Barham Salih (R), then a senior PUK politician who has held multiple top positions including prime minister of the Kurdish region shows his ink-stained finger after voting in the Kurdistan’s legislative election at a polling station on September 21, 2013 in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah [SHWAN MOHAMMED/AFP/Getty Images] Iraqi President Barham Salih did…
Turkey views the US-backed Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a ‘terrorist offshoot’ of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed threats to target Kurdish fighters Monday as he sent more troops to the border with Syria ahead of an imminent US withdrawal. Turkey was in Syria…
WSJ says Saudi effort to forge ties with Israel is sputtering after crown prince was implicated in journalist’s murder. Prince Mohammed’s role has weakened after Khashoggi’s murder, the Wall Street Journal wrote [File: Sergio Moraes/ Reuters] A covert US-backed initiative to improve ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel is facing setbacks after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman…
Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers, chaired by King Salman, on Tuesday approved the state budget for the fiscal year 2019, the Center for International Communication said in a statement. Public spending in this budget is envisaged at SAR 1.106 trillion, approximately 7 percent higher than the projected expenditure by the end of fiscal year 2018….
The country is no stranger to its energy industry blowing in the political wind Politics has bedevilled Iran’s energy sector ever since the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9, but even as far back as the premiership of Mohammad Mossadegh in the 1950s. Development of the country’s vast oil, and especially gas, reserves has progressed during periods…
In a gaggle with a small group of journalists on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told me that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been “careless at times” and “has to lose the thuggish nature in which he has been acting.” Haley’s robust comments go further than other Trump administration…
A handout picture made available by the Iranian Army office reportedly shows a Sayad missile fired from the Talash missile system during an air defence drill at an undisclosed location in Iran on November 5, 2018. (File/AFP) Iran has pressed on with its ballistic missile programme after reining in much of its nuclear programme under…
As Iran is working on neutralizing the effect of US sanctions and ensuring continued oil exports abroad, a new threat is emerging, posing a threat to its capital city, Sputnik News reported. Iran’s capital, Tehran, is irreversibly sinking. But not economically speaking — it is literally sinking deeper into the ground by dozens of centimeters every year, according to…
The tiny, energy-rich Arab nation of Qatar announced Monday it will withdraw from OPEC in January, a rebuke of the Saudi-dominated cartel as the kingdom’s boycott of Doha continues unabated and a crucial meeting of the group looms this week. The surprise declaration could make Qatar the first Middle East nation to leave the cartel…
It was a Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last Saturday condemned Iran for testing, DEBKAfile reveals. Our military sources have discovered that this multi-headed missile, which he said could strike “anywhere in the Middle East and even parts of Europe,” had been test-launched the day before on Friday, Nov….