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US defense secretary breaks with Trump in backing Iran nuclear deal

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  • Orders expulsion of 15 Cuban diplomats

The US defense secretary, James Mattis, has backed the nuclear deal with Iran, saying it is in the interests of national security to maintain it, breaking with Donald Trump and potentially making it harder for the president to withdraw from the deal.

The timing and nature of Mattis’s remarks are particularly significant because Trump has threatened to withhold certification of the 2015 international agreement in a report to Congress due on 15 October . Under the relevant legislation, the administration has to certify whether Iran is in material breach of the agreement, or if the deal is not serving the national interest.

 

Mattis was asked at a hearing of the Senate armed services committee whether he believed it was currently in the US national security interest to remain in the agreement.

After a significant pause, the defense secretary replied: “Yes, senator, I do.”

At the same hearing, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Joseph Dunford agreed that Iran was abiding by the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which he said had delayed Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Last week, Dunford said the US should uphold the agreement, in the absence of a clear Iranian breach, or risk losing credibility when it came to signing future agreements.

Trump has repeatedly lambasted the JCPOA – one of the most important foreign policy legacies of his predecessor, Barack Obama – most recently at the UN general assembly last month.

“Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States and I don’t think you have heard the last of it, believe me,” he said, raising expectations that he would not endorse the agreeement.

Mattis is arguably the most powerful member of Trump’s cabinet and the president has been wary of contradicting him in public, something he has clearly no compunction about doing in the case of the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.

Even if Mattis does not immediately sway Trump’s position on the JCPOA, his opinion is likely to carry weight with senators, who would be called on to decide the fate of the date, if the president did not certify it on 15 October.

Asked later in the committee hearing to explain his view on the deal, Mattis said. “The point I would make is if we can confirm that Iran is living by the agreement, if we can determine that this is in our best interests then clearly we should stay with it,” Mattis added. “I believe at this point in time absent indications to the contrary, it is something the president should consider staying with.”

In the meantime, U.S. Government has ordered the expulsion of 15 diplomats from Cuba’s embassy in Washington following recent move by the Donald Trump administration to pull over half of its diplomats out of Havana.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the latest decision was made “due to Cuba’s failure to take appropriate steps to protect American personnel in Cuba, targeted in mysterious attacks that  damaged their health.”

The steps being taken by President Trump’s administration marked a further blow to his predecessor Barack Obama’s policy of rapprochement between Washington and Havana, former Cold War foes.

A State Department official said the number of expulsions was selected to make sure the U.S. and Cuban embassies have “equitable staffing levels” while investigations continued into the unexplained “health attacks.”

“The U.S. decision to expel a large portion of Cuban staff at the embassy was communicated to Cuban Ambassador Jose Ramon Cabanas on Tuesday.

“Also the diplomats were given seven days to leave the U.S.,’’ the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The move followed an announcement on Friday that the U.S. was sharply reducing its diplomatic presence in Cuba as it warned U.S. citizens not to visit because of attacks that caused hearing loss, dizziness and fatigue in U.S. embassy personnel.

According to Tillerson, until the Government of Cuba ensured the safety of U.S. diplomats in Cuba, the embassy would be reduced to emergency personnel to minimize the number of diplomats at risk of exposure to harm.

However, Tillerson added that “we will continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba, and will continue to cooperate with Cuba as we pursue investigations into the attacks.”

Additional report from Guardian

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Syrian Mass Graves Expose “Machinery of Death” Under Assad, Top Prosecutor Says

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Syrian Mass Graves Expose “Machinery of Death” Under Assad, Top Prosecutor Says

An international war crimes prosecutor Stephen Rapp said evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run “machinery of death” under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad.

According to Rapp more than 100,000 people have been tortured and murdered since 2013.

Speaking after visiting two mass grave sites in the towns of Qutayfah and Najha near Damascus, former U.S. war crimes ambassador at large Stephen Rapp said “We certainly have more than 100,000 people that were disappeared into and tortured to death in this machine.

“I don’t have much doubt about those kinds of numbers given what we’ve seen in these mass graves. We haven’t seen anything quite like this since the Nazis.’’

Rapp led prosecutions at the Rwanda and Sierra Leone war crimes tribunals and is working with Syrian civil society to document war crimes evidence and also helping to prepare for any eventual trials.

He added, “From the secret police who disappeared people from their streets and homes to the jailers and interrogators who starved and tortured them to death, to the truck drivers and bulldozer drivers who hid their bodies, thousands of people were working in this system of killing.

“We are talking about a system of state terror, which became a machinery of death.”

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011 when Assad’s crackdown on protests against him spiralled into a full-scale war.

Both Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in the year 2000, have long been accused by rights groups and governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s prison system and using chemical weapons against the Syrian people.

Assad, who fled to Moscow, had repeatedly denied that his government committed human rights violations and painted his detractors as extremists.

The head of U.S.-based Syrian advocacy organisation the Syrian Emergency Task Force, Mouaz Moustafa, who also visited Qutayfah, 25 miles (40 km) north of Damascus, has estimated at least 100,000 bodies were buried there alone.

The International Commission on Missing Persons in The Hague separately said it had received data indicating there may be as many as 66, as yet unverified, mass grave sites in Syria. More than 157,000 people have been reported missing to the commission.

Commission head Kathryne Bomberger told Reuters its portal for reporting the missing was now “exploding” with new contacts from families.

By comparison, roughly 40,000 people went missing during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Bomberger said for the families, the search for the truth in Syria could be long and difficult. A DNA match will require at least three relatives to provide DNA reference samples and take a DNA sample from each skeletal remains found in the graves.

