Iraq and Syria are in the midst of the most serious tension between the two countries since the 2003 Iraq War. The Iraqi Government has blamed two devastating truck bombs that killed 95 people and wounded 600 in Baghdad on August 19 on insurgents who crossed the Syrian border. Yesterday Iraq deployed thousands of reinforcements along the border, and the Government asserted that it had provided Damascus with evidence linking Iraqis in Syria to the bombings.
After offering his condolences to Iraqi people and a denunciation of the bombings as a threat to the stability of Iraq, Davutoglu asked the Iraqi Government to take a become milder line towards Syria, following al-Maliki’s initial harsh statement that Iraq “asked Syria to return to us those targeting the Iraqi people but Syria sent us only common criminals.” Davutoglu told al-Maliki that there was no short-term solution for the crisis and offered to take information and documents to Damascus, establishing co-operation between Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
The documents referred to briefly today in The Washington Post are the outcome of Davutoglu’s intervention. But this, for Ankara, is only the beginning. Just as it used another crisis, the Gaza War of December-January, to further its ties with Syria and its Middle Eastern presence, so it will now extend that influence by being the “good broker” to two of its most important neighbours.
Over the last two years, we paid a good deal of attention to the story of five Iranian officials seized in March 2007 by US forces in Erbil in northern Iraq. It is a measure of how far the world has moved away from the Iraq story, and indeed of how much internal developments in Iran have come to the fore, that the release of the five by the Americans last week received so little attention (apart from Iranian state media, which eagerly featured the return of the men, pictured at left, this weekend).
That’s a mistake because this complex tale leaves two long-lasting lessons. The first is that, despite the tensions of Iran’s post-election crisis, there are officials in the Obama Administration who want to remove obstacles to long-term negotiations. The second is even more important: as Gareth Porter outlines below in a story for Inter Press Service, the release of the five Iranians points to the emergence of an Iraqi Government that is no longer subject to the demands of the US military:
Behind Detainee Release, a US-Iraqi Conflict on Iran
WASHINGTON – The release Friday of five Iranians held by the U.S. military in Iraq for two and a half years highlights the long-simmering conflict between the U.S. and Iraqi views of Iranian policy in Iraq and of the role of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) there. Read the rest of this entry »
12:30 a.m. That’s all for today. No real diplomatic shifts, and the story of a possible full Israeli withdrawal to welcome President Obama was clearly spin.
Most dramatic development was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s speech when he discovered the extent of the destruction wrought by Israeli forces. Whether his emotive criticism of Tel Aviv has any effect, especially as he went straight from Gaza to a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is another question.
Meanwhile, Israel has re-confirmed its strategy to get the Palestinian Authority back into Gaza, declaring that any aid to the area should go through the UN, non-governmental organisations, or the PA.
11:40 p.m. The International Atomic Energy Agency will investigate complaints, lodged by ambassadors of Arab countries, that Israel has used depleted uranium in its munitions during the Gaza conflict.
11:30 p.m. Ha’aretz is reporting skirmishes in violation of the Gaza cease-fire on Tuesday. After Palestinian militants (not necessarily from Hamas) fired eight mortars, the Israeli Defense Forces launched an airstrike on the positions. Gunmen also fired on Israeli troops in two separate incidents.
Iraq and Syria are in the midst of the most serious tension between the two countries since the 2003 Iraq War. The Iraqi Government has blamed two devastating truck bombs that killed 95 people and wounded 600 in Baghdad on August 19 on insurgents who crossed the Syrian border. Yesterday Iraq deployed thousands of reinforcements along the border, and the Government asserted that it had provided Damascus with evidence linking Iraqis in Syria to the bombings.
Over the last two years, we paid a good deal of attention to the story of five Iranian officials seized in March 2007 by US forces in Erbil in northern Iraq. It is a measure of how far the world has moved away from the Iraq story, and indeed of how much internal developments in Iran have come to the fore, that the release of the five by the Americans last week received so little attention (apart from Iranian state media, which eagerly featured the return of the men, pictured at left, this weekend).
Entries (RSS)