The Washington Post - 27.03.2020

A12 eZ re THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAy, MARCH 27 , 2020

The World

IRAQ

U.S.-led coalition

pulling out of 2nd base

The U.S.-led coalition T hursday
started pulling out o f a second
base in Iraq, in line with a planned
drawdown of troops, hours after
two rockets hit inside Baghdad’s
heavily fortified Green Zone.
The attack i n the Green Zone,
home to the U.S. Embassy, was t he
first after a brief lull in violence in
the capital. Iraqi officials a lso said
the United States renewed a
sanctions waiver e nabling Iraq to
import gas and electricity f rom
Iran, but with a shorter deadline.
The pullout from Q ayyarah
West a irfield in northern Iraq is
in line w ith p lans to withdraw
from bases n ationwide a nd
consolidate coalition forces in
Baghdad and a t Ain a l-Asad air
base in the c ountry’s west.
Coalition spokesman Col. Myles
B. Caggins III said that several
hundred troops would depart the
Qayyarah base in the coming days
and that $1 million worth of
property w ould be transferred to
the Iraqi government. Last w eek,
coalition troops withdrew from
the al-Qaim base on the border
with Syria.
In t he Green Zone attack, the
two projectiles s truck near the
Baghdad Operations Command,
which c oordinates Iraq’s police
and m ilitary forces, a military
statement said. The command
center is a few hundred y ards
from the U.S. Embassy, which i s a
regular t arget o f rocket a ttacks.

There w ere no casualties,

according to an Iraqi official.

— A ssociated Press

EUROPEAN UNION

New Libya sea patrols

to begin next month

The European Union will

launch a new Mediterranean

naval and air mission in April to

stop more arms from reaching

warring factions in Libya, E.U.

diplomats said Thursday, w ith

Greece agreeing to take in any

migrants rescued at s ea.

The decision followed warnings

by E.U. f oreign affairs chief Josep

Borrell that the bloc risked

becoming irrelevant if it could not

act, potentially leaving Libya’s fate

to Turkey a nd Russia.

Greece has allowed rescued

migrants to disembark at i ts ports,

according to an E.U. d iplomat

involved in the negotiations,

adding that other European

governments agreed to help cover

the harbor costs.

The new mission, named Irini,

will replace the European Union’s

current mission, known as

Operation Sophia, which stopped

deploying ships a year ago after

Italy, facing an anti-immigrant

backlash, said it would no longer

take migrants rescued at s ea.

With hundreds of thousands

making the perilous crossing f rom

North Africa each year and

thousands dying at s ea, E.U. s hips

are required under international

law to rescue those in trouble.

Operation Sophia’s mandate

expires at t he end of March.

— Reuters

Mali opposition leader abducted

with campaign team: The leader

of Mali’s political opposition and

members of h is campaign team

have been taken hostage by

unidentified gunmen in the

north, a spokesman for h is party

said. Soumaïla Cissé’s bodyguard

died of i njuries suffered i n the

abduction, and two other p eople

were injured, the spokesman said.

The kidnapping took place in a n

area controlled by extremist

groups linked to al-Qaeda.

Sri Lanka’s leader pardons

soldier convicted in civilian

deaths: Sri Lanka’s president

freed a soldier sentenced to death

for killing eight civilians during

the country’s civil war. Sunil

Ratnayake was among a group of

soldiers who knifed to death eight

people, including a 5-year-old. He

was sentenced to death in 2015,

and the country’s highest court

upheld the conviction.

Nationalists among the majority

Sinhalese protested the sentence,

calling it a betrayal of soldiers who

fought the minority Ta mil rebels

in the 26-year war. The military

defeated the rebels in 2009.

German court convicts man in

ricin bomb plot : A c ourt in

Germany convicted a Tunisian

man of planning a ricin attack in

the name of the Islamic State. The

Düsseldorf court found Sief Allah

H. guilty of manufacturing a

biological weapon and preparing

an attack, sentencing him to

10 years in prison. Prosecutors

accused the man, whose surname

was not released because of

German privacy rules, of buying

thousands of castor beans to

produce the highly toxic ricin. The

defendant and his wife also

bought 250 steel bearings and

manufactured explosives before

their arrest in June 2018. A verdict

in the case against the wife is

expected soon.

