John Kerry

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is infuriated by UN Security Council’s Resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

He characterized the motion “shameful” and called the ambassadors of the Security Council countries to rebuke their decision.

The United States has not discovered any involvement by Turkey in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) oil trade, the country's ambassador to Ankara has said.  

Turkey and Russia "know" that a movement led by the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen was behind the attack on the Russian envoy in Ankara, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu told his U.S. counterpart John Kerry in a phone conversation on late Dec. 19, according to a Foreign Ministry official.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the CIA have apologized to Turkey over allegations in 2014 about oil trade between Ankara and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Thousands of people were evacuated on Thursday from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo, the first to leave under a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said cooperation with Turkey over Syria would be "more fruitful" than cooperation with the United States.

"We are in dialogue with regional countries, particularly with Turkey. Dialogue with Ankara would be more successful than inconclusive sessions [we have had] with the U.S.," Lavrov said, according to state-run Anadolu Agency. 

The foreign ministers of Serbia and Russia, Ivica Dacic and Sergey Lavrov, on Monday said an arms deal should be finalized on December 21 when Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic is in Moscow.

Some 50,000 civilians have fled eastern Aleppo over the past two days in a "constant stream," Russia said on Dec. 10, as Syrian government forces close in on the last pocket of opposition control in the northern city.

Forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad in Syria are about to gain control of the country's second city of Aleppo as rebel groups seek ways to exit their last positions.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Dec. 8 he was "hopeful" about reaching an agreement with Russia over the Syrian city of Aleppo as government forces continued their advance in the city.