Middle East
US moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing
The Biden administration declared Thursday that the high office held by Saudi Arabia's crown prince should shield him from lawsuits for his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, a turnaround from Joe Biden's passionate campaign trail denunciations of Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying.
The administration said the prince’s official standing should give him immunity in the lawsuit filed by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group he founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.
The request is non-binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it is bound to anger human rights activists and many U.S. lawmakers, coming as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.
The State Department on Thursday called the administration's decision to try to protect the Saudi crown prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi's killing “purely a legal determination."
Saudi officials killed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They are believed to have dismembered him, although his remains have never been found. The U.S. intelligence community concluded Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had approved the killing of the widely known and respected journalist, who had written critically of Prince Mohammed’s harsh ways of silencing of those he considered rivals or critics.
The Biden administration statement Thursday noted visa restrictions and other penalties that it had meted out to lower-ranking Saudi officials in the death.
“From the earliest days of this Administration,the United States Government has expressed its grave concerns regarding Saudi agents’ responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder,” the State Department said. Its statement did not mention the crown prince's own alleged role.
Biden as a candidate vowed to make a “pariah” out of Saudi rulers over the 2018 killing of Khashoggi.
Read more: US implicates Saudi crown prince in journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killing
“I think it was a flat-out murder,” Biden said in a 2019 CNN town hall, as a candidate. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.”
But Biden as president has sought to ease tensions with the kingdom, including bumping fists with Prince Mohammed on a July trip to the kingdom, as the U.S. works to persuade Saudi Arabia to undo a series of cuts in oil production.
Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and DAWN sued the crown prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged roles in Khashoggi's killing. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role in the slaying.
“It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has singlehandedly assured MBS can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable," the head of DAWN, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in a statement, using the prince's acronym.
Biden in February 2021 had ruled out the U.S. government imposing punishment on Prince Mohammed himself in the killing of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington area. Biden, speaking after he authorized release of a declassified version of the intelligence community's findings on Prince Mohammed's role in the killing, argued at the time there was no precedent for the U.S. to move against the leader of a strategic partner.
The U.S. military long has safeguarded Saudi Arabia from external enemies, in exchange for Saudi Arabia keeping global oil markets afloat.
“It’s impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil output to twist our arms to recognize MBS’s fake immunity ploy,” Whitson said.
A federal judge in Washington had given the U.S. government until midnight Thursday to express an opinion on the claim by the crown prince's lawyers that Prince Mohammed's high official standing renders him legally immune in the case.
The Biden administration also had the option of not stating an opinion either way.
Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ domestic courts.
Upholding the concept of “sovereign immunity” helps ensure that American leaders in turn don’t have to worry about being hauled into foreign courts to face lawsuits in other countries, the State Department said.
Read more: Washington Post: Turkish officials say Saudi writer killed
Human rights advocates had argued that the Biden administration would embolden Prince Mohammed and other authoritarian leaders around the world in more rights abuses if it supported the crown prince's claim that his high office shielded him from prosecution.
Prince Mohammed serves as Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler in the stead of his aged father, King Salman. The Saudi king in September also temporarily transferred his title of prime minister — a title normally held by the Saudi monarch — to Prince Mohammed. Critics called it a bid to strengthen Mohammed’s immunity claim.
Palestinian officials say house fire in Gaza Strip kills 21
A fire set off by stored gasoline in a residential building killed 21 people Thursday evening in a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, the territory's Hamas rulers said, in one of the deadliest incidents in recent years outside the violence stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The blaze erupted on the third floor of a three-story building in the crowded Jabaliya camp, according to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. No one inside the house survived.
The Civil Defense in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, attributed the cause of the fire to gasoline that was being stored in the building. It was not immediately clear how the gasoline ignited. Officials said an investigation was underway.
Flames were seen spewing out of the windows of the burning floor as hundreds of people gathered outside on the street, waiting for fire trucks and ambulances.
