For Turkey, as a dynamic, emerging economy, to increase its growth it needs a renewed strategy for investments into the energy market, but this may require changing its current partners in the field.

Qatar and Turkey are mutually dependent on one other in stabilizing their domestic politics and normalizing the region.

Who lost the Syrian civil war to Russia? Who rolled out the red carpet leading to the Middle East to the Kremlin?

These new challenges and debates about the U.S.'s role in the world will need to be handled by the next U.S. president, who will have a major debate on his or her hands and the debates to respond.

Prof. Efraim Inbar - whose works on Turkish-Israeli relations deserve much credit - recently wrote an op-ed piece "An open letter to my Turkish friends" in The Jerusalem Post in which he paints a grotesque picture of Turkey's new foreign policy vision and domestic political developments. It misleadingly confines the multi-dimensional Turkish foreign policy vision to politics of ideology that is reminiscent of the Cold War years.

Painters, gardeners, designers, administrative faculty and students have been working feverishly. A new “cover look” is being prepared for the University of Cairo. Today, everything is expected to look better, brighter, happier. 

Everyone seems to agree that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan read the results of the March 29 elections right. The Cabinet reshuffle last week has created new momentum for the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. Yet Erdoğan will have to do more to recapture the reformist spirit of the early years of his rule. 

One often gets this question from academics and experts: What will be the framework of international relations in the 21st century? Will it be determined by "hard instruments" such as energy, security and population?

Al-Jazeera invited almost a dozen Turkish scholars and journalists to its Fourth Annual Forum last month in Doha. It was the first time so many Turkish participants attended. Why did al-Jazeera invite so many Turks to an event focused on the Arab world? More generally, why do people in the Middle East pay attention to Turkish perspectives on their affairs?

After back-to-back visits to Turkey by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Ahmet Davutoglu, a top adviser to Turkey's prime minister, predicted that Turkish-American relations were about to enter a golden era

Turkey's relations with NATO in parallel to signs that the United States and the European Union have embarked on a process of greater transatlantic integration demands closer attention

The birth pangs of a new human geography and geographic imagination are being felt across the Middle East. As the ethnic and sectarian models of cultural and political identities are being questioned, new patterns of cultural affinity and association are emerging with a new sense of shared history and common geography.         

In a rather unprecedented cry of outrage, Prince Turki al-Faisal, one of the most prominent figures of the Saudi state, put it bluntly: If the US under the new Obama administration does not change its policy toward Israel and Palestine, the Saudis will no longer maintain their “special relationship” with the US (“Saudi Arabia’s patience is running out,” Financial Times, Jan. 23, 2009). Quoting from the Saudi king that his peace plan, called “the Arab peace initiative,” is still on the table, the prince added that “it would not remain there for long.”