The presidents of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan have held talks to defuse an escalating crisis in Kirkuk province, as the Baghdad-imposed deadline for Kurds to leave military positions in the disputed oil-rich region expired.A meeting between Iraqi President Fuad Masum and his Kurdish counterpart Masud Barzani was underway in Sulaymaniyah after a deadline set by […]

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that President Donald Trump had instructed him to continue diplomatic efforts to calm rising tensions with North Korea, saying “those diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops.” Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Tillerson downplayed messages that Trump had previously posted on Twitter suggesting […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced a regional vote test Sunday, after winning a fourth term with a disappointing showing that has forced her to embark on high-stakes coalition talks.Three weeks after German voters handed Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union its worst result in decades, the leader of Europe’s biggest economy is locked in another poll battle […]

The Spanish government has secured opposition support for dissolving Catalonia’s Parliament and holding new elections there in January in its bid to defuse the regional government’s push for independence.The Socialists, the main opposition, said on Friday they would back special measures to impose central rule on the region to thwart the secessionist-minded Catalan government and […]

Iraq’s top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on Friday called on the government to protect the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.Sistani’s call, issued at the Friday prayer in the holy Shia city of Kerbala by one of his representatives, came amid reports of abuses against Kurds in Kirkuk and other areas taken by Iraqi […]

European Union leaders sought to minimize Spain’s crisis with Catalonia on Thursday and avoid encouraging separatists across the bloc, describing Barcelona’s secession bid as a domestic issue and declining a mediation role.Leaders did not hold a discussion of Catalonia’s bid to break away from Spain and judged they had nothing to gain by angering Madrid, […]

President Vladimir Putin launched one of his most stinging critiques of US foreign policy on Thursday, listing what he called some of the biggest betrayals in US-Russia relations.He declined to say if he would run for a fourth presidential term in an election set for March, though he is expected to stand after dominating Russian […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday begins the first full round of talks on forming a three-way “Jamaica” coalition that she needs to work or else risk her time in power coming to an end after 12 years.The talks between Merkel’s conservative bloc, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens are styled as “exploratory”, […]

What the Syrian Kurds are actually calling for is the federalization of the whole state, says Shahoz Hasan, recently elected as co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).“We are open for a dialogue with the central government. We do not want the partition of Syria, do not harbor plans of separating from the […]

On the eve of a weeklong trip to the Middle East, South Asia and Europe, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke with two US news outlets, directing tough rhetoric toward China and setting low expectations for a breakthrough in the diplomatic freeze between Qatar and its neighbors.First, in an interview with Bloomberg News, Tillerson […]