Ankara, one of the most geopolitically significant players in the Middle East, is determined to take a neutral path on the Saudi-Iranian conflict, yet still, in the near future, a strategic alliance between Ankara and Riyadh rather than Tehran, seems more likely.

With the increasing tension in relations with Iran due to the Syrian crisis, while relations with Saudi Arabia have been gaining speed in recent times, Turkey is required to take a more careful approach in politics.

Iran's sectarian expansionist policy forces the Turkish government to back the Saudi government. However, Turkey, as the only country able to prevent the power struggle between the two countries, is aware of the dangers of a possible sectarian war and thus calls the two countries to reconcile.

2016 will be a year of important decisions, especially for Kurdish nationalists.

The growing power of the PKK and the PYD in northern Syria will remain a source of tensions between Turkey and the U.S. until Washington starts to understand what exactly concerns Ankara

The political and economic foundations of New Turkey are not crumbling; in fact they have proved resilient and continue to withstand multiple challenges. The social fabric proved resistant against divisive political rhetoric and provocative calls for mass revolts against the public order.

The results of this litmus test will be utilized in the new Middle East numerous times!

“Should al-Assad step down, disaster will ensue.” This assumption not only asserts that a region with al-Assad is possible, but it insists that it would in fact be better. Is that really so? 

Russia’s future in the Middle East fares no better than the al-Assad regime in which Russia had been investing.

What the Syrian regime fails to see is that this space carved between the political occupations of 2012 and geopolitical balances is about to expire.

The worry is not about the possibility of a war breaking out; it is about the hope of building a new regional order in the near future fading away.

The wave of uprisings that spread through North Africa, and the Middle East have brought our region to an interesting junction in terms of the proxy wars.

In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the strategy that regional forces adopt will determine the future of the occupation in Iraq.

Relations with the region have been multi-faceted, encompassing diplomatic, economic and civil society dimensions since 2002.

For the PKK, the process can only go from the initial “Defeat in the 1990s” to the “Second Defeat” in the 2010s.

The recent Russia-Georgia conflict was long in the making. The reason was not the problems between Moscow and Tbilisi, but the new round of a cold war between Russia and the Western bloc.

The carnage in Iraq is continuing without lessening. The slaughter has neither direction nor meaning. No one can even name what is happening: is it a civil war? Resistance? Sectarian violence? Insurgency? A proxy war? Now both Americans and Iraqi leaders admit they cannot control the situation. The new Bush plan to send 21,500 new American troops to Baghdad is unlikely to stop the bloodshed. It will only increase the suspicion that Americans have no intentions of leaving Iraq or giving a timetable for withdrawal. In turn, this will only further weaken the already weak Maliki government, which is in the process of forming a new cabinet.