Kuwait: Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah said that his country has 4 goals in foreign policy.
He added that the first of these goals is to ensure the security and safety of Kuwait, the second is to work to ensure stability in the region, and the third is to solve our border “problems” with Iraq and Iran, adding that these two files are of great importance to the political leadership. He pointed out that the fourth goal is to “strengthen our relations and alliances with the countries of the world, communicate with them, and strengthen friendships and alliances.”
Al-Sabah said, in an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Rai, in its issue issued tomorrow, Monday, that Kuwaiti diplomacy is ready and ready to face all the challenges the world is witnessing.
He stated, “It is no secret to anyone that our world today is witnessing major geopolitical and geo-strategic changes. The great powers are wrestling today. In an indirect military conflict between the great powers in Europe and in Ukraine specifically, and an economic conflict between the great powers between the West and China, this conflict causes us very great concern as a small country in this world, so we are following it closely and trying to deal with it as much as possible.” He stressed, “The international scene today is not clear and where it is heading,” wondering: “Will it be multipolar in the interest of strong regional countries that have their share of power not only in our region but around the world?” The international scene is very dynamic these days.”
Regarding the exemption of Kuwaitis from the Schengen visa, he said, “This file has received the attention of the leadership and public opinion, and there have been some obstacles in this file. This is no secret to anyone. We have now come a long way with the Europeans, and this month, September, we will obtain a (long-term Schengen visa).” .
Haaretz : An Israeli website explains the secret relations between Tel Aviv and Eritrea and warns against incitement against foreigners
Nazareth - The Hebrew newspaper “Haaretz” warns, in its editorial today, of launching a campaign of incitement and “humiliation” against Gentiles and foreigners in the country, after the bloody events in Tel Aviv between two conflicting camps of African infiltrated immigrants, two days ago, while press reports reveal the depth of secret relations. between Israel and Eritrea.
Under the title “An Opportunity to Attack Foreigners,” Haaretz said that the Kahanist-populist government jumps on the recent violent incidents in south Tel Aviv between supporters and opponents of the ruling regime in Eritrea, as if it had found many spoils. The Hebrew newspaper recalled how the office of the Prime Minister of the occupation, Benjamin Netanyahu, rushed to issue a statement, a few hours after the events , in which he referred to an immediate meeting of a ministerial committee to take action against the “rioters ,” including expulsion.
She continued: “The next day, Benjamin Netanyahu said that the goal is to formulate an integrated and updated plan to expel all illegal infiltrators from the country.”
Later, Netanyahu said that the only solution to the issue of immigrants is to deport them from the country, either voluntarily, or by other means, indicating that the judicial system put obstacles in the way of that. He stressed, in statements to reporters at Ben Gurion International Airport, before heading to Cyprus, that the United Nations proposal to grant citizenship to 16,000 infiltrators living in Israel will not solve the problem, as it encourages millions of others from Africa to enter the country, which will lead to its destabilization.
It seems that Netanyahu is betting on a short memory for the Israelis, as he had signed, in 2018, an agreement with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to deport 16,000 Eritrean infiltrators to Western countries, in exchange for rehabilitating a similar number of them, and keeping them to work in the country as temporary residents, and soon To announce his retraction, under pressure from right-wing circles, I protested against keeping thousands of Africans in the country, even as temporary residents.
In addition to its editorial, today, “Haaretz” publishes a satirical cartoon in which an Israeli policeman appears to be interrogating an immigrant from Eritrea about his participation in the riots in Tel Aviv, asking: Are you with the tyrannical regime? The immigrant replies: Which of them? Our dictator or your dictator?
According to Hebrew press reports, today, there are about 17,000 infiltrators from Eritrea in the country, the majority of whom reside in southern Tel Aviv, work in black jobs, transfer a portion of their income to relatives in their homeland, and pay taxes to the Eritrean government.
An intelligence base on the Red Sea coast
The Hebrew website Ynet quotes "foreign sources" as saying that Israel has an intelligence base in Eritrea, and that there has been tension in relations between them in the recent period. He explains that Eritrea, which considers “North Korea” to belong to the African continent, is experiencing a crisis in relations with the occupying state, and that the Israeli embassy in Asmara has been deserted since 2020, while the ruling regime opposes Israel’s return to the African Union as an observer member.
The crisis in bilateral relations is reflected in the vote of Eritrea's delegates against Israel in international forums and institutions as well.
The Ynet website goes on to describe the features of these complex relations, and wonders how, then, diplomatic relations are not severed despite the current crisis? He explains that one of the explanations for this is the existence of a basket of security interests for Israel in the Horn of Africa, which has a strategic geographical location, alluding to the Israeli intelligence base, and the presence of submarines belonging to the Israeli Navy at that base on the Red Sea coast.
“Ynet” recalls that Israeli diplomats abandoned the embassy in Asmara in April 2020, and in November of the same year, the Eritrean army joined the Ethiopian army in the war against the “Tigray People’s Liberation Front,” and both armies were accused of committing atrocities against the population. Locally, the United States quickly imposed sanctions on figures in Eritrea, especially the army commander.
He also explains that the Eritrean and Ethiopian armies have waged armed guerrilla warfare for 32 years, and only in 1991 Eritrea gained its independence and turned into a tyrannical state. Noting that most of the infiltrators and asylum seekers from Eritrea in Israel, between 2006 and 2011, were men (80%), and they now speak Hebrew. At the peak, the number of infiltrators from Eritrea in Israel reached about 50,000 people, of whom about 17,000 remain today, most of whom are opposed to the dictatorial regime in Asmara, and fled from it.
Wenet says that about 2,000 infiltrators from Eritrea left Israel in the last year, some of them returned to their homeland, and another part joined their families in Canada, the United States and additional countries, and every month between 300 and 500 Eritreans leave voluntarily.
Eritrean Embassy in Tel Aviv
As for the Eritrean embassy in Tel Aviv, it has been in existence since 2004 and is managed by an appointed employee instead of the absent ambassador. It had submitted a request to the Israeli authorities to organize a cultural festival in the city and to recruit financial support for the ruling regime in Asmara. However, opponents of the regime, Eritrean immigrants in the country, asked to demonstrate against holding the festival, and with the start of its activities, bloody confrontations broke out between supporters and opponents, throughout Saturday, in which a number of Israeli police officers were injured, and this was considered by Israeli political and media authorities as an organizational intelligence failure of the police, which It had to differentiate between the “hawks” and prevent violent clashes and clashes in the streets of Tel Aviv that got out of control.
Opponents of the ruling Eritrean regime say that its supporters work as spies for it, and provide it with all the details of the opponents. They said that the dictatorial regime in Asmara pursues the families of the opponents, takes revenge on them, and even takes them hostage, and forces them to live in constant terror.