Washington

Leaders from around the world condemned a terror attack at an Istanbul nightclub early on Jan. 1 that killed at least 39 people and injured 69 others.      
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Kremlin said in a statement.    
  

A cease-fire held across most of Syria on Jan. 1 as Russia and Turkey secured unanimous passage of a United Nations resolution backing their efforts to "jumpstart" talks aimed at ending the nearly six-year conflict.

The Security Council resolution aims to pave the way for talks next month in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, under the aegis of Turkey, Russia and Iran.

President-elect Donald Trump praised President Vladimir Putin for refraining from tit-for-tat expulsions of Americans in response to US punitive measures over alleged Russian interference in the November election.

Putin's decision came despite the foreign ministry asking him to send home 35 US diplomats after President Barack Obama had expelled the same number of Russian staff.

Following a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci again condemned the attempted coup in Turkey this summer.

"Tanks and violence cannot break the will of citizens and the verdict of the people expressed in elections," Thaci said in a press statement.

Russia will not tell US diplomats to leave despite Washington's decision to apply the measure, President Vladimir Putin has said.

The move comes following a proposal by the country's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, that Moscow apply the measure reciprocally as the US declared 35 Russian diplomats "persona non grata" on Thursday.

The noise accompanying every negotiation between our government and creditors has become a tradition. And yet, each time, from Athens to Berlin and Washington everyone acts as if this is some thriller whose end we do not know.

A Bulgarian product was one of the options considered by Russian authorities for cyber attacks, a New York Times article says.

The text tells a story about Aleksandr Vyarya, a programmer who turned down an offer from the government to join a team of hackers.

BELGRADE - In case Pristina fails to form the Community of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo-Metohija on its own, the Serbs have the full legitimacy and legality to do so, the chairman of the Serbian parliamentary committee on Kosovo-Metohija, Milovan Drecun, said Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is very, very cross about last Friday's United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the creation of illegal Jewish settlements all over the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

The US has expelled 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation to the cyber attacks Washington claims were aimed at influencing the presidential election.

The diplomats at Russia's Embassy to Washington have been given 72 hours to leave after being declared "persona non grata."

The latest wave of sanctions includes entities and individuals in the Russian intelligence.