Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA)- As Burton Richter, an American Nobel laureate in physics, entered the main auditorium of Tehran’s prestigious Sharif University, hundreds of students rose to give him a loud and lengthy ovation. But Richter, wearing a white suit and leaning on a cane, said he was the one who should …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Five silver coins belonging to the Safavid era have been found in a public charity box and were handed over to authorities in Tehran.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon has called on the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to accept Iran’s membership bid.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed one Palestinian militant near a border crossing with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Thursday, medical workers said. Gunmen from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, and another militant group attacked an Israeli army position near the Erez …

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has not softened his position on reconciliation with Hamas and dialogue still depends on the Islamists ceding the Gaza Strip, his aides said on Thursday. Abbas called on Wednesday for reconciliation talks with Hamas leaders without explicitly repeating previous demands they …

GAZA (Reuters) – A young Palestinian girl was killed by an Israeli shell in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Thursday, medical workers said. The army confirmed it carried out an air strike targeting a militant near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s military is cooperating with Iran by sharing information and coordinating strikes against PKK guerrillas in northern Iraq, a senior Turkish general said on Thursday. “We haven’t done it (coordinated strikes) for one or two months but we would do it if necessary,” General Ilker Basbug, head …

HEBRON (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian witnesses and medical workers said on Thursday. Witnesses said the man, Adham al-Rajabee, was armed and was fighting in a clan feud that has killed two people in the past two days. …

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said if Israel keeps insisting that peace talks resume from scratch it would show the Jewish state was not serious about reaching a deal with Syria. Israel and Syria said last month they had launched indirect peace talks mediated by Turkish officials, the …

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said his country will consider opening an embassy in Lebanon for the first time once its smaller neighbor forms a government able to foster good ties with Damascus. Assad said Syria had raised the issue in 2005, when Syrian troops left Lebanon after …