China accuses professor at

Japanese university of spying:

A C hinese citizen working as a

professor in Japan has been

detained in China for alleged

espionage and has confessed to

spying and other wrongdoing,

Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign

Affairs said. A ministry

spokesman said the case against

Yuan Keqin was backed up by

“conclusive evidence.” Yuan was a

professor of East Asian political

history at t he Hokkaido University

of Education in Japan. He h as not

been heard from by colleagues

since June, after he left f or his

mother’s f uneral in China the

previous month.

— From news services

DIgEST

CArl Court/AgenCe FrAnCe-Presse/getty ImAges

People take photographs of Chidorigafuchi Moat in To kyo amid

blossoming cherry trees. This year officials have banned the use of

paddle boats at the popular site in an effort to discourage visitors

amid the coronavirus pandemic. On Wednesday, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko

Koike urged citizens to refrain from going outside this weekend other

than for essential trips.

BY SAYED SALAHUDDIN

AND SUSANNAH GEORGE

kabul — Just days after the
United States threatened to
withdraw $1 billion in aid over a
political crisis that risks upend-
ing the U. S.-Taliban peace deal
signed last month, the Afghan
government a nd t he Ta liban took
steps that could move the two
sides closer to beginning formal
talks.
The Ta liban and the Afghan
government on Wednesday
agreed to a partial prisoner ex-
change at the end of the month,
and the government announced
that it would meet with Ta liban
representatives in Afghanistan
in the coming days for “further
discussions.”
“This is a positive develop-
ment,” U.S. envoy Zalmay Khal-
ilzad posted on Twitter, shortly
after the Ta liban and the Afghan
government released statements
announcing the move.
The signs of progress suggest
the threat of reduced U. S. aid
nudged the Afghan government
and the Ta liban to move talks
forward. Afghanistan relies on

about $8.5 billion in foreign aid

each year, according to a recent

World Bank report that project-

ed the country will remain heavi-

ly dependent on international

aid for years regardless of chang-

es in the security situation.

The Afghan government said

100 Taliban prisoners would be

released “on humanitarian

grounds — including health, age

and vulnerability t o #COVID19 —

by March 31 after guarantees by

Ta liban and the prisoners that

they will not reenter the fight.”

Despite t he government decla-

ration of further discussions, the

Ta liban in a statement said its

delegation would be traveling to

Afghanistan only to p roperly ver-

ify the identities of the prisoners

up for release.

The U.S.-Taliban peace deal,

signed in Doha, Qatar, last

month, stipulated t hat a prisoner

swap of up to 5 ,000 Taliban

fighters and 1,000 members of

the Afghan security forces was to

occur by March 10, when formal

negotiations between the Ta li-

ban and the Afghan government

were set to begin.

But the Afghan government

quickly came out i n opposition to

the timeline, and the deadline

passed.

The prospect of talks between

the Afghan government and the

Ta liban is complicated by disput-

ed election results that fractured

political power in Kabul. Both

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani

and his rival Abdullah Abdullah

claimed victory and held parallel

inaugurations despite weeks of

diplomatic efforts to avoid the

spectacle.

Frustrated by the lack of prog-

ress, the State Department

vowed to cut $1 billion in aid to

Afghanistan this week. Secretary

of State Mike Pompeo an-

nounced the cut after holding

discussions in Kabul with Ghani

and Abdullah on a unity govern-

ment.

Pompeo said in a statement

that the “failure” of Afghani-

stan’s leaders “harmed U.S.-

Afghan relations and, sadly, dis-

honors t hose Afghan, Americans,

and Coalition partners who have

sacrificed their l ives a nd treasure

in the struggle to build a new

future for this country.” He add-

ed that the United States is

“prepared to reduce by another

$1 billion in 2021.”

In public comments aired on

Afghan television Thursday, Ab-

dullah called for mediation from

local leaders to settle the crisis.

He also voiced support for the

prisoner exchange a nd expressed

his willingness to settle the dis-

pute over the presidency.

“We are ready for talks and

dialogue, and the continuation

of crisis is in no one’s interest

and we are not in favor of its

prolongation,” he said.

A spokesman for Abdullah

described his support for the

process as “a gesture of good-

will.”

Abdullah also addressed the

cut in U.S. aid, describing it as a

move that “without doubt will

cause the country lots of prob-

lems.” He added that the aid cut

“by no means can be compensat-

ed.”

