Modi govt summons US diplomat over comments on Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on May 19, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating.

Mr. Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Traveling with Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site himself.

Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Mr. Raisi’s condition.

Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather conditions. There had been heavy rain and fog reported with some wind. IRNA called the area a “forest.”

Mr. Raisi had been in Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations built on the Aras River. The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations, including over a gun attack on Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Tehran in 2023, and Azerbaijan’s diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran’s Shiite theocracy views as its main enemy in the region.

Iran flies a variety of helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet also largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mr. Raisi, 63, is a revolutionary who formerly led the country’s judiciary. He is viewed as a protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after his death or resignation from the role.

Mr. Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under Mr. Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Out of jail and immediately hitting the campaign trail, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday trained guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming that he will make way for Amit Shah next year when he turns 75 after sidelining all BJP leaders, including Yogi Adityanath, and jailing Opposition leaders.

Predicting that the BJP will be reduced to “220-230 seats” in the Lok Sabha polls, he claimed that Yogi Adityanath will be removed as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister in two months if at all BJP returns to power to ensure Shah’s elevation as Prime Minister, as Modi himself has set the 75-year retirement rule in his party.

Accusing Modi of being dictatorial and seeking to implement ‘One Nation, One Leader’, Kejriwal insisted that the Prime Minister is not seeking votes for himself  and  people voting for BJP should know that they are not voting for Modi but Shah while wondering whether the latter would implement ‘Modi ki Guarantees’.

He also defended his decision not to resign as Chief Minister after his arrest, as it was a “trap” set by the Prime Minister to “finish off” AAP  and felt that JMM top leader Hemant Soren, who resigned as Jharkhand Chief Minister, also should not have quit his post.

Addressing a press conference that turned out to be a meeting of AAP supporters at the party headquarters here a day after he was released from Tihar jail on interim bail, he also asked Modi to “learn from Kejriwal on how to fight corruption”, as he referred to the induction of leaders who were accused of graft into the BJP. 

In his 20-minute address, which came after his visit to the Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place in the national capital, Kejriwal said Modi wants to crush his party as he knows that the AAP with its good work would replace the BJP.

If Modi does 'good work', no one will talk about AAP but people will not accept the attempts to decimate his party, which is working for the people, Kejriwal said.

“The Prime Minister says he fights against corruption but is inducting thieves and dacoits into his party. A leader who he described as one involved in a Rs 70,000 crore scam was inducted into the party ten days after Modi made the charges. If you want to fight corruption, learn from Kejriwal,” he said, citing instances of sacking and arrests of AAP ministers in Delhi and Punjab.

Warning that Opposition leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Tejashwi Yadav, NK Stalin and Uddhav Thackeray will be jailed by Narendra Modi if BJP wins, he said his arrest was meant to be a message to the country that if Kejriwal can be taken into custody, then anybody can be.

“People need to know, his mission's name is 'One Nation, One Leader'. To achieve this, there are two ways. One is to jail all Opposition leaders and the second is to sideline all leaders in BJP if they win. They have already sidelined L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sumitra Mahajan, Shivraj Singh Chouhan who brought BJP back to power in Madhya Pradesh, Vasundhara Raje, ML Khattar…” Kejriwal said.

“Who is next in line? It is Yogi Adityanath. Take it in writing from me, if BJP wins, the UP Chief Minister will be changed in two months...He wants to crush democracy in this country. I am fighting against it," he said.

Referring to questions on who will be I.N.D.I.A. bloc's Prime Ministerial candidate, he said he has a counter question as Modi is turning 75 next September and he himself has set the retirement rule in the party.

“Now my question is who is BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate? If they can form the government, Yogi Adityanath will be first sidelined and then Amit Shah will be made the Prime Minister. Modiji is not seeking votes for him but for Amit Shah. Who will fulfil Modi's guarantees? Will Amit Shah fulfil it? I don't think they are going to form a government. But those who are going to vote for BJP should know that they are voting for Amit Shah,” he said.

Insisting that I.N.D.I.A. bloc will form the next government and that AAP will be part of it, Kejriwal promised full statehood for Delhi in such a dispensation. Emphasising that he did not resign when he was arrested because Modi had scripted it to finish off the party, he said he wanted to show that if democracy was jailed, it would run from jail.
 

Israeli military aircraft have heavily bombed the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip accompanied with ground advances shortly after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas said it had agreed to a proposal on ceasefire in Gaza.

A Palestinian journalist reported flares in the night sky, while locals said dozens of reconnaissance drones flew overhead.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa and Egyptian media said Israeli military vehicles advanced towards the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, as well as the Karem Shalom crossing with the Israeli-occupied territories.

A Palestinian security official and an Egyptian authority have told the Associated Press news agency that Israeli tanks have entered Rafah, reaching as close as 200 meters from Rafah’s border crossing with neighboring Egypt.

The Israeli military has said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in eastern Rafah.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has also said "Israel is continuing the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas" in order to advance the release of captives and what it called "the other objectives of the war."

In the meantime, it described the proposal on ceasefire as "far from Israel's essential demands," but added that it would send negotiators for talks "to exhaust the potential for arriving at an agreement."

The military strikes on Rafah came ahead of talks in Egypt on Tuesday aimed at sealing a truce proposal accepted by Hamas, which was put forward by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. 

According to a copy of the proposal, there will be three phases to ending Israel’s onslaught against Gaza.

The first phase calls for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Netzarim corridor and the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes. The second phase involves an announcement of a permanent cessation of military operations. In the last phase, there would be a complete end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip. 

In return, Israel would be required to release an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners, withdraw its troops from certain regions of the Gaza Strip, and allow Palestinians to travel from the south of the coastal sliver to the north.

About 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, once designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli military. Palestinians are now struggling to evacuate the city, after the Israeli military dropped leaflets ordering them to leave as a large-scale assault on the city is planned.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that a ground invasion of Rafah would be “intolerable” and called on Israel and Hamas “to go an extra mile” to reach a truce deal.

“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and a ground invasion in Rafah would be intolerable because of its devastating humanitarian consequences, and because of its destabilizing impact in the region,” Guterres told reporters on Monday ahead of a meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in New York.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has also warned that Israel is “jeopardizing the deal by bombing Rafah.”