News Archive

Following are key quotes from Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement after meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. 

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met face-to-face for almost three hours over Moscow's war in Ukraine on Friday, the Kremlin said, as the two world leaders sought an end to the deadliest conflict in Europe in 80 years.

Foreign fighters and others who joined Syria's civil war from abroad have petitioned the new Islamist-led government for citizenship, arguing they have earned it after sweeping to power with rebels who ousted former leader Bashar al-Assad.

Israel's far-right national security minister visited prominent Palestinian Marwan Barghouti in jail and told him "you will not win", a video showed on Friday, a day after another hardline cabinet member vowed to "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state.

Hezbollah raised the spectre of civil war with a warning on Friday there would be "no life" in Lebanon if the government sought to confront or eliminate the Iran-backed group.

Majid al-Kareem is poorly equipped for his 500 km pilgrimage by foot through the scorching deserts of southern Iraq. He wears sandals and black clothes that absorb the heat, and carries a wooden broom handle for a walking stick.

A mayor from Turkey's main opposition party joined President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party on Thursday amid a crackdown on the opposition in which 15 mayors have been detained.

Weakened by war and diplomatic deadlock, Iran’s clerical elite stands at a crossroads: defy pressure to halt its nuclear activity and risk further Israeli and U.S. attack, or concede and risk a leadership fracture.

Iraq has defended a “memorandum of understanding” signed this week with Iran, stressing that it is merely a continuation of a previous border cooperation deal and not a broader security agreement, as some reports have suggested.

War crimes were likely committed by members of interim government forces as well as by fighters loyal to Syria's former rulers during an outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria's coastal areas that culminated in a series of March massacres, a U.N. team of investigators found in a report on Thursday.

When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki in 2018, the pair alarmed allies with a friendly encounter where Trump sided with the Russian leader over his own intelligence agencies on election interference. 

Turkey will help Syria with the provision of weapons systems and logistical tools under a military cooperation accord signed on Wednesday, a Turkish defence Ministry source said on Thursday, adding that Ankara would also train Syria's army in the use of such equipment if needed.