Region

LUXEMBOURG — EU foreign ministers on Monday voiced concern and condemnation at Turkey's assault on Kurdish forces in northern Syria, but warned their options for coordinated action across the bloc were limited.

Several European countries including Germany and France have halted arms exports to Turkey over the offensive and some like Italy are pushing for a formal EU ban.

But, with some EU states urging caution so as not to inflame already tense ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg look unlikely to agree tough concrete actions.

"We don't have magic powers but what we can do is put all pressure possible to stop this action," Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell told reporters as he arrived for the meeting.

Spain would back a Europe-wide arms embargo, Borrell said, but warned it would be hard to get the unanimous support of all 28 EU states.

Germany's Heiko Maas said the offensive by NATO member Turkey threatens to upend progress towards a political solution to Syria's civil war, with the Kurds now joining forces with the government of President Bashar Al Assad.

But he said "it is important to remain in dialogue with Turkey in order to be able to influence it.”

“If that is not successful, we will have to reserve the right to take further measures,” he said.

Turkey's assault, which has seen air strikes, shelling and a ground incursion, has killed scores of civilians and fighters since its launch on Wednesday.

The EU last week issued a statement in the name of all 28 member states to condemn the offensive, warning it risked unleashing a humanitarian disaster and could undermine the fight against the Daesh group.

Trouble for NATO 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the most important thing was for Monday's meeting to send a strong message to Turkey.

Paris also wants the US-led international coalition against Daesh — of which Turkey is a member — to meet to discuss the crisis, Le Drian said.

Washington has ordered the withdrawal of almost its entire ground force in Syria, leaving the Kurds feeling abandoned by their ally in the fight against Daesh.

The Turkish offensive creates huge headaches for NATO, with several countries highly critical and even imposing arms embargoes on a fellow alliance member.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn called the situation "unbelievable", asking what would happen if Syria launched a counterattack.

"Would Article 5 be triggered?" he said, referring to NATO's mutual self-defence clause under which an attack on one member is an attack on all.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg held talks on Friday with Erdogan and his foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, sharing his "very serious concerns" about the offensive.

Cavusoglu said Spain had told Ankara that as a result of the assault, it would withdraw its Patriot missile batteries from Turkey — originally deployed to help it defend itself against Daesh attacks — when the current mission ends in December.

RIYADH — Energy superpowers Saudi Arabia and Russia on Monday signed a key deal to bolster cooperation among the world's oil giants, as visiting President Vladimir Putin sought to defuse political tensions in the Gulf.

Putin's visit follows attacks on Saudi oil installations that Riyadh and Washington have blamed on Moscow ally Tehran.

At a ceremony in Riyadh, Putin and his host, Saudi King Salman, penned a string of multimillion dollar investment contracts targeting the aerospace, culture, health, advanced technology and agriculture sectors.

Key among the deals was the agreement to bolster cooperation among the so-called OPEC+ countries — the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus 10 non-members of the cartel.

Moscow is not a member of OPEC, but it has worked closely with the group to limit supply and push up prices after a 2014 slump that wreaked havoc on the economies of Russia and cartel heavyweight Saudi Arabia.

Monday's deal seeks to "reinforce cooperation... and strengthen oil market stability", Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman said at the signing ceremony.

Putin said: "Russia attaches particular importance to the development of friendly, and mutually beneficial ties with Saudi Arabia".

King Salman told Putin, "we look forward to working with Your Excellency on everything that will bring security, stability and peace, confront extremism and terrorism and promote economic growth".

Role of ‘peacemaker’ 

Moscow and Riyadh, a traditional US ally, have made a striking rapprochement in recent years, marked in particular by King Salman’s first visit to Russia in October 2017.

In an interview with Arabic-language television channels ahead of his visit, Putin praised his good relations with the Saudi royals.

“We will absolutely work with Saudi Arabia and our other partners and friends in the Arab world... to reduce to zero any attempt to destabilise the oil market”, he said in the interview broadcast Sunday.

Russian political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov said that Moscow, with its older ties to Iran and new links with Saudi, could “play the role of peacemaker” as tensions soar between Tehran and Riyadh.

These tensions spiked last month after the attacks on Saudi oil facilities that halved the kingdom’s crude output and set oil markets alight.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility. But US officials blamed Tehran, charging that the rebels did not have the range or sophistication to target the facilities.

Tehran has denied involvement and warned of “total war” in the event of any attack on its territory.

Last week, an Iranian tanker was hit by suspected missile strikes off the coast of Saudi Arabia, sparking fresh fears of war.

Syria war 

Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Syria’s eight-year-old war would also feature in the leaders’ talks on Monday.

Russia and Iran back President Bashar Al Assad, while the Saudis support the opposition seeking his ouster.

But “it is important for Russia that an Arab country participates in the political settlement in Syria,” said Lukyanov.

