Simon Tisdall Thursday February 15, 2007 Guardian Unlimited It seems an odd way to treat a friend. Washington's relations with Turkey, a key Nato ally, have been on the slide since 2003, when Ankara's parliament refused to allow US troops …

The final round of negotiations over the possible independence of Serbia's breakwaway province, Kosovo, is supposed to take place next week in Vienna, based on the blueprint unveiled earlier this month by the UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari.But …

Bush announced that he will extend a temporary increase of 3,200 U.S. troops in Afghanistan "for the foreseeable future" and urged Congress to give him $11.8 billion more to accelerate training, reconstruction and counter-narcotics program…

“WHEN God created the donkey, the Hazaras wept,” runs a particularly heartless Afghan saying. Historically the servant underclass, the Hazaras, who are members of the Shia Muslim minority and have a distinctive Central Asian look, have lon…

In their early enthusiasm for Mr Putin, some diplomats clearly made a classic error in Western thinking about Russian leaders: wishful thinking. What some saw as a strategic choice for partnership with America seems, for the Kremlin, to ha…

Sunni rebels allegedly linked to al-Qaida were blamed for a car bomb attack which destroyed a bus and killed at least 11 Iranian revolutionary guards yesterday in the latest outbreak of violence to strike one of Iran's most unstable provin…

The UN security council is due to decide in the next few days on dispatching troops to eastern Chad to try to prevent the Darfur crisis spilling across the border and triggering a regional conflict and further humanitarian catastrophe.Huma…

TURKEY'S fraught relationship with America is heading into a new crisis. This may intensify anti-American feelings among millions of Turks. It could even hurt America's efforts to restore order in Iraq.The latest spat stems from a bill in …

By Heba Saleh in Cairo Published: February 15 2007 20:08 | Last updated: February 15 2007 20:08 It surprised the Egyptian authorities in 2005 by capturing twenty percent of the seats in parliament.But in recent weeks, Egypt president Hosni…

A spokesman for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood today said 73 members of the group had been arrested.The arrests appeared to be a pre-emptive strike prior to elections and a key parliamentary debate.Police did not give a reason for the early mo…

Iraqi and British forces in southern Iraq today closed border crossings with Iran and set up roadblocks on routes into the city of Basra.The measures were part of new attempts to cut off smuggling networks accused of supplying weapons to i…

Iraq closed its borders with Iran and Syria as U.S. and Iraqi troops tightened their grip on Baghdad on Thursday, setting up more checkpoints that stopped and searched even official convoys for weapons.An Interior Ministry official, who sp…

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 ― One of the questions posed by skeptics about the Bush administration assertions about Iran’s meddling in Iraq is why the charges are coming to light only now, when American officials say the shipment of lethal weapons…

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia ― Two candidates in local elections here in March, a soccer star and figure skating champion, have no known intention of giving up sports for legislative politics. If they win, as they almost certainly will, their Kr…

WASHINGTON: When General Tommy Franks and his top officers gathered in August 2002 to review an invasion plan for Iraq, it reflected a decidedly upbeat vision of what the country would look like four years after Saddam Hussein was ousted f…

Feb. 15, 2007 | Hezbollah operatives plant explosives along the disputed border area between Lebanon and Israel. The Israeli military moves in and destroys them. Israeli and Lebanese forces engage in sporadic gun battles.It may sound like …