Bahrain will not attend the next (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council summit if Qatar attends, the Bahraini foreign minister said in a series of tweets, in which he also called for Doha to be suspended from the bloc. In the posts made late Sunday night, Khalid al-Khalifa said Qatar’s membership of the bloc should be frozen […]

TEHRAN – Syria’s army and its allies captured Daesh’s (also known as ISIS or ISIL) last stronghold in Syria on Wednesday, media reports said. “The last stronghold of Daesh, al-Bukamal, is free of the Daesh organization,” a commander in the Syrian army said to Reuters. Syrian state television also confirmed that “al-Bukamal is liberated”. “Army […]

Tensions rose Tuesday after an Israeli operation to blow up a tunnel from the Gaza Strip killed seven Palestinian militants in one of the deadliest incidents since a devastating 2014 war. The seven men, from the armed wings of Gaza’s rulers Hamas and allied group Islamic Jihad, were killed Monday when Israel blew up the […]

The president’s tried and tested political defense mechanism is to whip up chaos to tip his enemies off balance and launch a fierce counter attack. He’ll also take cover with his ultra-loyal political base, rely on Republicans who are too cowed to repudiate him and fog an issue with alternative facts, Stephen Collinson wrote in […]

Deposed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said ousted Catalan officials will stand in the December 21 elections imposed by Madrid, and that they will respect the outcome. The sacked regional president arrived at Brussels Press Club for a news conference on Tuesday, amid speculation he and his ministers would seek political asylum in Belgium, which he […]

TEHRAN  – Russia said North Korea is still two to three years from being able to carry out a long-range strike on the US, offering diplomacy a chance to halt the secretive Communist states nuclear and missile programmes. “Unless we can find a political solution,” it’s “inevitable” that Kim Jong Un’s regime will have intercontinental […]

TEHRAN– The Pakistani military’s top spokesman, Major General Asif Ghafoor, made assurances that his country’s soil will never be used against any country, including Iran. “Pakistan’s relations with Iran are not at the cost of its relations with any other country and vice versa,” Pakistan’s Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) told reporters in Tehran […]

TEHRAN – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to meet with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the APEC summit in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang. “We have heard [US President] Donald Trump’s announcements that he plans to hold a meeting with President Putin. […]

TEHRAN  – European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said there are “clear indications” that US lawmakers intend to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. “I got clear indications that the intention is to keep the United States compliant with the agreement,” Mogherini said at a press conference on a visit […]

Saudi Arabia has barred former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, along with his sons, aides and military officials, from returning to Yemen for months, informed Yemeni officials says. On Saturday, The Associated Press cited the Yemeni officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as saying that the ban was put in place as a […]