Tag: InternationalNews

Fatah and Hamas to form unity government

{Agreement reached after three days of talks in Moscow paving the way for the formation of a new National Council.}

The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) has agreed to form a unity government with rival organisation Hamas, Al Jazeera has learned.

The agreement was reached late on Tuesday after a three-day negotiation in the Russian capital Moscow.

The two organisations will form a new National Council, which will include Palestinians in exile, and hold elections.

“Today the conditions for (such an initiative) are better than ever,” said Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official said.

The deal also includes the Islamic Jihad group, which had not been involved in negotiations for a long time.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas have been at loggerheads since the latter seized Gaza in a near civil war in 2007, after it won the 2006 legislative elections.

Last year the Palestinian government postponed the first municipal polls in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in 10 years after the high court ruled they should be held only in the Fatah-run West Bank.

The last time the Palestinians staged elections in which both Hamas and Fatah took part was in 2006.

The Palestinian representatives also met on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and asked him to dissuade incoming US President Donald Trump from carrying out a campaign pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Khaled Elgindy, a senior Brookings Institute fellow and former adviser on peace negotiations, said it is still not clear how different the latest agreement is to previous deals.

Elgindy said the “most important factor” prompting the unity agreement is the leadership change in Washington DC.

“President Abbas may be looking to shore up his domestic position, and to insulate himself from what he sees maybe as a very hostile administration coming in to Washington,” he said.

January 18, 2017
Orlando shooter Omar Mateen’s widow charged

{Noor Salman accused of misleading police and aiding Omar Mateen in run-up to last year’s massacre at Pulse nightclub.}

The widow of the man who killed 49 people last year in a gay nightclub in the US city of Orlando has been formally charged with a terror-related offence and obstruction of justice.

Noor Salman was charged on Tuesday with aiding and abetting Omar Mateen in the months before the June 12 massacre at the Pulse – the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

Salman, 30, stood before a federal judge in Oakland, California, under tight security. She did not enter a plea before she was led back to jail.

“She knew he was going to conduct the attack,” Roger Handberg, federal prosecutor, told the judge.

Handberg did not disclose any more details and would not comment after the 15-minute hearing.

{{The charges}}

In the indictment unsealed on Monday, Salman was accused of aiding and abetting Mateen in providing material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group between April and June of last year.

She was also charged with obstruction, accused of misleading and lying to police and the FBI during their investigation. The charges carry up to life in prison.

The indictment, which was returned in Florida on January 12, gave no additional details on Salman’s actions.

During the attack at the Pulse nightclub, Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIL, also known as ISIS, in a 911 call.

He was killed in a shootout with SWAT officers. In addition to the 49 victims killed, 53 people were injured.

The couple lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, at the time of the rampage.

The indictment asks that Salman’s assets, including $30,500, be forfeited.

She was taken into custody early on Monday at a house she shared with her mother in Rodeo, a community about 40km northeast of San Francisco.

It was unclear if her son was with her.

It was unclear what she was doing in California and her case is expected to be transferred to Florida.

A judge scheduled another hearing on Wednesday to discuss her possible release before her trial, her transfer to Florida to face the charges, and the appointment of a lawyer.

{{‘Unaware of everything’}}

Outside the Oakland court on Tuesday, Salman’s uncle Al Salman said his niece was innocent and did nothing to help Mateen plan the assault.

“She’s a very soft and sweet girl,” Salman said. “She would not hurt a fly”.

He said Salman was physically and mentally abused by Mateen and that she stayed with him for fear of losing custody of their son.

For her part, Salman told the New York Times in an interview published in November last year that she knew her husband had watched ISIL videos but that she was “unaware of everything” regarding his intent to shoot up the club.

Salman also said he had physically abused her.

Charles Swift, director of the Texas-based Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America, planned to represent Salman at that hearing, according to public defender John Paul Reichmuth, who served as her attorney during Tuesday’s proceedings.

Linda Moreno, a Florida attorney who also represents Salman, said after the arrest that Salman “had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night”.

January 18, 2017
UK will leave EU single market, says Theresa May

{Theresa May announces plans for a clean break from EU bloc and promises that politicians will vote on final Brexit deal.}

Britain will leave the European Union’s single market but will “seek greatest possible access to it” as it exits the bloc, Theresa May has announced.