For now “only three non-Arab countries” — Turkey, Russia and Iran — are hosting talks, the analyst added.

In terms of business, the visit is expected to result in around 30 agreements and contracts, according to Ushakov.

A dozen of these, in the advanced technology, energy and infrastructure sectors, will be signed by the Russian sovereign wealth fund and are worth around $2 billion.

In October 2017, Russia and Saudi Arabia also signed a memorandum of understanding paving the way for Riyadh’s purchase of Moscow’s powerful S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems.

The sale never materialised, however, as Saudi Arabia eventually opted to purchase a US system.

After Saudi Arabia, Putin will travel to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday to meet crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

TUNIS  — Conservative political outsider Kais Saeid has won Tunisia's presidential election by a landslide taking 72.71 per cent of the votes, the North African country's electoral commission said Monday.

Saeid garnered 2.7 million votes against one million received by his rival business tycoon Nabil Karoui in Sunday's runoff, the commission said.

The vote — the second presidential election since 2014 — reflected Tunisia's shifting political landscape since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ousted an autocratic regime.

Saeid, a retired law professor with a rigid and austere demeanour that earned him the nickname "Robocop", was carried to victory by young voters, wooed by his anti-establishment platform.

Around 90 per cent of 18- to 25-year-olds voted for Saeid, according to estimates by the Sigma polling institute, compared with 49.2 per cent of voters over 60.

According to Tunisian law, the results can still be appealed within two weeks before the new president is sworn in at the end of the month.

The electoral commission ISIE said turnout was 55 per cent, slightly lower from an initial figure of 58 per cent announced Sunday after the runoff.

It noted, however, that turnout was higher than during the first round on September 15.

The poll, Tunisia's second free presidential election since its 2011 revolt, followed the death of president Beji Caid Essebsi in July.

Born in Tunis on February 22, 1958 into a middle-class family, Saeid is an expert on constitutional law who taught at the Tunis faculty of judicial and political sciences from 1999 to 2018.

He retired last year, and launched an unorthodox election campaign that saw him shun mass rallies and focus instead on door-to-door canvassing for votes.

The ‘professor’

Some of his supporters still address him as “professor” — even though he has few published works and never earned a PhD.

He has two daughters and a son. His wife, a judge, has remained behind the scenes through much of his campaign.

Saeid has been nicknamed “Robocop” because of his rigid self-presentation and speech and posture and expressionless demeanour.

But several of his former students have praised Saeid, saying that beneath his tough exterior is a devoted teacher.

“He could spend hours outside class time explaining a lesson or helping us understand why we’d received a certain grade on an exam,” one of his students tweeted.

He was “a serious teacher, sometimes theatrical, but always available and ready to listen”, said Nessim Ben Gharbia, a journalist who took a course with Saeid from September 2011 to June 2012.

Among his supporters are activists he met during the 2011 protests that raged following the ouster of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, demanding a complete overhaul of the political system.

Saeid became a household name when he became a regular political commentator on TV during the drafting of the constitution adopted in 2014.

Among his policy pledges are a radical decentralisation of power, along with the creation of a new network of elected local councils led by officials who would face the sack if they abuse their power.

In an online video, he is seen defending his vision as a roadmap to ensure “that the will of the people reaches all the way up through the highest ranks of the central government, and to put an end to corruption”.

The support he has built has been buoyed by a broad rejection among voters of the post-Arab Spring political establishment.

While Tunisia has succeeded in curbing terror attacks that rocked the key tourist sector in 2015, its economy remains hampered by austere International Monetary Fund-backed reforms.

In his own no-frills life, Saeid appears to embody the anti-corruption message he seeks to spread: he lives in a middle-class neighbourhood in Tunis and his office is housed in a run-down flat in the heart of the capital.

And while he makes no secret of his conservative views, he says he would respect the social freedoms enshrined in law in recent years that civil society groups have hailed as victories.

“We will not backpedal on the rights we have gained in terms of our freedoms, in terms of women’s rights,” Saeid has said.

Yet he rejects a bid to overhaul Tunisia’s inheritance law — which remains based on Islamic law, meaning that women inherit half of their male siblings’ part.

But experts refute that he is an Islamist.

“He is indeed an ultra-conservative, but he is no Islamist. He does not make his personal convictions his priorities,” constitutional law expert and Saeid’s former teacher Iyadh Ben Achour told French newspaper La Croix in a recent interview.

BAGHDAD — Calm may have returned to Iraq after protests were violently suppressed, but the threat of further unrest remains, experts say, amid public rejection of politicians and a failure so far to heed calls for reform.

In six days of demonstrations from October 1, more than 100 Iraqis died, mostly protesters killed by live ammunition fired into crowds. The perpetrators have not been arrested, or even identified.

Mohammed Al Kaabi, a 28-year-old unemployed graduate, says he is ready to return to the streets at any time.

