Eurasia

A delegation from the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA) including four senior ambassadors will start a four-day visit to Khartoum on Monday to set up a working group to draft a paper on Sudanese-Egyptian relations. Member of the Sudanese Council for Foreign Affairs Ali Youssef told the official news …

An ambush on a joint US-Niger patrol has left several soldiers dead, a security official said on Wednesday, as fears increase that a conflict in neighbouring Mali is spilling over the African nation’s border. Three American special forces troops were among the dead, according to a New York Times report …

The United States will end some of its toughest economic and trade sanctions imposed on the government of Sudan, the US State Department said on Friday. Sudan will remain blacklisted as a state sponsor of terror, and some targeted sanctions will remain, but the regime has made progress in ending …

India and European Union will seek to step up anti-radicalisation and counter-terrorism cooperation when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds summit talks with the leaders of the bloc on Friday. Modi will host the presidents of the European Council and European Commission, Donald Franciszek Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, in New …

France and Turkey will discuss the parameters and progress in setting up a “Contact Group” to spur peace efforts in Syria and streamline ongoing processes in this area, an official source said Wednesday. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is hosting his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Paris on Thursday …

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed confidence in a return to normal relations with northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) should it correct its “mistake”, i.e. the holding of an illegitimate independence referendum. “This was neither a democratic nor a legal referendum,” Cavusoglu said. “It is illegal according to Iraq’s …

Kurdistan’s prime minister and the US ambassador to Iraq called for efforts to calm the situation between Erbil and Baghdad following Kurdistan’s independence referendum. Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani met with Ambassador Douglas Silliman on Tuesday. US Consul in Erbil, Ken Gross, also attended the meeting.

Slovakia’s defence ministry says the government has approved a plan to send 25 soldiers to Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces as part of a NATO mission. Peter Gajdos says the Slovak service members will focus on demining and also supporting the local military in the repairs of the …

Iraqi forces on Wednesday made their final push into the northern town of Hawija, one of two enclaves in the country still held by ISIL extremists. Hawija operation’s commander, Lieutenant General Abdel Amir Yarallah said, the army, federal police and rapid response force had begun a major operation “to liberate …

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Monday that there is no military solution to the crisis in Yemen. Shoukry’s remarks came during his meeting in Cairo with his Yemeni counterpart Abdel Malik al-Mekhlafi, foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said in a statement. Abu Zeid said the foreign minister …