Courtney Morgan - Iran defiant over talks on its nuclear programme

"We are talking about peaceful nuclear energy," Saeed Jalili said

Iran has again strongly defended its controversial nuclear programme as a new round of talks with world powers began in Kazakhstan.

Chief negotiator Saeed Jalili said the global community must accept Tehran's right to enrich uranium.
International powers suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons - a charge Tehran denies.
Iran insists its purposes are purely civilian, asserting it needs enriched uranium to make medical isotopes.
'Practical solution'

Analysis Lyse Doucet Chief international correspondent, Almaty

"The Iranians are engaging, now we want them to negotiate," a senior Western official told me ahead of these latest talks.
He said there had to be more of "you offered that, but we offer this" for Iran to prove it was really interested in moving forward, not just buying time.
Iran will reiterate its right to enrich uranium under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an interpretation the West does not subscribe to. But Iranian officials indicate they may be willing to discuss its level of enrichment as long as demands and incentives are "balanced".
It is seeking more sanctions relief than the limited steps in the revised proposal offered by global powers in February.
Western sources say they want to see confidence-building measures from Iran to bolster its claim that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.
The last round of talks in Almaty marked modest progress, although Western descriptions of "useful" contrasted with Iran's talk of a "possible turning point".
Round two will show which way this is turning, if at all.

"We think our talks... can go forward with one word. That is the acceptance of the rights of Iran, particularly the right to enrichment," Mr Jalili said in the city of Almaty - the venue of the talks with Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany (P5+1).

"We are talking about peaceful nuclear energy," he stressed, accusing "a handful of countries" of trying "to deny this right to others".
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Madrid on Thursday he hoped for "very meaningful progress" from the negotiations, urging the Iranians to prove their programme was for peaceful purposes.
At the previous round of talks in Kazakhstan in February, the world powers tried to push Tehran to halt production and stockpiling of uranium enriched to 20% - a step away from achieving a nuclear weapons capability.
The P5+1 also demanded Iran shut down the Fordo underground enrichment facility.
In return the world powers suggested easing tough economic sanctions against Iran.
Several rounds of sanctions have squeezed Iran's economy, with oil revenue slashed, the currency nose-diving in value and unemployment growing.
But significant differences reportedly remain on how far both sides are willing to go to reach a mutually accepted compromise.
In March, US President Barack Obama said he had offered Iran a "practical solution" if it truly sought peaceful nuclear capabilities rather than weapons.
He urged the country to take "immediate and meaningful steps" to reduce tension with the international community.
Meanwhile, Israel has warned that it will stop Iran's programme militarily if other means fail.

Courtney Morgan - Iraq: Tikrit police HQ hit by deadly tanker bomb attack

A suicide attacker has blown up a tanker lorry at the police HQ in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, killing at least nine people, officials say.

A majority of the casualties and injured are thought to have been police officers, AFP news agency reports.
The city, which lies 160km (100 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, was the hometown of ex-leader Saddam Hussein.
Violence has decreased in Iraq since the peak of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007, but bombings are still common.
Sunni Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda have vowed to step up attacks on Shia and official targets this year, in an attempt to weaken the Shia-led government.
Last week, at least 19 people died and more than 100 were wounded in a spate of car bomb attacks in the northern city of Kilkurk. March saw 271 people killed in attacks across Iraq - the highest death toll for six months.
Political crisis Monday's blast, inside a compound housing various government offices in central Tikrit, left a huge crater and damaged many nearby buildings.
Police say the vehicle may have got through security because it appeared to be a truck making a regular delivery of oil and gas.
The violence comes ahead of provincial elections scheduled to take place on 20 April, as a long-running crisis between Shia and Sunni political leaders shows no sign of easing.
Tensions, especially in Sunni regions of the country, have been exacerbated by the efforts of Iraq's Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to tighten his grip on power, says the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, Jonathan Marcus.
With the influential Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani - a Kurd - out of action having suffered a stroke, there are renewed fears the country could split along sectarian and ethnic lines, adds our correspondent.

Courtney Morgan - Mali troops search Timbuktu for Islamists rebels

 

A Malian army checkpoint was attacked on Saturday evening (file picture)

French and Malian troops have combed the northern city of Timbuktu searching for Islamist rebels thought to be hiding in homes after fierce fighting.

