United Nations

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu has reiterated his government's resolve to maintain a military presence in northern Iraq until Mosul is "liberated."

Ambulances and buses entered the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Zabadani on Dec. 28 to ferry scores of the insurgents to Turkey under a deal brokered by the United Nations, rebel sources there said. 

Under the deal, rebel fighters holed up for months in the town near the Lebanese border have been promised safe passage to Beirut airport, then on to Turkey. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an is set to visit Saudi Arabia on Dec. 29-30 and meet King Salman bin Abdülaziz al-Saud, a written statement from the presidential office has said. 

More than 100,000 people have had to evacuate from their homes in the bordering areas of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina due to severe flooding in the wake of heavy summer rains brought on by El Nio, authorities said on Dec 26. 

The United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria has set January 25 as the target date to begin talks between the parties on ending the ongoing conflict in Syria.

The announcement of the target date comes just over a week after the Security Council adopted unanimously resolution 2254.

The Arab League has failed to understand Turkey's self-sacrificing and resolved efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the region, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç said on Dec. 26.

Turkish Defense Minister ?smet Y?lmaz said the withdrawal of "security" troops stationed in the Bashiqa camp in northern Iraq is continuing, while the troops deployed for training purposes were to stay at Bashiqa.

The foreign ministers of the Arab League condemned on Dec. 24 a Turkish military deployment in Iraq as an "assault" on the country's sovereignty, demanding Ankara withdraw the forces.

The Turkish deployment "is an assault on Iraqi sovereignty and a threat to Arab national security," they said in an Arab League statement after meeting at the pan-Arab bloc's Cairo headquarters. 

"Serbia respects the policy of the United States, but has its own policy," Prieme Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday.

Normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina implies Kosovo's membership in the UN, says U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Michael Kirby.