Iraqi Sunnis are weighing whether to vote for candidates on a tribal or party-linked basis, try for independents or maybe not even vote at all.
Baghdad streets were teeming by early September with billboards and posters bearing candidates’ faces and the numbers they will be associated with on ballots to be cast in Iraq’s Oct. 10 early elections.
Top generals in charge of Turkey’s military operations in Syria have sought retirement amid escalating tensions in Idlib, fueling questions over Ankara’s Syria policies.
Turkey was rattled last week by reports that five generals serving on Syria-related missions were seeking to resign, including the head of a command center in charge of all Turkish operations in Syria and two others at the helm of commando forces that are deployed in Syria on a rotational basis.
A delegation of Palestinian clerics from Gaza, South Lebanon and Syria has been visiting Iraq in the recent days to attend the “Call of Al-Aqsa Procession”, organized by the Iraqi “Call of Al-Aqsa” (Nida Al-Aqsa) organization. The procession is held as part of the “Arba’een Pligrimage” march from Najaf to Karbala, held annually at the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, the Prophet’s grandson, who was assassinated in 680.
On September 24, 2021, some 300 Iraqi notables, both Sunnis and Shi’ites, held a conference in Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, calling for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords and establish diplomatic ties with Israel. They also called to abolish the law criminalizing contacts between Iraqi and Israeli citizens. The conference was initiated by the Center for Peace Communications, based in New York.
Increased military movements by government forces and Russia near the Idlib fronts and the strategic M4 highway indicate that the battle against the Turkey-supported opposition may be drawing near.
Since mid-September, the Syrian government has been leading a large-scale military operation against opposition factions to expel them from areas under their control south of the international M4 highway connecting Aleppo and Latakia.
President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey still intended to buy a second batch of S-400 missile defense systems from Russia, a move that could deepen a rift with NATO ally Washington and trigger new U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported.
According to the report Washington says the S-400s pose a threat to its F-35 fighter jets and to NATO’s broader defense systems. Turkey says it was unable to procure air defense systems from any NATO ally on satisfactory terms.
“In the future, nobody will be able to interfere in terms of what kind of defense systems we acquire, from which country at what level,” Erdogan said in an interview that aired on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“Nobody can interfere with that. We are the only ones to make such decisions.”
The United States imposed sanctions on Turkey’s Defense Industry Directorate, its chief, Ismail Demir, and three other employees in December following the country’s acquisition of a first batch of S-400s, Reuters said.
Talks continued between Russia and Turkey about the delivery of a second batch, which Washington has repeatedly said would almost certainly trigger new sanctions.
“We urge Turkey at every level and opportunity not to retain the S-400 system and to refrain from purchasing any additional Russian military equipment,” said a State Department spokesperson when asked about Erdogan’s comments.
“We continue to make clear to Turkey that any significant new Russian arms purchases would risk triggering CAATSA 231 sanctions separate from and in addition to those imposed in December 2020,” the spokesperson added, referring to the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
The spokesperson also said the United States regards Turkey as an ally and friend and seeks ways to strengthen their partnership “even when we disagree.”
Erdogan will meet with President Vladimir Putin in Russia on Wednesday to discuss issues including the violence in northwestern Syria, read the report.
Erdogan also said that U.S. President Joe Biden never raised the issue of Turkey’s human rights track record, seen as extremely troublesome by international rights advocacy groups, confirming Reuters reporting from earlier in September.
Asked whether Biden brought up the issue during their June meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels, Erdogan said: “No he didn’t. And because we don’t have any problems of that nature in terms of freedoms, Turkey is incomparably free.”
Turkey is among the top jailers of journalists, according to figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), while Human Rights Watch says Erdogan’s authoritarian rule has been consolidated by the passage of legislation that contravenes international human rights obligations, Reuters reported.
Turkey has deployed more troops to northwestern Syria as a deterrent against any major offensive by Russian-backed Syrian forces, ahead of a meeting between the Turkish and Russian leaders next week.
Ankara is concerned that an escalation in Idlib, the last rebel stronghold in northwest Syria, would push a new wave of refugees toward Turkey, which has been hosting about 4 million Syrians since the start of the conflict a decade ago.
At Erbil conference, participants also urge rebuilding ties with the country’s dispossessed Jewish diaspora; normalization remains a crime under Iraqi law
In an unprecedented plea for regional reconciliation, over 300 prominent Iraqis called for their country to normalize ties with Israel on Friday night.
Baghdad says it will arrest all 300 participants at event in Kurdistan that called for peace, once it can establish who they are; Sahar al-Ta’i, Wisam al-Hardan were main speakers
Iraqi authorities announced on Sunday that they had issued warrants for the arrest of two Iraqis who addressed a conference calling for their country to make peace with Israel. The authorities said they would arrest all 300-plus participants once they have established who they are.
The top U.S. military officer says the United States should explore ways to expand its military contacts with Russia as a way to increase trust and avoid a miscalculation.
Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said allowing things such as observers at each other’s combat exercises would increase transparency and reduce the risk of conflict.
“We need to put in place policies and procedures to make sure that we increase certainty, to reduce uncertainty, increase trust to reduce distrust, increase stability to reduce instability in order to avoid miscalculation, and reduce the possibility of great power war,” Milley said. “That’s a fundamental thing that we should try to do, and I am going to try to do it.”
Milley made the comments on September 23 after meeting his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, in Finland on September 22.
Milley said that military contacts between the two powers currently are largely limited to senior leaders such as the defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the supreme allied commander for Europe.
But he said allowing military service chiefs to form stronger relationships with their Russian counterparts and allowing observers at exercises are ideas worth exploring.
Milley, who spoke with an AP reporter and one other reporter traveling with him back to the United States, declined to detail the contents of his talks with Gerasimov, but a statement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested that more open communication was discussed.
“The meeting was a continuation of talks aimed at improving military leadership communication between the two nations for the purposes of risk reduction and operational deconfliction,” the statement said.
Milley said that military-to-military contacts with Russia have worked in the past to de-escalate tense situations. Without being specific, he said there were “a couple of incidents that occurred between us and the Russians over the last two years” that triggered calls between Milley and Gerasimov.
The U.S. and Russia increased cooperation on nuclear security and other defense issues after the end of the Cold War, but the relationship deteriorated after Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in 2008 and Russian troops remained in Georgia’s regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Tensions spiked again in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its military intervened in eastern Ukraine.
In response to the invasion of Crimea, Congress in 2016 limited cooperation with Russia, prohibiting “military-to-military cooperation” until Russia ends its “occupation of Ukrainian territory” and “aggressive activities.” The law was later amended to say that it does not limit military talks aimed at “reducing the risk of conflict.”