Washington

A landmark truce is to take effect in Syria on Feb. 27, the United States and Russia announced, but the "cessation of hostilities" does not include the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front, the main jihadist factions.

A bomb blast rocked central Ankara at rush hour on the evening of Feb. 17, killing 28 and wounding 61. Government sources stated that a suicide bomber pulled the trigger on 30 kilos of explosives next to two buses stopped at a red traffic light carrying military and civilian personnel back home from military offices.

Former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who led the world body during one of its most difficult periods, with failed missions in Rwanda and Bosnia, died Feb. 16 in Cairo. He was 93.

Seeking to counter Irina Bokova, the Bulgarian government's official candidacy for UN chief, Washington and Berlin might nominate "possibly even another Bulgarian", the Sunday Times has opined.

The Turkish army has shelled Kurdish targets near the city of Azaz in northwest Syria, according to media reports.

Anatolia news agency said that the Turkish military hit Syrian government forces on Saturday, adding that the attack was in response to fire inflicted on a Turkish military guard post in Turkey’s southern Hatay region.

Serbia strives to join the EU "exclusively for the sake of Serbian citizens," a deputy prime minister has said in an editorial published by Politika daily.

The United States shares Turkey's concerns that the formal participation of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) in the Geneva talks will give legitimacy to the group and the territories it controls in the northern Syria, although Washington differentiates the PYD from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) despite Ankara's wishes. 

With two frontrunners for the top job at the United Nations, the Bulgarian government "now finds itself in a possible no-win situation" having to pick either UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova or EU Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva, Politico wrote on Monday.

Regional officials including the foreign ministers of Ankara, Washington and Doha have held talks amid continuing regional tension over attempts to end Syria's civil war and the deployment of Turkish troops to Iraq.

Ankara police on Nov. 6 searched offices of business groups working under the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), known to have close links to the movement of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.