BEIRUT: Efforts to resolve a maritime border dispute between Lebanon and Syria appear to have foundered after Damascus rebuffed attempts by President Michel Aoun to set up official talks.
Aoun discussed the dispute with President Bashar Assad in a telephone call at the weekend, before instructing Elias Bou Saab, the deputy speaker of parliament, to head a Lebanese delegation to Damascus.
AMMAN: Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has condemned the ongoing Israeli military incursions into Palestinian towns, including Tuesday’s dawn attacks in Nablus and Ramallah.
Jordan News Agency, or Petra, cited a statement in which the ministry warned that the military escalation would lead to a new spiral of violence for which “everyone will pay a price.”
CAIRO: A maritime demarcation agreement with Cyprus and Greece in the East Mediterranean, as well as an accord signed with Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea has helped Egypt save the country some $120 billion, which is the amount needed to power its electricity plants annually at current prices, according to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Speaking at an economic conference taking place in the new administrative capital, El-Sisi said the demarcation deals had been critical to secure the energy needed by the nation.
STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s center-right government will fulfill all requirements under a deal with Turkey to join NATO and will concentrate external relations to its immediate neighborhood while dropping the previous administration’s “feminist foreign policy,” the country’s top diplomat said on Monday.
Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said the new government shares Turkey’s concern about the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the US.
DUBAI: Iranian security forces fired tear gas near a girls’ school in Tehran on Monday, according to videos posted on social media, after a dispute between authorities and students over their mobile phones amid ongoing anti-government protests in Iran.
Iran’s Ministry of Education said several students were treated by emergency services for a drop in blood pressure, but denied that security forces had entered the school.
