Saddam Hussein

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir made a rare visit to Baghdad on Fe. 25, meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the premier's media office said.

It was the first visit of a senior Saudi minister since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, a spokesman for Iraq's foreign ministry told Reuters.

It might be an underestimation to say Turkey will become a "peculiar democracy" once Turks approve constitutional amendments, which would provide the country's strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vast presidential powers.

The English language used to be an asset of the US and UK. Now it has become a weakness.

The former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno said the United States has given its leadership in the Middle East to Russia.

"Frankly we have given up our leadership in the region to Russia. It is time for us to reassert our leadership," Odierno told Fox News on Dec. 21.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said, "We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes…" He continued, "Instead, our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], and we will." 

While Trump was explaining the new foreign policy concept, he also made a historic confession.  

"There are still open wounds from the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. They have only been plastered over, but never given a chance to be healed. Maybe that is because our leaders never found an opportunity to properly address the regional problems on a long term basis, with consideration of the peoples' legitimate aspirations."

BELGRADE - US President Barack Obama has compared his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein, implying that Putin rigs popularity polls in his own favor.

A delegation from Iraq's cash-strapped Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) agreed on Jan. 31 with the government in Baghdad to cooperate on reforms aimed at dealing with an acute economic crisis afflicting them both. 

The KRG and federal authorities in Baghdad rely heavily on oil export revenue and have been hit hard by the global slump in crude prices. 

Britain's ex-leader Tony Blair again apologised Oct. 25 for certain aspects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, adding there were "elements of truth" to the view it was connected to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif?s visit to Turkey has been postponed, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official told the Hürriyet Daily News on Aug. 11.