After over five years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin finally found himself at a table with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin last met a Ukrainian leader three years ago during the administration of Petro Poroshenko. Unlike Poroshenko, Zelensky does not have a background rooted in politics, having only been president for seven months, and therefore bears less animosity toward Moscow. 

Putin and Zelensky met in Paris at a summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the heart of the meeting was how to move forward following years of Russian-instigated civil unrest. By provoking and arming separatists in Ukraine, Putin has destabilized the state since he decided to annex Crimea in March 2014. 

For Zelensky, the ultimate goal is to return control of the eastern part of his nation from separatists and, in brief, to simply restore order. In order to secure it, he is willing to implement the 2015 Minsk II peace agreement, which is everything that Moscow could want, so naturally, Putin was predisposed to accept its implementation as a win from the Paris summit.

The Minsk II deal, as the name implies, was the second attempt at forging peace between the two states after the Minsk Protocol failed the previous year. Militarily, the components of the deal include a complete ceasefire, pull-out of heavy weapons, prisoner exchange, disarmament of rebel militias, and ceasefire monitoring. 

Those points are solid and mostly expected. Zelensky said both parties agreed to a 100-per cent implementation of the Minsk II agreement and a prisoner exchange will take place before the end of 2019. However, Zelensky’s acceptance of the deal includes creating a special status for the eastern districts of Donetsk and Luhansk. This caveat carved into the original Minsk Protocol and carried over into Minsk II is a differentiating factor between how the two nations will end their spat. Compared to Ukraine, Russia is essentially giving up nothing in the deal aside from pulling out its forces. 

In return, it gets to dictate Ukrainian constitutional reform to the extent of compelling the creation of special districts. In this manner, Moscow gains control, at least in part, of Ukraine internal affairs with the establishment of special, Russian-favored districts.

“I would like to have seen more,” said Mr Zelensky, speaking at a joint news conference following the summit. Of course, he would like to have seen more – what has Russia given as part of the deal? Its assurance that it won’t annex another chunk of Ukraine or fight for control of more districts in the future? 

To his credit, Zelensky was not part of the group that ironed out the Minsk agreement, so he was working in part with what had been handed down to him. However, it should have been evident to Merkel, who was a member of the 2014 group that drafted Minsk, how one-sided the arrangement was. To the casual observer, it would appear that they bought off Putin instead of fighting for Ukraine’s sovereignty, and they said nothing about the illegal annexation of Crimea, which makes the entire situation even more strange. 

Zelensky is taking fire from his people for not doing more and giving in to Putin’s demands too easily, and it is easy to see why they are frustrated. Poroshenko could not negotiate a fair deal and spent half a decade in a stalemate. Now all Zelensky could do was fall back on Poroshenko’s agreement, which was terrible enough that it was never implemented. On his own, Zelensky has tried to appease Putin by removing Ukrainian troops from the frontline, but Moscow did not do the same, signalling who is really in control of the situation. 

Control of Ukraine’s border with Russia was the only facet of the deal Zelensky pressed Putin on. Before political components are implemented, Zelensky’s government must have full power of its border. While this is a condition of Minsk II, Putin argued the other conditions should be satisfied first. The text of the agreement leaves the order of the steps ambiguous.

The group concluded the meeting with a resolution to meet again in four months.

“There are a lot of questions we haven’t succeeded to solve today, and it’s necessary to be done in the future,” Mr Zelensky said. “I am sure we will definitely do it, together.”

The crisis demanded attention so Zelensky working on the issue and meeting with Putin is part of the way forward. However, Ukraine has everything to lose when dealing with Moscow and if the Minsk II agreement is held to the letter, it has already given into Putin.

