Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Russia on Wednesday to insist world powers set tough terms for Iran in any deal reached in the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program.

• November 21, 2013

World powers aim to reach a preliminary deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in politically charged talks resuming in Geneva on Wednesday.

• November 20, 2013

The text of a U.S.-Afghan pact that sets out a blueprint for military cooperation after most foreign troops pull out next year was unfinished on Wednesday, a day before thousands of Afghan elders were due to start debating it.

• November 20, 2013

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday there was a "real chance" to resolve the international standoff over Tehran's nuclear program.

• November 18, 2013

Global powers and Iran are close to a preliminary deal to rein in Tehran's nuclear program and should not pass up a "very good chance" to clinch it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks broadcast on Saturday.

• November 17, 2013

More than two and a half years into the civil war devastating Syria, the United States and Russia are pushing the combatants to the negotiating table in Geneva, but on terms that mark a shift in favor of Bashar al-Assad against the increasingly fragmented rebels seeking to oust him.

• November 15, 2013

A 20-year-old deal that has powered American homes while reducing the risk of Russian nuclear material falling into the wrong hands approached its end on Thursday when the final shipment of uranium left St Petersburg for Baltimore.

• November 15, 2013

A scrawny 15-year-old this summer became the first from his deeply religious Muslim village in Russia's southern Dagestan province to die fighting alongside rebels in Syria.

• November 14, 2013