coalition Archives - Iran News Daily

Coalition Deployed Cluster Bombs in Hudaydah, US Says

reporter 1222 — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 08:59:09 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the key members of a coalition waging war on Yemen, have deployed cluster bombs against a residential neighborhood in the country’s coastal western province of Hudaydah, a United Nations official said.

The Head of the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) in Yemen, Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha, said in a statement on Tuesday that he is concerned about repeated Saudi-UAE airstrikes in the al-Arj area of the province between August 16 and 23, the Yemeni al-Mahrah Post website reported.

Guha noted that the heavy fighting that broke out around the city of Hudaydah on August 27 in addition to “reports of the use of cluster weapons during one of these airstrikes” are of “special concern.”

The senior UN official then called on parties to the Yemen conflict to “desist from any measures that harm the implementation of Hudaydah agreement.”

Delegates from the Houthi Ansarullah movement and representatives loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi held a round of peace negotiations in Rimbo, north of the Swedish capital city of Stockholm, in December 2018.

The talks resulted in the announcement of an agreement, which included a ceasefire along the Hudaydah front and the redeployment of armed forces out of the city and its port. The deal also mandated the UN to oversee the truce.

Guha further urged all warring parties in Yemen to “refrain from any other activities that put the lives of civilians in Hudaydah province in danger.”

Back on 23 August, an official source from the Ansarullah movement said the Saudi-led military coalition had used a cluster bomb on a farm in al-Arj area of the Bajil district.

Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights, in a statement released by the official SABA news agency on June 10, warned that cluster munitions pose a serious danger to the lives of civilians, especially women and children, if they come in close contact with them.

The statement added that the Saudi-led alliance has used thousands of cluster bombs on residential areas, leaving many civilians dead or injured. Unexploded submunitions risk the lives of locals in the targeted areas as well.

Also on Tuesday, the Yemeni Ministry of Public Health and Population censured latest remarks by the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths, in which he apparently overlooked the disastrous effects of the Saudi-led coalition’s continued siege and detention of fuel tankers off the coast of Yemen.

“After nearly four months that the Saudi-led coalition has been preventing fuel vessels from mooring in Hudaydah port and affecting vital sectors and service facilities, the UN envoy surprised us” with his statement, the spokesman for the ministry, Dr. Yousef al-Hadhiri said.

“Griffiths utterly disregards the Yemeni health sector and the immediate impacts on it in the statement. The statement neither helps reveal the truth nor conceals the falsehood,” Hadhiri added.

He emphasized, “Such neglect did not take place by mistake, but was rather deliberate in order to cover up the humanitarian gap that could draw the attention of the international community to the humanitarian catastrophe that Yemen suffers from.”

The top Yemeni official argued that “Griffiths, in his statement, has not pointed to the fact that the continued detention of fuel tankers affects 80% of patients with chronic diseases and those injured in accidents, who are in the countryside and have no access to necessary health services in city centers.”

“We in the Ministry of Public Health and Population condemn the UN envoy’s clear and scandalous bias towards murderous criminals committed by the Saudi-led coalition and its mercenaries,” Hadhiri said.

“Griffiths’ tenure as the UN special envoy for Yemen has not witnessed any improvement or progress in the living standards of Yemenis in the face of the siege and aggression they have been suffering for more than 65 months.”

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing Hadi’s government back to power.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives for more than the past five years.

The Houthi movement, backed by the armed forces, has been defending Yemen against the Saudi-led alliance, preventing the aggressors from fulfilling the objectives of their deadly campaign.

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Iran to Unveil Details of Hormuz Peace Coalition Soon

reporter 1222 — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 08:53:23 +0000

TEHRAN (Irannews) – Iran is going to provide details of its regional peace initiative for the eight countries it has invited to join the “Hormuz Peace Coalition”, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson said.

Speaking at a weekly press conference on Monday, Abbas Mousavi said Tehran is going to unveil details of the initiative for peace in the region, known as the Hormuz Peace Endeavor, or HOPE, which was proposed by President Hassan Rouhani at the recent meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“Details of the plan will be soon provided in written form, particularly for the eight countries that we have invited to join this coalition,” IRNA quoted Mousavi as saying.

The spokesman explained that the Iranian initiative, which would come under the umbrella of the United Nations, is aimed at creating regional peace and security.

