Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran on Saturday branded as illegal a new Security Council resolution likely to be adopted imposing a third set of United Nations sanctions against Tehran because of its nuclear progress.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Reuters news agency reported on February 22 that the “UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it confronted Iran for the first time with Western intelligence reports showing work linked to making atomic bombs and that Tehran had failed to provide satisfactory answers”.

TEHRAN (FNA)- A military strike against Iran would be unlikely to succeed and would only inflame tensions in the Middle East, an influential group of British MPs warned on Sunday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran was officially welcomed by President Jalal Talabani here on Sunday. The Iranian president arrived in Baghdad this morning heading a high-ranking political and economic delegation on a two-day official visit.

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said in Baghdad on Sunday that the “Iranian and Iraqi nations will always stand by each other.” In a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani, Ahmadinejad called his landmark visit to Iraq “a new page in the history of the relations between the two countries …

GAZA – Israel killed 46 Palestinians on Saturday in its deadliest and deepest incursion into the Gaza Strip since pulling out in 2005, stoking fears of a broader conflict that could derail renewed U.S.-backed peace talks.

Here are some of Islamist group Hamas’s options in Gaza: TRUCE Hamas has signaled its willingness to reach a ceasefire with Israel that would end rocket launchings by Hamas and other militant organizations. In return, Hamas wants Israel to cease all military strikes in the Gaza Strip and occupied West …

Israel killed 33 Palestinians on Saturday in one of its deepest and deadliest incursions into the Gaza Strip since pulling out in 2005, stoking fears of a broader conflict that could derail renewed U.S.-backed peace talks.

ANKARA – Turkey’s top general said on Saturday the Turkish armed forces withdrew its troops from northern Iraq on schedule and dismissed speculation that it had acted under pressure from its NATO ally the United States.

GAZA – Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinians during clashes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, said hospital staff, keeping up pressure on the Hamas-ruled territory after a cross-border rocket attack killed an Israeli civilian.