Significant Developments

Syria. United Nations high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay said today that the Syrian death toll is approaching ninety-three thousand. Syrian rebels attacked the village of Hatlah yesterday, killing at least thirty Shiite villagers and burning homes while shouting sectarian slogans. The raid came one day after two suicide bombers detonated their explosives in central Damascus, killing fourteen people.

Austrian peacekeeping forces began withdrawing from the United Nations Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights on Wednesday. UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is set to hold talks with Swedish officials over plans for a replacement peacekeeping force; Sweden is reportedly interested but wants UNDOF’s mandate to be expanded to allow for forces to defend themselves if attacked.

Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a “final warning” today to peaceful protesters to evacuate Gezi Park so security forces can deal with the “terrorist organizations” that remain. He met with a group of eleven activists yesterday in an attempt to ease tensions, but many of the protesters claimed that the selected activists did not represent them. Shortly afterwards, Erdogan issued an ultimatum of twenty-four hours to clear out of the park. Meanwhile, Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, suggested that the government might be open to a referendum on the fate of the park, a concept that has been largely rejected as insincere by the protesters. Thousands of protesters streamed back into Taksim Square yesterday after riot police cleared the square on Tuesday using tear gas and water cannons.

Egypt. Ethiopia’s parliament ratified a treaty today between six upstream Nile basin countries that redistributes the rights to the Nile’s water and rejects Egypt’s claim to the vast majority. The ratification comes against the backdrop of an escalating feud over Ethiopia’s plans to build a new hydroelectric dam on the Nile that Egypt fears will reduce its water supply. Ahmed Mohamed Ali, a spokesman for the Egyptian army, said yesterday that it is “too early to involve the army,” but Defense Minister General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a statement the same day that the armed forces are “ready and able to protect the nation.” Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi warned in a live televised address on Monday that “all options are open” to prevent Ethiopia from threatening Egypt’s water security. Egyptian foreign minister Mohamed Kamel Amr is scheduled to travel to Addis Ababa next week to discuss the dam project with Ethiopian officials.

U.S. Foreign Policy

Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry held a joint press conference with British foreign minister William Hague in Washington yesterday, in which they both addressed developments in Syria. Kerry said that “it’s not a question to me whether or not the opposition can, quote, win, it’s a question of whether or not we can get to this political solution.” Foreign Minister Hague said that “the scale of the regime’s oppression and the human suffering that it has caused beggars belief.”

Meanwhile, the United States eased trade restrictions on the Syrian opposition yesterday, allowing companies to purchase oil and to supply software, technology, reconstruction equipment, food, and medical supplies.

Israel-Palestine. Secretary of State John Kerry postponed an expected trip to the Middle East this week in order to stay in Washington in part to attend meetings on Syria. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that Kerry is “looking forward to doing that trip in the short term,” but she did not provide a specific date.

While We Were Looking Elsewhere

Yemen. Tribesmen attacked a crucial oil pipeline today, killing a soldier who was escorting a technical team and completely stopping the flow of oil. Meanwhile, Yemeni electricity minister Saleh Sumai blamed a two-day power outage in the capital and several provinces on other attacks on power lines in Marib province.

Lebanon. The Lebanese army issued a rare warning to Syria after a helicopter fired two rockets at the urban center of Arsal, a Lebanese border town, wounding one person. Lebanese president Michael Suleiman said, “It is our right to take the necessary measures to defend our sovereignty and our people – including filing a complaint to the Arab League and the UN.”

Meanwhile, Hisham Salman, a Lebanese protester, was shot and killed outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut on Sunday during a rally against Hezbollah’s widening involvement in Syria. Demonstrators accused Hezbollah supporters wearing yellow armbands of attacking the protesters.

Iran. Campaigning in Iran’s presidential election ended today, a day before voting begins. Tomorrow’s presidential election is the first since 2009. Only one moderate candidate, Hassan Rouhani, remains in the race, and Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani officially endorsed him yesterday. Rouhani faces five conservative opponents.

Iraq. A series of car bombings killed at least fifty-seven people in central and northern Iraq on Monday in the most recent attack in what has been the deadliest spike of violence since 2008. Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Kurdistan on Sunday for the first time in over two years, in a symbolic step towards easing the tension between the autonomous Kurdish region and Maliki’s central government.

