Tehran-Muscat stress expansion of economic and banking ties

During a meeting between the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and Oman’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad, in Muscat, the two sides emphasized the necessity of expanding bilateral economic and banking relations.

Addressing the meeting, the Omani minister pointed to the importance of Iran's role and position in the region, and considered the expansion of trade and economic relations between the two countries important.

It should be noted that before this and in the meeting of the CBI governor with the commerce and industry minister of Oman in Tehran last year, strategies for continuous development and facilitation of banking and trade relations between Iran and Oman were discussed.

Hemmati arrived in Muscat on Tuesday for a two-day visit aimed at strengthening trade and banking relations between the two countries, given the new international condition.

Despite the US reimposition of sanctions against Iran, Oman is getting closer to the Islamic Republic both politically and economically. There is also the same approach adopted by Iran, as Iranian companies now prefer to conduct trade with Oman rather than the United Arab Emirates (UAE), given that the UAE is highly complying with the sanctions.

Iran is somehow replacing some of its previous strategic trade partners such as UAE with Oman, considering the Sultanate as an economic-trade hub.

Over the past two years, there have been many meetings and negotiations between trade and economic officials from the state-run and private sectors of the two sides with the aim of strengthening and expanding bilateral trade ties.

During the 18th meeting of the Iran-Oman Joint Economic Committee in Tehran, Omani minister of commerce and industry had said that his country was trying to boost its trade and economic ties with Iran, stressing that this goal could be achieved through more cooperation between the two sides’ private sectors.

Ali bin Masoud al Sunaidy also said, “We will make the most efforts to provide incentives for joint investment and also promote bilateral trade cooperation between the two countries.”

Stressing that a very proper condition is available for invigorating the bilateral trade, the Omani official said the two sides can also take the advantage of bartering to expand their trade ties.

Addressing the same meeting, Iran’s Former Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Reza Rahmani said while there are potential and capabilities for boosting the trade turnover between Iran and Oman to $5 billion, the figure is currently $1 billion.

The International North South Transit Corridor (INSTC) can help the two countries elevate their bilateral trade to this level, the minister noted.

Meanwhile, Iran-Oman Joint Chamber of Commerce and Iran Mine House (IMH) signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation for the expansion of the Iranian private sector’s presence in Oman in early August, 2020.

 

Angela Merkel backs Xi Jinping on need to avoid new cold war

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel said, she agrees with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the need to avoid a new cold war amid calls for a transatlantic alliance between the United States and Europe to counter China, but she will continue to press Beijing on human rights and transparency.

“The Chinese president spoke yesterday, and he and I agree on that,” she told the World Economic Forum on Tuesday evening. “We see a need for multilateralism.”

Diplomatic observers said Merkel was expressing her vision of how the European Union should handle relations with China amid suggestions the US and EU should form an alliance to counter Beijing, which they both regard as a rival.

The German leader was referring to Xi’s speech on Monday, when he called for setting aside ideological differences, avoiding a new cold war and promoting multiculturalism. The remarks were made as the Joe Biden administration in the US was busy trying to repair ties with allies troubled by the Trump presidency.

Biden has this week spoken to several European leaders, including Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, as his top foreign policy officials seek a more coordinated approach with US allies on China strategy.

Readouts of the phone calls from the American side all mention China as one of the foreign policy priorities, along with Russia and the Middle East. But the issue of China was not mentioned in either of the statements from Europe.

“I’d very much wish to avoid the building of blocs,” Merkel said on Tuesday. “I don’t think it would do justice to many societies if we just say this is China and there is the United States and we are grouping among either one or the other. This is not my understanding of how things ought to be.”

Merkel, Macron and Xi were three of the speakers at this year’s World Economic Forum, which was held online. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also addressed the meeting.

Macron called for building “an economy more resilient to shocks and capable of integrating elements of resistance into production chains, an economy that takes into account this principle of humanity, in health matters as in social inequalities”.

John Kerry, Biden’s new climate envoy, and Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, were the only two speakers from the US government.

Merkel also pledged to keep pressing China on human rights and transparency.

 “The president of China has committed to the charters of the United Nations and the dignity of the individual plays a part in the charters,” she said. “We have to discuss this issue no matter what social system we come from.”

Transparency was also key to multilateralism, to ensure trade took place in a rule-based system and in case parties “play out advantages against certain countries”, she said.

Merkel also cited China’s information release onCOVID-19 as an example of lack of transparency, and defended the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, which was agreed last month after seven years of negotiations.

The bill had made EU-China ties more reciprocal and put China’s labour standards more in line with those of the International Labor Organization, despite mounting concerns in Europe about Beijing’s reported forced labour in Xinjiang, she said.

Cui Hongjian, Director of the Department of European studies at the China Institute of International Studies, said Merkel’s remarks spoke of her vision of Europe as a coordinator between the US and China.

“It would serve Europe’s interests best if it maintains its strategic autonomy and plays the coordinator role between the US and China,” he said. “After the past four years, Europe has better realized the overlapping and contradictory interests with the US.”

Merkel’s direct reference to Xi’s speech was surprising, he said.

“I think it’s a shout to both the US and China, that multilateralism is the precondition for cooperation with either side,” he said.

