Region

ANKARA — Turkey insisted it would go ahead with its controversial decision to buy the S-400 missile defence system from Russia, saying it was preparing for any possible sanctions from the US.

Turkey’s push to buy the S-400 system has strained relations with the United States, a NATO ally, which worries about integrating Russian technology with Turkey’s Western equipment.

Defence Minister Hulusi Akar told reporters late on Tuesday that Ankara was “preparing” for US penalties under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which prohibits business with Russia’s state and private defence and intelligence sectors.

He added that Turkey was “fed up” with being just being a buyer of military equipment, and wanted to be involved in joint production and technology transfers.

“The idea that we always buy, you always produce, is finished,” he told reporters in Ankara.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday said Turkey and Russia would jointly produce S-500 defence systems after the purchase of the S-400 system.

Turkey has already sent personnel to Russia for training, Akar said, and the system could be delivered as early as June or July.

Last month, he said the S-400 would likely be used to protect the capital Ankara and Istanbul.

In a bid to force Turkey to cancel its S-400 deal, the US offered a renewed proposal in March for Patriots, its own anti-missile and anti-aircraft weapon system.

The US has said buying the S-400 could jeopardise the Turkey’s involvement in the F-35 fighter jet programme, for which it provides some parts. 

Akar said Turkey was still considering the offer but that there had been “general easing” in negotiations with the US on the F-35s and Patriots.

DUBAI/MUSCAT — Omanis on Wednesday hailed writer Jokha Alharthi’s “historical achievement” and praised her for bringing “honour” to their Gulf nation after she became the first Arab author to win the Man Booker International prize.

“It is a huge historic achievement for the author, for Oman and for Arabic culture in general,” said Saif Al Rahbi, an Omani poet, essayist and writer.

“It shows that Omani literature is moving along,” he told AFP.

Alharthi, 40, received the prestigious prize during a ceremony Tuesday in London for her novel “Celestial Bodies” which depicts life in her small Gulf nation.

The £50,000 (57,000 euro, $64,000) Man Booker International prize celebrates translated fiction from around the world and is divided equally between the author and the translator.

The judges said Celestial Bodies was “a richly imagined, engaging and poetic insight into a society in transition and into lives previously obscured”.

It tells the story of three sisters who witness the slow pace of development in Omani society during the 20th century.

“I am thrilled that a window has been opened to the rich Arabic culture,” Alharthi told AFP after the ceremony at the Roundhouse in London.

“Oman inspired me but I think international readers can relate to the human values in the book — freedom and love,” she said.

The jury praised an “elegantly structured and taut” novel which “tells of Oman’s coming-of-age through the prism of one family’s losses and loves”.

The director general of Oman’s culture ministry, Said Bin Sultan Al Bussaidi, agreed.

The novel, he said, shows that Alharthi’s work “reflects maturity and has reached an international level”.

“It is an honour for each and every Omani man and woman... [and the prize] will help spread Omani literature across the world,” he added.

Alharthi is the author of two previous collections of short fiction, a children’s book and three novels in Arabic.

She studied classical Arabic poetry at Edinburgh University and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat.

In an interview with the BBC at the weekend, Alharthi said she had wanted for a “very long time to write a book about life in Oman [but] couldn’t when she was actually in Oman”.

“But when I went to Edinburgh, the first year was difficult for me, homesickness, cold, so I felt that I need to go back to warmth and feel something from home,” she said.

“Actually writing saved me.”

 ‘Surge in translation’ 

Her prize-winning novel — which the Guardian newspaper said offers “glimpses into a culture relatively little known in the west” — came out in 2010.

For one expert of Arabic and Middle Eastern literature, it could be a game changer for novels emerging from the region.

“It has the potential to orient publishing away from the Arabic novel as answering the question ‘what can we learn about them?’ and towards the Arabic novel as a work of art,” said Marcia Lynx Qualey, editor of ArabLit Quarterly.

“The surge in translation of Arabic-language novels is already in progress, but I think this reorients publishers somewhat,” she told AFP.

Qualey said there “is definitely a growing interest in works by Gulf authors”.

Celestial Bodies was translated by US academic Marilyn Booth, who teaches Arabic literature at Oxford University.

