BEIRUT: Hezbollah on Saturday unveiled a monument to Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike on Jan. 3.
The monument, on a hill in the southern Lebanese border town of Maroun Al-Ras, has been widely criticized on social media and by Lebanese politicians opposed to Hezbollah. “Are we in Lebanon or Iran? Why insist on changing the identity of Lebanon,” tweeted May Chidiac, former minister for administrative development.
“Every day, Hezbollah asserts that it is a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards … not (a) Lebanese (party).”
Former Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi said: “The establishment of the Soleimani Monument in the south has nothing to do with the confrontation with Israel, but rather with the assertion of Iran’s mandate over Lebanon.” He added: “The (Iranian) Quds Forces did not fight

for Jerusalem, but rather destroyed Syria and Iraq and transformed Lebanon into a failed state.” Meanwhile, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday called for a boycott of American goods and for “resistance” throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.  His remarks came as Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani arrived in Beirut to meet with senior Lebanese leaders.
Larijani had come from Syria, where he met with President Bashar Assad and reiterated Tehran’s support for Damascus.
Nasrallah appeared on a screen at a gathering that Hezbollah had organized in southern Beirut to mark 40 days since the US drone strike that killed Soleimani and the deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.

ANKARA: Turkey’s foreign minister said on Sunday he has told his Russian counterpart that the Damascus regime’s attacks on the last rebel-held bastion in Syria must stop.
Backed by Russian air power, Syrian President Bashar Assad has been intensifying his assault on the holdout northwestern province of Idlib.
And tensions have been running high between Ankara and Moscow after 14 Turks were killed in shelling by Syrian government forces in the region.
“I stressed that the attacks in Idlib must stop and it was necessary to establish a lasting cease-fire that would not be violated,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told journalists in Germany.
Cavusoglu met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday during the Munich Security Conference.
Turkey has 12 observation posts in Idlib as part of a 2018 deal reached between Ankara and Moscow in the Russian resort of Sochi to prevent a regime offensive.
But despite the agreement, Syrian regime forces, backed by Russian air strikes, have pressed ahead with an assault to retake the province, killing hundreds of people.
Four of the Turkish posts are believed to be encircled by Syrian forces, and Ankara has threatened to attack Damascus if they do not retreat by the end of February.
A Turkish delegation will head to Moscow on Monday, after Russian officials visited Ankara last weekend but no concrete agreement emerged.
Rebel supporter Turkey and Damascus ally Russia have worked closely on Syria in recent years despite being on opposing sides of the nine-year conflict.

ANKARA: A car bomb attack Sunday killed two people in a Syrian border town controlled by Turkish forces, Turkey’s defense ministry said.
The explosion occurred in Tal Abyad, held by Turkish forces and Syrian proxies after Ankara launched a military operation against a Kurdish militia in October 2019.
Five other people were injured, the Turkish ministry said on Twitter.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.
But the ministry blamed the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara sees as a “terrorist” offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“The terrorist responsible for the attack and a terrorist who arrived in the area with another car containing bombs for a second attack were caught alive,” it added.
The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies.
But the West worked closely with the YPG in the fight against Daesh in Syria.
Since Turkey’s offensive, there have been multiple car bombings blamed by Ankara on the YPG in which several civilians and Turkish soldiers have been killed.

CAIRO: Egypt has identified its first case of coronavirus, according to the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The virus was discovered in a foreigner whose identity and nationality have not been officially disclosed. However, a source suggested that the individual was from China.
Meanwhile, France also reported the first fatality from the new coronavirus outside Asia on Saturday, as the death toll from the outbreak jumped past 1,500 in China. More than 66,000 people have now been infected in China from a virus that emerged in central Hubei province in December before spreading across the country and some two dozen countries.
Egypt, however, took all preventive measures in cooperation with WHO, said Media Adviser to Minister of Health Khaled Mugahed and added that the WHO was informed immediately of the case, as the patient was taken to hospital where he is in isolation and is having constant checkups. Mugahed said the patient had not shown any signs of deterioration and was “completely stable.”
He said the ministry had adopted strict preventive measures for those who came in contact with the patient by conducting the necessary tests, which came back negative.
People who came in contact with the patient were quarantined in their homes for 14 days as a precautionary measure.
Those in isolation are being checked every eight hours and given instructions regarding their health. Among the preventive measures was the disinfection of the building in which the residents were living.
Mugahed said that the foreign patient tested positive for coronavirus even though he failed to show symptoms.
A source from the MOHP told Arab News that the foreign carrier of the virus is Chinese and was monitored during the past few days using periodic follow-up cards that are given to passengers at airports coming from abroad.
The source said the carrier of the virus was transferred to Al-Nujaila Hospital by ambulance. The carrier then went through further medical examinations.
A team from WHO is monitoring the patient’s condition. Official sources at the Ministry of Aviation confirmed that all precautionary measures have been taken at Cairo Airport.
John Gabor, a WHO representative in Egypt, praised the speed and transparency of the Egyptian government in dealing with the situation as well as its keenness to inform the organization of the patient as soon as it was suspected.

