A statement from NATO said that "participants welcomed the progress that has been made" on a three-way deal struck last year aimed at satisfying Turkey's complaints. The latest meeting came after Ankara had earlier suspended negotiations in outrage at protests in January that included the burning of the Koran outside...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been politically isolated in the region since the start of Syria's war in 2011, triggered by the government's suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations, and was expelled from the Cairo-based Arab League. But since the quake, Arab leaders have made overtures to his government. "We welcome the...

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that extending a deal that allowed grain exports from Ukraine to resume was becoming "complicated" as he claimed it was not being properly implemented. Russia's military intervention last February saw Ukraine's Black Sea ports blocked by warships until a deal last...

Analysts view the opposition's failure to put aside their differences just two months before the vote as one of the main factors working in Erdogan's favour. Erdogan's public approval plunged after he unleashed an unusual economic experiment in late 2021 that tried to fight inflation by drastically cutting interest rates.

Ahmed Al Khateeb, the Saudi tourism minister and board chairman of the Saudi Fund for Development, signed an agreement with Turkish central bank governor Sahap Kavcioglu "to make a significant $5 billion deposit", the Saudi government said in a statement. "This deposit is a testament to the close cooperation and...

"Many refugees who fled to Turkey in search of safety and protection have now faced the trauma of loss and displacement once again -- losing their homes and livelihoods," the UN's International Organization for Migration and the UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a joint statement. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake on...

A massive earthquake and aftershocks in February caused an estimated US$5.1 billion in direct physical damage in Syria, said the World Bank. The earthquake that struck on February 6 hit Turkey and Syria, devastating scores of cities and killing over 50,000 people in both countries. Millions need help with accommodation...

Pushing aside their differences in relations strained by regional disputes, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates and Turkey signed a free trade agreement on Friday. Importantly, the pact comes ahead of Turkey's elections on May 14 as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan carries on with his contested economic policies that have scared...

In the aftermath of the quake, activists and emergency teams in the rebel-held northwest decried the UN's slow response, contrasting it with the planeloads of humanitarian aid that have been delivered to government-controlled airports.

Istanbul, Turkey -Turkey’s economy posted 5.6 percent growth in 2022, growing faster than expected last quarter as the government ramped up spending ahead of elections. Gross domestic product rose 3.5% in the October-December period from a year earlier. Growth for the whole year was 5.6%, state statistics agency TurkStat data...

A total of 5,951 people were killed across Syria, while Turkey recorded 44,374 deaths after the February 6 earthquake. The new tally brings to 50,325 the total number of deaths caused by the disaster across both countries.

The World Bank warned that the continuing aftershocks are likely to increase the total amount of damage caused by the disaster. "This disaster serves as a reminder of Turkey’s high risk to earthquakes and of the need to enhance resilience in public and private infrastructure," said Humberto Lopez, the World...

Istanbul, Turkey - A 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey on Monday, causing some buildings already damaged by a powerful tremor earlier this month to collapse, the government's disaster agency said. The epicenter of the tremor was the Yesilyurt district in the Malatya province, which was hit by the February 6...

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, in a rare visit to Syria and Turkey, pledged solidarity with the people of the two countries after a devastating earthquake claimed tens of thousands of lives. Shoukry met with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and the country's foreign minister Faisal Mekded. He also met Turkish...

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...

Turkey said on Monday that NATO accession talks with Sweden and Finland would be held next month, after being postponed in January over a row about protests held in Stockholm. "The meeting will be held on March 9," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara, alongside...

For the first time in a decade, Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will visit Syria and Turkey to show ""solidarity with the two countries and their brotherly peoples" after the powerful earthquake that hit the two countries earlier this month. The visit illustrates the gradual acceptance of the once-isolated Syrian...

NASIRIYAH, IRAQ - Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers have witnessed a sharp decrease in their levels in the south of the country, officials said Sunday, pledging to take urgent measures to ease water shortages. In Nasiriyah, capital of the southern province of Dhi Qar, an AFP photographer saw the river bed...

Istanbul, Turkey--Fears of another major earthquake have been rekindled in Istanbul since the February 6 disaster that hit Turkey and Syria, but a prominent Turkish seismologist has reassured the risk "hasn't increased". "The risk hasn't increased because we are talking about completely different systems," Dogan Kalafat, the director of the...

ANKARA, TURKEY - Clearing the mountains of rubble due to buildings collapse in the earthquakes that hit Turkey on February 6 and 20, 2023 is the top-priority action mapped out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in its response to the disaster. Rubble removal accounts for a large share...

More than 160,000 buildings containing 520,000 apartments collapsed or were severely damaged in the February 6 earthquakes.

The EU measure will last for six months and was taken "in view of the gravity of the humanitarian crisis in Syria exacerbated by the earthquake". The massive 7.8-magnitude quake on February 6 has killed more than 42,000 people in Turkey and more than 3,600 in Syria.

Turkey was already battling runaway inflation and relying on wealthy allies to keep its economy afloat when the massive earthquake on February 6 killed more than 43,000 people, razed entire cities and left millions needing urgent help.

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February, killing more than 45,000 people across Turkey and Syria and flattening entire neighborhoods.

More than four million people live in areas outside government control in Syria's north and northwest, 90 per cent of whom depend on aid to survive. Yet the first UN aid convoy crossed into the area on February 9 -- three days after the quake struck -- and carried tents...

