US pledges support to build a unified Syria/node/2616653/middle-east
US pledges support to build a unified Syria
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City on September 22, 2025. (File/AFP)
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Arab News
US pledges support to build a unified Syria
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington wants a strong and unified Syria that reflects the diversity of its society
Updated 9 sec ago
Arab News
DUBAI: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Washington and its partners want to give Syria “every possible opportunity” to become a strong, unified state that reflects the diversity of its society.
Rubio said Syria’s stability was essential for regional peace, preventing extremists and foreign actors from using the country as a base for destabilizing activities.
This is a moment of “historic opportunity” to achieve progress that had seemed unimaginable just a few years ago, Rubio said during a meeting with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“President Donald Trump remains committed, not just from a unilateral US perspective, but in partnership with many countries, to giving Syria every opportunity to build a strong, unified state that respects the diversity of Syrian society, is a stable place, and is no longer a base of operations for extremists or foreign actors,” Rubio said.
GCC Secretary-General Jassim Mohammed Al-Budaiwi said the importance of safeguarding Syria’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, and rejected foreign interference in its internal affairs.
Budaiwi also condemned repeated Israeli strikes on Syrian territory and called for adherence to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, noting that Syria’s security and stability are a cornerstone of stability for the wider region.
Palestinian leader to address UN General Assembly as peace push gathers steam
President Mahmud Abbas will address UNGA three days after a slew of Western nations recognized a state of Palestine
Trump administration adamantly rejected statehood and barred Abbas from traveling to New York for the annual gathering of world leaders
Updated 25 September 2025
AFP
UNITED NATIONS: Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will address the United Nations virtually on Thursday as the United States, despite its opposition to him, weighs whether to try to stop Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
The veteran 89-year-old Palestinian Authority president will address the UN General Assembly three days after a slew of Western nations recognized a state of Palestine.
US President Donald Trump’s administration adamantly rejected statehood and, in a highly unusual step, barred Abbas and his senior aides from traveling to New York for the annual gathering of world leaders.
The General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to let Abbas address the world body with a video message.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed not to allow a Palestinian state and far-right members of his cabinet have threatened to annex the West Bank in a bid to kill any prospect of true independence.
French President Emmanuel Macron, despite his disagreements with Trump on statehood, said Wednesday that the US leader joined him in opposing annexation.
“What President Trump told me yesterday was that the Europeans and Americans have the same position,” Macron said in an interview jointly with France 24 and Radio France Internationale.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golfing friend turned roving global negotiator, said that Trump in a separate meeting with a group of leaders of Arab and Islamic nations presented a 21-point plan for ending the war.
“I think it addresses Israeli concerns as well as the concerns of all the neighbors in the region,” he told the Concordia summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“We’re hopeful, and I might say even confident, that in the coming days we’ll be able to announce some sort of breakthrough.”
A White House official told AFP that Trump wants to bring the conflict “to an expeditious close” and that foreign partners from the meeting “expressed the hope that they could work together with Special Envoy Witkoff to consider the President’s plan.”
Divide on Palestinian Authority
Macron said that the US proposal incorporates core elements of a French plan including disarmament of Hamas and the dispatch of an international stabilization force.
A French position paper seen by AFP calls for the gradual transfer of security control in Gaza to a reformed Palestinian Authority once a ceasefire is in place.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, one of the leaders who met jointly with Trump, said that the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country was willing to offer at least 20,000 troops.
Abbas’s Palestinian Authority enjoys limited control over parts of the West Bank under agreements reached through the Oslo peace accords that started in 1993.
Abbas’s Fatah is the rival of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, although Netanyahu’s government has sought to conflate the two.
Abbas in his address on Monday condemned the massive October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel, which has responded with a relentless military offensive.
He also called on Hamas to disarm to the Palestinian Authority.
France and other European powers, while not joining Israeli and US efforts to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority, have said that it needs major reforms.
Netanyahu will address the UN General Assembly on Friday.
GCC, UK ministers condemn humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza
Updated 25 September 2025
Arab News
RIYADH: A ministerial meeting between the Gulf Cooperation Council and Britain condemned on Wednesday the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s restrictions on aid that have exacerbated famine and human suffering.
