Iraq

On the 21st day of their captivity, 32 Turkish truck drivers were released on July 3, by militants belonging to the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) near Iraq’s second biggest city of Mosul in the north.

As all eyes were on the presidential race and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s candidacy announcement this week, a group of experts gathered at the offices of the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK) in Ankara to discuss several strategy options in Iraq and what the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL), now known as the Islamic State (IS), next step may be.

“Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day,” said Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, announcing the rebirth of the Caliphate in the broad territory between Aleppo in northern Syria and Diyala province in eastern Iraq.
  

Economists should refrain from delving into politics, even indirectly. That’s what I learned on July 1, which was incidentally also the date that sealed the fate of the Turkish economy for the rest of the summer.

US-bound travellers from Europe and the Middle East faced tighter airport security Thursday due to fears that Muslim extremists are developing new explosives that could be slipped onto planes undetected.
      

Iran nuclear talks entered Thursday the decisive, dangerous endgame with a final round of hardball negotiations potentially going all the way to a July 20 finish line.
      

Obama and Saudi king discuss "ISIL threat"

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah have discussed the current situation in Iraq in a telephone conversation.

According to the White House, they spoke about "the threat that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) poses to the stability of Iraq and to the entire region."

Northern Iraq, one of the most oil-rich regions in the world, faces a fuel shortage after militants from the Islamic State (IS), formally known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), overran large parts of the country, including a key refinery.

The tide of refugees flocking to Bulgaria has been growing again over the past few weeks, Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev announced.

He told a Parliament Committee that lately at least 150 to 200 people were sent back from the border every day.

Iraq’s al-Maliki says ‘not so fast’ to Kurds intent on sovereignty after an ultimatum from the US and UN Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki o rejected an assertion by the country’s autonomous Kurdish region that its control of disputed territory is here to stay while ruling out its chances of holding a referendum on independence.