Militants holed up in a house near the army barracks opened fire as soldiers conducted searches, reports said.
Clashes broke out over the weekend after a suicide bomber attempted to attack an army checkpoint.
Earlier this year, French troops pushed Islamists out of much of northern Mali but sporadic fighting has continued.
Tensions remain high in Timbuktu with militants still believed to be hiding in the town, the BBC's Thomas Fessy, in the capital Bamako, reports.
Several rebels reportedly engaged Malian and French troops in a fire fight on Monday morning from a house by the entrance of the army's barracks, our correspondent says.
The area was cordoned off as residents barricaded themselves in their homes, fearing renewed fighting downtown.
At least three Islamists were killed in fighting on Monday, news agency AFP reported.
Air power The suicide bomber was killed before he could detonate his bomb on Saturday evening. The failed attack was followed by militant attempts to infiltrate the city.
The Malian army, backed by French air power, then moved against the militants.
At least one Malian soldier and two civilians were wounded in Saturday's fighting according to the city's mayor.
But the number of casualties following Sunday's clashes remains unknown.
Another militant attack on the northern town of Gao was repelled on Monday.

 

Islamist rebels have been fighting French and Malian troops in Timbuktu

Islamist rebels seized much of northern Mali a year ago after a military coup in the capital Bamako.
France intervened militarily in January amid fears that the militants were preparing to advance on Bamako. It currently has about 4,000 troops in Mali.
Since the intervention began, major cities including Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu have been recaptured but fighting is still continuing in desert mountains.
Mali's army and troops from several African countries, including 2,000 from Chad, have also been involved in the fighting.
France plans to withdraw its troops from Mali next month, with West African countries expected to take over in the run-up to elections due in July.

Courtney Morgan - Mali crisis: EU troops begin training mission

 

French fighting forces are preparing to begin withdrawing from Mali

An EU mission to train Malian soldiers is due to begin as part of efforts to help the West African country counter an Islamist insurgency.

The first of four Malian battalions will train under European instructors at the Koulikoro base some 60km (37 miles) from the capital, Bamako.
A French-led intervention that began in January has regained the main cities of northern Mali from Islamist groups.
However, fighting continues in the north.
Of the 550 troops from 22 EU nations sent to Mali, about 150 are trainers with the rest made up of mission support staff and force protection.
France is the biggest contributor to the force with 207 troops, followed by Germany with 71, Spain with 54, Britain 40, the Czech Republic 34, Belgium 25 and Poland 20.
Training takes place under the control of French Brigadier General Francois Lecointre and is expected to continue for about 15 months.
"Objectively, it [the army] must be entirely rebuilt," said Gen Lecointre.
"The Malian authorities are well aware of the need to reconstruct the army, very aware that Mali almost disappeared due to the failings of the institution."
Islamic law The first fully trained battalion of Malian troops is expected to be operational in July.
Islamist groups took advantage of a coup in March 2012 to seize the vast north of Mali including major cities including Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
They imposed a strict form of Islamic law in the area.
France intervened after saying the al-Qaeda-linked militants threatened to march on Bamako.
France is now preparing to withdraw its 4,000 troops fighting in Mali, which will be replaced by forces from several West African countries.
French President Francois Hollande said troop levels would be halved by July and reduced to about 1,000 by the end of the year.
The African force in Mali currently numbers about 6,300 soldiers.

Violence reignites along Israel-Gaza border after Palestinian prisoner’s death

DARREN WHITESIDE/Reuters - Palestinian protesters take cover behind old doors during clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Hebron, on April 3, 2013.

 

By Joel Greenberg,

Apr 03, 2013 10:15 PM EDT

The Washington PostPublished: April 3

JERUSALEM — The death of a Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody triggered a flare-up of violence across the Israel-Gaza border early Wednesday, but calm later returned to the area as both sides appeared to be stepping back from further confrontation.
A rocket fired into Israel after the prisoner’s death Tuesday triggered an Israeli airstrike overnight. On Wednesday morning, two more rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip. One landed at the entrance to Sderot, an Israeli town near the Gaza border, and another in an open area nearby, causing no damage or casualties, a police spokesman said. Alarms forced residents to take cover as they headed to schools and work.

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Youths clash with Israeli soldiers during marches for slain teens, prisoner who died in custody.

