Middle Orient

Iran’s foreign minister shot down comments by a senior politician who said Tehran would negotiate if the United States promises sanctions relief within a year.

In its struggle against all of the odds, Iran’s Reform movement says it is learning lessons from the past to avoid losing its last trench of power in the June presidential election. The more radical sectors of Iran’s embattled Reform movement say past experience has taught them not to “hire …

Iraq’s Nasiriyah has been the scene of violent protests recently, but calm has settled over the city with the prime minister’s efforts to calm it. Iraq’s southern city of Nasiriyah — recently the site of large anti-government protests — has largely escaped the attention of the international media, but that …

The Arab League last month resumed some of its activities in Damascus for the first time since November 2011, when the organization’s foreign ministers suspended Syria’s membership. As the 10-year anniversary of the Syrian civil war looms, many predict that, despite the great human cost of the conflict, the country …

Syrian intellectuals and activists from across political and intellectual spheres are busy searching for a way out of the disastrous situation their country has reached after ten years of violent conflict. The issue is not straightforward, and the exit is unclear, with everyone trying to feel their way out in …

The Danish Ministry of Immigration and Integration announced that 94 Syrian refugees have been stripped of their residency permits and asked to return to Damascus, in an unprecedented European move. Danish Immigration Minister Matthias Tesfaye said that his “country has been open and honest from the beginning about the situation …

It is time the West offered robust support to the Istanbul-based Patriarchate – now being squeezed by Ankara and Moscow, both of which see it as a threat to their illiberal projects. The Ecumenical Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, is the spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox …

Mohammed bin Salman is a charming fellow. The tall, dark, and handsome Saudi prince known as MbS has seduced world leaders and eager pundits left and right. To his supporters, MbS became first in line to the Saudi throne by championing reform in a deeply conservative Gulf kingdom, taking on …

U.N. human rights experts called on Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to free three young Shi’ite Muslims whose death sentences for taking part in protests as minors have been commuted, citing allegations of torture and unfair trials. The kingdom’s human rights record has come under growing U.N. and Western scrutiny. The …

The Syrian pound fell to a record low on the black market on Wednesday, hit by the ripple effect of currency woes in neighboring Lebanon with which it has extensive business and banking ties, dealers and bankers said. Traders said it cost close to 4,000 to buy one dollar on …