‘A cold cell for being a journalist’: Husband of US-Russian national Alsu Kurmasheva calls for her release

‘A cold cell for being a journalist’: Husband of US-Russian national Alsu Kurmasheva calls for her release

Post By World Czech Republic, diplomacy, Europe, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, journalists, media, Russia, USA

Alsu Kurmasheva is a dual US-Russian citizen and journalist who has been detained by Russia since October 18, charged with failing to register as a “foreign agent” despite having travelled to Russia for a family emergency. She faces up to five years in prison if convicted. Her husband has called for the State Department to designate her as “wrongfully detained”. “She is a US citizen and has the same rights as any US citizen,” he says.

“Alsu Kurmasheva’s arrest is the most egregious instance to date of the abusive use of Russia’s foreign agents’ legislation against independent press,” the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in an October statement on her case.

Russia’s expanded law on foreign agents, which now vaguely defines them as anyone “under foreign influence”, has come under fire from human rights groups and media organisations since it entered into force on December 1, 2022. The law’s previous iteration required prosecutors to prove a “foreign agent” had received financial or other material assistance from abroad; the new measures give authorities much greater latitude.

Kurmasheva, an editor with the Tatar-Bashkir Service of US-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) – sister station to Voice of America – lives in Prague with her husband and two teenage daughters. She traveled to Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan, on May 20 to visit her ailing mother. She was awaiting her flight home at Kazan airport on June 2 when her name was called out over the loudspeaker. Authorities briefly took her into custody and confiscated both her US and Russian passports, preventing her from leaving the country.

“At that point she wasn’t a suspect, but they took both passports and her phone,” said her husband, Pavel Butorin. “It wasn’t until a couple of days later that she was charged with not registering her US passport,” which is now a criminal offense in Russia.

Kurmasheva completed the necessary paperwork but was made to remain in Kazan for the next four months, when she was eventually fined 10,000 rubles (about $105) on October 11 for failing to register her passport initially. She was still awaiting the return of her travel documents on October 18 when “big men in black” came to her door and took her away, Butorin said.

She has been in detention ever since.

No official word from Russia

Kurmasheva was formally charged on October 26 with the much more serious offence of failing to register as a foreign agent under the expanded law. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison.

A Russian court ordered late last month that Kurmasheva remain in detention until December 5.

“This offense that she has been charged with is not a violent crime,” Butorin said. “But the judge denied the request for house arrest pending trial.”

The decision to charge her under the foreign agent statute is all the more surprising because she was travelling not as a journalist but on a family-related matter, he said.

“She was there in her personal capacity on what was supposed to be a short trip, two weeks at the most, to help her mom.”

He suspects there is a “clear connection” between Kurmasheva’s detention and her role as a journalist, notably since Russia has designated the Tatar-Bashkir Service for which she works as a “foreign agent” media organisation. Much of her career, however, has focused on advancing Tatar language and culture.

“She’s not an agent of any government, certainly not an agent of the US government,” Butorin said. “She’s a journalist. And we want her released as soon as possible.”

Butorin, who also works in media, is director of Current Time, RFE/RL’s 24-hour Russian-language TV and digital news platform.

He said he hopes the State Department will see fit to designate Kurmasheva as a “wrongfully detained person”, which would allow her case to be transferred to the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA), unlocking both US resources and expertise. SPEHA was involved in the release of both Basketball star Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Trevor Reed from Russian detention last year.

A State Department spokesperson said it is “closely following” Kurmasheva’s detention and is continuing to push for consular access, but that “Russian authorities have not yet responded to our requests”.

Moreover, the State Department said it has “not yet been officially notified by the Russian Government of her detention”.

Asked whether Kurmasheva’s dual nationality was complicating her case, the spokesperson noted only that Russia is among the nations that may refuse to acknowledge the US citizenship of a dual national.

“Many countries do not recognize dual nationality” even if they do not expressly prohibit it, the spokesperson said in an email.

As a result, some “do not grant access to … US nationals in detention if they are also nationals of the country where they are detained”.

Calls to #FreeAlsu have been making the rounds on social media. © Courtesy RFE/RL

Cold and overcrowded

Since Russia’s law on foreign agents first came into effect in 2012, Moscow has used it to punish government critics including civil society groups, rights NGOs, media outlets and activists. Russia has also been accused of detaining Americans simply to use them as bargaining chips in exchange for Russians held by the United States: Griner’s freedom was traded for that of notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Kurmasheva has been granted access to a lawyer but not visits or phone calls with her family, although her husband said she has been allowed to exchange (censored) letters with them over the prison’s official online system, “a paid system that takes only Russian cards”.

Only some of the conditions of her detention are known. Her prison is likely overcrowded and is certainly cold, Butorin said, noting that it is currently near 0°C (32°F) in Kazan and that Kurmasheva is not allowed to receive extra blankets from family or friends.

“We’ve been without Alsu for close to six months now,” he said. “It’s a very unsettling situation.”

As “free-thinking, independent girls”, his daughters are also struggling with the harsh reality of their mother’s plight.

“It’s hard for them to comprehend that their mother is being held in a cold Russian prison cell just for being a journalist.”

Nevertheless, they are looking to the future.

“We have Taylor Swift tickets for the Eras Tour, and we have a ticket with Alsu’s name on it,” Butorin said. “I want us to go together as a family.”

Alsu Kurmasheva has been held in Russian detention since October 18, 2023. © Pavel Butorin courtesy RFE/RL

Harassment of US citizens

“This appears to be another case of the Russian government harassing US citizens,” State Department spokesman Matt Miller said in October of Kurmasheva’s detention.

Numerous US lawmakers, the UN human rights office, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the president of the European Parliament are among the international bodies demanding she be freed.

Butorin said he would like to see Muslim nations joining these calls, given that Kurmasheva is a proud Tatar, part of a predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority in Russia.

“I would very much like to see more involvement notably from Turkey, given Alsu’s Turkic origins, as well as the involvement of other Muslim nations in lobbying for her release,” he said.

Media organisations have also joined the calls for her freedom. “We urge the U.S. government to immediately designate Alsu Kurmasheva’s imprisonment as an unlawful and wrongful detention. The Biden administration is taking too long to make this important designation,” the National Press Club said in a statement last week.

Kurmasheva is the second US journalist currently being held by Russia, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained on espionage charges in March – the first time Russia had accused a US journalist of spying since the Cold War.

The State Department classified Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” in April.

#Russia: We are concerned by the detention of journalist Alsu Kurmasheva for allegedly failing to register as a “foreign agent” and call for her prompt and unconditional release. Journalists must be left to do their vital work free from pressure, intimidation and reprisals. pic.twitter.com/3YjbCZkdbo

— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) October 19, 2023

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Feminist foreign policy: Can Scotland succeed where Sweden failed?

Post By World diplomacy, Europe, feminism, scotland

Scotland will be the first part of the UK to adopt a feminist approach to international relations. But is it merely symbolic or transformative?

Scotland has become the latest country to adopt a feminist approach to its foreign policy.

International Development Minister Christina McKelvie made the announcement at a forum on women’s leadership in Iceland on Monday, and although Scotland has a limited foreign policy scope under its devolved agreement with London, McKelvie says it was important to refocus efforts.

“We want a feminist policy that questions colonialism, that’s actively anti-racist, that targets patriarchy and in some ways the capitalist, imperialist, male-dominated power structures,” McKelvie told Euronews.

“One of the things we want to prioritise is peace and how peace can protect the rights of women and marginalised groups,” she added.

Scotland becomes the first part of the UK to take a feminist approach to international relations, helping women and girls in less developed countries.

Several other European countries have adopted similar policies over the last decade with variable long-term follow-through and mixed results, leading many to question whether adopting such policies is merely symbolic or has real transformative potential.

So can a feminist foreign policy be a game changer?

‘Is this Wokeness gone mad?’

What was born as a way to challenge the status quo of international politics is seen by some as a necessary reframing of a staid foreign policy narrative, while others are sceptical.

In the absence of a concrete definition, each state has its own interpretation of what exactly a ‘feminist foreign policy’ entails.

The term came into use first in Sweden in the midst of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and an incursion into Swedish territorial waters. In this context, the international media joked: could Vladimir Putin be intimidated by Swedish feminism?

As the feminist movement has gained momentum, and since Sweden took the first step, other countries have followed suit, including Canada, Mexico, France, Luxembourg, Spain, Libya, Germany, the Netherlands and Chile.

“There’s been a lot of development work on what works and what doesn’t and how other countries have approached this. We’ve learned a lot from countries like Spain about how to implement this policy,” says McKelvie.

