Eurasia

The African Union’s multinational peacekeeping force in Somalia is shrinking slightly by the end of the year as it heads toward planned withdrawal from the country by 2020. The United Nations Security Council renewed the decade-old mission on Wednesday until the end of next May. The renewal makes some changes …

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis held talks with Turkish leaders in Ankara on Wednesday focusing on Washington’s arming of a Syrian Kurdish militia viewed as a terror group by Turkey, a move which has strained ties between the NATO allies. Mattis flew in for the one-day visit after stopping in Iraq …

Iraqi forces on Wednesday recaptured several districts and advanced towards the centre of Tal Afar, one of the Daesh group’s last strongholds in the country, as aid workers braced for an exodus of civilians fleeing the fighting. Armoured personnel carriers full of soldiers and fighters of the Hashed Al-Shaabi paramilitary …

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has urged Turkey to swiftly withdraw its military forces from his country’s northern territories. Al-Abadi made his remarks Wednesday while meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Baghdad.

French President Emmanuel Macron is starting his first official visits to Central and Eastern Europe, heading on Thursday and Friday to the Romanian capital, Bucharest, and to Varna, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. In Romania, on Thursday, Macron will meet President Klaus Iohannis, who he also met on the sides …

Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, on Tuesday, discussed with United States Ambassador in Tunis Daniel Rubinstein the reality of the Tunisian-US relations and prospects for expanding them in all fields, the upcoming bilateral events and a number of regional and international issues of mutual interest. According to a Ministry press …

The Foreign Minister of the UK, Boris Johnson arrived in Tripoli and met with the Head of the Presidential Council, Fayez Al-Serraj, on Wednesday. The British ambassador to Libya, Peter Mellitt also attended the meeting. Johnson renewed UK’s support for Libya’s Presidential Council efforts to strike agreement among all parties …

Egypt’s president and foreign minister met with White House adviser Jared Kushner on Wednesday, just hours after the Trump administration cut or delayed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Cairo over human rights concerns. Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, was in Cairo as part of …

The Trump administration is delaying nearly $200 million in military aid payments to Egypt pending human rights improvements. Under US law, the secretary of state must certify that Egypt is meeting human rights conditions or determine that it is in the US national interest to release the money.

The Lebanese army continued for a third consecutive day to target ISIS group positions on the country’s eastern border with Syria after capturing a third of the territory held by militants in the area. The army had begun its operation in the Arsal, Baalbek and Jurud al Qaa region early …