Rouhani presented the initiative while delivering a speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and invited all regional countries to participate in it.

“The initiative is based on the fact that all regional countries are duty-bound to ensure peace, stability and prosperity in the region. Together with the international community, they have common interests in maintaining freedom of navigation and energy transfer,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at a UN Security Council meeting on September 25.

These regional efforts are necessary to prevent war, conflict, violence, extremism, terrorism and sectarian tensions, Zarif said, adding that Tehran’s proposal for Hormuz Peace Coalition was aimed at enhancing solidarity, mutual understanding as well as peaceful and friendly relations between countries in the region in order to guarantee the territorial integrity and political independence of regional states.

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German Parties See Momentum in Coalition Talks Despite Divisions

reporter 1222 — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 14:15:35 +0000

German parties cited progress on Friday after three weeks of talks about a three-way coalition, with their leaders due to thrash out remaining differences over transport and climate on Sunday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, which bled support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Sept. 24 election, are trying to forge a coalition government with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the environmentalist Greens, Reuters reported.
The chiefs of the parties huddled on Friday evening to review progress in the talks thus far, but planned no statements.
They had initially hoped to agree on the outlines of a coalition deal by Friday after the two smaller parties dropped demands this week on tax and climate policy, but later decided to meet again on Sunday before a final push by full delegations for an outline deal next week.
Still, the overall tone was more upbeat than at the end of the previous week.
“We’re heading into the home stretch,” Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), told reporters.
Seehofer and FDP leader Christian Lindner said they were optimistic that the exploratory talks could be wrapped up next week, paving the way for weeks of detailed negotiations about the exact terms of a coalition contract.
But Michael Kellner, a top negotiator for the Greens, demanded more compromises from the other parties.
The FDP this week gave ground by agreeing to accept more modest income tax cuts than a campaign pledge of €30-40 billion ($35-46 billion) of relief.
In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday, Lindner also signaled a readiness to compromise on the euro zone’s European Stability Mechanism, moving away from a campaign pledge to shut down the rescue fund.
The Greens for their part dropped their insistence on fixed dates for shutting down coal-fired power stations and banning cars with internal combustion engines.
But the parties remain divided on whether or not to push for a euro zone budget, on Europe’s banking union and on the use of drones in military conflicts, as well as German participation in foreign military missions, according to draft papers seen by Reuters.
If the parties fail to reach agreement, Germany could be forced into a new election.

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Merkel Believes 3-Way Coalition Can Work, Greens Skeptical

reporter 1222 — Sat, 04 Nov 2017 12:04:15 +0000

Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed confidence on Friday that three party groups trying to form a new German government can reach a coalition deal, despite skepticism from her would-be allies.

With her former coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), determined to go into opposition, Merkel is pushing for a coalition with the ecologist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), after her conservatives bled support to the far-right in an election last month, Reuters reported.
“I think difficult deliberations lie ahead of us in the coming days,” Merkel told reporters on arrival for a fresh round of exploratory talks on Friday. “But I still think we can tie the ends together if we try and work hard.”
Merkel needs the coalition lineup, which is untested at national level, to work or could see her time in power coming to an end after 12 years.
Failure would almost certainly result in new elections that could see further gains for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which surged into parliament after last month’s vote.
But after two weeks of talks, the unlikely allies remain at odds, in particular over immigration, climate, transport and foreign policy.
“We have sat together for 10 days, 12 topics. The result is eight papers with long lists of dissent,” Juergen Trittin, a Greens negotiator, told ARD television.
“And in four areas we haven’t even managed to agree on what we disagree about.”
Merkel said on election night —Sept. 24— she was confident there would be a stable government before Christmas. Senior conservatives close to her say it may take until next year for a new government to form.
FDP leader Christian Lindner puts the odds on the formation working at 50-50. After failing to win any seats in the previous parliament, he is nervous about making compromises that could again send his party into the political wilderness.
Greens foreign policy expert Omid Nouripour said the coalition talks might fail altogether. “I can imagine that,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio.
The Greens plan to present results of the exploratory talks to party members on Nov. 25, after which the three groups aim to move to more detailed negotiations.
Merkel said the two weeks of exploratory talks had allowed the parties to set out positions and begin working towards a deal.
“Now we have a wealth of facts on the table,” she said.

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