebanon

UAE delivers $100 mln humanitarian aid for Lebanon
Updated 38 min 22 sec ago
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UAE delivers $100 mln humanitarian aid for Lebanon

UAE delivers $100 mln humanitarian aid for Lebanon
  • UAE dispatches aircraft carrying 40 tonnes of urgent medical aid to Lebanon
  • Aid campaign held in collaboration with WHO

DUBAI: The UAE has launched a $100 million relief campaign to support the people of Lebanon amid the ongoing Israeli escalation, state news agency WAM reported. 

Under the name “UAE stands with Lebanon”, the country, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), dispatched on Friday an aircraft carrying 40 tonnes of urgent medical aid to Lebanon.

Reem bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy, Minister of State for International Cooperation, said the flight reflects UAE’s commitment to support the war-impacted communities. 

She highlighted the UAE’s vision to provide all possible humanitarian aid to meet critical needs of the most vulnerable. 

Meanwhile, the UAE has continued to provide humanitarian and relief assistance to residents of the Gaza Strip as part of “Operation Chivalrous Knight 3”.

On Friday, it secured shelter tents and essential supplies for displaced families in Gaza.

As part of the relief campaign, the UAE has also set up a floating hospital in Egypt’s Al-Arish and another field hospital in Rafah to provide medical services for the injured Palestinians amid the war on Gaza.


After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble

After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble
Updated 06 October 2024
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After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble

After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble
  • Year of war generates at least 42 million tons of rubble
  • Piled up, rubble would fill Great Pyramid of Giza 11 times

KHAN YOUNIS: In the ruins of his two-story home, 11-year-old Mohammed gathers chunks of the fallen roof into a broken pail and pounds them into gravel which his father will use to make gravestones for victims of the Gaza war.
“We get the rubble not to build houses, no, but for tombstones and graves — from one misery to another,” his father, former construction worker Jihad Shamali, 42, says as he cuts through metal salvaged from their home in the southern city of Khan Younis, damaged during an Israeli raid in April.
The work is hard, and at times grim. In March, the family built a tomb for one of Shamali’s sons, Ismail, killed while running household errands.
But it is also a tiny part of the efforts starting to take shape to deal with the rubble left by Israel’s military campaign to eliminate Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The United Nations estimates there is over 42 million tons of debris, including both shattered edifices that are still standing and flattened buildings.
That is 14 times the amount of rubble accumulated in Gaza between 2008 and the war’s start a year ago, and over five times the amount left by the 2016-17 Battle of Mosul in Iraq, the UN said.
Piled up, it would fill the Great Pyramid of Giza — Egypt’s largest — 11 times. And it is growing daily.
The UN is trying to help as Gazan authorities consider how to deal with the rubble, three UN officials said.
A UN-led Debris Management Working Group plans a pilot project with Palestinian authorities in Khan Younis and the central Gazan city of Deir El-Balah to start clearing roadside debris this month.
“The challenges are huge,” said Alessandro Mrakic, the Gaza Office head for the United Nations’ Development Programme (UNDP) which is co-chairing the working group. “It’s going to be a massive operation, but at the same time, it’s important that we start now.”
Israel’s military has said Hamas fighters hide among civilians and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians.
Asked about the debris, Israel’s military unit COGAT said it aimed to improve waste-handling and would work with the UN to expand those efforts. Mrakic said coordination with Israel was excellent but detailed discussions on future plans were yet to take place.

Tents amid the ruins
Israel began its offensive after Hamas militants entered Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killed about 1,200 Israelis and took over 250 people hostage.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in a year of conflict, Palestinian health authorities say.
On the ground, wreckage is piled high above pedestrians and donkey carts on dusty narrow paths that were once busy roads.
“Who is going to come here and clear the rubble for us? No-one. Therefore, we did that ourselves,” taxi driver Yusri Abu Shabab said, having cleared enough debris from his Khan Younis home to erect a tent.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s pre-war structures — over 163,000 buildings — have been damaged or flattened, according to UN satellite data. Around a third were high-rise buildings.
After a seven-week war in Gaza in 2014, UNDP and its partners cleared 3 million tons of debris — 7 percent of the total now. Mrakic cited an unpublished preliminary estimate that it would cost $280 million to clear 10 million tons, implying around $1.2 billion if the war stopped now.
A UN estimate from April suggested it would take 14 years to clear the rubble.