Jury chair Bettany Hughes said the novel showed “delicate artistry and disturbing aspects of our shared history”.

CHIBAYISH, Iraq — Thirty years after Saddam Hussein starved them of water, Iraq’s southern marshes are blossoming once more thanks to a wave of eco-tourists picnicking and paddling down their replenished river bends.

A one-room home made of elaborately woven palm reeds floats on the river surface. Near it, a soft plume of smoke curls up from a firepit where carp is being grilled, Iraqi-style. 

A few canoes drift by, carrying couples and groups of friends singing to the beat of drums. 

“I didn’t think I would find somewhere so beautiful, and such a body of water in Iraq,” said Habib Al Jurani.

He left Iraq in 1990 for the United States, and was back in his ancestral homeland for a family visit. 

“Most people don’t know what Iraq is really like — they think it’s the world’s most dangerous place, with nothing but killings and terrorism,” he said. 

Looking around the lush marshes, declared in 2016 to be Iraq’s fifth UNESCO World Heritage site, Jurani added: “there are some mesmerising places.” 

Straddling Iraq’s famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Mesopotamian marshes are a rare aquatic ecosystem in a country nearly half of which is covered in cracked desert.

Legend has it, they were home to the biblical Garden of Eden. 

Around 90 per cent of the once-expansive marshes were drained, and the area’s 250,000 residents dwindled down to just 30,000.

In the ensuing years, severe droughts and decreased water flows from the twin rivers’ source countries — Turkey and Iran — shrunk the marshes’ surface from some 15,000 square kilometres to less than half that. 

Turtles and tourists 

It all culminated with a particularly dry winter last year that left the “ahwar”, as they are known in Arabic, painfully parched.

But heavier rains this year have filled more than 80 per cent of the marshes’ surface area, according to the United Nations, compared to just 27 per cent last year. 

That has resurrected the ancient lifestyle that dominated this area for more than 5,000 years. 

“The water returned, and with it normal life,” said 35-year-old Mehdi Al Mayali, who raises water buffalo and sells their milk, used to make rich cream served at Iraqi breakfasts.

Wildlife including the vulnerable smooth-coated otter, Euphrates softshell turtles, and Basra reed warbler have returned to the marshlands — along with the pickiest of all species: tourists. 

“Ecotourism has revived the ‘ahwar’. There are Iraqis from different provinces and some foreigners,” Mayali said.

A day in the marshes typically involves hiring a resident to paddle a large reed raft down the river for around $25 — not a cheap fare for Iraq. 

Then, lunch in a “mudhif” or guesthouse, also run by locals.

“Ecotourism is an important source of revenue for those native to the marshes,” said Jassim Al Assadi, who heads Nature Iraq. 

The environmental activist group has long advocated for the marshes to be better protected and for authorities to develop a long-term ecotourism plan for the area. 

“It’s a much more sustainable activity than the hydrocarbon and petroleum industry,” said Assadi, referring to the dominant industry that provides Iraq with about 90 per cent of state revenues. 

Long way to row 

The numbers have steadily gone up in recent years, according to Assaad Al Qarghouli, tourism chief in Iraq’s southern province of Dhi Qar. 

“We had 10,000 tourists in 2016, then 12,000 in 2017 and 18,000 in 2018,” he told AFP. 

But there is virtually no infrastructure to accommodate them. 

“There are no tourist centres or hotels, because the state budget was sucked up by war the last few years,” Qarghouli told AFP. 

Indeed, Daesh overran swathes of Iraq in 2014, prompting the government to direct its full attention — and the bulk of its resources — to fighting it back. 

Iraq’s government declared victory in late 2017 and has slowly begun reallocating resources to infrastructure projects. 

Qarghouli said the marshes should be a priority, and called on the government to build “a hotel complex and touristic eco-village inside the marshes”.

Peak season for tourists is between September and April, avoiding the summer months of Iraq when temperatures can reach a stifling 50ºC. 

But without a long-term government plan, residents worry that water levels will be hostage to fluctuating yearly rainfalls and shortages caused by Iranian and Turkish dams.

