28 July 2010
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Contents
As Safir: “Ahmadinejad sounds the alarms for Lebanon and Syria: An American-Israeli war in three months!”
The Independent: “Cameron uses Turkish visit to launch ferocious attack on Israel”
An Nahar: “Netanyahu breaks chill [in relations] with Jordan and Washington puts pressure for direct negotiations”
The Washington Post: “Document leak part of U.S. plot, says Pakistani ex-general with ties to Taliban”
The Lebanese As Safir daily carried the following news report on its front page today: “Ahmadinejad sounds the alarms for Lebanon and Syria: An American-Israeli war in three months!”
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday warned of upcoming wars declaring he had “precise” information conforming that the United States and Israel are preparing, in the framework of “psychological warfare” on Iran to wage war in the next three months against two states in the region, but he did not mention them by name. However he insinuated that those states are Lebanon and Syria when he said that these two countries will not need the Iranian support because Israel will be the biggest loser in any military action.
In an interview with the Iranian Press TV, Ahmadinejad said: “We have precise information that Americans have devised a scenario to launch a massive propaganda campaign against Iran. The comments made by the Russian president (on Iran’s effort to produce a nuclear weapon) were in fact a teaser for that. They are to go into action on a large scale … and they would launch aggression against certain regional countries in the next three months in order to put pressure on Iran … and save the Zionist regime.”
Asked if Iran is prepared to intervene militarily in case Israel carried out a “probable” attack on Syria and Iran, Ahmadinejad said: “This is not only a possibility. They have already decided to do it now… There is no need for that (Iranian support). It is obvious the Zionist regime will be the biggest lose in any future military action.”
On negotiations over the nuclear file, Ahmadinejad said: “We are holding talks with the 5+1 group in September, but we have our conditions, one of which is the presence of other sides and the second is for them to announce their position regarding some issues such the Zionist regime’s possession of nuclear bombs … They have to also clarify whether they are going to the negotiations in search for friendship or animosity … Their answers will draw a clear picture of the climate of the negotiations. We will not be influenced no matter what the answer is. We prefer it is constructive but in case it isn’t then we will continue the negotiations on that basis.”…
http://www.assafir.com/Article.aspx?EditionId=1605&articleId=3068&ChannelId=37499
The British Independent daily carried the following news report on its front page today: “Cameron uses Turkish visit to launch ferocious attack on Israel”
“David Cameron signalled a toughening stance on Israel yesterday by comparing the besieged Gaza Strip to “a prison camp” and urging Israel to end its three-year blockade.
Mr Cameron’s comments will carry additional diplomatic weight because they were made in Turkey, which has threatened to sever ties with Israel after its deadly assault on a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
In a stopover on his way to India, Mr Cameron launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at bolstering Turkey’s bid to join the European Union and enlisting its support in the efforts to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb.
In comments that will play well in Turkey, Mr Cameron frankly addressed the situation in Gaza. Speaking to business leaders in Ankara, Mr Cameron condemned Israel’s land and sea blockade of Gaza, aimed at weakening the Islamist group Hamas, which seized control of the strip in 2007.
“Let me be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change,” said Mr Cameron, reiterating comments that he made earlier to the House of Commons. “Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.”
Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, applauded Mr Cameron’s words, and repeated his condemnation of the flotilla assault in international waters, comparing it to Somali piracy.
… Mr Cameron yesterday reiterated earlier comments that the attack was “unacceptable” and called for a “swift, transparent and rigorous” investigation of the raid…
“The people of Gaza are the prisoners of the terrorist organisation Hamas,” said Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UK. “The situation in Gaza is the direct result of Hamas’s rule and priorities.”
… Sari Bashi, executive director of the Israeli Gisha human rights group, said Israel’s policy was “collective punishment”. “Innocent people are being prevented from accessing education, economic opportunities, family members and even medical care,” she said.
Mr Cameron was in Turkey to woo Ankara, a strategic ally in the Middle East that has acted as an important bridge between East and West.
Throwing his support behind Turkey’s stalled bid to join the European Union, he said the club would be “not stronger but weaker” for its absence. Mr Cameron added: “I’m here to make the case for Turkey’s membership of the EU. And to fight for it.”
… Mr Cameron said, though, that Turkey had earned its place in the club. “When I think about what Turkey has done to defend Europe as a Nato ally, and what Turkey is doing today in Afghanistan alongside our European allies, it makes me angry that your progress towards EU membership can be frustrated in the way it has been,” said Mr Cameron. “I believe it’s just wrong to say Turkey can guard the camp but not be allowed to sit inside the tent.”…
The Lebanese An Nahar daily carried the following news report on its front page today: “Netanyahu breaks chill [in relations] with Jordan and Washington puts pressure for direct negotiations”
“Jordanian King Abdullah II held talks yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the framework of the speeding movement in the region signaling the Arabs are close to agree that the Palestinians enter direct negotiations with Israel without receiving American guarantees for the establishment of a Palestinian state along the borders of June 4, 1967 (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). Netanyahu made an unannounced visit to Jordan the day after talks between the Jordanian king and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and following a telephone call between the king and American President Barack Obama.