L'articolo Zelensky Risks Giving Ukraine Away After First Meeting with Putin proviene da InsideOver.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi has just announced his resignation amid raging protests across Iraqi cities and deadly clashes between security forces and protesters who burned down the Iranian consulate yesterday and insisted on the removal of the current Iraqi government and the prosecution of its corrupt political elite. Hundreds of protesters have been killed over the past few weeks, and thousands have been injured as a result of the heavy-handed response to massive popular unrest that has disrupted life and brought the country to a virtual halt. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets in protest of poor living standards, political high-level and large-scale corruption and the plundering of the national wealth of one of the richest Arab countries. Turmoil in the country has claimed the lives of 45 new victims in Iraq’s mainly-Shiite southern provinces over the past 24 hours only, in one of the bloodiest days so far since protests broke out eight weeks ago. The scene in Iraq is fast becoming a replica, albeit more costly in terms of human life, of the ongoing unrest in Lebanon – now in its fifth-week running – where the prime minister and his cabinet had little choice but to resign under mounting popular pressure.

Has al Sadr tipped balance, forced PM’s resignation?

Adel Abdel Mahdi’s statement of his intention to submit his resignation to the Iraq parliament following the bloody clashes and a call by the influential Shiite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr for a change. Sadr, who visited Saudi Arabia two years ago at an official invitation by Saudi Crown Prince MBS, and forged controversial ties with Riyadh, has millions of supporters in Iraq and has long been believed to be a power broker that could tip the balance in protesters’ favour any time he wanted. The situation in Iraq has entered what many observers consider its most dangerous phase since the downing by the Americans of Saddam Hussein’s regime 16 years ago. Although Iraq has undergone previous anti-government upheavals over the past decade, this uprising is by far the most effective and potentially dangerous revolt that could throw the country into more chaos and unrest.

Many anti-Saudi and pro-Iranian Iraqis have expressed deep concern and profound suspicion over Sadr’s agenda and his real motives for change, especially in light of some controversial statements he made following his landmark visit to Saudi Arabia in August 2017 and meeting with Saudi strongest man, Mohammad Bin Salman. The visit was seen then as an apparent Saudi ploy against Iran’s strong influence in Iraq, and an attempt to split the ranks of Iraq’s Shiite community and spiritual leadership. Al Sadr comes from a prime Shiite family, and his father was among many top clerics who were detained and later executed or assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Muqtada took over his responsibilities after his father, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Al Sadr and brothers were assassinated, and fast became one of Iraq’s most influential religious and popular figures despite competition with other prominent Shiite leaders including Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim who was exiled to Iran.

Messages of burning the Iranian consulate in Najaf?

The storming by angry Iraqi protesters Thursday night and setting ablaze of the Iranian consulate in the Holy Shiite city of al Najaf was no ordinary incident. Although no Iranian diplomats were injured in the attack, the mere targeting of Tehran’s symbolic presence there, sent a very strong message in various directions, and took violent riots to a completely new level. The Iraqi government was quick to condemn the attack, Iran was understandably outraged and protesters considered the incident a major victory against Iran’s strong influence in their country. The Iranian Consulate General in Najaf is a very busy diplomatic mission, with a pivotal role regarding the holiest Shiite sites there as well as the annual pilgrimage of millions of Shiites from all over the world to the Holy city of Najaf. Some sacred Shiite shrines in the city also came under arson attacks Thursday.

The riots in Najaf and elsewhere in Iraq quickly morphed into some of the bloodiest clashes in Iraq’s revolt so far and culminated in Sadr’s call for change and the Prime Minister’s resignation. Protesters are not happy with just a simple resignation; they demand the prosecution of Mahdi and other politician they had long accused of corruption, and now with blood on their hands, protesters insist. The fast-moving political sands in Iraq made much more precarious by conflicting agendas and affiliations in a country torn by consecutive wars, invasion and upheavals, are set to throw Iraq deeper into the unknown. What will happen after the cabinet resignation, and whether this is enough to stop the sweeping uprising or not, remain some of the many open questions regarding a country- once a cradle for human civilization at large – whose more history has been marred with wars, oppression, violence and bloodshed.

L'articolo Iraqi Prime Minister Resigns as Protests Rage Out of Control proviene da InsideOver.

The interim Libyan government has started taking measures to return hundreds of thousands of externally displaced Libyans, especially in Egypt, to their country.

Interim Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, held a series of meetings in the past few days to check progress on the implementation of the plan.

