Region

WASHINGTON — The Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, blacklisted by Washington, has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said.

"Anyone who said the Adrian Darya-1 wasn't headed to Syria is in denial," Bolton said in a tweet late Friday with a satellite image he said showed the ship anchored two nautical miles off Tartus.

"Tehran thinks it's more important to fund the murderous Assad regime than provide for its own people. We can talk, but Iran's not getting any sanctions relief until it stops lying and spreading terror!"

The TankerTrackers site also shows the Adrian Darya 1 near Tartus.

However there was no confirmation that the ship, carrying 2.1 million barrels of oil worth around $140 million, was unloading its cargo.

The Middle East Eye news site said on Friday the tanker had delivered oil to Syria, with one source quoted saying 55 per cent of its cargo was offloaded Thursday night.

The Adrian Darya 1 had been held for six weeks by the British overseas territory of Gibraltar on suspicion it was set to deliver oil from Iran to its main Arab ally Syria — a violation of European Union sanctions on President Bashar Assad's regime.

Gibraltar released the ship, formerly called the Grace 1, on August 18 over US protests after receiving written assurances that the vessel would not head to countries under European Union sanctions.

Tehran later denied it had made any promises about the destination of the ship, which had been elusive since leaving Gibraltar.

Tensions between arch-enemies Iran and the US have soared since May last year when President Donald Trump pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and major powers, and began reimposing sanctions that have crippled its economy.

European governments have declined to follow the Trump administration's tough line against Tehran, instead seeking to salvage the nuclear deal by finding a mechanism to get round US sanctions.

But both the EU and the US have adopted a raft of sanctions against Syria, including an oil embargo.

TUNIS — Arrested just weeks before Tunisia's September 15 presidential polls, candidate Nabil Karoui has hit the campaign trail by proxy, deploying his wife and party activists to shake the hands he cannot.

"He's not with us today, but he's in all our hearts," his wife Salwa Smaoui told a packed house at a Monday night rally, the media mogul's first since he was detained on August 23 on money laundering charges.

Smaoui does not hold an official position in Karoui's Heart of Tunisia Party, founded just months ago, but she received a thunderous welcome from the crowd in her hometown of Gafsa, a central mining area.

"We're going to celebrate, but there's a little sadness because Nabil should be here, not me," she said.

On Tuesday, Tunisia's judiciary rejected an appeal to release Karoui, but he remains a candidate in the polls called after the July death of Beji Caid Essebsi — Tunisia's first president to be democratically elected in a nationwide vote.

Karoui is behind bars at Mornaguia prison, some 20 kilometres from the capital Tunis, but his campaign team is free to travel the country and fire out social media blasts on his behalf.

In front of the 2,000-strong crowd in Gafsa, a party official read out a letter Karoui wrote from prison, calling on voters to "make a ballot box revolution" and to "return Tunisia to the people".

Heart of Tunisia leaders laid out the party's programme at a recent Tunis press conference, placing "the battles against poverty and unemployment" at the top of its agenda.

Karoui's lawyers claim that preventing him from campaigning like the other hopefuls is unfair, with one calling his client a "political prisoner".

The media magnate will most likely be forced to sit out the three-day televised presidential debate that kicks off on Saturday.

But he's not the only candidate who will be absent. Slim Riahi, a politician and businessman wanted for money laundering, has been in exile since late 2018.

But that hasn't stopped Riahi, the former head of one of the country's leading football clubs, from launching a media campaign from abroad.

Riahi was even beamed in via hologram to launch his new political party in August.

Karoui and his brother Ghazi have been under investigation since 2017 after anti-corruption watchdog I-Watch submitted a dossier accusing him of tax fraud.

He was indicted in early July and later arrested by plain-clothes police officers just weeks before the first round of the presidential poll.

The arrest sparked anger among his supporters, who accuse Karoui's rival Prime Minister Youssef Chahed of orchestrating his jailing.

Chahed denies the charge.

Karoui's popularity has largely been built on the back of charity projects broadcast daily on his Nessma TV channel, which authorities have banned from covering the presidential campaigns.

He was nearly removed from the race in June when parliament passed an amended electoral code that would bar any candidate who handed out "favours in cash or in kind" in the lead-up to the vote.

But Essebsi never enacted the bill, leaving the door open for Karoui to run.

Tunisia's election commission has since confirmed Karoui remains a candidate, even from behind bars.

And while the body has banned the publication of polls, studies say the media mogul's arrest has boosted his popularity.

But it is unclear whether that surge of sympathy will translate into ballot box support.

Observers say that if Karoui makes it to the second round of voting, it will be hard for authorities to justify keeping him behind bars without a trial.

AL KHARJ, Saudi Arabia — Washington is in talks with Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in a bid to end the country's war, a top US official said on Thursday, the first such contact in more than four years.

The negotiations open a direct channel between President Donald Trump's administration and the Houthis amid the threat of a broader regional conflict with Iran.

It also comes as the rebels have stepped up missile and drone attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, a key US ally which heads a military coalition against the Houthis.

“We are narrowly focused on trying to end the war in Yemen,” Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker told reporters during a visit to Al Kharj air base near the Saudi capital Riyadh.

“We are also having talks to the extent possible with the Houthis to try and find a mutually acceptable negotiated solution to the conflict.”

Schenker gave no further details on the talks, which mark a renewed effort to end a complex conflict that has left tens of thousands dead and sparked what the United Nations labels the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Senior Houthi official Hamid Assem told AFP he could neither confirm nor deny the rebels were in talks with Washington.

“That the United States says they are talking to us is a great victory for us and proves that we are right,” he said.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Washington was preparing for direct talks with the rebels and that its negotiating team would be led by Christopher Henzel, who became the Trump administration’s first ambassador to Yemen in April.

