Middle East diplomacy - Page 16

President Donald Trump welcomes Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Wednesday after an administration official signaled a break with US support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As part of an overall strategy of being tougher on Iran and its nuclear ambitions, the Trump administration should start pushing a UN Security Council Resolution to ban Iranian missile tests, former IDF intelligence chief and INSS director Amos Yadlin wrote in a position paper on Monday.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said he “deeply” regretted opposition to former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad as the organisation’s peace envoy to Libya, days after Washington vetoed the appointment.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday condemned Israel’s decision to ramp up settlements in the West Bank as an “absolute provocation”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ office called Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni over the weekend and told her she was being considered for under secretary-general. Livni’s associates stressed that no offer had been made, calling it a “preliminary check.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday hailed the US veto of a Palestinian to be named UN envoy to Libya, saying the world body failed to give equal consideration to Israelis.

A United Nations report on establishing a database of companies with business interests in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is set to be delayed until later this year, diplomats and activists said.

TEHRAN — Iranians began a nationwide celebration Friday to commemorate the 38th anniversary of the 1979 revolution with rallies around the country.

WASHINGTON — President Trump and his advisers, venturing for the first time into the fraught world of Middle East peacemaking, are developing a strategy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would enlist Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to break years of deadlock.

The head of Palestinian intelligence has held talks with US security officials in the first such contacts between the Palestinians and the Trump administration, the AP news agency reported Thursday, citing an unnamed official.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned Friday that those using “threatening language” against Tehran would regret it as the regime faces increasingly hawkish rhetoric from the new US administration.

Friendly phone calls, an invite to the White House, a focus on Islamic militancy and what Donald Trump called “chemistry” have set the tone for a new era of warmer U.S.-Egyptian ties that could herald more military and political support for Cairo.

(REUTERS) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering a proposal that could lead to potentially designating Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The officials said several

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Donald Trump’s warning to Iran to stop its missile tests, saying the new U.S. president had shown the “real face” of American corruption.

Seizing on an Iranian missile test, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new U.S. President Donald Trump are nearing common ground on a tougher U.S. policy towards Tehran ahead of their first face-to-face talks at the White House.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that all “responsible nations” should back new sanctions against Iran, speaking during a meeting with his British counterpart Theresa May in London.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set off for London Sunday afternoon saying that setting clear boundaries to Iranian aggression will be the first of many topics he will discuss with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling for international unity against Iran after Tehran’s recent ballistic missile test.

Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro wrote that moving the US embassy to Jerusalem can be undertaken even before Israel and the Palestinians reach a peace deal, reversing his position on the matter since the Obama administration left the White House.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to visit London next week for talks with British counterpart Theresa May, the two governments said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday spoke with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, effectively burying the hatchet after a crisis in bilateral relations due to Kiev’s support for a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of the settlement enterprise.

US President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations is not anti-Islam, the United Arab Emirates foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani (pictured) dismissed his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump as a political novice on Wednesday, stepping up criticism of the Republican’s immigration policies including a temporary travel ban on Iranians.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to meet in Moscow was still in force.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Jordan’s King Abdullah on Monday discussed a range of issues from speeding up the fight against Islamic State, the crisis in Syria, and efforts to reach an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, the White House said.

Iran on Tuesday warned the United States against “creating new tensions” over its ballistic missile tests as Washington called for urgent talks at the UN Security Council on the issue.

King Abdullah of Jordan will raise the issue of terrorist spillover from Syria in his forthcoming visit to Washington, an Arab intelligence official with close ties to Jordan told Breitbart Jerusalem.

US President Donald Trump’s immigration and refugee restrictions are “offensive”, a top Turkish official was quoted as saying on Tuesday, in the first explicit criticism by Ankara of the controversial policy.

US President Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Feb. 15, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced on Monday.

The Gulf boycott Israel movement issued a statement slamming Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal (pictured) for meeting with Israel’s former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni at the World Economic Forum last week.

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that it was “too early” to discuss moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a potentially politically fraught plan that has been welcomed by Israel’s government and sparked threats from the Palestinians and parts of the Arab world.

WASHINGTON – The Palestine Liberation Organization has settled on a plan to forcefully counter the Trump administration should it choose to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with former New York City mayor and confidant of US President Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani Thursday morning, with the Prime Minister’s Office saying in a statement that Giuliani delivered a personal message from Trump to the prime minister in anticipation of their scheduled meeting in early February.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has long supported moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and is an advisor to US President Donald Trump, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that he believes the issue “is under active consideration.”

Russian-led talks on Syria ended with agreement Tuesday to bolster a cease-fire even as apparent tensions with Iran, a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, threaten to hold up efforts to end the six-year civil war.

European Union foreign policy czar Federica Mogherini said on Monday that embassies of European countries and of the European Union will remain in Tel Aviv even if US President Donald Trump goes ahead with his plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem.