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15 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 20 MARCH 2024 AFTER weeks of disagreements, EU foreign ministers on Monday (18 March) agreed in principle to impose sanctions against Is- raeli settlers for attacking Pales- tinians in the West Bank and to add further sanctions on mem- bers of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. This is the first time EU mem- ber states agreed to sanction violent Israeli settlers after the United States and the United Kingdom recently took similar steps. While much international at- tention has focused on Hamas' cross-border assault from Gaza and Israel's subsequent war there, EU officials have also expressed increasing concern about rising violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. "A solid compromise has been agreed at the working level and I hope that this will be contin- ued until full adoption soon, but the political agreement is there," the EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters af- ter the meeting. The restrictive measures have been in the works for months and were initially held up by a group of staunch Israel sup- porters, including Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary. Budapest had put up the strongest resistance to sanc- tions on violent settlers but recently changed its stance, EU diplomats said. Borrell said member states that had previously blocked the proposal decided to abstain and the list of those impacted by the sanctions will pass for final approval. Sequencing Settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and are considered a major obstacle to achieving peace under the two-state solution. The decision was part of a care- ful diplomatic choreography to coincide with fresh sanctions against Hamas, for which the bloc had created a new sanctions regime after the 7 October attack and considers a terrorist organi- sation. It will impose the additional Ha- mas sanctions before sanctioning the Israeli settlers, diplomats said, adding the sequencing was important for EU members close to Israel who wanted to avoid the perception they were equating the two groups. Next debate The struggle over the proposed sanctions reflects broader divi- sions between member states in the Middle East, with some strongly backing Israel while oth- ers lean more towards Palestine. Speaking to reporters in Brus- sels, Borrell also said he would propose a "political orientation debate" about the future of the EU-Israel Association Agree- ment, which has been in force since 2000. Last month, Spain and Ireland, two of the bloc's most critical voices against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had called for an "urgent review" of the agreement. However, several EU diplo- mats said at least six EU member states—Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Hungary—spoke out on Monday against the review. Borrell admitted that a formal Association Council with Israel would be "certainly complicated, " as the step lacked "strong sup- port." Instead, he said he would in- vite Israel's Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, to the next meeting in Brussels, while an invitation should also be extended to the new Prime Minister of the Pal- estinian Authority, Moham- mad Mustafa. EU agrees on sanctions on Hamas, violent Israeli settlers EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell RUSSIA'S President Vladimir Putin has hailed the "return" of Crimea to Russia at a concert marking the 10th anniversary of the illegal annexation of the territory from Ukraine. He said Crimea had "returned to its home harbour" and that it would move forwards with Russia "hand in hand". Putin was addressing thousands in Moscow's Red Square a day after claiming a landslide election win. The vote has been condemned by Western governments as a sham. UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the elections, in which serious op- position candidates were not allowed to stand, "starkly underline the depth of repression under President Putin's regime". He also stressed that holding Russian elections in occupied Ukrainian terri- tories was an "abhorrent violation of the UN charter and Ukrainian sover- eignty". Germany which called it a "pseu- do-election", while the US said it was "obviously not free nor fair." Ukraine's president accused Putin of "simulat- ing" another election. China, Saudi Arabia and India all congratulated Putin: • In a message to the Russian pres- ident, Chinese President Xi Jin- ping said that under his leader- ship Russia would "certainly be able to achieve greater achieve- ments in national development and construction" • Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he looked forward to strengthening Delhi's "time-test- ed special and privileged strate- gic partnership" with Moscow • Saudi Crown Prince Moham- med bin Salman praised the Russian president's "decisive" victory. The Black Sea peninsula of Crimea was annexed by Moscow in 2014 - eight years before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the seizure of its Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. On Monday, Putin said the "return" of those four Ukrainian regions to Rus- sia had turned out to be "much more grave and tragic" than Crimea. "But in the end we did it. It is a big event in the history of our country," he said, describing the occupied ter- ritories as part of "New Russia". The crowd responded with chants of "Rus- sia, Russia". Putin hails illegal annexation of Crimea after claiming election win