Middle Orient

 Foreign Secretary William Hague and Arab League Secretary General Nabil El-Araby stressed late Wednesday that it was important to implement the US-Russian agreement in regards to the chemical weapons in Syria. A statement by the British Foreign Ministry said that Hague and El-Araby meeting also touched the Mideast peace process …

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad promised Wednesday he would surrender Syria’s chemical weapons but warned it would take at least a year to do so and cost one billion dollars. His latest appearance came as UN envoys debated

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday that the threat of military action should remain on the table to make Syria keep its promises on giving up chemical weapons. Speaking after he met British Prime Minister David Cameron in London, Rasmussen welcomed the recent US-Russian agreement under which the …

After the release of a UN report, Turkey claimed to be certain that the chemical weapons attack in Damascus on Aug. 21 was committed by the Syrian regime, both in a written statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tuesday’s statements from Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. Saying …

The shooting down of a Syrian helicopter by Turkish fighter jets on Monday after it crossed into Turkish airspace will not affect the deal that Washington and Moscow arrived at in Geneva on Syria’s chemical weapons, a senior Turkish diplomat said. When the news of the downing

Turkey’s Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has again slammed the government’s desire to engage in a military operation against Syria, calling for peace in the region.

Lebanon is getting ready for a United Nations meeting in New York next week to discuss ways of helping Lebanon cope with huge numbers of Syrian refugees who have taken residence in the country.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani appears to want to open a dialogue with the United States and that he is willing to test whether this is the case.

Egypt partially reopened its border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, a week after it was closed in response to a deadly attack on an Egyptian military headquarters near the frontier. Witnesses said two buses took 100 passengers into Egypt through the Rafah crossing, the main window to the world for the Gaza Strip’s …

UN chemical investigators on Monday confirmed the use of sarin nerve agent in an August 21 poison gas attack outside the Syrian capital in a long-awaited report that the United States, Britain and France said proved government forces were responsible. “This is the most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons …