US State Department

In its annual International Religious Freedom Report, the US State Department notes that senior US government officials have continued to publicly and privately express to Turkish officials their view that Hagia Sophia, a former Orthodox Christian cathedral in Istanbul, is a monument of exceptional significance that must be preserved in a way that respects its religious history.

The US State Department has called the Turkey-Libya memorandum of understanding (MoU) relating to maritime zones "provocative and unhelpful."

Answering a question posed by the Hellas Journal website, a State Department spokesman noted that the agreement cannot affect the rights or obligations of third states such as Greece.

The US State Department has blacklisted Amir Zukic, a disgraced former high-ranking official of the main Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA, for being involved in corruption.  

US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt on Thursday conveyed a decision by the State Department to bolster humanitarian aid to Greece in a telephone conversation with Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos.

The Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, sent prosecutors a firm message in which he urges them to take the money of criminals, emphasizing that the coronavirus pandemic offers various opportunities to criminals to attack medical institutions. "Follow the money resulting from crimes, not only the criminals, take the money produced through crime, take everything they stole.

The US State Department has affirmed Washington's view of the Republic of Cyprus as a "valued partner and friend in the Eastern Mediterranean" but it has fallen short of offering a commitment on lifting the decades-old arms embargo.

North Macedonia on Tuesday cleared the final hurdle to becoming the 30th member of the NATO military alliance after the Spanish Senate ratified its accession.

Spain's office at NATO said that 259 of the 264 senators endorsed the move. The bill was immediately signed by King Felipe and will be submitted to the US State Department for official confirmation within the next 72 hours.

A US State Department report on human rights in Moldova in 2019 said the country was failing to investigate most allegations of mistreatment and torture.

The report issued on Wednesday said prosecutors only opened cases for about 10 per cent of reported allegations of torture and mistreatment in the first half of 2019.

Albania became the target of Iranian ire when it started hosting the MEK, a cult-like organisation and one of the bitterest adversaries of the Iranian regime. In 2013,

By George Gilson

In a resounding response to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to bar Greece from the 19 January Libya peace conference, Libya National Army leader General Khalifa Haftar arrived in Athens for talks with Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis just two days before the conference.