By Samia Nakhoul
BEIRUT, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The Iran war has reached its endgame: a costly stalemate.
Six months after U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran, killing its supreme leader and maiming his son and successor, the Iranian government is under economic siege, but it still holds power and believes it has time on its side.
By Simon Lewis, Trevor Hunnicutt, Idrees Ali and Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Six months after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the war that President Donald Trump has called a "little excursion" has become a deeply unpopular stalemate that threatens to derail his presidency.
Iran has not surrendered, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted, and there is no clear path to ending the conflict that Trump once predicted would be over in four weeks.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will step up efforts to isolate Iran economically as he hosts G20 counterparts next week, a US official said Thursday, in a gathering clouded by war and trade tensions.
Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 major economies are due to convene in mountainous Asheville, North Carolina, next Monday and Tuesday.
Their talks are the first of several key ministerial meetings this year, setting the stage for a G20 leaders' summit President Donald Trump will host in December in Florida.
Mazloum Abdi, who has been appointed as adviser to Syria's presidency, is shifting into politics after years as a Kurdish military leader heading internationally backed fighters who battled Islamic State group jihadists in Syria.
From joining the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in 1990 through to announcing the dissolution of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) this week, Abdi has amassed significant influence among Syria's Kurds.
By Parisa Hafezi and Susan Heavey
DUBAI/WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Qatar's prime minister visited Tehran on Thursday in an effort to revive stalled diplomacy six months into the war, as U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington was not currently talking to Iran.
"We don't want to speak to them. We're not looking to meet or anything," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after the White House said a U.S. economic campaign against Tehran would continue until Iran decides to negotiate meaningfully.
By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights office said on Thursday the Trump administration's designation of the Palestine Action group as a terrorist organization was "a disproportionate and unnecessary restriction" on free speech rights that amounted to an expansive use of the term terrorism and will have a chilling effect.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa appointed Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi as a presidential adviser, state media said on Friday, days after Abdi announced the dissolution of his Kurdish forces under an integration deal with Damascus.
"Mustafa Khalil Abdi is appointed as adviser to the presidency of the republic," announced the decree, signed by Sharaa and published by state news agency SANA.
Aug 27 (Reuters) - Iran is preparing a list of conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz after mediators asked Tehran to set them out, said Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, adding that ending the regional war was among them.
Rezaei said Iran had agreed with Oman on a shipping corridor through the strait, with parts of the route in Omani waters and parts in Iranian waters. Ships would use a designated central channel if the U.S. met Iran's conditions, he said through an interpreter in an Al Manar TV interview.
BRUSSELS, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The Pentagon’s policy chief told NATO members on Thursday that the alliance must adapt and that he wants to hear from allies as part of a review of U.S. forces in Europe he said was meant to enable a more European-led defence of the continent.
Washington announced asix-month reviewof U.S. troop deployments in Europe in June and in recent weeks sent NATO members a questionnaire covering issues ranging from defense spending to strategy, procurement and support for U.S. foreign policy priorities.
DUBAI, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Iran's Security Chief Mohsen Rezaei said a report about a potential plot to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump's youngest son is a lie, in an interview broadcast by Lebanon's Al Manar TV on Thursday.
The U.S. Secret Service said on Tuesday that it was aware of a video broadcast by Iranian state television discussing a potential plot to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump's youngest son Barron Trump.
(Reporting by Elwely Elwelly, Editing by Franklin Paul)
