A massacre took place 20 years ago in and around Srebrenica in front of the whole world’s eyes with the Serbian military forces killing 8,000 Bosnian men and raping, torturing thousands of women and children after the U.N. declared the area a ‘safe zone‘.

We will see in the coming days if these operations in Iraq are some face saving measures for the Obama administration or a real attempt by the U.S. administration to start fulfilling its great power responsibilities.

Is the U.N. going to fulfill its role and its premises to stop the genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, humanitarian disasters and massacres around the world? Or is it going to watch as people suffer in different parts of the world?

The normalising of Turkey-Israel relations since the establishment of Israel in the19th century has been strained by default.

In addition to sounding very familiar within the emerging norm of R2P (Responsibility to Protect), this feeling of responsibility also constitutes a significant but ignored pillar of great power legitimacy in international relations.

The only way to press charges against crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Syria is to take action in the United Nations Security Council.

There are many reasons to be hopeful about the election results in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a very long time the Social Democratic Party (SDP) received the highest number of votes in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, and on the state level pulling in interethnic votes by re-electing Ivo Komsic, the Croat member of the Presidency. The election of Bakir Izetbegovic, the son of the legendary leader of the Bosniak independence movement, Alija Izetbegovic, is also a positive development. Bakir Izetbegovic is considered a moderate compared to the former Bosniak member of the Presidency, Haris Silajdzic, who regularly spoke of putting an end to Republika Srpska, further straining relations between Sarajevo and Banja Luka.

Ankara’s distinctive approach to Darfur and Khartoum requires a thorough, in-depth analysis within the context of Turkey’s changing role in regional and global affairs.

It was a disappointing moment for Turks to learn that the foreign affairs committee of the US House of Representatives has narrowly voted to approve a resolution describing the massacre of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the first world war as genocide. Turkey recalled its newly appointed ambassador to Washington, Namık Tan, for consultation a few minutes after the vote. It is no secret that there is an "Armenian question" in Turkish-American relations, which has resulted in a seasonal oscillation in bilateral relations around this time of year for many years.

According to a Herald Tribune report ("Young Iraqis are Losing their Faith in Religion," March 3, 2008), Iraqi youth are losing their religious faith.

Turkish President Abdullah Gül’s visit to the White House, his first such visit to the US as president and the first visit by a Turkish president in 11 years, comes at a time when US-Turkish relations have taken a new turn.

Is Europe big enough for Turkey? A recent opinion poll conducted by Financial Times/Harris says no. This public sentiment is particularly worrying at a time when Turkey is fast approaching the July 22 general elections. The Financial Times/Harris poll was conducted online in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the US. According to the results 71 percent of French citizens and 66 percent of Germans oppose Turkey’s full membership of the EU. Such results are not new. The Eurobarometer, another major poll conducted regularly across Europe, has been yielding similar results for the last three years.