Turkey and Iraq have agreed to sign a counterterrorism deal cracking down on separatist Kurdish rebels holed up in bases in northern Iraq, officials said Wednesday.    

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Tuesday that Iran’s disputed nuclear program is “closed” as a political issue and said Tehran will ignore U.N. Security Council demands and sanctions imposed by “arrogant powers” to curb its nuclear program.

  With the governments in Turkey and Greece receiving new mandates in elections the two countries agreed in New York over the weekend to “further enhance” their relations.

Israel is looking to a U.S.-India nuclear deal to expand its own ties to suppliers, quietly lobbying for an exemption to non-proliferation rules so it can legally import atomic material, according to documents made available Tuesday to The Associated Press.The move is sure to raise concerns among Arab nations already …

Billboards in Kurdistan’s capital boast that luxury malls and hotels are on the way, but banking and insurance systems barely function. Cranes loom over building sites, but few government inspectors check the quality of construction. This is economic development, on the fly. A sign at the office of a trade …

ANKARA – The details of a July natural gas exploration and transportation agreement between Turkey and Iran, over US objections, are now becoming clearer. According to the agreement Iran will pay 20 percent of profits from the natural gas extracted from the South Pars Basin to Turkey in compensation for …

Lebanon‘s parliament has postponed a session to elect a new president until October 23. A parliamentary official made the announcement in the chamber, after pro-Syrian opposition members boycotted Tuesday’s session, preventing the legislature from mustering a two-thirds quorum required for a vote.

Part of a Russian-made copy of the Koran, etched onto sheets of 99.9% pure gold, is currently on display in Iran’s capital at an exhibition of sacred Islamic texts. Fourteen sheets of the 162-page book were sent to Tehran for the exhibition, which started on 22 September and will run …

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that key Arab nations, including Syria, would be invited to President Bush’s planned Mideast peace conference this fall and expressed hope they would attend. Formal invitations haven’t been issued yet but Rice said it “would be natural” for Syria, Saudi Arabia and 10 …

Anti-Syrian lawmakers rattled by last week’s assassination of one of their colleagues took refuge in a heavily guarded hotel Monday, a day before the deeply divided parliament convenes to elect a president.