In a highly anticipated speech, the UK prime minister said on Tuesday that it was necessary to make a clean break and not opt for anything that “leaves us half-in, half-out” because that would mean “not leaving the EU at all”.

The UK will not “hold on to bits of membership”, nor seek associate or partial membership of the bloc, she said announcing her plans, but promised that the country’s parliament would get to vote on a final deal on Britain’s exit from the EU, or Brexit.

“I can confirm today that the government will put the final deal that is agreed between the UK and the EU to a vote in both houses of parliament before it comes into force,” May said.

The country would seek a “phased process” for leaving the EU following two years of formal negotiations to “avoid a disruptive cliff edge” for businesses, she said, adding that she would start the procedures by the end of March.

“It is in no one’s interests for there to be a cliff edge for business or a threat to stability as we change our existing relationship to a new partnership with the EU,” May said.

“By this, I do not mean that we will seek some form of unlimited transitional status in which we find ourselves stuck forever in some kind of permanent political purgatory.”

May also said the UK would seek a “new and equal partnership” with Europe.

“We see a new and equal partnership between an independent, self-governing, global Britain and our friends and allies in the EU,” she said.

May said that the UK would guarantee the rights of EU citizens who were already living in Britain and the rights of the British nationals in other member states.

However, she added: “Brexit must mean control of the number of people who come to Britain from Europe.”

Gabriel Siles-Brügge, a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, told Al Jazeera that May’s plans for the new deal with the EU were highly unrealistic.

“What’s particularly interesting is that she has talked about some sort of a new membership to the customs union which involves not having to accept the common commercial policy and not having to accept the common external tariffs,” he said.

“Basically Britain would have some sort of an arrangement whereby it participates in the customs union but in a sense not be bound by all of its rules.

“I think that is a very unlikely arrangement.”

There was a thinly veiled threat in May’s remarks suggesting that punitive action was not good for either the EU or Britain.

A majority of British voters decided to leave the EU in a referendum in June last year.

May also used her speech to appeal for reconciliation between the 48 percent of those who wanted to stay in the EU and the pro-Brexit 52 percent.

But the gap between “remainers” and “leavers” appears as wide as ever.

In a statement, Andrew Blick, a lecturer in politics and contemporary history at King’s College London, said the speech “makes the break look less ‘clean’ than we are being encouraged to believe … From a constitutional perspective, this negotiation is being treated as largely about trade.

“In fact, it will have immense consequences for the legal and political system of the United Kingdom”.

Possible tax breaks

Philip Hammond, the treasury chief, has suggested Britain would consider offering a break on corporation taxes if necessary, to encourage investment.

Jeremy Corbyn, UK opposition leader, said May appeared to be warning that she was ready to turn the UK into a “low-corporate taxation, bargain-basement economy off the shores of Europe” if the EU did not give her everything she wanted.

“She makes out this is a negotiating threat to the 27 EU countries, but it’s actually a threat to the British people’s jobs, services and living standards,” Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, said.

The British pound rallied after May’s speech. The currency was recovering from steep losses earlier in the week, trading 2.2 percent higher at $1.2309.

On Monday, it was as low as $1.20, a near 31-year low.

January 18, 2017
Far-right MP storms Athens school over refugee classes

{Golden Dawn politician and his far-right supporters threaten staff for plans to offer classes to refugee children.}

Dozens of far-right supporters led by a member of Greece’s parliament have stormed a school in the capital, Athens, threatening staff against plans to provide classes to refugee children, according to Greek offficials.

Yiannis Lagos, an MP with the Golden Dawn far-right outfit, and other party members hurled abuse and acted with aggressive behaviour towards teachers at the state-run elementary school in Perama, Greece’s education ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Today’s acts by the Golden Dawn members … will not affect the operation of the school for the refugee children,” said Yiannis Pantis, the ministry’s general secretary.

“Instances of violence and racism have no place in a school environment.”

Golden Dawn, an anti-immigrant party, is the third biggest political player in Greece, a country still down on its knees after more than six years of deepening recession.

The party has taken advantage of a protest vote against domestic political failures and internationally imposed austerity, polling just 0.3 percent in 2009 to winning almost seven percent in the country’s last general election in 2015.

Many of its MPs, including Lagos, and other party members are facing trial on charges that Golden Dawn is run as a criminal organisation.