“When we announced it, we had the usual ‘this is Wokeness gone mad’ or ‘what does it mean? It’s all about being fluffy and cuddly’. Patriarchal organisations will laugh, but we know we are committed to making a difference for people around the world,” she added.

Scotland is still debating the total amount of money it will allocate to the policy, but the minister has already said she plans to “spend every penny in the budget”.

“It’s hard to put a price tag on what we want to do,” McKelvie added.

The cautionary tale of Sweden

When Swednen’s then-Foreign Minister Margot Wallström announced in 2014 that her country would be the first in the world to adopt a feminist foreign policy, the proposal was greeted with no small amount of amusement.

The idea was to make gender equality a priority in Stockholm’s relations with other countries.

Although the Nordic nation has recently, officially, scrapped the policy, other foreign ministers both inside and outside the European Union took notice at the time and embarked on their own journeys to a more feminist foreign policy stance.

The country that pioneered feminist foreign policy was also the first to repeal it.

After eight years in force, a conservative government came to power in last year’s elections, putting an end to feminist diplomacy.

Sweden’s foreign minister, the conservative Tobias Billström, argued that it had become a ‘counterproductive label’.

“Their reasoning was that such a label of feminist foreign policy obscures the policy behind it, and that they were still somehow focused on prioritising gender equality, but they felt that the feminist label was just an empty label,” Jennifer Bergman from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, told Euronews.

While organisations such as Human Rights Watch criticised the country’s move, there was much internal disagreement over the policy’s performance.

The most notorious incident involved a diplomatic dispute between former FM Wallström, and Saudi Arabia, after she was sharply critical of repression in the Middle Eastern theocracy.

Speaking in the Swedish parliament, she described the 1,000 lashes to which the blogger and human rights activist Raif Badawi had been sentenced as a “medieval punishment”.

Saudi Arabia reacted furiously to this first diplomatic strike, blocking a speech Wallström was due to give to Arab leaders on women’s rights and temporarily severing ties with Sweden.

The row did not stop there.

In retaliation, Sweden stopped selling arms to Saudi Arabia, which was its main customer, and cancelled a multi-billion dollar deal that was to be implemented in the future.

Balancing feminist ambitions with national interests?

Although this incident was never officially cited as the reason for the country’s reversal of its feminist foreign policy stance, the Swedish arms industry previously had a turnover of more than €1.2 billion in sales to the Arab country.

“Even though Sweden has a long tradition in politics of promoting gender equality, the parties on the left that have implemented these policies have been more in favour of using the feminist label, whereas the parties on the right tend to be more against it,” says analyst Jennifer Bergman.

Another challenge for Swedish feminist politics was the balance between national interests and the lofty ambitions of its feminist diplomacy, according to Inés Arco Escriche, a researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs.

Sweden tightened in 2016 its asylum and border control policies, making family reunification almost impossible.

While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed in its action plan that feminist diplomacy aimed to protect and empower women in other countries, including refugees and migrants, the tightening of migration policies left thousands of women in refugee camps or living in war-torn countries.

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Israel-Hamas war tests Western unity as Global South slams ‘double standards’

Post By World Arab world, diplomacy, European Union, Features, Gaza Strip, Israel, Israel Hamas war, Joe Biden, Middle East, UN Security Council

International responses to the October 7 Hamas attack were broadly split between the Global North and South over condemnations of the killings of just Israeli civilians in the terror attack or all civilians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But as the Gaza humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, divisions are increasing within the West.

It was supposed to be a landmark visit, featuring a politically seasoned US president arriving in an active war zone to hold talks with representatives on both sides of a longstanding conflict that had reached a crisis point.

US President Joe Biden’s Mideast visit was meant to mark America’s return to a geopolitical zone after a “pivot” in recent years, but where Washington still has the clout to bring aggrieved regional players together.

But when the octogenarian US president stepped off Air Force One at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport and into the arms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Middle East’s once celebrated “honest broker” appeared more broken than honest.

After Tuesday night’s devastating strike on a hospital in besieged Gaza, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled their scheduled meeting with Biden.

The honest broker had flown more than 9,000 kilometres to talk to just one side. What’s more, in a changing world of emerging powers and declining American influence in the region, the US appeared more one-sided than it’s ever been on a crisis in its seventh decade.

“When this kind of visit takes place, there are two things that are necessary, and both begin with a ‘T’. One is talks and the other is trust. And both of those have been severely shaken up by this bombing attack on the hospital. This has seriously undermined President Biden’s ability to show himself as a mediator in this crisis,” explained FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Editor Philippe Turle.

Israel has traded blame with Palestinian militant groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, over the devastating attack on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. But in the absence of an independent investigation, the Israeli military’s assertion that the blast was due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad failed to assuage the anger spreading across the Arab world. Protests erupted on Wednesday in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iran, Libya and Yemen. Many were staged outside the embassies of major Western powers, the US, UK and France.

Protesters wave Palestinian flags, near the US consulate in Awkar, Lebanon on October 18, 2023. © Zohra Bensemra, Reuters

Anger on the “Arab street” is one of the clichés of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, which at times plays out along predictable lines.

But more than a year after the West suffered a rude shock when the countries of the Global South stayed neutral on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, patience is running out on the old ways of doing diplomatic business. When castigated over their failure to uphold the tenets of international law, Global South countries have cited the West’s “double standards” as well as its selective response to aggression and the use of asymmetric force.

If the Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed divisions in the international community, the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict is tearing it apart, particularly among emerging powers in Asia, Africa and Latin America, many of whom do not share the Eurocentric histories of the old major global players.

But the latest Middle East crisis is not just ripping apart the Global North and South. It’s also irking some of Washington’s European allies who have worked hard since the Russian invasion of Ukraine to build consensus around a respect for international law and universal human rights.

‘Selective rules of the game’

The divisions emerged immediately after the October 7, with international responses split between the countries that focused entirely on condemning the shock Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on the one hand, and those that also referenced the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Two days after the attack, the leaders of five leading Western nations – the US, France, Germany, Britain and Italy – released a joint statement expressing “our steadfast and united support to the State of Israel, and our unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and its appalling acts of terrorism”. The lengthy statement briefly mentioned “the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people”, but there were no details on how they could be achieved or what derailed them.

On the other hand, South Africa, for instance, released a statement on the day of the attack, calling for an “immediate cessation of violence, restraint, and peace between Israel and Palestine”. Hamas was not named in the statement.

Mapping the splits, French geopolitical journal, Le Grand Continent, divided the responses into three categories: countries strongly supporting Israel, countries calling for a ceasefire and finally, countries supporting Hamas.

Reactions to the October 7 Hamas attack have split the international community. © FRANCE 24 screengrab

“This crisis is without any doubt increasing the divisions, because this is reinforcing the Global South narrative of [the West’s] double standards,” said Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria and a special advisor to the Paris-based Institut Montaigne.

From the Global South perspective, economic and geostrategic interests drove the splits over the Ukraine war. The Israeli-Palestinian divide is driven by emotional baggage and for countries that emerged after World War II, patience is running out. “It’s more about the West is hypocritical and gives priority not so much to their interests as their own feelings. The West has special feelings for Israel and Israeli interests, Israeli pain, in emotional terms. In the Global South, this is seen as selective emotion and selective rules of the game,” explained Duclos.

US casts a shock UN veto

“It’s not that the Global South is all united and has one single position – that’s unlikely in these circumstances,” said Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South Program at the Washington DC-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “The question is, are there enough countries in the Global South that are animated by this issue and are significant players? And, are they willing to push back and make their views well known? The answer to both questions is yes.”

The nature of the response, according to Shidore, would depend on developments in the Gaza Strip. If the humanitarian situation in the besieged Palestinian enclave deteriorates, some Global South countries could push for a UN General Assembly vote, particularly if the stalemate in the 15-member UN Security Council continues.

On Wednesday, as Biden was telling reporters in Tel Aviv that he convinced Israel to allow limited humanitarian aid into Gaza, the US was playing a different tune at UN headquarters in New York.

In a shock move, the US vetoed a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to enable aid access into the besieged Gaza Strip.

The resolution, sponsored by Brazil, condemned violence against all civilians, including “the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas”. Twelve countries in the 15-member Security Council voted in favour. Russia and the UK abstained. The US, a permanent Security Council member, cast the decisive veto. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield criticised the resolution for not saying anything about Israel’s right to self-defence.

US vetoes Security Council resolution that would have called for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza

Favor: 12 (Albania, Brazil, China, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland,UAE)
Against: 1 (US)
Abstain: 2 Russia, UK pic.twitter.com/y4tiAbRMUQ

— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) October 18, 2023

It was the second UNSC resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict to fail. On Monday, the Security Council rejected a Russian-drafted resolution that called for an “immediate ceasefire”, “unimpeded” humanitarian access to Gaza, and a condemnation of “all” civilian killings, Israeli and Palestinian.

