Headlines:

• Obama Plans Visit to the Jewish State
• Iran: Syria's Assad Regime Ready to Negotiate
• Saudi Arabia Aid American Drone Attacks in Yemen
• US Supports Pak-Afghan Deadline for Taliban Deal
• China, Japan on the Brink

Details:

Obama Plans Visit to the Jewish State:

President Barack Obama will arrive in the Jewish State with a public agenda of restarting the Middle East peace talks but his private discussions will be dominated by the issue of preventing a nuclear Iran, Israeli officials have told the Daily Telegraph. While the US ambassador to the Jewish entity said today that Mr Obama would visit the country with an "urgent" mission to revive peace negotiations, Israeli diplomats said talks with Benjamin Netanyahu would focus on Iran. "The peace process may be the subject that is initially emphasised in public but there are other issues on the table that must be addressed before the summer," one diplomat said, alluding to Israel's spring deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium. "The deal they will have done may be on the subject of war, not of peace." Israeli officials also said Mr Netanyahu would look for reassurances that the US would prevent Syria's extensive stocks of chemical weapons - nicknamed "Arms R' Us" by their intelligence - from falling into the hands of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah. "There are currently bigger and much more urgent issues to address than the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," one Israeli official said. John Kerry, the new US Secretary of State, will also travel to Jewish Statein coming weeks, having promised a renewed American diplomatic effort in the region. Dan Shaprio, the US ambassador to Israel, said that the President would stress "the need to Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table" during the trip, which will also include visits to the West Bank and to Jordan. The trip will also give both Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu a chance for public reconciliation after four years after four years in which they have repeatedly clashed over Iran and Jewish settlement building. "Both Obama and Netanyahu have been criticised by their constituents for failing to build a better relations," one Jewish official said. "They will no doubt revel in a love fest of photo opportunities and joint press conferences."

Iran: Syria's Assad Regime Ready to Negotiate:

Syria's government is ready to sit down with the opposition to bring a two-year uprising against the regime to an end, Iran's foreign minister believes. Ali Akbar Salehi told the Egyptian state news agency MENA: "I think that the Syrian government is ready to negotiate with the opposition." Opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib has offered to talk to Syria's rulers about trying to end the conflict - subject to conditions including the release of 160,000 detainees. But President Bashar al Assad has not yet commented on the offer and a key opposing faction flatly rejected the initiative. The Syrian National Council, the main component of the opposition, has dismissed the possibility of any negotiations. It said it was committed to ousting the Assad regime, rejecting dialogue with it, and protecting the revolution. But Mr Alkhatib, who called on Mr Assad to agree to let Vice President Faruq al Sharaa open peace talks with his coalition, appealed for the opposition to "declare our willingness to negotiate" the regime's departure. However, he also set a deadline of Sunday for the government to release all women detainees; otherwise he would regard his offer of dialogue as rejected by the president. The Assad regime has signalled it believes it can still break the military stalemate, as its forces relentlessly pounded rebel lines around Damascus.

Saudi Arabia Aid American Drone Attacks in Yemen:

The CIA is secretly using an airbase in Saudi Arabia to conduct its controversial drone assassination campaign in neighbouring Yemen, according to reports in the US media. Neither the Saudi government nor the country's media have responded to the reports revealing that the drones that killed the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in September 2011 and Said al-Shehri, a senior al-Qaida commander who died from his injuries last month, were launched from the unnamed base. Iranian state media highlighted the story, which is also likely to be seized upon by jihadi groups. Saudi Arabia has previously publicly denied co-operating with the US to target al-Qaida in Yemen. Evidence of Saudi involvement risks complicating its relationship with the government in Sana'a and with Yemeni tribal leaders who control large parts of the country. The drone issue is sensitive in Saudi Arabia because of the unpopularity of US military bases, which were thought to have been largely removed after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. "These planes are unmanned so there will not be the same impact as when American planes were flying from the Prince Sultan base," Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai told The Guardian newspaper. He added, "It has been rumoured for years that drones were taking off from the Arabian peninsula so this is not shocking news except for the Iranians and jihadis. Otherwise it is not going register in public opinion." US government requests to American media to refrain from disclosing the location of the CIA base were made in part because it could potentially damage counter-terrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.

US Supports Pak-Afghan Deadline for Taliban Deal:

The United States supports a Pak-Afghan deadline for finalising a peace deal with the Taliban and urges insurgents to open a reconciliation post in Qatar as soon as possible, says the US State Department. The Afghan and Pakistani presidents told a news briefing in London on Monday that they have set an optimistic target of six months to reach a peace deal with the Taliban. British Prime Minister David Cameron, who hosted the trilateral meeting, played a key role in setting the first timeframe for a deal with the insurgents. "We fully endorse the contents of the joint statement that those three governments came forward with, and we are committed ourselves to support an Afghan-led process," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told a briefing in Washington. She recalled that last month US President Barack Obama had met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Washington where the two leaders reaffirmed their faith in an Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process. Such a process was "the surest way to end the violence and ensure lasting stability in Afghanistan and in the region," Ms Nuland added. The United States has remained engaged with the Afghan and Pakistani governments to support this process, said Ms Nuland, noting that talks have been held separately with each of the two governments as well as within the core group, which includes the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Our goal here has been to support the creation of a process to make it possible ... for willing Taliban participants to talk directly to the Afghan High Peace Council," she said. And that's why the United States also supported the opening of the Taliban office in Qatar, she added.

China, Japan on the Brink:

Chinese warships have pointed missile radars at Japanese military targets and taken the two regional powers to the brink of "a dangerous situation," say Japanese officials. The news marks a dangerous escalation of a four-month diplomatic and military stand-off between Australia's two largest trading partners, involving disputed islets in the East China Sea. Japan's defence minister, Itsunori Onodera, told reporters on Wednesday that a Chinese frigate pointed missile control radar at the Japanese destroyer Yuudachi on January 30. "Something like fire-control radar was directed at a Japan Self-Defense Maritime escort ship in the East China Sea," Mr Onodera told reporters in Tokyo. He also said a Chinese vessel had similarly targeted a Japanese ship-based helicopter two weeks earlier. "This is extremely abnormal behaviour," Mr Onodera said. "One step in the wrong direction could have pushed things into a dangerous situation," he said. China called for calm. In a statement issued ahead of Japan's accusation, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman urged Japan "to stop all provocative actions" including sending vessels and planes to the Diaoyu Islands, known as Senkaku in Japanese. "We hope Japan can take actions to show sincerity and willingness to work with China through talks and negotiations to control and manage the current situation," said spokesman Hua Chunying. Diplomats and military officials in the United States, Japan and China had previously warned that the dispute was only one accident away from open military conflict.

Abu Hashim