The sound of battles echoes from the outskirts of the capital as Christians in Damascus celebrated the Easter weekend, briefly ignoring the conflict for the yearly ritual.

• April 19, 2014

In September 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vladimir Putin supported Washington's imminent invasion of Afghanistan in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War.

• April 19, 2014

President Barack Obama mounted a vigorous effort on Thursday to show his signature healthcare law is working and dismissed Republican critics who are using flaws in Obamacare to campaign for ousting Democrats from the U.S. Congress in November.

• April 18, 2014

Armed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Friday they were not bound by an international deal ordering them to disarm and were looking for more assurances about their security before leaving the public buildings they are holding.

• April 18, 2014

Turkey's president appeared to rule himself out as a potential future prime minister on Friday, saying a "Putin-Medvedev model" under which he might swap roles with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was not suitable for Turkey.

• April 18, 2014

Insights into Turkish Domestic and International Politics during March 16th- - April 15th 2014
By John VanPool, EGF Turkey and Black Sea Regional Analyst

Key Points:

• The AKP emerges victorious in the country’s municipal elections, capturing nearly 43 percent of all votes.
• Opposition parties fare better than in previous contests, but their split gives the AKP the upper hand at the ballot box.
• His party’s success means that Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan will likely run for the presidency in August’s first ever election by popular vote.
• Erdogan’s government blocks social media sites, referring to critics as “enemies” and further degrading political discourse in the Republic.
• Recordings of high-level military and political meetings continue to leak to the public, and are used by the AKP as justification to push for bans of many social media platforms.
• The presence of hundreds of thousands of mainly Sunni Syrian refugees in southern Turkey continues to concern Turkey’s Alevi communities.
• The situation in Syria remains static, but a large-scale military escalation has the potential to severely destabilize Turkey’s southern provinces.

• April 18, 2014

The United States, Russia, Ukraine and European Union together called on Thursday for an immediate halt to violence in Ukraine, where Western powers believe Russia is fomenting a pro-Russian separatist movement.

• April 17, 2014

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia had been forced to respond to NATO enlargement and that its annexation of Crimea, home to its Black Sea Fleet, was partly influenced by the Western military alliance's expansion into eastern Europe.

• April 17, 2014