Online memorial for children dead in Hiroshima, Nagasaki
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
11 hours ago
- Arab News
Pakistan PM visits Iranian embassy, assures continued support following Israeli attacks
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday visited the Iranian embassy in Islamabad and assured Tehran of Islamabad's continued support, following last month's Israeli attacks on Iran. The 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which began on June 13 Israeli airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and military leadership, raised alarms in a region that was already on edge since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023. Pakistan remained engaged in talks with regional partners like Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and Qatar to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East after Iran conducted retaliatory strikes on Israel and a US base in Qatar, raising fears the conflict could draw in other regional states. During his visit to the Iranian embassy, Sharif signed a condolence book opened by the Iranian mission to honor the Iranians who were killed and injured during the Israeli attacks against Iran, according to the Pakistan PM's office. 'He expressed his deepest condolences to the people and Government of Iran, while reaffirming Pakistan's sympathy and solidarity with Iran during this difficult time,' Sharif's office said. 'While assuring the Iranian side of Pakistan's consistent and continued support, the Prime Minister also conveyed his good wishes and respects for Iranian Supreme Leader His Eminence Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, as well as for President Dr. Massoud Pezeshkian.' On Monday, Iranian judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir offered a sharply increased, government-issued death toll from the war, saying that the Israeli attacks killed 935 'Iranian citizens,' including 38 children and 102 women. The Israeli strikes came at a time when Iranian officials were engaged in nuclear negotiations with the US and the conflict worsened after the US struck three Iranian nuclear sites on June 22. President Donald Trump claimed the strikes set back Iran's nuclear program by years. Iran is assessing the damage and lashing out over the American and Israeli airstrikes on its nuclear sites, though Tehran kept open the possibility Tuesday of resuming talks with Washington over its atomic program, AP news agency reported. The comments by government spokesperson Fatemeh MoHajjerani also included another acknowledgment that Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz, key sites within Iran's nuclear program, had been 'seriously damaged' by the American strikes. 'No date (for US talks) is announced, and it's not probably very soon, but a decision hasn't been made in this field,' the state-run IRNA news agency quoted MoHajjerani as saying at a briefing for journalists. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also kept open the possibility of talks with the US.
Arab News
15 hours ago
- Arab News
GCC, Japan officials hold talks on trade, economy in Riyadh
RIYADH: The GCC's Secretary-General Jasem Albudaiwi and Japan's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Morino Yasunari held talks in Riyadh on Tuesday. During their meeting at the headquarters of the GCC's general secretariat, the two officials discussed ways to boost relations. According to the Saudi Press Agency, they discussed preparations for Albudaiwi's visit to Japan this week, a review of free trade agreement negotiations, and a follow-up on the joint action plan for the period 2024-2028. On Monday, the GCC and Japan launched the second round of negotiations for a free trade agreement, with talks to be held in Tokyo until July 4.
Arab News
15 hours ago
- Arab News
Ensuring the Middle East becomes a WMD-free zone
There are quite a few lessons to be learned from the 12 days of war between Iran and Israel last month, especially from their mutual readiness to inflict severe pain on one another. One is the need to embark on urgent discussions with full commitment to ensure the Middle East becomes a weapons of mass destruction-free zone. The entire Cold War-era nuclear doctrine — and, with it, many other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological — was based on an understanding that these weapons were not to be used, but rather to deter the other side from using them. No rational actor in international relations would dare to use them if it would also mean a devastating retaliation — in other words, mutual assured destruction. There is a real danger that a nuclear arms race in the Middle East would be more likely to bring nuclear madness than mutual assured destruction. It is still too early to assess the damage caused to the Iranian nuclear program and whether its piles of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, which had brought the country closer to developing nuclear military capability, were destroyed or were safely hidden away. After the fatal exchange of blows between Iran and Israel that caused widespread death and destruction must come a period of reflection on the dangers of the presence of WMDs in the region and the need to eliminate them. The working assumption is that there is only one country in the region that is in possession of nuclear military capabilities — Israel — while others, including Iran, Iraq and Libya, have chemical weapons. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, it is estimated that Israel has about 80 nuclear weapons, although the country's official policy is one of nuclear ambiguity, claiming that it will not be the first country to 'introduce' nuclear weapons to the Middle East. Yet, one of its Cabinet ministers proposed, at the beginning of the war on Gaza, to nuke the place — and it is hardly plausible that he would make such a threat unless Israel was in possession of nuclear weapons. There must be a period of reflection on the dangers of the presence of WMDs in the region and the need to eliminate them Yossi Mekelberg The 19th-century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once wrote that, 'if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise, don't put it there.' Thus far, nuclear weapons have been used 'only' twice, toward the end of the Second World War. But this tells us very little about what might happen if the Middle East were to embark on a nuclear arms race. Just imagine that both Iran and Israel were armed with nuclear weapons and, at a certain point, each felt that their country's very existence was in danger. Could we completely exclude the possibility of them employing this doomsday weapon? Not a scenario that anyone would like to find themselves in. Israel's ambiguity has, in a roundabout way, contributed to preventing a nuclear arms race in the region. By not announcing it publicly, it has not forced others to compete with it in this arena. Moreover, prior to becoming a major regional military power and signing peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan — and, more recently, the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with the UAE, Morocco and Bahrain — Israel's nuclear capability was regarded as one of last resort. It was there in case it faced a cataclysmic scenario of being on the verge of military defeat, in addition to assuming it was being governed by a more rational government than the current one. It is hardly facing an existential threat anymore and the rationality of its current government is at best questionable. What also makes a Middle East WMD-free zone a matter of urgency is the inherent political instability and volatility of some parts of the region, let alone their appalling lack of respect for international law. The idea of a WMD-free zone is not new. It was first introduced by Egypt in 1990, as an extension of a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East, and later as part of a series of decisions derived from the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which 191 states have so far joined, but not India, Israel, Pakistan or North Korea. Israel is hardly facing an existential threat anymore and the rationality of its current government is at best questionable Yossi Mekelberg The 1995 NPT review conference called for 'the establishment of an effectively verifiable Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and biological, and their delivery systems.' Regrettably, hardly any progress has been made toward a negotiated elimination of WMDs, including nuclear, despite five international summits being held on the issue, the last of them in November 2024. The risks caused by the presence of WMDs in areas where conflict is ever-present, where enmities are usually defined in absolute terms and where threats are seen as existential are too dangerous to allow. They are made worse where there is asymmetry in terms of conventional military capabilities, as is the case in the Middle East. In the event of a side facing defeat, while in possession of nuclear weapons, there might be the temptation to use them either as a tool to change the course of the war or as some sort of Samson-like option of bringing the roof down on everyone. If the dreadful consequences of using nuclear or other WMDs is one aspect of the need to ensure that countries do not pursue this route, there is also the futility of investing endless resources in developing and acquiring such lethal weapons. Such programs are expensive, meaning there are other more urgent and fundamental social and economic needs that are deprived of resources. And in the case of nuclear, it is in many cases a vanity project; or worse, as we just witnessed in the case of Iran, one that leads to needless wars. Last year, I participated in a nuclear disarmament workshop in Hiroshima, where we met with survivors of the nuclear bomb dropped by the US on the city 80 years ago next month. They told us of the horrific experience suffered by themselves, their families and their city, as could also be seen in photographic evidence in the local museum. Their message was very clear: there is no place in our civilization for such weapons. This should be a lesson for anyone who is contemplating developing or possessing nuclear weapons, whether in the Middle East or anywhere else.