The US, UK, France and Japan voted against the Russian resolution. At that time, Thomas-Greenfield slammed Moscow for failing to mention Hamas in the draft text.

No to ‘ceasefire’, yes to ‘duty to respond’

Semantics are serious business at the UN, and it was not merely the omission of Hamas, but also the inclusion of the word “ceasefire” that ensured the Russian resolution was dead on arrival.

Shortly after Israel started pounding the Gaza Strip last week, the US State Department sent a directive warning US diplomats against using three specific phrases: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm”, according to a Huffington Post report, which was confirmed by the Washington Post.

Washington meanwhile has tweaked its commitment to Israel’s “right to respond”, upgrading it over the past few days to a “duty to respond”.

The Brazilian draft UNSC resolution was put to vote after days of difficult negotiations and two delays in a bid to get a consensus. Following Wednesday’s veto, China‘s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun accused the US of leading Security Council members to believe the resolution could be adopted after it did not express opposition during negotiations. He described the vote as “nothing short of unbelievable”.

The US traditionally shields its ally Israel from any Security Council action. But this time, Brazil – a founding member of the BRICS bloc of emerging economies who currently holds the rotating Security Council presidency – released an irked statement regretting Washington’s blocking of the vote.

“Brazil considers it urgent for the international community to establish a ceasefire and resume the peace process,” said a Brazilian Foreign Ministry statement.

EU splits burst out in public

For the first time since the October 7 Hamas attack, France broke ranks with its Western allies on the Security Council on Wednesday, when it voted in favour of the Brazilian draft resolution.

In its statement, the French foreign ministry expressed “regret” over the failure at the Security Council. “The text unequivocally condemned Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel, demanded the release of hostages, urged respect by all for international humanitarian law,” noted the statement.

Israel’s deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip after blocking fuel, water, medication and food supplies has sparked rifts in the US-EU partnership that are mostly contained within closed doors but have occasionally erupted in public.

At an emergency video summit of EU leaders on Tuesday, several leaders warned that failing to uphold the rights of Palestinians in Gaza risked exposing western states to the charge of hypocrisy, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing multiple officials briefed on the discussion.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has faced a backlash from EU leaders and lawmakers for not explicitly calling on Israel to respect international law in its war on Gaza during a trip to Israel last week.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar publicly declared the European Commission president’s comments “lacked balance” and insisted that she was “not speaking for Ireland”.

“The Europeans are getting concerned about being viewed as not standing up for international law. Ursula von der Leyen’s stance of unreserved solidarity for Israel is being seen as one-sided and causing them to lose soft power in the Global South. Europe depends more on soft power than the US, which often relies more on hard power, though that is increasingly turning out to be counterproductive,” said Shidore.

Both the US and the EU have increased humanitarian funding for Palestinians since the Israeli bombardments following the Hamas attack. The EU’s aid to the Palestinians is the “price of their guilty conscience about the disappearance of the prospect of the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel,” noted French journalist and writer Gilles Paris in Le Monde.

The question, though, is how long will Brussels tolerate the repeated Israeli destruction of Gaza infrastructure funded by the EU. The 27-member bloc has long been divided over the issue, but the debate has been held behind closed doors. If the EU decides to move the debate on to the public and policy stage, it could receive considerable help from the Global South.

The US has the military hardware to weather differences with its European allies over the Israeli-Palestinian issue. But it will not gain friends in the soft power competition, and both, Russia and China are ready and able to take its place in the Global South community that is emerging to change the existing world order.

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The dogs of war are howling in the Middle East

Post By Politics Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Aid and development, Antony Blinken, Benjamin Netanyahu, borders, Conflict, diplomacy, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Israel Hamas war, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Joe Biden, Jordan, Lebanon, Loss and damage, Mahmoud Abbas, Middle East, military, ngos, Palestine, Security, United States, Unpacked, War, Yasser Arafat

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

BEIRUT — Against a dawning day, just hours after the fatal Gaza hospital explosion that killed hundreds, Israel’s border with Lebanon crackled with shelling and fighter jet strikes as Israeli warplanes responded to an uptick in shelling from Hezbollah.

Regardless of who struck the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, the needle is now rapidly shifting in a dangerous direction. And hopes are being pinned on United States President Joe Biden and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who is set to host an emergency summit in Cairo on Saturday. But the chances of a wider war engulfing Lebanon and the entire region being hurled into violent chaos once more are growing by the hour.

As Hezbollah announced “a day of rage” against Israel, protests have targeted U.S. missions in the region, more embassies in Beirut have started sending off non-essentials staff, and security teams are being flown in to protect diplomatic missions and European NGOs, preparing contingency plans for staff evacuation. An ever-growing sense of dread and foreboding is now gripping the Levant.

Currently, Israel insists the hospital explosion was caused by an errant rocket fired by Islamic Jihad — and the White House agrees. But the Palestinian militant group, which is aligned with Hamas, says this is a “lie and fabrication,” insisting Israel was responsible. Regardless of where the responsibility lies, however, the blast at the hospital — where hundreds of Palestinian civilians were sheltering from days of Israeli airstrikes on the coastal enclave of Gaza — is sending shock waves far and wide.

It has already blown Biden’s trip to the region off course, as his planned Wednesday meeting with Arab leaders in Jordan had to be axed. The meeting was meant to take place after his visit to Israel, where Biden had the tricky task of showing solidarity, while also pressing the country’s reluctant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A statement from the White House said the the decision to cancel the meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egypt’s El-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had been jointly made in light of the hospital strike.

But Arab leaders have made clear they had no hope the meeting would be productive. Abbas pulled out first, before Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi suggested a meeting would be pointless. “There is no use in talking now about anything except stopping the war,” he said, referencing Israel’s near-constant bombardment of Gaza.

Scrapping the Jordan stop lost the U.S. leader a major face-to-face opportunity to navigate the crisis, leaving American efforts to stave off a wider conflict in disarray.

The U.S. was already facing tough criticism in the region for being too far in Israel’s corner and failing to condemn the country for civilian deaths in Gaza. Meanwhile, Arab leaders have shrugged off U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s efforts to get them to denounce Hamas — they refuse to label the organization as a terror group, seeing the October 7 attacks as the inevitable consequence of the failure to deliver a two-state solution for Palestinians and lift Israel’s 17-year blockade on Gaza.

Whether anyone can now stop a bigger war is highly uncertain. But there was one word that stood out in Biden’s immediate remarks after the Hamas attacks, and that was “don’t.” “To any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of the situation, I have one word,” he said. “Don’t.”

However, this is now being drowned out by furious cries for revenge. Wrath has its grip on all parties in the region, as old hatreds and grievances play out and the tit-for-tat blows accelerate. Much like Mark Antony’s exhortation in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war” is now the sentiment being heard here, obscuring reason and leaving diplomacy struggling in its wake.

In the immediate aftermath of last week’s slaughter, righteous fury had understandably gripped Israelis. Netanyahu channeled that rage, vowing “mighty vengeance” against Hamas for the surprise attacks, pledging to destroy the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group. “Every Hamas terrorist is a dead man,” he said days later.

However, Israel hasn’t officially announced it will launch a ground mission — something it has refrained from doing in recent years due to the risk of losing a high number of soldiers. But it has massed troops and armor along the border, drafted 300,000 reservists — the biggest call-up in decades — and two days after the Hamas attacks, Netanyahu reportedly told Biden that Israel had no choice but to launch a ground operation. Publicly, he warned Israelis the country faced a “long and difficult war.”

The one hope that havoc won’t be unleashed in the region now rests partly — but largely — upon Israel reducing its military goals and deciding not to launch a ground offensive on Gaza, which would be the most likely trigger for Hezbollah and its allies to commence a full-scale attack, either across the southern border or on the Golan Heights.

That was certainly the message from Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, Hamas’ chief representative in Lebanon. He told POLITICO that an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza would be one of the key triggers that could bring Hezbollah fully into the conflict, and that Hamas and Hezbollah are now closely coordinating their responses.

“Hezbollah will pay no attention to threats from anyone against it entering the war; it will ignore warnings to stay out of it. The timing of when Hezbollah wants to enter the war or not will relate to Israeli escalation and incidents on the ground, and especially if Israel tries to enter Gaza on the ground,” he said.