Kuwait. Several Kuwaiti supermarket chains began boycotting goods from Iran on Wednesday to protest Iranian support of the Syrian regime. Meanwhile, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said on Monday that it would take action against members of Hezbollah living in GCC countries and that those measures could affect residency permits and commercial transactions.

This Week in History

This week in history marks the fourth anniversary of Iran’s Green Movement. On June 13, 2009, protests broke out in the streets of Tehran after the Interior Ministry announced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the landslide victor of Iran’s presidential elections. Mir Hussein Mousavi, the top challenger, disputed the results, and his supporters took to the streets demanding a new election. The opposition came to be known as the Green Movement. Iran’s security forces repressed the protests, killing dozens and injuring and detaining thousands of people. Mousavi and Medhi Karroubi, another candidate for president in the 2009 elections who took part in the protests, have been under house arrest for more than two years.

Significant Developments

Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was welcomed home today from a four-day trip to Africa by thousands of supporters at the airport— the first major show of support by pro-government demonstrators in Turkey since unrest erupted last week. Erdogan defiantly told supporters that the “protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end as of now.” Even as he spoke, thousands of people were massing in Istanbul’s Taksim Square for the eighth straight night after police used tear gas and water cannons last Friday against a peaceful demonstration against government plans to turn a park into a shopping mall. The confrontation sparked broad protests against Erdogan’s government across Turkey. Two protestors and a police officer have reportedly been killed in the ensuing clashes, with nearly five thousand people wounded.

Syria. George Sabra, acting leader of Syria’s main opposition group, said today that peace negotiations are not possible with Hezbollah and Iran fighting for the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Sabra said that Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is turning the conflict into a sectarian battle between Sunnis and Shiites. Regime troops, aided by Hezbollah fighters, scored a major victory earlier this week by capturing the strategically valuable town of Qusair on Wednesday, quickly followed by two nearby villages in a new offensive against the rebels.

Meanwhile, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said on Tuesday that there is “no doubt” that the Syrian government used sarin gas. Britain’s UN ambassador Mark Lyall-Grant also said on Tuesday that the British government has evidence that sarin gas has been used in Syria. The United Nations’ independent commission reported that it has “reasonable grounds” to believe chemical weapons have been used in Syria. The Obama administration struggled to react to these new reports. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the U.S. did not intend to “evaluate or litigate in public” the information it has received from Paris. For my take on the worst-case scenario for Syria and its impact on the Middle East, read this.

Egypt. An Egyptian court convicted forty-three NGO workers on Tuesday in a case against foreign-funded democracy promotion groups. The judge gave five year sentences to twenty-seven defendants tried in absentia, including a group of fifteen American defendants and the son of U.S. secretary of transportation Ray Lahood. The verdict also ordered the closure of the offices and seizure of assets belonging to the U.S. and German nonprofit organizations: the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States is “deeply concerned” and said the ordered closure of offices and seizure of assets “contradicts the government of Egypt’s commitments to support the role of civil society…especially at this critical stage in the Egyptian people’s democratic transition.”

Meanwhile Egypt’s supreme constitutional court ruled on Sunday that laws governing the election of members to the upper house, or Shura Council, and to the constitutional panel were illegal. It is unlikely that the court’s ruling will have any immediate effects because the Shura Council is immune from dissolution until a new house of representatives is elected.

U.S. Foreign Policy

Israel-Palestine. Secretary Kerry is set to return to Israel and Palestinian next week for the fifth time since becoming secretary of state in an attempt to restart direct peace talks. He will also visit Jordan.

Kerry addressed the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Washington on Monday to stress the urgency of a two-state solution. Kerry warned the AJC that “Israel will be left to choose between being a Jewish state or a democratic state, but it will not be able to fulfill the founders’ visions of being both at once,” if a peace deal with the Palestinian is not struck soon.

While We Were Looking Elsewhere

Palestine. President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new government yesterday headed by Rami Hamdallah, until now president of the West Bank university An-Najah. Prime Minster Hamdallah replaces Salam Fayyad, who had resigned in April but had stayed on as a caretaker since. Today, Abbas called for national reconciliation and blamed “Hamas’ refusal to hold elections” for the lack of progress towards a national unity government.

Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed a crowd of thousands on Tuesday and denounced making concessions to the West. The televised speech comes on the eve of upcoming presidential elections scheduled for June 14. Meanwhile, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Monday that UN investigators may no longer be able to find anything even if granted access to Iran’s Parchin site, due to suspected Iranian efforts to cleanse the site of any illicit activity. Amano described the IAEA’s talks with Iran as “going around in circles.”

Jordan. The Jordanian government ordered nearly three hundred news websites shut down on Sunday under a law passed last September. The law requires a variety of restrictive steps including the registration of news sites with the government and licensing fees costing more than one thousand dollars. The law also makes editors legally responsible for the often anonymous comments posted by readers, in addition to actual articles published.

Lebanon. Citing political deadlock and the civil war in neighboring Syria, Lebanon’s Parliament voted last Friday to delay upcoming parliamentary elections by seventeen months until November 2014. The elections had been scheduled for June 16, but the Lebanese Parliament failed to agree on a new electoral law. It is the first such delay since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990

Libya. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced on Tuesday plans to send a team of experts to Libya to provide security assistance. The assistance will mostly consist of training with the primary aim of preventing Libya from turning into a safe haven for militants fleeing Mali.

This Week in History

This week marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of the death of Iran’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. On June 3, 1989, Khomeini died at the age of eighty-six, twelve days after undergoing surgery for bleeding in his digestive system. Khomeini led the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran, returning to Tehran in 1979 after fifteen years in exile and helping to transform Iran into an Islamic republic.

Significant Developments

Syria. Moaz al-Khatib, the outgoing leader of the Syrian National Coalition, announced an initiative on Facebook today, proposing a safe exit for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Khatib’s proposal would give Assad twenty days to accept a “peaceful transition of authority,” after which he would have a month to hand over power to either Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi or Vice President Faruq al-Shara’a to then rule Syria for a transitional period of one hundred days. The Syrian National Coalition met for the first of three days of scheduled talks in Istanbul today to debate whether or not to negotiate with the Assad regime and to select a new president. Read this for an update on the rising death toll and numbers of refugees from the Syrian conflict.

Iran. Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani reacted publicly today to his disqualification from running in Iran’s upcoming presidential election, saying that “the next government will face a lot of problems and difficulties as a result of mismanagement and unfair sanctions.” Zahra Khomeini, the daughter of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, posted a letter to the Khomeini family website yesterday, decrying Rafsanjani’s disqualification. She wrote that “this action has no meaning other than creating a rift between the two friends of the Imam.” The remaining candidates officially launched their campaigns yesterday. In addition to Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad’s protégé Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei was also disqualified on Tuesday.

Syria-Jordan. Jordan reportedly turned away thousands of Syrian refugees this week for the first time since the beginning of the Syrian conflict. Jordan already hosts some half million Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict. All four unofficial border crossings have been closed for the past six days; according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Andrew Harper, only thirty refugees crossed into Jordan in the past three days, compared to the average one thousand to two thousand a day previously.

U.S. Foreign Policy

Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry attended a Friends of Syria meeting in Jordan yesterday and expressed concern over the spill-over of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon. Kerry promised that the United States would discuss increased support for the opposition in the event that diplomacy fails to end the civil war.

Israel-Palestine. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel and the West Bank today and met separately with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, and President Mahmoud Abbas as part of his effort to restart peace talks. This trip is Kerry’s fourth visit to Israel and Palestine since becoming secretary of state in February.

While We Were Looking Elsewhere

Lebanon. Violent clashes between supporters and opponents of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad left five people dead and over fifty wounded in Tripoli last night. It was the fifth day of violence that began in Tripoli on Sunday after Assad’s forces assaulted the Syrian border town of Qusayr. The clashes have left over eighteen people dead and over one hundred and ninety wounded.

Algeria. Abderrazzak Mukri, leader of the Islamist Movement of Society for Peace party, demanded that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika appear on television to dispel rumors over his poor health. Bouteflika suffered a mini-stroke on April 27 and was immediately rushed to a French military hospital. He is now recovering in France. Two Algerian newspapers were blocked from publication on Saturday evening after the editor of the papers refused to remove an article claiming that Bouteflika was in a coma.

