In Berlin, Israeli FM Ashkenazi Urges European Union to Back Renewal of Iran Arms Embargo

Author: Published: August 28, 2020

by Algemeiner Staff

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas hold a news conference, in front of the Liebermann Villa, at the Wannsee lake, in Berlin, Germany, August 27, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Michele Tantussi / Pool.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi took part in a group meeting in Berlin on Thursday of his European Union counterparts.

“I just finished a visit that was both important and significant for Israel’s foreign policy and our connection to the European Union, and would like to thank my friend, German FM @HeikoMaas for hosting me,” Ashkenazi tweeted later.

“I laid out Israel’s positions on a number of important issues relating to our security, Iran, #Hezbollah and Hamas,” he added. “I called on the EU to join the battle against the Iranian threat, particularly on the nuclear issue, renewing the arms embargo and outlawing Hezbollah.”

Ashkenazi further noted, “The agreement with the UAE was received with great enthusiasm by all EU foreign ministers.“

“Finally, we agreed to continue working together in the fields of innovation, R&D, academia and the fight against the corona virus,” he concluded.

Israel to Germany: Restore Arms Embargo on Iran

Author: Published: August 27, 2020
By

Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency

 –

Israeli Foreign Minister Gazbi Ashkenazi met on Wednesday evening with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier after landing in Berlin, the first stop on his first diplomatic trip abroad.

During the meeting, he thanked Steinmeier for his “long-standing friendship and courageous support of Israel.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated that the two discussed “urgent issues” on security, economic, health and political agendas, as well as Israel’s normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates and “the important effort” to expand it to other countries in the region.

They also talked about the Hezbollah attack on northern Israel on Tuesday night and Ashkenazi expressed Israel’s gratitude to Germany for its ban of the entire Hezbollah organization in April.

Ashkenazi called on Germany to “join and support the joint global effort against the Iranian threat and the restoration of the arms embargo on Iran.”

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decided earlier this month not to extend its arms embargo on Iran, which will expire in October. Germany abstained in the vote.

Later on, Ashkenazi laid a wreath during a somber ceremony at the “Gleis 17” Memorial site in Berlin.

Track 17 was one of the three stations where a total of 55,000 Berlin Jews were deported from Germany by the Nazi regime.

He is slated to meet with European Union foreign ministers in Berlin on Thursday is part of Israel’s push against Iran’s regional belligerence.

 

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/israel-to-germany-restore-arms-embargo-on-iran/2020/08/27/

Pompeo adds visit to Oman to Middle East, Africa tour

Author: Published: August 27, 2020

US secretary of state to stop in Muscat in tour aimed at building off Israel-UAE normalization agreement; meetings in Sudan and Bahrain do not yield breakthroughs

By TOI STAFF27 August 2020, 12:46 am  

 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, meets with Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al Said, at al-Alam palace in the Omani capital of Muscat, February 21, 2020. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, meets with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al Said, at al-Alam palace in the Omani capital of Muscat, February 21, 2020. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will add another stop to his Middle East and Africa tour with a visit to Oman, the State Department announced on Wednesday.

“He will conclude his trip in Oman, where he will meet with Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al Said to promote unity among the Gulf Cooperation Council and build on the historic momentum to advance regional peace and prosperity,” the State Department said in a statement.

Pompeo has visited Israel, Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on a tour that Washington said is aimed at building on this month’s US-brokered normalization deal between Israel and the UAE.

Oman is among a handful of Middle Eastern states, including Bahrain, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, that Israel and the US hope could follow the UAE and forge diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.

Oman is a key interlocutor between the West and Iran, as well as Yemen’s Houthi rebels, assisting in getting prisoners released in the past.

Oman expressed its support for the Israel-UAE normalization deal the day after its announcement on August 13.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Oman in 2018, the first trip by an Israeli leader in over two decades, in what was seen as a sign of warming ties between the Jewish state and the Sunni Arab world.

The Omani foreign minister, Yousef bin Alawi spoke on the phone earlier this month with his Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi, in the first conversation of its kind between the two top diplomats.

Bin Alwai told Ashkenazi that Oman “clearly reaffirms its position calling for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in the Middle East.

He also called for a “resumption of the peace process in order to satisfy the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people who aspire to an independent state.”

Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani (R) hosts US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Manama on August 25, 2020. (Twitter)

Pompeo has so far not achieved any new diplomatic breakthroughs during his trip to Arab states.

Bahrain, in talks with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said Wednesday that it was committed to the creation of a Palestinian state, implicitly rejecting his push for Arab countries to swiftly normalize ties with Israel.

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa said he told Pompeo in Manama that his country remains committed to the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for Israel’s complete withdrawal from the territories it captured in 1967, in exchange for peace and the full normalization of relations.

Sudan on Tuesday dashed US hopes for a speedy breakthrough there, saying its transitional government, which replaced ousted strongman Omar al-Bashir last year and is set to rule until elections in 2022, has “no mandate” to take such a weighty step during the transition.

Pompeo’s trip included him offering a recorded message in Jerusalem supporting US President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign for the Republican National Convention — a speech that cast aside his own advice to American diplomats to be apolitical and bulldozed a long tradition of non-partisanship by previous secretaries of state.

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