Iraq

The Islamic State group remains active in Syria and Iraq despite major territorial losses, necessitating French air support for troops mainly in Iraq, the commander of a French aircraft carrier strike group said Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Saudi Arabia's King Salman and the crown prince on Feb. 20 to discuss shared security interests in the Gulf and threats from Iran. He also toured a sprawling desert air base in Saudi Arabia where a few thousand U.S. troops are deployed as part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to stymie Iran's regional reach.

With Iraq rocked by months of protests against corruption and nepotism, the judiciary is investigating allegations ministeries are up for sale as politicians wrangle to form a new government.    

Amid an ongoing dispute over a Constitutional Court ruling that has angered Bosnian Serb politicians, Milorad Dodik, the Serbian member of the state presidency, has stopped Bosnia from signing up to a status agreement with the European Union border agency, Frontex.

Turkish jets have neutralized eight PKK militants in an operation in northern Iraq, the country's Defense Ministry announced on Feb. 15.
The militants were neutralized in the Hakurk region, with a senior member of the terror group among them, the ministry said on Twitter.

Turkey's main opposition leader has vowed to bring peace and stability to the Middle East by establishing a regional organization with the participation of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria and to end years-long armed conflict in the area.

Cold wave in Saudi Arabia. The nighttime temperatures in the northern parts of the desert country are negative, the France Press reported, citing meteorological services.

Although there are challenges that cause frictions and disagreements between Turkey and the United States, Washington is committed to resolving the pending issues with its ally, a senior U.S. official has said, underscoring that the Turkish-American strategic alliance is much stronger than any relationship Turkey might have with Russia.

Three YPG/PKK terrorists surrendered to Turkish security forces in the country's southeast, Turkey's National Defense Ministry said on Feb. 13.

Terrorists fleeing the terror group's shelters in northern Iraq and Syria turned themselves in at border posts in Şanlıurfa province's Suruç district and Sirnak's Silop district, the ministry said in a statement.

The Minister Designate of National Defence, Nicolae Ciuca, at the ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Alliance in Brussels, participated on Wednesday night, together with the NATO Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoana, and the chair of the Military Committee of NATO, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart William Peach, at the photographic exhibition "Afghanistan - Faces of War".