Lebanese politicians are now pinning their hopes on Israel not opting to mount a ground offensive on the densely populated enclave — an operation that would almost certainly lead to a high number of civilian casualties and spark further Arab outrage, in addition to a likely Hezbollah intervention. They see some possibility in Biden’s warning that any move by Israel to reoccupy Gaza would be a “big mistake” — a belated sign that Washington is now trying to impose a limit on Israel’s actions in retaliation for the Hamas attacks.

And how that dovetails with Netanyahu’s stated aim to “demolish Hamas”and “defeat the bloodthirsty monsters who have risen against us to destroy us” is another one of the major uncertainties that will determine if the dogs of war will be fully unleashed.

At the moment, however, an apparent pause in Israeli ground operations is giving some a reason to hope. While assembled units are on standby and awaiting orders, on Tuesday an Israel military spokesman suggested a full-scale ground assault might not be what’s being prepared.

Michael Young, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, suspects a “rethink” is underway, likely prompted by Israeli military chiefs’ realization that a ground offensive wouldn’t just be bloody, it wouldn’t rid Gaza of Hamas either. “When the PLO was forced out of Lebanon by Israel in 1982, it still was able to maintain a presence in the country and Yasser Arafat was back within a year in Lebanon,” he said.

Likewise, lawmaker Ashraf Rifi — a former director of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces — told POLITICO he thinks Israeli generals are likely just as behind the apparent hold as their Western allies. “Military commanders are always less enthusiastic about going to war than politicians, and Israeli military commanders are always cautious,” he said.

“Let’s hope so, otherwise we will all be thrown into hell.”

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Armenians find themselves pushed aside yet again

Post By Politics Alexander Lukashenko, Armenia, Asia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Conflict, Cooperation, corruption, diplomacy, Donald Tusk, drones, Energy, Energy dependency, Energy infrastructure, EU27, gas, Human rights, Ilham Aliyev, Iran, Israel, military, oil, Pipelines, Renewable Energy, Rights, Russia, Security, turkey, Unpacked, Ursula von der Leyen, War In Ukraine

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

Last week, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world is “inching ever closer to a great fracture in economic and financial systems and trade relations.”

That may be so, but not when it comes to Azerbaijan.

A country a third of the size of Britain and with a population of about 10 million, Azerbaijan has faced few problems in bridging geopolitical divisions. And recently, Baku has been offering a masterclass in how to exploit geography and geology to considerable advantage.

From Washington to Brussels, Moscow to Beijing, seemingly no one wants to fall out with Azerbaijan; everyone wants to be a friend. Even now, as Armenia has turned to the world for help, accusing Baku of attempted ethnic cleansing in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh — the land-locked and long-contested Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.

Warning signs had been mounting in recent weeks that Baku might be planning a major offensive, which it dubbed an “anti-terrorist operation,” and Armenia had been sending up distress flares. But not only were these largely overlooked, Baku has since faced muted criticism for its assault as well.

Western reaction could change, though, if Azerbaijan were to now engage in mass ethnic cleansing — but Baku is canny enough to know that.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Azerbaijan has been courted by all sides, becoming one of the war’s beneficiaries.

On a visit to Baku last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had only warm words for the country’s autocratic leader Ilham Aliyev, saying she saw him as a reliable and trustworthy energy partner for the European Union.

Then, just a few weeks later, Alexander Lukashenko — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s satrap in Belarus — had no hesitation in describing Aliyev as “absolutely our man.”

Is there any other national leader who can be a pal of von der Leyen and Lukashenko at the same time?

Aliyev is also a friend of Turkey; Baku and Beijing count each other as strategic partners, with Azerbaijan participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative; and the country has been working on expanding military cooperation with Israel as well. In 2020 — during the last big flare-up in this intractable conflict — Israel had supplied Azerbaijan with drones, alongside Turkey.

That’s an impressive list of mutually exclusive friends and suitors — and location and energy explain much.

Upon her arrival in Azerbaijan’s capital last year, von der Leyen wasn’t shy about highlighting Europe’s need to “diversify away from Russia” for its energy needs, announcing a deal with Baku to increase supplies from the southern gas corridor — the 3,500-kilometer pipeline bringing gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

She also noted that Azerbaijan “has a tremendous potential in renewable energy” in offshore wind and green hydrogen, enthusing that “gradually, Azerbaijan will evolve from being a fossil fuel supplier to becoming a very reliable and prominent renewable energy partner to the European Union.”

There was no mention of Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record, rampant corruption or any call for the scores of political prisoners to be released.

Azerbaijan uses oil and gas “to silence the EU on fundamental rights issues,” Philippe Dam of Human Rights Watch complained at the time. “The EU should not say a country is reliable when it is restricting the activities of civil society groups and crushing political dissent,” he added.

Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s Brussels office, warned: “Ukraine serves as a reminder that repressive and unaccountable regimes are rarely reliable partners and that privileging short-term objectives at the expense of human rights is a recipe for disaster.”

But von der Leyen isn’t the first top EU official to speak of Azerbaijan as such a partner. In 2019, then EU Council President Donald Tusk also praised Azerbaijan for its reliability.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, however, the EU’s courting has become even more determined — and, of course, the bloc isn’t alone. Rich in oil and gas and located between Russia, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is a strategic prize, sitting “on the crossroads of former major empires, civilizations and regional and global powerhouses,” according to Fariz Ismailzade of ADA University in Baku.

And Azerbaijan’s growing importance in the latest great game in Central Asia is reflected in the increase in foreign diplomatic missions located in its capital — in 2005 there were just two dozen, now there are 85.

For Ankara, and Beijing — eager to expand their influence across Central Asia — Azerbaijan is a key player in regional energy projects, as well as the development of new regional railways and planned infrastructure and connectivity projects.

Thanks to strong linguistic, religious and cultural ties, Turkey has been Azerbaijan’s main regional ally since it gained independence. But Baku has been adept at making sure it keeps in with all its suitors. It realizes they all offer opportunities but could also be dangerous, should relations take a dive.

And this holds for all the key players in the region, whether it be the EU, Turkey, China or Russia. The reason Baku can get on with a highly diverse set of nations — and why there likely won’t be many serious repercussions for Baku with this latest military foray — is that no one wants to give geopolitical rivals an edge and upset the fragile equilibrium in Central Asia. That includes its traditional foe Iran – Baku and Tehran have in recent months been trying to build a détente after years of hostility.

For the Armenians, so often finding themselves wronged by history, this is highly unfortunate. They might have been better advised to follow Azerbaijan’s example and try to be everyone’s friend, instead of initially depending on Russia, then pivoting West — a pirouette that’s lost them any sympathy in Moscow.

But then again, Armenia hasn’t been blessed with proven reserves of oil or natural gas like its neighbor.

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Niger junta vows transition to civilian rule within three years

Post By World Coup in Niger, diplomacy, ECOWAS

General Abdourahmane Tchiani gave no details on the plan, saying on state television only that the principles for the transition would be decided within 30 days at a dialogue to be hosted by the junta.

The leader of mutinous soldiers who ousted Niger’s democratically elected president said Saturday night that they will return the country to civilian rule within three years.

“I am convinced that … we will work together to find a way out of the crisis, in the interests of all,” Tchiani said, commenting after his first meeting with a regional delegation seeking to resolve the West African nation’s crisis.

The delegation from the ECOWAS bloc, headed by former Nigerian head of state General Abdulsalami Abubakar, also met separately with toppled President Mohamed Bazoum. It joined reconciliation efforts by Leonardo Santos Simao, the UN special representative for West Africa and the Sahel, who arrived Friday.

ECOWAS on August 10 ordered the deployment of a “standby force” to restore constitutional rule in Niger. On Friday, the ECOWAS commissioner for peace and security, Abdel-Fatau Musah, said 11 of its 15 member states had agreed to commit troops to military intervention, saying they were “ready to go.”

The soldiers who overthrew Bazoum last month have quickly entrenched themselves in power, rebuffed most dialogue efforts and kept Bazoum, his wife and son under house arrest in the capital.

The 11 member states that agreed to intervene militarily don’t include the bloc’s three other countries under military rule following coups: Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso. The latter two have warned they would consider any intervention in Niger an act of war. On Friday, Niger’s state television said that Mali and Burkina Faso had dispatched warplanes in a show of solidarity.

Friday’s announcement was the latest in a series of so far empty threats by ECOWAS to forcefully restore democratic rule in Niger, conflict analysts say. Immediately after the coup, the bloc gave the junta seven days to release and restore Bazoum, a deadline that came and went with no action.

“The putschists won’t be holding their breath this time over the renewed threat of military action,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a think tank.

Junta cementing its rule

The junta leaders are cementing their rule and appointing loyal commanders to key units while ECOWAS has no experience with military action in hostile territory and would have no local support if it tried to intervene, he said.

