Eurasia

SDF Commander tells Asharq Al-Awsat he won’t visit Damascus before conditions for political solution are available. Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazloum Abdi said the American administration of former President Donald Trump “betrayed” its allies in the SDF when it did not oppose the Turkish infiltration in Syria …

As Turkey approaches critical general and presidential elections in 2023, President Erdogan is moving to fix frayed relations with rich Middle Eastern countries in the hope of securing a much-needed cash flow.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey has had poor relations with almost all Middle Eastern countries for nearly a decade, …

Migrants trying to enter the EU across its eastern borders are now travelling via a new route, taking them first to Russia then onto the Belarusian-Polish border, a BIRN investigation shows. The 35-year-old S., originally from Syria, has been waiting for over a month in a hotel room in Minsk, …

Becoming an official candidate for membership of the European Union is no longer the cause for celebration it once was. Accession talks remain a long way off and membership will be no magic wand for Bosnia’s ills. On December 15, the European Union awarded Bosnia and Herzegovina with candidate status, …

Aleksandar Vulin is a logical choice as new head of Serbia’s intelligence service; he has a knack for covert operations, is devoted to Vucic and Russia, and doesn’t care what people think of him. The appointment of Aleksandar Vulin as the new head of the Security Information Agency, BIA, is …

Government’s claim to be leading crackdown on illegal builds hides an important fact – that such violators are often well connected to the ruling Socialist Party. rampant illegal construction, including in Tirana city centre, accusing his critics of being potentially corrupt themselves. “You that blindly raise allegations might have thousands …

The war and Schengen enlargement have put unanimity voting in the Council of the EU to the test. But the opportunity to veto is an important guarantee of the rule of law, as it prevents the EU from turning into a federal state against the will of its members. Whenever …

In 2022, the Montenegrin authorities started investigating a retired Yugoslav navy officer and put a Bosnian Serb Army ex-soldier on trial, but there were few other signs of progress towards dealing with the country’s wartime past. During the past few months, Montenegro’s new state prosecutor Vladmir Novovic has made minor …

The Promise and Peril of Russian Defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was meant to be his crowning achievement, a demonstration of how far Russia had come since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. Annexing Ukraine was supposed to be a first step in reconstructing a …

The UN Security Council has condemned terrorist attacks in Iraq that have left 17 dead amid a surge in violence in the country. ISIS terrorists killed nine federal police officers in an ambush on Sunday in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province. A day later, extremists on motorbikes killed eight civilians in …