Middle Orient

A Contest to Succeed President Abbas Could Destabilize the Region In 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected to a four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority, filling the vacancy left by the death of Yasir Arafat. Since then, there have been no elections; 18 years later, Abbas is still in …

Israel is usually mentioned as a “third party” in the political literature of Iranian leaders and officials, especially when talking about Tel Aviv’s influence on relations between Tehran and Baku. Even so, Azerbaijan remains adamant that Israel is not using its territory for military and intelligence purposes. For example, in …

Tensions have been high for months between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, though recent dialogue may have calmed the situation. A member of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s parliament said he survived an assassination attempt on Monday, though a Kurdish military commander later disputed the …

Russian and Iranian commanders discussed forming joint committees tasked with deepening cooperation as sanctions-hit Tehran continues to lean on Moscow. Russia’s navy commander Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov visited Tehran on Tuesday where he discussed boosting bilateral cooperation with his counterpart Shahram Irani, The Iranian navy chief called for a joint committee …

Tehran is not content with how its recent security pact with Baghdad is being implemented. Iran’s foreign ministry has summoned the Iraqi ambassador to Tehran to “strongly protest” against the continued presence of groups it says conduct “terrorist” activities. The envoy was called in on Saturday to receive Tehran’s ire …

A Turkish intelligence operation in northern Syria resulted in the elimination of a high-ranking PKK/YPG terrorist, security sources said on Saturday. Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) “neutralized” Haydar Demirel, code-named Bager Türk and the terror group’s so-called general manager of the Hol province in northern Syria, according to security sources …

China has become a global power, but there is too little debate about how this has happened and what it means. Many argue that China exports its developmental model and imposes it on other countries. But Chinese players also extend their influence by working through local actors and institutions while …

The groups in the electoral fray are all a hodge-podge of ideologies. The only issue is whether Erdogan should stay or go. Turkiye held its Presidential and parliamentary elections simultaneously on May 14. According to the Anadolu News Agency, at 6.30 am on Monday, sitting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was …

One of the dominant Kurdish parties in northern Iraq on Sunday ended a more than half-year boycott of regional government cabinet meetings with its main coalition partner, easing tensions between factions that fought a civil war in the 1990s. The rifts had been a source of alarm to Western countries, …

The leader of an insurgent group that rules much of northwest Syria rose to notoriety over the past decade by claiming deadly bombings, threatening revenge against Western “crusader” forces and dispatching Islamist religious police to crack down on women deemed to be immodestly dressed. Today the man known as Abu …