WASHINGTON: The United States said on Tuesday it awaits a constructive response from Iran on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal that excludes “extraneous” issues, a possible reference to Iran’s demand that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) be dropped from a US terrorism list.
“We await a constructive response from the Iranians, a response that leaves behind issues that are extraneous to the JCPOA,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, referring to the deal formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

BEIRUT: Israel marked a major escalation in its years-long campaign of airstrikes in Syria, carrying out an attack last week that shut down the country’s main civilian airport in Damascus as Israel steps up efforts to stop Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah.
Commercial flights were still halted at Damascus International Airport five days after Friday’s pre-dawn airstrikes smashed into its runways, leaving multiple craters, and damaged the air control tower and other buildings.

LONDON: A newly inked cooperation deal between Iran and Venezuela will see the two pariah states further integrate their economies, but one oil-rich and legitimacy-poor state cannot fix the woes of another, according to experts.

On Saturday embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro appeared on Iranian state media in north Tehran to sign a 20-year “cooperation agreement” with his Iranian counterpart, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

JERUSALEM: Israel’s fragile governing coalition appeared closer to collapse on Monday after reports that a lawmaker from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s right-wing party said he was “no longer part” of the government.

The development came as Bennett’s ideologically diverse coalition, which includes hard right, liberal and Arab parties, has staggered ever closer to implosion, a year after it ended Benjamin Netanyahu’s record 12-year rule.

BEIRUT: On Monday, a few hours before the arrival of Amos Hochstein, the US mediator in the indirect negotiations to demarcate the maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel, President Michel Aoun confirmed to the UN Special Coordinator in Lebanon Joanna Wronecka that the “Lebanese side will inform Hochstein of a unified stance regarding the proposals to resume these negotiations that preserve Lebanon’s rights.”