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Summary
Welcome to Middle East Live. As developments in the Syria crisis are now unfolding at a less frenetic pace, we are pausing our live coverage and switching to a readers' edition format.
The blog is now primarily a forum for readers to share links and offer commentary on developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Please post your comments below.
Here's a roundup of the latest developments:
Syria
• Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has dismissed the UN report into Syria's chemical attack as "bias and one sided". Ryabkov told Interfax that the Syria has handed over a dossier of information that supposedly points to rebel involvement in the 21 August chemical attack, writes Shaun Walker in Moscow.
He said: “We are disappointed, to put it mildly, with the approach which the UN Secretariat and UN Inspectors in Syria have taken. They have reported selectively and without full information or fully taking into account circumstances we have noted many times, and without looking at three other incidents which the Syrian side had strongly urged them to do, and which we had also urged them to do."
Ryabkov added: "Russia has started analysing this information. For now it is too early to draw any conclusions, but given that we previously came to the same conclusions over the 19 March incident, we are inclined to take material from the Syrian authorities about the involvement of rebels in the 21 August attack seriously… We think this will help strengthen the evidence and proof that the rebels are involved in the use of chemical weapons.”The 19 March incident was an apparent chemical attack near Aleppo which the Russians say was probably carried out by rebels. At a press conference in Moscow yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sparred with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius. Lavrov said that there is no evidence that Assad was responsible for the 21 August attack, while Fabius said France is certain of the regime’s involvement.
Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Moallem, who held talks in Damascus with Ryabkov, reiterated the Syrian regime’s willingness to sign up to the US-Russian agreement that it should destroy its chemical weapons.
He said: "I hereby confirm our support for the Russian initiative on chemical weapons in Syria. We are fully ready for cooperation. In particular, we are ready to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and are ready to carry out all obligations in line with the Convention, including providing full information about all such weapons."
• The five permanent UN Security Council members have met in New York to discuss a resolution on the hand over of Syria's chemical weapons, the BBC reports. France, the UK and US want a resolution carrying the threat of military action but Russia opposes this.
• The US is refusing to support growing calls to refer Syria's leaders to the international criminal court for war crimes, for fear that this would jeopardise a peace deal, according to the LA Times. The EU backs the calls but the US believes that indicting Assad would turn him into an international pariah and give him no incentive to give up power.
• A car bomb exploded on the Syrian side of the main Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey on Tuesday, killing at least seven people and wounding 20, the Turkish news agency Dogan said. The explosion occurred at a roadblock manned by hardline Islamist fighters at the entrance of the rebel-held crossing, several hundred metres from the Turkish side, activists said.
• The chief UN weapons inspector says it will be difficult to find and destroy all of Syria's chemical weapons, but he believes it is achievable. Ake Sellstrom told the BBC much depended on whether Damascus and the opposition were willing to negotiate.
Egypt
• Egyptian authorities have arrested the Muslim Brotherhood's main English-language spokesman, in a continuation of the military-backed government's crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Haddad, who has spent part of his life in Britain, was the face of the pro-Morsi movement in the international media before his arrest on Tuesday. Officials said he is being held on suspicion of incitement to violence, a charge Brotherhood supporters claim is purely political.
Libya
• Libya is preparing for a trial that promises to lift the lid on both the horrors and the excesses of the Gaddafi regime, and provide a key test of the new government. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former ruler and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi will go on trial on Thursday facing a litany of charges and possible death penalties if found guilty.
Iran
• Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given the clearest signal yet that the country's newly elected president and moderate cleric, Hassan Rouhani, has the authority to conduct direct talks with the US and offer compromises in nuclear talks. Khamanei told the Islamic republic's revolutionary guards there was room for leniency in diplomacy.
Updated
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