Israel preparing for direct flights to UAE over Saudi Arabia: Netanyahu

News Network

August 17, 2020

Jerusalem, Aug 17: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel is preparing for direct flights, over Saudi Arabia, to the United Arab Emirates as part of its normalisation deal with the UAE.

Israel and the UAE announced on Thursday that they will normalise diplomatic relations under a U.S.-sponsored deal whose implementation could reshape Middle East politics from the Palestinian issue to the fight against Iran. The UAE would only be third Arab state in more than 70 years to establish relations with Israel.

Netanyahu, briefed at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport on plans for expanding flight activity curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic, gave no time frame for the opening of an air link with the Gulf Arab country.

"We are currently working on enabling direct flights, over Saudi Arabia, between Tel Aviv and Dubai and Abu Dhabi," Netanyahu told reporters, estimating flight time at "about three hours, just like to Rome".

Saudi Arabia does not recognise Israel and its air space is closed to Israeli airliners. But in what was seen in Israel as a harbinger of warmer relations with Riyadh, Air India was allowed in 2018 to begin flying over Saudi territory on its New Delhi-Tel Aviv route.

At Ben-Gurion airport, Netanyahu said he saw "tremendous scope for bilateral tourism and gigantic scope for investment" with the UAE.

A delegation from Israel is expected to travel to the UAE within weeks to work out the modalities of normalised relations, but any swift opening of a commercial air route could be complicated by coronavirus restrictions.

On Sunday, the UAE opened telephone lines to Israel, a link inaugurated in a conversation between the two countries' foreign ministers.

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Russia decides to remove Taliban from terror list, asks US to return confiscated assets to Afghan

News Network

October 4,2024

Moscow, Oct 4: Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Friday that a decision to remove the Taliban from a list of terrorist organisations had been "taken at the highest level", the state TASS news agency reported.

The decision needs to be followed up with various legal procedures in order to make it a reality, President Vladimir Putin's special representative on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, was quoted as saying.

Putin said in July that Russia considered Afghanistan's Taliban movement an ally in the fight against terrorism.

Russia has been slowly building ties with the Taliban since it seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S.-led forces withdrew after 20 years of war but the movement is still officially outlawed in Russia.

No country has formally recognised the Taliban as the country's legitimate leadership, although China and the UAE have accepted its ambassadors.

Russia added the Taliban to its list of terrorist organisations in 2003. Removing it would be an important step by Moscow towards normalising relations with Afghanistan.

The Taliban's acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said in a speech in Moscow that recent decisions by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to remove the former insurgents from a list of banned groups was a welcome step.

"We also appreciate the positive remarks by the high-ranking officials of the Russian Federation in this regard and hope to see more effective steps soon," he said.

In separate comments on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was convinced of the need to maintain "pragmatic dialogue" with the current Afghan government.

"It is obvious that it is impossible to solve problems or even discuss an Afghan settlement without Kabul," Lavrov said.

"Moscow will continue its course on developing political, trade and economic ties with Kabul," he added, speaking at a meeting in Moscow with Muttaqi and representatives of neighbouring countries.

While he did not mention the Taliban by name, he praised the current Afghan leadership for its efforts to curb drug production and fight Islamic State, which is outlawed in Russia.

Muttaqi said that countries in the region should cooperate against the Islamic State, which he said had established training centres outside Afghanistan.

Lavrov said the United States should return confiscated assets to Afghanistan and the West should acknowledge responsibility for the post-conflict reconstruction of the country.

Lavrov also called for an increase in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, and said Russia would keep sending it food and essential goods.

Russia has a troubled history in Afghanistan, where the Soviet army invaded in 1979 to support a pro-Moscow government but withdrew 10 years later after sustaining heavy casualties at the hands of mujahideen fighters.

Russia and its post-Soviet neighbours have suffered recurrent attacks from Islamist militant groups linked to Afghanistan - most recently in March, when 145 people were killed in an attack claimed by Islamic State at a concert hall near Moscow.

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