President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the possibility of scrapping his Middle East travel schedule and adding a stop to personally mediate Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Turkey.

Moscow on Wednesday said it would send a delegation to Istanbul to meet with Ukrainian officials, bringing the two at-war countries together for direct talks.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has probably never held more global sway: he will host the first direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks in three years on Thursday, days after his country's militant nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), dissolved.

Turkey's finance minister said the country's economic transformation was on track and that the country was prepared to deal with slower growth.

The Kurdish insurgent group PKK in Turkey says it will lay down its arms and disband after a decades-long fight that killed tens of thousands.

For Turkey, peace with the PKK now would further reduce a weakened Iran’s ability to project power westward. Some groups suspected of being affiliated with the PKK, such as the Sinjar Resistance Units in northern Iraq, have been indirectly supported by Iran.

A hunter was shot in the face while turkey hunting in Orange County’s Stewart State Forest near Newburgh. Police arrested a suspect on Tuesday.

"We want to want to be sure that he is not a terrorist anymore," senior Israeli official told Newsweek of Syria's Ahmad al-Sharaa.