Read more: 4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes
Gaza, ruled by Hamas and under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade, faces a severe energy crisis. People often store cooking gas, diesel and gasoline in homes in preparation for winter. House fires have previously been caused by candles and gas leaks.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offered condolences to the families of the dead and declared Friday a day of mourning.
Tor Wennesland, the United Nations’ Middle East peace envoy, expressed “heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families, relatives and friends of those who died in the accident; the Government, and the Palestinian people.”
Hussein Al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian Authority official, called on Israel to open its border crossing with Gaza to allow for the evacuation of those injured who need advanced medical care to Palestinian hospitals in the West Bank and Jerusalem. It was later confirmed that all in the house had died.
COGAT, the Israeli body controlling the Erez Crossing with the Gaza Strip, did not comment.
Read more: Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire after deadly strikes
But Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz sent his condolences to the Palestinians, writing on Twitter that “we have offered our assistance in evacuating injured civilians to hospitals via COGAT. The State of Israel is prepared to provide life-saving, medical aid to Gaza residents.”
How Qatar's wealth brought the World Cup to the Middle East
Qatar is home to some 2.9 million people, but only a small fraction — around one in 10 — are Qatari citizens. They enjoy massive wealth and benefits fueled by Qatar’s shared control of one of the world’s largest reserves of natural gas.
The tiny country on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula juts out into the Persian Gulf. There lies the North Field, the world’s largest underwater gas field, which Qatar shares with Iran. The gas field holds approximately 10% of the world’s known natural gas reserves.
Oil and gas have made the 50-year-old country fantastically wealthy and influential. In a matter of decades, Qatar’s roughly 300,000 citizens have been pulled from the hard livelihood of fishing and pearl diving.
Read more: Rights groups fear for workers as Qatar World Cup spotlight dims
The country is now an international transit hub with a profitable national airline, a force behind the influential Al Jazeera news network and is paying for the expansion of the largest U.S. military base in the Mideast.
Here’s a look at Qatar’s economy and how this tiny country was able to spend so much to host the FIFA World Cup:
QATAR’S ECONOMIC STRENGTH
For most of its existence, the tribes of Qatar relied on pearl diving and fishing for survival. Like other parts of the Gulf, it was a harsh and bare existence. The discovery of oil and gas in the mid-20th century changed life in the Arabian Peninsula forever.
While much of the world grapples with recession and inflation, Qatar and other Gulf Arab energy producers are reaping the benefits of high energy prices. The International Monetary Fund expects Qatar’s economy to grow by about 3.4% this year.
Despite a massive spending spree to prepare for the World Cup, the country still earned more than it spent last year, giving it a cushy surplus that is continuing into 2022. Qatar’s riches are likely to grow as it expands capacity to be able to export more natural gas by 2025.
Its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, manages and invests the country’s financial reserves.
QATAR’S WORLD CUP SPENDING
Qatar has spent some $200 billion on infrastructure and other development projects since winning the bid to host the five-week long World Cup, according to official statements and a report from Deloitte.
Around $6.5 billion of that was spent on building eight stadiums for the tournament, including the Al Janoub stadium designed by the late acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid.
Billions were also spent to build a metro line, new airport, roads and other infrastructure ahead of the matches.
The London-based research firm Capital Economics said ticket sales suggest that around 1.5 million tourists will visit Qatar for the World Cup. If each visitor stayed for 10 days and spent $500 a day, spending per visitor would amount to $5,000, the research firm said. That could amount to a $7.5 billion boost to Qatar’s economy this year. However, some fans may fly in just for the matches while staying in nearby Dubai and elsewhere.
Read more: Qatar's World Cup stadiums won't turn into white elephants
QATAR’S LAVISH BENEFITS
Like other rich petro-states in the Gulf, Qatar is not a democracy. Decisions are made by the ruling Al Thani family and its chose advisors. Citizens have little say in their country’s major policy decisions.
