Bashar al-Assad has sent Pope Francis a private message, the Vatican said on Saturday, without disclosing its contents. The Vatican said a delegation headed by Joseph Sweid, a Syrian minister of state, held talks in the Vatican with the pope’s secretary of state, Archbishop...

Deadly toxins that were to have been removed from  Syria  by December 31 under an international effort to rid the country of its chemical arsenal have not yet been delivered to port to be put on ships, a Russian diplomat was quoted as saying on Friday. The deadline will...

  Spain will hold a meeting of Syrian opposition groups in early January ahead of next month's planned peace talks, known as "Geneva 2", aimed at halting the three-year war in Syria, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said  according  to Reuters. Rajoy, speaking...

  Controversy has snowballed this month over prominent Lebanese composer Ziad Rahbani’s statement that his mother, the legendary Arab singer Fairuz, supports Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Fairuz, a Syriac Orthodox Christian born in Beirut, is among the best known and...