SAUDI Arabia will work together with Russia to find a solution for the crisis in Syria and settle the issue of Syrian refugees, a top Saudi diplomat says.
Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Turki bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer Al Saud made the remarks in a Friday interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, and expressed hope Moscow would play a constructive role in settling the Syrian conflict that has dragged on for over four years.
The Saudi official also noted that Riyadh is prepared to accept more Syrian refugees if necessary. He claimed that since 2011, the kingdom has allocated $700 million in financial aid to the Syrian refugees, particularly to those living in camps in neighbouring Jordan and Lebanon.
The comments come as Riyadh is widely believed to be one of the main supporters of the foreign-backed terrorists who have been wreaking havoc in Syria since March 2011. The conflict in Syria has reportedly claimed about 250,000 lives so far. It has forced over four million Syrians to take refuge in neighbouring countries.
More than 7.2 million others have also been displaced within the Arab country, according to the United Nations. Russia has reportedly sent artillery units and tanks as well as dozens of personnel to Syria in recent days. At least seven giant Russian Antonov An-124 military transport aircraft took off from a base in Russia during the past week to transport equipment to Syria, using Iranian and Iraqi air corridors.
About 200 Russian marines and six Russian howitzers now guard an air base in Syria’s northwestern city of Latakia, according to American intelligence agencies. On Friday, the Pentagon said four Russian fighter jets had arrived in Syria and been stationed at the base.
Also on Friday, the US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu held high-level military talks on the telephone to discuss mechanisms in order to avoid accidental encounters between their forces in Syria.
‘The secretary and the minister talked about areas where the United States and Russia’s perspectives overlap and areas of divergence,’ Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said: ‘The necessity to coordinate bilateral and multilateral efforts to combat international terrorism was at the centre of attention.’
Moscow and Washington have major differences over the crisis in Syria. While the Kremlin lends support to Damascus in its fight against Daesh terrorists, the White House seeks a ‘political transition’ without the presence of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
l The United Nations has accused the army of Libya’s internationally recognised government on Sunday of deliberately trying to sabotage crunch peace talks with a new offensive in second city Benghazi. The UN Support Mission in Libya called for an immediate halt to the offensive announced by controversial army chief Khalifa Haftar on Saturday to give peace talks between the country’s rival parliaments a chance.
UNSMIL said it ‘strongly condemns the military escalation in Benghazi’. ‘The air strikes are a clear attempt to undermine and derail the ongoing efforts to end the conflict at a time when the negotiations have entered a final and most critical stage,’ it said. The announcement of the offensive dubbed Operation Two-Edged Sword came on the eve of a deadline for Libya’s rival parliaments to reach agreement on a UN-brokered plan for a unified government for the North African nation.
The country has had rival administrations since August last year when a militia alliance overran the capital forcing the recognised government to seek refuge in the east. UN envoy Bernardino Leon has expressed hope that the rival sides will finally sign a deal in the Morocco seaside resort of Skhirat later on Sunday after months of rejected proposals. UNSMIL called an ‘immediate cessation of hostilities in Benghazi and across Libya… to give the ongoing dialogue in Skhirat the chance to successfully conclude in the coming hours.’
• The head of the UN atomic watchdog held talks Sunday with top officials in Tehran about unresolved concerns over previous ‘possible military dimensions’ to Iran’s nuclear programme. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano’s visit comes as a December 15 deadline looms for completion of its long-running inquiry into allegations that at least until 2003, Iran conducted research into how to build a bomb.
Iran has said the accusations – including that it carried out explosives tests at the Parchin military base – are groundless and based on malicious intelligence provided by its enemies. Amano held talks with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani as well as atomic agency chief Ali Akbar Salehi.
Under a deal sealed in July with six world powers aimed at ending a 13-year standoff, Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear activities that experts say would make any dash to produce a weapon all but impossible. Amano also addressed a 12-member committee set up by the Iranian parliament to examine the deal but the meeting was held behind closed doors.
Rouhani was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as telling Amano that Iran would implement the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and ‘we hope that you will fairly supervise the accord’s implementation’.
”We do not seek any demand beyond the safeguards agreement between Iran and the agency,’ Iran’s president added, referring to IAEA verification measures, arguing that the ‘legitimacy of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities had been proven under past supervision’.
Rouhani also said Iran was committed to voluntary implementation of an additional protocol under which the IAEA is granted access and information about states’ nuclear sites. As of June 2015, additional protocols were in force with 126 countries and another 20 are signatories but have yet to bring it into force, according to the IAEA. Ahead of Amano’s visit, the IAEA said the discussions in Tehran would ‘focus on… clarification of past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear programme.’
On September 9, the UN agency said Iran must resolve ambiguities over its past nuclear activities before crippling UN and Western sanctions can be lifted. The IAEA will also have the task of confirming that Iran has scaled down its nuclear activities in accordance with the deal struck with Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany.
Iranian lawmakers are in the final stages of reviewing the text of the nuclear agreement. It is not clear if there will be a parliamentary vote. Earlier this month in the United States, the Republican-led House of Representatives rejected the nuclear deal in a purely symbolic vote held a day after the Senate cleared the way for the accord to come into force.
• Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says the solution to the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe lies in a ‘serious’ fight against terrorism. The solution to this problem is to seriously fight and counter terrorism,’ Rouhani said in a meeting with the visiting Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Sunday.
The remarks by the Iranian president against the backdrop of an unprecedented inflow of refugees mainly from war-wracked countries to Europe. The UN has predicted a dramatic increase in the number of refugees heading for Europe. ‘In 2015, the UNHCR anticipates that approximately 400,000 new arrivals will seek international protection in Europe via the Mediterranean. In 2016, this number could reach 450,000 or more.’
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani received Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on September 20, 2015. ‘Terrorism should not be viewed as a problem limited to our region; rather it (should be considered as) a global scourge and fighting it requires global determination,’ Rouhani said. He noted that most challenges in the Middle East have been imposed from outside the region.
Rouhani also referred to relations between Iran and the Netherlands, saying the two countries enjoy sufficient potential to develop cooperation in the economic, cultural and political fields. Iran and the Netherlands can also closely cooperate and have consultations on various regional issues and their settlement,’ he said.
Rouhani highlighted the Dutch rotating presidency of the European Union from the beginning of 2016, saying: ‘The Netherlands, as the EU chair, could play a steering and highly influential role in the relations between Iran and the Union in the post-sanction era.’
Koenders, for his part, said Tehran and Amsterdam can broaden their cooperation in the light of the recent nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers. He further noted that the implementation of the nuclear agreement will be one of the priorities of the Netherlands during its presidency of the EU.