The government, however, provides citizens with vast perks that have helped to ensure continued loyalty and support. Qatari citizens enjoy tax-free incomes, high-paying government jobs, free health care, free higher education, financial support for newlyweds, housing support, generous subsidies that cover utility bills and plush retirement benefits.
The country’s citizens rely on laborers from other countries to fill jobs in the service sector, such as drivers and nannies, and to do the tough construction work that built modern-day Qatar.
QATAR’S MIGRANT LABOR FORCE
The country has faced intense scrutiny for its labor laws and treatment of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, mostly from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and other South Asian countries. These men live in shared rooms on labor camps and work throughout the long summer months, with just a few hours of midday respite. They often go years without seeing their families back home.
The work is often dangerous, with Amnesty International saying dozens may have died from apparent heat stroke.
Rights groups have credited Qatar with improving its labor laws, such as by adopting a minimum monthly wage of around $275 in 2020, and for dismantling the “kafala” system that had prevented workers from changing jobs or leaving the country without the consent of their employers.
Human Rights Watch, however has urged Qatar to improve compensation for migrant workers who suffered injury, death and wage theft while working on World Cup-related projects.
77 migrants killed as boat sinks off Syrian coast
At least 77 people were killed when a boat carrying migrants sank off Syria this week, the country’s health minister said Friday, amid fears the death toll could be far higher.
The incident was deadliest so far as a surging number of Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians have been trying to flee crisis-hit Lebanon by sea for a better future in Europe. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs while the Lebanese pound has dropped more than 90% in value, eradicating the purchasing power of thousands of families that now live in extreme poverty.
Syrian authorities said victims’ relatives have started crossing from Lebanon into Syria to help identify their loved ones and retrieve their bodies. The vessel left Lebanon on Tuesday and news of what happened first started to emerge on Thursday afternoon. The boat was carrying Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinians.
Syrian state-run TV quoted Health Minister Mohammed Hassan Ghabbash as saying 20 people were rescued and were being treated at al-Basel hospital in Syria’s coastal city of Tartus. He added that medical authorities have been on alert since Thursday afternoon to help in the search operations.
An official at al-Basel, speaking on condition of anonymity under regulations, told The Associated Press that eight of those rescued were in intensive care. The official also confirmed the 77 deaths. There were conflicting reports on how many people were on board the vessel when it sank, with some saying at least 120. Details about the ship, such as its size and capacity, were also not clear.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamie said the survivors included 12 Syrians, five Lebanese and three Palestinians. Eight bodies have been brought back to Lebanon early Friday, according to Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi.
After sunset Friday, bodies of more victims, including two Palestinians, were brought to Lebanon. They were taken in seven ambulances and headed south from the Arida border crossing toward the northern city of Tripoli.
Read: Border patrol: 9 migrants die crossing swift Texas river
Earlier in the day, Tartus governor Abdul-Halim Khalil told the pro-government Sham FM Radio that the search was underway for more bodies off his country’s coast. Khalil said the boat sank on Wednesday.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, quoted a port official as saying that 31 bodies were washed ashore while the rest were picked up by Syrian boats in a search operation that started Thursday evening.
Wissam Tellawi, one of the survivors being treated at al-Basel, lost two daughters. His wife and two sons are still missing. The bodies of his daughters, Mae and Maya, were brought to Lebanon early Friday and buried in their northern hometown of Qarqaf.
“He told me by telephone, ‘I am fine’ but the children are lost,” said Tellawi’s father, who identified himself as Abu Mahmoud. The father told the local Al-Jadeed TV that his son gave smugglers the family’s apartment in return for taking him and his family to Europe.
In the aftermath of the disaster, the Lebanese army said troops stormed Friday the homes of several suspected smugglers, detaining four in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest and most impoverished. Three others were detained in the nearby village of Deir Ammar.
The military said the suspects were involved in smuggling of migrants by sea while others were planning to buy boats for the same reason.