These dynamics have already damaged the marshes’ fragile ecosystem, with high levels of salination last year killing fish and forcing other wildlife to migrate. 

Jurani, the returning expatriate, has an idea of the solution.

“Adventurers and nature-lovers,” he said, hopefully. 

MOGADISHU — Few restaurateurs consider the threat of piracy in their plans but Abdulkadir Mohamed did so for his La Lanterna floating restaurant now moored off Mogadishu’s popular Lido beach.

“We considered that pirates could hijack it, and use it to attack cargo ships,” he said on the top of the double-deck boat as it bounced on the warm waters of the Indian Ocean a short distance from the Somali capital’s coastline.

“We made it slow,” he explained, so pirates would not see it as a prize vessel to seize and use in any of their attacks.

Pirates were once the scourge of the region, chasing oil tankers and other ships and demanding ransoms for those they captured. But as Somalia has regained a semblance of stability after almost three decades of conflict and chaos, piracy has faded, even if sporadic bombings still strike the capital.

A modicum of calm means Somalis are seeking out more leisure activities outside their homes, and the Lido beach, with its bleach white sand, is drawing the crowds.

With extra security and checkpoints to protect the 2.5km stretch of sand from possible attacks, the beach offers a place to escape from the battle-scarred capital.

“Sitting on Lido beach, having tea or coffee in the evening, you can see different colours and feel sometimes that you are in another world,” said Omar Abule, the manager of travel agent Visit Mogadishu, describing the cobalt waters and orange sunsets.

Families plunge into the water — the women from this religiously conservative country still wear their headscarves and loose garments as they sit or swim in the sea.

Visitors feeling more adventurous can don a life jacket and take a small launch to La Lanterna as it bobs near the beach. After clambering aboard, they can have a coffee or cold drink and order a snack, an opportunity to forget challenges ashore.

“I am happy to get on board such a boat,” said Samira Mohammed on La Lanterna. “Coming to Lido beach gives you big hope.”

Abdifitah Mohamed Siyad, director of tourism and investment in Mogadishu’s local government, said the city had been ruined by wars and most people had “stories of grief”.

“The remedy for the people is to create happiness for them, create an environment for tourism, a time for them to tour, a time for them to chat and forget the past,” he said.

BEIRUT — A British-based war monitor said on Wednesday it had no evidence to suggest the Syrian army had carried out a new chemical attack despite Washington’s announcement it had suspicions.

“We have no proof at all of the attack,” Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP. 

“We have not documented any chemical attack in the mountains of Latakia,” he said.

The northern mountains are the only part of Latakia province, on Syria’s Mediterraean coast that are no firmly in the hands of the government.

They are a major prize in fighting that has flared up in north-western Syria in recent weeks between pro-government forces and the militants, who have been using them as a launchpad for rocket and drone attacks on the Hmeimim Air Base of the government’s main ally Russia.

The Hayat Tahrir Al Sham alliance led by Syria’s former Al Qaeda affiliate accused government forces on Sunday of launching a chlorine gas attack on its fighters in the north of Latakia province. 

The Syrian army dismissed the reports as a fabrication, a military source told the pro-government Al Watan newspaper.

But the US State Department said on Tuesday it was assessing indications that the government of President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on Sunday.

“We are still gathering information on this incident, but we repeat our warning that if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, the United States and our allies will respond quickly and appropriately,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

The head of observatory said that only terrorists were present at the site of Sunday’s alleged attack, making it nearly impossible to objectively confirm the incident.

“There were no civilians in the area,” Abdel Rahman said.

White Helmets rescue volunteers, who have reported past chemical attacks in rebel-held areas of Syria, told AFP on Wednesday that they had no information on the purported gas attack.

BAGHDAD — Scarred by two decades of conflict, Iraq finds itself caught in the middle of a US-Iranian tug-of-war, fearing it could pay the price of any confrontation between its two main allies.

Analysts say third parties may seek to exploit the latest spike in tensions between Tehran and Washington to spark a showdown that serves their own interests.

Iraq "pays a disproportionate tax on Iranian-American tensions and [has] an unenviable front-line position in any future conflict between the two," said Fanar Haddad, an Iraq expert at the National University of Singapore.