The meeting yesterday between the Jordanian king and the Israeli prime minister was the second such encounter since the head of the rightist Likud coalition formed his government last year, amid a chill in relations between the two countries and after angry statements by Abdullah against Netanyahu’s government.
… The Royal Diwan issued a concise statement saying the Abdullah-Netanyahu meeting “focused on how to achieve progress in efforts to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of a two-state solution and in a comprehensive regional context that guarantees security and stability for all the region’s states and peoples”.
…Without directly pointing to Israel, Abdullah said: “Comprehensive peace which guarantees the rights of all sides is the only way to achieve security and stability in the region, which calls for all efforts to come together and stop all unilateral measures that hinder reaching a two-states solution on the condition that regional security and stability are achieved…”
In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the United States is “pressing” for the resumption of direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. He said: “We have a full court press underway to see if we can move to direct negotiations…”
http://www.annahar.com/content.php?priority=2&table=main&type=main&day=Wed
The Washington Post carried the following news report on its front page today: “Document leak part of U.S. plot, says Pakistani ex-general with ties to Taliban”
“From the deluge of leaked military documents published Sunday, a former Pakistani spy chief emerged as a chilling personification of his nation’s alleged duplicity in the Afghan war — an erstwhile U.S. ally turned Taliban tutor.
Now planted squarely in the cross hairs, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul seems little short of delighted.
In an interview Tuesday, Gul dismissed the accusations against him as “fiction” and described the documents’ release as the start of a White House plot. It will end, he posited, with an early U.S. pullout from Afghanistan — thus proving Gul, an unabashed advocate of the Afghan insurgency, right.
President Obama “is a very good chess player. . . . He says, ‘I don’t want to carry the historic blame of having orchestrated the defeat of America, their humiliation in Afghanistan,’ ” said Gul, 74, adding that the plot incorporates a troop surge that Obama knows will fail. “It doesn’t sell to a professional man like me.”
That sort of theory makes Gul an incarnation of some of the United States’ greatest challenges in dealing with Pakistan, a U.S. ally. Here, prominent figures closely linked to the security establishment not only trumpet what they view as vast American scheming but also, U.S. officials and the leaked documents allege, provide support to Afghan rebels.
… With the greatest detail yet made public, the leaked documents depict American views of Gul as a murderous terrorist agent. According to some of the documents, he possessed dozens of bombs for Taliban fighters to detonate in Kabul, instructed militants to kidnap United Nations workers, hatched a plan for a suicide bombing in Afghanistan to avenge an insurgent and assured fighters that Pakistan would provide them haven.
The reports are unconfirmed. But they are hardly surprising to those closely following the Afghan war, or to Gul himself. On Monday, he described himself as a “whipping boy” for the United States.
Current and former U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, variously described him as “very dirty” and a man with a “horrible reputation.”
… Obama said Tuesday that the documents do not reveal any issues that weren’t already part of the public debate on Afghanistan and that they “point to the same challenges that led me to conduct an extensive review of our policy last fall.”
Gul, one of several former Pakistani military officials whom the United States accuses of fueling the Afghan insurgency, has deemed the war a “war against Muslims.” He has acknowledged being a member of a militant organization banned by Pakistan.
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who had fired Gul as ISI chief on suspicion that he wanted to overthrow her, fingered him as a threat shortly before her assassination in 2007. Gul has since publicly shared what he calls his “assessment” that the United States was behind Bhutto’s slaying, an allegation U.S. officials vehemently deny.
… His support for the Taliban is purely “academic,” he said.
“There is not physical input to it. I don’t have the means. I don’t have the will,” Gul said, speaking in his living room in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. “I am not an enemy of America. I am against their policy, much as many very patriotic Americans are against the policies.”
To that end, Gul said, he holds Taliban leader Mohammad Omar in high regard for his “resistance” to U.S. invaders, though he said he has never met the man. He readily acknowledged that he has maintained friendships with former mujaheddin such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, a onetime CIA-backed fighter whose network is now viewed as the coalition forces’ most lethal foe…
… In Gul’s version, India is where the leaked documents implicating Pakistani aid to the Taliban originated. The reports, he said, were fed by Indians to Afghan intelligence agents and intelligence “contractors” who are paid for each report they file. The reports are meant to pressure Pakistan to toe the American line, he said, a view widely shared here.
Gul said he was singled out in the reports because of American fears that he will expose U.S. “cavities” — corruption, poor planning and complicity in the opium trade — in the Afghan conflict. Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States, he said, has “ravaged” its economy and social fabric…”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072705783.html?hpid=topnews
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