UNITED NATIONS, United States: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday emphasized the UN’s role as the guardian of international law in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, days before US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law is to present a new Mideast peace plan to the Security Council.
Jared Kushner, a key architect of the Trump administration’s blueprint that has enraged the Palestinians, is to brief the council’s 14 other members at a behind-closed-doors lunch on Thursday.
“Our position is very clear. We are the guardians of the UN resolutions and international law in relation to the Palestinian question,” Guterres told a wide-ranging news conference at the UN headquarters.
“We are totally committed to the two-state solution,” he added, reiterating his stance that the peace plan must be based on the pre-1967 borders.
The US plan makes numerous concessions to Israel, proposing the establishment of a Palestinian capital in Abu Dis, a suburb of Jerusalem. The Palestinians have long sought the whole of east Jerusalem as their capital.
The US proposal also gives consent for the annexation of Israeli settlements as well as the Jordan Valley, Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.
The Palestinians, who have strongly criticized Trump’s plan, have indicated they plan to submit a draft resolution through Tunisia, a non-permanent member of the Security Council.
The resolution’s content has not been divulged as yet, but the United States would likely oppose it, using its veto if necessary, should it gain the support of nine council members, the minimum required for passage.

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan agreed to take immediate measures to improve coordination of their countries’ actions in Syria, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Putin and Erdogan, in a phone call initiated by Turkey, highlighted the need to follow Russia-Turkey agreements on Syria’s Idlib that envisage increasing cooperation to “neutralize extremists,” the Kremlin said.
Turkey’s report on the same phone call earlier on Tuesday said that Erdogan told Putin that Turkey will use its self-defense rights in the even of another attack on Turkish military personnel in Syria.

AL-MUKALLA: A series of large explosions rocked Yemen’s city of Marib on Monday night, when shells fired by Iran-backed Houthi militias hit a military base, Yemen’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Tuesday.  

The shells landed at Sahen Al-Jen military base in Marib, triggering large explosions that shook the city.

Amateur videos broadcast on local TV showed thick smoke billowing over the base. The MoD said that shells hit landmines and improvised explosive devices retrieved from battlefields, but that there were no fatalities.

The attack on Marib comes after Yemen’s government forces, backed by Saudi-led coalition warplanes, recaptured sizable swathes of territory, Yemen’s army spokesperson told Arab News.

Brig. Gen. Abdu Abdullah Majili said that territory in Nehim, near Houthi-held Sana’a, had been taken after fierce fighting left dozens dead on both sides. 

“The national army is making progress on the battlefields,” he said, adding that the bodies of dozens of Houthi fighters had been abandoned in Nehim’s mountains. “We urge the International Red Cross to help us retrieve bodies in Nehim.

“The national army (also) managed to expel Houthi fighters from Safra and Baraqesh regions in Jawf,” Majili said. Fighting is currently raging in Jawf’s Masloub and Metoun districts, where government forces have traded mortar and cannon fire with the militias. 

The Saudi-led coalition dispatched dozens of military vehicles and ammunition to Marib, the base of the Yemeni army and the coalition’s troops, to shore up government forces battling the Houthis.

The army said that massive military logistical and air support from the coalition had enabled government forces to score major territorial gains. 

“I would like to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the enormous military support to the national army that helped us make victories,” Majili said. 

Fighting has escalated since the start of the year, when a Houthi missile and drone attack killed more than 110 soldiers and civilians at a military base mosque in Marib. 

In the Red Sea province of Hodeidah, government media outlets reported on Monday that Houthi artillery fire killed a mother and her child and injured two in the Attuhyita district, whilst another child was killed by a landmine in the district of Houk. There were also reports of artillery fire in the village of Al-Matena, where two civilians were said to have died.

Local human rights groups say that hundreds of civilians have been killed by Houthi land mines and shells since December 2018, when the government and the rebels signed the Stockholm Agreement that was designed to end hostilities in Hodeidah.
 

ALGIERS: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Tuesday pardoned more than 3,000 prisoners serving sentences less than six months as he seeks to win support after months of political turmoil.
Tebboune, elected in December in a vote opposed by a huge protest movement seeking the replacement of the entire ruling elite, has said his top priority is to restore confidence.
Thousands of people are still protesting every Friday, but the numbers appear to have waned since Tebboune’s election and his offer of talks with the opposition.
Last month he also ordered the release of dozens of people who had been detained for taking part in the protests.
He has also promised a process to offer constitutional amendments to the public through a referendum in order to give parliament a bigger role and increase political freedoms.
A court in Algiers on Monday acquitted Samir Benlarbi, an activist and a leading member of the protest movement who had been detained for over four months for “harming the national unity.”
Several other activists are still in detention pending trail in Algiers and other towns, but it was unclear whether the 3,471 people pardoned on Tuesday include those detained for involvement in the recent political unrest.

UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Tuesday for an end to fighting between Turkey and Syria in Syria’s opposition-held province of Idlib on Tuesday.
Guterres told reporters it was an “extremely worrying” escalation in the conflict that the Turkish army and the Syrian army were now “bombing each other” in the restive northwest region.
“My strong appeal is for a cessation of hostilities,” he said.
“We don’t believe there is a military solution for the conflict in Syria. We have said time and time again that the solution is political,” Guterres added.
On Monday, the Turkish and Syrian armies engaged in their deadliest clashes since Ankara sent troops to Syria in 2016.
Regime shelling of Turkish positions in Idlib killed at least five Turkish soldiers and three civilians, Ankara said.
Retaliatory fire from Turkey killed at least 13 Syrian government troops, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The incident further tested the uneasy coordination between Russia and Turkey — the two main foreign brokers in the Syrian conflict.
Russian-backed Syrian government forces and militia have retaken dozens of villages in the last rebel enclave in recent weeks, pushing displaced populations ever closer to the Turkish border.
On Tuesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would not allow Syrian forces to gain further ground.