Russia said Thursday it wanted to hold an international meeting on Syria -- including key players from the West and the Middle East -- in Munich next month. "There is an agreement in principle between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry, and now we will...

Renewing a call for constitutional changes that would turn Turkey's political system into a presidential one, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he does not want the changes for himself but for Turkey's political stability. His comments Thursday during an address to civil society groups...

Seven members of Hamas' military wing were killed when a tunnel built for fighting against Israel collapsed this week in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist movement said Thursday. A statement from the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, said four militants managed to escape after the...

Two journalists and a driver working for the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Arabic TV channel were freed in Yemen on Thursday, the network said, ten days after they were abducted by gunmen in the war-torn southwestern city of Taiz. The Doha-based channel said in a news report on its...

Crude oil futures fell around 1 percent in Asian trading on Thursday, eroding gains of nearly 3 percent made in the previous session after Russia held out the possibility of cooperating with OPEC to control global oversupply. But falls were curbed by a weaker dollar following the...

Sweden is preparing to deport up to 80,000 of last year's record number of asylum seekers, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said in an interview with business daily Dagens Industri on Thursday. Ygeman said he estimated about 60,000 to 80,000 of the 163,000 people who sought asylum last year...

Iraqi authorities have uncovered a mass grave in Ramadi containing at least 40 bodies, including women and children, apparently killed by Islamic State insurgents when they seized the city in May, police and provincial officials said. Footage posted on the Facebook page of the provincial police...

Security forces killed 20 Kurdish militants in southeast Turkey while three Turkish soldiers died in a rebel attack, the military said on Wednesday, as authorities widened a curfew in the mainly Kurdish region's largest city, Diyarbakir. Hundreds of locals, including children...

A Saudi-led coalition fighting in neighboring Yemen has targeted civilians with air strikes and some of the attacks could be a crimes against humanity, United Nations sanctions monitors said in an annual report to the Security Council. The report by the U.N. panel that monitors the conflict in...

The Syrian government in 2015 ignored most United Nations requests to deliver humanitarian aid to some of the 4.6 million people in hard-to-reach and besieged areas and only 620,000 received help, the U.N. aid chief said on Wednesday. Stephen O'Brien told the U.N. Security...

Syria's opposition adjourned a meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday without deciding whether to attend peace talks in Geneva planned for Friday, saying it was waiting for a U.N. response to its demands. The High Negotiations Committee, which represents a range of Syrian political and...

France did not ask the European Union to consider new sanctions on Iran at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels last week, EU diplomats and a French official said on Wednesday. "No such request was made," said one EU diplomat who declined to be named, in response to a report that Paris...

Translaion by Yusra Ahmed (Zaman Al Wasl)- Al Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, has increased its reinforcements this Monday inside the city of Aleppo, amid reports about the intention of the regime and supporting militias to start fighting against militant factions from several sides of...

Russian airstrikes have claimed the lives of 1,815 civilians in Syria’s opposition-held areas since September, according to new Syrian Civil Defense Authority statistics. Russian airstrikes started in Syria under the pretext of “fighting terrorism”, but in reality, the moderate Syrian...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Russian warplanes killed 5 people and wounded 40 more in strikes on Kafarlaha town in the central province of Homs, local reporter said. Residents of Kafrlaha in al-Houla region told Zaman al-Wasl that Russia has been using cluster bombs and advanced missiles with huge...

Around 25 schools in Syrian opposition-held areas have been targeted by Russian warplanes in recent months, according to the interim Syrian government. The interim government said this week that Russian airstrikes are primarily targeting moderate opposition-held areas and are generally not...

Seven refugees, including children, have drowned in the Aegean Sea after their boat sank, according to official sources. The Turkish Coast Guard said that the boat, which left from western province of Mugla's Bodrum district, had been en route to Greece’s Kos Island -- one of the preferred...

Russia’s federal tourism agency on Wednesday issued a warning that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were planning to abduct Russian citizens in Turkey. “According to the competent agencies, leaders of the ISIS terrorist group plan to take hostages from among Russian citizens in...

The Syrian opposition is awaiting clarification on key points from the United Nations before deciding whether to attend peace negotiations planned for Friday. The Syrian government has already agreed to join the talks that U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura hopes to convene in an indirect format...

(Zaman Al Wals)- Al-Shamiya Front and Thuwar al-Sham Battalions, two rebel groups operating in northern Aleppo province, have merged in one armed body, media activist told Zaman al-Wasl Wednesday. This step brought in due to the requirements of the current stage, Haytham Abu Hamo, director of...