Gabor stressed that Egypt was one of the first countries to develop a good preventive plan to address the emerging coronavirus and deal with infected cases once they are discovered.
Egypt’s Health Minister Hala Zayed held a meeting with the ministry’s leaders to follow up the implementation of the ministry’s plan to deal with the coronavirus.
Zayed added that results will be known after the 14-day incubation period of the virus.
WHO confirmed that a coronavirus carrier cannot be infected as long as the person does not show symptoms of the disease because it is possible that his immunity will overcome the virus before infection.
Zayed said the problem is not that a person is infected with the coronavirus and does not know it, but in the inability to manage the crisis in a way that prevents the spread of infection.
The minister said Egypt was fully prepared to deal with the epidemic and prevent its spread, and that there are other countries that are, up until now, not as well equipped.
The death toll from the virus has neared 1,400 cases, almost exclusively in China where it was first identified. It has infected more than 64,000 people globally.

ANKARA: Turkey on Saturday hit back at Russian accusations of failing to honor a 2018 deal by insisting it carried out its responsibilities in Idlib, Syria’s last major opposition bastion. “Observation posts were set up and the regime had to stay outside of this area. Russia and Iran were to ensure the regime stayed outside, Turkey had responsibilities too, Turkey fulfilled these,” Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told NTV broadcaster.

“Undertaking an extremely risky and difficult duty, Turkey took real initiative to stop the bloodshed of civilians, to prevent a new migration wave and to ensure it did not become a terror nest.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the situation in Idlib will not be resolved until Syrian regime forces withdraw beyond the borders that Turkey and Russia outlined in a 2018 agreement. Otherwise, he warned, Ankara will “take matters into its own hands.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, said the victory over terrorists is “unavoidable” in Idlib. He called the area “one of the last hotbeds of terrorism” in war-ravaged Syria. 

Erdogan discussed with US counterpart Donald Trump ways to end the crisis and condemned attacks by President Bashar Assad’s forces there.

“Stressing that the regime’s most recent attacks are unacceptable, the president and Trump exchanged views on ways to end the crisis in Idlib without further delay,” the presidency said after the two leaders spoke on the phone.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry meanwhile has intensified its criticism against Devlet Bahceli, the leader of a Turkish party allied to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), who said that Russia did not have good intentions in Syria because it was playing both sides.

Syrian regime as their target instead of Russia, according to an expert.

“We won’t be reassured until the killer (President Bashar) Assad goes away,” Bahceli said during a parliamentary meeting. 

“Assad is a killer and the source of enmity. Russia, which tries to handle Turkey and Syria at the same time, does not have good intentions. It’s our sincere wish for the government to revise its relations with Russia.”

Moscow called on Turkey to refrain from making provocative statements on Idlib that undermined the “constructive dialogue between the two countries.”

Sezer said that the Kremlin had criticized Bahceli because any statement coming from him was seen as coming from the Turkish government.

The Russian-backed Syrian military offensive had achieved its core aim of securing the M5 highway between Damascus and Aleppo, according to independent Syria analyst Danny Makki, and he said it was possible there would be an advance into Idlib city, the provincial capital held by the opposition since 2015, to try and break Idlib into two.

“However, this all rests on the level of Turkish resistance they will face,” Makki told Arab News. “So far, any genuine Turkish military confrontation will come at a high loss of the Syrian army, and despite the fact that it has numerous Turkish observation posts surrounded, Turkey can still stall the Idlib offensive if it chooses to.”

Assassination threats
Meanwhile, Turkey has increased security around Russia’s embassy after its ambassador said he had received death threats.

Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Alexei Yerkhov, told Sputnik Turkey that he had been verbally threatened amid nosediving bilateral relations.

He said that the messages told him to “say goodbye to life” and that it was time for him to “burn.” 

His predecessor Andrei Karlov was assassinated in Ankara by an off-duty policeman during the opening of an exhibition.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow expected Ankara to ensure the safety of all Russians, as well as embassy staff, living in Turkey. But members of Russia’s State Duma had tougher words.

“Is that such a Turkish diplomatic tradition?” State Duma Deputy Alexei Zhuravlev wrote on Facebook. “The Russian Foreign Ministry needs to demand from Ankara the security of our ambassador and the entire Russian diplomatic corps in this country. 

In the absence of mutual understanding, diplomatic relations can be frozen. The life of our people is more dear!”

Aydin Sezer, an Ankara-based analyst on Turkey-Russia relations, said that Idlib and diplomatic missions may turn into a critical target for those wishing to sabotage ties between the two countries. 

“I think that such threats, if they are real, could come from specific segments, like jihadists groups and some intelligence groups,” he told Arab News. “If they succeed … it would create significant outcomes regarding Turkey’s diplomatic representations.”

He added that Turkish authorities had in the last few days opted for a milder tone regarding their messaging on Idlib, positioning the Syrian regime as their target instead of Russia.