Libya. The European Union approved a mission yesterday to help improve Libyan border security. The mission consists of a 110-member team of civilians that will deploy next month to advise and train Libyan officials. The move is in response to concerns about the flow of Islamist militants and weapons across Libya’s borders. On Monday, militants attacked a gas complex in western Libya, injuring two guards and reportedly stealing weapons and military vehicles.

Tunisia. Prime Minister Ali Larayedh told reporters today that Tunisia is making progress in dismantling terrorist networks. Lareydh declined to label the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia as a terrorist organization, but did call it an “illegal organization” and said that some of its leaders are “involved in terrorism.” Ansar al-Sharia had called for a demonstration on Friday outside of Ennahda’s offices in the city of Qayrawan in protest of the arrest of its spokesman Seifeddine Rais, but called it off after he was released. Clashes between supporters of Ansar al-Sharia and Tunisian security forces broke out on Sunday in Qayrawan and Tunis, leaving one young man dead.

Egypt. Seven Egyptian security officers who had been abducted in Sinai last week were released yesterday. President Mohammed Morsi announced the release in a brief speech and vowed that the criminals responsible “must be held accountable,” but gave no information on who was responsible for the kidnapping.

Iraq. Gunmen killed seven soldiers today in the town of Taji in the most recent episode of an extremely violent month. Attacks killed at least twenty people and wounded over one hundred yesterday, and a wave of bombings on Sunday and Monday killed more than seventy-six people and wounded at least two hundred and fifty.

The total number of Syrians killed, exiled, or displaced by the brutal war there has increased dramatically in the nearly seven months since Middle East Matters’ bimonthly tracking of these statistics. Since then, the death toll has more than doubled and the number of Syrian refugees has more than quadrupled. To see just how dramatically the war has affected the Syrian people in the last half year, you can compare the figures below with the corresponding statistics for the months June 2012 here, August 2012 here, and October 2012 here. The overall figures from Syria’s conflict below really speak for themselves.

Length of Conflict

26 months

Deaths (May 2, 2013)

Total estimated deaths: over 80,000 (according to UNGA president Vuk Jeremic on May 15, 2013)

Total estimated opposition deaths: 61,079 – 65,834

Total estimated regime deaths: 10,210

Civilian: 47,664 – 56,037

Children: 6,159 – 6,524

Opposition military: 9,796 – 13,415

Deaths by Province

Rural Damascus: 13,657 – 14,963

Homs: 9,711 – 10,836

Aleppo: 9,597 – 10,006

Idlib: 7,112 – 7,678

Daraa: 5,316 – 5,551

Damascus: 4,601 – 5,264

Hama: 4,450 – 4,814

Deir Ezzor: 3,914 – 4,008

Al-Raqqa: 667 – 849

Latakia: 768 – 799

Al-Hasakah: 384 – 479

Tartous: 274 – 336

Quneitra: 244 – 206

Al-Suweida: 45 – 46

UN Refugees – Registered or Waiting to be Registered (As of May 21, 2013)

Total number of refugees registered or awaiting registration by the UN: 1,544,840

Total number of registered refugees: 1,316,558

Persons awaiting registration: 228,282

Turkey

Total number of registered refugees: 321,419

Persons awaiting registration: 29,385

Jordan

Total number of registered refugees: 399,765

Persons awaiting registration: 85,013

Lebanon

Total number of registered refugees: 386,922

Persons awaiting registration: 88,105

Iraq

Total number of registered refugees: 151,195

Egypt

Total number of registered refugees: 50,372

Internally Displaced

Estimated total number of displaced Syrians: More than 4.25 million

Aid

UNHCR Syria Regional Response Plan updated requirements (as of March 1, 2013)

Total requirement: $865,408,696
Total funded: $155,506,721

Significant Developments

Syria. Israel publicly warned Syrian president Bashar Assad to stop transferring advanced weapons to Hezbollah yesterday. In an unusual move, a senior Israeli official contacted the New York Times on Wednesday and was then quoted by the paper saying that “Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah,” arguing that such a move would destabilize the region. The Israeli official warned further: “If Syrian president Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies, he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution yesterday condemning Syrian authorities and calling for a “political transition” to end the violence in Syria. The resolution passed by a vote of 107-12 with 59 abstentions, less than the 133 votes a similar resolution received last August. In introducing the debate, Vuk Jeremic, president of the General Assembly, raised the official UN death toll to more than eighty thousand people.

