German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will visit Iran as part of a three-country Middle East tour next week, during which he will explore options for preserving a fraying nuclear non-proliferation pact, a ministry spokesperson said. The trip, timed to coincide with the end of the Muslim...

 France and the United States share the common objective of preventing Iran obtaining nuclear arms and new international negotiations need to be opened for that goal to be met, President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday. Accusing Tehran of "championing terrorism" across the Middle East,...

Iraqi authorities will begin identifying the remains of 141 people exhumed from mass graves in the Yazidi region of Sinjar, the head of Baghdad's forensic office said Thursday. "The remains will first be examined, and then DNA samples will be taken to compare with samples gathered from...

Israel has cut the fishing zone it allows off Gaza, an official said Thursday, in the third such response in a fortnight to Palestinian incendiary balloons. The Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity that as of Wednesday the fishing limit for Gaza fishermen had been reduced...

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday slammed a US Middle East peace plan as a "great betrayal of the Islamic world", and warned Gulf rivals not to back it. Washington is gearing up to roll out economic aspects of its long-awaited plan for peace between the Israelis and...

Palestinians in east Jerusalem celebrated Eid al-Fitr on Wednesday, a three-day festival that follows the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Some 120,000 Muslims converged on the iconic Al-Aqsa Mosque -- which for Muslims represents the world's third holiest site -- to perform Eid prayers....

U.S. President Donald Trump said he was prepared to talk to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani but that there was always a chance of U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic. “So Iran is a place that was extremely hostile when I first came into office,” Trump told British television...

 Israel expects to start U.S.-mediated talks with Lebanon on setting a maritime border within weeks, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday. Lebanon has not commented publicly on whether it would attend talks or on any possible timeline. The official said that the U.N. peacekeeping...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that Tehran would not be "deceived" by U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of negotiations and would not give up its missile program. "The U.S. president recently said Iran can achieve development with its current leaders. That means...

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday it was out of the question for Turkey to take a step back from its deal with Moscow to buy Russian S-400 missile defense systems. Speaking to reporters after morning prayers, Erdogan also said an offer from the United States to sell Patriot missiles...

A lone gunman killed four members of the security forces in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli overnight before blowing himself up, officials said Tuesday. "The shooting spree resulted in the deaths of two members of the Lebanese army and two members of the internal security forces," a...

Israel eased the fishing limit off the blockaded Gaza Strip on Tuesday, an official said, a week after cutting it in response to incendiary balloons. The limit has now been restored to a maximum of 15 nautical miles, the Israeli official said on condition of anonymity. It is the same...

Iran called U.S. sanctions “economic war” on Monday, and said there could be no talks with the United States until sanctions are lifted, a day after Washington suggested it could hold talks without pre-conditions if Iran changed its behavior. “#EconomicTerrorism against Iran targets...

A U.S. aircraft carrier the White House ordered to the Mideast over a perceived threat from Iran remains outside of the Gulf amid efforts to de-escalate tensions between Tehran and Washington. The USS Abraham Lincoln on Monday was in the Arabian Sea some 320 kilometers off the coast of...

A Baghdad court Monday sentenced to death two more French nationals for belonging to the Islamic State group, leaving all 11 Frenchmen transferred from Syria facing the gallows in Iraq. Bilel Kabaoui, 32, and Mourad Delhomme, 41, join nine other French citizens and a Tunisian national...

US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has suggested in an interview that the Palestinians are not ready to govern themselves ahead of the expected release of his peace plan. Speaking to US news site Axios, Kushner also said he was not concerned over whether the...

Reacting to a U.S. offer to talk with Iran without pre-conditions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday it was Washington that had left the negotiating table, and it "should return to normal state." U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday the United States is prepared to...

Hundreds of ultra-nationalist Jews guarded by riot police streamed their way into the Jerusalem compound revered both in Judaism and Islam on Sunday, resulting in violence between police and outraged Muslim worshippers. The highly provocative visit came during the final days of the holy...

An Iraqi court sentenced two French men to death on Sunday after finding them guilty of being members of Islamic State, a prosecutor told Reuters. Iraq is conducting trials of thousands of suspected Islamic State fighters, including hundreds of foreigners, with many arrested as the group’s...

 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the Trump administration is ready for unconditional discussions with Iran in an effort to ease rising tensions that have sparked fears of conflict. But the United States will not relent in trying to pressure the Islamic Republic to...