Lebanon,— with a population of 6 million, including 1 million Syrian refugees, has been in the grips of a severe economic meltdown since late 2019 that has pulled over three-quarters of the population into poverty.
For years, it was a country that received refugees from Mideast wars and conflicts but the economic crisis, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement, has changed that dramatically.
Read: 7 migrants die, 280 rescued off Italian island of Lampedusa
Prices have been skyrocketing as a result of hyperinflation, forcing many to sell their belongings to pay for smugglers to take them to Europe as the migration intensified in recent months.
In April, a boat carrying dozens of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians trying to migrate by sea to Italy went down more than 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Tripoli, following a confrontation with the Lebanese navy. Dozens were killed in the incident.
On Wednesday, Lebanese officials said naval forces rescued a boat carrying 55 migrants after it faced technical problems about 11 kilometers (7 miles) off the coast of the northern region of Akkar. It said those rescued included two pregnant women and two children.
Conservation plan highlights Arabs’ fraught ties to Israel
Ayoub Rumeihat opened his palms to the sky in prayer as he stood among tombstones for Bedouins killed in action while serving the state of Israel.
Finishing the holy words, he gazed at the distant Mediterranean Sea across a valley full of olives and oak where his community has grazed goats for generations.
Rumeihat says the Bedouins, celebrated by the Israeli military for their knowledge of the land, fear the government now seeks to sever their ties to that same piece of earth.
Rumeihat and his fellow Bedouins see a plan to turn their land into a wildlife corridor as an affront to their service to the country. They say it’s in line with steps taken by nationalist Israeli governments against the Arab minority in recent years that have deepened a sense of estrangement and tested the community’s already brittle ties to the state.
The plan has sparked rare protests from Bedouins in Israel’s northern Galilee region — some of the few native Palestinians to embrace early Jewish settlers before Israel’s creation in 1948. Many have since served in the Israeli police and military, often fighting against fellow Palestinians.
“We were with you from the beginning,” said Rumeihat, standing next to a tombstone engraved with a Star of David in honor of a Bedouin tracker likely killed by a Palestinian. “We are like the lemon and the olive trees. How can you uproot us?”
Palestinian citizens of Israel make up 20% of the country’s 9 million people. They have citizenship and can vote, and some reach the highest echelons of government and business. But they have long faced discrimination in housing, jobs and public services and face neglect at the hands of the state. Many Jewish Israelis see them as a fifth column for their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Within that same minority are subgroups, like the Bedouins, who have become more embedded in Israeli society through their service in the security forces.
But in recent years, the Bedouins have accused Israel of belittling their service with its policies, particularly a 2018 law that defines the country as the nation state of the Jewish people. Bedouin and Druze Israelis, who both serve in the military, felt the law demoted them to second-class citizens.
The community sees the wildlife corridor as another slight. It will set controls on their grazing and could limit the residents’ housing options in the future.
The Bedouins have started small weekly protests with Jewish supporters in the Galilee and also in Jerusalem, outside the offices of the prime minister and the Nature and Parks Authority.
The 2,600-acre (1,050-hectare) wildlife corridor is meant to allow foxes, quail and other animals to move safely around the urban landscape of Haifa, the country’s third-largest city. The Bedouins call the lush ravines of the area al-Ghaba, or “forest” in Arabic.
Environmentalists say wildlife corridors, which serve as safe migration zones for animals, are an important part of conservation efforts.
Uri Shanas, an ecology professor at the University of Haifa-Oranim, said the corridor was essential because the surrounding area is built up and the animals, especially the endangered mountain gazelle, require the land bridge.
“The only place that it’s still thriving in the world is in Israel and we are obliged to protect it,” he said.
Read: Gaza militants hold parade after latest battle with Israel
Palestinian citizens of Israel have in the past accused Israeli authorities of justifying land seizures under the guise of environmental stewardship. In January, Bedouins in southern Israel staged protests against tree planting by nationalists on disputed land. And advocacy groups say many forests in Israel were planted atop the ruins of Palestinian villages emptied during the events that led to Israel’s creation.
