Middle Orient

Turkey backs the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Turkish foreign minister said on Monday. “We have no hesitation on the removal of Assad,” Mevlut Cavusoglu said during a live TV interview. CNN reported on Thursday that U.S. President Barack Obama was calling for a review of his nation’s Syria policy, after realizing that ISIL could not …

The UN Security Council on Wednesday urged Lebanon’s parliament to quickly choose a new president to bolster stability as war rages across the border in Syria. Lebanon has been without a president, who is also the commander-in-chief, since May because of disagreements between lawmakers. The 15-member council “expressed concern at …

US President Barack Obama wants his advisers to review the administration’s Syria policy after determining it may not be possible to defeat militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) without removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Obama’s national security team held four meetings in the past week …

Turkey could scrap a controversial plan to buy missile defense systems from China, which alarmed the U.S. and its Western allies, Turkish and European sources said Wednesday. Key NATO member Turkey said in September 2013 that it was entering negotiations with the China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corporation (CPMIEC) to acquire …

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will have talks in Turkey on Nov. 21 as part of his trip including Morocco and Ukraine, according to diplomatic sources. The vice president will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime MinisterAhmet Davutoğlu and a number of nongovernmental representatives.

Kurdish forces blocked a road Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants use to resupply their forces in a Syrian town on the Turkish border, a town official and a monitoring group said on Nov. 12, the first major gain against the jihadists after weeks of violence. Iraqi-Kurdish …

Suspected Sunni militants struck in and around Baghdad today, killing 17 people including 11 soldiers and policemen, and injuring about 40 in three separate attacks, including two suicide bombings, according to police and hospital officials. The largest of today’s attacks was in the turbulent Youssifiyah district south of Baghdad where …

U.S and partner nation military forces continued to attack ISIL terrorists in Syria from Friday through Monday using bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft to conduct 23 airstrikes, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced. Separately, U.S. and partner nation military forces conducted 18 airstrikes in Iraq during the same period using …

Visiting United Nations envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura headed Monday to Syria’s central city of Homs to meet with a delegation of armed militants in a rebel-held area there, sources and media reports said. The pro-government al-Watan daily said the envoy, who arrived in Syria on Saturday, will be …

Syrian President Bashar Assad says a ceasefire proposal for the embattled northern city of Aleppo, which has been raised by the U.N. envoy to the country, is “worth studying.” The official SANA news agency reported Assad’s remarks, saying they came during a meeting on Monday with the envoy, Staffan de …