Iran’s Pezeshkian says Tehran ready to work with world powers to resolve nuclear standoff

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addresses world leaders during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on September 24, 2024 in New York City. (AFP)
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addresses world leaders during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on September 24, 2024 in New York City. (AFP)
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Updated 25 September 2024
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Iran’s Pezeshkian says Tehran ready to work with world powers to resolve nuclear standoff

Iran’s Pezeshkian says Tehran ready to work with world powers to resolve nuclear standoff
  • Iran has brokered ongoing secret talks between Russia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels to transfer anti-ship missiles to that militant group, three Western and regional sources said, a development that highlights Tehran’s deepening ties to Moscow

UNITED NATIONS: Iran is ready to end its nuclear standoff with the West, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, while calling for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine through dialogue.
Iran’s clerical establishment hopes to see an easing of US sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.
Then-President Donald Trump abandoned Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers in 2018 and reimposed tough sanctions on Iran. Efforts to revive the pact have failed.
Tehran’s relations with the West have worsened since the Iranian-backed Hamas militant group attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7 and as Tehran has increased its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Pezeshkian, a relatively moderate politician who took office in August promising a pragmatic foreign policy, criticized Iran’s arch-foe Israel for what he called “its genocide in Gaza.”
“It is imperative that the international community should immediately ... secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and bring an end to the desperate barbarism of Israel in Lebanon, before it engulfs the region and the world,” he said.
An Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior commander of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon on Tuesday as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a full-fledged war.
“We seek peace for all and have no intention of conflict with any country ... Iran opposes war and emphasizes the need for an immediate cessation of military conflict in Ukraine,” Pezeshkian said.
Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran since the start of its war with Ukraine and has said it is preparing to sign a wide-ranging cooperation agreement with the Islamic state.
Iran has brokered ongoing secret talks between Russia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels to transfer anti-ship missiles to that militant group, three Western and regional sources said, a development that highlights Tehran’s deepening ties to Moscow.

 


US, France, Germany, UK urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria: joint statement

US, France, Germany, UK urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria: joint statement
Updated 5 sec ago
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US, France, Germany, UK urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria: joint statement

US, France, Germany, UK urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria: joint statement

WASHINGTON: The United States and its allies France, Germany and Britain called Sunday for “de-escalation” in Syria and urged in a joint statement for the protection of civilians and infrastructure.
“The current escalation only underscores the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution to the conflict, in line with UNSCR 2254,” read a statement issued by the US State Department, referencing the 2015 UN resolution that endorsed a peace process in Syria.

 


Britain ups Gaza aid ahead of donor conference

Britain ups Gaza aid ahead of donor conference
Updated 25 min 8 sec ago
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Britain ups Gaza aid ahead of donor conference

Britain ups Gaza aid ahead of donor conference
  • Aid organizations accuse Israel of preventing trucks from entering Gaza in large enough numbers to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn territory

LONDON: Britain will provide an additional 19 million pounds ($24 million) in humanitarian aid to Gaza, the international development minister said Monday, calling for Israel to give greater access ahead of a key conference on the conflict.
“Gazans are in desperate need of food, and shelter with the onset of winter,” the minister, Anneliese Dodds, said in a statement as she headed for a three-day visit to the region, including an international conference in Cairo Monday on the Gaza Strip’s aid needs.
“The Cairo conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis,” she added.
“Israel must immediately act to ensure unimpeded aid access to Gaza.”