A spokeswoman for the parks authority, Daniela Turgeman, said the corridor plan was crafted with local leaders in the 1980s and surveyed plants and animals. She said that it allows for controlled grazing and said there are only “a few individuals who still have objections.”
The Bedouins object to the plan’s omission of traditional land-use rights and reject any limits on grazing. They claim private ownership of certain parcels and total grazing rights after settling in the area about 100 years ago, buying land, planting olive groves and farms, and building homes.
They also deny there was any prior consultation with the parks authority, which Turgeman said formed the plan after six recent meetings and “a joint tour” with local leaders.
Guy Alon, an official with the parks authority, told Israel’s Channel 13 TV in July that the wildlife corridor would benefit Jews and Arabs while respecting property rights and striking an ecological balance.
For “Bedouins who come and say ‘we want open spaces,’ the nature reserve offers just that,” he said. “Those who ask that we let them graze on the land, we respect that.” he said.
After learning of the plan, three Bedouin villages filed an objection, charging the corridor didn’t take into consideration private Bedouin property. The Haifa district planning committee rejected that objection, and an appeal is now being heard.
“Nature has been used as a political tool before many, many times, so for people there is no trust,” said Myssana Morany, a lawyer with the Arab legal rights group Adalah, which filed the objection on the residents’ behalf.
She said the parks authority has dealt with the Bedouins differently than it has with other citizens, pointing to nearby examples of its plans to integrate nature reserves with existing farms and other types of land use.
Environmental claims ring hollow to villagers who see ongoing construction at nearby Jewish villages as far more ecologically disruptive than grazing goats and olive groves.
Fatima Khaldi, 73, sitting in her large family home in the village of Khawaldeh, said local knowledge will protect the land more than any outside expertise. “Their whole goal is to remove us and destroy our heritage.”
Mustafa Rumeihat, 70, a distant relative of Rumeihat, said he’s worried his grandchildren won’t inherit the family ties to the land.
“I see myself dying of desperation,” he said, shuffling downhill from his pen of two dozen goats. “When my son asks me about the land, I won’t be able to answer him.”
Global Covid cases top 579 million
The overall number of Covid cases has now surged past 579 million amid a rise in new infections in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 579,836,225 and the death toll reached 6,414,919 on Friday morning.
The US has recorded 92,917,658 cases so far and 1,054,422 people have died from the virus in the country, the data shows.
India's daily Covid-19 caseload rose to 20,409, after showing a declining trend in the new cases, officials said on Thursday.
According to federal health ministry data released on Thursday morning, 20,409 new cases of Covid were reported in 24 hours, taking the total tally to 43,979,730 in the country.
Read: Global Covid cases top 578 million
The country also logged 47 related deaths during the period, pushing the overall toll to 526,258, the ministry said.
Covid in Bangladesh
Bangladesh recorded four more Covid-linked deaths with 618 new cases in 24 hours till Thursday morning.
With the latest figures, the country's total fatalities have reached 29,284 and the caseload 2,004,188, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily case positivity rate rose to 6.62 per cent from Wednesday's 6.83 per cent as 9,338 samples were tested.
The deceased included two men and two women. Three of them were from Chattogram and another from Dhaka division.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.46 per cent. The recovery rate rose to 96.80 per cent from Thursday's 96.79 per cent.
BGL reports 'significant engagement with job seekers' tapping into imo Channel
BGL Overseas, a recruiting agency based in Dhaka, has reported a "big growth in its engagement with the job seekers" after joining "Channel," a free broadcast platform for service and information introduced by popular instant messaging app imo.
The agency is involved in the recruitment and supply of workers from Bangladesh to different companies based in the Middle East and Asia.
Abdullah Al Mamun, marketing manager of BGL, decided to connect with imo Channel to help the agency perform better.
