Chief of Syrian rebel army urges EU to lift arms embargo

Source :  Xinhua

BRUSSELS, March 6 (Xinhua) -- The chief of staff of Syria's rebel army on Wednesday called on the European Union (EU) nations to lift an arms embargo on Syria and supply the rebels with arms and ammunition.

Brigadier General Selim Idriss, the chief of staff of Supreme Military Council, said in the European Parliament that "if we have the arms and ammunition we need, we can bring down the regime within one month."

He told lawmakers from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe that while forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are still getting weapons and support from Iran and Russia, the Syrian rebels are the only one that is affected by the arms embargo.

The EU has imposed an arms embargo on Syria since May 2011. Britain is pushing to end the arms embargo and provide more aid to the rebels. However, other EU countries are worried that more weapons could fuel conflicts in Syria.

Syria has been witnessing unrest for nearly two years. The international community is keeping on mediation efforts in a bid to end violence and bloodshed in the country.

Assad said in a recent interview that he was ready "to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms."

The embattled leader made the remarks as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry renewed calls for him to step down, saying in the last week that he was drafting diplomatic proposals about ways to "ease Assad out (of power)."

UAE sends ruler of Umm al-Qaiwain to NAM summit in Tehran

UAE sends ruler of Umm al-Qaiwain to NAM summit in Tehran - Xinhua |

DUBAI, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) --The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government announced Monday that H. H. Sheikh Saud bin Rashid Al Mu'alla, member of the UAE Supreme Council and ruler of Umm al-Qaiwain, will lead the UAE delegation to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Iran. Iran will hold the two-day summit on Aug. 30-31 in its capital Tehran and start its three-year rotating presidency of the NAM. This year's NAM summit, to be attended by representatives from over 100 countries and regions and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, will mark the first visit of a UAE government delegation to the Islamic republic after the Gulf Arab state summoned its ambassador to Iran on April 16, 2012, in protest of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the disputed Gulf island of Abu Musa.

A statement issued by the UAE government said Sheikh Saud will be accompanied by Sheikh Saif bin Rashid Al Mu'alla, chairman of Umm al-Qaiwain Economic Department, Anwar Mohammed Gargash, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, and Saif Mohammed Al Za'abi, UAE ambassador to Iran. On June 11, Iran invited UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan to attend the NAM summit.

Salehi calls for opposing sanctions against Iran

LBCI News

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi urged the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) members on Sunday to stand against the sanctions imposed against Iran. Salehi stressed that "the foreign interference in the events taking place in our region was unacceptable".

ADL: ‘NAM Summit in Tehran is anti-Semitism’

Source: Rehmat's World ( http://rehmat1.com/ )

Abraham Foxman, head of pro-Israel Jewish lobby group. the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has criticized UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s decision to address the 16th Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran (August 26-31); as an act of “anti-Israel, anti-American and anti-Semitism“. Hillary Clinton’s Zionist Jew spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on August 20, that Iran doesn’t have the right to host NAM summit. “So we frankly don’t think that Iran is deserving of these high-level presences that are going there,” she said. She also, criticized Egyptian president Dr. Mohamed Mursi’s decision to attend the NAM meeting in Tehran. Over 100 members countries of NAM have confirmed to attend the summit. Over 51 Presidents, Vice-presidents and Prime Ministers would be representing their countries. The notable guests will include Dr. Mohamed Morsi (Egypt), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Kim Jong-Nam (N. Korea), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Asif Ali Zardari (Pakistan), Jalal Talibani (Iraq), Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), Manmohan Singh (India), Emirs of Kuwait and Qatar, Hamid Karzai (US Occupied Afghanistan), Abdullah Gul (Turkey), Michel Sleiman (Lebanon), Elham Aliyev (Azerbaijan), Mahmoud Abbas (PA) and Raul Castro (Cuba). Iran will assume the rotating presidency of the NAM for the next three years.