Anneliese Dodds. (AFP file photo)

Aid organizations accuse Israel of preventing trucks from entering Gaza in large enough numbers to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn territory.
The new UK funding will be split into 12 million pounds for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP), and seven million pounds for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the statement said.
UNRWA announced Sunday it had halted the delivery of aid through the key Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza because of safety fears, saying the situation had become “impossible.”
Britain has committed to spending a total of 99 million pounds this year in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territories, the government said.
After Dodds’s Cairo stop, the minister is to travel to the Palestinian territories and Israel.
Islamist militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1,207 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 44,429 in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
 

 


Airstrikes in northwestern Syria kill 25 people, says Syria’s White Helmets

Airstrikes in northwestern Syria kill 25 people, says Syria’s White Helmets
Updated 02 December 2024
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Airstrikes in northwestern Syria kill 25 people, says Syria’s White Helmets

Airstrikes in northwestern Syria kill 25 people, says Syria’s White Helmets
  • The Syria offensive began Wednesday, the same day a truce between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah came into effect

DAMASCUS: The Syrian rescue service known as the White Helmets said early on Monday on X that at least 25 people have been killed in northwestern Syria in airstrikes carried out by the Syrian government and Russia on Sunday.

 


In Blinken call, Turkiye backs moves to ease Syria tension

In Blinken call, Turkiye backs moves to ease Syria tension
Updated 02 December 2024
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In Blinken call, Turkiye backs moves to ease Syria tension

In Blinken call, Turkiye backs moves to ease Syria tension
  • The flareup has also seen pro-Turkish militants groups attacking both government forces and Kurdish YPG fighters in and around the northern Aleppo province over the weekend, a Syrian war monitor said

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s top diplomat and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Sunday about the “rapidly developing” conflict in Syria where militants have made gains.
Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed by telephone “the need for de-escalation and the protection of civilian lives and infrastructure in Aleppo and elsewhere,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The call came after Syrian militants and their Turkish-backed allies launched their biggest offensive in years, seizing control of Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo from forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
According to a Turkish foreign ministry source, Fidan told Blinken Ankara was “against any development that would increase instability in the region” and said Turkiye would “support moves to reduce the tension in Syria.”
He also said “the political process between the regime and the opposition should be finalized” to ensure peace in Syria while insisting that Ankara would “never allow terrorist activities against Turkiye nor against Syrian civilians.”
The flareup has also seen pro-Turkish militant groups attacking government forces and Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) fighters in and around Aleppo, a Syrian war monitor said.
Turkiye sees the YPG as an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has led a decades-long insurgency against Ankara.
The Syria offensive began Wednesday, the same day a truce between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah came into effect.
More than 400 people have so far been killed in the offensive, most of them combatants, a Syrian war monitor said.
The State Department said the two also discussed “humanitarian efforts in Gaza and the need to bring the war to an end” as well as efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Fidan said Israel “should keep its promises in order for the Lebanon ceasefire to become permanent” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza “as soon as possible.”
The pair also discussed Ukraine and South Caucasus, the source said.

 


Russia says helping Syrian army ‘repel’ insurgents in three northern provinces

Russia says helping Syrian army ‘repel’ insurgents in three northern provinces
Updated 02 December 2024
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Russia says helping Syrian army ‘repel’ insurgents in three northern provinces

Russia says helping Syrian army ‘repel’ insurgents in three northern provinces
  • Russia launched airstrikes on militant targets in Aleppo for the first time since 2016

MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday said it was helping the Syrian army “repel” armed insurgents in three northern provinces, as Moscow seeks to support the government led by its ally Bashar al-Assad.
An Islamist-dominated militant alliance launched an offensive against the Syrian government on Wednesday, with Syrian forces losing control of the city of Aleppo on Sunday, according to a war monitor.
“The Syrian Arab Army, with the assistance of the Russian Aerospace Forces, is continuing its operation to repel terrorist aggression in the provinces of Idlib, Hama and Aleppo,” the Russian military said in a briefing on its website.
“Over the past day, missile and bombing strikes were carried out on places where militants and equipment were gathered,” it said in the same briefing, without saying where or by whom.
It said at least “320 militants were destroyed.”
Russia announced earlier this week that it was bombing militant targets in the war-torn country, with Russian warplanes striking parts of Aleppo — Syria’s second city — for the first time since 2016, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Moscow is Syrian leader Assad’s most important military backer, having turned the tide of the civil war in his favor when it intervened in 2015.