World

Chief negotiators from the United States and Iran were due to start indirect talks in Qatar on Tuesday, bidding to remove obstacles that have stalled attempts to revive a landmark nuclear deal.

US special envoy Robert Malley and Iran’s Ali Bagheri have landed in Doha and met officials after more than a year of European Union-mediated talks in Vienna on a return to the 2015 agreement.

The Doha talks come just two weeks before US President Joe Biden visits the region for the first time since taking office, when efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be high on the agenda.

They are the start of a process to “unblock” the long-running Vienna talks, European Union foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano said.

“We managed to unblock the process and we are going to move forward, and as a first step at this stage we have these proximity talks,” he said in Brussels.

The deal has been hanging by a thread since 2018, when then US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from it and began reimposing harsh economic sanctions on America’s arch-enemy.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to return to the agreement, saying it would be the best path ahead with the Islamic republic, although it has voiced growing pessimism in recent weeks.

The talks in Doha will take place indirectly, with the delegations in separate rooms and communicating via intermediaries. The US and Iran do not have diplomatic relations.

Earlier Malley met Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to discuss “joint diplomatic efforts to address issues with Iran”, the US embassy in Doha tweeted.

Bagheri met Qatar’s foreign ministry secretary-general, Ahmad bin Hassen Al Hammadi, Qatar’s foreign ministry said.

“Indirect messages have been exchanged between the parties involved,” a diplomat in the region told AFP.

– ‘Moment of reckoning’ –

Sheikh Mohammed also discussed the Iran talks with his French counterpart Catherine Colonna in a phone call on Tuesday, the official Qatar News Agency said.

Qatar hopes the “indirect talks will be culminated in positive results that contribute to the revival of the nuclear deal signed in 2015”, the foreign ministry said.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said during a visit to Tehran on Saturday that the Iran-US talks would be held in a Gulf country to avoid confusion with the broader talks in Vienna.

Qatar, which has better relations with Iran than most Gulf Arab monarchies, also hosted US-Taliban talks before the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan last year.

The Vienna talks began in April 2021 but hit a snag in March following differences between Tehran and Washington, notably over Iran’s demand that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from a US terror list.

Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute think tank, called Doha a “moment of reckoning” for the nuclear process.

“The Iranians and the Americans both seem to believe the talks in Doha represent a sink-or-swim moment for US-Iran nuclear negotiations,” he wrote in an analysis.

The timing appears good, with Iran likely to want a deal before US congressional elections in November, where Biden’s Democrats are predicted to lose seats and could lose interest in the nuclear talks, Vatanka said.

High oil prices and the lack of spare capacity were also an opportunity for Iran to push for relief from its crippling economic sanctions, he added.

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group think tank, tweeted: “Having the two key protagonists in one place is a necessary ingredient for diplomacy to succeed.

“But a breakthrough is far from assured.”

Russia vowed on Tuesday its assault on Ukraine would continue until Kyiv surrenders, as world leaders warned that Moscow would pay for its aggression.

The G7 group of the world’s most powerful democracies met in Germany to send a message that they remain united behind Ukraine’s embattled government.

And, ahead of a key meeting of the NATO allies, US President Joe Biden and fellow leaders pledged military aid for Kyiv and economic pain for Moscow.

But President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin was unmoved, warning that Ukraine’s forces’ only option was to lay down their arms in the face of the Russian invasion.

“The Ukrainian side can stop everything before the end of today,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“An order for the nationalist units to lay down their arms is necessary,” he said, adding that Kyiv had to fulfil a list of Moscow’s demands.

– ‘Everything burned’ –

The consequences of Russia’s four-month-old invasion were on display in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, where shaken civilians recounted Monday’s missile strike on a shopping mall.

“Everything burned, really everything, like a spark to a touchpaper. I heard people screaming. It was horror,” witness Polina Puchintseva told AFP.

All that was left of the shopping centre — scene of at least 18 deaths — was charred debris, chunks of blackened walls and green lettering from a smashed store front.

Russia claims its missile salvo was aimed at an arms depot — but none of the civilians who talked to AFP knew of any weapons store in the neighbourhood.

And, outside Russia, the latest carnage sparked only Ukrainian fury and western solidarity.

“Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians constitute a war crime,” the G7 leaders said in a statement, condemning the “abominable attack”.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky declared on his social media channels: “Only total insane terrorists, who should have no place on Earth, can strike missiles at civilian objects.

“Russia must be recognised as a state sponsor of terrorism. The world can and therefore must stop Russian terror,” he added.

At their summit in the German Alps, the G7 leaders did not go so far as to brand Putin a terrorist — but they vowed that Russia, already under tough sanctions, would face more economic pain.