“Niger is a very fragile country that can easily turn, in case of a military intervention, into a failed state like Sudan,” said Laessing.

ECOWAS used force to restore order in 2017 in Gambia when longtime President Yahya Jammeh refused to step down after he lost the presidential election. That move involved diplomatic efforts led by the then-presidents of Mauritania and Guinea, while Jammeh appeared to be acting on his own after the Gambian army pledged allegiance to the winner of the election, Adama Barrow.

Also on Saturday, the new US ambassador to Niger, Kathleen FitzGibbon, arrived in the capital, said Matthew Miller, spokesman for the State Department. The US hasn’t had an ambassador in the country for nearly two years.

FitzGibbon will focus on advocating for a diplomatic solution that preserves constitutional order in Niger and for the immediate release of Bazoum, his family, and all those unlawfully detained, said Miller. Her arrival does not reflect a change in the US policy position, he said.

Preparing to fight

On the streets of the capital Saturday, many residents said they were preparing to fight back against an ECOWAS military intervention.

Thousands of people in the capital of Niamey lined up outside the main stadium to register as fighters and volunteers to help with other needs in case the junta requires support. Some parents brought their children to sign up.

Some people said they’d been waiting since 3 a.m., while groups of youths boisterously chanted in favour of the junta and against ECOWAS and the country’s former colonial ruler France.

″I am here for the recruitment to become a good soldier. We are all here for that,” said Ismail Hassan, a resident waiting in line to register. “If God wills, we will all go.”

Events organizer Amsarou Bako claimed the junta was not involved in recruiting volunteers to defend the coup, although it is aware of the initiative. Hours after the drive started, the organizers said it would be postponed, but didn’t explain why.

The humanitarian situation in the country is also on the agenda of the UN’s West Africa and Sahel special representative.

Western partnerships

Before the coup, nearly 3 million people were facing severe food insecurity and hundreds of thousands were internally displaced, according to CARE, an international aid group. Economic and travel sanctions imposed by ECOWAS after the coup, coupled with the deteriorating security, will have dire consequences for the population, CARE said.

Prior to the coup, Western countries had seen Niger as one of the last democratic nations they could partner with to beat back a growing jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group and poured millions of dollars of military aid and assistance into shoring up Niger’s forces.

Since the coup, former jihadis have told The Associated Press that militants have been taking advantage of the freedom of movement caused by suspended military operations by the French and the US and a distracted Nigerien army that is focusing efforts on the capital.

Last week, at least 17 soldiers were killed and 20 wounded in an ambush by militants. It was the first major attack against Niger’s army in six months. A day later, at least 50 civilians were killed in the Tillaberi region by extremists believed to be members of the Islamic State group, according to an internal security report for aid groups seen by the AP.

“While Niger’s leaders are consumed by politics in the capital, the drumbeat of lethal jihadist attacks goes on in the countryside,” said Corinne Dufka a political analyst who specializes in the Sahel region.

“The recent attacks should motivate all parties to work for as speedy and inclusive a transition as possible so they can get back to the crucial business of protecting civilians from the devastating consequences of war,” she said.

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Rebranded Saudi crown prince meets Macron as rights groups decry ‘hypocrisy’

Post By World arms trade, diplomacy, Emmanuel Macron, Features, France, Jamal Khashoggi, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday at the start of a visit aimed at boosting bilateral ties and the oil kingdom’s standing in the international community. But human rights groups warn that the Saudi’s gain is France’s loss on an increasingly divided global stage.

Less than five years after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets French President Emmanuel Macron for a working lunch in Paris on Friday.

The rehabilitation of the man the CIA determined had “approved” the Istanbul consulate operation is now a done deal. The transformation of the Saudi crown prince from “pariah” – a term Joe Biden used on the US presidential campaign trail – to indispensable diplomatic figure has been quick and thorough, marking an era of realpolitik on steroids.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler – known widely as “MBS” – has emerged from global isolation to meet and greet leaders who were once wary of engaging with the young, brash crown price with a tarnished human rights record.

Last summer, Biden met bin Salman in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, where the two leaders fist-bumped, sparking condemnations from the likes of Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, who called it “a visual reminder of the continuing grip oil-rich autocrats have on US foreign policy”.

A week later, bin Salman – known widely as “MBS” – was in Paris, where he was greeted with a more cordial handshake with Macron at the Élysée presidential palace.

French President Emmanuel Macron greets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a handshake in Paris on July 28, 2022. © Lewis Joly, AP

The war in Ukraine has unleashed tectonic geopolitical shifts, opening divides between the so-called “West”, backing Kyiv against Russian aggression, and countries who view themselves as part of the “Global South”, that have refused to take a position on the conflict.

The Global South’s proclaimed neutrality has not convinced critics, who argue that transactional foreign policy in effect translates as a pro-Russian position. Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer, is particularly susceptible to the criticism. The kingdom’s decision, at an October 22 OPEC+ Plus summit, to cut oil production to keep prices high, was viewed as a deliberate snub to the US and Europe preparing for a difficult winter.

The schedule of bin Salman’s second visit to France since the Russian invasion of Ukraine reflects the changing dynamics on the global stage. It’s also a case study in how a leader once shunned in most capitals has managed to cater to the imperatives of global powers while fulfilling his own agenda.

Wooing leaders with an eye on 2030

The Saudi crown prince’s latest visit is not a rushed one. MBS left the kingdom on Wednesday, according to the Saudi Royal Court, for France, where he owns the Chateau Louis XIV, a modern building in Versailles that seeks to replicate the opulence of French imperial palaces.

Following his Friday working lunch with Macron at the Élysée palace, bin Salman will attend a reception in Paris on Monday to support Riyadh’s bid to host the World Expo 2030, also called the “universal exhibition”.

Days later, the Saudi crown prince will attend the June 22-23 Summit for a New Global Financing Pact hosted by Macron.

The French president announced the summit at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November, which is aimed at building “a new contract between the countries of the North and the South to address climate change and the global crisis”, according to the official website.

While Macron aims to try to bridge the North-South divide exacerbated by the Ukraine war, the Saudi crown prince has his own agenda during his French visit. “Mohammed bin Salman wants to enjoy the presence of many leaders, from Africa mainly, in order to get their support, their vote, for the universal exhibition [Expo 2030] … it’s a file that MBS is personally following. This is the reason for his long presence in France,” explained Georges Malbrunot, senior reporter at the French daily, Le Figaro, in an interview with FRANCE 24.

“There are different topics on the agenda: Ukraine, Lebanon, etcetera. It’s a kind of public relations operation for Mohammed bin Salman, who was a pariah five years ago after the horrible Jamal Khashoggi assassination,” said Malbrunot. “But he’s an international actor now. Nobody can avoid him.”

Hosting the World Expo 2030 has turned into a hot button issue, with more than a dozen human rights groups writing an open letter to the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), urging the world fair organiser to drop the Saudi candidacy due to its “abysmal” human rights record.

But 2030 is a critical year for the Gulf kingdom since it marks the target date for Vision 2030, an ambitious economic diversification and reform plan launched by the crown prince in 2016. Saudi Arabia is also bidding to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup. “For sure 2030 is a very important year for Saudi Arabia,” said Malbrunot. “If he gets the universal expo for 2030, it will be a big victory for Saudi Arabia.”

Keeping various wives happy

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began 18 months ago, the Middle East region has witnessed a complex realignment of powers, which some experts call the signs of a changing global order.

Earlier this year, China brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, prompting a reopening of diplomatic ties between the region’s biggest rivals and hopes for a de-escalation of the war in Yemen, where the two powers waged a proxy war over the past eight years.

Beyond the Middle East, Saudi Arabia played a critical role last year in brokering a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, which secured the release of 300 people.

Meanwhile the convergence of Russian and Saudi oil interests, which were on display during the October 2022 OPEC+ Plus meeting, have started to strain. While Saudi Arabia followed through on the agreement and exported less oil, Russia increased its sales, at cheap prices, to countries such as India and China.

As Global South hegemons – such as South Africa, Brazil and India – were under fire for their pro-Moscow tilt, Saudi Arabia managed a diplomatic tour de force last month – with a little help from France.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise landing in Jeddah last month to address an Arab League summit, he arrived on a French Airbus emblazoned with the tricolour. France had flown in the Ukrainian leader for an important meeting, marking a diplomatic achievement for Paris.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Saudi Arabia on May 19, 2023, on a French plane. — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Saudi Arabia on May 19, 2023, on a French plane. © Saudi Press Agency via AP

“Macron has become invested in helping rehabilitate MBS’s image on the global stage,” said Mohamad Bazzi, a professor and director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. “Most players in the Middle East region have an interest in conveying the message that the US is not the dominant power in the region anymore. The consistent Saudi messaging is that they have options other than the US. Macron might be trying to play the role as another peacemaker trying to de-escalate tensions in the region.”

