High-level and open threats by Turkey have ramped up fears of a fresh escalation in northern Syria between Turkish forces and Syrian Kurdish groups that Ankara deems terrorists. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday that Kurdish militants’ facilities and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq are “legitimate targets” for …
Read More »Azerbaijan eyes Iran, Armenia borderlands after ‘voluntary’ exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh
The fall of the Nagorno-Karabakh government after 30 years could empower Turkey and weaken Iran. The convoys snaked for miles along mountain passes as the mass exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority Armenian enclave that is formally part of Azerbaijan, continued to unfold. Western leaders wrung their hands but …
Read More »Syria says Israeli airstrikes in an eastern province wounded 2 soldiers
Syrian state media said Tuesday that the Israeli military carried out airstrikes in a strategic eastern province wounding two soldiers and causing material damage. There was no comment from Israel on the reported strikes. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, quoted an unnamed military official as saying the airstrikes late Monday …
Read More »Erdogan says Turkey expects more counter-terrorism support from allies
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he expected concrete steps from allies in support of Turkey’s counter-terrorism fight after a weekend bomb attack in Ankara, for which a Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility. Erdogan was speaking after Turkish police staged raids across the country on Tuesday, detaining dozens of suspects …
Read More »US Central Command captures Islamic State official in Syria raid – statement
U.S. Central Command forces conducted a helicopter raid in northern Syria on Sept. 28 capturing Mamduh Ibrahim al-Haji Shaykh, an Islamic State facilitator, Central Command said on Saturday. Last week, the Central Command forces said it had captured Abu Halil al-Fad’ani, an ISIS Syria Operational and Facilitation official, who was …
Read More »PKK claims bomb attack in Turkey’s capital that injured 2 police officers
The attack happened just as the parliament returned from recess and was expected to take on Sweden’s NATO bid. A suicide attacker blew himself up Sunday outside Turkey’s police headquarters, wounding two police officers in Ankara, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. A second assailant was “neutralized” in what Turkish authorities …
Read More »Turkey-Iraq oil pipeline to resume in a week, says minister
Turkish officials previously cited damage from February’s earthquakes as a reason for suspending operations Turkey is set to restart operations this week by on a crude oil pipeline from Iraq after being suspended for more than six months. Turkey’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu …
Read More »After Ankara bombing, Turkey hits back in Iraq and at home
Turkey said it unleashed air strikes on militant targets in northern Iraq and detained suspects in Istanbul overnight, hours after Kurdish militants said they orchestrated the first bomb attack in the capital Ankara in years. On Sunday morning, two attackers detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara, killing them …
Read More »It’s Premature To Conclude That Poland Replaced Germany’s Role In Guiding EU Foreign Policy
Poland is unprecedentedly important nowadays, but Germany still remains in control of the EU’s foreign policy. What changed over the past year, however, is that Berlin has finally decided to jump on Warsaw’s Russophobic bandwagon in an attempt to lead this trend. Its policymakers decided to do so in order …
Read More »Russia Needs To Once Again Brace Itself For A Prolonged Rivalry With Germany
The sooner that Russia’s expert community abandons their wishful thinking hopes for a rapprochement with Germany, the sooner that the Kremlin can promulgate the appropriate policies for containing this latent threat before it’s too late. Top Russian experts Fyodor Lukyanov and Timofey Bordachev published back-to-back analyses at RT about their …
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