Middle Orient

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have a thorough exchange of views on international and regional affairs with particular emphasis on the situation in Ukraine. Turkish and Russian foreign ministers have held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial meeting in Bali, …

The Islamic State, or ISIS, made global headlines recently on account of two significant developments in Syria: a prison uprising in Hasakeh in late January and the raid by U.S. special operations forces a week later, on Feb. 3, that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi …

Normalization of diplomatic ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad raises troubling questions for humanists who are also realists. When an evil regime wins a bloody war that allows it stay in power, how can a liberal-democratic state express solidarity for victims of that regime’s brutality without engaging in fantasy politics? …

Iran’s chief negotiator traveled to Oman a day after Qatar’s foreign minister visited Tehran in what seemed to be diplomatic efforts for an impetus to US-Iran nuclear talks. Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani was in Oman, one of the very few allies of the Islamic Republic in the …

The United States and United Kingdom touted a small win for regional security cooperation ahead of President Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia next week. A British warship seized shipments of Iranian cruise and surface-to-air missiles in the Gulf of Oman for the first time earlier this year, the UK …

“People will die because of this vote,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said of the Security Council’s failure to reauthorize the cross-border mechanism. Millions of Syrian lives hang in the balance after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Friday that would have kept humanitarian aid flowing …

Turkey’s ambassador to Kyiv has been summoned to voice Ukraine’s displeasure over its grain stolen by Russia and shipped to Turkish ports. Turkey’s relations with Ukraine are showing increasing signs of strain five months into Russia’s invasion of its Black Sea neighbor. The brewing friction stems from Ukrainian allegations that …

Saleh Muslim, the co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said on Wednesday that they are ready for dialogue with all parties including Turkey to solve the Syrian crisis. Muslim told North Press, “We welcome all parties that want to solve the Syrian crisis and the Kurdish issue.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have detained several foreigners, including Britain’s second most senior envoy in Tehran, for alleged acts of spying such as taking soil samples in restricted areas, state television reported on Wednesday. It did not elaborate on when they were arrested or whether they were still under arrest. Britain …

The military media did not elaborate on the suspects’ identities but stated the operation was a “pre-emptive” one. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) killed two suspected ISIS militants on Mount Graw in Makhmour on Tuesday, according to the Iraqi Security Media Cell. The Nineveh Joint Operations Command carried out the …