Iran

When almost 600 Ottoman sailors lost their lives in far-off Japan in 1890, few at the time would have thought that the tragedy would usher in more than a century of friendship.

The U.N. Security Council has backed a call by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for a new humanitarian pause to fighting in Yemen, saying peace talks should be held as soon as possible.

The 15-member council said in a unanimous statement June 2 that it was "deeply disappointed" that talks scheduled for Geneva last week were pushed back.

The United States confirmed June 2 that an American envoy has held talks in Oman with Iran-backed Yemeni rebels to convince them to attend a Geneva peace conference in mid-June.

A nuclear deal with Iran will significantly reduce Tehran's enrichment capacity, US Vice-President Joe Biden's national security adviser told a conference in Qatar on June 1.

Iraq's plan to recapture the western city of Ramadi from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists will dominate a meeting June 2 in Paris of foreign ministers from the international coalition fighting the group, a senior US official said.

US top diplomat John Kerry remains focused on nailing down a nuclear deal with Iran and plans to join the final negotiations in late June despite breaking his leg in a cycling accident, officials said June 1.

An Iranian airline that acquired nine passenger jets in defiance of US sanctions will begin using them on international routes this week, the Fars news agency reported on June 1.

US Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg in bike crash May 31, apparently after hitting a curb, and scrapped the rest of a four-nation trip that included an international conference on combating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The United States dropped Cuba from its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism on May 29, removing yet another hurdle as the two countries seek to restore diplomatic ties frozen for five decades.
  

US defence aid to Israel is likely to increase after 2017, sources on both sides said on May 28, seeing a possible link to Washington's efforts to assuage its ally's fears over nuclear diplomacy with Iran.