The UAE is a "country of focus" as the US looks to choke Russia's ties to the global economy, a senior US official said on Thursday, in some of strongest comments yet that Washington is ramping up pressure on its Gulf ally over its ties to Moscow.
"We are specifically concerned about increases in trade with Russia in the kind of goods that can be used on the battlefield and those who are aiding designated Russian entities," Elizabeth Rosenberg, the assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said at an event on Thursday.
The comments come amid growing concern in the West that the UAE, along with countries like Turkey, is providing a critical economic lifeline to the Kremlin, which could help its war effort. Many of the missiles and drones deployed by Russia rely on western component parts.
As recently as December, the UAE was still exporting drones to Russia, according to Russian government data analysed by the Washington DC-based Free Russia Foundation. The group lists the UAE, along with Turkey, Cyprus and China, as countries that have "dramatically expanded" exports to Russia.
There is evidence that Washington is growing increasingly frustrated with the UAE's business model. Rosenberg said that countries will have to choose between western states that have rallied to Ukraine's side amid the invasion, and the rest of the world.
"You can do business with the countries that constitute more than 50 percent of the world’s GDP, and its most convertible and stable currencies, or do business with those who facilitate Russia's war," she said.
US sanctions carry heft because the US dollar dominates global trade. The Swift financial messaging system that facilitates money transfers also relies on banks in the US. Some analysts and sanctions experts are predicting that the war in Ukraine will accelerate a push by countries like the UAE to insulate themselves from the knock-on effects of western sanctions.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley made a rare visit to Syria over the weekend to justify the continued US presence.
He said the fight against ISIS was worth the risk of keeping the operation going. But the Syrian government and its allies are also sworn enemies of ISIS, so if the US withdrew from the country, the fight against the terror group would continue.
The occupation is also part of Washington’s economic war against Damascus, as the US controls the area where most of Syria’s oil fields are located.
Iran, Saudi Arabia agree
to resume relations, re-open embassies
Press TV, Friday, 10 March 2023
Iran and Saudi Arabia have reached an agreement in the Chinese capital of Beijing to restore their diplomatic relations and re-open embassies and missions, seven years after their ties were broken off over several issues.
The agreement was struck on Friday after several days of intensive negotiations between Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani and his Saudi counterpart in Beijing. It was officially announced in a joint statement by Iran, Saudi Arabia and China.
The statement was inked by Shakhani, Musaid Al Aiban, Saudi Arabia’s national security adviser, and Wang Yi, the director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party.
Shamkhani has been involved in intensive talks with his Saudi counterpart in Beijing since Monday to find a final solution to the issues between Tehran and Riyadh. The negotiations followed a meeting between Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing last month.
“As a result of the talks, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia agreed to resume diplomatic relations and re-open embassies and missions within two months,” the joint statement said. It added that the Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers will meet to “implement this decision and make the necessary arrangements for the exchange of ambassadors.”
According to the statement, Iran and Saudi Arabia highlighted the need to respect each others’ national sovereignty and refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of one another. They agreed to implement a security cooperation agreement signed in April 2001 and another accord reached in May 1998 to boost economic, commercial, investment, technical, scientific, cultural, sports and youth affairs cooperation.
Iran, Saudi Arabia and China expressed their firm determination to make their utmost efforts to promote regional and international peace and security, it emphasized.
Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran in January 2016 after Iranian protesters, enraged by the execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr by the Saudi government, stormed its embassy in Tehran.
Speaking after signing the agreement, Shamkhani said the negotiations between the two countries were “frank, transparent, comprehensive.”
“Clearing up the misunderstandings and looking to the future in Tehran-Riyadh relations will definitely lead to the development of regional stability and security and the increase of cooperation between the countries of the Persian Gulf and the Islamic world to manage the existing challenges,” he said.
Saudi Arabia and Iran agree to reestablish
diplomatic relations in China-brokered deal
Arab News, AP, AFP, Friday 10 Mar 2023
Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after years of tensions between the two countries in a deal that was brokered by China.The foreign ministers of both countries will meet to activate the agreement, arrange the exchange of ambassadors, and discuss ways to strengthen relations.
In Friday's statement, Iran and Saudi Arabia said they "thank the Republic of Iraq and the Sultanate of Oman for hosting the talks held between the two sides in 2021 and 2022 as well as the leaders and government of the People's Republic of China for hosting and supporting the talks held in that country."
Shortly after the news broke, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took to his official Twitter account on Friday to express his concerns regarding the renewal of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Bennett said: "The renewal of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a serious and dangerous development for Israel and is a political victory for Iran. This is a fatal blow to the effort to build a regional coalition against Iran."
