Europe

MOSCOW, June 21. /TASS/: Russia and the United States will soon start exploring the issue of resuming operation of embassies and issuing visas, the format of such consultations is being determined now, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov told reporters on Monday. 

"We all saw yesterday that our Ambassador [Anatoly Antonov] had arrived in Washington. Now this work will begin and its format will be determined. That’s the very thing that the Russian president spoke about: creation of working groups. It will all be explored," he said.

21 June 2021; MEMO: Germany has agreed to ban the flag of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, citing a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents following Israel's recent assault on the Gaza Strip.

21 June 2021; MEMO: German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called on the European Union to update its migrant deal with Turkey, as he highlighted the importance of further funding, Die Welt reports.

"We need an update to our migration cooperation with Turkey," Maas told the paper in comments published today.

The EU is very interested in the migration deal with Ankara being further developed and updated, Maas added.

21 June 2021; MEMO: Gulf rights activists announced the death of prominent Emirati dissident Alaa Al-Siddiq in a car crash in Britain, where she resides, amid questions whether the accident was deliberate.

The news was confirmed by members of her family and Emirati oppositionists.

The London-based Emirati academic and dissident Ahmed Al-Shaiba Al-Nuaimi said that Al-Siddiq died in a car crash, without revealing further details.

PARIS, June 21 (Reuters) - The first round results of France's regional elections marked a form of failure for President Emmanuel Macron's party, said Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Monday, although he added it was too soon to draw conclusions for the 2022 Presidential vote.

France's far right performed worse than predicted in Sunday's regional elections, exit polls showed, and the centre-right made a comeback while the vote as a whole was impacted by a high abstention rate.

VIENNA, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Talks on restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), showed positive signal of finalizing the agreement and finding solutions to the Iranian nuclear issue, officials said on Sunday.

During a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission wrapped up on Sunday, representatives from China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and Iran agreed on many important issues concerning the revival of the JCPOA.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union foreign ministers will approve Monday a fresh set of sanctions against scores of officials in Belarus and prepare a series of measures aimed at hurting the country’s economy, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

The EU has ratcheted up sanctions since President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term last August in elections slammed as fraudulent by the 27-nation bloc. The measures have targeted people accused of electoral misconduct and responsibility for the police crackdown that followed.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Results released Monday showed that the party of Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan won snap parliamentary elections which he called to ease anger over a peace deal he signed with Azerbaijan.

With all precincts counted, Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won 53.9% of the vote. A bloc led by former President Robert Kocharyan was in a distant second place with about 21%, the election commission said Monday.

MOSCOW, June 20. / TASS /: About 150 churches and temples in downtown Moscow have received bomb threats from unknown persons, a source in the law enforcement agencies told TASS on Sunday.

"Unidentified persons sent bomb threats in almost 150 churches in central Moscow. All religious facilities have been examined, no explosive devices or explosives have been found," the source stated.

According to the source, the bomb threats were received the day before. To date, the police are searching for the unknown persons who sent these messages and carrying out checks.

MOSCOW, June 20. /TASS/: Chief of Russia’s General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov expects that Russian-US relations will develop more constructively after the Geneva summit.

"We felt the constructive stance. It seems to me that both our countries will embark on this course," Gerasimov, who took part in the talks, told Rossiya-1 TV channel in an interview with Moscow. Kremlin. Putin program.