Middle East diplomacy - Page 14

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel moved quickly to defuse a diplomatic row with Israel on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a face-to-face sit-down in protest of Gabriel’s meeting with a far-left Israeli group during an official visit to the Jewish state.

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman is scheduled to visit Israel in mid-May, a sign that Israel’s anger over Ukraine’s support for UN Security Council Resolution 2443 has subsided.

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said during a visit to Israel Friday that there can be “no doubt” that Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad’s regime not to use them.

It’s high time the United Nations Security Council set its sights on Iran, rather than Israel, United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said during the Security Council’s monthly meeting on “the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that Iran does not need “permission to build missiles,” in an apparent response to recent sanctions by the United States on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program.

TEL AVIV — Egypt has received clear warnings from U.S. officials insisting that Egypt should withdraw its military experts from their posts at Syrian army bases, Egyptian diplomatic sources told Arab news media.

The lawyer of Egyptian-American charity worker Aya Hijazi says she has been released from prison after nearly three years of detention.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said an alleged poison gas attack blamed on his government last week in Idlib province was “100 percent fabrication” used to justify a U.S. air strike, news agency AFP reported on Thursday.

Just after the election, Breitbart published an analysis arguing that President Donald J. Trump was a cause for hope for Kurdish national aspirations. It has been 81 days since the inauguration, so, has the outlook improved for the American-Kurdish alliance?

Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday he had canceled a visit to Moscow due to take place on April 10 after developments in Syria where a poison gas attack in a rebel-held area prompted the United States to launch missile strikes.

Russia reacted to U.S. military strikes on its ally Syria Friday by cutting a hotline intended to prevent midair incidents, a response that demonstrates Moscow’s readiness to defy Washington and could even put the two nuclear superpowers on a course toward military confrontation.

Russia recognizes west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated in a surprise announcement.

Turkey on Friday welcomed a US missile strike on a Syrian regime airbase in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack, calling for a no-fly zone in the country to prevent further bloodshed.

This week’s suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria — believed to have been carried out by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime — showed why the Trump administration should designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization, a prominent former US senator and vice presidential candidate said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he believes his efforts to forge a lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will triumph.

TEL AVIV – President Abdel Fatah Sisi’s visit to the United States later this month will be an opportunity to undermine the Muslim Brotherhood’s standing in Washington, former Egyptian ambassador to the US has said.

President Donald Trump will seek to rebuild the US relationship with Egypt at a Monday meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official said on Friday.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi left Cairo for Washington on Saturday where both sides will seek a renewed relationship after tensions over Sisi’s crackdown on opponents.

The US ambassador to the United Nations said Thursday that Washington is no longer focused on ousting President Bashar Assad as it seeks ways to end Syria’s civil war.

Aiming to prove their commitment to Israel, senior U.S. lawmakers are backing bipartisan legislation that would slap Iran with new sanctions while maintaining rigorous enforcement of the landmark nuclear deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations received a rapturous welcome Monday at Washington’s biggest pro-Israel forum, where she vowed never to allow “Israel-bashing” at the world body.

WASHINGTON — Speaking before nearly 18,000 pro-Israel advocates gathered for AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the warm ties being forged between his government and the new Trump administration, saying that he was committed to working with the president to reach a peace deal.

US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt met separately in Washington with two senior Israeli politicians: Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) and opposition MK Tzipi Livni.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Sunday discussed US-Egypt relations, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and his upcoming trip to the White House with World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder.

“When it comes to the great challenges facing Israel and the United States, for the first time in many years, perhaps in many decades, there is no daylight between our two governments,” the Jewish state’s top diplomat in Washington declared on Sunday.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats in the US House of Representatives urged President Donald Trump to reaffirm the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as U.S. policy.

Israel and the US are close to reaching an understanding on settlement construction that would see Jerusalem commit to construction limits in return for being allowed the build the first new settlement in 25 years, Channel 2 reported Saturday.

BEIJING — Russia has not changed its policy on coordination with the Israeli air force in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, denying reports that Moscow had told Israel to end airstrikes in the war-torn country and vowing to continue attacking weapons convoys.

Egyptian and Palestinian leaders are holding talks in Cairo in what Egyptian media reports are branding a “reconciliation” meeting.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will make his first state visit to Washington during the first week of April at the invitation of U.S. President Donald Trump, Egyptian state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Sunday.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, commented on Saturday afternoon for the first time on the IDF strike on Hezbollah strategic targets in Syria on Thursday night, according to Arab media reports.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres requested the removal of a report accusing Israel of apartheid from the website of the UN body that published it, Reuters reported Friday, citing an unnamed official in the international body.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will travel to Washington mid-April to meet with US President Donald Trump, Palestinian media reported Saturday.

Senior Palestinian officials say Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will travel to the US to meet with President Donald Trump next month, during which the American leader will propose that the Palestinians restart peace negotiations with Israel in exchange for a freeze on Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and a promise not to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Turkey on Tuesday rejected a European legal report calling its proposed constitutional changes a big setback for democracy, saying the experts who compiled it had become politicized and the report stained their prestige.

The UN rights chief warned Tuesday that a “tidal wave of bloodshed” over more than six years of war in Syria had effectively turned the country into a “torture chamber”.