Turkey and Egypt have had their first diplomatic contacts since breaking off relations in 2013, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the United Arab Emirates on Thursday and may meet the Saudi crown prince there in an opportunity to showcase new Gulf ties before a closely contested election in Israel, its public broadcaster Kan said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife have tested positive for the coronavirus, the president’s office said Monday, with both having only mild symptoms of the illness.

The United States will do what it sees as necessary to defend its interests after a rocket attack last week against Iraq’s Ain al-Sada airbase, which hosts American, coalition and Iraqi forces, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

The Iraq meeting of Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Shia Islam’s top clerics, was front-page news in Iran yesterday, with some media declaring it a chance for peace in the neighbouring country.

Iran has released British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told Iranian website Emtedad today, after her five-year prison sentence for plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

Bangladesh has strongly condemned the drone attacks targeting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the Houthi rebels on February 10 and 17.

Missile strikes on makeshift oil refineries in northern Syria killed four people and injured more than 20 others, a war monitor said yesterday.

A haven for humans craving furry feline company, a cat cafe in Dubai also doubles as an adoption centre for some of the United Arab Emirates’ many strays.

The fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi called on Monday for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to be punished after a US intelligence report found he had approved the killing.

The Biden administration announced sanctions and visa bans on Friday targeting Saudi Arabian citizens over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but stopped short of imposing sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself.

A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

The United States will seek to strengthen and extend the agreement between world powers and Iran aimed at curbing its nuclear programme, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Turkish prosecutors yesterday launched a probe into a pro-Kurdish MP suspected of having travelled to a Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq where 13 Turkish hostages were killed in a failed rescue.

A Lebanese court today dismissed a judge who had charged top politicians with negligence over last year’s Beirut port explosion, infuriating families of victims who said it showed that the state would never hold powerful men to account.

Saudi Ambassador to Bangladesh Issa bin Youssef Al-Duhailan today assured that his government will take immediate measures so that Bangladeshi workers stuck in the country due to Covid-19 and workers with new visas can return to the Middle East country.

Turkish border guards have detained five Russians, including a woman suspected of being a member the Islamic State group, and a Libyan who were attempting to cross from Syria, officials said yesterday.

Israeli environmentalists are warning that a UAE-Israeli oil pipeline deal threatens unique Red Sea coral reefs and could lead to “the next ecological disaster”.

At least 100 oil and gas tankers have been destroyed by fire in a “catastrophe” at Afghanistan’s biggest trade crossing with Iran, causing millions of dollars of losses, officials said yesterday.

The UAE’s “Hope” probe sent back its first image of Mars, the national space agency said yesterday, days after the spacecraft successfully entered the Red Planet’s orbit.