Known to his inner circle as "beyefendi" (sir) and to admirers as "reis" (the chief), Erdogan prides himself on being able to woo doubters through tireless campaigning. This passion has helped him and his party win more than a dozen local and national elections, allowing Erdogan to claim a people's...

ISTANBUL, TURKEY -  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's chief rival in next month's election defended Kurdish rights on Tuesday and accused the Turkish leader of inflating ethnic tensions for political gain. Kemal Kilicdaroglu's comments followed weeks of attempts by Erdogan to link the opposition with Kurdish militants who have been fighting against...

Iranian authorities ordered the arrest of two women, the judiciary said after a viral video appeared to show them being attacked by a man for not wearing the hijab. Video footage widely shared on social media in Iran appeared to show the two women customers, who were not wearing hijab...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani will visit Turkey on Tuesday for talks including on scarce water resources and the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a government source said. Sudani is set to meet Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his first visit to Iraq's northern neighbor since...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Iran's top security official on Sunday signed a deal with Iraqi authorities for "protection" of their common border, the Iraqi prime minister's office said, months after Tehran struck Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq's north. Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region hosts camps and rear-bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish factions,...

A Turkish drone attack in northern Iraq killed three fighters from the Yazidi community affiliated with the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Iraqi Kurdish officials said. "A drone from the Turkish army targeted a vehicle", killing an officer and two combatants from the Yazidi Sinjar Resistance Units, a Kurdistan region's...

"The Kurdistan Regional Government confirms the halt of oil exportation through #Turkey's Ceyhan due to the #earthquake that struck several areas in the country," tweeted Lawk Ghafuri, head of foreign media relations in Kurdistan.

ALEPPO, SYRIA - A building collapsed Sunday in Syria's war-damaged second city of Aleppo, killing 16 people including children, authorities and media reported. Much of Aleppo was destroyed during Syria's conflict that began nearly 12 years ago and left many of the remaining structures in a decrepit state. "The number of...

Most of Turkey's demands have involved Sweden because of its more robust ties with the Kurdish diaspora.

BEIRUT, LEBANON  -  An attack in eastern Syria killed 10 oil field workers, state news agency SANA reported on Friday, a day after Syrian Kurdish-led forces announced an offensive against the Islamic State. In addition to the nearly dozen dead, "two others have been wounded in a terrorist attack that targeted...

Qamishli, Syria -- Thousands of Kurds protested on Sunday in the Syrian city of Qamishli against Turkish cross-border strikes targeting Kurdish groups in the country's northeast, an AFP photojournalist said. One week ago Turkey began a barrage of air strikes against the semi-autonomous Kurdish zones in north and northeastern Syria,...

Turkey struck back in northern Syria after its forces were shelled from near Kobane in the latest deadly escalation that killed three people wearing Syrian army uniform and wounded several other fighters. The raids by Turkish army hit outposts operated by the Syrian army and Kurdish-led forces.

The commander of US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria on Friday urged Russia and Iran to prevent Turkey from launching a new attack in the country's north, days before an expected Syria summit.

Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region Wednesday deplored "unjust pressure" from the federal government's oil ministry, days after the judiciary nullified oil contracts between the Kurds and foreign oil firms. After the oil ministry filed a judicial complaint, a commercial court in the Iraqi capital on Monday invalidated contracts between the Kurdish...

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan estimates that 300,000 Afghans now live in Turkey, which also hosts 3.7 million people from war-ravaged Syria.

A fierce battle raged in Syria for a fourth day Sunday between US-backed Kurdish forces and Islamic State group fighters who have attacked a prison, killing at least 120 people including seven civilians, a war monitor said.

Hundreds of Iraqis, most of them Kurds, returned home last week on a voluntary repatriation flight from Belarus.

Around 400 Iraqi migrants have returned home after spending three weeks in freezing forest of Belarus, deep in debt but hopeful of reaching the European Union alive. They, however, still hope for a way out of Iraq in search of a better future.

Iraq said on Friday it was drawing up lists of those among the hundreds of Iraqis blocked on the border between Belarus and Poland who wish to be repatriated voluntarily. "We are ready to organize more than one trip to provide an urgent response to anyone wanting to come home...

Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko accused of luring migrants from the Middle East to his country to send them across the border in retaliation for EU sanctions.

Reputed to have once flown through the biblical Garden of Eden, the Euphrates runs for almost 2,800 km (1,700 miles) across Turkey, Syria and Iraq, irrigating swathes of land in Syria's breadbasket, and runs through three hydroelectric dams. But over the past eight months the river has contracted to a...

Experts say 80 of about 556 people from both countries who went to Syria to fight for Daesh have returned