Iran and the United States held their fire on Monday, handing Gulf shipping and the oil industry a respite from missile strikes as Donald Trump’s UN envoy said the president was “giving talks some space”. Tehran said it had halted retaliatory attacks against Washington’s allies in the Middle East, and US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News Sunday that, while forces remained “locked and loaded”, Trump would give negotiations “a little bit of room”. Fighting over the...
The relative calm comes amid reports of renewed efforts to restore diplomatic talks.
Israeli settlers' storming of Islam's holy site fuels 'hatred' and obstructs lasting peace, joint statement says.
Reports of Iran targeting sites belonging to the US's CIA first emerged in the early days of the Iran war.
Saudi Arabia has condemned the Houthi naval blockade that could impact oil flow to importers of Saudi oil.
The Iran battlefield might be quieter and diplomacy might have resumed, but the main contest has shifted to the architecture of the Middle East. The question is no longer whether Iran can be contained, the Strait of Hormuz can remain open or another round of escalation can be avoided. The larger issue is who will write the rules after the shock. Three tracks are taking shape. The first is led by the United States and built around the expansion of the Abraham Accords, the integration of Israel...
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that indirect talks with Iran in Qatar were making progress, offering a tentative sign that diplomacy was holding after recent exchanges of fire threatened efforts to end the Middle East war. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who led Tehran’s delegation, later said the talks had concluded and that the sides had agreed to establish a communication channel by Thursday to report and record violations of their initial memorandum of...
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday met his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud in Beijing, reaffirming China’s strong support for negotiations in the Middle East and calling for sustained dialogue despite a fragile ceasefire. “Talking is better than fighting, and dialogue is better than confrontation,” Wang said, according to a statement released by China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday night. On the evolving regional situation, Wang said the current priority was to uphold...