Japan and Indonesia will strengthen their security cooperation and begin talks on transfers of defense equipment, their foreign and defense ministers said on Thursday, as China's maritime expansion leads its neighbors to forge closer ties.

• December 17, 2015

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered his government to suspend Russia's free trade zone with Ukraine from Jan. 1, making good on Moscow's threats to Kiev which seeks closer ties with the European Union.

• December 16, 2015

Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of looting two of its oil rigs after Crimea-based oil and gas firm Chornomornaftogaz moved the equipment off the coast of the annexed peninsula into Russian waters.

• December 16, 2015

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Wednesday that Russia's continued focus on targeting most of its air strikes in Syria against opposition forces rather than Islamic State was helping the militants advance.

• December 16, 2015

Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad in western Syria denied receiving any support from the Russian air force, saying that on the contrary it continued to bomb them and rejecting comments by a top Russian general on Monday.

• December 15, 2015

Russia and the United States can work together to make progress in ending the war in Syria, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, seeking to narrow their differences over a political transition in Damascus.

• December 15, 2015

The European Union is set to agree a six-month extension of its economic sanctions on Russia on Friday, once Italy's prime minister has discussed the issue with his fellow leaders at a summit in Brussels, diplomats said on Tuesday.

• December 15, 2015

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will use talks in Moscow on Tuesday to try to narrow differences with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the role of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in any political transition, a senior State Department official said on Monday.

• December 14, 2015