The ministers, meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, called on all parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under International Humanitarian Law, including those related to the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure.
The UK and the GCC resolved to continue working closely together to pursue peace in unstable and conflict-afflicted regions, a joint statement said.
They underscored their countries commitment to promoting peace and working together to resolve conflicts and address instability.
The ministers also welcomed the high-level international conference on the peaceful settlement of the Palestinian Cause and the implementation of the two-state solution, co-chaired by the Kingdom of and France.
There must be unified Palestinian-led governance in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, said the statement.
The GCC and UK also condemned Israel’s strike on Doha on Sept. 9, which constituted a flagrant violation of Qatar’s sovereignty. They underscored their support for Qatar’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, in line with the principles of the United Nations Charter.
On the issue of trade between the UK and the Gulf nations, the ministers agreed on the importance of growing two-way trade and investment further to advance mutual growth and prosperity.
Bilateral trade exceeded $72 billion in 2024.
The GCC and UK also reaffirmed their commitment to the promotion of free trade. Both sides restated their commitment to prioritizing conclusion of the GCC-UK Free Trade Agreement, recognizing that a commercially meaningful deal would further enhance trade and investment ties, benefit businesses, and support high skilled job creation in the UK and GCC member states, the statement added.
Saudi-led global Palestine peace effort rallies support at UN
High-level ministerial meeting held on sidelines of General Assembly
It follows recognition of Palestine by almost a dozen countries over the last week
Updated 25 September 2025
Caspar Webb
NEW YORK: The Saudi-led global initiative to implement the two-state solution has rallied support for the peace process as its member countries roundly condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The high-level meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution — founded last year by the Kingdom — was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.
The event was co-hosted by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.
It was attended by representatives, including foreign ministers and ambassadors, of almost 100 countries that have backed Saudi and French efforts to end the war in Gaza and bring about a two-state solution.
They overwhelmingly voiced their desire to see peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and laid out a ceasefire, the disarmament of Hamas and the return of hostages as immediate prerequisites.
Many speakers called for the strengthening of the Palestinian Authority through the initiative, and for the PA to serve as an interim government in Gaza in any postwar scenario.
Prince Faisal, opening the high-level meeting, highlighted the importance of the New York Declaration, a detailed roadmap toward implementing the two-state solution that was adopted on Monday by the UNGA.
The document “is a clear mission to all of us to embody this coalition, to affirm the two-state solution and take into account all measures. We can’t have declarations unless it becomes factual work that would be realized on the field,” he said, repeating his call for the PA to be the sole government of the Occupied Territories when the Gaza war comes to an end.
“We’re also putting international measures to monitor in clear time-bound schedules. We’d also like to support (Palestinian) President Mahmoud Abbas, and we’d also like to laud his efforts despite the tough conditions,” Prince Faisal said.
“The Kingdom will continue its diplomatic and humanitarian work in order to help return the Palestinian borders based on 1967 lines, and to have security and prosperity for the whole nations of the area.”
Kallas called on the alliance to redouble its efforts toward a two-state solution, a year after its founding.
Wednesday’s high-level meeting was “happening in a very challenging global environment,” she said. “It’s clear that the situation on the ground in Gaza is catastrophic and unbearable, and it’s reaching unprecedented levels of suffering and death for the Palestinian people, both in Gaza but also in the West Bank.”
Though “our calls and efforts to cease fire have remained unheeded, I saw some optimism yesterday after the meeting of Arab leaders with (US) President (Donald) Trump,” Kallas added. “Let’s hope that there are concrete results from that.”
A ceasefire is “the only way for the unconditional release of all hostages, and eventually, a permanent end to hostilities and end of human suffering,” she said. “If a military solution was there for Gaza, the war would already be over.”
Kallas highlighted EU efforts to “engage with every actor” and bring an end to the war, and said the bloc is “active on all fronts.”
The meeting was chaired by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas (left), Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan (center), and Aspen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign minister (right). (AN photo/Caspar Webb)
She added: “We’ve been committed to enhance humanitarian access through dialogue with the Israeli government.
