Iran yesterday said it has continued indirect negotiations with the Unites States through the Sultanate of Oman over its nuclear deal and a possible prisoner swap.

Iran’s supreme leader said yesterday that reaching a deal with the West over Tehran’s disputed nuclear work was possible if the country’s nuclear infrastructure remained intact, state media quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying.

Israeli forces yesterday killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry and the army said, with the latter adding that a soldier was lightly wounded.

Five Arab Israelis were shot dead at a car wash in the north yesterday, police said, amid the worst crime wave in years to hit the minority sector.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Gulf Arab officials in Saudi Arabia yesterday at a time of rapidly shifting alliances following the oil-rich kingdom’s rapprochement with Iran.

Turkey’s journalists’ association yesterday criticised fines imposed by the country’s media regulator on four pro-opposition television channels during the election campaign, saying they “penalise the public’s right to information”.

Iran presented what officials described as its first domestically-made hypersonic ballistic missile yesterday, the official IRNA news agency reported, an announcement likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran’s missile capabilities.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to Saudi Arabia yesterday to strengthen strained ties with the long-time ally as the oil-rich kingdom forges closer relations with America’s rivals.

Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia today following a seven-year closure, a diplomatic source told AFP, sealing a Chinese-brokered rapprochement deal announced in March.

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday unveiled a new cabinet lineup, naming a powerful spy chief as foreign minister and market friendly Mehmet Simsek as finance minister, hours after swearing in for a third term as president.

The United States and Saudi Arabia yesterday made a renewed push for truce talks between Sudan’s warring generals as deadly fighting has raged into its eighth week.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg yesterday called on Ankara to drop its opposition to Sweden’s bid to join the US-led defence alliance, hoping Stockholm’s accession would be finalised “as soon as possible”.

Iranian security forces opened fire on a protest sparked by the death of a student recently released from custody, rights groups and monitors said yesterday, with several people reported wounded.

Saudi Arabia has charged a women’s rights activist detained since November over her social media posts with launching a “propaganda campaign”,

Iran has significantly increased its stockpile of enriched uranium in recent months, continuing its nuclear escalation, a confidential report by the UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday seen by AFP said.

Iran has “resolved” one of three cases raised by the UN watchdog as possible evidence it had not declared all its past nuclear activities, Iranian media reported yesterday.

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian security officer during clashes in the occupied West Bank flashpoint city of Jenin yesterday, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

Iran yesterday held the first trial session for one of the two detained female journalists who reported on Mahsa Amini’s death in custody last year, her lawyer said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took an early lead yesterday in a historic runoff election that could extend two decades of his dominant but divisive Islamic style of rule until 2028.

Egypt unearthed human and animal mummification workshops as well as two tombs in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara, officials said on Saturday, marking the latest in a string of discoveries that the country hopes can help revive its vital tourism industry.