Iran rejects direct negotiations with US in response to Trump’s letter

ALGIERS: Algeria protested strongly Saturday after French prosecutors indicted one of its consular officials on suspicion of involvement in the April 2024 abduction of an Algerian influencer in a Paris suburb.
The indictment comes at a delicate time in relations between Algeria and its former colonial power, with Algiers claiming the move was aimed at scuppering recent attempts to repair ties.
Three men, one of whom works at an Algerian consulate in France, were indicted Friday in Paris on suspicion of involvement in the abduction of 41-year-old Amir Boukhors.
Boukhors, known as “Amir DZ,” is an opponent of the Algerian government and has more than a million followers on TikTok.
The three were indicted on grounds including abduction, arbitrary detention and illegal confinement, in connection with a terrorist enterprise, according to France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office.
They were later detained in custody.
Algeria’s foreign ministry said it had hauled in French Ambassador Stephane Romatet to “express its strong protest.”
It said the indicted consular officer “was arrested in public and then taken into custody without notification through the diplomatic channels.”
It denounced a “far-fetched argument” based “on the sole fact that the accused consular officer’s mobile phone was allegedly located around the home” of Boukhors.
The Algerian influencer has been in France since 2016 and was granted political asylum in 2023. He was abducted in April 2024 and released the following day, according to his lawyer.
Algiers is demanding the influencer’s return to face trial, having issued nine international arrest warrants against him, accusing him of fraud and terror offenses.

The Algerian foreign ministry demanded the immediate release of its consular officer.
It said the “unprecedented” turn of events was “no coincidence,” and was “aimed at torpedoing the process of reviving bilateral relations” agreed by French President Emmanuel Macron and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in a March 31 telephone call.
Relations between Paris and Algiers came under strain last year when France recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, where Algeria has long backed the pro-independence Polisario Front.
Algeria recalled its ambassador from Paris in protest of the policy shift it has viewed as favoring its North African rival.
Relations soured further in November when Algeria arrested French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal on national security charges, after he told a French far-right media outlet that Morocco’s territory was truncated in favor of Algeria during French colonial rule.
Sansal has since been sentenced to five years in jail.
Tensions eased somewhat thanks to the recent phone call between Macron and Tebboune, who voiced their willingness to repair relations.
And French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot expressed hope last Sunday for a “new phase” in relations with Algeria, during a visit aimed at mending the diplomatic rift.
 

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas’s armed wing released a video on Saturday showing an Israeli-American hostage alive, in which he criticizes the Israeli government for failing to secure his release.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum identified him as Edan Alexander, a soldier in an elite infantry unit on the Gaza border when he was abducted by Palestinian militants during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
AFP was unable to determine when the video was filmed.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, published the more than three-minute clip showing the hostage seated in a small, enclosed space.
In the video, he says he wants to return home to celebrate the holidays.
Israel is currently marking Passover, the holiday that commemorates the biblical liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Alexander, who turned 21 in captivity, was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in the US state of New Jersey, returning to Israel after high school to join the army.
“As we begin the holiday evening in the USA, our family in Israel is preparing to sit around the Seder table,” Alexander’s family said in a statement released by the forum.
“Our Edan, a lone soldier who immigrated to Israel and enlisted in the Golani Brigade to defend the country and its citizens, is still being held captive by Hamas.
“When you sit down to mark Passover, remember that this is not a holiday of freedom as long as Edan and the other hostages are not home,” the family added.
The family did not give a green light for the media to broadcast the footage.

Alexander appears to be speaking under duress in the video, making frequent hand gestures as he criticizes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for failing to secure his release.
The video was released hours after Defense Minister Israel Katz announced military control of what it called the new “Morag axis” corridor of land between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.
Katz also outlined plans to expand Israel’s ongoing offensive across much of the territory.
In a separate statement earlier Saturday, Hamas said Israel’s Gaza operations endangered not only Palestinian civilians but also the remaining hostages.
The offensive not only “kills defenseless civilians but also makes the fate of the occupation’s prisoners (hostages) uncertain,” Hamas said.
During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian militants took 251 hostages.
Fifty-eight hostages remain in captivity, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.
During a recent ceasefire that ended on March 18 when Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza, militants released 33 hostages, among them eight bodies.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Gaza’s health ministry said Saturday at least 1,563 Palestinians had been killed since March 18 when the ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,933.