“This has allowed an increase in the number of trucks and fuel reaching Gaza after months of blockade.”
The EU, as the largest humanitarian donor to the Palestinian people, has been supporting the PA with “budgetary and political support,” Kallas said.
“The EU has pledged $1.9 billion to support the Palestinian Authority over the next three years. We’ve also decided to launch a Palestine donor group that will be focused on enlarging contributions and long-term support for reforms,” she added.
“Bankruptcy and collapse aren’t an option if we want to preserve any chance of the two-state solution.”
The global alliance can succeed in its efforts to arrange a two-station solution by “applying both pressure and dialogue,” Kallas said.
“All of us who maintain working relations with Israel must do their utmost to persuade the Israeli government that this war doesn’t serve their interests.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa addressed the meeting via a pre-recorded video.
Palestinian representatives were unable to attend the UNGA this year after the US denied them visas.
“I want to thank the Kingdom of for its outstanding leadership, both as a co-chair of the high-level international conference together with France, and as a driving force for this global alliance,” Mustafa said.
“The New York Declaration charted an urgent and irreversible pathway to an independent and sovereign Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel,” he added.
“I think we all agree that the measures outlined in the declaration need to be translated into policies and actions by all the states assembled here.
“We must act more rapidly, more decisively and more collectively for these actions to lead to the fundamental shift needed.”
Eide said the situation experienced on a daily basis by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has gone from “bad to terrible.”
He added that Norway had “always wanted to” recognize a State of Palestine, which it did last year.
But Norway’s foreign policy establishment had thought that recognition would only occur at the end of a successful peace process based on resolving long-standing issues from the Oslo Accords, Eide said.
“There have been many years since that there were anything resembling negotiations, and we had to break out of that paradigm and establish a new one,” he added.
That led to Norwegian recognition of Palestinian statehood, and Eide praised the almost a dozen countries — including France, the UK, Canada and Australia — that followed suit over the past week.
“The goal is the same as it always was, but now the tactics have changed,” he said. “Universal recognition is just one of the many recommendations that the global alliance came out with in the New York Declaration when we met in July.
“The idea is that we’ll identify all the parts that are missing, which is of course to work … toward normalization between those Arab states that haven’t done it yet with Israel once Palestine is in place.”
Eide identified all the moving parts required in the practical establishment of a Palestinian state, including security guarantees for both it and Israel, demobilization, decommissioning of all weapons beyond the armed forces, and economic stability.
These are all guided by the New York Declaration, which provides “elements of a plan on how we can move forward,” he said.
“My appeal to you is that we continue to build on this. What are the practicalities? What are the concrete measures that should be taken from now on to do what the alliance is all about, which is to implement the two-state solution for real, not only in theory, but also for real?”
Comoros president slams Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza
‘It’s our moral responsibility to act,’ Azali Assoumani tells UN General Assembly
Palestinian history ‘a succession of pages written in blood, indifference and scorn’
Updated 25 September 2025
RAY HANANIA
NEW YORK: The president of Comoros accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza during his address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, and rejected claims that supporting a two-state solution is a “gift to Hamas.”
Azali Assoumani said the UN cannot achieve its ambitious Sustainable Development Goals if it cannot prevent genocide from taking place in Gaza or violence in other regions.
“With five years to go before the (SDG) deadline, it’s notable that the world isn’t more peaceful or more equitable. On the contrary, inequalities have increased, conflicts have multiplied, and humanity is moving further and further away from the vision that once drove us,” he added.
“The Palestinian tragedy is perhaps the most shocking demonstration of this. For more than 70 years now, and today even more so than before, the Palestinian people have been suffering the pillaging of their ancestral lands, suffering exile, torture and humiliation. Their recent history is simply a succession of pages written in blood, indifference and scorn.”
Assoumani denounced as “barbaric” the Hamas attack on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, but “the disproportionate response that has been unleashed in Gaza since then is indeed a genocide.