Iran. European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met Iranian envoy and presidential candidate Saeed Jalili in Istanbul last night. Ashton called the dinner meeting “useful” but announced no plans for a new round of negotiations. Earlier in the day, a senior UN official announced that talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency had failed to break ground on resuming an investigation into “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile two big-name candidates registered as candidates for Iran’s presidential elections just before the deadline on Saturday: former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is close to President Ahmadinejad.

Turkey-Syria. The Turkish government blamed Syria earlier in the week for two car bomb explosions that killed at least forty-six people in Reyhanli, a border town in Turkey. It was one of the deadliest terror attacks on Turkish soil. Officials in Turkey announced that they had arrested nine people on Sunday; all the detainees were Turkish citizens and a number of them confessed to links to Syrian intelligence services.

U.S. Foreign Policy

Talking Syria. President Barack Obama met with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House today to discuss Syria. In a joint press conference, Obama said that there is no “magic formula” for the situation in Syria. Earlier in the week, the president hosted British prime minister David Cameron who visited the White House to discuss Syria and the upcoming G8. Both leaders emphasized, in press conference remarks, the urgency of ending the fighting in Syria; Cameron noted that “Syria’s history is being written in the blood of her people, and it is happening on our watch.” Acknowledging the difficulty of finding a diplomatic solution, Obama said that “It’s going to be challenging, but it’s worth the effort.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry sounded cautiously optimistic about plans for an international peace conference to bring together figures from the Syrian opposition and regime. At a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday, Kerry said that “progress is being made” and the Syrian government had given names of officials who would attend to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

While We Were Looking Elsewhere

Egypt. Gaza’s interior ministry announced a state of alert along its border with Egypt after unidentified gunmen abducted seven Egyptian security officers in the Sinai Peninsula early today. The seven security personnel were in taxis outside of the city of El Arish when masked gunmen ambushed them. Egyptian security officials said that they had been in contact with the kidnappers and that the abduction may have been related to anger over claims that an imprisoned militant had been tortured.

Libya. Libyan officials claimed that a bomb blast in Benghazi that killed three people on Monday could have been an accident instead of a deliberate car bombing. Libyan interior minister Ashur Shwayel said that “all signs point to an accidental explosion.” The car was transporting explosives used to make anti-tank mines when it exploded outside of a hospital.

Yemen. Three kidnapped Red Cross employees were released yesterday by Yemeni tribesmen in the southern province of Abyan. The three men were abducted on Monday. Two Egyptian technicians who had been abducted last week by the same tribe were also released.

Iraq. Bombings in Baghdad and attacks in northern Iraq killed at least seventeen people today, in the latest surge of violence in the past several weeks. More than thirty-five people were killed yesterday as a result of bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk that seemingly targeted Iraq’s Shiite population.

Bahrain. A court in Bahrain sentenced six people to jail for insulting King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa on Twitter. The six were convicted for the “misuse of freedom of expression.” One of those convicted was Mahdi al-Basri, who did not send any tweets, but served as a lawyer for a community account that wrote the offending tweets.

This Week in History

This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of a short-lived U.S.-mediated Lebanese-Israeli peace agreement. On May 17, 1983, Lebanon and Israel signed a peace accord ending the state of war between the two countries since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The 1983 agreement, coming on the heels of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon the previous year, called for a phased Israeli withdrawal from the country and was a product of negotiations held over thirty-five sessions between December 1982 and May 1983. Israel’s withdrawal was contingent on a Syrian withdrawal; however, Syria refused to recognize the agreement and nearly forty thousand Syrian troops remained in northern Lebanon. In March 1984, under pressure from Syria, the Lebanese government cancelled the peace agreement with Israel.

