Middle Orient

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned Turkey it would “pay dearly” for supporting rebels fighting to overthrow his regime, in an interview broadcast Friday on Turkish television. “In the near future these terrorists will have an impact on Turkey. And Turkey will pay very dearly for its contribution,” al-Assad told the …

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari will visit Turkey, Hurriyetdailynews newspaper reported on Thursday. According to the newspaper, the planned visit will take place at the end of this month. Bilateral rapprochement, as well as the Syrian crisis, as well as economic and regional

Parliament renewed Oct. 3 the government’s authorization to send troops into Syria after a tense session in which the opposition parties fiercely criticized the ruling party’s interventionist foreign policy and tolerance for the appearance of al-Qaeda-linked groups on Turkey’s border.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon late Wednesday discussed with Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif Iran’s nuclear programme and the conflict in Syria. The Secretary-General “welcomed the generally favourable impressions

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday night welcomed the Presidential Statement approved by the Security Council earlier today on the humanitarian situation in Syria, his press office said in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama may discuss the Syria crisis on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit next week in Bali, a Kremlin aide said on Thursday. “It would be rather logical to meet (Obama) in Bali, taking into account the work on the Syrian issue,” …

A mortar shell hit the compound of the Chinese Embassy in Syria’s capital Damascus, damaging the building and injuring a Syrian employee. It was the first time that the Chinese Embassy was hit since the Syrian conflict broke out 2-and-a-half years ago.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Tuesday warned of an emergence of radical Islamists in Syria in the neighbor’s long-running armed conflict. “Civil war is the most merciless of wars. As these conflicts drag out, radicalism and extremism take root to establish their own infrastructure and threaten not only the

International disarmament experts arrived Tuesday in the Syrian capital to begin the daunting task of cataloguing the country’s arsenal of chemical weapons ahead of its destruction. Nineteen inspectors from The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons travelled by road from Lebanon a day after UN experts left Damascus after probing alleged gas …

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met here late Monday with Nabil El-Arabi, Secretary General of the Arab League, discussing with him issues pertaining to the Syrian crisis. Ban briefed his counterpart on recent developments at the United Nations relating to Syria and expressed strong hopes that the successful