Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Saturday no private messages or direct contact had taken place to ease tensions with Iran and that Tehran first needed to change its behavior before talks can happen. “Until we can talk about the real sources of that instability, talk is going to be...

Four people were killed in two separate attacks in eastern Iraq on Saturday, according to a local police officer.  Daesh/ISIS militants attacked a police checkpoint in Buhriz, south of Diyala province, killing two policemen, captain Habib al-Shimari told Anadolu Agency. He said a...

Iranians vote next week in a crucial parliamentary election that is widely expected to herald the return of conservatives and heap pressure on beleaguered President Hassan Rouhani. Friday's vote comes after months of steeply escalating tensions between Iran and its decades-old arch enemy...

Egypt confirmed Friday its first coronavirus case and said the affected person was a foreigner who had been put into isolation at hospital. The health ministry said in a statement that it had immediately informed the World Health Organization and had taken all necessary preventative...

Iran is ready to strike the United States and Israel if they give it any reason to do so, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said in a live broadcast on state television on Thursday. “If you make the slightest error, we will hit both of you,” Major General Hossein Salami said in a...

 A rocket hit a base in northern Iraq that hosts U.S. forces on Thursday but caused no casualties, Iraqi security sources said. The base, known as K1 near the city of Kirkuk, is where a U.S. civilian contractor was killed in December in a similar attack, blamed by Washington on...

Hundreds of Iraqi women of all ages flooded central Baghdad Thursday alongside male anti-government protesters, defying an order by powerful cleric Moqtada Sadr to separate the genders in the rallies. Some were veiled, others not, still more wrapped their faces in black-and-white checkered...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday denounced the UN release of a list of companies involved with Israeli settlements, saying it proved the world body was biased against the Jewish state. "Its publication only confirms the unrelenting anti-Israel bias so prevalent at the United...

Campaigning kicked off in Iran on Thursday ahead of next week's crucial parliamentary election at which conservatives are expected to win most seats after thousands of moderates and reformists were disqualified. The February 21 election comes after months of escalating tensions between Iran...

A Syrian man held on suspicion of plotting an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon was referred to trial on Thursday along with 20 other people, the Lebanese state news agency NNA said. NNA said a Lebanese military judge had issued an indictment against the man on charges of belonging to...

Lebanon is studying options for dealing with its forthcoming Eurobond maturities, including whether to pay the debt, the finance minister said on Thursday after meeting with the president and central bank governor. The heavily indebted country is in deep financial trouble and must decide...

Thousands of Iranian candidates approved to run in parliamentary elections kicked off their campaigns Thursday ahead of next week's vote, even after authorities barred thousands of others from running, mainly reformists and moderates. The Feb. 21 parliamentary elections come amid some of...

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday denounced a long-delayed U.N. report listing companies that have business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. “The U.N. Human Rights Council is a biased and uninfluential body,” Netanyahu said in a statement....

The United States has granted Iraq a 45-day sanctions waiver enabling the country to continue importing vital Iranian gas and electricity supplies, two Iraqi officials said Wednesday. The U.S. has applied stringent sanctions on Iran that punish any country trading with it. The issuance...

NATO defence ministers agreed Wednesday to expand the alliance's training mission in Iraq, responding to US President Donald Trump's demand for more action from allies in the Middle East. The idea is for NATO, which runs a 500-strong mission to train Iraqi forces, to take on personnel from...

Israel has pitched the controversial US Middle East peace plan as an offer for a future, "pragmatic" Palestinian leader, saying it was always going to be rejected by president Mahmud Abbas. But Israeli officials may be disappointed if they think an Abbas successor will look more favourably...

Lebanon will ask the International Monetary Fund for technical assistance to draw up a stabilization plan in the face of a financial and economic crisis, including how to restructure its public debt, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday. “There has been contact with the IMF but...

Iran's government on Wednesday rejected US allegations that the Islamic republic's satellite programme has a military dimension, days after the failed launch of its latest satellite. "The subject of satellite launch vehicles and satellites is a civilian matter," Defence Minister Amir Hatami...

The United States will grant Iraq a brief 45-day extension to a waiver allowing Baghdad to continue importing Iranian gas despite American sanctions, an Iraqi official told AFP on Wednesday. The US slapped tough sanctions on the Iranian energy sector in late 2018 and initially granted Iraq...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, appearing before the United Nations Security Council, angrily rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace proposal on Tuesday as a gift to Israel and unacceptable to Palestinians. Waving a copy of a map that the U.S. plan envisions for a...