U.N. Moves Forward with Plans for Syria Chemical Weapons Probe/U.S. Envoy to Syria Visits Moscow amid Fresh Diplomatic Push/Thousands Protest against Corruption in Iraq Capital
Thousands Protest against Corruption in Iraq Capital
Naharnet/August 28/15/Agence France Presse/Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated against corruption in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square on Friday, including supporters of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Protesters have taken to the streets of Baghdad and cities in the Shiite south for weeks, railing against rampant corruption and abysmal services, especially power outages that leave just a few hours of government-supplied electricity per day during the scorching summer heat.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has responded to the demonstrations and a call from Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, with a reform program aimed at curbing corruption and streamlining the government, but it is still in its early stages. At Friday’s demonstration, hundreds waved Iraqi flags and chanted anti-corruption slogans as in previous weeks, but this time the crowd also included supporters of Sadr, responding to his call to take part. Sadrists, many of them dressed in black, chanted slogans including “Bye bye Nuri al-Maliki” and called for the ex-premier, whose eight years in office were marked by widespread graft, to be executed. “We came out (to protest) in support of the reforms that were announced by Prime Minister Abadi. We want to push and support the state in implementing them,” said Nafia al-Bakhaki, an official in the Sadr movement.
“All the officials in the previous governments, especially Maliki’s government, are responsible for corruption,” said Sheikh Samir al-Zraijawi, also from the Sadr movement. Some did not welcome the involvement of supporters of Sadr, who had ministers in Maliki’s governments and still wields significant influence despite seeking to officially distance himself from politics as he pursues religious studies. “It is hypocritical and misleading (to say the Sadrists) are with the people,” said Iraqi Communist party member Siham al-Zubaidi, noting their strong presence in parliament and the fact that a since-resigned Sadrist deputy premier faces corruption allegations. Parliament signed off on Abadi’s proposed reforms as well as additional measures, and the prime minister has begun ordered changes, including the scrapping of 11 cabinet posts and for the bloated number of guards for officials to be slashed. But even with popular support and backing from Sistani, the fact that parties across the political spectrum benefit from graft is seen as a major obstacle to the nascent reform effort.
U.N. Moves Forward with Plans for Syria Chemical Weapons Probe
Naharnet/August 28/15/Agence France Presse
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council on Thursday that he is planning to set up a three-person team to investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.The move came amid new reports of a mustard gas attack in Syria that local activists said could have been carried out by Islamic State jihadists. The investigative panel will seek to identify who is behind the attacks, in line with a U.N. resolution adopted this month to establish responsibility for the use of the banned toxic agents. Ban described the panel’s mission in a seven-page letter and will await the council’s green light before launching a recruitment drive for top experts to carry out the mission. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said earlier this week it had treated civilians suffering from apparent exposure to a chemical agent in Marea, a town near the northern city of Aleppo, following an attack last week.
The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said its own doctors had identified the agent as mustard gas. Nearly two weeks ago, reports emerged that IS jihadists in Iraq may have used mustard gas against Iraqi Kurdish fighters. “The continuing reports of the use of chemical weapons, as well as the use of toxic chemicals as a weapon in the Syrian conflict are deeply disturbing,” Ban said in a separate statement Thursday. “The international community has a responsibility to hold the perpetrators accountable and to ensure that chemical weapons never be used again as an instrument of warfare,” he said.
Earlier this month, the 15-member council unanimously endorsed the resolution setting up the joint investigative mechanism that will work with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. That investigation will seek “to identify to the greatest extent feasible individuals, entities, groups or governments who were perpetrators, organizers, sponsors or otherwise involved in the use of chemicals as weapons” in Syria, Ban said in the seven-page letter, seen by AFP. The team will have “full access to all locations” and “may establish contact and receive information from any parties” in Syria. The United States pushed for the U.N. chemical weapons probe after a wave of chlorine gas attacks that the West blames on President Bashar Assad’s forces. Ban did not specify in his letter when the panel will begin its work. The team is to present its first findings to the council 90 days after it begins its investigation.
U.S. Envoy to Syria Visits Moscow amid Fresh Diplomatic Push
Naharnet/August 28/15/Agence France Presse
Russia on Friday hosted the newly appointed U.S. special envoy for Syria as world powers intensify efforts to end the four-year civil war raging in the country. The new envoy, Michael Ratney, who was appointed to his position last month, had previously worked for the State Department in the Middle East. In Moscow, Ratney met with Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov and other senior officials, but no details about their meeting were immediately released. The spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Will Stevens, told AFP ahead of Ratney’s meetings that his visit “reaffirms the United States’ strong commitment to working with the international community to help Syrians lay the foundation for a free, democratic, and pluralistic future.”Numerous initiatives have tried at the international level to seek an end to a crisis that has claimed more than 240,000 lives but all of them have failed. In recent weeks Middle Eastern leaders have flocked to Moscow, one of the few remaining allies of Syrian President Bashad Assad. This week Russian strongman Vladimir Putin discussed Syria with Jordanian King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this month hosted his Saudi and Iranian counterparts as well as members of the Syrian opposition tolerated by the Assad regime. Moscow is pushing a plan for a broader grouping than the current U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State (IS) group, which would include Syria’s government and its allies. Assad’s opponents have rejected the idea.Ratney is then expected to travel to Geneva and Riyadh for further meetings on the crisis.
