Day: September 17, 2021

CAIRO– Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, met yesterday with Bahraini King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, where they discussed the latest developments of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), built on the Nile River, said the Egyptian presidency.

During the talks, the Bahraini king renewed his country’s solidarity and support for Egypt and Sudan, regarding the GERD issue, said Egyptian presidential spokesman, Bassam Rady.

The Bahraini king also reiterated Manama’s support for everything that preserves Egypt’s and Sudan’s legitimate rights and water security in the Nile River, “as well as, support for efforts to reach a binding, just and comprehensive agreement on filling and operating the GERD,” according to the statement.

For his part, Sisi urged for intensifying meetings between senior officials of both Egypt and Bahrain, to coordinate closely on the successive developments taking place in the Middle East region, and strengthen Arab unity in facing various regional challenges.

The Egyptian president also expressed Egypt’s keenness to continue boosting bilateral cooperation with Bahrain, hailing “historical ties” between the two Arab countries.

The meeting came, a day after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued a presidential statement, urging resumption of tripartite negotiations among Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, with a view to finalising the text of a mutually acceptable agreement on filling and operating the dam “within a reasonable time frame.”

It also encouraged observers invited to the African Union-led negotiations – and any other observers that Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan may consensually decide to jointly invite – to continue to support the discussions, with a view to facilitating the resolution of outstanding technical and legal issues.

The UNSC presidential statement has been welcomed by both downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, which have repeatedly been calling for a tripartite binding legal agreement, on the rules of filling and operating the dam.

Decade-long negotiations failed to reach an agreement over the issue, including those hosted earlier by Washington and recently by the AU.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

TUNIS— Tunisia and Libya are to reopen their shared border on Friday, the presidency in Tunis said, two months after they were closed as the country’s coronavirus caseload soared.

“The president of (Tunisia) issued orders to reopen border crossings with the state of Libya from Friday” at 7:00 am local time (0600 GMT), the office of President Kais Saied said in a statement.

Libya closed its land borders and suspended flights between the two countries on July 8 due to an explosion in Covid-19 cases in Tunisia, which responded by closing its own crossings.

But with the caseload rapidly dropping, officials on both sides agreed to reopen the frontier, with measures in place to limit the possibility of contaminations.

Tunis and Tripoli agreed on a health protocol “subject to revision in light of developments in the health situation in the two countries,” the Tunisian statement read.

The reopening would be reviewed in case of any “violation”, it added.

Tunisia’s Covid-19 caseload, which in August was the world’s worst according to official data, has since significantly improved.

On Tuesday the country of 11.7 million recorded 1,142 new cases and nine coronavirus-caused deaths.

Reopening the border was a key point of discussions between Saied and Libyan transitional Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, who visited Tunis last Thursday.

The Ras Al-Jdeir and Dahabiya crossings are key economic lifelines for Tunisian traders in the country’s economically marginalised south, while many Libyans cross to access medical treatment and visit Tunisia for tourism.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

MOGADISHU— Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has suspended Prime Minister Mohammed Hussein Roble’s power to hire and fire officials, the latest development in a destabilizing feud that has plunged the country into a fresh crisis.

The dispute between the two leaders marks an escalation of months of tension, threatening to throw an already fragile electoral process into deeper peril.

“The prime minister has violated the transitional constitution so his executive powers are withdrawn … especially his powers to remove and to appoint officials, until the election is completed,” the office of the president, popularly known as Farmaajo, said in a statement.

It added the suspension will last until the conclusion of elections later this year.

There was no immediate comment from Roble.

Farmaajo’s four-year mandate expired in February but was extended by parliament in April, triggering deadly gun battles in the capital Mogadishu, with some rivals viewing it as a flagrant power grab.

Roble cobbled together a new timetable for polls, but the process fell behind. Last week, he accused Farmaajo of trying to reclaim “election and security responsibilities” from him.

Elections in Somalia follow a complex indirect model, whereby state legislatures and clan delegates pick lawmakers for the national parliament, who, in turn, choose the president.

The next phase is scheduled for between Oct 1 and Nov 25.

The feud intensified last week when Roble sacked Somalia’s intelligence chief for his handling of a high-profile probe into the disappearance of a young agent.

Farmaajo overruled the prime minister, appointing the dumped intelligence official as his national security adviser.

Roble, in turn, accused the president of “obstructing” the investigation and fired the security minister and replaced him with a Farmaajo critic.

The spat has raised the political temperature in the capital, Mogadishu, with a coalition of opposition presidential candidates on Friday saying it “supports the prime minister and condemns the actions of the outgoing president”.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

CAIRO— Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pledged support for elections in Libya in talks with the North African country’s interim prime minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.

Sisi “stressed the importance of the upcoming Libyan elections in respecting and activating the free will of the … Libyan people,” a presidency statement said.

