A top Palestinian official says the Palestinian people are hoping for some clear answers from the U.S. when White House envoy Jared Kushner returns to the region this week. Ahmad Majdalani, a top aide to President Mahmoud Abbas, said the they asked Kushner for the U.S. position on two key...

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday vowed Turkey would thwart any attempt by a Kurdish militia it deems "terrorists" to carve out a Kurdish state in northern Syria. Ankara views the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD) as a terror group. But the...

 A meeting between Syrian opposition groups in Riyadh has ended in stalemate, a member said Tuesday, with the fate of President Bashar al-Assad still an obstacle in forming a unified front for peace talks. The Saudi-backed opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) began discussions...

Aid groups have opened an employment center in a sprawling refugee camp in Jordan to provide more work permits for Syrians who have fled civil war. Less than 3 percent of the 80,000 Syrians living in the Zaatari Refugee Camp are allowed to work in Jordan, which is struggling to cope with...

A delegation representing Iraq's ruling Shi'ite coalition may meet Kurdish politicians again next week to try to convince them to delay or cancel a plan to hold an independence referendum, a negotiator said. A first round of talks, held last week in Baghdad, brought the two sides closer and...

Iraqi forces backed by the U.S.-led coalition announced Tuesday they have retaken two districts of Tal Afar from Daesh (ISIS), the extremists' last bastion in the country's north. Army, police and units of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition were now in "full control" of Al-Kifah and...

 Iranian state television is quoting the country's atomic chief as saying the Islamic Republic would need only five days to ramp up its uranium enrichment to 20 percent - a level at which the material could start to be used for a nuclear weapon. State TV's website on Tuesday quoted Ali...

Iraq must ensure that women and girls subjected to sexual violence at the hands of Daesh (ISIS) militants have access to justice and reparations, U.N. investigators said on Tuesday. Thousands of people, predominantly from Iraq’s ethnic and religious minorities, have been subjected to sexual...

Jordan's King Abdullah II and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Monday for new "serious and effective" peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the royal palace said. Meeting in Amman, they urged "the resumption of serious and effective negotiations between the...

Lebanon's Hezbollah used drones to strike Islamic State in Syria close to the border with Lebanon, a military media unit it runs said on Monday, their first public declaration that they had used such a weapon. Hezbollah deployed the drones to hit Islamic State positions, bunkers and...

Although Islamic State is losing fighters and territory in Iraq and Syria, it remained the world’s deadliest militant organization last year, according to a report from the University of Maryland. Islamic State operatives carried out more than 1,400 attacks last year and killed more than...

Iraqi forces closed in Monday on Tal Afar on the second day of an offensive against the last major bastion of Daesh (ISIS) in the country's north, after seizing several villages around the city. The offensive launched at dawn Sunday comes only weeks after Iraqi forces seized second city...

 German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized Turkey's use of an Interpol arrest warrant to detain a German writer in Spain, telling an election town hall event on Sunday that this amounted to abuse of the international police agency. Dogan Akhanli was stopped in Spain on Saturday...

Iraq's Kurds may consider the possibility of postponing a planned Sept. 25 referendum on independence in return for financial and political concessions from the central government in Baghdad, a senior Kurdish official said. A Kurdish delegation is visiting Baghdad to sound out proposals from...

The Iranian parliament voted on Sunday to keep the oil and foreign ministers, two of pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani's key members of cabinet, in their posts. Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has been credited with the boost in Iran's crude output since many global sanctions were lifted last...

 Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday the top foreign policy priority for his new government was to protect the nuclear deal from being torn up by the United States. "The most important job of our foreign minister is first to stand behind the JCPOA, and not to allow the U.S. and...

Iraqi security forces launched on Sunday an offensive to take back the city of Tal Afar, their next objective in the U.S.-backed campaign to defeat Islamic State militants, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said. "You either surrender, or die," Abadi said in a televised speech announcing...

A Palestinian teenager who tried to attack an Israeli border guard in the occupied West Bank with a knife on Saturday was shot dead, an Israeli police spokeswoman said. She said the 17-year-old attacker, whose identity was not disclosed, approached a group of border guards and pulled a knife...

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis travels to the Middle East and eastern Europe next week to play the increasingly familiar role of reassuring allies that the United States is committed to them despite mixed messages from President Donald Trump. Mattis will visit Jordan, Turkey, and Ukraine...

The Syrian army and Hezbollah attacked a pocket of territory occupied by Islamic State straddling the border with Lebanon from the Syrian side, seizing a number of hilltops on Friday, a Hezbollah military media unit said. Hezbollah fighters and Syrian soldiers were "tightening the noose" on...