“I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog.” –Abu Sakkar, leader of the Syrian rebel Farouq Brigade from Homs, as he bit into the heart of a regime soldier

“What do I care if they destroy Tel Aviv and lose Beirut?” –Amin Hoteit, retired Lebanese colonel close to Hezbollah, on the possibility of escalating tensions between Hezbollah and Israel

“Israel never bent down before anyone, but they did for him — at least, that is the perception among the Turkish public.” –Cengiz Candar, one of Turkey’s leading political commentators about Israel’s apology to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara incident

“The security forces don’t ask me to make up stories, but I know informants who do because they want more money.” –Ghalib, a Baquba resident and informant for the Iraqi security forces

“We could now envision selling gas to Egypt…The pipeline is there. You can simply change the direction the gas flows.” –Pinhas Avivi, Israeli Foreign Ministry official

“I think the army has an important role to play in this phase — to get us out of this tragedy that the Muslim Brotherhood has put us in.” –Shadi al-Ghazali Harb, a prominent Egyptian liberal activist

Significant Developments

Syria. Hassan Nasrallah announced yesterday that Syria would transfer strategic “game-changing” weapons to the Lebanese group Hezbollah. The televised speech was a response to Israel’s alleged airstrikes near Damascus last Friday and Sunday that reportedly targeted Fateh-110 missiles transiting to Hezbollah from Iran. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attacks, but a senior Israeli defense official said that the airstrikes were intended to prevent weapon transfers to Hezbollah and stressed that Israel was not taking sides in Syria’s civil war.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Israel warned the United States about an imminent Russian deal to sell advanced ground-to-air missile systems to Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s government has long been trying to buy S-300 missile batteries, which are capable of intercepting both manned aircraft and guided missiles. Western nations have repeatedly asked Russia not to make the sale, which would complicate any potential international intervention in Syria.

Egypt. President Mohammed Morsi swore in nine new cabinet ministers on Tuesday following a major reshuffle that overhauled the government. Morsi replaced the ministers of finance, planning, investment and petroleum in the second reshuffle since he took office last June. Samir Radwan, a former finance minister, warned that the changes could adversely affect Egypt’s negotiation with the IMF over a $4.8 billion loan, saying “IMF officials have told me that each time they get used to a minister, he disappears…We know have our fifth finance minister since the revolution; this is a sign of instability.”

U.S. Foreign Policy

Syria. U.S. secretary of state John Kerry told reporters in Rome yesterday that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad would not be a component of a transitional government. His comments came two days after Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov announced in Moscow that they would seek to hold an international conference within the coming month focusing on finding a political solution to the civil war in Syria. Kerry and Lavrov told reporters that they would push to have both Bashar al-Assad’s government and the Syrian opposition attend. Lavrov told reporters that Russia is not interested “in the fate of certain persons…We are interested in the fate of the Syria people.”

Israel-Palestine. Secretary Kerry told reporters in Rome that he would travel to the Middle East in two weeks. Kerry made the announcement following his meeting with Israeli peace negotiator Tzipi Livni, saying he intended to meet with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. “We are working through threshold questions and we are doing it with a seriousness of purpose that I think Minister Livni would agree with me has not been present in a while,” Kerry said at the U.S. ambassador to Italy’s residence before meeting with Livni in private. His trip to the region will be his fourth since becoming Secretary of State.

While We Were Looking Elsewhere

Turkey. Kurdish militants began to withdraw their forces from Turkey to their stronghold in Iraq on Wednesday, the latest step in a peace process meant to end a three-decade long conflict. The withdrawal process is expected to be mostly complete by the end of June. Turkey’s deputy prime minister Bulent Arinc cautiously asserted that “we feel that we are nearing the conclusion,” but would not confirm the beginning of the withdrawal.

Iran. Former parliament speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, joined the presidential race today. Haddad Adel is part of the Coalition of Three that includes two other Khamenei loyalists who have declared their candidacies: former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati and Tehran mayor Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf. Iranian media has speculated that two of the three will step aside in favor of whomever appears to be in the strongest position as the race heats up. Meanwhile, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president of Iran from 1989 until 1997, told his students at Tehran University on Sunday that he would run if convinced that his presence would be beneficial to the country. Registration for candidates began on Tuesday morning and will continue until tomorrow. The election is slated for June 14.

Libya. Two police stations in Benghazi were hit by bombs early this morning. It is the fourth time in the past month that police stations in the city have been attacked with explosives. Meanwhile, Libya’s General National Congress passed the Political Isolation Law on Sunday excluding former officials from the Qaddafi era from public office. The law’s passage comes after heavily armed militiamen blockaded the foreign and interior ministries from April 28 to May 5 demanding legislators back the bill. Proponents of the law have made clear their intention to specifically exclude from public office former prime minister Mahmoud Jibril.

