After years of being banned from leaving Iran, filmmaker Jafar Panahi is enjoying his tour of the United States -- visiting Los Angeles, New York and Telluride -- as he promotes his Oscar-hopeful "It Was Just an Accident."

The film, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, has been selected by France as its official nomination for the Academy Awards, and is widely expected to make the shortlist for the Best International Feature at the gala event in March.

(Reuters) -The Syrian central bank on Thursday sent its first Swift message to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, central bank Governor AbdulKader Husrieh told Reuters.

"We sent (a) greeting message to all our international correspondent banks. We started with the Federal Reserve," Husrieh said. "We're telling them that ... we are back to the international financial system, and we are looking forward to long-term business relationships."

Ten months after he was forced out of the occupied West Bank's Tulkarem refugee camp, Hakam Irhil doesn't know if he will ever be able to return.

Irhil was displaced and his home demolished after Israel launched a major military operation in mid-January in multiple northern Palestinian refugee camps, where the army says it is seeking to root out armed groups.

Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967, calls the ongoing operation "Iron Wall".

TEL AVIV (Reuters) -Israel expects to maintain access to more advanced U.S. weaponry, a government spokesperson said on Thursday when asked about Washington's plan to sell F-35 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.

Israel is the only Middle East country operating the F-35, one of the most advanced warplanes ever built. U.S. law guarantees Israel a "qualitative military edge" in the region.

"The United States and Israel have a long-standing understanding, which is that Israel maintains the qualitative edge when it comes to its defense," spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters.

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran has asked Saudi Arabia to persuade the U.S. to revive stalled nuclear talks, underlining Tehran's anxiety over a possible repeat of Israeli airstrikes and its deepening economic woes, two regional sources with knowledge of the matter said.

A day before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to the White House earlier this week, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sent a letter to the de facto Saudi leader, Iranian and Saudi media reported on Monday.

Dick Cheney, celebrated as a master Republican strategist but defined by the darkest chapters of America's "War on Terror," was honored Thursday in a funeral attended by Washington's elite that pointedly left out President Donald Trump.

Cheney's career reads like a catalogue of American statecraft, even as his long shadow over foreign policy -- as defense secretary during the Gulf War and the 46th vice president under George W. Bush -- still divides the country.

Israeli and US pressure on Lebanon's army to speedily disarm militant group Hezbollah is intensifying, with the army chief cancelling a visit to Washington after officials snubbed him, a military official told AFP.

Lebanon's army has been beefing up its presence in south Lebanon near the Israeli border since a US-brokered ceasefire last November sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.

The International Atomic Energy Agency board on Thursday passed a resolution demanding that Iran provide "full and prompt" cooperation including access to sensitive nuclear sites, but Tehran immediately rejected the measure.

Long-simmering tensions with the UN nuclear watchdog flared anew after Israeli and US strikes on Iranian sites in June. UN inspectors have not had access to any of the damaged complex.

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran has asked Saudi Arabia to persuade the U.S. to revive stalled nuclear talks, underlining Tehran's anxiety over a possible repeat of Israeli airstrikes and its deepening economic woes, two regional sources with knowledge of the matter said.

A day before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to the White House earlier this week, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sent a letter to the de facto Saudi leader, Iranian and Saudi media reported on Monday.

A 19-year-old Syrian went on trial in Berlin on Thursday over a knife attack on a Spanish tourist at the German capital's Holocaust memorial days before February's general election.

The suspect, partially named as Wassim Al M., is accused of being a supporter of the Islamic State group who intended to "target a person of the Jewish faith", according to the court.