Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Sunday he was confident a peace conference this week in Bahrain would fail. "We are certain that the workshop in Manama will not be successful," Abbas, who is boycotting the US-led conference focussed on the Palestinian economy, told journalists....

The opposition candidate in the controversial replay of Istanbul's mayoral election was headed for a comfortable victory Sunday, dealing a blow to the ruling party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan's candidate, Binali Yildirim, conceded defeat as initial results showed his opponent...

The Arab League Sunday reaffirmed a pledge to pay $100 million a month to the Palestinian Authority, a day after Washington unveiled its Middle East peace plan. Arab finance ministers meeting in Cairo renewed a promise first made in April to boost "the Palestinian Authority's budget with a...

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted a map Sunday showing a border incident with a "spy drone" encroaching its airspace in late May. Days after Iran shot down another U.S. drone it said had entered its territory, Zarif said the U.S.-made MQ9 Reaper - also widely used for...

An Israeli Cabinet minister and ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu questioned Sunday a key component of the Trump administration's new Mideast peace plan. Tzachi Hanegbi, minister for regional cooperation, said that the U.S. proposal for a land link between the West Bank and Gaza...

Iran is feeling the effects of existing U.S. sanctions as President Donald Trump prepares to impose more of them from Monday, his National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Sunday during a visit to Israel. While flagging further sanctions, Trump also said on Saturday he wanted to make a...

Palestinians don’t need the Bahrain meeting to build their country, they need peace, Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said Sunday. “We don’t need the Bahrain meeting to build our country, we need peace, and the sequence of [the plan] — economic revival followed by peace is...

Millions of Istanbul residents began voting on Sunday in a re-run of a mayoral election that has become a referendum on President Tayyip Erdogan’s policies and a test of Turkey’s ailing democracy. In the initial March 31 vote, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate secured...

Iranian lawmakers chanted "Death to America" during a Parliament session Sunday after a speaker accused the United States of being the "real world terrorist," amid escalating tension with Washington following the downing of an unmanned U.S. drone. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday...

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted a map on Saturday with detailed coordinates which he said show a U.S. drone shot down by Iran on Thursday was within the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters. The map also showed two yellow squares on the flight path of the drone which,...

The White House Saturday unveiled a $50 billion Palestinian investment and infrastructure proposal aimed at supporting its much-anticipated but still unreleased "deal of the century" Middle East peace plan. The scheme, which calls for a mix of public and private financing and intends to...

US President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would be Iran's "best friend" and that the Islamic republic could be a "wealthy" country if it renounced nuclear weapons, amid soaring tensions between the two nations. "We're not going to have Iran have a nuclear weapon," Trump told reporters...

Cybersecurity firms say Iran has increased its offensive cyberattacks against the U.S. government and critical infrastructure as tensions have grown between the two nations. CrowdStrike and FireEye, which regularly track such activity, say in recent weeks hackers believed to be working for...

Security measures were increased at one of Iraq's largest air bases that houses American trainers following an attack last week, a top Iraqi air force commander said Saturday. The U.S. military said operations at the base were going on as usual and there were currently no plans to evacuate...

he international community must seek a political solution on Iran, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had aborted a military strike to retaliate against Tehran's downing of a U.S. drone. Speaking at an annual gathering of Protestant...

Iran said on Saturday it would respond firmly to any U.S. threat against it, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, amid escalating tension between Tehran and Washington over the shooting down of an unmanned U.S. drone by the Islamic Republic. On Thursday, an Iranian missile...

Palestinians on Friday converged near the fence that separates Gaza strip from Israel, to demonstrate against Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories.  Gaza’s National Authority for Return and Breaking the Siege (NARBS), which organizes weekly rallies, called on...

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke on Friday to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about Middle East stability and the oil market, the White House said, after tensions with Iran prompted a rise in oil prices. “The two leaders discussed Saudi Arabia’s critical role in ensuring stability...

A "flying object" which flew over a Japanese tanker before it was rocked by a blast in strategic Gulf waters last week could have been a reconnaissance drone, experts have told AFP. The owner of the Kokuka Courageous said the tanker's Japanese and Filipino crew saw a "flying object", just...

Hundreds of Jordanian Islamists marched in the capital on Friday to denounce Washington’s peace plan to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and demand their government boycott a conference in Bahrain next week that will examine the project. Emerging from the main Husseini mosque in downtown Amman...