Middle East & North Africa

TEHRAN, August 21. /TASS/: Iran is willing to return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) if Europe restarts observing its provisions, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday.

"If Europe fulfils its deal obligations, we will return to complying with ours. We will do it even in case the United States won’t return to the JCPOA," the minister said. According to him, "it is not Iran, it is the US who is looking to destroy the nuclear deal." "We can return into compliance within a few hours," he underlined.

Tehran, Aug 21, IRNA – The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement issued on Wednesday said that Iran’s defense achievements and capabilities in ground, sea and aerospace have changed the country into a top and unrivalled regional power in compare with trans-regional states.

21 Aug 2019; MEMO: Israeli occupation forces stormed the outskirts of the village of Lakiya in the Negev yesterday and distributed demolition and evacuation notices.

The notices affected more than 30 buildings and houses, most of which belonged to the Abu Mutair family and the family of former Knesset member, Juma Al-Zabarqa.

21 Aug 2019; MEMO: A Palestinian grandmother has finally been able to visit her father’s grave, after battling Israeli authorities for permission to do so over two decades.

The grave of Salwa Salem Copty’s father is located inside an Israeli military base near Nazareth, which was built on the ruins of Ma’alul, one of hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed during the Nakba.

GAZA, Palestine, Aug 21 (NNN-XINHUA) – A Palestinian charity, signed a deal with the al-Naser village in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, to build two China-funded water desalination plants, to alleviate the shortage of potable water there.

The agreement was signed by Give Palestine Association, a non-profit charity, and the municipality of al-Naser village, to build the project, called “Life’s Drops 1.”

GAZA, Palestine, Aug 21 (NNN-WAFA) – Hamas, on Tuesday, downplayed the threat of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to launch a large-scale offensive on the Gaza Strip as “useless.”

Netanyahu’s threat to wage a war against Gaza “is empty of its content and comes in the frame of his election campaign,” said Abdulatif al-Qanoua, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said, in a press statement.

“Netanyahu will certainly lose any new war that will be waged against Gaza, similar to the previous ones,” al-Qanoua warned.

TRIPOLI, Aug 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it fears that a boat packed with migrants sunk off the Libyan coast with more than a hundred people dead.

“We have every reason to fear the worst – that over 100 lives were lost and nobody will ever know for sure,” MSF said in a statement on Twitter.

The Libyan coast guard was not immediately available for comment.

Libya is a hub for migrants and refugees, many of whom try to reach Europe in unseaworthy boats.

TEHRAN, Iran, Aug 21 (NNN-TASNIM) – An Iranian court started hearing the case of the British oil tanker, Stena Impero, which was captured by Iranian forces last month, for “violating international maritime regulations,” at the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Mohammad Rastad, deputy minister of roads and urban development, the documents and evidence of the seized tanker’s “violations” have been submitted to the court.

The case is being heard by the judicial authority, in the Iranian southern port city of Bandar Abbas, said Rastad.

KHARTOUM, Aug 21 (NNN-Xinhua) — Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC) on Tuesday approved the formation of a joint sovereign council of 11 members, TMC’s spokesman Shams-Eddin Kabashi announced.

The announcement came a day after the trial of Omar al-Bashir, the former Sudanese president, who faces corruption charges.

“The TMC chairman issued a constitutional decree forming the sovereign council under the chairmanship of Lit. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan,” Kabashi said at a press conference.

ANKARA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- A recent Russian-backed operation by the Syrian government forces in Idlib of Syria is directly relevant to the start of talks between the United States and Turkey to set up a safe zone in northeastern Syria, experts argued.

On Monday, a Turkish military convoy was attacked on its way to an observation point in Idlib, where Turkish Defense Ministry claimed that three civilians were killed.