“Eighty percent of the victims are children, older persons or the ill. They’ve been killed by shelling which doesn’t spare hospitals, aid distribution centers, schools, UN staff or journalists.”
He added: “The crimes perpetrated against Palestine stem from an untenable contradiction. Indeed, how can a government elected by a people who are victim of the Holocaust now commit a genocide before the very eyes of the entire world?”
He continued: “When we look at the tragedy of the Holocaust, Arab, African and Muslim countries have never been on the side of the perpetrators of genocide.
“On the contrary, our forefathers and our ancestors were risking their lives. They fought alongside the Allies to defend the Jewish people and host them, welcomed them, welcomed the survivors into their country.”
He said the two-state solution “with East Jerusalem as the capital of a State of Palestine” is “the only solution for peace and security for Israel and for the entire … Middle East.”
He urged the UNGA “to put the future of a Palestinian state once and for all on our common agenda. It’s our moral responsibility to act, because with every day that goes by without action being taken, thousands of innocent people, women and children die.”
LONDON: Israel’s attacks against Syria threaten to unleash “new crises” in the region, President Ahmad Al-Sharaa told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
Al-Sharaa, who led opposition forces in a lightning offensive to overthrow Bashar Assad late last year, became the first Syrian leader to address the UNGA in nearly 60 years.
He outlined the progress made since he came to power, and the many challenges still facing his country after more than a decade of civil war. Chief among those has been Israel’s airstrikes and military operations in Syria.
“Israeli strikes and attacks against my country continue, and Israeli policies contradict the international supporting position for Syria,” the former commander said, adding that Israel’s attacks threaten “new crises and struggles in our region.”
But despite the aggression, Syria is committed to dialogue, he said, adding: “We call on the international community to stand beside us in the face of these attacks.”
Al-Sharaa said Syria is also committed to the 1974 agreement to separate Syrian and Israeli forces through a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
As opposition fighters led by Al-Sharaa took control of Damascus in December, Israel took advantage of the tumult and seized the buffer zone, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring that the disengagement pact was “over.”
Since then, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes and ground operations inside Syria, including in the center of the capital.
Tensions also flared over sectarian violence in June in Syria’s Suwayda province. Israel said it carried out airstrikes to protect the Druze minority in the region.
The US has been pushing for calm between the two countries, and this week Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said they are getting closer to a new de-escalation agreement.
The deal aims to stop Israel’s attacks on Syria, which in return would agree not to move any heavy equipment near the border.
Speaking at an event in New York on Tuesday, Al-Sharaa said he is hopeful that the deal will materialize, but said it is Syria that is “scared of Israel, not the other way around.”
The US has been among major international powers that have offered cautious support to Al-Sharaa’s administration, lifting some sanctions on Syria in the hope of offering an economic lifeline to drag the country out of years of chaos and bloodshed.
He used his UNGA speech to call for the complete lifting of all international sanctions “so that they no longer shackle the Syrian people.”
He also reeled off a list of achievements since he took power, guided by an approach based on diplomacy, security and economic development.
Al-Sharaa said he has put in place a political roadmap that is proceeding toward elections next month for a new parliament, and his government has overhauled civil and military institutions.
He added that he has acted against outbreaks of sectarian violence, set up fact-finding commissions and allowed access to investigative UN teams.
“I guarantee to bring to justice everyone accountable and responsible for bloodshed,” he said. “Syria has transformed from an exporter of crisis to an opportunity for peace for Syria and the region.”
Al-Sharaa’s appearance at the UN marks a remarkable political ascent from leader of an Islamist rebel group to international statesman within 10 months.
Since arriving in New York on Sunday, he has packed in high-level meetings and events, including talks with US Secretary of State Mark Rubio and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Perhaps the event that most summed up his elevation from militant to political leader was an interview on stage on Tuesday with Gen. David Petraeus, who commanded US forces during the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Petraeus’s troops detained Al-Sharaa in Iraq between 2006 and 2011 while he was fighting the American occupation there.
“His trajectory from insurgent leader to head of state has been one of the most dramatic political transformations in recent Middle Eastern history,” Petraeus told the audience, adding that he is a fan of Al-Sharaa.