They have now been freed after the expiration of an 18-month imprisonment period withour trial.

‘Punches, abuse’

The Golden Dawn members entered the school during a meeting between local officials, teachers and parents who were scheduled to discuss plans to offer after school classes to 25 refugee children who live in a nearby camp.

After storming the school, the Golden Dawn members theatened those attending the meeting and punched some teachers and parents, according to Greek media reports.

Witnesses also alleged that police stood outside the school but failed to act to prevent the attack.

“Today’s attack by Golden Dawn against parents and teachers in Perama – led by indicted MP Lagos – is a provocation for the entire Greek society,” Takis Giannopoulos, a member of the Greek activist group Anti-Nazi Zone, told Al Jazeera.

“Golden Dawn denies education to 25 children who escaped war.

“This fascism cannot be tolerated.”

The attack was also condemned by several Greek political parties.

An estimated 62,000 refugees and migrants are currently stranded in Greece following a wave of border closures across Europe after a controversial agreement between the European Union and Turkey in March 2016.

January 18, 2017
Lavrov: Russia inviting Trump officials to Syria talks

{Foreign minister says Russia and US could start discussions on ‘fighting terrorism’ in Syria at summit in Kazakhstan.}

Sergey Lavrov has said Russia is inviting representatives of the incoming US administration to attend upcoming Syria talks in Kazakhstan’s capital.

Speaking on Tuesday in Moscow, the Russian foreign minister praised what he called Donald Trump’s focus on combating “terrorism”.

“By concentrating on a pragmatic search for mutual interests we can solve a lot of problems,” he said.

He voiced hope that Russian and US experts could start discussions on “fighting terrorism” in Syria in Astana when Syrian government and opposition representatives meet there for talks on Monday.

He said: “We hope that the new administration will be able to accept that proposal,” adding that the talks in Astana will offer “the first opportunity to discuss a more efficient fight against terrorism in Syria”.

Lavrov said Russia expects that cooperation on settling the Syrian crisis will be more productive than it was with the administration of President Barack Obama.

“What we hear from Donald Trump [on Syria] and his team speaks to how they have a different approach [to Obama] and won’t resort to double standards,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Washington DC, said Russia seemed to be trying to “lock in what it sees are military gains that it and the Assad regime have made in the recent months.

“Astana talks is where Russia believes it has influence. Russia will be controlling the process.

“It hopes to turn the diplomatic situation in a peace deal in the same way as it managed to turn the military situation to Russia’s advantage”.

Nuclear weapons

With regard to the interview Trump has given to The Times of London, Lavrov questioned whether the US president-elect had really suggested he would be ready to drop US sanctions on Russia in exchange for nuclear arms cuts.

He said his own reading of the interview did not suggest any linkage between the two issues.

But he said Russia wanted to start talks with the US on nuclear weapons and on the balance of military power between the two former Cold War foes anyway.

“It’s one of key themes between Russia and the United States. I am convinced we will be able to restart a dialogue on strategic stability with Washington that was destroyed along with everything else by the Obama administration.”

Such talks could cover hypersonic weapons, the US anti-missile shield in Europe, space weapons, and what he said was the US refusal to ratify a ban on nuclear testing.

Trump has called for a nuclear weapons build-up.

Some commentators have said Senate hearings for some of Trump’s picks show they will be tough on Russia.

However, Lavrov said he had been encouraged by Rex Tillerson, the incoming secretary of state, whom he cited as saying Russia’s behaviour was not unpredictable.

“[That] means that we are dealing with people who won’t get involved in moralising, but will try to understand their partner’s interests,” Lavrov said.

Tillerson had extensive dealings with Russia when he was the head of Exxon Mobil oil company.

January 18, 2017
Ten things Barack Obama will be remembered for

{As Barack Obama prepares to leave office on January 20, here are 10 things his presidency may be remembered for:}

{{Making history }}

If historians were to write only one thing about Barack Hussein Obama, they would likely note that – 143 years after slavery was abolished – a young Illinois senator became the first black president of the United States.

Obama, just 47 at his 2009 inauguration, harnessed magisterial oratory to rally a diverse electoral coalition behind a message of “hope and change.”

In office, Obama however sometimes struggled to turn his poetry into the prose of governance.