The commission called for sites to be protected so that evidence was preserved for potential trials, but the mass grave sites were easily accessible on Tuesday.

The State Department of the United States is engaged with several UN bodies to ensure that the Syrian people receive answers and accountability.

Syrian residents living near Qutayfah, a former military base where one of the sites was located, and a cemetery in Najha used to hide bodies from detention sites described seeing a steady stream of refrigeration trucks delivering bodies which were dumped into long trenches dug with bulldozers.

Abb Khalid, who works as a farmer next to Najha cemetery, “The graves were prepared in an organised manner the truck would come, unload the cargo it had, and leave. There were security vehicles with them, and no one was allowed to approach, anyone who got close used to go down with them.’’

In Qutayfah, residents declined to speak on camera or use their names for fear of retribution, saying they were not yet sure the area was safe after Assad’s fall. “This is the place of horrors.’’

Inside a site enclosed with cement walls, three children played near a Russian-made military satellite vehicle. The soil was flat and levelled, with straight long marks where the bodies were believed buried.

 Reuters

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Israeli Parliament Passes Law Banning UNRWA From Operating In Israel

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Israeli Parliament Passes Law Banning UNRWA From Operating In Israel

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has passed a law prohibiting the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from operating in Israel.

According to local media reports, the new law, which received support from 92 out of 120 parliament members, passed despite opposition from the United States and several European countries.

The law stipulates that UNRWA will not operate any representation, provide services, or conduct any activities, directly or indirectly, within Israeli territory.

“As it is proven that UNRWA and its employees participate and are involved in terrorist activity against Israel.

“It is proposed to establish that Israel will act to stop all activities of the agency in its territory,” the explanatory notes to the law read.

In a post on X, Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, said the vote by the Israeli Parliament against UNRWA “is
unprecedented and sets a dangerous precedent.”

“It opposes the UN Charter and violates the State of Israel’s obligations under international law.

“These bills would only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell,” he wrote. 

– Xinhua

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Lebanese Military Reports Troops Killed In Israel-Hezbollah Conflict

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Lebanese Military Reports Troops Killed In Israel-hezbollah Conflict

…As EU ministers sanction Iran over missiles supplied to Russia

Four soldiers from the Lebanese army have died in the conflict between the Hezbollah militia and Israel, and a further 12 Lebanese soldiers have been killed while not on duty, army sources told DPA.

Two soldiers were recently killed by Israeli fire while on duty at a military post in Kafra in the south of the country, the Lebanese army said.

Lebanon’s military was seen as weak and under-resourced.

It was not directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

It has partially withdrawn from positions along the country’s southern border with Israel since the Israeli ground offensive began two weeks ago.

The army did, however, return fire when one of its bases in Bint Jbeil in the south came under Israeli attack. 

In another development, the EU foreign ministers adopted sanctions on Iran for supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine on Monday.

Diplomats told DPA that the EU sanctions target companies and individuals involved in Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the delivery of these and other weapons to Russia.

The European Union had previously warned Iran several times against passing on ballistic missiles to Moscow and views the step as breaching a new taboo.

Iran has vehemently denied supplying Russia with the weapons.

According to Tehran, the country has a strategic cooperation with Moscow, although this is not related to the war in Ukraine.

Tehran maintains that providing military aid to warring parties is inhumane.

One of the targets is the Iranian state airline Iran Air.

Britain, Germany and France have already announced they are working on sanctions targeting the company.

The EU sanctions, including a freeze on assets held in the bloc and a travel ban on individuals, will enter into force upon their publication in the EU Official Journal, a register of EU laws.

EU foreign ministers are meeting to debate the escalating conflict in the Middle East and the EU’s efforts to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion, despite Hungarian resistance.

The bloc also plans to hit Russian actors and organizations accused of destabilizing Moldova’s democracy and security with new sanctions ahead of a crunch referendum on EU membership later this month.

The role of Iran and its regional proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will be in focus at the foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.

The EU is struggling to find a response that could help stop the conflict from spiralling into a full-scale regional war in the Middle East.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell voiced frustration over the bloc’s discordance on an increasingly tense Middle East conflict, especially concerning criticism of Israel.

“It takes too long to say some things which are quite evident,” he said upon arrival.

“It’s quite evident that we should be against Israeli attacks against UNIFIL, especially because our soldiers are there.”

He referred to a joint EU statement on recent attacks on the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, issued on the eve of the gathering.

Borrell also said that EU countries are at odds over arms deliveries to Israel after Spain called for an embargo.

“Member states are strongly divided,” he said, adding that other EU countries are in favour of delivering more weapons to Israel.

Another major issue is Hungary’s over-a-year blockade of a key EU military aid policy for Ukraine, the European Peace Facility (EPF), worth €6.6 billion ($7.2 billion).

Budapest does not want to send arms to Ukraine, believing that doing so only prolongs the war.

“Frankly speaking, it’s a lot of time, it’s a lot of money, and it’s undermining our political will of supporting Ukraine on any front,” an EU official said in a sign of growing EU impatience with Hungary.

The bloc’s diplomatic arm, the European External Action Service, has devised a plan to make contributions to the EPF fund voluntary instead of mandatory, as a technical workaround to Hungary’s opposition.

An EU diplomat said that Hungary has shown a willingness to agree to this solution.

New Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha spoke with EU foreign ministers via video link.

Borrell welcomed his contribution in a post on X and promised new deliveries of weapons for Ukraine.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy is also in Luxembourg, the first time a British foreign minister has attended a gathering of EU foreign ministers alone since Britain left the EU in 2020.

– dpa

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