Malbrunot describes the geopolitical shifts in terms of polygamy, which is legal in Saudi Arabia. “We used to have Saudi Arabia as a strategic ally with the US. Now with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has multiple wives. They still have the US wife, but not only. They have the Chinese wife now because China is the first country where they sell their oil. They have the Russian wife, they have the European wife,” explained Malbrunot.

The costs of ‘doing business with tyrants’

When it comes to Europe, France has always been more forgiving towards MBS than countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. The clemency was driven by weapons, not Christian values. Following Khashoggi’s assassination, France – unlike Germany and the Netherlands – refrained from suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Paris and Riyadh have mutually compatible agendas in the arms bazaar. The international arms transfer trends for 2022, released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), confirmed longstanding trends: Saudi Arabia ranks among the world’s top three arms importers while France is among the world’s top three arms exporters.

It’s a transactional relationship that draws the ire of Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an NGO founded by Khashoggi. “Macron is basically rolling out the red carpet for Mohammed bin Salman to try to secure arms sales. Macron has really sold France and France’s values for a few golden francs,” said Whitson.

Nearly a year ago, when the Saudi crown prince made his first trip to France since Khashoggi’s killing, DAWN, along with other NGOs, filed a universal jurisdiction complaint before the Paris tribunal arguing that MBS is an accomplice to the torture, enforced disappearance, and the murder of Khashoggi.

But Paris has so far failed to appoint an investigative judge to examine the case, prompting DAWN to release a statement noting that the delay “suggests that French authorities are deliberately dragging their feet and politicising what should be a straightforward judicial procedure”.

“Macron is wagging a finger at other countries for selling arms to Russia, lecturing them about international law and scolding them for harming human rights. It’s a shocking display of hypocrisy,” said Whitson.

France is not the only Western power behaving hypocritically, concedes Whitson, pointing to the Biden administration’s decision in November to grant MBS immunity, as the head of the Saudi government, in a US legal case.

Malbrunot notes that bin Salman’s entry into the international fold under the current circumstances is inevitable. “He’s an actor in the Ukraine-Russian war, he’s an actor now in the Middle East with the rapprochement with Iran … realpolitik has taken the lead now. So Mohammed bin Salman can’t be avoided,” he noted.

When asked if Le Figaro’s readers would be outraged over Macron’s meeting with a leader castigated for his human rights records, Malbrunot believed it was not the case.

“I think they’re not upset anymore with the human rights record because, I guess, there is this aspect of reality, which can’t be denied, that Saudi Arabia is a very important country, not only in the oil market, but also diplomatically now,” he said.

Whitson, however, believes the resignation is dangerous. “French readers should understand that there is a cost of doing business with tyrants,” she said. “The cost is democracy. If dictatorships around the world can buy our governments with money, if they can undermine our values with money, we don’t stand a chance persuading the world that democracy and human rights matter when our governments are willing to sell ourselves for money.”

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How the West, Russia see Turkey’s presidential elections

Post By World diplomacy, European Union, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Middle East, presidential elections, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia, turkey, USA

The 2023 Turkish presidential election next month will be eagerly followed in Western capitals – and in Moscow. Russia favours the incumbent, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while the West tacitly prefers his main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, according to analysts. But an opposition win does not guarantee an obstacle-free path to pivoting Turkey back towards the West.

Erdogan has attracted much international attention over recent years with his assertive foreign policy – most recently his blocking of Sweden’s NATO accession, after accusing Stockholm of giving safe haven to people allegedly linked to Kurdish militant group, the PKK.

This confrontational approach to projecting power marked a big change from Erdogan’s pro-Western stance shortly after he took power in 2003.

On the 2023 campaign trail, foreign policy has taken a back seat to more pressing issues. Since 2018, an inflation and currency crisis has sent living standards plunging for Turkish nationals and residents. The divide between Erdogan’s Islamism and Kilicdaroglu’s secularism is another major dynamic in the electoral battle.

“As in most democratic countries, foreign policy is less relevant compared to other themes, particularly economic and identity issues,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat, now an Istanbul-based visiting fellow at Carnegie Europe.

Russia ‘clearly’ supporting Erdogan

But while foreign policy might be a peripheral issue to the average Turkish voter, the elections are a big deal for various foreign powers.

“They’ll be watching it very carefully,” said Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey specialist at St Lawrence University and the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.

While underlining that the Turkish president is unlikely to upend his foreign policy if re-elected – “Erdogan will still be Erdogan” – Eissenstat observed that “Russia in particular will be hoping for an Erdogan victory”.

With a long history of friction dating back to Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the two countries had a diplomatic crisis as recently as 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet over Syria. A formal apology from Erdogan soon ended Moscow’s retaliatory sanctions – creating a rapid deepening of ties that survived Russia and Turkey backing opposing sides in the Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh wars.

The dramatic attempted coup in 2016 inaugurated a chill in Turkey’s relations with the West.

Ankara accused Fethullah Gulen, an Islamist cleric and ex-Erdogan ally living in exile in the US, of masterminding the coup. Gulen denied the accusations amid a Turkish government crackdown on his movement, which extended to critics of Erdogan’s policies. For his part, Erdogan perceived the West as insufficiently supportive in the aftermath of the thwarted putsch.

Erdogan’s rapprochement with Russia led to a full-blown rupture with Washington in 2017, when Turkey agreed to buy the S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia – a red line for a NATO member, prompting US sanctions on the Turkish defence industry.

This fits into a pattern going back to the Cold War, when the USSR helped Turkey develop infrastructure for heavy industry in the 1970s after the US spurned Turkey’s request for assistance.

Since the Cold War era, Moscow has “always been the second choice for Turkey if it thinks Washington is unwilling” to help, while Moscow has “never lost an opportunity to draw a wedge between Turkey and the West”, observed Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund’s Ankara bureau.

“Erdogan and Putin use each other for their own ends,” added Jeffrey Mankoff, from the Washington DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Since 2015, Russia has seen Erdogan as someone they could do business with. And Erdogan as a leader is now seen as toxic in the West – and that has benefits for Russia.”

In this context, Moscow has done Erdogan a favour ahead of his re-election campaign, Ulgen noted: “Russia has clearly supported Erdogan and they’ve demonstrated this by granting them deferred payments on natural gas purchases – essentially helping Turkey out financially by alleviating somewhat the pressures on the Turkish central bank”.

‘Frustration and exhaustion’

By contrast, Kilicdaroglu’s heterogenous six-party bloc, the Nation Alliance, suggests it wants restored relations with the West.

The Alliance is committed to restarting the EU accession process and following the rulings of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Most significantly, the Nation Alliance said it would “take initiatives” to bring Turkey back into the F-35 fighter jet programme, which allows NATO allies to buy the US stealth multirole combat aircraft. Washington removed Turkey from the programme in 2019 over its procurement of S-400s.

Analysts say that beneath the West’s silence about the election campaign, Europe and the US would welcome Kilicdaroglu’s victory.

“A lot of Western officials and leaders feel a sense of frustration and exhaustion in dealing with Erdogan,” said Mankoff. “They see him as presiding over Turkey’s drift from the West and the move towards a personalised and populist regime. For those reasons, they’d be pretty happy to see the back of him.

“At the same time, because Erdogan has been so effective at mobilising anti-Western sentiment, it pays for the West to be silent,” Mankoff continued. “And he’s a wily operator – a very effective politician – so there’s a reasonable sense that he might be re-elected despite all the headwinds. Why further alienate him?”

EU accession ‘effectively closed off’

But even if Kilicdaroglu wins, deepening ties with the West would take a lot of work.

The EU enlargement impetus has diminished over recent years, after the bloc’s rapid expansion was principally driven by Britain in the 2000s as a perceived means of diluting Franco-German influence. French President Emmanuel Macron vetoed accession talks for North Macedonia and Albania in 2019, suggesting the EU would struggle to integrate two countries from the troubled Balkans.

Bad relations with EU members Greece and Cyprus provide even bigger obstacles to Turkey’s EU accession.

After historic tensions going back to Ottoman rule over Greece, Athens and Ankara patched up relations in 1999 with the “earthquake diplomacy” breakthrough, after both countries suffered brutal quakes in the space of months. But Greece and Turkey have seen resurgent animosity over their Aegean Sea maritime border dispute since natural gas reserves were discovered in the eastern Mediterranean in 2010.

