Peace again eludes Mideast as region bids 2016 farewell

The Middle East has rarely been a region for optimists. The year 2016, if anything, only made the pessimists more pessimistic.

Bloodshed persisted in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict ground on. Terrorism also reared its head in Egypt and other parts of the region.

POLITICAL SOLUTION IN SIGHT FOR SYRIA?

As the year draws to an end, a countrywide cease-fire, brokered by Russia and Turkey, appeared to be largely holding in Syria, thanks to efforts by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

On Saturday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution welcoming the cease-fire arrangements and plans for talks between Syrian government and opposition representatives scheduled for next month in Astana, Kazakhstan, hailing them as "an important step" ahead of the resumption of negotiations under UN auspices in Geneva.

The UN resolution struck a positive year-end note, lending weight to efforts toward a political solution to the nearly six-year Syria war that killed more than 300,000 people and displaced nearly 11 million others.

But much harder work lies ahead if meaningful peace is to return to this violence-inflicted region.

MOSUL OPERATION PUSHES IRAQ INTO YET ANOTHER VIOLENT YEAR

In Iraq, the operation to seize Mosul, the country's second largest city, from Islamic State (IS) control, turned out to be harder than the government had expected.

The advances on Mosul were slowed in the past two weeks amid grueling fighting inside Mosul with extremist militants, who used civilians as human shields and resorted to suicide bombings, in addition to mortar and sniper attacks.

IS militants continued to wreak havoc in other parts of the country, the latest happening in Baghdad on Saturday, when a wave of blasts killed 30 people and wounded 59 others, culminating another violent year that left more than 16,000 civilians dead.

TRAGIC YEAR FOR YEMEN

Some describe the humanitarian situation as "catastrophic" in Yemen, where airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition and fighting on the ground have killed more than 10,000 people, many of them civilians, and injured over 35,000 others. More than 2 million people have been displaced, according to humanitarian agencies.

Despite repeated efforts to end hostilities and many broken cease-fire deals, violence raged on in Yemen. The only positive news by year-end was that Jordan is considering hosting talks aimed at de-escalation, rather than cease-fire.

UNREST, POLITICAL DIVISION IN LIBYA

One year after Libya's rival parties signed a UN-sponsored political agreement, the North African country remained trapped in unrest and political division, which features two rival governments and parliaments, with worsening basic services, faltering economy and continued attacks by IS militants in the erstwhile oil-rich country.

ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not come any closer to an end in 2016 and the following year does not bode well either.

More than 200 Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in low-intensity conflict that started in mid-2015.

Israel's insistence to continue with settlement construction despite UN censure further dims hopes of a two-state solution.

TERROR ATTACKS IN TURKEY, EGYPT

Elsewhere in the region, Turkey and Egypt both suffered frequent violent attacks in 2016. Many of the attacks in Turkey were blamed on Kurdish rebels and those in Egypt on local groups affiliated with the IS.

As many of the underlying causes remain unsolved and because of the involvement of outside players in local conflicts, 2017 looks set to be another year of chaos and bloodshed for much of the Middle East.

source: Xinhua