The plan is part of a national reconciliation initiative launched by the government, which is based in the eastern commercial industrial city of al-Bayda.

The initiative aims at bringing the Libyans together, following years of fighting and unrest in the oil-rich North African state.

On November 28, al-Thani held a meeting in the Egyptian capital Cairo with some members of his cabinet to discuss incentives in the plan for returning Libyans living in Egypt home.

To convince them to do this, the interim government is offering to pay for their travel and provide them with accommodation and financial support once they return, according to Ali al-Sagheir, the head of the Committee on Externally Displaced Libyans.

He said the government would find jobs for unemployed externally displaced Libyans when they return home and return civil servants to their original jobs before the 2011 revolution against longstanding ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

Over a million Libyans flocked to Egypt following the eruption of the Libyan civil war in 2011.

Nonetheless, with eastern Libya becoming more stable, hundreds of thousands of Libyan nationals returned to their country. Now, around half a million Libyans live here.

These are the people al-Thani and the members of his cabinet want to return home.

However, the new initiative raises questions on whether these Libyans would be ready to go back home, especially with the situation in Libya still uncertain.

Although most of eastern Libya is stable, there are turbulent areas in the North African state, including in southern Libya. Some territories are controlled by terrorist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and al-Qaeda.

A war is raging on now on the fringes of capital Tripoli between the National Libyan Army, which controls most of eastern and central Libya, on one hand, and military groups operating under the internationally recognized National Accord Government, which controls the capital and most of western Libya, on the other.

Efforts are being made by the United Nations and different members of the international community to bring about a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Libya. Nonetheless, this conflict is set to exacerbate even more in the coming days with rival regional and international powers backing rival Libyan forces.

These deteriorating conditions are a major hurdle on the way of the return of Libyans displaced outside their country.

Most of those who ran away from Libya were backers of Gaddafi and members of his tribe or members of tribes allied to him.

After Gaddafi’s overthrow, these people were at the centre of public reprisals, which was why they had to run away.

In 2012, the Libyan parliament passed a law that denied Gaddafi’s backers the right to participate in Libya’s political life. The same law stipulated penalties for Gaddafi’s supporters.

Nevertheless, in 2014, the eastern Libya parliament passed a law that offered a general pardon for Gaddafi’s backers. The law is part of a nationwide reconciliation campaign aiming at settling conflicts between Libyans peacefully.

Interim Social Affairs Minister, Fathia Hamed, said huge efforts are made to bring the Libyans together.

The initiative for bringing externally displaced Libyans back home, she said, is based on the national reconciliation plan.

“We will use this plan to convince the Libyans return to their country,” Hamed said. “It is an integral part of the general pardon initiative launched by Libyan state institutions.”

L'articolo Will Externally Displaced Libyans Return Home? proviene da InsideOver.

Protests in Lebanon, now in their fifth week running, took a much-feared violent turn on Monday with the death of two southern civilians burned alive in their car as they attempted to cross a highway blocked by anti-government protesters. The second fatal incident, after the shooting of a prominent Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) headed by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, some two weeks earlier has raised tension in the small Mediterranean country and caused a nation-wide outrage against road blockers. The new victims, a man and his sister in law who came from the mainly pro-Hezbollah southern areas of Lebanon, were burned alive when their vehicle hit some metal roadblocks and swerved out of control to hit a concrete wall along Al Jiyyeh coastal highway.

With so many axes to grind, violence is inevitable

The surge in violent clashes between supporters of  rival political factions in Lebanon over the past two days, aggravated an acute economic situation and a looming political vacuum after caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, under tremendous pressure from some Lebanese as well as regional and even international power breakers, had announced his intention to forsake the formation of a new government. Hariri resigned his post at the outset of massive popular protest that had started as a peaceful anti-government uprising with legitimate demands five weeks ago, only to turn into more violent inter-factional clashes that bring sad memories of the 15 years of Civil War (1975-1990) that shattered the country. The UN Security Council and some EU nations have called upon all actors in Lebanon to refrain from acts of violence and respect of peaceful protests demanding an overhaul of the country’s political system and sectarian divisions.

