LPG exports strangled though EU ban applies to natural gas; sanctions likely to add to rising Europe heating oil bills.

• October 31, 2012

Iran will probably host a meeting between the warring sides in Syria, a top Iranian diplomat said on Monday, MNA reported.

• October 30, 2012

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has allocated $135 million to Iran to resolve environmental problems with shoaling Lake Urmia, Iran's Environment Protection Organisation director Mohammad Javad Mohammadizadeh said today.

• October 30, 2012

Paul Pryce
EGF Affiliated Expert on Conflict Management and the OSCE Institutions

Since the outbreak of initial hostilities in November 1990, the Transnistrian conflict persists. While numerous initiatives have been proposed over the past two decades both by external actors and by the parties to the conflict, the de jure Moldovan government and the de facto Transnistrian authorities, little progress has been made to secure a more lasting peace. Click here to read more.

• October 17, 2012

Foreign bases in the Central Asian countries are likely to stay in spite of the statements of the countries' leaders, the U.S. expert on Central Asia Bruce Pannier believes.

• October 13, 2012

The two countries have given starkly different accounts about what was aboard a chartered Syrian Airlines jetliner that was forced by Turkish fighter jets to land in Istanbul Wednesday night, interrupting a flight from Moscow to Damascus. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey accused Russia Thursday of exporting munitions to Syria on the aircraft, while Turkish media reported that part of the cargo was “missile parts.”

• October 13, 2012

Iraq has agreed to buy more than $4.2 billion in Russian arms, in the largest military and technical cooperation deal between Russia and Iraq in the modern era.

• October 13, 2012

A meeting was held between Secretary of State - Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Grigory Karasin and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Philip Gordon in Geneva. The meeting, which discussed a number of issues of mutual interest, was held on Oct.11, Russian Foreign Ministry's official website reported.

• October 12, 2012