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A historic agreement on Iran's nuclear programme was made possible by months of unprecedented secret meetings between US and Iranian officials. The Obama administration asked journalists not to publish details they had uncovered of the secret diplomacy until the Geneva talks were over for fear of derailing them. The Associated Press and a Washington-based news website, Al-Monitor, finally did so on Sunday. The Associated Press said preliminary and secret talks were held in Oman and other locations. The US envoys for the meetings were the deputy secretary of state, William Burns, and Jake Sullivan, a foreign policy adviser to Joe...

For President Obama, whose popularity and second-term agenda have been ravaged by the chaotic rollout of the health care law, the preliminary nuclear deal reached with Iran on Sunday is more than a welcome change of subject. It is also a seminal moment — one that thrusts foreign policy to the forefront in a White House preoccupied by domestic woes, and one that presents Mr. Obama with the chance to chart a new American course in the Middle East for the first time in more than three decades. Much will depend, of course, on whether the United States and the...

Syria's regime hailed the "historic" nuclear deal between its ally Iran and world powers Sunday as proof that negotiations rather than military action were the best way to resolve crises. Syria "considers it to be a historic accord which guarantees the interests of the brotherly Iranian people and acknowledges their right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy," the foreign ministry said, quoted by local media. The deal sealed in Geneva was "proof that political solutions to crises in the region are the best way to guarantee security and stability, far from any foreign interference and the threat of a...

Iran's nuclear deal with global powers was met with wary silence from Arab states on Sunday, with Iran's only two Arab friends Iraq and Syria welcoming the accord but others keeping their opinions to themselves. "I am afraid Iran will give up something on to get something else from the big powers in terms of regional politics. And I'm worrying about giving Iran more space or a freer hand in the region," said Abdullah al-Askar, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Saudi Arabia's appointed Shoura Council, a quasi-parliament that advises the government on policy. "The government of Iran, month...

Iran has reached an agreement with world powers over its nuclear activities. In a televised address, the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, welcomed the deal, saying the country had the right to continue its uranium enrichment programme.

Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday curbing the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for initial sanctions relief, signaling the start of a game-changing rapprochement that could ease the risk of a wider Middle East war. Aimed at ending a long festering standoff, the interim pact between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia won the critical endorsement of Iranian clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran struck a historic nuclear deal Sunday with the United States and five other world powers, in the most significant development between Washington and Tehran in more than three decades of estrangement between the two nations. Obama hailed the deal as putting ‘‘substantial limitations’’ on a nuclear program that the United States and its allies fear could be turned to nuclear weapons use. ‘‘While today’s announcement is just a first step, it achieves a great deal,’’ Obama said. ‘‘For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, and key parts of...

GENEVA -- Secretary of State John Kerry and leaders from five other world powers early Sunday reached a nuclear deal with Iran, following intense negotiations that took place over several days in Geneva. The deal represents a historic breakthrough in the world's decade-long nuclear standoff with Iran, and in the 35-year-long diplomatic freeze between Iran and the United States.

The U.S. and five other world powers struck a historic agreement with Iran on Sunday, agreeing to ease part of an economic stranglehold in exchange for steps aimed at capping Tehran's nuclear program and ensuring the country's Islamist government doesn't rush to develop atomic weapons. The agreement calls for Iran to stop its production of near-weapons grade nuclear fuel—which is uranium enriched to 20% purity—and for the removal of Tehran's stockpile of the fissile material, which is estimated to be nearly enough to produce one nuclear bomb. Iran, in return, will gain relief from Western economic sanctions that U.S. officials...

A historic deal was struck early Sunday between Iran and six world powers over Tehran's nuclear program that freezes the country's nuclear development program in exchange for lifting some sanction while a more formal agreement is worked out. The agreement -- described as an "initial, six-month" deal -- includes "substantial limitations that will help prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised address.

LINK ONLY PER FR POSTING RULES: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/iran-is-playing-obama-says-savvy-saudi-prince.html

That the socialist French government of François Hollande just blocked a bad deal with Tehran, emerging as the hero of the Geneva negotiations, is on one level a huge surprise. But it also follows logically from the passivity of the Obama administration. American foreign policy is in unprecedented free-fall, with a feckless and distracted White House barely paying attention to the outside world, and when it does, acting in an inconsistent, weak, and fantastical manner. If one were to discern something so grand as an Obama Doctrine, it would read: "Snub friends, coddle opponents, devalue American interests, seek consensus, and...

Heavy shooting from guns and anti-aircraft weapons could be heard early on Tuesday in the Libyan capital Tripoli, Reuters witnesses said.

The United States believes Iran is a year or a more away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon, President Barack Obama said in an interview with the Associated Press released on Saturday, although he described the estimate as "conservative." "Our assessment continues to be a year or more away, and in fact, actually our estimate is probably more conservative than the estimates of Israeli intelligence services," Obama said in reply to a question about the U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons. Obama has directed U.S. officials to try to work out an agreement with...

AFP - The Iranian foreign minister warned Barack Obama Tuesday that "flip-flop" threatened efforts to build trust, after the US president told the Israeli premier the military option remained on the table.

"The United States and Europe have yet to show the requisite political will or to develop sustainable strategies to help Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen in their democratic transitions more than two years after a wave of popular revolutions toppled decades old autocracies," the report by the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East found. "Faced with the vast amounts of cash the Gulf countries could provide rapidly to the transition countries, some in Washington and Brussels wondered if the United States and the EU even had much to offer," the study added. The report's authors -- Danya...

BEIRUT — This week’s takeover of Syrian rebel posts by al Qaida-linked fighters undercuts Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion to Congress earlier this month that moderates make up the bulk of the guerrilla movement against President Bashar Assad’s regime and are growing stronger. Kerry told Congress that Islamist extremists make up only 15 to 25 percent of the rebels. But a closer examination of the composition of fighting groups suggests that his figure is low.

France's interior minister revealed Thursday that hundreds of homegrown Islamist militants were signing up to fight in Syria and warned they could pose a security threat when they come back. More than 300 French nationals or residents are either currently fighting in Syria's civil war, planning to go and fight or have recently returned from there, the minister, Manuel Valls, told France Inter radio. Most of them were young men, often with a delinquent past, who had become radicalised, he said.

Defiant strongman Bashar Al-Assad promised he would surrender Syria's chemical weapons but warned it would take at least a year to do so and cost one billion dollars. His latest appearance came as UN envoys debated a draft resolution that would enshrine a joint US-Russian plan to secure and neutralize his banned weapons in international law. In a confident interview with US network Fox News, Assad insisted that Syria was not gripped by civil war but was the victim of infiltration by foreign-backed Al-Qaeda fighters.

AFP - President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday thanked key backer Russia for helping Syria face down what he described as a "savage attack" by Western-backed Islamic extremists, according to state television. Russia is helping "create a new global balance", Assad said.