Concealed bodies
The debris contains unrecovered bodies, as many as 10,000 according to the Palestinian health ministry, and unexploded bombs, Mrakic said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the threat is “pervasive” and UN officials say some of the debris poses a big injury risk.
Nizar Zurub, from Khan Younis, lives with his son in a home where only a roof remains, hanging at a precarious angle.
The United Nations Environment Programme said an estimated 2.3 million tons of debris might be contaminated, citing an assessment of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, some of which have been hit.
Asbestos fibers can cause larynx, ovarian and lung cancer when inhaled.
The World Health Organization has recorded nearly a million cases of acute respiratory infections in Gaza in the past year, without saying how many are linked to dust.
WHO spokesperson Bisma Akbar said dust was a “significant concern,” and could contaminate water and soil and lead to lung disease.
Doctors fear a rise in cancers and birth defects from leaking metals in coming decades. Snake and scorpion bites and skin infections from sandflies are a concern, a UNEP spokesperson said.

Land and equipment shortages
Gaza’s rubble has previously been used to help build seaports. The UN hopes now to recycle a portion for road networks and bolstering the shoreline.
Gaza, which had a pre-war population of 2.3 million crammed into an area 45 km (28 miles) long and 10 km wide, lacks the space needed for disposal, the UNDP says.
Landfills are now in an Israeli military zone. Israel’s COGAT said they were in a restricted area but that access would be granted.
More recycling means more money to fund equipment such as industrial crushers, Mrakic said. They would have to enter via crossing points controlled by Israel.
Government officials report fuel and machinery shortages because of Israeli restrictions that slow clear-up efforts. The UNEP spokesperson said prolonged approval processes were a “major bottleneck.”
Israel did not specifically comment on allegations it was restricting machinery.
The UNEP says it needs owners’ permission to remove debris, yet the scale of destruction has blurred property boundaries, and some property records have been lost during the war.
Several donors have expressed interest in helping since a Palestinian government-hosted meeting in the West Bank on Aug. 12, Mrakic said, without naming them.
A UN official, requesting anonymity to avoid undermining ongoing efforts, said: “Everybody’s concerned whether to invest in rebuilding Gaza if there is no political solution in place.”


Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates

Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates
Updated 06 October 2024
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Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates

Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates
  • The current military escalation unfolds amid fears that fighting could spread in the region and comes as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza nears the grim one-year mark