Reactions to Iran and Saudi Arabia resuming ties
Webinfo, 10-3-2023
-- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the deal and praised China, Oman and Iraq for promoting the talks. "Good neighbourly relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia are essential for the stability of the Gulf region," UN spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.
"The Secretary-General reiterates his readiness to use his good offices to further advance regional dialogue to ensure durable peace and security in the Gulf region," he said.
-- Chief Negotiator of Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi Movement, Mohammed Abdulsalam
"The region needs the resumption of normal ties between its countries for the Islamic nation to reclaim its lost security as a result of foreign interference."
-- Hezbollah: The Head of Lebanon's powerful armed group said the resumption of ties between its backer, Iran, and long time rival, Saudi Arabia, was a "good development".
-- Hamas Movement welcomed in a statement the resumption of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. "Such a move serves the Palestinian cause..."
-- Oman Foreign Minister, Badr Albusaidi: "This is a win-win for everyone and will benefit regional and global security. We hope, in the longer term, there's also potential for increasing economic benefits for all."
-- Anwar Gargash, Diplomatic Adviser to United Arab Emirates President: "We welcome the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic relations, and we hail the Chinese role in this regard," he tweeted. "The UAE believes in the importance of positive communication and dialogue among the countries of the region..."
-- Qatar: Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who also acts as Foreign Minister, called the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia to welcome the deal.
-- Iraq State News Agency: Iraq welcomes "turning a new page" between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
-- Egypt Foreign Ministry: We hope that the agreement will contribute to easing of tension in the region.
-- The Bahraini, Algerian, Turkish, Lebanese and Sudanese foreign ministries all released statements welcoming the agreement.
-- The Muslim World League issued a statement voicing its welcoming of the agreement late on Friday. Hussain Ibrahim Taha, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation said the agreement would contribute to “strengthening the pillars of peace, security and stability in the region” and would “give a new impetus to cooperation” among the member states of the OIC, SPA said.
-- Israeli-Jewish reactions: The Saudi-Iran deal is a dangerous development that strips Israel of its regional defensive wall against Iran, former prime minister Yair Lapid said on Friday. “The agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran reflects the complete and dangerous failure of the Israeli government's foreign policy.”
"The deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia is extremely bad for Israel," Israeli Knesset member and the head of the Knesset Foreign Relations Committee Yuli Edelstein said. "It is time to sit down, talk, and resolve our disputes so we can go back to being united in the face of the existential threat we are facing; only that way will we be victorious."
-- The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA): “Unfortunately, the deal is further evidence of the damage being done to US interests by President Biden’s misguided Middle East policies,” John Hannah, the Randi & Charles Wax Senior Fellow at JINSA, said. “A pattern of exhibiting weakness toward our enemies and contempt toward our friends has generated a predictable effort by countries like Saudi Arabia to fend for themselves any way they can. [..] It’s a significant blow both to US efforts to isolate and contain Iran, but perhaps more importantly to Washington’s larger great-power competition with a rising China determined to undermine the U.S.-led order—not just in East Asia but across key regions of the world, especially the Middle East.”
The Middle East frees itself from the West
by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | France,| 14 March 2023
The reconciliation between Saudi Arabia, leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran, leader of the Shiite Muslim world, finally makes possible an era of peace in the Middle East.
It was made possible by Russia, ally of the two enemy brothers, and negotiated first in Iraq and Oman before being concluded by China, Iran’s millennial ally, acting impartially.
This agreement closes eleven years of wars and Western influence.
It was a momentous event, the importance of which is not perceived outside the Middle East: Saudi Arabia and Iran reconciled... in China. Three signatures at the bottom of a document reshuffle all the cards in this region.
Since the 19th century, the Arab world was first dominated by the United Kingdom and France on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, then by the United States.
These powers brought both freedom and oppression. The United Kingdom excelled in dividing the actors in the region and manipulating them against each other so as to exploit the region’s wealth with minimal military involvement.
France was divided between the worst kind of colonizers and the most enlightened decolonizers. The United States has always had an imperial vision of the region, with the exception of a few years at the end of the Second World War when it supported the nationalists.
This period has just ended with the arrival of China. As always, China has watched for a very long time and acted slowly, with unwavering perseverance. These agreements were preceded by long negotiations, first in Iraq and then in Oman..
For 7 years, the Middle East has been paralyzed. No conflict can evolve because it always opposes the two sides of Islam. This is exactly what the West wanted and what Israel has maintained. It is not surprising, therefore, that the only people who have been outraged by the Saudi-Iranian peace are Israelis.
The agreement just signed was negotiated by China on the basis of non-interference in internal affairs...
