Despite progresses in the negotiations, the parties have announced that some “serious” differences have not been bridged.
Iran’s Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh on Monday urged the parties in the Vienna talks to make their decisions on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The operation was Joe Biden’s second use of force in the region. He ordered airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia targets in eastern Syria in February.
The U.S. military conducted airstrikes against facilities used by the Ketaib Hezbollah militia in the Iraq-Syria border region on Sunday.
If the US rate of response is only two retaliatory rounds of strikes to dozens of attacks since January, the US is not deterring the pro-Iran groups.
For the second time this year, the Biden administration has responded to threats to US forces in Iraq by carrying out airstrikes.
The United States military said on Sunday it targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq.
At least four members of Shi’ite militias were killed in “defensive precision airstrikes” which US President Joe Biden ordered against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups along the Iraq-Syria border region on Sunday night.
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied charges that he was deliberately trying to harm Israel’s relationship with the Biden administration.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu was acting “childishly and irresponsible” by attempting to harm ties between the new Israeli government and the Biden administration, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a closed-door meeting of his Yamina faction.
The group describes its mission as “encouraging Turkey to adopt more democratic policies and responding to the steady erosion of Turkey’s democratic institutions.”
John Bolton, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, says he’s joined the advisory council of the Turkish Democracy Project, a newly launched nonprofit, “to shine a light on the darkening situation” in Turkey.
There are concerns about the Islamic State’s ability to still operate within and close to Turkish territory.
Turkish police arrested 26 people on Monday for allegedly being linked to the Islamic State (IS).
The UN nuclear watchdog said June 25 that it has not received a response from Iran about extending an interim atomic monitoring agreement, after the United States and France warned that not doing so could imperil talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
The next battle over Jerusalem will be a “regional war”, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad Movement’s political bureau warned yesterday.
Libya’s transitional government renewed its commitment to holding elections in December at a UN-sponsored conference in Berlin, where Russia and Turkey reached a tentative plan to start withdrawing their foreign mercenaries from Libya.
At the Berlin conference on Wednesday, Libya’s transitional government underlined its commitment to holding elections on 24 December, and Germany said it would continue keep up pressure until all foreign forces have been withdrawn from Libya.
Libya’s transitional leadership was joined at the conference by foreign ministers from France and Germany, as well Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria and Italy, along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and senior officials from Russia, the United Arab Emirates and others.
Though a final communique specified no concrete new measures, Libyan Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush said the transitional government came “with a vision of how best to re-establish stability in our country and pave the way for free, inclusive and safe elections on 24 December”.
She was hopeful that there would finally be progress on a key pledge from a previous conference, held in January 2020, for foreign fighters to pull out of the country.
“We have a progress in terms of mercenaries, so you know hopefully within coming days, mercenaries from both sides [are] going to be withdrawing and I think this is going to be encouraging,” she told reporters in Berlin.
Russia and Turkey back opposing sides in Libya, which has been split between two rival administrations backed by foreign forces and countless militias.
The internationally-recognised Government of National Accord in Tripoli is supported by Turkey, which in October helped it repel an offensive from Khalifa Haftar, who rules large parts of the east of Libya, and is backed by Rusisa, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
In October the two sides agreed a ceasefire in Geneva. The agreement involved the withdrawal of all foreign mercenaries by January.
Mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner company, along with fighters from Sudan, Chad and Syria, support Haftar in the east of Libya. Turkey has advisers in Tripoli, supported by allied Syrian fighters.
None have left, as both sides argue over which group should leave first.
Two diplomats said France had prepared proposals for a sequenced withdrawal of foreign forces from Libya that was discussed with both Turkey and the US, and a senior US State Department official said Wednesday that Turkey and Russia had reached an initial understanding to each pull out 300 of their Syrian mercenaries.
It is not a large number of the estimated 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries in Libya, but it would signal the start of a process in which all armed groups would eventually be brought under a joint military command.