Iran says it rejects any participation by US representatives at the scheduled Syria peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he believes US and UN representatives should be invited to the meeting. [...]

The liberation of Aleppo by the Syrian Army delivers a "heavy blow" to all terrorist groups which have been fighting in the country for over four years, according to Argentine journalist Leandro Albani. Leandro has worked as a reporter in the Middle East for the magazine Sudestada and websites such as Resumen Latinoamericano and Marcha.org. [...]

Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin hit back at his US counterpart, Samantha Power, at a UN Security Council meeting, saying that she was not Mother Teresa and represents a country with a long record of violations. Power and Churkin both spoke at a UN Security Council meeting on Aleppo in New York City on Monday. [...]

Earlier this month, Chinese Admiral Guan Youfei visited Syria. Few details were made available on the specifics of Beijing's cooperation agreement with the Syrian military, but the pact itself represents a landmark shift both in the military sense and from the perspective of international geopolitics, says French political analyst Thierry Meyssan. [...]

Far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) presidential candidate Norbert Hofer has called for a ban on naturalization of Turkish residents in Austria until dual citizenship issues are resolved and said that his country could still leave the EU if Turkey joins the bloc. [...]

China’s recent announcement of an increase of its humanitarian support for the Syrian people and that it would provide additional training to the Syrian forces comes as a “headache for the US,” according to the American media. “As if the multi-party war in Syria weren’t complicated enough, it now appears that the People’s Republic of China has decided to take a more active role in t [...]

Anti-war advocates are launching an 11th-hour bid to stop U.S. Congress from approving a $1.15 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia in its fight against Houthi rebels in Yemen, which was announced earlier this month.Chief among them are the activist group CODEPINK and U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), [...]

Russia's current actions in the Middle East show how Moscow can catch the West by surprise, according to Thomas Avenarius, a journalist writing for the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. It seems that the West has been caught by surprise by Russia's current actions in the Middle East, [...]

Turkey's foreign minister has recalled its Austrian ambassador for "consultations" in the wake of a rally held in Vienna in support of the PKK. "In response to recent events, we have withdrawn our ambassador from Vienna for consultations and to review our relations with Austria," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters. [...]

Russian officials have reached out to Ankara to request access to the American-built base as a convenient launch pad for airstrikes in the Syrian theater, but it remains to be seen whether such cooperation will roil NATO’s feathers. Russia has called on Turkey to provide access to NATO’s Incirlik Air Base, the critical launch pad for US and coalition airstrikes in Syria [...]

Earlier this week, a senior Chinese military officer visited Damascus to discuss closer ties between Syria and China. Guan Youfei, director of the Office for International Military Cooperation of China's Central Military Commission, met Syrian Defense Minister Fahad Jassim al-Freij, Xinhua reported. [...]

The U.S. government, having illegally sent American troops into Syria, is now threatening to attack the Syrian military if it endangers those troops, an Orwellian twist that marks a dangerous escalation, explains Daniel Lazare. War, like politics, is filled with surprises. While the focus in Syria has been on a U.S.-backed rebel offensive in Aleppo [...]

Washington’s neocon hypocrisy surfaced again with the furor over Russia using an Iranian base to launch airstrikes against terror groups in Syria, while the U.S. uses other Mideast bases for the same purpose, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes. We should reflect on the meaning of Russia’s use of a base in Iran for staging airstrikes in Syria, and about what lessons we could learn from t [...]

Ankara wouldn’t mind it if Russia used the Incirlik airbase for its anti-terror missions against Islamic State terrorists in Syria, Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim hinted on Saturday, but acknowledged that no such requests have been made. “Turkey opened Incirlik airbase to fight Daesh [Islamic State, formerly ISIS/ISIL] terrorists. It is being used by the US and Qatar. [...]

Russia’s air raids in Syria, launched from Iranian territory this week, were received by Washington with a mixture of consternation and disappointment. Understandably, too. It marks a breakthrough in Russia’s standing in the Middle East. Russia is working closely in a quartet that includes Iran, Iraq and Syria. [...]

Counter measures will be taken by US troops in case they “feel threatened” by Syrian or Russian air forces, according to a senior US military official. The warning comes in the wake of a recent incident with Syrian warplanes attacking areas close to US Special Forces. [...]

Georgi Gotev, the author of an article about the US transferring its nuclear weapons in Turkey to Romania, insists that the information obtained from his own sources can be trusted, and promised to follow up on this subject. [...]

Commenting on recent reports of the US transferring its nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey to Romania, Russian political scientist Andrei Manoilo told Radio Sputnik that while Washington may be very eager to do it, in reality there is no chance of this happening, and here is why. [...]

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan said that Russia can use Iran's Hamadan airbase to strike jihadist targets in Syria for as long as needed. Russia can fly jets from Iran's Hamadan airbase to strike jihadist targets in Syria for as long as needed, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan said Saturday. [...]

Contradictory reports spread across the Web regarding the relocation of US nuclear weapons from Incirlik Airbase. Sputnik provides an overview of recent developments around the base. On Monday, the Stimson Center, a Washington DC-based nonprofit think tank, released a report, urging policymakers in the US to remove B61 nuclear bombs from Europe and strengthen conventional forces instead. [...]

The major U.S. news media has consistently slanted its coverage of the Syrian conflict to back neocon desires for more U.S. military intervention in support of “regime change,” Gareth Porter wrote for FAIR. Coverage of the breakdown of the partial ceasefire in Syria illustrated the main way corporate news media distort public understanding of a major foreign policy story. [...]

Michael Morell's recent statements with retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson. Former CIA Deputy-Head Michael Morell who supports Hilary Clinton's election campaign said Tuesday that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly to make their countries "pay a price" and quickly resolve the Syrian crisis. [...]