It was a year ago when Jomana Siddiqui visited Lebanon, where her father was born — and is now buried. She planned to return there soon; this time, she thought, she would take her two teenage daughters.
Instead, Siddiqui, who lives in California, now worries about relatives there. As she watches from afar the violence and the recent escalation in Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Siddiqui thinks about the people she met during her visit, the kindness and generosity she encountered.
She thinks about her father’s grave — when, or if, she will get to visit it again. Her voice cracks with emotions. It’s been gut-wrenching, she said.
“It’s like the universal story of the Lebanese people,” she said. “They have to keep leaving and not knowing when they can come back.”
From the United States to South Africa, Cyprus, Brazil and beyond, many members of Lebanon’s far-flung and large diaspora are contending with the ripples of the violence — grieving, gripped by fear for loved ones and for their homeland, trying to find ways to help.
Some 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians and fighters of the militant group Hezbollah, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September, saying it aims to push Hezbollah away from the countries’ shared border.
For Lina Kayat, who moved to South Africa almost 36 years ago but still has a big family in Lebanon, the violence and tensions there have echoes of earlier turbulent chapters.
“We lived through a civil war for a long time; I was like seven years old,” she said. “It feels like history repeating itself. ... It’s the unknown of who is going to get killed next.”
Kayat, who lives in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban, speaks daily to her family, including her mother and her sister.
“They are very scared and very worried about what is going to happen,” she said.
Generations of Lebanese have grappled with whether to leave to seek better opportunities or escape various times of tumult — from a 15-year-old civil war to military occupations, bombings and political assassinations — or stay in a Lebanon that despite its numerous scars retains its allure for many. Lebanon — home to multiple religious groups, including Christians and Sunni and Shiite Muslims — takes pride in its large emigrant communities, which include successful businessmen and celebrities of Lebanese heritage.
The current military escalation unfolds amid fears that fighting could spread in the region and comes as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza nears the grim one-year mark.
“It happening on top of Gaza is almost too much to bear,” said James Zogby, president of the Washington D.C.-based Arab American Institute.
“It almost makes you physically ill just trying to fathom the extent of the trauma,” added Zogby, whose father was born in Lebanon.
Already, Lebanon had been on edge and struggling under the weight of an economic meltdown, the fallout from a massive 2020 port explosion and other crises. It’s been without a president for two years.
Against such a somber backdrop, Zogby wonders what will become of the displaced.
“Who’s going to care for them? Where do the health services come from ... when the country is already as overstretched as it is and on the verge of collapse?” he said. “At what point does it finally collapse? And who will care?”
Fueling the pain, he said, is his anger at the US response to the devastation in Gaza and now the escalation in Lebanon.
“There’s a sense of powerlessness, a sense of almost despair that, you know, it can get out of control. And as long as nothing here happens to restrain it, it will get worse.”
Akram Khater, director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University, said that since the earliest diaspora, Lebanese who left have been contributing heavily to the economic well-being of Lebanon, sending large amounts of remittances.
Watching the escalation in Lebanon, where he was born and raised, has been re-traumatizing, he said.
“I find myself amidst a swirl of emotions that are unresolved and that derive from this recurring nightmare,” he said. “Yet, even amidst this our community comes together to create solidarity and provide solace and comfort for each other.”
Recently, hundreds of Lebanese flags filled the night sky in Dearborn, Michigan, as some attended a rally to support Lebanon and protest the Israeli offensive there.
At Sao Paulo’s international airport, two Lebanese brothers who’ve been living in Brazil, recently had a solemn reunion. They said eight of their loved ones — their sister, brother-in-law, four of their nephews and two of their nephews’ children — were killed in Lebanon in one of the attacks.
Hussein Zeineddine, one of the brothers, had been on vacation with his family in southern Lebanon when the area was hit by Israeli attacks, he told The Associated Press. He and his family moved to a safer location until they could book flights back to Brazil. “My wife was crying and asking us to leave. We left just with basic items. And then, shortly after, my sister’s house was bombed,” he said after his arrival.
“It will be tough here. But it will be tougher for people there,” he said.
In Cyprus, Rosaline Ghoukassian said the overwhelming majority of Lebanese don’t want this war. She relocated to Cyprus with her husband Raffi Garabedian and their daughter Maria after the 2020 ammonium nitrate explosion in Beirut’s port that killed more than 200 people. She said she’d been disenchanted with Lebanon’s political leadership and also lamented Hezbollah’s influence.
“We knew this was coming,” she said. “The problem is in Lebanon. ... Because we don’t have a good government.”
Their decision to leave Lebanon was never about money but safety, as their daughter explained in a letter she wrote in class in Cyprus: “I don’t want to go there because I was saved in the explosion, and I don’t want to go live there because I don’t want to die.”
The family chose to stay.
“I’m not here to make thousands of euros. No. I’m here just to live. To be happy, to be safe. This is what I want. To live,” Garabedian said.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which the militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. Since then, Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
Back in California, Siddiqui said coping with it all has been challenging.
“You grab the phone; you hesitate to open it because you’re afraid of what you’re going to see, but you kind of have to.”
She talks to friends and others in her circle who can relate.
“We all feel kind of sad, depressed, helpless, rundown,” she said. “We can do things like fundraise and donate and protest or anything like that, but at the end of the day, it still weighs on you.”