Tensions between Turkey and the United States are re-escalating. Washington is inclined to delay the Aug. 7 agreement on the creation of a safe zone in northeastern Syria. In other words, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is effectively ignoring U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge to establish a 20-mile safe zone and seeks to stall the process – as it did in Manbij.
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With Parliament back from summer recess, Turkey's political scene is heating up. The Good Party (İP), part of the opposition-led Nation Alliance, announced that it will leave the alliance if the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) joins it.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in his address to the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA), in the opening ceremony of the new legislative year, clearly outlined Turkey's position concerning the east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria.
After eight long years, the Syrian civil war remains a key issue for Turkey. The fight against terrorist groups, the refugee crisis and bilateral relations with the great powers are at the heart of Turkey's domestic politics and foreign policy...
During the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 17, two speeches grabbed the world's attention. The first one was by U.S. President Donald Trump, the other speech was delivered by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. These two speeches reflected two opposite political perspectives.
Insight Turkey’s Winter 2020 issue (Vol. 22, No. 1) will focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict by reopening the debate about the conflicts’ drivers and actors, analyzing its dynamics, and examining its possible trajectories and future. We welcome scholarly papers examining and discussing political, economic, or social aspects of this issue.
In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan "wants an honest conversation with the European Union, the best way would be to stop threatening to send hundreds of thousands of refugees to its shores." "We can have an honest discussion with President Erdoğan," he added. "He needs financial support."
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The emerging crisis and instability in the international system is generating new openings and relations among different major powers. On the one hand we have been seeing new forms of challenges and confrontations among the superpowers. The trade war between China and the U.S. is only one of these new types of confrontations, which is a part of a rising trend in geo-economic dynamics in international relations.
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The U.N. has unfortunately turned out to be a platform where the significance of multilateralism and global cooperation is increasingly ignored or even damaged
Pesident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in New York this week, leading a delegation, to attend the U.N. General Assembly's 74th session. After meeting civil society leaders and think tanks Sunday, Erdoğan held a series of talks with world leaders on Monday. Yesterday, he addressed the General Assembly, delivering a speech akin to his 2014 address. .
Saudi Arabia's Aramco, one of the biggest companies in the world, was hit by armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. A total of 18 drones and seven missiles were launched against the Saudi infrastructure. The attack was the worst on Middle Eastern oil facilities since Saddam Hussein set fire to Kuwait's oil wells in 1990. The attack knocked out 5% of the world's oil supply, and oil prices increased almost 20% as a result. Even though the attacks were claimed by Houthi rebels, Saudi Arabian officials blamed Iran, at least for providing weapons to the Houthis. Some officials even claimed that Iran was directly involved in the attacks.
There are three items on President Erdoğan's agenda: Turkey's request for support regarding the fate of Syrian refugees, Erdoğan's commitment to setting up a safe zone in northeastern Syria and his emphasis on injustices in the current world order. I believe that the Turkish president will touch upon those issues in his address to the U.N. General Assembly as well as bilateral meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. Erdoğan's recent remarks about nuclear weapons relate to the search for a new world order, as encapsulated by the maxim: "The world is bigger than five." After all, revealing one's intention to become a nuclear power makes little sense if one indeed means it.
This week's attack on the facilities of Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, was no mere skirmish among proxies. Iran has allegedly fired missiles, loaded on drones, to strike at the heart of the Saudi oil industry. Although Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed the attack, already some fingers are pointing to Tehran. Hence a series of questions: have tensions in the Gulf, which have been escalating since May 2018, already spun out of control? Is the policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran giving way to war? Why did U.S. President Donald Trump escalate tensions right after sacking John Bolton, his hawkish national security adviser? What will be the Trump administration's military response to an attack that it considers a casus belli? As world leaders pack their bags for the United Nations General Assembly's opening session, the world is still trying to answer those questions.
Çankaya Palace in Ankara was home to a historic trilateral summit on Monday. The presidents of Turkey, Russia and Iran met for the fifth time in two years to discuss the situation in Idlib, refugees, the most recent developments in northeastern Syria and the proposed constitutional committee.
An important meeting was held between the leaders of Turkey, Iran and Russia in Ankara on Sept. 16. The three actors' positions were close in the last trilateral meeting. The leaders of the three countries agreed on the structure of the constitutional commission and reiterated their commitment to the territorial integrity of Syria. They also supported the idea of reducing the tensions in Idlib province.
Despite its ups and downs, the Astana Process is the only serious option currently playing a decisive role to create a permanent solution in the Syrian crisis
For the moment, it seems that there is no way to wake the European states and their media outlets up to the naked truth that the humanitarian crisis in Syria is not over and that refugees, fearing for their lives, are still fleeing the country in droves
Kurdish mothers are cursing the PKK, the HDP and their 'Kurdistan cause' today. History won't kindly judge any politician who fails to live up to their responsibilities.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted Turkey's 30 metropolitan mayors in Ankara on Wednesday. Together with cabinet ministers and members of the Presidential Council for Local Government Policy, he listened to their proposals and instructed his team to take necessary steps to accomplish key goals.
President Donald Trump's administration in Washington explicitly supported this ambitious alliance, which portrayed itself as the new powerhouse to reshape the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Muhammed bin Zayed (MBZ), were the leading figures and sponsors of this project.