BGL joined Channel this May to try it and tap into more potential candidates. After the agency was officially verified by the imo team, its account got customised menus, enabling potential clients to contact it conveniently. More importantly, BGL services got a huge traffic boost from imo.
Within only two months, the number of closed deals of Mamun increased by around 50 percent as there was a huge boost in the number of BGL's followers, which reached nearly 13,000.
Read: Grooming Tips for Professionals: Show up gracefully at the workplace
On average, the number of migrant workers who reach out to BGL through Channel every day is around 50, much more efficient than other digital platforms, according to a media statement.
Mamun said: "We were looking for a good platform to connect to our target clients directly. Ever since we connected with imo Channel, we witnessed a significant rise in our engagement with the job seekers, because our target clients are already on the platform and could call us directly on imo without fees and not through other agents, which has helped us experience meteoric growth in terms of business."
Currently, there are huge opportunities for Bangladeshis to work overseas, but it often remains unexplored owing to a lack of proper information. Channel has "proved to be a powerful tool in this regard."
Currently, on imo, there are around 10 million Bangladeshi users who work in the Middle East.
Migrant workers can get relevant and authorised information about overseas job opportunities, salary, employers, companies, job requirements and other necessary details through imo Channel.
Mideast nations wake up to damage from climate change
Temperatures in the Middle East have risen far faster than the world’s average in the past three decades. Precipitation has been decreasing, and experts predict droughts will come with greater frequency and severity.
The Middle East is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the impact of climate change — and already the effects are being seen.
In Iraq, intensified sandstorms have repeatedly smothered cities this year, shutting down commerce and sending thousands to hospitals. Rising soil salinity in Egypt’s Nile Delta is eating away at crucial farmland. In Afghanistan, drought has helped fuel the migration of young people from their villages, searching for jobs. In recent weeks, temperatures in some parts of the region have topped 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit).
This year’s annual U.N. climate change conference, known as COP27, is being held in Egypt in November, throwing a spotlight on the region. Governments across the Middle East have awakened to the dangers of climate change, particularly to the damage it is already inflicting on their economies.
Read: Mideast nations wake up to damage from climate change
“We’re literally seeing the effects right in front of us. ... These impacts are not something that will hit us nine or 10 years down the line,” said Lama El Hatow, an environmental climate change consultant who has worked with the World Bank and specializes on the Middle East and North Africa.
“More and more states are starting to understand that it’s necessary” to act, she said.
Egypt, Morocco and other countries in the region have been stepping up initiatives for clean energy. But a top priority for them at COP-27 is to push for more international funding to help them deal with the dangers they are already facing from climate change.
One reason for the Middle East’s vulnerability is that there is simply no margin to cushion the blow on millions of people as the rise in temperatures accelerates: The region already has high temperatures and limited water resources even in normal circumstances.
Middle East governments also have a limited ability to adapt, the International Monetary Fund noted in a report earlier this year. Economies and infrastructure are weak, and regulations are often unenforced. Poverty is widespread, making job creation a priority over climate protection. Autocratic governments like Egypt’s severely restrict civil society, hampering an important tool in engaging the public on environmental and climate issues.
At the same time, developing nations are pressuring countries in the Mideast and elsewhere to make emissions cuts, even as they themselves backslide on promises.
Biden says US ‘will not walk away’ from Middle East
President Joe Biden, speaking at a summit of Arab leaders, said Saturday that the United States “will not walk away” from the Middle East as he tries to ensure stability in a volatile corner of the globe and boost the worldwide flow of oil to reverse rising gas prices.
His remarks, delivered at the Gulf Cooperation Council as he closes out the final leg of a four-day trip, comes as the region braces for a potential confrontation with Iran.
“We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran,” Biden said. “We will seek to build on this moment with active, principled, American leadership.”
Although U.S. forces continue to target terrorists in the region and remain deployed at bases throughout the Middle East, Biden suggested that he was turning the page after the country’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Today, I’m proud to be able to say that the eras of land wars in the region, wars that involved huge numbers of American forces, is not under way,” he said.