The international relations that Beijing and Moscow are promoting are based on mutual respect and not on confrontation. To the division and wars of the West, they oppose exchanges, trade and collaboration.
Israel News - The Occupation
Has Defeated the State of Israel
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, Mar 12, 2023
The occupation is at the root of most of the evils Israelis are now demonstrating against.... It is the root of all evil.
If not for it, Israel would be a better place; if not for it, many of the forces of destruction would not be so strong. That is why it is time to admit that the occupation and the settlements have defeated the State of Israel. They won, and it collapses under them. What began in the June 1967 Six-Day War and the April 1968 Passover seder at the Park Hotel in Hebron reached the very heart of the country, settled in it, ate it from the inside and caused it to rot....
If there is no occupation, there are no settlements – and if there are no settlements, there is no Bezalel Smotrich, no Itamar Ben-Gvir and no Simcha Rothman. Simple as that. If there is no occupation, there are not so many kippa wearers in every nexus of power. If there is no lust for annexation and greed for territory, there is no Yariv Levin. If there was no occupation, there would still be racism, but less. Maybe even Benjamin Netanyahu would have been different. All of Israeli politics would have been different, had maintaining the occupation not become its main goal.
The occupation gave birth to the new, generic Israeli wheeler-dealer: a bully, accountable to no one. Aggressive, usually ignorant. Dismissive of law and order, of the world. Everything is permitted, including lying, for the sake of the Land of Israel.

See also: Gideon Levy's Struggle
If not for the occupation, there would be no judicial coup. Yes, it’s that extreme. The judiciary – not the worst system in Israel’s government – was chosen as a target for the upheaval mainly because it is the last check on the final release of the reins. Even with the legal system as it is, it’s possible to do nearly anything in the territories, but its elimination will loosen the last restraint.
My message to Benjamin Netanyahu: stop your coup
Yuval Noah Harari, The Guardian 7-3-2023
Don’t let anybody fool you: what this government is carrying out is not a judicial reform, it is an anti-democratic coup.
Coups are not always carried out with tanks in the streets. .. History is full of dictatorships established by people who first came to power through legal means. It’s the oldest trick in the book: first you use the law to gain power, then you use your power to distort the law. When examined together, the laws this government is currently legislating have one simple meaning (and you don’t need a PhD in law to get it): if these laws are passed, the government will have the power to completely destroy our freedom.
Sixty-one members of Knesset [the Israeli parliament, with 120 members] could pass any racist, oppressive and anti-democratic law they think of; 61 members of Knesset could also change the electoral system, to stop us from replacing the regime.
When we ask the leaders of this coup what will keep the power of the government in check under the new regime, and what will protect basic human rights, they only have one answer: “trust us”.
Syria’s Assad arrives in Russia for talks with Putin
Al-Monitor Staff, March 14, 2023
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew to Russia on Tuesday (march 14), where he will be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in two years.
The Assad-Putin meeting will take place in Moscow on Wednesday, Russia’s official news agency, Tass, reported. The talks will focus on political, trade and humanitarian cooperation, as well as the situation in Syria, according to Reuters.
Assad and Putin last met in 2021 — also in Moscow. Assad also visited Russia in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Putin visited Assad in Syria in 2017 and 2020, per Tass.
Why it matters:
Russia is hosting Syrian and Turkish diplomats on Wednesday as part of its efforts to further thaw relations between the two countries. Turkey backs various rebel groups in Syria fighting Assad’s government, and relations were severed in 2012.
However, Turkey has begun to recalibrate its position now that Assad has retaken most of the country with Russia’s help. In December, the Turkish and Syrian defense chiefs held a meeting in Russia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said that month that he would like to meet with Assad.
Wednesday’s meeting between the Turkish and Syrian diplomats in Moscow was announced earlier, but Assad’s visit was not.
ICC issues arrest warrant against Putin
as part of US-NATO propaganda campaign for regime change
Joseph Kishore, World Socialist Website, 18-3-2023
On Friday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, for alleged war crimes.
The arrest warrants specifically allege “the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The official filing of warrants were approved by judges in the ICC and announced by Karim A. A. Khan, a British lawyer and the ICC’s chief prosecutor. It follows months of propaganda, spearheaded by the Biden administration, alleging “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” on the part of the Russian government.
While the existence of the warrants was made public, the supposed evidence underlying them was not. The specific claims of the “unlawful deportation” of children have been promoted in the US media, including the New York Times, based on unsubstantiated allegations by the Biden administration and the Ukrainian government....
As with the previous charges of war crimes, the US-led campaign is characterized by a staggering level of hypocrisy.
