Middle East diplomacy - Page 8

US Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Israel has been delayed by several days due to Congressional votes on tax reform, The Times of Israel confirmed on Thursday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to bring together Muslim countries in Istanbul on Wednesday as part of Ankara’s response to Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with his Turkish counterpart in Ankara on Monday for the last leg of a day-long diplomatic dash, during which he ordered the partial withdrawal of Russia’s troops from the war-torn country.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas was set to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo on Monday for discussions on the Trump administration’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

TEL AVIV — Social media in the Arab world has been raging over the killing of former president of Yemen Abdullah Salah, who was deposed by his allies, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

JERUSALEM – Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces on Friday in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank after calls for a “day of rage” over US President Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Vice President Mike Pence was expected to visit both Israel and the Palestinian Authority later this month but senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub said Thursday he was “unwelcome in Palestine.”

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was “exactly the right move to make” on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s upcoming decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is proof of United States meddling in the region, further vowing his support for the liberation of Palestine.

Washington has asked Israel to restrain its response to US President Donald Trump’s official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, citing the sensitivity of the matter and the volatile response it will likely elicit, Reuters reported Wednesday night.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday the Trump administration continues to believe there’s “a very good opportunity” to achieve Middle East peace, despite Palestinian and wider criticism of US President Donald Trump’s impending moves on Jerusalem.

TEL AVIV — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas strongly objected to the move of the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, his office said in a special statement released Tuesday and carried by the official Palestinian news agency.

TEHRAN – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blasted his US counterpart Donald Trump’s plan to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital on Wednesday, saying it would not be tolerated.

President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will “kill the peace process” and provoke a violent reaction across the Middle East, according to the Palestinian envoy to the UK.

President Donald Trump’s fulfillment of his campaign promise to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital underlines the urgency of a new U.S.-led Middle East peace plan, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson warned.

JERUSALEM — Vociferous Arab and Muslim opposition was building Tuesday to any possible U.S. recognition of the hotly contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Tuesday that he had withdrawn his resignation, a month after his shock announcement that he was quitting sparked a political crisis.

US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Sunday that he did not know whether President Donald Trump would decide to relocate his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

TEL AVIV — Palestinian and Arab activists on social media have been spreading the hashtag “#jerusalem_capital_of_palestine” in response to repeated reports in Israeli media that U.S. President Donald Trump has returned to considering the relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and intends to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel in a speech on Wednesday.

Breitbart Jerusalem has obtained a list of conditions purportedly drafted by the Islamic State in response to a ceasefire offer from Syrian opposition elements, meant to include IS on one side, and Turkey, the Kurdish PKK and even the U.S. military on the other.

TEHRAN – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that Middle Eastern countries should solve their problems together without relying on external powers.

Amid reports of an alleged Israeli aircraft attack on an Iranian base outside of Damascus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that an Iranian presence in Syria will not become a reality.

WASHINGTON — Defying longstanding American policy, US President Donald Trump will give a speech Wednesday recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, according to an Axios report on Friday.

The Palestinian president’s office warned Friday of the potential destructive effects of any move denying their claim to east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

American, Israeli and Jordanian officials all poured cold water on reports that the US was on the cusp of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy there from Tel Aviv.

President Trump is preparing to formally declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and order a review of the best way to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, two officials said Thursday, actions that would reverse decades of U.S. policy and international peacemaking efforts, and could inflame the Arab world.

WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday said reports that it is poised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem were “premature,” ahead of a decision deadline. The White House urged caution after an Israeli TV report suggested a decision would come as soon as Sunday and that the US president would declare that he recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman recently compared the religious leadership of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei to Hitler in an interview with the New York Times.

TEL AVIV — Saudi and Arab world pundits opposed to the warming of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia have taken to social media to call for a policy against normalization, with some even claiming that normalization with Israel is forbidden according to sharia.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, is holding covert contacts with ambassadors from 12 Islamic and Arab countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, Danon revealed to Ynet in an interview.

Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida revealed on Sunday that an Israeli source disclosed a promise from Jerusalem to destroy all Iranian facilities within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of Israel’s Golan Heights.

Riyadh – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince vowed to “pursue terrorists until they are wiped from the face of the earth” as officials from 40 Muslim countries gathered Sunday in the first meeting of an Islamic counter-terrorism alliance.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian state television has aired more allegations against a detained Iranian-British woman as London considers making a $530 million payment to Tehran.

RIYADH – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has denounced Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the “new Hitler of the Middle East”, as tensions simmer between the regional rivals.

Any new war in the Middle East “will lead to the eradication of the Zionist regime,” the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared on Thursday, according to the semi-official state news agency Fars.

US Vice President Mike Pence will speak before the Knesset when he visits Israel in mid-December, Channel 10 news reported Wednesday. Top Israeli officials told the TV station that Pence had been the one to suggest an address to the Israeli parliament, an offer that was immediately accepted.