Both the US and Israel has resented the decisions of Morsi and Abbas to attend the meeting. Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman in a letter to the Mideast Quartet –the grouping of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN that guides the Middle East peace process –has called the removal of PA president Mahmoud Abbas, a double agent. He called Abbas “an obstacle to peace.” Abbas’ term as PA president expired in January 2009, but has been kept in that position by US-Israel-EU to stop Hamas taking over that position too. Israeli daily the Jerusalem Post reported on August 19 that “Israel is working through its embassies abroad and through direct conversations with various leaders to persuade other NAM countries – some of which have good ties with Israel –to either boycott the meeting or send only low-level representation to send a strong message to Iran of an abhorrence of its policies (toward the Zionist regime)“. Daniel Mariaschin, executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International, a Jewish supremacist organization, said he fears that Iranian presidency of NAM during the next three years –will boost delegitimation of Israel. In response to US-Israel blackmailing, Mohammad Kosari, member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy –has called Dr. Mursi’ visit to Iran as Zionist entity’s great failure. “Americans attempted to prevent Mr. Mursi’s visit to Iran, but the Egyptian president will visit Iran, which is interpreted as failure for the US“, while stressing: “The Zionist regime and the US plots can only be materialized through difference and discord among Muslim states“. Egyptian ambassador to the United Nations, Lebanese-born Mootaz Ahmadein Khalil, in an interview with China daily Xinhua, said that Ki-moon’s decision to attend the NAM summit in Iran has nothing to do with the illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic. He hoped Iran, who will take over NAM’s rotating presidency from Egypt, will address the priorities of the movement and have a successful presidency that will reflect interests of all NAM member countries. Khalil called US claim ‘absurd’ –that the summit will boost Iran’s image among the world community.
y. He stressed that hosting of summit is the responsibility of the country which receives the rotating presidency of NAM and will not bring direct benefits to the country’s international relations. Canadian Jewish journalist and blogger, Eric Walberg, posted on his blog on August 22, 2012. “Egypt’s rapprochement with Iran is long overdue, held in check by the Mubarak regime’s toadying to the US and Israel. One of the first ships to go through the Suez Canal after the revolution last year, long before the MB came to power through its Freedom and Justice Party, was an Iranian warship. Even under Mubarak, the pressure to normalize relations was mounting, with trade increasing and normalization of relations between EgyptAir and IranAir. Full diplomatic relations are only a matter of months.”
Egypt along with India, Ghana, Indonesia and former Yugoslavia –were the founding members of NAM which was established at the height of the Cold War, in 1961 –to bring together nations that consider themselves independent of the world’s major power blocs. The organisation counts a total 119 countries plus the Palestinian Authority and 21 observer countries.

Egyptian President to Visit Iran in Late August

Egyptian President to Visit Iran in Late August

State media in Cairo reported that Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi is preparing to make a historic visit to Iranon August 30th to attend the Non-Aligned Movement meeting inTehran. It will be the first visit of Egyptian head of state toIran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Over the last few decades the relations between Cairo and Tehran have been marked by enmity and distrust. Analysts comment that the meeting may help strengthen Egypt’s position in the region and boost Cairo’s diplomatic influence.

Saudi Arabia: OIC suspends Syria’s membership, will take Rohingya case to UN

Saudi Arabia: OIC suspends Syria membership, will take Rohingya case to UN 16-08-2012 MAKKAH, (Arab News and Agencies): The Organization of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria’s membership early on Thursday at a summit of Muslim leaders in Makkah, citing President Bashar Assad’s violent suppression of the Syrian revolt. In a closing statement, the OIC also decided to take to the United Nations the issue of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingyas, displaced by deadly sectarian violence. It described as a “crime against humanity” the Myanmar government’s handling of minority Muslims and reiterated support for the Palestinians.

he statement by the 57-nation group said: “The conference decides to suspend the Syrian Arab Republic membership in the OIC and all its subsidiary organs, specialized and affiliated institutions.” The move had been approved on Monday at a preliminary meeting of OIC foreign ministers and was agreed on the summit’s second night despite opposition from Iran. The two-day emergency solidarity summit was held on Tuesday and Wednesday in the holy city of Makkah. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah presided over the meeting, attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose country has openly criticized the push to suspend Syria. Participants had agreed on “the need to end immediately the acts of violence in Syria and to suspend that country from the OIC.” The final statement said there had been “deep concern at the massacres and inhuman acts suffered by the Syrian people.”

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a news conference the decision sent “a strong message from the Muslim world to the Syrian regime.” “This world can no longer accept a regime that massacres its people using planes, tanks and heavy artillery,” he added. It was “also a message to the international community stating that the Muslim world backs a peaceful solution (in Syria), wants an end to the bloodshed and refuses to let the problem degenerate into a religious conflict and spill over” into the wider region, Ihsanoglu said. The emergency summit of the world’s largest Islamic bloc opened late Tuesday with the suspension proposal put forward by a preparatory meeting of foreign ministers, a symbolic attempt to pile pressure on Damascus over its deadly crackdown on a 17-month uprising. The move by the OIC, which represents 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, is aimed at further isolating Assad’s embattled regime.

The meeting called for the “immediate implementation of the transitional peace plan and the development of a peaceful mechanism that would allow building a new Syrian state based on pluralism, democratic and civilian system.” It also urged the UN Security Council to “assume fully its responsibility by stopping the ongoing violence and bloodshed in Syria and finding a peaceful and lasting solution to the Syrian crisis.” The participants also stressed “the principal responsibility of the Syrian government for the continuation of violence and bloodshed.” Algeria, Pakistan and Kazakhstan had called for the final statement of the summit, to which Damascus was not invited, to also pin blame on the armed opposition for the bloodshed in Syria, according to informed sources at the summit. And Egypt’s President Muhammad Mursi proposed the formation of a committee grouping his country with key players Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to try to find a settlement to the Syrian conflict, a delegate had said.

Source: The Muslim News

OIC extraordinary meeting in Mecca

OIC extraordinary summit meeting kicks off in Mecca

via IRNA news agency

Mecca, Saudi Arabia - extraordinary summit meeting of OIC started with a speech by King Abdullah of KSA on Thuesday evening.

Syria, Palestine and Myanmar Muslims on the Agenda of the meeting.

Iranian statement at the OIC meeting for Islamic solidarity

Iran to pay due attention to solidarity of Islamic world at OIC meeting - via IRNA

The Iranian Deputy FM for Arab and African Affairs called on the participants to review violation of human rights in Bahrain.