Author: Akpulat Erentoz

Israeli ministers met on Tuesday night in a bid to approve a Qatari-mediated deal to release dozens of the children and women held hostage by the Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet gathered for a special meeting in the evening, followed by a meeting of his extended security cabinet and his government. The release of Palestinian prisoners is a highly contested issue in Israeli society. As part of the regular procedure in Israel, any potential swap deal that includes the release of Palestinian prisoners needs to be brought for a vote in both…

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Tuesday urged the international community to pressure Israel to comply with the recent UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for reaching an immediate ceasefire and establishing humanitarian corridors across the war-stricken Gaza Strip. Sisi’s remarks came during an extraordinary virtual summit of the leaders of the BRICS group on the Palestinian-Israeli issue and the current situation in Gaza, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement. “Egypt has opposed and condemned the killing of civilians from all sides, and at the same time it denounces, in the strongest terms, the targeting of civilians and civilian facilities,…

The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka called on Tuesday for de-escalation along the Blue Line as hostilities persist between Hezbollah and Israel, reported local media. Wronecka said in a statement that the past six weeks of clashes along the Blue Line represent the most serious violations of Resolution 1701 since its adoption in 2006, according to L’Orient Today. She highlighted the collective responsibility of the international society to urge both parties to exercise restraint, calling for a return to the full implementation of Resolution 1701, a crucial entry point to realizing the region’s peace, security and stability.…

Kazakhstan The head of China’s State Committee for Nationalities Affairs, Pan Yue, visited Kazakhstan from September 17-19 for talks with a variety of Kazakh government officials. Based on publicly available information, the topic of the Chinese government’s treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in the PRC did not come up during the discussions. Ethnic Kazakhs, along with other Muslim minority groups in China’s Xinjiang Province, including Kyrgyz and Uyghurs, are experiencing an ongoing government crackdown, with tens of thousands detained in “reeducation camps.” The focus of Pan’s meetings with Kazakh officials was on expanding inter-governmental contacts. Pan, who is also a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central…

For years, the curious-looking and much-loved saiga antelope has served as the symbol of Kazakhstan’s delicate ecosystem. In the darkest times, the animal’s population is believed to have plunged to around a few hundred. But the intervention of environmentalists and devoted preservation officials brought the saiga back from the brink. So much so that it is now farmers who are sounding the alarm, warning how the antelope’s surging population is putting their crops at risk and endangering their livelihoods. Myrzabay Boranbayev, the manager of a farm in the West Kazakhstan region, has taken extensive measures to address the problem. When he…

The international community should join efforts to find a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. “We call on the international community to join efforts to de-escalate the situation, work towards reaching a ceasefire, and finding a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” Putin said at the BRICS extraordinary virtual summit on the Palestinian-Israeli issue. He stressed that BRICS members and regional countries could play a key role in achieving these goals, according to the Kremlin. “It is significant that all BRICS countries have similar positions regarding the need to collectively achieve a long-term and…

Iranian Health Minister Bahram Einollahi voiced Tuesday his country’s readiness to dispatch volunteer physicians and nurses to the war-torn Gaza Strip. He made the remarks on the sidelines of a ceremony to mark Iran’s National Nurse Day in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi, IRIB news agency reported. The minister said that “we are ready to provide (medical) assistance to the people in Gaza,” where hospitals encountered “brutal Israeli attacks.” Einollahi said Iran had ensured the necessary coordination to send medics to the Palestinian coastal enclave. Israel has been carrying out attacks on Gaza over the past weeks in retaliation…

The president of Uzbekistan has given a government commission three days to get to the bottom of what caused a huge blast at an industrial warehouse in Tashkent early September 28 that left one teenager dead and injured 162 people. The city hall has said 600 apartments across 26 high-rise buildings were damaged as a result of the explosion at a warehouse in a district not far from the airport. Other infrastructure damaged by the blast included a school and two kindergarten buildings. Emergency officials say that the explosion occurred around 2:43 a.m., giving rise to a blaze that spread…

Over the weekend, the Magtymguly Theater in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat, premieredits staging of Molière’s Scapin the Schemer. The 17th-century comedy tells the tale of a battle of wills between sons and fathers. This somehow feels topical for Turkmenistan, where a similarly farcical intra-generational tussle is playing out. Last week, a meeting took place in Germany’s capital, Berlin, between the leaders of Germany and Central Asia. This looked like yet another attempt by a major Western power to massage a region normally considered to be in Russia’s orbit of influence into considering alternative options. While Germany and four of the Central Asian…

A Hamas official said on Tuesday that the movement is close to reaching a cease-fire agreement with Israel in the coming hours, which will be announced in Qatar. The official, who wished to remain anonymous, said the movement had already sent its response to mediators on the cease-fire agreement, and it was waiting for Israel’s response. Khalil Al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s Political Bureau, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Egyptian and Qatari mediators were “making significant efforts to reach an agreement,” without providing further details. Earlier in the day, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau,…