{{Too big deal }}

Obama’s first term in office was dominated by economic free fall.

A real estate crisis spawned a financial meltdown that torpedoed Wall Street banks and lenders, and was metastasizing into an economic crisis of global proportions.

Outgoing president George W. Bush and the Federal Reserve had kicked off the government’s first panicked efforts at containment, but Obama faced down ideological opposition to large fiscal stimulus, extending government spending by $831 billion and providing ballast to the economy.

As he leaves office, the political and social aftershocks of that financial cataclysm are still being felt, but the economy has added jobs for 75 straight months.

{{Justice has been done}}

“Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.”

With those words on May 2, 2011, Obama exorcised the anger and frustration of millions of Americans — that the most powerful country on earth could not hold the man accountable for the 9/11 attacks.

The risky Special Forces operation was also illustrative of Obama’s controversial drone-and-raid approach to counterterrorism. As he leaves office, Al-Qaeda offshoots and affiliates remain potent, but their leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been decimated.

{{Legislative toil }}

“It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency — that the rancour and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” Obama said in his final State of the Union address.

From the moment Obama was elected, Republicans in Congress vowed to oppose him tooth and nail.

Efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and enact gun controls — even after the 2012 massacre of young students in Newtown, the emotional nadir of his presidency — would fall victim to partisan rancour.

{{A deal with a half-life }}

For more than two decades, the United States had rolled out sanctions and covert actions to prevent arch-foe Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Obama tried a different tack, engaging in secret talks with the Islamic Republic.

That gambit ultimately yielded a deal that saw Iran halt its sprint toward a nuclear weapon, in return for substantial sanctions relief and a dollop of international legitimacy.

The pact would strain US relations with Iran’s enemies Israel and Saudi Arabia, but prevented a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and defused tensions between Iran and the United States that have simmered since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

{{No turnabout on Syria
}}

No international crisis tested Obama’s foreign policy or his high bar for US military intervention like Syria.

Even when Bashar al-Assad defied Obama’s red line on chemical weapons use and killed countless thousands of civilians — along with Russian and Iranian forces — the man who came to office on an anti-war ticket rejected calls to step in.

Syria will likely be in crisis for years to come.

Critics will long argue about whether Obama’s policy was sensible and to what degree his decision damaged America’s reputation, allowed the Islamic State group to grow, fuelled a flow of migrants that destabilized Europe, and allowed Russia and Iran to extend influence in the region.

{{Change the climate }}

After the climate skepticism of Bush, Obama’s eight years in office resulted in a tidal wave of environmental legislation, protecting marine ecosystems, curbing carbon emissions and boosting renewable energy.

In a bid to ingrain environmentalism into America’s body politic, Obama hiked Alaskan glaciers, snorkelled at Midway Island and rushed through ratification of the Paris climate accord.

But Obama’s environmental agenda is likely to come under sustained assault from his successor, putting the durability of that legacy into question.

{{A very big deal }}

Democrats had tried and failed for decades to provide Americans with universal health care. Obama wasn’t quite able to do that but he extended insurance coverage to tens of millions of citizens who previously had none.

Republicans decried the “Obamacare” plan as socialism incarnate, at one point claiming it would even create “death panels.” But they failed to stop it from passing. They may yet have a crack at repealing it under Donald Trump’s watch.

{{Racial tensions persist }}

Many hoped that America’s first black president would help the nation overcome racial inequality. But the man elected with the overwhelming support of the nation’s minority voters of all colours disappointed many.

Racial tensions — underscored by police shootings of unarmed black men and conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace — persisted, and the president remained cautious about weighing in on the issue — too cautious, for some.

But the very fact of his election confirmed monumental changes in society, and he sometimes offered very personal, searing messages about the struggle of blacks in America.

In 2012, after the fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin in Florida, Obama said: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

{{Meet the neighbours }}

Obama’s trip to Cuba may be remembered in the same way as Richard Nixon’s visit to China, but in truth it was the capstone of a much broader effort to improve US relations with Latin America.

Resurgent left-wing populists in the region had rekindled past memories of “yanqui imperialism” — US-led coups, death squads and heavy-handed intervention.

Barely 100 days after Obama took office, he told regional leaders at a Summit of the Americas that the United States had changed. The approach was to deny leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez any excuses for sideshow anti-Americanism.

