Middle East diplomacy

Former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said he was “only one step short of meeting” with then-President Donald Trump in October 2019, but the meeting was scuttled after Trump said he would announce the meeting ahead of time.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman on Tuesday to discuss curbing the violence during the upcoming holy month of Ramadan, amid an uptick of terror attacks in Israel.

Top Arab diplomats hailed a historic summit in Israel’s Negev desert as the answer to terror, following a shooting terror attack the night before that killed two Border Police officers.

All the foes of Iran should tremble on the battlefield because the Islamic Republic has the upper hand against all its enemies, Major General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), warned Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has received an invite from UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to make an official state visit to Abu Dhabi. It will be the premier’s first since the two countries established ties as part of the Trump-led Abraham Accords last year.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid misled the Biden administration on the reopening of the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem, sparking tension between the two allies, an Israeli media outlet reported Sunday.

The Biden administration’s mixed messages regarding the nuclear deal ahead of indirect talks with Iran are “very troubling,” the Jerusalem Post cited senior Israeli officials as saying, with one accusing Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley of “acting like he’s from the U.N.” and not a representative of the American people.

Israel and its new Gulf allies will launch a security taskforce which will include defense and military cooperation against Iran, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

The Kingdom of Bhutan, a small Himalayan country with a majority Buddhist population, became the latest country to establish full diplomatic relations with the State of Israel on Saturday, just days after the Kingdom of Morocco did so.

Palestinian leaders are “failures” who consistently miss opportunities to resolve the conflict with Israel and who align themselves with despots from Hitler to Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States, Bandar bin Sultan, said in an interview with Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV that aired Monday.

Ron Dermer said the Israel-UAE deal disproves the orthodoxy of Israeli-Palestinian peace being a preqequisite for broader Israeli-Arab peace.

Would President Trump’s idea of expanding the NATO alliance to include the Middle East lead to peace and fewer U.S. troops in the region?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that the country will take all necessary actions to fend off Iranian aggression in the region.

Iran’s foreign ministry said Monday it has sent the United States a list of names it is demanding in a proposed prisoner swap, opening a potential new channel with Washington amid recent growing tensions.

Turkey began to receive the S-400 air-defense missile-defense system on Friday despite U.S. warnings not to do so. The move by Turkey is likely to have “major ramifications” for the U.S.-Turkish relationship, according to Aykan Erdemir, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The U.S. military presence in the Middle East was dismissed Sunday as its “weakest in history” by a deputy commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

Baghdad is ready to step forward and act as a peacemaker between the United States and Iran if asked, Iraq’s parliament speaker said Saturday.

The British government has raised the threat level for military and diplomatic staff operating in a number of Gulf states including Iraq over tensions with Iran, in a move that follows the withdrawal of non-essential staff from Iraq by the U.S. government. 

The U.S. Embassy in Iraq confirmed Wednesday the State Department has ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country immediately as tensions with neighbouring Iran increase.

A U.S. Navy force gathering in the Persian Gulf could be entirely destroyed with just one missile, an Iranian cleric warned late Friday.

Turkey on Sunday dismissed U.S. sanction threats and said it would not renege on a pledge to Moscow to purchase its advanced missile systems.

TEL AVIV – Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Tuesday said previously attempts to broker a two-state solution had “failed” and the long-anticipated “deal of the century” would be different.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill labeling U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorist, a day after the U.S. terrorism designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard formally took effect, state TV reported.

Syria’s SANA state news agency celebrated on Sunday the few dozen protesters who gathered in Druze villages in the Golan on Saturday.

TEL AVIV – Israeli officials slammed the European Union over its “shameful” rejection of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights, despite President Donald Trump signing an order of recognition earlier this week.

Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights will not be recognized or sanctioned by the European Union (E.U.) , despite the U.S. policy reversal on the disputed territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the exceptionalism of US-Israel relations as he headed early Sunday morning to Washington, where he will meet with US President Donald Trump and deliver an address at AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference two weeks before Israeli elections.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday dismissed a much-hyped new trade mechanism launched by European countries to bypass renewed U.S. sanctions as a “bitter joke” driven by “suit-wearing savages” disguised as E.U. leaders.

Iran on Wednesday denied reports in Israel that it had hacked election candidate Benny Gantz’s cellphone, accusing the Jewish state of spreading false claims to stoke “Iranophobia.”

Sustained anti-Israel bigotry that has become a feature of the deliberations of the U.N. Human Rights Council was called out Monday by Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany.

Iranians have been urged to put a curse on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, with Iran’s president reiterating his long-standing charge on Monday that the U.S. and its allies are solely responsible for the country’s ailing economy.

TEL AVIV – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “twist the ear” of his son Yair to punish him for calling Istanbul by its former name of Constantinople. “You should twist the

Iran’s navy is ready to begin an annual drill in the strategic Strait of Hormuz as the re-imposed United States sanctions against the Islamic republic, targeting its vital oil sector, begin to bite.

Iran’s foreign minister said Sunday that Jerusalem is “looking for war” and that the behavior of Israel and the United States was increasing the prospects of a conflict.

The Arab League announced on Monday that they have not yet reached a consensus on reinstating membership for Syria, which they froze out of the League in 2011 at the dawn of its brutal civil war. Discussions about reinstating Syria will evidently continue.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria and Iran signed 11 agreements and memoranda of understanding late Monday, including a “long-term strategic economic cooperation” deal aimed at strengthening cooperation between Damascus and one of its key allies in the civil war that has torn the country apart.