Meanwhile Turkey is the only country in the world that recognises the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus created after the 1974 war divided the island. The Nation Alliance promises to maintain Turkey’s longstanding position on the issue, saying it “will pursue the objectives of protecting the acquired rights of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”.

“Of course tensions between Turkey and the EU would decrease if Kilicdaroglu wins, so Turkey will be less isolated and will use diplomacy instead of threatening to invade Greece,” Unluhisarcikli said. “But even if Turkey meets all the other criteria for EU membership – and Turkey would have a lot of homework to do – Cyprus would still be a big issue, and there would still be questions about Greece.”

“On Cyprus, the opposition’s policy is not terribly dissimilar from Erdogan’s,” Eissenstat added – stating that the “road to Turkish EU accession is effectively closed by this point”.

‘Less difficult, but still difficult’

Restoring ties with the US would be similarly complex, given the low ebb they have reached. Unusually for a NATO leader, Erdogan took several days to congratulate President Joe Biden on his US presential election victory in 2020 as his predecessor Donald Trump baselessly contested the result. Biden reciprocated by taking three months to ring Erdogan.

“Biden seems to have an embargo on Erdogan,” Unluhisarcikli said, adding that, whoever wins the Turkish presidential elections, “there will be a need to manage crisis-prone US-Turkey relations”.

“Under Kilicdaroglu, I would expect Turkey’s relations with the US to be less difficult, but still difficult,” Eissenstat added.

As things stand, it is hard to imagine F-35s and S-400s co-existing within the same country’s arsenal, since the US says the Russian system is a threat to NATO members’ security.

That said, if Washington and Ankara made a concerted effort to deepen ties after a Kilicdaroglu victory, there could be scope for a compromise on the S-400 issue, according to Ulgen. “If there is a flexible attitudes on both sides, there are other formulas besides the maximalist approach of demanding Turkey get rid of them, such as the US putting conditions on any potential Turkish use of S-400s,” he noted.

Amid these thorny issues, if Kilicdaroglu wins Turkey and the West would likely concentrate on the low-hanging fruit – such as updating Turkey’s customs union with the EU to reduce trade friction.

Such an approach could also see Turkey resolve its most conspicuous source of tension with the West at present: “If the opposition wins, I would fully expect Turkey to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO,” Eissenstat said.

If Kilicdaroglu wins, “there’s quite a realistic sense [in Turkey] of what the West could provide in terms of short-term wins for both sides”, Ulgen concluded. “I think there would also be quite an expansive political space for the West to achieve these wins – before it gets tricky.”

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Fallout from Macron’s China visit ripples across Atlantic and Indo-Pacific

Post By World China, diplomacy, Emmanuel Macron, Europe, Features, Taiwan, Ukraine, War

The fallout from French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China rippled across the seas on Tuesday as Chinese warships continued to operate near Taiwan, a day after military drills officially ended. Across the Atlantic, Macron’s remarks on Europe risking entanglement in “crises that aren’t ours” in relation to Taiwan sparked criticism even as the French president attempted to outline his vision for the future of European sovereignty on a visit to the Netherlands.

As President Emmanuel Macron made his way to Beijing last week for the first French presidential visit to China since the Covid pandemic, experts noted that the trip would require a “balancing act” in the aftermath of Beijing ally Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On his flight out of Beijing, however, Macron appeared to falter on the diplomatic tightrope when he insisted that Europe should set its own policy on Taiwan to avoid being “followers” of Washington’s “agenda” in the region.

In an interview with the Politico website and two other French news organisations, Macron noted that, “the question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction”.

The reaction across the Atlantic was swift and scathing. “Emmanuel Macron fancies himself a Charles de Gaulle for the 21st century, which includes distancing Europe from the US,” began a scorching Sunday editorial in the Wall Street Journal. “No one wants a crisis over Taiwan, much less to accelerate one, but preventing one requires a credible deterrent,” the editorial continued.

Macron’s visit last week came as Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during a stopover in California, prompting Beijing to launch military exercises around the self-ruled island.

The three-day military drills, which began on Saturday, came a day after Macron left China. “People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated ‘Taiwan encirclement’ exercise,” noted the Politico report.

If China accommodated the French president’s schedule in its military exercise plans, it did little to alleviate Taiwan’s security concerns. Chinese warplanes and navy ships were still in the waters around the island on Tuesday, a day after the drills officially ended, said Taiwan’s defence ministry, sparking condemnations from Taiwanese politicians.

The fallout from Macron’s controversial comments was not limited to France’s overseas allies. Closer to home on the Continent, the French president’s call for European autonomy from US foreign policy exposed divisions within the EU.

As Macron landed in the Netherlands Tuesday for a state visit that included a speech on European sovereignty, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was boarding a flight for the US.

Speaking to reporters before boarding, Morawiecki stressed that the alliance with the US is “an absolute foundation” of European security. “Some Western leaders dream of cooperating with everyone, with Russia and with some powers in the Far East,” he said.

Morawiecki may not have named the leaders concerned, but the barbed comments left little doubt as to the target of his remarks.

Choppy waters in the Indo-Pacific

Macron has long advocated the concept of “strategic autonomy” for Europe and his comments on Taiwan reflected his emphasis on making sovereignty a priority for the 27-member EU bloc.

The roots of France’s “diplomacy of balance” date back, as the Wall Street Journal editorial suggested, to General Charles de Gaulle’s attempts to counterweigh US dominance. Under de Gaulle, France became the first Western nation to recognise the People’s Republic of China back in 1964.

But nearly 60 years later, with China flexing its military muscles on land and sea, many Western foreign policy experts have little patience for Macron’s balancing act.

Concerns are particularly heightened across the Indo-Pacific region, where the interests of the US, Japan, Australia, France, India and a number of Southeast Asian countries converge. With its overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific oceans, France considers itself an Indo-Pacific resident power.

“China is expanding in the South Pacific, France has important territories in the South Pacific, and you cannot just say, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter, Taiwan is far away from the South Pacific,’” said June Teufel Dreyer, a political scientist at University of Miami, on FRANCE 24’s The Debate show. “China is also active in the South Pacific. So where do you say to China, ‘This is the place to stop’? Or do you end up in history looking like Neville Chamberlain?” she asked, referring to the British prime minister best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, enabling Adolf Hitler to expand German territory in the 1930s.

‘Strategic nonsense’, not strategic autonomy

With its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific and its “diplomacy of balance”, France has been wary of getting sucked into Sino-American rivalry and has supported multilateralism as a counterbalance to an increasing polarisation in the region.

That position, however, was easier to maintain before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and as Beijing draws closer to Moscow. While maintaining an officially “neutral” position on the Ukraine war, Beijing has increased its calls for a “multipolar” world order – a position echoed by Moscow – in a bid to counteract Washington’s “unipolar” hegemony.

In this context, Macron’s continued focus on “strategic autonomy” appears to take a leaf right out of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s diplomatic playbook.

Earlier this year, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi ruffled feathers at the Munich Security Conference when he lectured an audience of mostly European leaders about the EU’s foreign policy imperatives – as Beijing sees it.

“We need to think calmly, especially our friends in Europe, about … what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy,” Wang told the gathering in Germany.

Experts on both sides of the Atlantic have long understood France’s fundamental foreign policy principle of strategic autonomy. But they were incensed over the timing of Macron’s latest comments, coming as Washington is investing billions in European security with its support for Ukraine and when Western unity is viewed as particularly important.

“Macron doesn’t want Europe to get ‘caught up in crises that are not ours,’ like Taiwan,” said Ivo Daalder, head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former adviser to former US president Barack Obama. “But he is perfectly fine with relying on US security commitments to address crises like Ukraine in Europe. That’s not ‘strategic autonomy.’ That’s strategic nonsense,” said Daalder in a Twitter post.

Macron doesn’t want Europe to get “caught up in crises that are not ours,” like Taiwan. But he is perfectly fine with relying on US security commitments to address crises like Ukraine in Europe. That’s not “strategic autonomy.” That’s strategic nonsense. https://t.co/psI8G6c97Y

— Ivo Daalder (@IvoHDaalder) April 9, 2023

The optics of a weakening deterrence

The main problem, according to many experts, was the blurred messaging on deterrence, a foreign policy imperative in the age of Russian expansionism.

“I can certainly agree that Europe may not want to follow the US lead, but what I’m seeing quoted is that France has no stake in what happens with Taiwan. And that is an absolutely untenable project because this ends with the Chinese wanting to change the world and that would certainly affect France, and it would certainly affect all of Europe,” said Teufel Dreyer.

China is closely monitoring the international response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine with an eye on Taiwan, according to several experts. Macron’s comments suggested that if the US came to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion, Europe could remain uninvolved.