“We protested and will protest again to denounce the poverty, unemployment and corruption that ruin our lives,” he told AFP.

Unproductive meetings in parliament held since have not convinced him otherwise, he said.

Nor have proposed reforms — unemployment aid, housing allowances, an online job portal — promised by a government that he would like to see fall.

“What are these reforms and why were they only announced after young people died?” he asked.

“It’s been a long time since people had confidence in the government,” he said, adding that politicians “spend their time making promises without ever keeping them”.

According to Falah Al Khazaali, an MP for the Fateh Party, the current cabinet “isn’t responsible for the errors of its predecessors.”

Fateh is the political arm of Hashed Al Shaabi — the paramilitary force dominated by pro-Iran groups — and is part of the ruling coalition.

“But whether protests continue will depend on the government’s ability to fulfil its promises to the Iraqi people,” he added.

‘Fire in the street’ 

During protests — which started in Baghdad and spread to southern Iraq — demonstrators denounced an absence of jobs and lack of functioning public services while leaders benefited from corruption, which reached $450 billion (410 billion euros) in 16 years according to official figures.

In a country where voter turnout is declining amid polls regularly tainted by fraud, “the failure of the political system is the principal reason for this movement”, Iraqi political analyst Essam Al Fili told AFP.

Facing protester demands for radical change, reforms proposed in recent days by a government already heavily in debt “are not an action but a reaction, without planning or strategy”, said Fili.

“They’re just trying to put out the fire in the street, but if nothing changes, fires will flare again,” he added.

‘Crisis of confidence’ 

According to political analyst Wathiq Al Hachemi, the root problem — “a crisis of confidence between the people and power” — isn’t new.

“Successive governments have promised reforms without ever putting them in place,” he said.

But this time, an inability to implement reform is compounded by “a political and economic crisis and allegiances abroad”, he said, with factions choosing sides between Iran and the United States, the two major foreign powers in Iraq.

Mounting tension between Tehran and Washington is a serious challenge to Iraq, scene of four decades of conflict and violence.

For Zine Al Abidine Al Bediri, a 27-year-old lawyer who demonstrated in the southern city of Kut, the situation calls for a total overhaul.

“I want to change the political system, the politicians and even the constitution,” he told AFP.

If the protest movement stops before having obtained all this he said, it’s because demonstrators find themselves facing “political parties and their militias”.

During the unrest, protesters were targeted by gunmen, who the government labelled “infiltrators”.

Human rights groups accused security forces of the attacks.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spiritual leader for Iraq’s Shiite majority, said “the government is responsible when, under the eye of law enforcement, protesters are fired on illegally”.

In response, the government launched two enquiries, one to investigate protest deaths and injuries, and another to hold to account security forces who acted illegally.

Despite the violence, “the youth braved bullets without fear”, said Bediri.

And if their demands are not met, “we will show them something even bigger and stronger.”

ISTANBUL — Turkey on Monday accused Kurdish forces of deliberately releasing Daesh prisoners held at a prison in the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad.

“Turkish forces raided a prison in Tal Abyad earlier today, expecting to take custody of Daesh terrorists held there,” a senior government official told reporters.

“Before they got there, [Kurdish] PKK/YPG terrorists set free the Daesh militants in an attempt to fuel chaos in the area,” he said, claiming that no doors had been broken in the prison.

Western governments have voiced concern that Turkey’s operation against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria would lead to Daesh extremists escaping from detention centres in the region.

Kurdish authorities said Sunday that 800 Daesh family members being held in a camp at Ain Issa had managed to flee due to Turkish bombing, and that five jihadists had escaped another prison on Friday.

Turkey claims the Kurdish forces deliberately set them free.

“The folly of trusting a terrorist group for keeping watch over another is exposed for all,” said the Turkish official.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier hit out at “disinformation” reports that Turkey was responsible for the escape of extremists.

“This is actually disinformation aimed at provoking America or the West,” he said, quoted by the Hurriyet daily.

Some relatives of the Daesh families in the Ain Issa camp told AFP that Kurdish guards had forced the women and children to leave.

“Today [Sunday], the Kurdish guards opened the doors to the foreign women and asked them to leave the camp,” said the mother of a 24-year-old woman, who had been kept at the camp with her infant son for the past 18 months.

“They didn’t escape. They [the Kurdish forces] didn’t want them. They were expecting to be taken over by Syrian or Turkish forces, but they were kicked out. For several days, the bombs were falling closer and closer to the camp, where there were no more NGOs, no more help,” she added.

President Donald Trump on Monday rejected criticism that his decision to remove US troops from the region was risking a mass escape of Daesh prisoners.

“Kurds may be releasing some to get us involved. Easily recaptured by Turkey or European Nations from where many came, but they should move quickly,” he wrote on Twitter.

France, which accounts for the largest number of European extremists in Syria, said Sunday it was “worried” by the situation and has called for an end to the Turkish offensive.