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Ammar al-Hakim, a senior Iraqi Shiite politician and cleric, has rejected reports that relations between Tehran and Iraqi Shiite leaders have been souring lately.
According to an agreement between the United States, Jordan, Russia and Syria, armed opposition groups will voluntarily leave eastern Damascus for Jordan, from where they will ultimately be transferred al-Hasakah Governorate in northeastern Syria, Fars News Agency reports. The Iranian outlet adds that two U.S.-backed rebel groups have reached an agreement in southeastern Damascus to surrender their weapons to the Syrian government in exchange for a safe passage to Jordan.
A commander of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia group has warned that his forces will target American troops in Iraq if they do not leave the country after the battle against the Islamic State is over, the Iranian media reported. Jafar al-Hussaini, the spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades), also accused the United States and the leadership of the Iraqi Kurdistan of assisting Islamic State militants to safely withdraw from Tal Afar, an Iraqi city west of Mosul recently liberated from the Islamic State.
The Chief of General Staff for the Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces has said that the Kabul government has evidence that Iran is providing weapons and other military assets to the Taliban in western Afghanistan. In an interview with the BBC Persian, Lieutenant General Mohammad Sharif Yaftali added that President Ashraf Ghani discussed the issue with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani last month in Tehran but did not disclose details of the meeting.
On Wednesday, U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said the Syrian opposition must accept that it has not won the war against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. His comments, in the run-up to the next round of Syria talks in Kazakhstan, predictably drew positive reaction in Tehran and scorn by some rebel leaders. “The most significant part of the comments is not the proposal for peace talks, but the recognition that the ‘overthrow-Assad plan’ isn’t going to be won.
On Wednesday, the U.S. representative to the United Nations signaled that the Trump administration may de-certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement next month. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., Nikki Haley noted that such “de-certification” would not necessarily invalidate the nuclear deal, but suggested that it would be up to the Congress to decide whether the U.S. remains a party to the accord.
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (K.R.I.) is expected to hold a referendum on independence from Iraq on September 25. While the disputes between Kurds and Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite Arab populations will be a key factor in any independence process, the realities of building a Kurdish state in northern Iraq will be made more complex by the enormous ethnic and religious diversity in the region.
With record numbers of people displaced around the world, the issue of how regions might cooperate to manage forced migration, and respond to the needs of people on the move, has become more relevant than ever. In the Asia-Pacific, the need for some form of cooperation became particularly pressing during the Andaman Sea “crisis” of May 2015. However, despite a series of multilateral meetings in the wake of that period, it is not clear whether any meaningful progress towards this goal eventuated. As States in the region continue to grapple with the need for better coordination in their responses to displacement, this essay raises some of the lesser explored and as yet unanswered questions about whether and how regional cooperation on refugee protection might develop in this part of the world.
In this week’s briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Charles Schmitz, Jonathan M. Winer, and Yousef Munayyer provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah’s upcoming visit to Washington, recent clashes in Yemen, the French Foreign Minister’s trip to Libya, and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s discussion on Israel/Palestine.
Iranian leaders today congratulated the Syrian government on the lifting of a siege of the eastern city of Deir Ezzor by the Islamic State. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif described the end of the three-year siege as a “significant victory” in the fight against terrorism.
Top Iranian officials have called for cultivating comprehensive ties with South Africa, particularly in banking sector. In a meeting with visiting speaker of South Africa’s parliament Baleka Mbete this weekend, President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran is keen to boost its diplomatic and economic relations with the African nation.
Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei has warned that the consequences of the Iraqi Kurdistan’s plan to hold an independence referendum will be dire for Iraq and the broader region. “Disintegration of Iraq would mark the beginning of widespread insecurity not only in Iraq, but in the entire region… We oppose such a referendum and call on the Kurdish leaders to halt that plan,” he said at a press conference in Baghdad on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on Syria today met with Iranian officials in Tehran to assess the latest developments and coordinate the two countries’ military and diplomatic efforts regarding the Syrian war. According to Iranian media, Alexander Lavrentiev briefed Iranian officials on Moscow’s recent talks with other foreign powers regarding Syria ahead of the next Astana meeting.
