With a US-Iraq “strategic dialogue” scheduled for mid-June, foreign policy pundits are examining ways the relationship could evolve with time and what role the Kurdistan Region ought to play.
Armed engagements between the Turkish armed forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have increased since January 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic and calls for a global ceasefire, a conflict monitor said this week.
US President Donald Trump has extended the national emergency first declared on May 22, 2003 to address the “unusual and extraordinary threat” to America’s national security and foreign policy posed by Iraq’s continued instability.
A schism is deepening within the ranks of Iraq’s paramilitia groups, between those loyal to the country’s top Shiite religious authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and those tied to Iran.
In a gesture of goodwill to the new Baghdad administration, the US has extended a sanctions waiver granted to Iraq allowing it to continue importing electricity and gas from neighbouring Iran for another 120 days.
At the height of its brutal rule over northern Syria, the Islamic State (ISIS) hurled its victims into al-Hota gorge, a deep natural pit outside Raqqa.
Already buffeted by the 2008 debt crisis and the tumultuous Brexit process, the European Union faces a new existential threat from the coronavirus – a crisis that has put claims of pan-national solidarity to the test.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, welcomed the apparent political consensus around Iraq’s new Prime Minister-designate Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who has been tasked with forming a new government.
Five Iran and Iraq-based companies and 15 individuals were blacklisted by the US Treasury Department on Thursday for “malign activities” including support for Iraqi militias. The fresh sanctions come despite growing calls to ease pressure on Iran while it battles coronavirus.
Beijing is taking the lead as the world’s top donor of medical supplies and expertise to help other virus-hit nations cope with the outbreak
