Middle East & North Africa

ANKARA, November 4. /TASS/: Turkey will focus its efforts on the extension of the Ukraine grain deal, which expires on November 19, the Turkish presidential office cited President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday.

"It was noted during the talks that following the top-level diplomatic efforts with Russia and Ukraine, the functioning of the grain corridor was resumed and it was decided to focus efforts on the extension of the grain deal in the near future," it said.

CAIRO, Nov 5 (NNN-MENA) – Egypt is counting on the upcoming 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), to obligate developed countries to honour their commitments, to finance climate change projects and mitigate the effects of harmful climate changes, a COP official said, yesterday.

To tackle climate challenges, some 120 world leaders will gather in Egypt’s coastal city of Sharm El-Sheikh from tomorrow to Nov 18, for the COP27.

TEHRAN, Nov 5 (NNN-IRNA) – Iranians yesterday held massive outdoor rallies, to mark the seizure of the U.S. Embassy to Iran in 1979, showing defiance against U.S. hegemony.

Iranians marked the National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance yesterday, with people in Tehran taking to the streets leading to the building of the former U.S. embassy, and gathering outside the building, waving flags and chanting anti-U.S. slogans.

DUBAI, Nov 5 (Reuters) - President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran's cities were "safe and sound" after what he called a failed attempt by the United States to repeat the 2011 Arab uprisings in the Islamic Republic, Iranian media reported on Saturday as protests continued for a 50th day.

Iran's clerical leadership has struggled to suppress the demonstrations which erupted in September after the death of a young Kurdish Iranian woman who had been detained by morality police for flouting strict laws on women's dress.

Nov 5 (Reuters) - Iran acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that it had supplied Moscow with drones but said they were sent before the war in Ukraine, where Russia has used drones to target power stations and civilian infrastructure.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said a "small number" of drones had been supplied to Russia a few months before Moscow's forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

In Iran's most detailed response to date on the drones, Amirabdollahian denied Tehran was continuing to supply drones to Moscow.

TEHRAN, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Saturday called on the United States to prove its "real will" in the negotiations aimed at the revival of 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, according to the Foreign Ministry's website.

The United States should prove that it would not "violate" its obligations by imposing sanctions, Amir-Abdollahian said at the first meeting of the national coordinators of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, which kicked off in the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday.

04 Nov 2022; MEMO: Extremist Israeli Jewish settlers assaulted Palestinian people and their property last night in the occupied West Bank city of Al-Bireh, reported Wafa news agency.

According to local witnesses, armed Israeli settlers vandalised dozens of Palestinian cars and abused Palestinian commuters and drivers, after hurling stones and rocks towards their car windows.

04 Nov 2022; MEMO: Turkiye, on Friday, pledged to send grain and fertilisers to the least-developed and developing countries, especially in Africa, Anadolu News Agency reports.

04 Nov 2022; MEMO: Iran's President, Ebrahim Raisi, on Friday said the country was "freed 43 years ago" and will not be a "milking cow" of Western powers in response to US President Joe Biden's vow to "free" Iran, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Speaking at a public rally in Tehran to mark the 43rd anniversary of the siege of the US embassy in the Iranian capital, Raisi said Biden's remarks were "because of his distraction".

04 Nov 2022; MEMO: Pope Francis on Friday appealed to religious leaders to help bring the world back from "the brink of a delicate precipice" and oppose a new race to rearm that he said was redesigning Cold War-era spheres of influence, Reuters reports.

Francis spoke on his first full day in Bahrain as he closed a forum on East-West dialogue promoted by the King of the Gulf country where Christians are allowed to practice their faith publicly in churches.