Middle Orient

Syrian and Russian forces attacked the training camps of Syrian armed rebel groups in the northwestern province of Idlib on Wednesday, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported. The camps were targeted by Russian warplanes and Syrian missiles. An unspecified number of rebel fighters, including advisers and trainers from abroad, …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking a meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week. The top Turkish diplomat has reiterated Ankara’s threat to block Sweden and Finland’s accession into NATO. Mevlut Cavusoglu’s remarks came as political observers set their sights …

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib has recently arrested several members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, in what the group says is a crackdown against those criticizing HTS’ position on the Turkish plan to normalize relations with the Assad government. In the first week of September, the town of Atarib in the western …

An extraordinary uptick in capital flows of unknown origin to Turkey has left many wondering whether Russian money could be involved. Turkey’s energy import bill — standing at $83.5 billion over 12 months in July — is a major factor behind its gaping current account deficit. And with Russia being …

Significantly, Russia and Iran’s cooperation extends to the military and space fields, with Russia recently helping Iran to launch a new satellite into space. Iran’s Khayyam satellite “will greatly enhance Tehran’s ability to spy on military targets across the Middle East… [and give] Tehran “unprecedented capabilities, including near-continuous monitoring of …

September is supposed to be a very critical month for the nearly 5.5 million people of Tigray region of Ethiopia affected by very severe food shortages, almost half of them on brink of starvation. If the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara are included then as many as 13 million …

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “pro-Russian tilt” has grown louder in recent weeks, as Vladimir Putin clearly looks for Erdogan to stay in power. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces the biggest challenge to his nearly two decades of uninterrupted rule as galloping inflation, a wilting national currency and resentment toward Syrian …

In landmark talks in Baghdad, Hakan Fidan sought to ease bilateral tensions over a deadly attack in July, assert Turkey’s resolve to continue military operations on Iraqi soil and sway the political impasse in Iraq. Turkey’s intelligence chief Hakan Fidan became the country’s first official to hold high-level talks in …

While Turkey has prided itself for mediating between Russia and Ukraine, Ankara has shown no such impartiality in the recent fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia, with Turkish leaders airing their support for Baku. Turkish killer drones were back in action Wednesday as its ally Azerbaijan kept up attacks against Armenia …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that a revived nuclear deal with Iran in the near future is “unlikely,” based on Iran’s response to the European Union’s most recent proposal for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. “What we’ve seen over the last week or …