During the three-year battle to oust the Daesh group from Iraqi cities, powerful Iran-backed Shiite militias on the ground effectively fought on the same side as US-led coalition warplanes in the skies.

But since Iraq declared victory over the extremists in December 2017, relations between Washington and Tehran have deteriorated sharply.

In May last year, US President Donald Trump pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and later re-instated tough sanctions.

This April, Washington dubbed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "foreign terrorist organisation", prompting Iran to designate US troops across the region as "terrorists".

Tensions escalated this month, with Washington deploying a carrier group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf over alleged, unspecified Iranian "threats".

The Trump administration last week ordered non-essential diplomatic staff out of Iraq, alleging Iran-backed armed groups posed an "imminent" threat.

On Sunday, a rocket was fired into the "Green Zone" of Baghdad that houses government offices and embassies, including the US mission.

There has been no claim of responsibility.

For Iraqi political analyst Essam Al Fili, the rocket attack was a sign some sides want to pull Tehran and Washington into a confrontation in Shiite-majority Iraq.

"There are those who want to fight Iran with other people's weapons, and those who want to fight the US with other people's weapons," he said.

But he added that Iran has "so far favoured restraint in Iraq, a country which is vulnerable on the security front".

Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi has echoed those fears, saying on Tuesday that Iraq would “very soon send delegations to Tehran and Washington to push for calm”.

He warned that Iraq “does not have the option of distancing itself” from US-Iranian tensions, and stressed the need to “avoid giving other parties the space to inflame the situation”.

Several groups in the Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary coalition that battled Daesh denied any link to the rocket attack, with Assaib Ahl Al Haq chief Qais Al Khazali pointing a finger at “Israeli interests”.

Analyst Karim Bitar stressed that “the stakes are so high that Iranian proxies cannot act without an explicit green light” from Iran’s revolutionary guard force.

Tehran and Washington “know perfectly well that it’s an unwinnable war and that an all-out confrontation would be devastating for both the US and Iran”, said Bitar, an expert at France’s Institute for International and Strategic Affairs.

But, he added, “the inflammatory rhetoric of the past few weeks plays right into the hands of Iran’s hardliners” as well as pleasing Saudi Arabia and Israel, “bent on settling old scores with Iran”.

Tehran accuses its regional Sunni rival Riyadh and archfoe Israel of pressing the Trump administration to adopt a hard line.

But experts doubt the crisis will result in a head-on confrontation with Washington.

“There won’t be a direct war. The United States is counting on a collapse of the [Iranian] economy, which could be accompanied by limited air strikes,” said Iraqi political scientist Hashem Al Hashemi.

He said Washington may also urge Israel to carry out air strikes against Iran’s militia allies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

Meanwhile, memories of American interventions in recent years could also dampen Washington’s appetite for an offensive.

“The US foreign policy and security establishment knows full well that attacking Iran would make the Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya wars look like walks in the park,” Bitar said.

“So besides some messages that could be sent on the Iraqi arena, unless utter madness prevails, a large, open, direct war is still unlikely.”

RAMALLAH/GAZA — Palestinian business leaders on Tuesday rebuffed US plans for an economic conference in Bahrain that has become the spearhead of President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan.

As Washington appealed to Palestinian and Arab leaders to come to the June 25-26 gathering, Palestinian businessmen joined politicians in saying their political demands would have to be addressed in any plan to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinian pollsters and analysts also reported deep scepticism about the latest in a long line of US peace efforts, this time led by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.

The US initiative follows an upsurge in cross-border fighting between Gaza and Israel, and as Palestinians still smart at Trump's political support for Israel, including his decision to recognise Jerusalem as its capital.

Arafat Asfour, chairman of business association Paltrade with more than 300 members across the West Bank and Gaza, said it was unresolved political issues — such as Israeli restrictions on movement of goods and people in the occupied territories — that had long deterred foreign investment. 

Israel says such measures stem from security concerns.

“How [can you] expect people to invest in Palestine if they don’t have access? If they don’t have the control, if they don’t have the legal framework, the business environment, to protect their business?” asked Asfour, saying his organisation had refused to go to Bahrain. 