“The G7 stands united in its support for Ukraine,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters. 

“We will continue to keep up and drive up the economic and political costs of this war for President Putin and his regime.”

– Oil price cap? –

Over the three days of their summit, the G7 had announced several new measures to put the squeeze on Putin, including a plan to work towards a price cap on Russian oil.

The group also agreed to impose an import ban on Russian gold. At the same time, the G7 powers heaped financial support on Ukraine, with aid now reaching $29.5 billion.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the West was “to give the Ukrainians the strategic endurance they need to try to shift the dial, to try to change the dynamic of the position”.

After the summit, with G7 leaders who are also in NATO heading on to Madrid, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Biden would announce new long-term military deployments across Europe.

The Madrid NATO summit will also try to overcome Turkey’s objections to Sweden and Finland joining the military alliance, and Biden is to talk to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged NATO allies to show they were united.

“The message that should come out of Madrid is a message of unity and strength for member countries, as well as for those that wish to join and whose applications we are supporting,” Macron said.

Sweden and Finland, traditionally non-aligned militarily, asked to join NATO after Putin’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey accuses them of harbouring wanted Kurdish militants.

“We are a 70-year-old member of NATO. Turkey is not a country that randomly joined NATO,” Erdogan said, before setting off for Madrid and talks with his NATO, Swedish and Finnish counterparts.

“We will see what point they have reached… We do not want empty words. We want results.”

Meanwhile, with fierce artillery duels continuing in the eastern Donbas region, Ukrainian intelligence said 17 Ukrainians, mostly servicemen, had been freed in the sides’ latest prisoner exchange.

The United Nations said that 6.2 million people are now estimated to have been displaced within Ukraine, in addition to 5.26 million who have fled abroad.

“Ukraine now faces a brutality which we haven’t seen in Europe since the Second World War,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said as leaders began to gather in the Spanish capital.

– An oligarch’s doubts –

Billionaire Russian industrialist Oleg Deripaska admitted in a rare Moscow press conference that the operation in Ukraine may have gone too far.

“Is it in Russia’s interest to destroy Ukraine? Of course not. That would be a colossal mistake,” he said.

After failing to capture Kyiv following their invasion in February, Russian troops have focused their campaign on seizing a swathe of eastern Ukraine, and have been gaining ground.

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US police Tuesday were investigating the grim discovery of about 50 bodies in and around a trailer truck abandoned in sweltering heat near the Texas city of San Antonio, with victims identified as from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.

The shocking finding was one of the worst disasters involving migrants in the United States in recent years — and came five years after a similar deadly incident in the same Texas city, a few hours from the Mexican border.

The White House — facing intense pressure over its immigration policies — called the tragedy “absolutely horrific and heartbreaking,” and said President Joe Biden, flying to a NATO summit in Madrid, has been briefed on the incident.

San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told reporters that at least 46 victims had died and 16 people had been transported to the hospital alive and conscious — 12 adults and four children.

Early Tuesday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the toll had reached 50, mostly from Latin American nations including Mexico.

“It’s a tremendous misfortune… so far there are 50 dead: 22 from Mexico, seven from Guatemala, two from Honduras and 19 still without information about their nationality,” the Mexican leader said at a morning press conference.

US officials said three people were in custody over the incident.

Hood, the fire chief, said survivors had suffered heat stroke and heat exhaustion, and that there were no signs of water in the truck.

“It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer but there was no visible working A/C unit on that rig,” Hood said.

– ‘Desperation of migrants’ –

San Antonio, which lies about 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the border, is a major transit route for people smugglers.

It has also been gripped by a record-breaking heat wave, and temperatures in the area hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.5 degrees Celsius) on Monday.

The US Customs and Border Protection agency director, Chris Magnus said he was “horrified” at the deaths near San Antonio.

“This speaks to the desperation of migrants who would put their lives in the hands of callous human smugglers who show no regard for human life,” he added on Twitter.

The vehicle was found near Highway I-35, a major US artery that stretches to the Mexican border.

According to San Antonio police chief William McManus, authorities were first alerted by an emergency call at about 5:50 pm local time (2250 GMT).

“A worker who works in one of the buildings up here behind me heard a cry for help,” he told reporters. 

“(He) came out to investigate, found a trailer with the doors partially open, opened them up to take a look, and found a number of deceased individuals inside.”

– Migration politics –

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican who advocates a tough line on immigration, quickly hit out at Biden over the disaster — blaming the Democrat’s “deadly open border policies.”

“These deaths are on Biden,” Abbott tweeted. “They show the deadly consequences of his refusal to enforce the law.”

San Antonio was the site of a similar migrant tragedy in 2017, when 10 people suffocated to death in a sweltering trailer with broken air conditioning and clogged ventilation holes.

