Archive for month: September, 2014

Ansarullah revolutionaries in Yemen have signed a security agreement that calls for them to disarm and pull out of the areas they have seized over the past months.

On Saturday, the Ansarullah activists, also known as Houthis, signed the accord as part of a UN-mediated comprehensive agreement with pro-government Salafist Islah party and other parties.

Houthi revolutionaries have the upper hand in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, where they are seen as the strongest force on the ground. They have stationed thousands of troops and disarmed army barracks there.

According to Yemeni officials, 340 people were killed in week-long clashes between Ansarullah fighters of the Shia Houthi movement and Salafist militants backed by Major General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who is former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh’s stepbrother.
Ansarullah fighters have been staging demonstrations in the capital for more than a month, demanding the formation of a new government.

Earlier this month, the Yemeni government and the revolutionary forces signed an agreement on the formation of a new cabinet of technocrats within a month and the restoration of fuel subsidies.

Ansarullah fighters are affiliated to Yemen’s Shia Houthi movement, which draws its name from the tribe of its founding leader, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi.

The Ansarullah movement played a key role in the popular revolution that forced the ex-dictator to step down.

MKA/NN/AS

A senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official says terrorism can be uprooted in the Middle East only through a realistic approach.

“The issues and developments in the region should be dealt with realistically, and terrorism cannot be uprooted if realities of the region are not taken into consideration,” Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with Ina Marčiulionytė, a top Lithuanian Foreign Ministry official, on Saturday.

He warned against “arbitrary acts” outside the framework of the international law in the fight against terrorism, saying such measures would be “costly” for both the Middle East and the entire world community.

Amir-Abdollahian also noted that Iran is “not optimistic” about the future of the so-called US-led coalition meant for fighting the ISIL militants.

In the meeting, the Lithuanian official also highlighted Iran’s active and instrumental role in the Middle East and called for consultations between Tehran and Vilnius on regional developments.

The ISIL terrorists control large areas of Syria’s east and north. The ISIL sent its Takfiri militants into Iraq in June, seizing large parts of land straddling the border between Syria and Iraq.

The terrorists have committed heinous crimes and threatened all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and Izadi Kurds, during their advances.

Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama authorized the use of airstrikes against ISIL terrorists in Iraq. Meanwhile, the United States and five Arab countries – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan – have reportedly carried out at least 200 airstrikes against the ISIL militants operating inside Syria.

AR/KA/SS

A political commentator says the ongoing deadly crisis in Syria and Iraq is to blame on foreign governments for their support of militants operating in the two Middle Eastern nations, Press TV reports.

“I think … the crisis in Syria and Iraq has always been an insurrection fomented from abroad in recent years. [The crises] are not indigenous, but were imported into the country for reasons of imperialism,” Webster Griffin Tarpley, an author and historian in Washington, told Press TV in an interview on Saturday.

Tarpley referred to Turkey as the first country that has supplied the ISIL with “weapons, money and recruits,” saying, “Turks are not tightly enforcing their border. They are letting the ISIS (ISIL) come and go, and other terrorist groups are also coming and going. So this will be the first place to start and they have to close the border.”

The political commentator named “Saudi Arabia, Qatar, [Persian] Gulf states, [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council and Arab monarchies” as the main sources of financial support for the ISIL terrorists.

Regarding the recruitment of militants in Syria, Tarpley blamed the United States for having trained “thousands” of militants to fight against the government of Syria.

The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, control large parts of Syria’s northern territory.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to reports, the United States and its regional allies – especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – are supporting the militants operating inside the country.

According to the United Nations, more than 190,000 people have been killed and millions displaced due to the turmoil that has gripped Syria for over three years.

YH/KA/SS

When US President Barack Obama addressed the UN General Assembly Wednesday, he was outspoken in his criticism of Russia for “bullying” Ukraine, Syria for its “brutality” towards its own people, and terrorists of all political stripes for the death and destruction plaguing Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia.