Ibrahim Barham, CEO of Safad, a Ramallah-based IT company, said: “they’re taking the side of Israel, on the political side, and they want to speak with us only on economic issues. But it’s not a proper way.”

Bashar Masri, a Palestinian businessman and founder of Rawabi, the first Palestinian planned city in the West Bank, has also turned down an invitation. 

President Mahmoud Abbas’ Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organisation have voiced strong opposition to the Bahrain initiative, after a year-and-a-half of refusing to deal with the Trump administration because, they say, it is biased towards Israel.

‘Ambitious but achievable’

Countering criticisms, envoy Greenblatt said the PA was “shamefully” blocking a better future for Palestinians and denied Washington was prioritising the economic component over political problems. In a statement, he described his team’s economic plan as an “ambitious but achievable” vision.

Pollster Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, said close to 80 per cent of Palestinians believed the Trump plan would not lead to an end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

“It’s not that those Palestinians or business leaders are not interested in improving economic conditions of Palestinians. Of course they are,” he said, based on polling carried out in March, before the Bahrain element of the plan was announced.

“It’s the concern that what the Americans are trying to do is give the Palestinians a choice between their political rights or their economic rights. They want both, and they are not willing to make a trade off.” 

The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War. The United Nations and most nations around the world back a two-state solution.

Abbas officials have criticised Bahrain for agreeing to host the summit, and called for a boycott.

Saleh Rafat, a PLO official, said on Tuesday: “it is shameful for a sister Arab country to align itself with American proposals aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause and host conferences that seek to liquidate our just aspirations.”

In a rare agreement between Palestinian rivals, the Islamist group Hamas also called for an Arab boycott.

“Hamas hopes Bahrain and its noble people will reject their soil being defiled,” said a statement by the group, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’ forces in 2007.

Israeli newspapers reported that at least one Palestinian businessman, Ashraf Jabari, from Hebron, had ignored the boycott calls and accepted an invitation to attend.

Others in Hebron were opposed. “We Palestinians refuse any kind of dictating to the Palestinian people without ending the occupation and giving Palestinians their full freedom,” said Issa Amro of Youth Against Settlements. 

UNITED NATIONS, United States — The UN envoy for Libya warned Tuesday the battle for Tripoli was "just the start of a long and bloody war" and called for immediate steps to cut off arms flows fuelling the fighting.

Addressing the Security Council, Ghassan Salame said "many countries" were supplying weapons to the UN-recognised government in Tripoli and forces led by Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar, who is backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, launched an offensive on April 4 to seize the capital but his forces have been bogged down in the southern outskirts of Tripoli.

"I am no Cassandra, but the violence on the outskirts of Tripoli is just the start of a long and bloody war on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, imperiling the security of Libya's immediate neighbours and the wider Mediterranean region," Salame said.

Without immediate action to stop the flow of arms, “Libya will descend into civil war which could potentially lead to a Hobbesian all-against-all state of chaos or partition of the country,” he said.

His appeal came after the Tripoli-based government of national accord posted photographs at the weekend of dozens of Turkish-made armoured vehicles that it said on its Facebook page were fresh deliveries for its fighters.

UN experts earlier this month said in a confidential report to the council that missiles fired at pro-Tripoli forces in April pointed to a likely drone attack that could involve a “third party”. 

More than 75,000 people have been driven from their homes in the latest fighting and 510 have been killed, according to the World Health Organisation.

The envoy urged the council to set up a commission of inquiry to “determine who has taken up arms” and look into war crimes allegations.

With Haftar’s forces mobilised near Tripoli, Libyan militias linked to Daesh and Al Qaeda have stepped up attacks, in particular in the south, Salame said.

The Security Council failed last month to agree on a draft resolution demanding a ceasefire in Libya and a return to political talks to end the conflict.

Russia refused to include any mention of Haftar’s offensive on Tripoli while the United States said it needed more time to consider the situation, diplomats said.

“Attempts to place the responsibility at the foot of only one of the players would only lead to deepening confrontation,” Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the council. 

France called for an immediate ceasefire and a return to talks, arguing that neither side could win an outright military victory in Tripoli.

Haftar is due to hold talks with President Emmanuel Macron in Paris this week.

The United States urged the warring sides to return to UN mediation.