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Irans FM Araghchi, Saudi Crown Prince MBS Hold Fruitful Talks In Jeddah

Tehran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi visits Saudi Arabia for the first time after Iran’s 12-day war with Israel. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Jeddah in the first visit by a top Iranian official to the Gulf kingdom after Israel’s war with Tehran. Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Araghchi’s talks with Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials on Tuesday were “fruitful”. The visit after the 12-day intense conflict between Israel and Iran, which saw the United States bomb three Iranian nuclear facilities before mediating a ceasefire, suggests that the war did not derail the rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh. Saudi Arabia’s official news agency, SPA, said Araghchi and Prince Mohammed “reviewed bilateral relations and discussed the latest regional developments and the efforts being made in that regard”. “The Crown Prince expressed the Kingdom’s aspiration that the ceasefire agreement would contribute to creating conditions that promote security and stability in the region, emphasizing the Kingdom’s stance in supporting dialogue through diplomatic means as a path to resolving disputes,” SPA said. It added that Araghchi expressed his gratitude to the kingdom for “condemning the Israeli aggression”. The top Iranian diplomat also met with Saudi Minister of Defence Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. Israel launched a massive bombardment against Iran on June 13, without direct provocation, killing top military commanders and nuclear scientists as well as hundreds of civilians. Iran retaliated with missile barrages that left widespread destruction in Israel. After the US targeted Iran’s nuclear sites, Tehran responded with a missile launch against a US airbase in Qatar. Shortly after that attack, US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. While Arab countries condemned the attack as a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty, Iran appears to be pushing to repair relations with Gulf states. Ties between Tehran and Riyadh were strained for years over disagreements around regional conflicts and mutual accusations of spreading instability. But the two countries agreed to restore formal relations as part of a deal brokered by China in 2023, and top Saudi and Iranian officials have been in regular contact. Before the outbreak of the recent war, Saudi Arabia had welcomed Iran’s nuclear talks with the US, saying it supported efforts to resolve regional and international disputes. On Monday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said he believed Tehran could resolve its differences with the US through dialogue, but trust would be an issue after the attacks on his country. In an article published by the Financial Times earlier on Tuesday, Araghchi accused Israel of preferring conflict over diplomacy. “Iran remains interested in diplomacy, but we have good reason to have doubts about further dialogue,” he wrote. “If there is a desire to resolve this amicably, the US should show genuine readiness for an equitable accord.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Frances Macron Begins UK State Visit, Calls For Support On Gaza, Ukraine

Emmanuel Macron’s three-day trip is the first state visit to the UK by a European Union head of state since Brexit French President Emmanuel Macron has called for British support to recognise the state of Palestine and help defend Ukraine as he arrived in the United Kingdom for the first state visit by a European leader since Brexit. Macron, in a rare address to both houses of the British parliament on Tuesday, celebrated the return of closer ties between France and the UK, and said the two countries must work together to end “excessive dependencies” on the United States and China. The French president’s three-day trip came at the invitation of King Charles III. Macron was earlier greeted by the royal family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife, Princess Catherine, before they travelled in horse-drawn carriages to Windsor Castle. Macron then set out to parliament where he said the two countries needed to come together to strengthen Europe, including on defence, immigration, climate and trade. “The United Kingdom and France must once again show the world that our alliance can make all the difference,” the French president said in English. “The only way to overcome the challenges we have, the challenges of our times, will be to go together hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.” Macron also promised that European countries would “never abandon Ukraine” in its war against invading Russian forces, while demanding an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. He then urged the UK to work together with France on recognising a Palestinian state, calling it “the only path to peace”. “With Gaza in ruin and West Bank being on a daily basis attacked, the perspective of a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is,” Macron said. “And this is why this solution of the two states and the recognition of the State of Palestine is… the only way to build peace and stability for all in the whole region.” He listed the geopolitical threats France and the UK face, and argued they should also be wary of the “excessive dependencies of both the US and China”, saying they needed to “de-risk our economies and our societies from this dual dependency”. Macron went on to set out the opportunities of a closer union, saying they should make it easier for students, researchers and artists to live in each other’s countries, and seek to work together on artificial intelligence and to protect children online. The speech symbolised the improvement in relations sought