He shook Chavez’s hand, met Nicaraguan firebrand Daniel Ortega and visited the tomb of a popular Salvadoran priest killed by US-linked death squads.

Obama alluded to “mistakes” in a coup that installed dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile, released documents about involvement in Argentina’s dirty war and, of course, visited Havana.

January 18, 2017
Underwater search for MH370 is suspended

{Australia, China, Malaysia say unable to solve one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.}

The deep-sea search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 ended on Tuesday without any trace being found of the plane that vanished in 2014 with 239 people on board, the three countries involved in the search said.

The location of Flight MH370 has become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries since the plane disappeared en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

“Despite every effort using the best science available … the search has not been able to locate the aircraft,” Malaysian, Australian and Chinese authorities said in a statement.

The last search vessel left the area on Tuesday, the three countries said, after scouring the 120,000-sq-km (75,000-sq-mile) area of the Indian Ocean sea floor that has been the focus of the almost-three-year search.

Malaysia, Australia and China agreed in July to suspend the search if the plane was not found or new evidence uncovered once that area had been checked.

Australia last month dismissed an investigators’ recommendation to shift the search further north, saying that no new evidence had emerged to support that.

A next-of-kin support group called Voice 370 said in a statement investigators could not leave the matter unsolved.

“In our view, extending the search to the new area defined by the experts is an inescapable duty owed to the flying public in the interest of aviation safety,” Voice 370 said.

Most of the passengers were from China.

The only confirmed traces of the plane have been three pieces of debris found washed up on the island country Mauritius, the French island Reunion and an island off the coast of Tanzania.

As many as 30 other pieces of wreckage found there and also at beaches in Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa are suspected to have come from the plane.

January 17, 2017
Syrian rebel groups to attend peace talks in Astana

{Delegation of opposition factions to attend peace talks but others, including Ahrar al-Sham, plan to stay away.}

Some armed Syrian opposition groups have decided to attend peace talks with the government next week in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, according to rebel officials.

The discussions, scheduled for January 23, intend to build on a nationwide ceasefire that has largely held despite escalating violence across several battlefronts in recent days.

Mohammad Alloush, a leading figure in the Jaish al-Islam group, said on Monday he would head the rebel delegation to the meeting.

He said the rebels were going to the talks to “neutralise the criminal role” of Iran in Syria’s conflict.

“All the rebel groups are going [to Astana]. Everyone has agreed,” Alloush told AFP news agency.

“Astana is a process to end the bloodletting by the regime and its allies. We want to end this series of crimes.”

The rebel factions’ decision to send a delegation to the Astana talks came after five days of negotiations in Turkey’s capital, Ankara.

The High Negotiations Committee, Syria’s main opposition bloc, had also said previously that it would extend its support to an anti-government military delegation attending the talks.

But Shaam Network, an opposition news website, reported on Monday that a number of other rebel groups, including Ahrar al-Sham, one of the main fighting forces on the ground, had decided to stay away from the upcoming talks.

“At this point in time, six years into this war, the different brigades still cannot speak with one voice when it comes to Syria,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Nizip refugee camp in Turkey, said.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has already said his government is ready to attend the Astana meeting and “discuss everything”.

The participating factions said on Monday the talks will only focus on reinforcing the current truce and look at humanitarian issues; a possible political solution to the crisis will not be on the agenda.

Zakaria Malahifji, of the Fastaqim rebel group, said: “The majority of the groups decided to attend. Discussions will be on the ceasefire [and] the humanitarian issues – aid deliveries, release of detainees.”

The Astana meeting is organised by Russia and Turkey – two countries that have backed opposing sides of Syria’s conflict for years, but have worked closely in recent weeks to end the bloodshed.

An official in a Free Syrian Army rebel group that agreed to participate in the talks told Reuters news agency on Monday the meeting would “be a test for the Russians as the guarantor”.

He declined to be identified because the rebel groups had yet to appoint a spokesman.

If the Astana meetings are successful, they could bode well for the fate of fresh UN-hosted negotiations on the conflict next month in Switzerland’s Geneva.

Several rounds of peace talks held by the UN have failed to produce a political solution to the conflict.

“We know the Astana talks are not going to be easy,” said Al Jazeera’s Dekker.

