Middle Orient

Dialogue between Kurdish parties in Syria has returned to square one after US-backed talks failed to achieve any form of political consensus among the rivals of the largest ethnic minority in the war-torn country. The UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Khawla Matar, for his part, has called on rival …

The residents of villages lying along a critical Syrian border were once forced to flee their homes due to terror wreaked by the Islamic State (ISIS), but for those that made the decision to return, they now face a new enemy: the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army. For years, Kurdish, Arab, …

Media sources in Damascus reported that the security situation in the Sayedah Zainab area is still witnessing great tension between the Iranian militias on the one hand, and the Fourth Division of government forces on the other hand, after a conflict that broke out between them in late March. The …

Israel must risk intensifying military and civil intervention in Syria to prevent Iran from controlling it, an Israeli think tank has said. The Israeli National Security Research Center said in a report that “Israel should focus on three main areas: southern Syria, the Iraqi-Syrian border area, and the Syrian-Lebanese borders.” …

The Lebanese government has asked the Syrian government to start negotiations on demarcating the maritime borders between the two countries. This call comes after the signing of an agreement between Syria and Russia, on oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, in the maritime border area between Syria and Lebanon. …

Two weeks after the 25-year China-Iran agreement was signed, Iranian gold mine owners in the private-sector are skeptical about whether the agreement gives full control of the mines to China. According to a report published on April 5 by the state-run Tejarat News website, the Chinese have been working in …

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu desperately sees how the tough stance of the Trump administration against the nuclear deal with Iran has now morphed and changed into the Americans feeling their way back to the deal. What started out in total silence, deep under the radar or the sea, is fast …

The Syrian government has reopened crossings between the areas it controls and those held by Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria in exchange for oil shipments. The Syrian government closed the al-Tabqa, al-Hawra and al-Sabkha crossings in the countryside of Raqqa on March 21. The closure stopped civilians and commercial trucks …

Israel reveals how weapons are being smuggled from Iran to Hamas in Gaza via Yemen and Sudan and then through Egypt. Israeli military expert Amir Bohbot revealed in a report published by Israel’s Walla News website April 3 said that in 2006, Iran opened a route to smuggle missiles and …

A warning by more than 100 retired Turkish admirals against scrapping an 85-year-old maritime treaty restricting foreign military presence in the Black Sea coincides with rising tensions between Russia and Western-backed Ukraine in the region. A debate on whether Ankara could scrap a key treaty regulating traffic through the Turkish …