by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party, as part of a broader reset of ties with European allies following the rancour over London’s departure from the European Union. Later on Tuesday evening, King Charles hosted a banquet for the Macrons at Windsor Castle, with 160 guests, including politicians, diplomats and celebrities such as Mick Jagger and Elton John. Charles used his speech at the opulent state banquet to christen a new era of friendly relations, upgrading the “entente cordiale” – an alliance dating from 1904 that ended centuries of military rivalries – to an “entente amicale”. “As we dine here in this ancient place, redolent with our shared history, allow me to propose a toast to France and to our new entente. An entente not only past and present, but for the future – and no longer just cordiale, but now amicale,” the king said. The UK and France marked the three-day visit with an announcement that French nuclear energy utility EDF would invest 1.1 billion pounds ($1.5bn) in a nuclear power project in eastern England. The two also said France would lend the UK the Bayeux Tapestry, allowing the 11th-century masterpiece to return for the first time in more than 900 years, in exchange for London loaning Paris Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasures. Politics will take centre stage on Wednesday, when Macron sits down for talks with Starmer on migration, defence and investment. Despite tensions over post-Brexit ties and how to stop asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel in small boats, the UK and France have been working closely to create a planned military force to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. The two leaders will dial in to a meeting of the coalition on Thursday “to discuss stepping up support for Ukraine and further increasing pressure on Russia”, Starmer’s office confirmed on Monday. They will speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to the French presidency. Starmer is hoping the UK’s support for Ukraine will help persuade Macron to take a different approach to stopping people smuggling, with London wanting to try out an asylum seekers’ returns deal. This would involve the UK deporting one asylum seeker to France in exchange for another with a legitimate case to be in the country. A record number of asylum seekers have arrived in the UK on small boats in the first six months of this year. Starmer, whose party is trailing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party in the polls, is under pressure to find a solution. France has previously refused to sign such an agreement, saying the UK should negotiate an arrangement with all EU countries. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Critical Point: UN Pleads For Fuel For Gaza Amid Israeli Blockade

‘Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,’ UN humanitarian office says. The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, has warned that the fuel crisis in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade has reached a “critical point” and will cause further deaths and suffering in the besieged Palestinian territory. OCHA said the fuel powering vital functions in Gaza, including water desalination stations and hospitals’ intensive care units, is running out quickly, with “virtually no additional accessible stocks left”. “Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,” the office said in a statement. “The deaths this is likely causing could soon increase sharply unless the Israeli authorities allow new fuel in – urgently, regularly and in sufficient quantities.” Israel has imposed a suffocating siege on Gaza since early March. Over the past weeks, it has allowed some food into Gaza to be distributed through a United States-backed group at sites where hundreds of aid seekers have been shot dead by Israeli fire. But fuel has not entered the territory in months. Senior World Food Programme official Carl Skau also decried the lack of fuel in Gaza. “The needs are greater than ever, and our capacity to respond has never been more constrained. Famine is spreading, and people are dying trying to find food,” Skau said in a social media post. “Our teams in Gaza are doing their best to deliver aid and are often caught in the crossfire. We are suffering from shortages of fuel, spare parts and essential communications equipment.” The director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said that the situation at the medical centre is alarming due to the lack of fuel supplies. “We don’t have enough fuel left until morning. If fuel is not available, generators cannot run, and hospitals find it difficult to provide care,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera. “Blood banks, nurseries and oxygen stations are not operating because of a lack of fuel. Patients will be doomed to certain death if fuel is not provided to hospitals.” The health sector in Gaza has already been pushed to the brink under Israeli bombardment and repeated displacement orders. Aid workers and health experts have been reporting a rise in preventable diseases in the territory amid the dire humanitarian situation. On Tuesday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the enclave is seeing an uptick in cases of meningitis, a potentially deadly disease, especially among children. “The catastrophic conditions in shelters, the severe shortage of drinking water, the spread of sewage, and the accumulation of waste are driving the health situation to further deterioration,” the ministry said. Meningitis, which causes inflammation around the brain and spinal cord, can be caused by a bacterial infection. In addition to the humanitarian crisis, Israel is pressing on with its intense bombardment of the territory. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that Israeli attacks killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday. Israeli attacks killed dozens of displaced people in and around tents in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis and in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp. UN experts and rights groups have described Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza as a genocide. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Trump, Israels Netanyahu Meet For A Second Time About A Ceasefire In Gaza

