Barack Obama

US President Barack Obama says negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme could be the first step on a long road to establishing a new relationship between the two old enemies.

A complex series of unanswered questions – Paul Mason looks at America’s sudden loss of diplomatic coherence and finds an uneasy Homeland.

In a US TV interview, Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani says the country seeks peace and friendship and has no nuclear weapons as he continues on a seeming rapprochement campaign with the west.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he is committed to destroying his country’s chemical weapons but it will take about a year to do so.

The suspected gunman who killed 12 people before being shot dead by police in a military complex in Washington had been honourably discharged in 2011, officials claim.

Investigators say there is no evidence that a second suspect was involved in the shooting spree at the Washington Navy Yard that killed 13 people, including suspected gunman Aaron Alexis.

The Syrian government welcomes the agreement to disarm their chemical weapons but the US warns Syria that it will take action if it fails to live up to its promises.

Monday’s UN inspectors’ report on the alleged chemical weapons attack outside Damascus will confirm that poison gas was used, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Vladimir Putin appeals directly to the nation in a US paper, calling on the American public to steer clear of “brute force” in Syria, as the Russian foreign minister prepares to meet with John Kerry.

President Assad tells Russian TV that the threat of a US missile strike hasn’t influenced him at all, while the UN says it has received documentation on Syria joining the chemical weapons convention.