PRAGUE, 27 March 2022, (TON): The Patriot air defense system, the first of three of the NATO multinational battle group deployed in Slovakia in response to the situation in Ukraine, began to perform tasks to protect the airspace of the republic.

With reference to the country’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger, this was reported on Saturday by the news agency.

The Patriot complex is installed at an air base in the town of Sliac in Central Slovakia to protect the airspace of this region of the republic.

Two more Patriot complexes will arrive in the country soon. Two of them are in the service of the soldiers of the German Bundeswehr, one, the military personnel of the armed forces of the Netherlands.

On March 15, the National Council (parliament) of Slovakia approved the government’s proposal to deploy a multinational combat group in the republic because of the situation in Ukraine.

TEHRAN, 27 March 2022, (TON): Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said “Iran has reached a point of agreement in the talks in Vienna while noting that a number of significant issues still remain in place.”

Speaking in a televised speech, the foreign minister said that Deputy EU foreign policy chief will arrive in Tehran within an hour for talks on the latest development in negotiations.

Amirabdollahian said that any new agreement will not go beyond a 2015 agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The foreign minister noted that the talks have made great progress on lifting arbitrary sanctions on Iran.

Amirabdollahian said “the Americans said they wanted direct negotiations and said they sought to show the goodwill of Mr. Biden.”

He added that the US should lift sanctions on Iran if it has goodwill. We are not seeking to take photos. We are rather looking for practical measures.

BAGHDAD, 27 March 2022, (TON): Iraq’s parliament failed again on Saturday to vote for a president after Iran-backed groups boycotted the session, in a setback to an alliance led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr which won the election and threatened to remove them from politics.

Sadr had hoped parliament would elect Rebar Ahmed, a veteran Kurdish intelligence official and current interior minister of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.

But only 202 members of parliament out of 329 were present, which is less than the necessary two-thirds quorum needed to choose a new president for the mostly ceremonial post, while 126 lawmakers boycotted the session.

Farhad Alaaldin, chairman of the Iraq Advisory Council, a policy research institute said “it is a storm in a cup. Today is a good proof that the party that had claimed that it has the majority had failed to achieve it. It is a bad situation getting worse.”

A win for Sadr’s allies would threaten to exclude Tehran’s allies from power for the first time in years.

LONDON, 27 March 2022, (TON): Yemeni Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani said recent repeated attempts by the Houthi militia to target oil tankers and threaten the security and safety of international shipping lines in the Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandeb was a serious escalation.

He added “it falls in line with the Iran-backed group’s efforts to damage oil infrastructure and global energy supplies at Tehran’s behest, arming and planning.”

The Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen said on Wednesday that it had thwarted an attempt the Houthi militia to carry out an attack in the southern Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandeb on giant oil tankers and destroyed two explosive-laden Houthi boats.

Al-Eryani said in a series of tweets “Houthi militia threaten international navigation, taking advantage of the Stockholm Agreement and control over Hodiedah, under the eyes of the UN Mission to Support Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA), which made no progress and has become a cover for the militia to violate the agreement and commit terrorist activities.”

BEIRUT, 27 March 2022, (TON): Prime Minister Najib Mikati said “talks between the Lebanese government and the International Monetary Fund over an economic recovery plan should make progress in the next two weeks.”

Speaking to reporters in Qatar, where he is attending the Doha Forum, Mikati said “an IMF delegation will resume talks with the government in Beirut on Tuesday over the country’s economic meltdown that began more than two years ago.”

Talks between Lebanon and the IMF began in May 2020, and then stopped for months amid a political deadlock in the small country. They resumed after Mikati took office in September but no breakthrough has been made since.

A main sticking point in the talks has been estimating the amount of financial losses. But late last year, Deputy Prime Minister Saadeh Shami, who is heading the talks with the IMF, put the losses of the financial sector at $69 billion.

Mikati said “hopefully it’s going to take, I guess, two weeks and by the end of the two weeks we can see the light differently.”

LONDON, 27 March 2022, (TON): The Telegraph newspaper reported “British foreign minister Liz Truss says sanctions imposed on Russian individuals and companies could be lifted if Russia withdraws from Ukraine and commits to end aggression.”

Britain and other Western nations are using economic sanctions to cripple the Russian economy and punish President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine, seeking to press him to abandon what he calls a special military operation to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Truss held out the possibility the measures could end if Moscow changed course.

She said “what we know is that Russia signed up to multiple agreements they simply don’t comply with. So there needs to be hard levers. Of course, sanctions are a hard lever.”

Those sanctions should only come off with a full cease-fire and withdrawal, but also commitments that there will be no further aggression.

And also, there’s the opportunity to have snapback sanctions if there is further aggression in future. That is a real lever that I think can be used.

RIYADH, 27 March 2022, (TON): Saudi Arabia took part in the opening session of the 20th Doha Forum 2022, in Qatar, which is being held under the theme “Transforming for a New Era.”

In his address at the event, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of international action.” It has shown that “no challenge can be faced alone, including climate, economic or other pandemic challenges, and these issues cannot be overcome without working with each other.”

He said there is an incomplete element of commitment and participation among countries in the development of the international agenda. “We must make sure that the agenda meets the needs of everyone and not just some. We need also to work with our partners on the international scene to be more effective in setting the international agenda.”

As for the Ukrainian crisis, Prince Faisal said that the best way to deal with this crisis is to promote dialogue between the two parties to reach a political solution and end the suffering of civilians.

KABUL, 27 March 2022, (TON): Speaking in an exclusive interview Hezb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has rejected the idea of forming a coalition government as the way forward, and instead came out in support of holding elections.

Hekmatyar said “history shows that coalition governments have not been successful in Afghanistan. “Coalition governments cannot administer a country like Afghanistan.”

Hekmatyar said “Nowhere has it been successful. In Afghanistan too, it has not been successful. Experience also suggests the same. We witnessed it in the past 40 years. The communists could not form a coalition government. The secularists couldn’t make a successful coalition government in the past 20 years.”

He said that Afghanistan needs a single-party government.

Hekmatyar said “such a government should be led by a president who is elected and who is leading the most powerful inclusive political party.”

He said that Hezb-e-Islami was the only inclusive political party in Afghanistan.

KABUL, 27 March 2022, (TON): The United States said that it has cancelled planned talks in Doha with the Taliban after the hardline Islamist rulers of Afghanistan shut girls’ secondary schools.

State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said “we have cancelled some of our engagements, including planned meetings in Doha around the Doha Forum, and have made clear that we see this decision as a potential turning point in our engagement.”

The Taliban, which seized power in August and is eager for international recognition, shut down girls’ secondary schools this week just hours after reopening them.

Porter told reporters “this decision by the Taliban, if it is not swiftly reversed, will profoundly harm the Afghan people, the country’s prospects for economic growth, and the Taliban’s ambition to improve their relations with the international community.”

NEW DELHI, 27 March 2022, (TON): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend a virtual summit of the seven-nation Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) grouping on March 30, which is expected to focus on expanding economic engagement among its member countries.

The summit is being hosted by Sri Lanka in its capacity as the chair of the BIMSTEC.

Besides India and Sri Lanka, the BIMSTEC comprises Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan.

The Ministry of External Affairs said "Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be attending the 5th BIMSTEC Summit on March 30. The summit meeting, which is being held in virtual mode, will be hosted by Sri Lanka, the current BIMSTEC chair.”

India has been making concerted efforts to make BIMSTEC a vibrant forum for regional cooperation as initiatives under the SAARC are not moving forward for a variety of reasons.