Israel. Israeli security forces detained Mohammed Ahmad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, on Wednesday and held him for questioning on suspicion of involvement in the latest disturbance at al-Aqsa Mosque. Following six hours of questioning, the grand mufti was released without charges. His detention sparked small demonstrations against Israel in Jordan and Egypt.

This Week in History

This week marks the fifty-second anniversary of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi dissolution of Iran’s parliament, paving the way for his modernization agenda and the “White Revolution.” On May 5, 1961, Iranian prime minister Jafar Sharif Imami and his cabinet resigned a day after fifty thousand demonstrators clashed with security forces during a teacher’s strike. The following day, the shah appointed Ali Amini as prime minister. On May 9 he dissolved both houses of parliament, receiving a mandate to rule for six months by cabinet decree. Under Amini, the cabinet adopted a land reform law, which redistributed land from the minority to small-scale cultivators. The land reform law was a prelude to the shah’s “White Revolution,” a more ambitious package of social, political, and economic reforms that were approved by popular referendum in 1963.

Significant Developments

Syria. Syrian officials today denied international allegations that Bashar al-Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons in Syria. Yesterday, the White House sent a letter to Congressional leaders stating that U.S.  intelligence agencies assessed “with varying degrees of confidence” that Assad’s government had used the chemical agent sarin on a small scale. Israel’s senior most military intelligence analyst, Brigadier General Itai Brun, said on Tuesday that the Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons last month. The British and French governments told the United Nations last week that they have “credible evidence,” based on soil samples and witness testimony, that Assad’s government has used small amounts of chemical weapons against its own people.

Iraq. Bombings at multiple Sunni mosques in and around Baghdad today killed four people and wounded fifty more in the latest of a string of attacks that have killed more than one hundred and fifty people in the past four days. Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki appeared on national television yesterday to appeal for calm and blamed Baath party remnants for the attacks. The latest violence began on Tuesday when security forces clashed with anti-government protesters in Hawijah, leaving fifty-three people dead. The escalating violence came as the preliminary results were announced for provincial elections held on Saturday. Al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc was set to win the most votes in eight of the twelve participating provinces with 87 percent of the vote counted.

U.S. Foreign Policy Developments

Jordan and Qatar. President Obama hosted Jordan’s king Abdullah at the White House today, one month after Obama had visited the Hashemite kingdom. Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, the president met Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Regional security and the situation in Syria dominated both visits.

Hagel to the Middle East. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel wrapped up his first visit to the Middle East and the Gulf as the Pentagon’s top official yesterday. Hagel visited Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE in an attempt to reach out to U.S. partners in the region and discuss regional threats. He also sought to finalize an arms deal to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE worth ten billion dollars. During his two-day stop in Israel, Hagel asserted that there is “no daylight” between the United States and Israel on the goal of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, but that “there may well be some differences” in the specific approaches.

Palestine-Turkey. Secretary of State John Kerry returned to the region this weekend and met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Istanbul. Kerry and Abbas discussed ways to improve Palestinian living conditions as part of an attempt to restart peace talks with Israel. Kerry also met with Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu to discuss “the importance of completing the task with respect to the renewal of relations between Turkey and Israel.” Kerry was in Istanbul to attend an international conference on how best to aid rebels in Syria. He announced that the United States would double its nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition with an additional $123 million.

While We Were Looking Elsewhere

Turkey. The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) announced on Thursday that it will begin withdrawing all of its forces from Turkey on May 8. Murat Karayilan, the current commander of the PKK, announced in a news conference that the guerilla fighters will move to bases in northern Iraq as part of peace efforts. Karayilan also called on the Turkish government to take specific measures including enacting a new constitution and releasing Kurdish prisoners. The Kurdish withdrawal is a major step forward in peace talks that began in January between the Turkish government and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Libya. A car bomb heavily damaged the French embassy in Tripoli on Tuesday, wounding two French guards in the first major attack against a western target in Libya since the killing of American ambassador Chris Stevens last September. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, although both the French and Libyan governments labeled it as an act of terrorism and pledged to “find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

Israel. The Israeli military shot down an unmanned aerial drone approaching Israel from the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday. A spokesman for the Israeli military said that it was unclear who was behind the drone, but confirmed that it flew down from the Lebanese coast. This is the second drone in the past seven months that has entered Israeli territory; in October 2012, Israel shot down a drone that had intruded thirty-five miles across its southern border. Hezbollah denied responsibility for this week’s drone, though its leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed responsibility for last year’s drone incursion, pledging that it “was not the first time, and it will not be the last.”

