The United States will join 29 other naval powers for a massive sea drill to practice mine-sweeping and ship-escort maneuvers in the Persian Gulf.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry urged Turkish leaders Sunday to speedily restore full diplomatic relations with Israel, two American allies the U.S. sees as anchors of stability in a Middle East wracked by Syria's civil war, Arab Spring political upheavals and the potential threat posed by Iran's nuclear program.
The EU's foreign policy chief says that nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers have failed to reach an agreement.
Although a new round of talks begin on Friday in Almaty, Kazakhstan, between the six world powers and Iran, the Islamic regime has no intention of giving up its goal of achieving nuclear weapons status.
In February, Kazakhstan hosted a fresh round of talks between Iran and the group of six countries (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany) on Iran's nuclear program. The next round of high-level talks start Friday, again in Almaty, amid signs that progress is possibly being made on this complicated and dangerous issue.
The military wing of Hamas has upped its support for Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad and is now providing training.
Iran's rulers are nervous as they prepare for elections in June and hope to avoid the massive street protests that followed the disputed presidential ballot in 2009.
Iran and the world powers trying to curb Tehran's nuclear progress are coming to the negotiating table this week with the window shrinking on diplomacy. The Islamic republic is moving closer to the ability to make atomic arms, and that risks the threat of Mideast conflict.
As President Obama visited Israel to achieve some movement on the Israeli-Palestinian question, not so far away, another of the world's most intractable conflicts simmered, threatening to boil over outside of the media spotlight. This is the ongoing low-grade conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
