Middle East & North Africa

ANKARA, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Türkiye's military carried out its third cross-border air operation into Iraq on Wednesday, after a suicide bomb attack in the capital Ankara on Sunday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned at a security meeting on Wednesday that all the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) infrastructure and energy facilities in Syria and Iraq are now "legitimate targets for the Turkish military."

05 October 2023; MEMO: Israel's minister in charge of crime and policing, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said it's not a crime for Israeli Jews to spit on Christians.

The Jewish holiday of Sukkot saw an increase in abuses on Christians by Israelis according to Christian leaders in Jerusalem.

Spitting on people of a minority religion would be considered a hate crime in most countries, but for the Israeli government it is simply 'an old Jewish tradition'.

04 October 2023; MEMO: Saudi Arabia and Russia today said they were continuing voluntary oil cuts to year-end as tightening supply and rising demand support oil prices, Reuters reports.

The Saudi and Russian statements come hours before a ministerial monitoring panel of the OPEC+ group of leading oil producers convenes online.

04 October 2023; MEMO: A Turkish company has signed an agreement to supply a Pakistani company with training and general-purpose aircraft, the Troy T400.

Turkish aircraft manufacturer, UÇAKSAN, explained in a statement yesterday that it has agreed with the Pakistani company Defence & Strategic Ventures to supply it with five Troy T400 aircraft.

04 October 2023; MEMO: The US has sent Ukraine more than 1 million rounds of Iranian ammunition that had been seized last year, the US military said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

US naval forces, for years, have been seizing weapons believed to be from Iran bound for Iran-backed fighters in Yemen, usually transported by fishing vessels.

US Central Command, which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East, said about 1.1 million 7.62 mm rounds were sent to Ukraine.

04 October 2023; MEMO: Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for a two-day visit on 10-11 October, a government source and another person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Sudani will depart Iraq on 9 October, meeting with Putin on 10 October  and will hold work meetings on 11 October, the government source said.

04 October 2023; MEMO: France has agreed to deliver military equipment to Armenia, following Azerbaijan’s recapture of the Nagorno-Karabakh region last month.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel has quietly helped fuel Azerbaijan’s campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, supplying powerful weapons to Azerbaijan ahead of its lightening offensive last month that brought the ethnic Armenian enclave back under its control, officials and experts say.

ANKARA, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan revealed on Wednesday that the two assailants responsible for a recent suicide bomb attack in the capital city of Ankara hailed from Syria.

Telling a press conference in Ankara, the minister said that "it has become clear that the two terrorists came from Syria and received training here," vowing "extremely clear" responses to the attack.

ISTANBUL, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- An ancient trident harpoon, estimated to be 1,700-1,800 years old, has been discovered during an ongoing archaeological excavation in northwestern Türkiye, local media reported Wednesday.

This iron harpoon, designed for fishing in ancient times, was found at an archaeological site in the village of Assos in Canakkale province, according to the state-run Anadolu agency.