The truck driver later pleaded guilty to charges related to the deaths.

In Geneva, the United Nations’ human rights office said it was “deeply disturbed” by the incident.

“This is not the first such tragedy, and it illustrates again the critical need for regular safe pathways for migration as well as for accountability for those persons whose conduct has directly led to such loss of life,” said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.

Hundreds of religious leaders and “people of influence” from around Afghanistan have been summoned to the capital to attend a three-day grand council in support of the country’s Taliban rule.

Officials are providing scant details of the men-only meeting starting Wednesday, a week after a powerful earthquake struck the east of the country killing over 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

A Taliban source told AFP that criticism of the regime would be allowed and thorny issues such as the education of girls, which has divided opinion in the movement, would be discussed.

“The meeting will seek views of scholars on the performance of the Islamic Emirate,” a Taliban source told AFP, referring to the group’s name for the country.

“The participants will be allowed to point out anything which has dented the IEA image — they can even make complaints.”

The meeting is described locally as a “jirga”, a traditional gathering of influential people that discuss problems and settle differences by consensus.

Even before the quake, the Taliban were struggling to administer a country that had long been in the grip of economic malaise, utterly dependent on foreign aid that dried up with the overthrow of the Western-backed government in August. 

Taliban officials insist their rule is nationally popular, but they have re-introduced a harsh version of Islam that characterised their first stint in power — specifically clamping down on the rights of women.

– Barred from education –

Secondary school girls are barred from education, while women have been dismissed from government jobs, forbidden from travelling alone, and ordered to dress in clothing that covers everything but their faces.

“As per my information, the participants of the meeting will hold a detailed discussion on school education,” the Taliban source said.

A letter from the prime minister’s office seen by AFP said each district in Afghanistan should provide three delegates to the council.

It said they must have a good religious education, credentials for jihad — fighting for Islam — and a reputation in their respective fields.

“Two of them will be religious scholars and the other a person of influence,” the letter said.

Afghanistan has over 400 administrative districts, meaning the gathering will be the biggest leadership collective since the Taliban returned to power in August last year.

The Afghan Women’s Peace and Freedom Organization said the male-only gathering could not be representative.

“There should be Afghan women,” official Halima Nasiri told AFP after a press conference by the group.

“If there are no Afghan women in the loya jirga (grand gathering), then no doubt, their decisions would be unjust and unacceptable for Afghan women and girls.”

Afghan media is abuzz with speculation that Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada — who has not been filmed or photographed in public since the group returned to power — may attend the gathering.

Only a handful of unverified audio recordings of his speeches have been released since August from Kandahar, the Taliban’s birthplace and spiritual heart.

The Taliban have become increasingly sensitive to criticism and on Tuesday government spokesman Bilal Karimi dismissed as “false information and propaganda” a Gallup global survey that said Afghans were the saddest people in the world, with the least enjoyment from life.

“A majority of Afghans feel safe and happy since the Taliban takeover,” he tweeted.

Gallup said the country’s score on the Positive Experience Index was not only a new low for Afghanistan, but also a new low for any country surveyed over the past 16 years.

“The percentage of Afghans who said they felt enjoyment, smiled or laughed, learned something interesting, or felt well-rested the previous day all dropped to new record lows,” it said.

A German court on Tuesday handed a five-year jail sentence to a 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, the oldest person so far to go on trial for complicity in war crimes during the Holocaust.

Josef Schuetz was found guilty of being an accessory to murder in at least 3,500 cases while working as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945.

He is highly unlikely to be put behind bars given his age.

The pensioner, who now lives in Brandenburg state, had pleaded innocent, saying he did “absolutely nothing” and had not even worked at the camp.

“I don’t know why I am here,” he said at the close of his trial on Monday.

But presiding judge Udo Lechtermann said he was convinced Schuetz had worked at Sachsenhausen and had “supported” the atrocities committed there.

“For three years, you watched prisoners being tortured and killed before your eyes,” Lechtermann said.

“Due to your position on the watchtower of the concentration camp, you constantly had the smoke of the crematorium in your nose,” he said.

“Anyone who tried to escape from the camp was shot. So every guard was actively involved in these murders.”

More than 200,000 people, including Jews, Roma, regime opponents and gay people, were detained at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1936 and 1945.

Tens of thousands of inmates died from forced labour, murder, medical experiments, hunger or disease before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops, according to the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum. 

– Contradictory statements –

Schuetz, who was 21 when he began working at the camp, remained blank-faced as the court announced his sentence.

“I am ready,” he said when he entered the courtroom earlier in a wheelchair, dressed in a grey shirt and striped trousers.

