{"id":42217,"date":"2020-01-10T11:22:21","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T11:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42217"},"modified":"2020-01-10T11:22:21","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T11:22:21","slug":"un-to-vote-friday-on-new-syria-cross-border-aid-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42217","title":{"rendered":"UN to vote Friday on new Syria cross-border aid resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"101\">\n<p>\nVATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Thursday urged the US and Iran to avoid escalation and pursue \u201cdialogue and self-restraint\u201d to avert a wider conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe pope made his appeal, his first direct comment on the current crisis, in a yearly speech that has come to be known as his \u201cState of the World\u201d address to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe 83-year-old Roman Catholic leader offered a mostly grim overview of 2019, speaking of wars, global warming, xenophobia toward migrants and the danger of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cParticularly troubling are the signals coming from the entire region following the heightening of tensions between Iran and the United States,\u201d Francis told the diplomats from more than 180 states.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe said the tensions risked \u201ccompromising the gradual process of rebuilding in Iraq, as well as setting the groundwork for a vaster conflict that all of us would want to avert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cI therefore renew my appeal that all the interested parties avoid an escalation of the conflict and keep alive the flame of dialogue and self-restraint, in full respect of international law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\nUS President Donald Trump has suggested Iran was \u201cstanding down\u201d after it fired missiles at US forces in Iraq on Wednesday, itself an act of retaliation for the Jan. 3 US strike that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.<\/p>\n<p>\nIran sent mixed signals on Thursday as tensions appeared to ease, with President Hassan Rouhani warning of a \u201cvery dangerous response\u201d if the US makes \u201canother mistake\u201d and a senior commander vowing \u201charsher revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nRouhani warned that \u201cif the US makes another mistake, it will receive a very dangerous response.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nHe said that Iran would continue to cooperate with UN inspectors.<\/p>\n<p>\nSenior Iranian military commanders struck a more defiant tone.<\/p>\n<p>\nAbdollah Araghi, a member of Iran\u2019s joint chiefs of staff, said the Revolutionary Guard \u201cwill impose a harsher revenge on the enemy in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nGen. Ali Fadavi, the acting commander of the Guard, said the missile attack was \u201cjust one of the manifestations of our abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nSeparately, US officials said it was \u201chighly likely\u201d that an Iranian anti-aircraft missile downed a Ukrainian jetliner late on Tuesday, killing all 176 people on board. They suggested it could well have been a mistake.<\/p>\n<p>\nTrump suggested he believed Iran was responsible for the shootdown but wouldn\u2019t directly blame the Iranians. He dismissed Iran\u2019s initial claim that it was a mechanical issue.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cSomebody could have made a mistake on the other side.\u201d Trump said, noting the plane was flying in a \u201cpretty rough neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Thursday urged the US and Iran to avoid escalation and pursue \u201cdialogue and self-restraint\u201d to avert a wider conflict in the Middle East. The pope made his appeal, his first direct comment on the current crisis, in a yearly speech that has come to be known as his \u201cState of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":42218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}