Ghani had previously pledged

that the aid cut “will not have

direct impact on our key sectors,

and we will make efforts to fill

the g ap through adopting auster-

ity measures and by finding

alternative sources,” a ccording to

a statement released by his of-

fice.

But analysts have argued that

it is not possible for the Afghan

government to provide the same

levels of services with $1 billion

slashed from its budget.

The World Bank report on

Afghanistan’s dependence on

foreign aid warned that if the

international community imple-

mented dramatic cuts in aid, the

country could be forced to make

“very difficult trade-offs” be-

tween security spending and the

“delivery of basic government

functions.” The report also

warned that such cuts would

probably i mperil public invest-

ments aimed at supporting eco-

nomic growth and reducing pov-

erty.

Despite trillions spent in in-

ternational aid in Afghanistan,

the country remains one of the

poorest in the world. The United

States alone has spent more than

$133 billion on reconstruction,

aid programs and the Afghan

security forces since 2001.

[email protected]

george reported from london.

With aid at risk, Afghan peace e≠ort inches ahead

Government and Taliban agree to a partial prisoner swap after weeks of deadlock and a threat by U.S. to cut $ 1 billion in funding

sePIdAr PAlACe/AssoCIAted Press

Abdullah Abdullah, rival of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, walks with S ecretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited Kabul this week to try to end a dispute between the men.

BY RUTH EGLASH

jerusalem — Israeli lawmakers

on Thursday took what could be a

significant step toward forming

an emergency government and

ending the country’s year-long

political deadlock by electing op-

position leader Benny Gantz as

speaker of parliament.

T he unexpected development

looks to be part of a deal between

Gantz and Prime Minister Benja-

min Netanyahu to form a unity

government as Israel battles the

coronavirus pandemic. Under the

deal, Netanyahu could remain

prime minister for now.

The sudden turn of events

prompted the immediate break-

up of Gantz’s Blue and White

party. Two of the three factions

constituting that party have con-

sistently said they will not join a

governing coalition or participate

in a political scenario that allows

Netanyahu to remain in office

while he faces criminal indict-

ment. Netanyahu was formally

charged in November in three

criminal cases involving allega-

tions of bribery, fraud and breach

of trust.

Gantz lost the support of those

factions, as well as that of the

wider opposition, including a

group of Arab Israeli parliamen-

tarians who had been willing to

back him for prime minister. But

he won the speaker’s job with the

votes of lawmakers from Netan-

yahu’s Likud party and from

members of a right-wing bloc that

has repeatedly criticized Gantz

over the past year.

Israeli politicians are still try-

ing to straighten out the political

situation after an unprecedented

third general election was held on

March 2. In that vote, neither

Netanyahu’s Likud party and its

right-wing, religious bloc of par-

ties nor Gantz’s Blue and White,

together with a mix of opposition

parties, had the 61 seats, out of a

possible 120, to form a governing

coalition.

L ast week, even as Gantz re-

ceived recommendations from a

slim majority of lawmakers to be

given the mandate to form the

next government, it was unclear

how he would cobble together a

coalition from four very diverse

parties.

S till, Gantz and his backers

succeeded in reviving the parlia-

ment, or Knesset, despite resis-

tance from the right-wing bloc,

filing a legal petition in Israel’s

Supreme Court that demanded

the creation of four key parlia-

mentary panels to oversee the

government’s work and a vote

that would replace Knesset

Speaker Yuli Edelstein, who is a

member of Likud.

O n Wednesday, Edelstein an-

nounced his resignation, saying

that he would not allow the courts

to have such a great hand in the

workings of the legislature. He

refused to allow the vote for a

replacement candidate agreed

upon by the opposition factions.

A s Israel moved to emergency

footing on Wednesday, t ightening

restrictions on public movement

amid the coronavirus outbreak, it

was reported that Netanyahu and

Gantz had spoken by phone and

that their negotiating teams met

Thursday.

J ason Pearlman, a communica-

tions strategist who has worked

with several right-wing politi-

cians, said, “I think this offers an

American model of the legisla-

ture providing a check and bal-

ance on the executive for an emer-

gency period, which could then

become a unity government in

the coming weeks and months.”

[email protected]

Netanyahu

rival Gantz

wins post

of speaker

“I think this offers an

American model of the

legislature providing a

check and balance on

the executive for an

emergency period.”

Jason Pearlman, communications

strategist for right-wing politicians

Parliament move could

lead to unity government

amid virus outbreak