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EU Foreign Ministers Agree to Resume Association Council Meetings With Israel
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas holds a press conference in Aqaba, Jordan, Dec. 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alaa Al Sukhni
JNS.org — The European Union Foreign Affairs Council has decided to resume its Association Council meetings with Israel, new EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said after meeting European foreign ministers on Monday.
No date has been set for the first meeting, which Kallas said she wants to hold “as soon as possible.” The summit will be followed by the first high-level dialogue with the Palestinian Authority, the EU diplomat added.
The EU-Israel Association Council, which last convened in 2022 during the premiership of Yair Lapid after a 10-year pause, is a meeting meant to be held annually between Jerusalem and the foreign ministers of all 27 member states of the European Union to discuss matters of mutual concern.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry in a statement cited by local press called the development “an important step in the relationship between the European Union and Israel,” saying the move shows “the intention to open a new page of cooperation and instructive dialogue between Israel and the EU.”
The statement noted that the EU announcement followed talks held between Kallas and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Malta on Dec. 4.
Jerusalem views the Association Council as a vital forum to advance collaboration in various fields with its largest trade partner — the European Union accounts for almost 30 percent of Israel’s trade in goods — and present its positions on the ongoing wars on its borders and the broader region.
In November, during the final weeks of his five-year term, Kallas’s predecessor, former European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, proposed to suspend all dialogue with Jerusalem over alleged human rights abuses and violations of international law in Gaza.
A decision to formally suspend the political dialogue with Israel in the framework of the EU-Israel Association Agreement would require unanimity, which meant that the move was almost certain to fail.
Borrell’s tenure was marked by incessant criticism of Israel and a lack of action against Iran. In September, then-Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Borrell would not be welcome for an official visit the latter had planned. Jerusalem then proposed an alternative date, after Borrell’s retirement.
Kallas, a former leader of Estonia, took office on Dec. 1, replacing the Spanish diplomat. Kallas’s opinions on Israel and the Middle East are not widely known. During her three-year premiership, she made her name primarily as a prominent critic of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Following the November 2022 election victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she congratulated him, saying she was looking forward to strengthening the Baltic nation’s “close bond” with Israel.
“In difficult times, democracies stick together — this is the way to stand against pariah states and safeguard our freedom and sovereignty,” Kallas wrote in a statement posted to social media at the time.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.