Bahrain. Juan Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said Wednesday that Bahrain “postponed indefinitely” his visit scheduled for May. Mendez warned that the Bahraini move could be “perceived as if there is something to hide.” This is the second time Bahrain has put off at short notice a scheduled visit by Mendez. The announcement coincided with the Bahraini government’s expression of dismay over a recent U.S. State Department assessment of human rights in the country. The State Department annual report said that the Bahraini government had failed to implement the most important recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry.

King Abdullah of Jordan is slated to meet President Obama at the White House on Friday. Though meetings between the two leaders are frequent and even commonplace, it is still noteworthy that the Hashemite leader is meeting the president just four weeks after hosting him in Jordan. World leaders don’t meet that frequently unless there is something urgent to discuss, and there is: Syria.

The crisis in neighboring Syria is of utmost concern to King Abdullah, and it should be. Half a million Syrians having taken refuge in Jordan so far—10 percent of the kingdom’s population—and there is no end to the refugee flow in sight. Abdullah noted when he met Obama in Amman that though the number of Syrian refugees in Jordan could easily double by the end of the year, the kingdom would not shut its border to Syrian refugees—“It’s not the Jordanian way,” the king quipped. Still, Syrian refugees are starting to spark social tensions in Jordan and the cost of housing them is expected to reach one billion dollars this year. And cash-strapped and resource poor Jordan already has its fill of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees from previous Middle East wars.

Recognizing that leaving the Syria crisis unaddressed only makes matters worse, Abdullah was the first Arab leader to call on Assad to step down. Taking such a bold step publicly while the UN and the United Sates refuse to provide military support to Assad’s opponents has left Abdullah feeling extremely vulnerable, given that his capital is a mere one hundred miles away from Assad’s.

When the two leaders met in Amman last month, President Obama said before King Abdullah, as he has repeatedly over the past year, that “the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be a game-changer from our perspective because once you let that situation spin out of control it’s very hard to stop, and can have enormous spillover effects across the region.”

Yet the British and French governments told the United Nations last week that they have “credible evidence,” based on soil samples and witnesses, that the Syrian regime has used small amounts of chemical weapons against its own people in recent months. Israel’s senior most military intelligence analyst yesterday said the Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons last month.

In the month since Abdullah and Obama met the game has apparently changed, to use the president’s term. What will the President say about it when he hosts King Abdullah in the Oval Office on Friday?

“We don’t need an atomic bomb. … And besides, it is not atomic bombs that threaten the world, but Western morals and culture declining in values.” –Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad

“Look, I respect their prowess and their struggle…I respect their ideology, even if I strongly disagree with it, on one condition! They must remain one faction among many other factions of the revolution and one component of Syrian society which has many other components.” –Abu al-Hasan, an Aleppo activist speaking about Jubhat al-Nusra

“The Americans say they hold our sons to rehabilitate them. They can return them to us and we could take care of them.” –a mother of a Yemeni detainee in Guantanamo

“The march of hatred of the Israel-haters and followers of the path of the Mufti of Jerusalem… is added proof that any agreement with the Palestinians must also include within it Israeli Arabs.” –Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman criticizing Israeli Arab participation in the annual “Right of Return” march in Wadi Ara

“How can you be patriotic if you’ve fled?” –Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on the Syrian opposition in a rare television interview

“The problem is not Fayyad and never was Fayyad…The problem is the Israeli occupation and a lack of any kind of political or diplomatic horizon.” –Awaida Ahmed Awaida, chief executive of the Palestinian Stock Exchange

“We don’t need imported charters or a new understanding of the nation’s religion…We won’t be doing our population, and our nation, any service if we pledge our allegiance to those who don’t know a thing about our reality.” – a statement by the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, referring to the alliance between Syria’s Nusra Front and the Qaeda branch