The unscheduled talks come as Trump’s Middle East envoy said Israel and Hamas were closing their differences on a truce deal. United States President Donald Trump has met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for a second time in 24 hours to discuss a possible ceasefire deal in Gaza. The unscheduled talks on Tuesday evening lasted just over an hour, with no media access, and came as Israeli forces killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza. The two men had also met for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday, during Netanyahu’s third visit to the US since the president began his second term on January 20. Ahead of the talks on Tuesday, Trump said he would be speaking with Netanyahu “almost exclusively” about Gaza. “We gotta get that solved. Gaza is – it’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to,” he said. Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said “very little information” has come out from the latest talks, so “it has been difficult to ascertain exactly what’s going on”. “But the fact that it was so hermetically sealed, the fact that there has been no clear readout of what was discussed, the fact that the meeting lasted just over an hour – all of it may indicate that there’s some kind of stumbling block, something that is clouding the optimistic position that the two leaders have adopted over the past 24 hours,” Hanna said. Shortly before Trump met Netanyahu, his special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, suggested a ceasefire deal in Gaza is close and said Washington hopes to see an agreement finalised by the end of the week. He said the issues keeping Israel and Hamas from agreeing had now dropped to one from four. “We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we’ll have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff told reporters at a meeting of Trump’s Cabinet. But Netanyahu, speaking shortly afterwards, during a meeting with the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, said Israel’s campaign in the Palestinian enclave was not done and that negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire. “We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas’s military and government capabilities,” the Israeli leader said. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan, said Israeli media claim Netanyahu is facing “extreme pressure” from Trump to reach a deal on Gaza. “But still, there’s been no breakthrough,” she said from the Jordanian capital, Amman. “Israeli media is also talking about a delay in the travel plans of Witkoff to Doha, although earlier in the night, he had sounded very optimistic about possibly reaching a deal. Because according to him, only one issue remained problematic – which is, ‘Where will the Israeli army redeploy to?'” Odeh said. “Now, this is important, because Israel wants to maintain control over the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. According to the Israeli minister of defence, Israel plans to build a tent city in Rafah, where it will concentrate the population, control who enters, not allow anyone to leave, and then push the population out of Gaza to implement, according to the Israelis, the Trump plan of depopulating Gaza and taking over the enclave,” she added. The plan outlined by the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, calls for the initial forcible transfer of some 600,000 Palestinians to the tent city, followed by the remainder of the enclave’s 2.1 million people. Critics say the plan would then lead to Palestinians being forcibly transferred to other countries. Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East programme at the Quincy Institute, described the tent cities as “concentration camps” and said the Trump administration is unlikely to intervene in the Israeli plan. “Washington has significant influence over the details, although we did see Trump demure when asked if he would support the transfer of the involuntary transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza, saying that people should look to Nanyahu for that,” Sheline said. “We know the people Trump surrounds himself with tend to be sycophants and people who tell him what he likes to hear. So I don’t anticipate there are many people in Trump’s orbit who are telling him, not only would this be a horrific crime against humanity, to not only facilitate genocide, but then transfer the survivors outside of their land,” she said, adding that all of it also does “implicate the United States”. For his part, Trump has strongly supported Netanyahu, even wading into domestic Israeli politics by criticising prosecutors over a corruption trial against the Israeli leader on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges, which Netanyahu denies. Netanyahu has meanwhile praised Trump, saying that there has never been closer coordination between the US and Israel in his country’s history, and even nominated the US leader for the Nobel Peace Prize. Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 57,575 Palestinians and wounded 136,879 others. Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the war, and nearly half a million people are facing famine within months, according to United Nations estimates. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive. Some 50 captives remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive. Follow Al Jazeera English:...