Eurasia

With the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic crash dominating the headlines, the civil war in Syria has faded into media obscurity. But there is more bad news there that warrants the world’s attention.

In a major political shake-up in Turkey, Ali Babacan, a former economy minister and once-close confidante of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently ended months of speculation and formally launched a new political party to challenge his old boss.

Since his sweeping overhaul of Turkey’s political system in 2017, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cemented his near-total control over the country. Despite the worst electoral setback of Erdogan’s career in the Istanbul mayoral election in June 2019, as well as a tailspinning economy exacerbated by the fallout from the …

A high-ranking Syrian militant commander was reportedly killed in the ongoing conflict in the Karabakh region, opposition activists reported on Tuesday.

Clashes on Tuesday in the Syrian desert between Russia-backed regime forces and Islamic State (ISIS) militants have killed almost 30 fighters.

On Thursday, President Bashar al-Assad received a Russian delegation from the Defense and Foreign Ministries headed by the Russian President’s Special Envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the Turkish Armed Forces may carry out a new operation in Syria if ‘terrorists’ do not move away from the Turkish border.

Two White House senior officials visited Damascus to meet with the head of Syrian Security and Intelligence, Ali Mamlouk, in an attempt to release two American hostages who have been kidnapped and forcibly hidden by the Assad regime for years.

Sunni political parties are using murders in Salahuddin province to demand an end to the presence of armed militias blamed for killings. The Oct. 17 murder of 12 people from the Sunni community in Salahuddin province north of Baghdad has raised the ire of Sunnis against Shiite factions present in …

Can Ankara’s “coercive diplomacy” in the south Caucasus yield tangible diplomatic benefits in the long run? Turkey once again assumed the role of “game changer” — this time in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. As with previous cases in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean, the big question is whether Ankara can …