 

 

The Israeli airstrike was the first in the Gaza Strip since a cease-fire ended eight days of cross-border fighting in November.
An al-Qaeda-inspired group, the Mujaheddin Shura Council, said it had fired the latest rockets in support of Palestinian prisoners and in response to the death of the inmate, Maysara Abu Hamdiya. Palestinian officials accused the Israeli authorities of delaying treatment of the prisoner, who succumbed to cancer.
About 4,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails refused meals Wednesday after declaring a three-day hunger strike to protest the death of Abu Hamdiya, 63, who was given a life term for his role in a failed suicide bombing plot targeting Jerusalem, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service said.
The Mujaheddin Shura Council said in its statement that one of its members was arrested after Tuesday’s rocket attack, suggesting that the authorities in Gaza, which is ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, were working to prevent further attacks and maintain the cease-fire with Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement that Israel viewed Hamas as responsible for any firing from Gaza, adding, “We will absolutely not allow a routine of sporadic shooting at our citizens and forces.”
The chief Israeli army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said the military would not accept a return to the conditions that prevailed before its November offensive in Gaza, which was launched to halt repeated rocket fire. “The aim is to maintain quiet in the south of the country,” he said.
Although the exchanges of fire appeared to have stopped, the dispute over the death of the prisoner continued. The Palestinian Authority released an affidavit taken by a lawyer who visited Abu Hamdiya last month, citing a months-long delay in his referral for hospital examination and a lack of treatment for what was diagnosed in January as throat cancer, five months after the prisoner first complained of severe throat pain.
Israel Prison Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said she would not comment pending an internal review of the case.
The latest exchanges drew an expression of concern from Robert Serry, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process. “The United Nations condemns the indiscriminate firing of rockets into civilian areas and calls on Israel to act with restraint,” Serry said in a statement, warning that the violence threatened to unravel the cease-fire.
Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops also erupted in the West Bank, and a teenager was fatally shot near the town of Tulkarm. An army spokeswoman said soldiers in a post near an Israeli settlement opened fire after they were attacked with molotov cocktails, hitting one of the assailants. Israeli media said that the soldiers fired from a fortified guard tower and that the army was checking whether they had followed the rules of engagement.
Meanwhile, tensions heightened along Israel’s increasingly volatile frontier with Syria, whose civil war has threatened to spill over into the Israeli-held Golan Heights. On Tuesday night, an Israeli tank targeted a Syrian position after shots were fired at an Israeli border patrol, the army said. Earlier, a mortar shell landed in Israeli-held territory, according to the military.
Yaalon warned that Israel would respond to any shooting from Syrian territory, regardless of whether it was stray fire.
“The minute we identify the source of fire, we’ll destroy it without hesitation,” he said.

Islam Abdel Karim in Gaza contributed to this report.

 

West Bank Funerals Become Displays of Palestinian Defiance

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: April 4, 2013   

JERUSALEM – The funeral of a Palestinian prisoner who died of cancer in Israeli custody set off displays of angry defiance on Thursday in the West Bank city of Hebron. Masked gunmen loyal to the Palestinian president fired into the air to underscore calls for vengeance, and clashes broke out between Israeli soldiers and youths burning tires and hurling stones.

 

Darren Whiteside/Reuters

In the northern West Bank on Thursday, hundreds of people participated in the funeral of two Palestinians who were shot dead by Israeli troops late Wednesday during clashes near a military checkpoint.

Farther north, near the city of Tulkarm, the burial of two other Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli forces late on Wednesday also became a rallying point for mourners calling for continued resistance against Israeli occupation.

Unrest in the West Bank, which has been simmering for several months, has raised the specter of a wider explosion of violence with some Palestinians in Hebron calling for a new uprising to liberate Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The charged atmosphere did not bode well for diplomacy, with Secretary of State John Kerry expected in the region next week in part to try to find a formula to restart peace negotiations.

The Palestinian leadership accused Israel of harming the American effort.

“This escalation proves that the Israeli government only looks at reality through brute power, settlement activities and Judaization,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement.

Thousands in Hebron attended the funeral of the prisoner, Maysara Abu Hamdiya, 64, who died of cancer that, according to an Israeli autopsy, began in the vocal cords and had spread to the lungs, neck, chest, liver, spine and ribs. The Palestinians have accused the Israeli authorities of deliberately delaying his diagnosis and treatment. The Israel prison service said a committee would examine the circumstances of his death.

A retired general in the Palestinian Authority security services, Mr. Hamdiya was buried with military honors. He was detained by Israel in 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian uprising, and was serving a life term for attempted murder for his involvement in a failed suicide bombing in a Jerusalem cafe.

The thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails hold a hallowed place in Palestinian society as heroic fighters for the cause, and Mr. Hamdiya’s death has stirred outrage. Mr. Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, have been among Palestinians accusing Israeli of embracing a policy of medical negligence. The Palestinian Authority’s minister of prisoner affairs, Issa Qaraqe, attended Mr. Hamdiya’s funeral along with many local dignitaries.

Mr. Hamdiya’s hometown, Hebron, in the southern West Bank, is notoriously volatile, with a few hundred Jewish settlers living amid about 170,000 Palestinians.

His death appeared to have unified the deeply divided Palestinians, at least temporarily. Flags of all the rival political and militant factions were raised in the crowds, including those of Fatah, the mainstream secularist party led by Mr. Abbas, and its rivals, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

With Palestinians in the city on a general strike, dozens of masked militiamen of Fatah’s Al Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade, who have mostly lain low in recent years, attended the funeral.

In a speech to the crowd, a spokesman for the group said, “We will not allow the Israelis to kill our people, especially the prisoners.”

He added, “We are calling on President Abbas to give us a green light to react to what happened to Maysara Abu Hamdiya.”

The Israeli military reported groups of stone-throwing Palestinians on the main road leading to Hebron and at another location in the northern West Bank.

Mr. Hamdiya’s death was also the apparent cause of a flare-up of violence across the Israel-Gaza border this week. A small Islamic extremist group fired rockets into southern Israel, saying it was acting in support of the Palestinian prisoners, and Israel retaliated late Tuesday night with an airstrike in Gaza, its first since a cease-fire that ended eight days of cross-border fighting in November. That front appeared to have largely quieted by Thursday.

But the potential for confrontation in the West Bank could be seen late Wednesday when youths protesting the death of the prisoner clashed with soldiers at an Israeli army post near the West Bank city of Tulkarm. The Israeli military said that the youths were hurling firebombs at the soldiers, who responded with live fire. Amer Nassar, 17, was killed on the spot. The body of Naji Balbisi, 18, was found in the early hours of the morning.

Thabet Amal, the mayor of Anabta, the village near Tulkarm where the youths lived, told the official Voice of Palestine radio that both had been shot in the chest. The Israeli military said it was investigating the episode.

Nayef Hashlamoun contributed reporting from Hebron, West Bank.

Iran defiant ahead of nuclear talks

"We are talking about peaceful nuclear energy," Saeed Jalili said

Continue reading the main story

Iran nuclear crisis

• Would Israel launch an attack?
• Issue stalks poll
• Q&A: Nuclear issue
• Key nuclear sites

Iran has again strongly defended its controversial nuclear programme ahead of a new round of talks with world powers in Kazakhstan.

Chief negotiator Saeed Jalili said the global community must accept Tehran's right to enrich uranium.
International powers suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons - a charge Tehran denies.
Iran insists its purposes are purely civilian, asserting it needs enriched uranium to make medical isotopes.
'Practical solution' "We think our talks... can go forward with one word. That is the acceptance of the rights of Iran, particularly the right to enrichment," Mr Jalili said in the city of Almaty - the venue of the talks with Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany (P5+1).
"We are talking about peaceful nuclear energy," he stressed, accusing "a handful of countries" of trying "to deny this right to others".
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Madrid on Thursday he hoped for "very meaningful progress" from the negotiations, urging the Iranians to prove their programme was for peaceful purposes.
At the previous round of talks in Kazakhstan in February, the world powers tried to push Tehran to halt production and stockpiling of uranium enriched to 20% - a step away from achieving a nuclear weapons capability.
The P5+1 also demanded Iran shut down the Fordo underground enrichment facility.

The February round of talks ended without a breakthrough

In return the world powers suggested easing tough economic sanctions against Iran.
Several rounds of sanctions have squeezed Iran's economy, with oil revenue slashed, the currency nose-diving in value and unemployment growing.
But significant differences reportedly remain on how far both sides are willing to go to reach a mutually accepted compromise.
In March, US President Barack Obama said he had offered Iran a "practical solution" if it truly sought peaceful nuclear capabilities rather than weapons.
He urged the country to take "immediate and meaningful steps" to reduce tension with the international community.
Meanwhile, Israel has warned that it will stop Iran's programme militarily if other means fail.