WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he had refused a request by Tehran to lift sanctions in exchange for talks, contradicting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who earlier on Friday said the United States had offered to lift restrictions to facilitate a meeting.

“Iran wanted me to lift the sanctions imposed on them in order to meet. I said, of course, NO!” Trump tweeted. 

Rouhani has said on Friday that European leaders at the UN General Assemby in the US said Washington was ready to lift sanctions in exchange for talks on a 2015 nuclear deal.

“The German chancellor, the UK prime minister and France’s president were there (in New York). They insisted that this meeting happen, and that America, too, is saying that it will lift the sanctions,” Rouhani said on state television.

“The next issue was over what sanctions will be lifted,” he said. “They insisted that we will lift all sanctions.”

On Friday, US President Donald Trump confirmed such an offer was never made.

Tensions have escalated between Iran and the United States since May last year when Trump pulled out of the landmark 2015 nuclear accord and began reimposing sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.

The deal’s remaining partners include UK, China, France, Germany and Russia.

Yemen’s ambassador in Egypt, Mohamed Marem, was accused of corruption and “stealing” government scholarships of Yemeni students to give to “his friends’” children, Yemeni media reported.

Fatima Hajar, who received a 99.7 percent average grade from school, arrived in Cairo after receiving a government scholarship to study medicine in Egypt, but found out that Marem had given her place to the daughter of one of his diplomatic friends, activists reported.

Four similar cases of students who had their government scholarships stolen were also reported, the activists added.

The corruption scandal caused an outcry among the Yemeni community and lead to an official announcement from the Yemeni government that the allegations would be investigated.

Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed also instructed the ministers of Higher Education and Foreign Affairs to complete the admission procedures of the students who have had their scholarships taken.

The prime minister also directed the two ministries to promptly open an investigation within the embassy in Cairo.

The official statement from the government confirmed that the Yemeni embassy in Cairo had taken five scholarships from top students and awarded them to other students who were close to embassy staff.

The Ministry of Higher Education has denounced the embassy in Egypt for giving the students scholarships – awarded by the ministry – to other students, and outside the ministry’s approval.

The ministry noted that it would not hesitate to take any appropriate legal action in cases of violation to preserve the interests of students.

Activists and journalists have previously accused Marem of involvement in corruption during his post in Egypt.

BEIRUT: Owners of petrol stations in Lebanon on Friday suspended a strike called over an alleged shortage of dollar reserves, pending a meeting with the prime minister later in the day.
The Syndicate of Gas Station Owners on Thursday night announced an open-ended strike, saying banks were not supplying them with the dollars they need to pay importers and suppliers because of a shortage in reserves.
Motorists streamed into filling stations to replenish their vehicles after the strike announcement on Thursday, resulting in long queues.
“The syndicate decided to suspend the strike on Friday,” after a meeting was scheduled with Prime Minister Saad Hariri in the afternoon, said Sami Brax, the head of the syndicate.
“We will meet again on Saturday morning to determine our final position,” he added in a statement.
Lebanese media this week reported that banks and money exchange houses were rationing their dollar sales over a feared shortage in reserves.
The syndicate had said that petrol station owners were having to purchase dollars on the black market or from money exchange offices at higher rates.
Lebanese officials, including President Michel Aoun and Central Bank governor Riad Salameh, have tried to play down the risk of an economic collapse.
When asked about a feared shortage in dollar reserves, Aoun on Friday said “Lebanon is not in danger.”
“I will not let Lebanon collapse,” he told reporters.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil acknowledged “external pressure on the economy and the Lebanese pound,” but said that local parties were exaggerating the situation to undermine the government, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported on Friday.
“There are local actors who are conspiring against the country and its economy,” he said.
They are “fabricating” the situation “to incite citizens against the state,” he added.
Salameh on Monday denied that Lebanon was facing a dollar crisis.
“Dollars are available in Lebanon,” the central bank governor said in a news conference, calling reports of a shortage an “exaggeration.”
Economic growth in Lebanon has plummeted in the wake of repeated political deadlocks in recent years, compounded by the impact of eight years of war in neighboring Syria.
Lebanon’s public debt stands at around $86 billion — higher than 150 percent of GDP — according to the finance ministry.
Eighty percent of that figure is owed to Lebanon’s central bank and local banks.
Last month, ratings agency Fitch bumped the country down to “CCC” over what it called “intensifying pressure on Lebanon’s financing model.”