By any objective standard, every US administration in recent memory is guilty of crimes far worse than any that have been alleged against Putin: From the nuclear obliteration of two Japanese cities at the end of the Second World War; to the leveling of North Korea between 1950-1953, to the point where not a single building was left standing; to the mass slaughter and pyrochemical incineration that was the US-led Vietnam War; through the thirty years of unending and expanding war that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The state leading the campaign for war crimes charges against Putin is responsible for torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the bombing of wedding parties and other civilian gatherings in Afghanistan, the Guantanamo Bay prison, and drone assassination.
Since the issue of the mistreatment of children is raised in the arrest warrants, we should recall the infamous statement by then US ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, who declared in 1996, in reference to half a million dead children from US-backed sanctions against Iraq, “We think the price is worth it.”
The United States does not even recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC out of concern that it could at some point be used to indict and prosecute American government officials.
While the Rome Statute, under which the warrant against Putin has been issued, was signed by Bill Clinton, he never sent it to the Senate for ratification. In 2002, as his lawyers were drawing up memoranda intended to justify “preemptive war” and torture, President George W. Bush informed the UN that the US no longer intended to ratify the statute.
In 2020, the Trump administration announced that it was placing economic sanctions and travel restrictions on ICC investigators after they began looking into charges of war crimes, including torture, rape and sexual violence, by the US military in Afghanistan and at CIA torture centers in Eastern Europe. The ICC’s new prosecutor, Khan, dropped the investigation of US torture in 2021, shortly after he was appointed.
The charges of war crimes are part of an effort to brand the Putin government as an outlaw regime, justifying a war for regime change, which has as its aim the dismantling of Russia.
The New York Times, which functions as a channel for US intelligence agencies, wrote in its article on the warrants (”Arrest Warrant From Criminal Court Pierces Putin’s Aura of Impunity”) that they put “Mr. Putin in the same ranks as Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the deposed president of Sudan, accused of atrocities in Darfur; Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader imprisoned for abuses during the Balkans war; and the Nazis tried at Nuremberg after World War II.”
The message is that whatever the immediate impact of the charges, they are intended as a signal, not only to Putin but also to Xi, that the war will be escalated until Putin ends up with a similar fate as Milosevic.
None of this implies support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the actions of the Putin government... But the United States systematically provoked the war and now, more than one year after it began, is preparing a massive and catastrophic escalation.
President al-Assad arrives in UAE on an official visit
accompanied by Mrs. Asma al-Assad
SANA [Syria], 19 March، 2023
President Bashar al-Assad arrived on Sunday at noon in the United Arab Emirates on an official visit, accompanied by the First Lady Mrs. Asma al-Assad.
Upon his arrival at the presidential airport in Abu Dhabi, he was received by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Upon entering the UAE airspace, President al-Assad’s plane was accompanied by several warplanes, welcoming his visit.
Later, President al-Assad headed to Qasr Al Watan to start talks with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates.
Mrs. Asma al-Assad will meet with the “Mother of the Emirates”, Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, Chairwoman of the General Women’s Union (GWU), President of the Supreme Council for Motherhood & Childhood, Supreme President of the Family Development Foundation.
President al-Assad is accompanied by a delegation that includes Dr. Samer al-Khalil, Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade, Mansour Azzam, Minister of Presidential Affairs, Dr. Boutros Hallaq, Minister of Information, Dr. Ayman Sousan, Assistant Foreign and Expatriates Minister, and Dr. Ghassan Abbas, Chargé d’affaires of the Syrian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Time for Syria to return to Arab fold,
UAE president tells Assad during visit
by Hashem Osseiran, March 19, 2023
The UAE's president on Sunday told his Syrian counterpart it was time for diplomatically isolated Damascus to be reintegrated into the wider Arab region during a meeting in Abu Dhabi, state media reported.
The trip by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- his second to the oil-rich United Arab Emirates in as many years -- comes after a visit to Oman last month, his only official engagements in Arab countries since the start of Syria's war in 2011.
It coincides with amplified engagement by Arab states towards the Damascus government which has been politically isolated in the region since the start of Syria's war and was expelled from the Cairo-based Arab League in 2011...
"Syria has been absent from its brothers for too long, and the time has come for it to return to them and to its Arab surroundings," Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told Assad during a meeting at the presidential palace, according to the official WAM news agency.
The Emirati president called for efforts to facilitate the repatriation of Syrian refugees and endorsed engagement between Damascus and Ankara, which is now working towards a rapprochement with Assad after years of supporting rebels fighting his government, according to WAM...
During Sunday's meeting, Assad praised the UAE's role in strengthening relations between Arab countries..
The Syrian president criticised the policy of severing ties between Arab states as an "incorrect principle in politics", arguing that relations should be "fraternal"...