Biden also pressed his counterparts, many of which lead repressive governments, to ensure human rights, including women’s rights, and allow their citizens to speak openly.
“The future will be won by the countries that unleash the full potential of their populations,” he said, including allowing people to “question and criticize leaders without fear of reprisal.”
Before the speech, Biden spent the morning meeting individually with the leaders of Iraq, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, some of whom he had never sat down with.
Read: Biden meets with Arab Gulf countries to counter Iran threat
Biden invited Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who became president of the UAE two months ago, to visit the White House this year, saying he looked forward “to another period of strong and growing cooperation” between their countries under the sheik’s leadership.
The Gulf Cooperation Council summit in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah is an opportunity for Biden to demonstrate his commitment to the region after spending most of his presidency focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing influence in Asia.
Hours before the conference began, the White House released satellite imagery that indicates Russian officials have twice recently visited Iran to see weapons-capable drones it is looking to acquire for use in its war in Ukraine.
None of the countries represented at the summit have moved in lockstep with the U.S. to sanction Russia, a key foreign policy priority for the Biden administration. If anything, the UAE has emerged as a sort of financial haven for Russian billionaires and their multimillion-dollar yachts. Egypt remains open to Russian tourists.
Release satellite imagery that shows Russian officials visited Kashan Airfield on June 8 and July 15 to look at the drones could help the administration better tie the war’s relevance to many Arab nations’ own concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, missile program and support for militants in the region.
A senior Biden administration official, who briefed reporters before the summit, said Moscow’s efforts to acquire drones from Tehran show that Russia is “effectively making a bet on Iran.”
Biden’s attendance at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit followed his Friday meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the oil-rich kingdom’s de facto ruler and heir to the throne currently held by his father, King Salman.
The president had initially shunned Prince Mohammed over human rights abuses, particularly the killing of U.S.-based writer Jamal Khashoggi, which U.S. intelligence officials believe was likely approved by the crown prince.
But Biden decided he needed to repair the longstanding relationship between the two countries to address rising gas prices and foster stability in the volatile region.
Biden and Prince Mohammed greeted each other with a fist bump when the president arrived at the royal palace in Jeddah, a gesture that was swiftly criticized. Biden later said he did not shy away from discussing Khashoggi’s killing during their meeting.
Read: Biden’s Saudi visit aims to balance rights, oil, security
The topic created a “frosty” start to the discussion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the private conversations.
However, the atmosphere eventually became more relaxed, the official said, as they spoke about energy security, expanding high-speed internet access in the Middle East and other issues. Biden even tried to inject some humor into the conversation by the end of the meeting, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity discuss a private meeting.
The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news network, citing an unnamed Saudi source, reported that Prince Mohammed responded to Biden’s mention of Khashoggi by saying that attempts to impose a set of values can backfire. He also said the U.S. had committed mistakes at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where detainees were tortured, and pressed Biden on the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a recent Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Jenin.
Adel Al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s minister of state for foreign affairs, called the visit a “great success” and brushed off questions about friction between the two countries. .
“Maybe the skeptics are people looking for theatrics or drama. The reality, however, is that this relationship is very solid,” he told Arab News, a Saudi news organization.
Biden, when he addresses the Gulf Cooperation Council, will offer his most fulsome vision yet for the region and the U.S. role there, the White House said. The Biden administration is also expected to announce $1 billion in food security assistance for the Middle East and North Africa.
The president’s first Middle East trip comes 11 months after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and as Biden aims to reprioritize the U.S. away from the Middle East’s ruinous wars and ongoing conflicts stretching from Libya to Syria.
Energy prices — elevated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — were expected to be high on the agenda. But Biden aides tempered expectations that he would leave with a deal for regional producers to immediately boost supply.
“I suspect you won’t see that for another couple of weeks,” Biden told reporters late Friday.
