FRI 29 - 3 - 2024
 
Date: Mar 21, 2011
Source: The Daily Star
Bahraini opposition eases conditions for talks
Manama expels Iran’s charge d’affaires while Tehran tells Bahraini diplomat to leave

Monday, March 21, 2011


MANAMA: Bahrain’s main opposition groups eased conditions for talks to end a crisis that has drawn in neighboring armies, though tensions in the Gulf region remained high as Bahrain expelled an Iranian diplomat.
Led by the largest Shiite party Al-Wefaq, opposition groups called late Saturday on security forces to free all those detained in the wake of a month of protests, end their crackdown and ask Gulf Arab troops to leave so talks could begin.


“We will not back down under threat and we will not come to talks with guns pointed at our heads,” said Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, an Al-Wefaq MP until the bloc withdrew from Parliament a few weeks ago.
But main opposition groups appeared to retreat from much more ambitious conditions they set last week for talks, including creation of a government not dominated by royals and the establishment of an elected council to redraft the Constitution.


“Prepare a healthy atmosphere for the start of political dialogue between the opposition and the government on a basis that can put our country on the track to real democracy and away from the abyss,” their statement said.
The new conditions would take the political process back to the position it was in before the uprising began a month ago.


Bahrain forces moved Wednesday to end weeks of mostly Shiite protests which prompted the king to impose martial law and drew in troops from Gulf neighbors. Iran has complained to the United Nations and asked neighbors to join it in urging Saudi Arabia to withdraw forces from Bahrain.


In a sign of rising tensions between the two countries, Bahrain expelled Iran’s charge d’affaires Sunday, a diplomatic source told Reuters. He left shortly after the Iranian ambassador, who was asked to leave last week.
“Bahraini authorities said he had contacts with some [opposition] groups,” the source said. Iran then summoned Bahrain’s charge d’affaires and told one diplomat to leave.


U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also condemned Sunday the crackdown in Bahrain, but cautioned against Washington’s rush to intervene in every Arab country experiencing political unrest.
“I think we have to be very careful to treat every country differently,” Mullen said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Certainly there’s a tremendous change going on right now throughout the Middle East, including in Bahrain. And Bahrain is in a much different situation than Libya.”


Unlike Libya, Bahrain has been America’s “critical ally for decades,” Mullen said, adding that the U.S. is working “very hard to support a peaceful resolution there, as tragic as it is.” “We decry the violence that’s occurred in Bahrain,” Mullen said.” I think the approach needs to be different.”

 

In Damascus, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said that the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Peninsula Shield Force’s presence in Bahrain was “legitimate” and is not considered an “occupation”. He said in comments published Sunday that the “agreements which created the Peninsula Shield Force and the joint agreement between the member states of the GCC constituted the legal context for these forces’ presence” in Bahrain.


Asked whether the Syrian position will have a negative impact on Syria’s ties with Iran, Moallem said: “We are part of this Arab nation and we work for better relations with the Arab world which requires us to clearly express the Syrian stance.”


Bahrain complained to Arabsat Sunday over “abuse and incitement” on Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar and Shiite channel Ahlulbayt, which are all carried by the broadcaster, state news agency BNA said.


Over 2,000 mourners in the Bahraini Shiite village of Sitra, pumping their fists and shouting “Down with the regime” joined the third funeral procession in as many days Sunday. Issa Radhi, 47, was one of four protesters killed in last week’s crackdown.
He went missing after a protest in Sitra Wednesday and police called his family Saturday to say they found his body. His brother said he was badly beaten, with birdshot in his legs.

 

“We bury him today but we won’t bury the right to avenge his death,” his brother Khalil Radhi said.
Hours after the funeral, Al-Wefaq said a man taken away by security forces two days ago was dead. It said police had told Abdel-Rusul Hajair’s family to collect his body from hospital.
A former Al-Wefaq parliamentarian said some 100 people had gone missing in the crackdown, speaking at a small 15-minute protest in front of the U.N. building in Manama.


“We don’t know anything about them, we’ve asked hospital and ministry authorities and none of them are telling us anything about them,” Hady al-Mussawy said, one of around 21 former Al-Wefaq MPs carrying Bahraini flags and calling on the U.N. to help ensure rescue medical services were working in Bahrain. – Reuters, AP

 



 
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