“Many of these groups did not want to attend them at all – certainly the political opposition, which has always said … the talks need to be seen as a stepping stone for the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva.”

Diplomatic efforts

The truce, which began in Syria on December 30, to pave the way for the new peace talks, excludes the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which changed its name from al-Nusra Front after breaking ties with al-Qaeda last year.

Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, set the new diplomatic effort in motion after Syrian rebels suffered a major defeat last month by losing the rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo.

Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said on Saturday that Turkey and Russia had decided to invite the US to attend the Astana meeting.

However, a Kremlin spokesman did not confirm that on Monday.

As with last year’s peace talks, powerful Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northern Syria are being excluded from the talks in line with the wishes of Turkey.

Syria has been engulfed by violence since widespread protests in March 2011 calling for Assad’s removal.

More than 310,000 people have been killed and over half the population has been forced to flee.

January 17, 2017
‘Pushback’ policy: Refugees in Serbia fear deportation

{Hundreds living in poor conditions refuse to go into official camps amid deportations from European countries.}

Hundreds of refugees living in poor conditions in the Serbian capital are refusing to go into official camps, fearing it will lead to their deportation.

For Akbar, injured and threatened by the Afghan Taliban, who claims to have had his nose broken by the police in Croatia and his arm broken by the police in Bulgaria, deportation is a constant worry.

“They have deported many people from Bulgaria,” he said. “We are scared. If they deport us to there, Bulgaria will deport us back to Afghanistan.”

Thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis have been deported en masse from countries in Europe.

In Serbia, hundreds were rounded up and moved back to the border with Macedonia.

READ MORE: Concern over EU plans to send refugees back to Greece

At the same time, the Serbian government has told charities and other help groups that they cannot operate in the refugee camps.

The United Nations has condemned European countries for what it is calling a policy of “pushback”.

Hans Friedrich Soder of UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said: “It is not in line with the international and European law.

“It should not happen, especially in this winter conditions, because it puts the refugees at heightened risk of being harmed by the cold weather.”

The Serbian government said it will deport the refugees.

However, other countries, including Germany, have done, so trust is in short supply.

January 17, 2017
UK: Northern Ireland to hold snap elections in March

{Early election to be be held on March 2 following the collapse of the region’s power-sharing government.}

Northern Ireland will hold a snap vote on March 2 to elect a new assembly following the collapse of the region’s power-sharing government, Britain has announced.

The elections were triggered as a Monday deadline passed for Catholic socialists, Sinn Fein, who refused to fill their top post in the two-party government, denouncing their Democratic Unionist partners as corrupt and bigoted.

James Brokenshire, Britain’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland, said he had no power to compel the opposite sides in Northern Ireland’s nearly decade-old government coalition to keep working together as the territory’s 1998 peace accord intended.

“No one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake,” said Brokenshire.

He said the assembly would dissolve on January 26 and urged its feuding parties to mend fences.

“We need to ensure that this election is conducted in such a way that does not divide … that seeks to bring people back together,” he said.

“We are obviously concerned about the impact of a divisive election campaign.”

{{Sour relations}}

Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive and assembly were formed after a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland and allowed border checkpoints to be dismantled.

In 2007, a government led jointly by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein came to power and, until recently, had governed the region with few blow-ups.

The political crisis began when Martin McGuinness, a veteran Sinn Fein politician, resigned as deputy first minister last week over his power-sharing partner’s handling of a controversial energy scheme that could cost the province hundreds of millions of pounds.

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from Belfast, said the British government had no choice but to call the early elections.

“Under the protocol of the power-sharing agreement when one of the two leaders of the coalition resigns, the other one automatically has to go also,” he said.

He also said the reason of the dispute seemed to be deeper than the disagreement over the energy scheme.

“Over the last few months, the relationship between the rival leaders has really soured,” he said. “This seems to be more about the way they have felt about working together.”

The political crisis is overshadowing the bigger issue the province is facing following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, Barker said.

Northern Ireland is widely seen as the part of the UK most exposed to Brexit as it could upend trade and the free movement of people across its land border with the Irish Republic

Overall, 52 percent of the UK voted in favour of leaving the EU in June’s referendum, but 56 percent of those voting in Northern Ireland backed remaining.

Theresa May, British prime minister, has said she plans to launch the EU exit procedure by the end of March.

January 17, 2017