An interim government was established earlier this year to lead conflict-ridden Libya towards Dec 24 parliamentary and presidential polls.

During a visit to Tripoli on Tuesday, US Department of State Counsellor Derek Chollet said the war-torn country had “the best opportunity in a decade to bring the conflict to closure”.

Parliament speaker Aguila Saleh, who also met el-Sisi alongside Libya’s east-based commander Khalifa Hiftar, ratified a law last week governing the presidential elections.

Critics accused him of failing to follow due process and seeking to favor Haftar, who is increasingly expected to run in the country’s presidential poll later this year. Cairo has long been seen as one of Haftar’s main supporters.

Egypt’s war-scarred neighbor is trying to extricate itself from a decade of turmoil following the 2011 toppling of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising.

In recent years, the country has been split between rival administrations backed by foreign powers including Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

In his meeting with Dbeibah, el-Sisi rejected all forms of “foreign interference” in Libya, the statement added.

According to the UN, some 20,000 mercenaries and foreign fighters were still in Libya last year.

The Russian Wagner Group has also been accused of supporting Haftar by sending guns-for-hire to destabilize the country. Turkey has backed the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord.

Haftar’s forces were routed from the country’s west last year, and the two camps signed a ceasefire deal in Geneva in October.

During Dbeibah’s visit to Cairo, Egypt and Libya’s unity government signed a series of cooperation agreements and several infrastructure contracts.

The 14 memorandums of understanding, cover sectors ranging from industry and hydrocarbons to agriculture, communications, and civil aviation, according to a statement from Egypt’s Cabinet.

Project contracts signed between the Libyan government and prominent Egyptian companies include a ring road around the Libyan capital Tripoli, another road leading south to Jalu from the eastern town of Ajdabiya, and the construction and supply of two gas plants.

No detail was given on the value of the contracts.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

An executive order signed Friday by U.S. President Joe Biden seeks to slap harsh sanctions on all sides involved in the war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region — including the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In the order, Biden said the region had seen “widespread violence, atrocities, and serious human rights abuse, including those involving ethnic-based violence, rape and other forms of gender-based violence, and obstruction of humanitarian operations.”

“The new executive order I signed today establishes a new sanctions regime that will allow us to target those responsible for, or complicit in, prolonging the conflict in Ethiopia, obstructing humanitarian access, or preventing a ceasefire,” Biden said in a statement Friday.

“These sanctions are not directed at the people of Ethiopia or Eritrea, but rather the individuals and entities perpetrating the violence and driving a humanitarian disaster.”

The sweeping order prompted swift pushback from Ethiopia’s leader, who accused the United States ofputting on “unwarranted pressure, characterized by double standards.”

“As a long-time friend, strategic ally and partner in security, the United States’ recent policy against my country comes not only as a surprise to our proud nation, but evidently surpasses humanitarian concerns,” wrote Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in an open letter to Biden, obtained by VOA.

The order allows the U.S. Treasury Department to impose sanctions if steps are not taken soon to end 10 months of fighting. It did not name any individuals, but the criteria are broad and extensive, including even the spouses and adult children of individuals the State Department deems to have met the criteria. The order also provides for sanctions against the regional government of Amhara region, and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

Conflict started in the region in November, after TPLF rebels attacked a federal military base, and Abiy ordered a counteroffensive. Tensions had been simmering between the federal government and regional leaders for months.

Previous U.S. attempts to pressure the warring factions, including visa restrictions against Ethiopian and Eritrean officials, have not been successful.

“The United States is determined to push for a peaceful resolution of this conflict, and we will provide full support to those leading mediation efforts, including the African Union High Representative for the Horn of Africa Olusegun Obasanjo,” said Biden.“We fully agree with United Nations and African Union leaders: there is no military solution to this crisis.”

Also Friday, U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) released a joint statement pledging legislative action. Both men sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Menendez is the chairman.

“Continuing human rights abuses by the parties to the conflict in Ethiopia warrant an unequivocal response: We will not tolerate war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic violence,” they said.

“In that vein, we will unveil a new legislative effort in the coming weeks for Congress to drastically bolster U.S. efforts to pursue accountability for the carnage in the Tigray region as this protracted ethnic conflict approaches the one-year mark. It is our hope that this effort will help galvanize a political process to help stabilize Ethiopia.”

The war is threatening the stability of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country.

The conflict has triggered the world’s largest hunger crisis, leaving millions of people in need of humanitarian aid.

On Thursday, U.S. officials said only 10% of humanitarian supplies for the embattled Tigray region have been allowed to enter the area over the past month.

The U.S. and the United Nations say the trucks transporting essential aid such as food and water to the area have been blocked by Ethiopian troops.

Source: Voice of America