Schuetz was not detained during the trial, which began in 2021 but was postponed several times because of his health. 

His lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp, told AFP he would appeal — meaning the sentence will not be enforced until 2023 at the earliest.

Thomas Walther, the lawyer who represented 11 of the 16 civil parties in the trial, said the sentencing had met their expectations and “justice has been served”.

But Antoine Grumbach, 80, whose father died in Sachsenhausen, said he could “never forgive” Schuetz as “any human being facing atrocities has a duty to oppose them”.

During the trial, Schuetz had made several inconsistent statements about his past, complaining that his head was getting “mixed up”.

At one point, the centenarian said he had worked as an agricultural labourer in Germany for most of World War II, a claim contradicted by several historical documents bearing his name, date and place of birth.

– ‘Warning to perpetrators’ –

After the war, Schuetz was transferred to a prison camp in Russia before returning to Germany, where he worked as a farmer and a locksmith. 

More than seven decades after World War II, German prosecutors are racing to bring the last surviving Nazi perpetrators to justice.

The 2011 conviction of former guard John Demjanjuk, on the basis that he served as part of Hitler’s killing machine, set a legal precedent and paved the way for several of these justice cases.

Since then, courts have handed down several guilty verdicts on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly linked to the individual accused.

Among those brought to late justice were Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at Auschwitz.

Both were convicted at the age of 94 of complicity in mass murder but died before they could be imprisoned.

However, Schuetz’s five-year sentence is the longest so far handed to a defendant in such a case.

Guillaume Mouralis, a research professor at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), told AFP the verdict was “a warning to the perpetrators of mass crimes: whatever their level of responsibility, there is still legal liability.” 

France’s new lower house of parliament meets for the first time Tuesday with centrist allies of President Emmanuel Macron little closer to building a stable majority after suffering an upset in elections earlier this month.

The legislative poll brought surges for the far right and hard left and opposition forces have made clear that they will not be lured into a lasting arrangement to support Macron’s government, which is 37 seats short of an overall majority.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and other senior Macron backers have been trying to win over individual right-wing and moderate left parliamentarians to bolster their ranks. “The phones are running hot,” one MP told AFP.

Olivier Marleix, head of the conservative Republicans group seen as most compatible with Macron, met Borne on Tuesday. “We’ve told her again there is no question of any kind of coalition,” he said.

But he added that the prime minister “really showed that she wanted to listen to us. That’s quite a good sign.

“We’re here to try and find solutions,” he added.

“There will be some draft laws where I think we should be able to work together,” including one to boost households’ purchasing power in the face of food and energy inflation.

“It’s not in the interest of parties who have just been elected” to make a long-term deal to support the government, said Marc Lazar, a professor at Paris’s Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).

– First woman speaker –

The first days of the new National Assembly will be taken up with elections for the speaker and other senior parliamentary officials and committee chiefs.

Pro-Macron candidate Yael Braun-Pivet is expected to be the first woman in French history to claim the speaker’s chair in a series of votes starting at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT).

Also Tuesday, parties with at least 15 members will be able to form official groups, which enjoy more influence and speaking time.

One key question is whether Thursday’s vote to head the Finance Committee — with its extensive powers to scrutinise government spending — will be won by an MP from the far-right National Rally (RN).

Led by Macron’s defeated presidential opponent Marine Le Pen, the RN would usually have a claim on the post as the largest single opposition party.

It faces a stiff challenge from the NUPES left alliance — encompassing Greens, Communists, Socialists and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) — who agreed Tuesday on a joint candidate after some internal jostling.

– Confidence vote? –

Next week could see exchanges heat up in the chamber, as government chief Borne delivers a speech setting out her policy priorities.

It is not yet clear whether Borne will call the traditional vote of confidence following her appearance — which is not strictly required under France’s Fifth Republic constitution.

Macron told AFP at the weekend that he had “decided to confirm (his) confidence in Elisabeth Borne” and asked her to continue talks to find either allies for the government in parliament or at least backing for crucial confidence and budget votes.

The president has ruled out both tax increases and higher public borrowing in any compromise deals with other parties.

After Macron promised a “new government of action… in the first few days of July” once he returns from this week’s G7 and NATO meetings in Germany and Belgium, some observers see the compressed calendar as ambitious.

“In all other European countries, when they’re in talks to form a government, it can take months” rather than the days Macron has allowed, political scientist Lazar said.

Even as the government projects business almost as usual, hard-left LFI especially has vowed to try to prevent key proposals, such as the flagship reform to raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 65.

Party deputy chief Adrien Quatennens said Sunday there was “no possible agreement” with Macron, saying cooperation would “make no sense”.

“We haven’t heard (Macron) move or back down one iota on pension reform” or other controversial policies, he added.

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