India constructing power project in occupied Kashmir despite objections by Pakistan

It is reported that work has started on a power project in Indian occupied Kashmir despite Pakistan's objections. Pakistan has raised its concerns with the World Bank, stating that India’s project was not in consistency with the Indus Water Treaty (IWT).

India has undertaken to construct a power project on the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has maintained that the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers are reserved for the country, while the Ravi, Beas and the Sutlej rivers are reserved for India under the IWT, signed in 1960 between the two countries.

Islamabad has repeatedly expressed its serious concerns over designs of the Pakal Dul, Ratle and Lower Kalnai projects, insisting that India would be using the reservoirs to create deliberate and artificial water shortage or cause flooding in Pakistan.

 “These projects have been designed in violation of the IWT,” said a government official.

Official sources have confirmed that Pakistan has approached the World Bank with a fresh protest.

However, Islamabad’s efforts do not seem to distract India as the Narendra Modi-led government has decided to go ahead with the construction of the 850 megawatt Ratle hydroelectric power project, approval of which came during a recent meeting chaired by the Prime Minister.

In 2019, India had accepted Pakistan’s request for inspection of the hydropower project on the Chenab basin.

After the visit of the Pakistani delegation, Islamabad had raised objections over Pakal Dul’s design being in violation of the Sindh Taas Agreement.

“Pakistan had demanded that the freeboard height should be reduced from seven-feet to two-feet and the installation of the seal way gates should be done with an additional 40 metres in order to bring 1,620 metres and align it with sea level,” said a government official.

While Pakistan is hopeful that its fresh protests with the World Bank would yield results and help in stopping India from what it calls, blocking the country’s water through construction of its reservoirs, Modi inaugurated the projects and is all set to start the construction work also.

 Pakistani government officials maintain that this is New Delhi’s rivalry with Islamabad and its ambitions to create hurdles for the country by blocking its water and using it for flooding whenever it deems fit.

Jerusalem mansion of Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini to become synagogue

It is learnt that the landmark hilltop mansion built 88 years ago in affluent Sheikh Jarrah between the Old City and Mount Scopus by Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s and 1930s is slated to become a synagogue in a future 56-apartment Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem.

At present, the mansion called Qasr al-Mufti (the Mufti’s Palace) stands deserted at the center of a largely completed 28-apartment complex, which lacks occupancy permit. The reason the new neighborhood is not being finished – and indeed has not been marketed in the 10 years since demolition and construction began – is that the developers have applied to rezone the site to double the number of units to 56, according to Daniel Luria, a spokesman for Ateret Cohanim, which backs the housing project.

Luria was unclear when the rezoning application, originally meant to build 70 apartments, would be approved. The historic house at the core of the site will be preserved and repurposed for communal needs including a synagogue and perhaps a day care center, he said. “There is a beautiful poetic justice when you see the house of Amin al-Husseini crumbling down,” Luria noted.

Though al-Husseini built the mansion, he never lived in it. Following the outbreak in 1936 of the Arab Revolt against the British Mandate government, the mufti became a fugitive hiding in the Old City’s Haram ash-Sharif. When the British attempted to arrest him in 1937, he fled Palestine and the British made do with confiscating his property. The al-Husseini clan owned numerous properties in Jerusalem, among them the Palace Hotel (today the Waldorf Astoria), the Orient House, and the mansion subsequently turned into the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah on a plot of land known as Karam al-Mufti, named for al-Husseini.

Among the occupants at the mansion was his secretary George Antonius (1891-1942), who wrote his seminal The Arab Awakening while living there in 1938. Antonius’s widow Katy continued living in the building, which functioned as a salon where wealthy Palestinian Arabs and British officials socialized. (The city’s British sports club had a “No Natives” policy.)

At one of Katy’s elegant soirees in 1946 she met Sir Evelyn Barker. The much-decorated general was General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the British forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan from 1946 to 1947. The two carried on a torrid affair and exchanged Judeophobic billets doux. In April 1947, he wrote her about the Jews: “Yes I loathe the lot – whether they be Zionists or not. Why should we be afraid of saying we hate them? It’s time this damned race knew what we think of them – loathsome people”.

On 13th April 1948, British troops posted at the mansion and the nearby Police Academy refused to intervene for eight hours as a convoy of doctors and nurses headed to Hadassah Hospital came under withering fire from Arab fighters; 68 were slaughtered in the massacre.

Following the war of Independence, the al-Husseini mansion became the Shepherd Hotel in the now-divided and impoverished city, though it was eclipsed by the Hotel Jerusalem Intercontinental, today called the Seven Arches, which opened on the Mount of Olives in 1964. After the 1967 Six Day War when Israel conquered and annexed east Jerusalem, the hotel was taken over by the Custodian of Absentee Property.

In 1985, it was sold to C and M Properties, owned by Florida bingo hall billionaire Irving Moskowitz (1928-2016), the benefactor of right-wing Israeli settler group intent on housing Jews in the eastern side of the now united city.

Following the zoning of Plan 2591, a request was made on 6th November 2008 to permit the company to build two new residential blocks, including 28 apartments built on top of an underground parking lot. In January 2011, the derelict four-story Shepherd Hotel annex added on to the mufti’s original mansion was demolished to make way for the future housing.

Rather than begin the lengthy process of rezoning the site – which adjoins the British Consulate – for a higher density, it was decided to build what was legally permitted and later apply to amend the zoning, Luria explained.