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Jordan King Tells McGurk of Urgent Need to Reduce Escalation

Jordan's King Abdullah II. Reuters
Jordan's King Abdullah II. Reuters
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Jordan King Tells McGurk of Urgent Need to Reduce Escalation

Jordan's King Abdullah II. Reuters
Jordan's King Abdullah II. Reuters

Jordan's King Abdullah II told US President Joe Biden's top Middle East advisor attending an Israeli-Palestinian meeting on Sunday that efforts should be intensified to bring "calm and reduce escalation" in Palestinian territories, state media reported.

Brett McGurk attended the meeting in the Red Sea port of Aqaba hosted by Jordan that brought Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs together for the first time in many years, along with representatives of key regional parties.

Earlier this month, King Abdullah met Biden and held talks with McGurk in which the United States warned of the threats to regional security and lobbied for a resumption of stalled US-sponsored talks on Palestinian statehood.

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Iraq’s Sadr to Boycott Elections, Says Doesn’t Want to Work with ‘Corrupt’ Figures

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shows his ink-stained finger after casting his vote at a polling station in Najaf, Iraq, in May 2018. (Reuters)
Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shows his ink-stained finger after casting his vote at a polling station in Najaf, Iraq, in May 2018. (Reuters)
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Iraq’s Sadr to Boycott Elections, Says Doesn’t Want to Work with ‘Corrupt’ Figures

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shows his ink-stained finger after casting his vote at a polling station in Najaf, Iraq, in May 2018. (Reuters)
Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shows his ink-stained finger after casting his vote at a polling station in Najaf, Iraq, in May 2018. (Reuters)

Head of Iraq’s Sadrist movement influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced on Friday that he was boycotting the upcoming parliamentary elections, citing the involvement of “corrupt” figures in the process.

“Let everyone know that as long as corruption exists, I will not take part in any flawed electoral process that only concerns itself with sectarian and partisan interests, not the people’s suffering and all the catastrophes going on in the region,” he added.

“Dragging Iraq and its people into needless conflicts is the primary reason for these catastrophes,” he went on to say.

Sadr therefore called on his supporters to refrain from voting or running in the elections.

“What point is there in taking part in rule with corrupt figures?” he wondered.

Earlier in March, Sadr had invited former MPs from the Sadr bloc to a Ramadan iftar, fueling speculation that he was going to end his boycott of political life. Some 200 Sadrist MPs, who had run for election between 2005 and 2018, attended the iftar.

Shiite parties, most notably Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and former PM Nouri al-Maliki, were seeking rapprochement with Sadr in the hopes of forging an alliance in the elections.