Ukraine’s pro-Western and moderately nationalist parties were on course today to score a crushing election win that boosted President Petro Poroshenko’s bid to merge his ex-Soviet country with Europe and end a pro-Russian revolt. A partial vote count and exit polls showed overwhelming support for Poroshenko’s drive to break his …

The Kurdish regional government in Iraq plans to send some 150 peshmerga fighters to Kobani through Turkey over the next few days to support Syrian Kurds there defending against ISIL militants. Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff for Kurdish regional president Massoud Barzani, said the fighters would take light weapons …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday discussed the situation in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation, the German government said. Merkel underlined the necessity to fully implement the Minsk deal reached between Ukraine’s government and insurgents, saying elections in the east of the country must be …