From day one, protesters raised the controversial and extremely precarious slogan ‘ALL Means ALL’, targeting the most influential Lebanese figures in the country. While demonstrators, in general, appeared very much united and keen on burying traditional sectarian and political divisions, and succeeded to do so for some time at least, patience soon ran short for some influential power brokers who viewed the uprising as a well-planned, pre-fabricated regional and international effort designed to undermine the rule of President Michael Aoun and his close powerful allies, Amal Movement (headed by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri) and anti-Israeli Hezbollah and its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.

While stressing their demand for a total change, Lebanese protesters campaign has particularly focused on the president Aoun’s influential son in law, Foreign Minister and chairman of ruling FPM (Free Patriotic Movement) Gibran Bassil, whom they accuse of running the country on behalf of the president. The ongoing protests broke out immediately after Bassil had announced his intention to visit the Syrian capital Damascus to discuss the return of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees from Lebanon.

Paradoxically, Syrian businessmen since the start of war in their country some nine years ago, are reported to have deposited up to $30 billion. Analysts argue that this in itself has damaged the Syrian economy and caused the national currency, the Lira, to hit an all-time low opposite the US dollar since the war broke out in 2011. No surprise then, that recent clashes have mainly been between this ‘patriotic’ triangle (which by the way includes Christian Maronite and Shiite Muslims) with strong ties to Syria and Iran on the one hand, and supporters of other Sunni, Druze and Christian factions with strong bonds to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, the US and in the case of Geagea’s Lebanese Forces, even to Israel.

Protests and counter-protests as gloom looms

For the third consecutive day, Lebanese army soldiers and security officers have had to intervene to break up confrontations between rival protests against the country’s elite. Gunfire has been reported in some parts of Lebanon amid claims and counter-claims that parties are armed and ready to escalate the situation much further once they get the green light from their bosses or operators. Although such accusations are accurate or not remain unverified, it has become more certain since the outbreak of protests, that Lebanon has entered an extremely dangerous phase which demands an urgent set of measures and actions that are badly needed in order to avoid a very likely and highly unfortunate slide down the hill of anarchy and chaos.

Lebanese broadcaster LBCI aired a video Monday, that showed heavy gunfire around the Cola bridge in the capital, Beirut. No injuries were reported and the source of the gunfire was not immediately clear. Several cars belonging to supporters of President Aoun were attacked by rival protesters as they crossed a Beirut suburb yesterday, and two protesters were reportedly wounded after Hezbollah and Amal supporters attacked some road-blocking demonstrators in the capital.

Is Lebanon’s worst danger lurking in the north?

Albeit recent confrontations in Beirut and some of its radical suburban areas were some of the worst since protests erupted in Lebanon, the worse could still come from the northern militant Sunni strongholds of Tripoli and Akar, where hardliners, masterminded and run by the influential former Justice Minister and Police Chief General Ashraf Rifi are reported to be armed to their teeth, supported by some Gulf Arab states, and getting ready for an imminent bloody showdown with rival Shiite and Christian factions alike. Rifi has recently established his well-organized, lucratively paid and heavily armed militia’ City Guardians, in Lebanon’s largest northern city of Sidon. His men quickly took over streets and squares with unchallenged numbers as protests escalated. Reports that thousands of terrorists and hardline Islamic fighters have managed to flee the Syrian conflict and take refuge in north Lebanon are likely to be true, but yet to be verified by independent sources.

Political pressure and popular outrage aggravated by extensive high-level corruption, a worsening economic crisis that features massive government debts, poor economic performance and US dollar shortage – let alone conflicting national and regional agendas in the country- are all factors pushing Lebanon faster towards the brink of the abyss. Unless a genuine and largely magical solution is forged out pretty quickly, this once called ‘Paris of the East’ could, God forbid, irrevocably fall into the mayhem of chaos, violence and destruction.

L'articolo Lebanon’s Protests Take a Dangerously Violent Turn proviene da InsideOver.