Middle East & North Africa

Iran has received from Iraq a sum of $1.6 billion the Arab country owed to Iran for imports of natural gas in the past years, according to remarks by the Iranian Oil Minister, Javad Owji, AFP reports.

According to the report, Baghdad had been scheduled to pay that amount to Tehran before the start of June.

Owji stated that, on Thursday, the new payment by Iraq is related to an outstanding debt for natural gas imports that had taken place before the current Iranian administration came to office in August, report says.

17 June 2022; MEMO: Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman will visit Turkiye on 22 June, a senior Turkish official told, AFP reports.

According to the report, it will be the Crown Prince's first visit to Turkiye since the killing of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi in the Kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.

18 June 2022; MEMO: The Turkish authorities published a report prepared by Turkiye's Ombudsman Institution on Friday stating that Greece had violated the rights of tens of thousands of refugees attempting to enter its territory through Turkiye.

RAMALLAH, Jun 17 (NNN-WAFA) – U.S. President, Joe Biden, is following the same “crude and hostile” foreign policy of his predecessor, Donald Trump, in dealing with Middle East issues, a Palestinian writer wrote yesterday.

“The truth is that, Biden’s foreign policy, so far, didn’t show any difference from Trump’s crude and hostile policy, especially in the Middle East,” Rajab Abu Sariya, a Palestinian political analyst and columnist, wrote in an opinion piece, published in the Al-Ayyam newspaper.

KUWAIT CITY, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait returned on Thursday five smuggled Pharaonic artifacts to Egypt, a Kuwaiti official said.

Sultan Al-Duwaish, head of Artifacts and Museums Department in the National Council for Culture Arts and Literature (NCCAL) of Kuwait, handed over the artifacts to the Egyptian ambassador to Kuwait at the Kuwait National Museum.

The five Egyptian artifacts were smuggled from Egypt in 2019 and confiscated by the Customs Department in Kuwait Airport, Al-Duwaish said.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinians and wounded eight others early Friday during a military operation in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The military said the troops traded fire with militants.

The Israeli military has been carrying out near-daily raids in the occupied West Bank since a string of attacks earlier this year killed 19 people in Israel. Many of the arrest raids have been launched in and around Jenin, the hometown of several of the attackers.

17 June 2022; MEMO: Several human rights organisations and Islamic institutions have launched a hashtag campaign "Hajj is not safe" to expose what they say are violations and abuses carried out by Saudi Arabian authorities against pilgrims and visitors taking part in Hajj and Umrah.

16 June 2022; MEMO: The Saudi royal family has launched a non-profit organisation called the Hevolution Foundation, which plans to invest $1 billion annually in funding anti-ageing research and the biology of extending human lifespan.

A special UN-backed court has found two members of the Hezbollah militant organisation guilty for the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri in 2005, sentencing them to life imprisonment in absentia, after 13 years of investigations into the matter.

17 June 2022; MEMO: Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on Thursday, described the last round of talks between his country and regional arch-rival, Saudi Arabia, as "positive", Anadolu News Agency reports.

In a phone call with his Iraqi counterpart, Fuad Hussain, Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran welcomes the outcome of the Iranian-Saudi talks in Baghdad, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.