8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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Sudan slams US sanctions
SUDAN has criticised a US decision to extend its unilateral sanctions against it for another year as "one-sided," but has said that the move will not affect dialogue with the United States.
"The decision is not in the interests of bilateral relations," Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail was quoted as saying by the Sudanese Al-Anbaa newspaper.
"Dialogue between the two countries will continue," he said, adding that negotiations were under way to lift the sanctions.
The United States renewed sanctions against Sudan, originally imposed in 1997, for another year on Thursday.
The United Nations Security Council lifted UN sanctions against Sudan in a 14-0 vote last month after the United States dropped its opposition.
Landmark visit
KING Mohamed of Morocco presided over Friday prayers in Laayoune, the main city of the disputed Western Sahara, as part of a landmark royal visit to the territory, the first by a Moroccan monarch the UN launched a peace process a decade ago for the vast, sparsely populated territory.
The two-day trip, which began on Thursday, took place just before the 26th anniversary of the Green March ordered by King Mohamed's late father King Hassan. On that occasion, about 350,000 Moroccans waving national flags and copies of the Qur'an marched into Western Sahara to recover it from Spanish colonial rule.
Today, Morocco controls more than 90 per cent of the phosphate-rich territory. The Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement, which fought a sporadic guerrilla war against Morocco from 1976 to 1991, condemned the king's visit.
Keeping up "good relations"
IRAQ'S Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Aziz has urged France to take stands "reflecting the good relations" between Paris and Baghdad, Iraqi newspapers reported on Monday.
France "should take positions that reflect its traditionally good relations with Iraq and promote the interests of the two countries as well as security and stability in the Arab world," Aziz told visiting French MP Thierry Mariani.
For his part, Mariani told Aziz that the French National Assembly attaches great importance to ties with Iraq and wants them normalised in various fields, they added.
Ties between Paris and Baghdad were strained earlier this year over France's support for a US-British proposal to revamp the UN sanctions regime imposed on Iraq since 1990. The plan was shelved in July after Russia threatened to veto it at the Security Council.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said earlier that Baghdad wanted to "open a new page" in relations with Paris, and urged France to distance itself from US policy toward his country.
Police raided strikers
TURKISH leftists said on Tuesday that four hunger strikers were shot dead in a police raid in Istanbul. A police spokesman confirmed the four deaths, but denied that units had fired on the protesters.
Police launched raids on Monday on homes in the Kucuk Armutlu area of Istanbul, where leftists have been on a hunger strike for months to protest prison reforms. Four bodies were taken away by police.
"They lost their lives to bullets fired by police," a statement from Tayad, a group representing the hunger strikers' families, said. "Dozens of people were seriously hurt."
The raid was the latest attempt to deal with a protest that has left 42 people dead of starvation, further marred Turkey's human rights record and sparked a suicide bomb attack in September that killed four, including an Australian tourist.
Syrian opposition urges reform
THE NATIONAL Democratic Rally (NDR), an umbrella group of Syria's main opposition parties, called for the release of political opponents and an amendment to legislation covering political activities in a statement that it released on Tuesday .
The NDR urged Syrian authorities to release 10 people arrested between August and September, including communist leader Riyad Turk who, they said, is "detained due to some people's opposition to freedom of speech."
The statement also called for the "amendment of the legislation covering political activity in Syria" and condemned "some security services which should not interfere in political life and should be at the service of the law, not above it."
Compiled by Rasha Saad
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