“It weakens the deterrence. And if there was one lesson that we should have learned from Ukraine, it’s that we didn’t succeed in deterring Putin,” Antoine Bondaz, from the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, told AFP.

In its editorial, the Wall Street Journal noted that Macron’s “unhelpful comments will undermine U.S. and Japanese deterrence against China in the Western Pacific while encouraging U.S. politicians who want to reduce U.S. commitments in Europe to better resist China”.

‘Betrayal in terms of shared democratic principles’

As the backlash from Macron’s comments rippled across the Atlantic, the French presidential office attempted some damage control, but it did little to contain the controversy.

“Our position on Taiwan is constant. We support the status quo and maintain our exchanges and cooperation with Taiwan, which is a recognised democratic system,” a French presidential official told reporters on Tuesday.

But these clarifications failed to sway Taiwanese public opinion. Taipei has so far refrained from officially commenting on Macron’s remarks. While Taiwanese popular attention was focused on the Chinese military exercises, Brian Hioe, Taipei-based founding editor of the New Bloom online magazine, conceded that there was disappointment over the French president’s remarks.

“Macron’s comments are seen as somewhat disheartening because what people hope for are ties of alliance or ties of friendship on the basis of shared values,” Hioe told FRANCE 24’s The Debate. “In Taiwan, it’s being viewed as a betrayal in terms of shared democratic principles.”

Macron’s trip to China and his recent foreign visits are viewed in some French circles as an attempt to get away from the domestic crisis engulfing the country over his pension reform plan. France has witnessed major strikes since the start of the year, which peaked last month after the government rammed the pension reform bill through parliament using a controversial executive measure.

But on Tuesday afternoon, even a foreign visit offered no respite for Macron. At a theatre in The Hague, where the French president was giving a speech on European sovereignty, he was interrupted by hecklers.

“Where is French democracy?” shouted a protester as another unfurled a banner calling Macron “the president of violence and hypocrisy”.

03:35

At home and abroad, Macron will have to choose his words carefully as his plans for France meet opposition domestically and his vision of French foreign policy is met with scepticism overseas.

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The Abraham Accords: ‘Palestinian leaders don’t realise that the region is changing’

Post By World Arab world, diplomacy, Features, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israeli settlements, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mahmoud Abbas, Middle East, Palestinian Territories, USA, West Bank

Issued on: 06/04/2023 – 19:30

Palestinian human rights lawyer and former diplomat Ghaith al-Omari, a prominent advocate of the two-state solution and negotiations with Israel, gave FRANCE 24 a lengthy interview on a recent visit to Paris. In this last of a three-part series, he discussed the Abraham Accords, which saw the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab countries.

Ghaith al-Omari has long been a key player in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, acting as a Palestinian negotiator at the 2000 Camp David Summit convened by then-US president Bill Clinton and again at the 2001 Taba Summit in Egypt. He was an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas until 2006. With the peace process stalled since 2014, he now works as a senior fellow at the Washington Institute’s Irwin Levy Family Program on the US-Israel Strategic Relationship.

Al-Omari was in Paris two weeks ago to unveil the Whispered in Gaza project – a series of short animated films based on the testimonies of Palestinians living in Gaza – at the French National Assembly.

After speaking about the political situation in the occupied West Bank under the unbroken rule of the 87-year-old Abbas and the despair of Palestinian youth in the first two of this three-part interview series, al-Omari discusses the Abraham Accords, mediated by the US and signed in 2020.

While the Palestinian cause remains popular among the Arab people, the signatories of the Accords have opened a new era for the region. Has this come at the expense of the Palestinian people?

I don’t believe that the signatories of the accords have turned their back on Palestinians. We are witnessing a new way of doing politics in the Middle East, centred in the Gulf. The Arab countries that are undertaking this new approach did this to pursue their national interests, and they have every right to do so. I think the Palestinian leaders don’t realise that the region is changing, they still live in the past, they still think that the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser [the former Egyptian president who championed pan-Arabism] will come back. They will not. Those good old days of ideologies such as pan-Arabism, pan-Islamism and Nasserism are slowly disappearing and no longer dominate (the region).

This is the reality. And in this regard, Palestinians need to ask themselves if they can benefit from the new order when everyone else is focused on maximising their own interests, or are they going to remain on the sidelines and watch as history passes them by? I believe that there is a way for Palestinians to profit from the situation. As a former Palestinian negotiator, I can tell you that when we needed to effectively put pressure on the Israeli government, we call on Washington first, or course, and then Amman and Cairo. Why? Because the Arab countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel have the leverage to pressurise the nation’s leaders. And now, other Arab countries also have leverage. Let’s not forget that the United Arab Emirates have signed the Abraham Accords on condition that the Israeli government cease annexations of Palestinian territories. So, in a certain way, they’ve already delivered to the Palestinians. Palestinian leaders now have the choice of meeting with the leaders of these countries to express their respect of the decision to establish formal ties with Israel and seek out ways to profit from the situation, or do what they’re currently doing, which is condemning the new order and refusing to engage.

How can the Palestinians benefit from the Accords?

If they choose to engage, they will obtain strengthened political support from Arab countries. As we saw recently, the United Arab Emirates was willing to sponsor a UN Security Council resolution in support of the Palestinians in their fight against the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements. More than political support, there are also possibilities for economic benefits. Here’s an example: Two years ago Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates signed a deal to address each other’s shortcomings. Jordan is a regional leader in clean energy production thanks to solar power plants yet remains one of the world’s most water deprived countries. The deal was then to build solar power plants in Jordan and desalination stations in Israel [editor’s note: Israel is a world leader in water desalination but is lacking in energy, particularly in the south of the country], swapping solar energy and water so that the needs of both countries are met. The United Arab Emirates meanwhile financed the project knowing full well that all surpluses sold would profit themselves. It’s a win-win-win situation. The Palestinians would have been a perfect candidate for this kind of deal as there are many project ideas such as those that they could participate in. There is much to gain but they need to make the choice of joining. The region is changing, and the Abraham Accords are here to stay. And we can see that despite the current tension between the Israeli government and its Arab counterparts, they continue to develop economic and security ties.

Regarding the current state of Israeli politics, do the Accords help restrain the most right-wing Israeli government in history?

At the end of the day, the Israeli considerations will be primarily domestic politics, like all countries on earth. Nevertheless, with the Abraham Accords countries, today Israel has to think twice before taking certain actions. I can even tell you that according to an Israeli official source, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli diplomatic offices as well as Israeli intelligence community are all very sensitive to criticisms from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. They almost got used to criticism from Egypt and Jordan; they don’t take it seriously that much. But due to the popularity of the Abraham Accords in Israel, when these new partners criticise, the Israelis listen. So it creates a counter-pressure. We know, for example, that Benjamin Netanyahu held back his Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir when the latter wanted to take more provocative steps in Jerusalem. It is the prime minister’s fear of the United Arab Emirates, which has rapidly developed strong ties with Israel, cutting the relation that is getting him to really pressure his minister to refrain from some of these provocative actions. He doesn’t always succeed, he may not always want to succeed, but Israel is finding itself under a new pressure, without which the extremist elements of this government would be much stronger and much more assertive.

From a broader perspective, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which once stood at the centre of international relations, seems to have been relegated to a regional issue. Do you agree? Has this helped facilitate a reconciliation between the signatories of the Accords and Israel?

Nowadays, the international community considers certain issues to be much more important, such as the war in Ukraine, China’s expanding power, Iran’s nuclear threats, not to mention the various crisis in Yemen, Syria and Libya. In terms of immediate risks, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has thus been eclipsed by much more risky conflicts. At a certain point, in the 90s’ up to the early 2000s’, there was a sense of opportunity, the idea that if you invest politically in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you might get results. Today there is no sense of possibility. The Western world and regional players have understood that Palestinians are too weak to sign a deal and the Israelis are not interested anyways in such a deal. Political leaders are hence looking for an opportunity elsewhere, and that’s why the Abraham Accords are so popular. If you were a leader, would you want to engage in something that will fail? Even so, the world has moved on. In the end, it’s up to Palestinians and Israelis to re-capture the world’s attention on the issue of their conflict. Ironically, the extremist and sometimes racist policies of the current Israeli government attract a lot of scrutiny and generated many reactions internationally. The recent summoning of the Israeli ambassador to the US department of state in Washington was almost unprecedented. Even Israel’s new allies, such as the United Arab Emirates, have begun criticising the nation all the time. It’s one thing to ignore this conflict, but if there is a collapse, especially around Jerusalem, it can have spillover effects throughout the Arab world, throughout the Islamic world. So it’s a reminder that the issue cannot be completely ignored.

This article was adapted from the original in French.

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