But as the New York Times rightly pointed out, Obama made only a “fleeting” reference to Israel and Palestine in his 47-minute speech to the world body.

Nadia Hijab, executive director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, told IPS much of what Obama said about the “brutality” of the Assad regime in Syria and his criticism of “a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another” applies directly to Israel.

But he simply paid lip service to “the principle” that two states would make the region and the world more just without any indication of what the US might do – or stop doing, she added.

Addressing the US president directly, Hijab said: “Mr. Obama, the world would be a lot more just, if the US just stopped footing the bill for Israel’s gross violations of human rights and international law.”

In his speech, replete with political double standards, Obama avoided mentioning the killings and devastation caused by Israel with its relentless bombings and air strikes in Gaza – deploying weapons provided mostly by the United States.

“Russian aggression in Europe”, he said, “recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition” (read: Israel and its illegal settlements in the occupied territories).

“The brutality of terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness” (read: the brutality of Israel in Gaza in 2014 and the killings of over 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians).

Each of these problems demands urgent attention. But they are also symptoms of a broader problem – the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world, he added.

Obama also told delegates there is a vision of the world in which might makes right – a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another (read: Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War and its determination to hold onto the spoils of war despite Security Council resolutions to the contrary.)

Obama said: “America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might – that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones, and that people should be able to choose their own future” (read: a US-armed Israel, which used its prodigious military strength to prove might is right).

And these are simple truths, but they must be defended, he added.

Obama also said America is pursuing a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue, as part of its commitment to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and pursue the peace and security of a world without them (read: Israel, the only regime in the Middle East with nuclear weapons and the US’ refusal or reluctance to push for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.)

Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, told IPS it is interesting that Obama wants to insulate the Israel-Palestine conflict from the recent crises in the Middle East.

“Is that possible?” he asked.

“Has Israeli occupation of Palestine not been one of the main points of radicalization of young people in the region?” asked Prashad, referring to Obama’s concern over the rise in radicalism among youth, specifically in the Middle East.

“What is remarkable and [bears] mentioning is that despite the tension in the region, despite the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, despite the long and forbidding occupation, despite all this, the Palestinians are yet reasonable and willing to sit and have a debate,” said Prashad, author of ‘Arab Spring, Libyan Winter’.

He said there remains, even in psycho-socially battered Gaza, a consensus for a political solution. This the President should have mentioned, he added.

At the conclusion of his speech, Obama said the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable. “We cannot afford to turn away from this effort – not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza.”

“So long as I am President, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region and the world will be more just and more safe with two states living side by side, in peace and security,” he added.

Prashad told IPS Obama addressed the rightward turn in Israeli society, and spoke to this toxic social agenda that is against peace and against negotiations.

This second part, which he did say, is very important.

“But it is lessened by the lack of the first point: that the Palestinians remain reasonable despite the war that batters them and the crises around them.”

AHT/HRJ

 

A group of disabled Ukrainian veterans and pacifists have staged a peace rally in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, to protest against a potential war with neighboring Russia.

Nearly 3,000 protesters, including Paralympic champions, community activists, political statesmen as well as military veterans returning from the zone of conflict with pro-Russia forces in east Ukraine took part in the rally in the center of Kiev on Saturday to also call for an end to the fighting between Ukrainian troops and the pro-Russians, RIA Novosti reported.

The rally participants said continued armed clashes will only add to the number of disabled people in the community.

According to the report, police and representatives of Ukraine’s Security Service (SSU) brutally suppressed a “March of Peace” in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia.

“About 1,500 people came to Zaporizhia. They were not allowed to speak against war,” the report quoted Igor Sysoenko, the chairman of the non-government organization Youth, Society and Power, as saying. 

The five-month conflict in eastern Ukraine officially came to an end on September 5, since which time a shaky ceasefire has been holding.

Both sides, however, have accused the other of violating the ceasefire pact.

Fighting between Ukrainian military forces and pro-Russia groups has so far left at least 3,500 people dead.

MFB/HJL/SS