Eurasia

“Turkey won’t be a part of an armed clash in Iraq or Syria. We can supply aid to Mosul, but we won’t be involved in a direct clash,” Davutoğlu said in his remarks to reporters en route to New York. However, he added that if there were to be a …

Peace talks between South Sudan’s government and rebels will extend beyond a Thursday deadline set by mediators to allow them to finalise details on power sharing, mediators from the regional East African group IGAD said. The group had allowed to the end of Thursday to iron out any issues that …

Boko Haram gunmen killed 68 people, including many children, in a massacre in the northeast Nigeria village of Njaba, two witnesses and two vigilantes said today. Heavily armed militants stormed the village in Borno state on Tuesday “from all directions”, said Falmata Bisika, 62, who escaped to the state capital …

United Nations-brokered peace talks aimed at resolving the political turmoil in Libya have started in Morocco, hours after the airport in the Libyan capital Tripoli was bombed. Warplanes from Libya’s UN-recognised parliament in Tobruk carried out the air strikes on the airport in Tripoli, which is currently governed by a …

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said “reaching an agreement that achieves the common benefits for Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia is a must”, during his visit to Sudan on Wednesday. In his speech at the opening session of the tripartite committee meeting, which discussed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the minister …

Heavy clashes erupted on March 5 between Syrian regime forces and rebels near an intelligence headquarters the opposition had tried to seize in a spectacular attack, a monitor and security source said. “There are very heavy battles between regime forces and (rebel) fighters in the area of yesterday’s attack, with …

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is not a “credible” partner in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), French President Francois Hollande said March 5 after meeting Syria’s exiled opposition chief. Hollande said in a statement after meeting Khaled Khoja that Assad “is the main cause of his people’s suffering, …

Warplanes from Libya’s internationally recognised government carried out air strikes on a Tripoli airport, a security official said on Thursday, just hours before United Nations-backed peace talks were due to start in Morocco. The jets hit an open area near the runway at Maitiga airport but caused no major damage …

Ukrainian parliament approves bill on increasing number of soldiers in country’s armed forces. The Ukrainian parliament approved a bill Thursday that would boost the number of soldiers in the country to 250,000.

The UN Security Council will meet on Friday to take stock of the latest efforts to prop up a ceasefire in east Ukraine, diplomats said. The 15-member council has endorsed the February 15 ceasefire reached between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany to end the 10-month conflict, Europe’s worst since the …