Iran has followed through on a threat to accelerate its production of enriched uranium, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Monday, departing from his usual guarded language to say he was worried about increasing tension. Recent weeks have seen U.S.-Iranian confrontation sharply...

The Palestinian foreign minister said Monday that comments by the U.S. ambassador to Israel were intended to help Israel annex parts of the occupied West Bank. "This is really something that the international community has to stand up, has to respond," ambassador Riyad al-Maliki said during...

All the formal requirements for a European payment system for barter-based trade with Iran designed to circumvent U.S. sanctions are now in place and it should be operational soon, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in Tehran on Monday. Maas is in Iran to meet President Hassan Rouhani...

The Islamic State group has lost its caliphate in Syria and Iraq, but in the forbidding mountains of northeastern Afghanistan the group is expanding its footprint, recruiting new fighters and plotting attacks on the United States and other Western countries, according to U.S. and Afghan...

New Zealand will begin scaling back its non-combat mission in Iraq next month and bring home the last of its troops by mid-2020, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday. Wellington deployed troops on a "behind-the-wire" training mission in 2015 to boost the ability of the Iraqi Security...

A cautious thaw in long antagonistic relations between Tehran and Washington set in when Iran struck a 2015 deal with six big powers limiting its nuclear activity. But hostility has resurged since President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the accord in 2018 and reimposed sweeping...

The new US ambassador in Baghdad submitted his credentials to Iraq's top diplomat, the foreign ministry announced Sunday, joining the embassy just weeks after Washington brought "non-essential" diplomatic staff home. Matthew Tueller has served as US ambassador to both Yemen and Kuwait, and...

The head of Iraq's forensics administration says his office will begin DNA testing to identify the remains of 141 bodies found in mass graves, believed to contain the Yazidi victims of Daesh’s (ISIS) killing campaign five years ago. Zaid al-Yousef says the bodies were found in 12 graves...

The Israeli military says naval forces boarded a cargo ship off the coast that had been set on fire. The military says it was alerted early Sunday to an anchored ship off northern Israel whose hull was ablaze. At the request of the ship's captain, Israeli forces boarded and searched the...

Germany's top diplomat on Sunday reaffirmed his country's support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ahead of a long-awaited US peace plan. "We are still in agreement that reaching a two-state solution through negotiations is the only solution," Heiko Maas said...

Hundreds of Jewish settlers on Sunday forced their way into East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, according to Jerusalem's Religious Endowments Authority.  "Israeli police shut the compound's Al-Mugharbah Gate after allowing 334 settlers through it into the site," the...

Iran said Sunday that Europe was not in a position to criticize Tehran for its military capabilities, and called on European leaders to normalize economic ties with the Islamic Republic despite U.S. sanctions or face consequences. President Donald Trump last year withdrew the United States...

The U.S. ambassador to Israel did not rule out an Israeli move to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, land that the Palestinians seek for a state, in an interview with the New York Times published Saturday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in the run-up to an April election...

Additional sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States show that Washington’s offer of talks is not genuine, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Saturday. The United States placed sanctions on Iran’s largest petrochemical holding group on Friday for indirectly...

 Iran said Saturday that new U.S. sanctions on its petrochemical industry show the hollowness of President Donald Trump's claims to be open to fresh negotiations with Tehran. "Only one week was needed for the U.S. president's claim that he was ready to negotiate with Iran to be proved...

 New U.S. sanctions imposed Friday target Iran's petrochemical industry, including the country's largest petrochemical holding group over its financial support for Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Treasury Department said in a statement. The Treasury Department said the...

Iran rejected French calls for wider international talks over its nuclear and military ambitions, saying on Friday it would only discuss it existing 2015 atomic pact with world powers, state TV reported. French President Emmanuel Macron had said a day earlier that Paris and Washington both...

Resurgent jihadists, ethnic land disputes or regular field burning? Iraq's northern farmlands are on fire, but the area's complex patchwork of grievances has made it hard to identify the culprits. Farmers in the country's breadbasket had been hoping for bumper wheat and barley harvests in...

The cash-strapped Palestinian government has pledged to suspend a secret increase in ministerial salaries, the United Nations envoy on the Israel-Palestinian conflict said Thursday after reports of the raise sparked anger. Documents leaked online appeared to show that in 2017, Palestinian...

US President Donald Trump on Thursday said it was "fine" for him if Iran wanted to hold talks, adding the Islamic Republic was currently "failing as a nation". The United States has had no diplomatic relations with Iran following the hostage seize of the American embassy in Tehran that...