A State Department official said Thursday that “the US ambassador to Yemen and other US diplomats talk to all Yemenis to further US objectives in the country”. 

“We are focused on supporting a comprehensive political agreement that will end the conflict,” the official said.

The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa and much of the country’s north in 2014, sparking a Saudi-led military intervention the following March.

US officials from the administration of former president Barack Obama held brief talks with Houthi leaders in June 2015 to convince them to attend UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva.

But the Geneva conference and further rounds of talks have failed to bring an end to the conflict, which has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

Fatima Abo Alasrar, a scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told AFP that talks with the Houthis were not taking place “in a vacuum” but were “most likely after consultations with the Saudis”.

The Riyadh-led coalition, assisted by Western powers including the US, has struggled to oust a ragtag but highly motivated tribal militia that specialises in guerrilla tactics.

The rebels, for their part, have exposed the limits of Saudi Arabia’s military might, menacing its cities with what Riyadh says are Iranian-supplied weapons.

“The Houthis have been sending a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles towards vital Saudi installations after a recent spike in US-Iran tensions,” Alasrar said.

“So the US appears to be intervening politically at this stage to assess all possible threats that can come from the region, and perhaps even issue its own threats if the Houthis will not comply.”

At Al Kharj air base, Schenker was shown a display of what Saudi officials said were fragments of missiles and unmanned drones intercepted in recent months.

“The United States is working to try and prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Houthis,” Schenker said while condemning the attacks on Saudi Arabia.

“That’s a priority for us.”

ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday warned Turkey would start allowing Syrian refugees to flee to Europe if Ankara did not get more international support.

Turkey is home to more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees and recently called for a “safe zone” in the war-torn country’s northeast, to which refugees could return.

If the safe zone does not happen, “we will be forced to open the doors. You either give support, or if you won’t, sorry, but we can only put up with so much”, Erdogan said.

“Are we going to shoulder this burden alone?” he asked during the televised speech in Ankara.

Erdogan claimed Turkey had spent $40 billion on refugees and criticised the West, especially the European Union, for failing to live up to its promises.

Under a 2016 agreement, the EU promised Ankara 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in exchange for stronger controls on refugees leaving its territory for Europe, but Erdogan said only 3 billion euros had so far arrived.

“We may be forced to do this [open the gates] to get this [international support],” he said.

EU Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud denied the claim later on Thursday, telling reporters in Brussels that the EU had provided 5.6 billion euros to Turkey under the agreement, with “the remaining balance due to be allocated shortly”.

Turkey fears a fresh influx of refugees as the Syrian government advances into the last rebel stronghold of Idlib.

It also hosts hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans fleeing conflict in their countries.

In a bid to pressure the United States, which is to jointly patrol the safe zone, Erdogan said Turkey was “determined to set it up by the last week of September”.

He added that 350,000 Syrians had already returned to parts of the country brought under Turkish control during offensives in 2016 and 2018.

“Our goal is to settle at least 1 million of our Syrian brothers and sisters in a safe zone along the border 450-kilometres long,” he said.

TUNIS — Rushing to register candidates and train poll workers, Tunisia's electoral commission has raced to organise presidential elections after the death of leader Beji Caid Essebsi, hoping to protect the country's nascent democracy.

The Independent Higher Authority for Elections (ISIE) snapped into action when Essebsi died on July 25, facing immediate pressure from a constitutional deadline and parties seeking favourable dates.

The body, whose nine members are elected by parliament, brought the date of scheduled polls forward by two months, fixing the first round for September 15.

The constitution stipulates that elections must be held 90 days after a head of state's death. The first round of voting will take place just seven weeks after the funeral.

In a mid-summer dash, ISIE stocked up on indelible ink and sorted through nearly 100 candidate applications, selecting a final list of 26 hopefuls.

"We're in a sprint to respect the rules," ISIE spokeswoman Hasna Ben Slimane told AFP. 

"We have to train 55,000 people — inspectors and polling station staff," she said. 

"ISIE has experience. It has already organised six elections, but it's still complicated."

The body has overseen a series of historic polls following the 2011 overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in an uprising which sparked revolts across the Arab world.

They include Tunisia's first free election in October 2011 and the first free presidential election in 2014 which brought Essebsi to power.

"ISIE's reaction after the death of Caid Essebsi is a sign of its maturity," said history professor Abdeltif Hannachi.

'Independence' 

ISIE has registered some 1.5 million — mostly young — new voters this year, a success given that 65 per cent of voters abstained in the first democratic municipal polls in 2018.

The body has pushed to tighten checks on social networks and campaign finances, Ben Slimane said. 

It struggled with both in 2014.

Before campaigning kicked off on Monday, the commission sent "warnings" to political parties asking them to delete problematic sponsored Facebook pages, said ISIE chief Nabil Baffoun.

Tunisian electoral monitor Mourakiboun hailed ISIE for its "independence" but its head Mohamed Marzouk regrets that the body has "not detailed the methods of checking expenses and campaign finances".

Accusations of corruption have swirled in the lead up to the polls, culminating in the arrest of media magnate and presidential hopeful Nabil Karoui for alleged money laundering. 

His detention fuelled suspicions of flawed justice, pushing ISIE to quickly assure that nothing, even prison, prevented Karoui from being a candidate.

The decision, Hannachi said, "proves the independence of ISIE, which did not yield to the pressure of those who asked it to remove Nabil Karoui from the race".

Observers have said the previous ISIE-run elections, despite their flaws, were transparent and independent.

Hannachi, who praised the commission's work, said ISIE's model could be "exported to other countries in transition, like Sudan and Algeria".

By Aymen Jamli