At the summit, Biden was set to hear concerns about regional stability and security, food security, climate change and the continued threat of terrorism.
Overall, there’s little that the nine Mideast heads of state agree on when it comes to foreign policy. For example, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE are trying to isolate and squeeze Iran over its regional reach and proxies. Oman and Qatar, on the other hand, have solid diplomatic ties with Iran and have acted as intermediaries for talks between Washington and Tehran.
Read: Biden heads to Mideast jittery about Iranian nuclear program
Qatar recently hosted talks between U.S. and Iranian officials as they try to revive Iran’s nuclear accord. Iran not only shares a huge underwater gas field with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, it rushed to Qatar’s aid when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut off ties and imposed a years-long embargo on Qatar that ended shortly before Biden took office.
Biden’s actions have frustrated some of the leaders. While the U.S. has played an important role in encouraging a months-long ceasefire in Yemen, his decision to reverse a Trump-era move that had listed Yemen’s rebel Houthis as a terrorist group has outraged the Emirati and Saudi leadership.
Analysts underline Middle East’s key importance to Bangladesh
The importance of the Middle East to Bangladesh in terms of geo-politics, geo-economy and geo-energy has been highlighted at a seminar here.
The region houses two of the holy mosques and key players of major significance to the Muslim Ummah, and thus Bangladesh, due to its religious Muslim majority and its OIC membership, does hold the region in high regard in terms of strategic significance, said analysts speaking at the event.
They said Bangladesh is also dependent on the Middle East for inward remittance so it needs to lean towards undertaking actionable policies to ensure its stronger footprint in the region and to help mitigate the turbulence that has befallen.
Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS) and Dhaka Tribune hosted the BIPSS-Dhaka Tribune Roundtable titled, "The Changing Dynamics of the Middle East: Implications for Bangladesh'' at a city hotel on Wednesday.
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BIPSS President Major General (Retd) ANM Muniruzzaman, Dhaka Tribune Editor Zafar Sobhan, Dhaka University Prof Lailufar Yasmin and Assistant Prof of the Department of Economics at East-West University Parvez Karim Abbasi spoke at the discussion.
They observed that the Middle East has been a hotbed of turbulence, conflict and insurgencies for decades.
Even after all these years of destruction and bloodshed, the chaos is not showing any sign of slowing down anytime soon.
As a matter of fact, the multifaceted phenomenon currently ongoing in the region is only becoming more complicated and dynamic.
The ever-changing landscape, with the already existing shaky governance in the Middle East region, tends to have implications on a global scale and spillovers beyond comprehension, said the speakers.
The roundtable was attended by diplomats, scholars, security experts, and youth representatives from various disciplines.
Muniruzzaman laid out how the power architecture inherited from the colonial rule in the Middle East had condemned the region to perpetual instability, leaving behind questionable borders and dissatisfied ethnic minorities, ultimately fueling state and non-state actors to challenge the existing state and territorial sovereignty.
Pondering the crisis in Lebanon, Lailufar Yasmin elaborated on the possible spillover across the region and also talked about the ongoing challenges and the role of hard and soft diplomacy in the Middle East.
She went on to shed some light on the crisis in Yemen, the post-election turmoil in Iraq and their overarching implications and discussed the growing instability in Palestine and how the world community has presumably forgotten about the nation itself.
She also focused on the fresh talks leading to the revival of the U.S-Iran Nuclear deal and the aftermath that will ensue following the revival.
Parvez Abbasi explained the underlying factors, interfaces, and different caveats concerning the geo-economic realities of the Middle East.
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He talked about the rising tension within the Arab youth and how this factor can lead to the creation of "Arab Spring 2.0" and highlighted the key facets of the current Syrian Civil War and whether Syria will be able to reintegrate itself into the global system.
Abbasi analysed the different aspects of the energy transition that the world is going through and its overall implications on how it can potentially lead to the socio-economic fallout of the region.