Continents

The people of Turkey and the Turkish Cyprus will not accept deadlock as the fate of the long-divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, said Turkey's vice president on Feb. 15.
Fuat Oktay's remarks came during a meeting on the legal, political and economic aspects of reopening the abandoned town of Varosha (Maraş) -- empty for decades -- in the Turkish Cypriot city of Gazimağusa.

Turkish and northern Cypriot officials met on Saturday in an abandoned town wrecked by war to discuss potentially re-opening the area after 46 years, a move that Ankara said was a "historic" opportunity to bring tourism and economic benefits.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday he would allow North Macedonia and Albania to begin talks on joining the European Union if the bloc's executive gave them a positive review next month.

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban had a meeting with his Georgian counterpart, Giorgi Gakharia, on Friday, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, in which context the Romanian official thanked his counterpart for the active involvement of his country in the Black Sea-Caspian transport route.

A representative of the UK's Foreign Office refuted statements made on Thursday by Turkish Cypriot "Prime Minister" Ersin Tatar, who claimed that the UK would be examining the prospect of launching direct flights  to the Ercan airport in the north of the island.

The president of Cyprus said Thursday that he regretted accepting a free flight on a Saudi businessman's jet for his family's vacation in the Seychelles but that the private travel arrangements didn't break any laws or ethical guidelines.

The Syrian parliament has officially recognized the genocide killing of about 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917, France Press reported.

The agency notes that this has come amid heightened tensions with Turkey following the bloody clashes in northwestern Syria.

Russians' trust in Vladimir Putin has declined: from 59% in 2017 to 35% today.

Critics, including medical professionals, are raising questions over the handling of the coronavirus risk at ports of entry in the Republic of Cyprus.

The second and latest suspected case of coronavirus, known officially as Covid-19, raised multiple concerns in the medical community for the way authorities handled the specific case and overall situation.

The United Nations' human rights office on Feb. 12 named 112 companies it said have business ties to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, angering Israel and prompting a Palestinian threat of legal action against the firms.