Department of State

Turkey has extended cautious support to a United Nations plan to create "frozen zones" within Syria, while also noting its concerns with the proposals and reiterating its demands that any political recommendations must include the removal of the Bashar al-Assad government.

The Turkish capital has voiced its satisfaction with the announcement of rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, which have recently taken steps to bury half a century of enmity.

Sony Pictures on Dec. 17 cancelled the release of a madcap comedy about North Korea that triggered chilling threats from hackers, as US investigators reportedly blamed Pyongyang for a damaging cyber-raid on the movie giant.
      

The United States expressed concern Dec. 14 over the detentions in Turkey of more than two dozen media figures.
      
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington was "closely following" reports of the raids and arrests.
      

The U.S. State Department has denied supplying U.S. arms to Kurdish forces defending the besieged town of Kobane, insisting that any supplies are from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq.
      
"The United States is not providing U.S. arms to the PYD [the Democratic Union Party]," a department official told the Anadolu Agency on Dec. 9.
      

Abd al-Baset Azzouz, the leader of al-Qaeda in Libya, was reportedly detained last month in western Turkey after he entered with a fake passport.

The US will discuss with its EU allies imposing new sanctions against Moscow if pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine don't stop the fighting, a State Department official has said.

The United States on Dec. 1 played down the idea of creating a buffer zone along the Syria-Turkish border after a media report cited it as a possible concession to Turkey in return for use of bases to launch attacks on Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Syria.

Former American diplomat John Brady Kiesling, who served at the US Embassy in Athens for two stints during his nearly 20-year career, presents the results of nearly a decade of research into homegrown terror group November 17.

Syria rejected as "fabricated" U.S. accusations that its forces are targeting civilians with air strikes and said Washington would do better to criticize hardline Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who have killed American citizens.