Middle East, France | featured news

An air of cautious optimism hung over Almaty, Kazakstan, on Friday as Western and Iranian negotiators began another round of nuclear talks. The six powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – met Iranian officials with the aim of settling a decade-long tussle over Tehran's nuclear program.

France said on Thursday there were no signs that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is about to be overthrown, something Paris has been saying for months was just over the horizon.

The French foreign minister says France plans to vote in favor of recognition of a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly this week.

France on Tuesday ended its combat operations in Afghanistan, pulling hundreds of troops from a base in a volatile region northeast of Kabul and fulfilling promises to end its combat role on a faster track than other NATO allies....

France's foreign minister raised the prospect Thursday of sending "defensive weapons" to Syrian rebels, saying his country will ask the European Union to consider lifting its arms embargo on the Middle East nation....

The United States declined to follow France in fully recognizing a fledgling Syrian opposition coalition on Wednesday, saying the body must prove its worth, after its predecessor was dogged by feuding and accusations of Islamist domination.

France on Tuesday became the first European country to recognize the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition, going beyond other Western pledges of support.

Prosecutors have opened a murder inquiry into the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a judicial official tells the Sipa news agency.

Iran has stopped selling crude to British and French companies, the oil ministry said on Sunday.

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused France of seeing Libya as a source of 'oil, gold mines and underground treasures'.