DUBAI: Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani will visit the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, Nour News, which is affiliated with the Iranian top security body, reported.

His visit to Abu Dhabi comes at a time of growing rapprochement between Iran and Gulf countries. Last week, Shamkhani took part in talks brokered by China that resulted in Saudi Arabia and Iran resuming diplomatic ties after they were suspended in 2016.

AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: The Iran-backed Houthis were on Wednesday slammed for abducting a Yemeni oil magnate from a Sanaa street and placing him in detention.

Yemeni government officials, journalists, and family members condemned the kidnapping of Abdullah Ahmed Al-Hutheily, the owner of a major oil transportation, logistics, and oil-related services company.

IDLIB: Thousands of Syrians demonstrated in the war-ravaged country’s rebel-held northwest on Wednesday, marking 12 years since the start of pro-democracy protests and rejecting any international “normalization” with Damascus.

The brutal repression of the 2011 protests, which began during the Middle East’s Arab Spring uprisings, triggered a complex civil war that drew in foreign powers and jihadists.

It has claimed more than 500,000 lives and left millions displaced internally and abroad.

ANKARA: Kurdish soprano Pervin Chakar has commemorated the Halabja massacre in Iraq with an album that puts to song the work of one of her people’s greatest poets.

“In Memorium” is to be released on YouTube on March 16, the 35th anniversary of the day when 5,000 people died in a chemical attack ordered by Saddam Hussein on the town in north-eastern Iraq.

RAMALLAH: Israeli authorities’ use of the term “Judea and Samaria governorate” in official documents to describe the West Bank has raised Palestinian concerns of a ploy to “silently” annex settlements in the area.

Ismat Mansour, a Palestinian expert on Israeli affairs, told Arab News that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is implementing plans to annex the West Bank, bypassing bureaucratic, administrative and political obstacles, and ignoring external pressures as he seeks to subject the area to Israeli law.