Sultan Haitham and Assad "held official talks" at the royal palace in Muscat, Oman's foreign ministry said in a statement. The Omani ruler "extended anew his condolences and sincere sympathy to.... the president and to the brotherly Syrian people for the victims of the devastating earthquake", it added.

Turkey was already battling runaway inflation and relying on rich allies for funding to keep its economy afloat when a massive earthquake killed tens of thousands, razed entire cities and left millions needing urgent help. Mahmoud Mohieldin, an executive director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said the 7.8-magnitude tremor...

Scientists have for years been refuting claims that the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), with its Alaska facility boasting 180 radio antennae, is a US government-backed programme to weaponise the atmosphere and subjugate the population. Some users cited flashes of light before the quake as evidence they were artificially...

Seismologists warn that a massive earthquake is likely to strike Turkey's biggest city -- officially home to 16 million people but estimated to hold up to 20 million -- by 2030. The city lies on the northern edge of one of Turkey's main fault lines and is densely packed.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that the funds would provide humanitarian relief for three months to 5.2 million people. The money would "allow aid organizations to rapidly scale up vital support," including in the areas of food security, protection, education, water and shelter, he added.

Blinken will visit Incirlik air base, through which the United States has shipped aid, and then hold talks in the capital Ankara on "continued US support," State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday. The top US diplomat will also take part in the Munich Security Conference, where the Ukraine war...

Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan "has ordered the provision of an additional US$50 million as relief aid for quake-affected people in Syria", reports said.

Last week's quake has affected more than seven million children, including 2.5 million in Syria alone, according to James Elder of UNICEF.

United Nations, US--The United Nations launched an appeal for $397 million on Tuesday to help earthquake victims in Syria, where the disaster has killed thousands of people and left millions more in desperate need of aid. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, announcing the appeal at the UN headquarters in New York, said the...

“Large numbers of boys and girls being out of school since the pandemic, failing to resuming their education as quickly as we want is a huge issue for UNICEF. We want them in a journey from learning to earning as soon as possible so that they can have their bright...

The first UN delegation to visit rebel-held northwestern Syria since last week's earthquake crossed over from Turkey, AFP reported, as anger simmers at the world body's slow response. Over 35,000 people were killed when the quake devastated swathes of Syria and neighboring Turkey on February 6, at least 3,600 of...

"In Turkey, the total number of children living in the 10 provinces hit by the two earthquakes was 4.6 million children. In Syria, 2.5 million children are affected," James Elder, spokesman for the UN children's agency Unicef, told reporters in Geneva.

Lebanon has adopted a policy of dissociation from Syria's years-long war but on Wednesday, it sent its first high-level official delegation and rescue team to Damascus since the start of the conflict. The delegation met with Assad and expressed readiness to open Lebanon's air and sea ports to help send...

Supplies have been slow to arrive in Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the healthcare system, and parts of the country remain under the control of rebels battling the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which is under Western sanctions. A 10-truck UN convoy crossed into northwest Syria via the...

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with the Syrian president in Damascus on Sunday afternoon to discuss the response to the devastating earthquake which has killed more than 33,000 people across Syria and Turkey. "The compounding crises of conflict, Covid, cholera, economic decline and now the earthquake have...

To house millions of people who lost homes in the devastating earthquake, Qatar will send some 10,000 cabins and caravans used during the World Cup to Turkey and Syria. The UN estimates that many millions may be in need of help after the 7.8-magnitude quake killed some 33,000 and flattened...

A UN convoy with supplies for northwest Syria arrived via Turkey, but the agency's relief chief Martin Griffiths said much more was needed for millions whose homes were destroyed. "We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn't arrived,"...

Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor struck Kahramanmaras in the country's southeast, unleashing catastrophe in the region and Syria, killing at least 28,000 people. Anguished families flock to sports halls, hospital morgues or cemeteries in the severely hit city -- where bodies are piling up -- in a bid to find their missing...

More than a hundred hours after two earthquakes killed more than 23,000 people, an Emirati rescue team has pulled alive two people from under the rubble in Turkey. One man believed to be in his 50s or 60s and an 11-year-old child were rescued in the Kahramanmaras province, close to...

UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said the death toll from the massive earthquake will "double or more" from its current level of 28,000. Tens of thousands of rescue workers are scouring flattened neighborhoods despite freezing weather that has deepened the misery of millions now in desperate need of aid.

The call came as rescue workers continued their search for survivors in the rubble of the 7.8 magnitude quake that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday, with the death toll approaching 24,000. The UN security council will meet on Syria -- likely early next week -- according to Swiss envoy...

In the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, one of those hit hardest, the stench of death clung to the air. But as crews entered a fifth day of peeling back flattened buildings, Turkish media reported rescues of young children, long after the expiration of the 72-hour window when survivors are considered...

The 7.8-magnitude quake struck as people slept early Monday, with Turkish officials saying that over 70,000 people have been injured across 10 southeastern provinces hit hardest by the disaster. "We are providing immediate assistance and preparing a rapid assessment of the urgent and massive needs on the ground," said World...

Bitter cold has hampered the four-day search of thousands of flattened buildings and threatened the lives of many quake victims who are without shelter and drinking water. Relatives were left scouring body bags laid out in a hospital car park in Turkey's southern city of Antakya to search for missing...

Brussels, Belgium--The 27 EU leaders wrote to their Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday to express their "full solidarity" and offer more emergency aid after a devastating earthquake. "We stand ready to further step up our support in close coordination with the Turkish authorities. Our thoughts will continue...