The recognition of Abkhazia by Russia would amount to declaration of war against Georgia and “we will accept this challenge,” an influential lawmaker Givi Targamadze, who chairs the parliament’s defense and security committee, said on November 13.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he expected a parliamentary election on December 2 to give him a “moral right” to influence Russian politics after he steps down from his Kremlin post next year.

Sanctions are not the way to resolve the deepening international confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, China said on Tuesday, while also urging Tehran to be more compromising.

China’s drive to invest in Iran’s biggest undeveloped oilfield in return for gas supplies is being stymied by tough commercial negotiations, not the threat of more sanctions, Chinese oil officials said on Tuesday.

.S. and Iraqi forces killed an estimated 15 al Qaeda gunmen during a fierce battle south of Baghdad after the militants launched a major attack on recently formed neighborhood patrols, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

Following are security developments in Iraq at 8:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday.* Denotes new or updated item. * HAWIJA – Gunmen killed a policeman and an Iraqi soldier when they opened fire on their car in central Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, police …

Hamas rounded up dozens of Fatah activists in the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip after its secular rival drew more than 200,000 supporters to a rally that ended in gunfire that killed seven people, officials said on Tuesday.

The top U.S. emissary to the crisis-torn Caucasus nation of Georgia said on Tuesday the country would lift a state of emergency in two or three days.

The Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq on Tuesday denied unconfirmed television reports that Turkish military helicopters seeking Kurdish rebels had bombed two empty villages in the area.

Corruption among Afghan officials is rife and government must be reformed to help end 30 years of war, misery and oppression, President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday in an unusually frank assessment of his country’s woes.