JERUSALEM: Israel’s energy minister on Friday warned tensions between Iran and the United States were reaching a breaking point and an Israeli unity government deal was needed to stave off the threat of conflict following an inconclusive election last week.
Washington has blamed Iran for a Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, and on Thursday announced it would send radar systems and Patriot missiles to the kingdom to bolster its defenses. Iran denies carrying out the attack.
Yuval Steinitz, who is also a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, warned “we are on the verge of the Iran situation blowing up.”
“(The) chances of an American-Iranian or Saudi-Iranian blow-up, or a blow-up in the Gulf which, if it happens, is liable to reach us too, is something that is very, very tangible and realistic,” Steinitz told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM on Friday.
Steinitz, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, said the potential for a wider conflict “is another reason for the need to hasten and form a broad unity government now, and not to be dragged into months of boycotts and discussions.”
On Wednesday, Netanyahu was tapped to try to form the next coalition government after garnering marginally more support from lawmakers than his centrist rival, Benny Gantz, in a Sept. 17 election.
Neither leader was able on his own to put together a coalition with a ruling majority, or reach a power-sharing deal for a unity government between their two parties.
However, with little appetite among Israeli voters for a third trip to the polls in less than a year if no government emerges, public pressure could grow for Netanyahu and Gantz to compromise and join forces.

LONDON: A Syrian filmmaker whose documentary on the siege of Aleppo brought a Cannes audience to tears has said she wants to show the world the reality of her country.

Waad Al-Kateab’s powerful and intimate film “For Sama” is a love letter to her infant daughter, documenting the desperate conditions she and her husband were living through, in case they didn’t survive.

Charting five years of her life from student protester to wife and young mother in Syria’s battle-ravaged second city, it won an emotional standing ovation at the Cannes film festival in May.

For Kateab, the film is more than the story of one family’s struggle.

“It’s a realistic depiction of everything that’s happening now in the country,” she told AFP on Wednesday in London, where the documentary is touring.

“Unfortunately, the world is deaf and blind to what is happening, but as Syrians, our goal is to continue to tell and share Syria’s story.”

Kateab was just 20 when pro-democracy protests broke out, triggering a bloody crackdown by loyalists of President Bashar Assad that has killed 370,000 people and displaced millions.

The northern city of Aleppo suffered some of the heaviest fighting after oppositionrebels seized its eastern sector in 2012.

The young filmmaker’s goal was to document the desperate conditions of life in the city as regime forces closed in — along with the joy of falling in love and the excitement of becoming a mother.

When she and her husband Hamza, on a trip to Turkey to see his sick father, heard regime forces were poised to cut off the city’s east completely, they decided to return.

Within an hour, they had packed and were on a treacherous journey, dodging shells and sneaking past regime troops into the now-besieged part of the city.

Hamza, a medic, threw himself into work at a hospital which at one point hosted 300 casualties in a single day — before itself being hit by an airstrike.

Kataeb dedicated herself to filming the situation, while wrestling with the question of whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter.

After six months, Aleppo was overrun and they were forced into exile, leaving the city as part of a huge civilian evacuation.

Kataeb then set about bringing her footage together into a feature-length production that would capture the imagination of audiences “tired of war films or films on Syria.”

“So our challenge was to come up with a film that was different,” she said.

The result is a brutally honest, moving portrayal of life under siege: The absurdity of laughter as missiles crash down overhead, the snowball fights, the aching grief of two boys grieving over their brother.

Kataeb said her aim was “to continue to describe in a way that is true and real what is happening in Syria.”

“It’s not a civil war, it’s a revolution, and unfortunately, we the Syrian people are the ones paying the price,” she said.