Middle Orient

Diplomatic and commercial ties between China and Syria have been established for decades. When Hui Liangyu visited Syria in 2009, he met President Bashar al-Assad. A statement from Assad to the Syrian people stated that China would work to improve mutually beneficial relations and partnership between the two countries in …

United States military forces killed a senior leader of a terror organization aligned with Al-Qaida. US Central Command forces targeted Abu Hamzah al Yemeni, a senior leader of Hurras al-Din in an airstrike in Idlib province in Syria on Monday, CENTCOM said in a statement. Abu Hamzah al Yemeni was …

A Turkish weapons manufacturing company announced that it will donate three new armed drones to Ukraine after a Ukrainian politician raised about $20 million in a crowdfunding campaign to buy the unmanned aerial vehicles.

According to a recent report from Swiss banking group Lombard Odier that surveyed more than 300 high net worth investors in the Middle East, attention to Islamic investments is growing fast. The survey shows that 61% of the respondents say their interest in Islamic assets has increased during the last …

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, secretary general of the Cairo-based League of Arab States, criticized the way the international community has dealt with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam crisis. Secretary General of the Cairo-based Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit recently criticized the way the international community, particularly the UN Security Council, has …

The Turkish government’s latest loan restriction may help the embattled lira recover to some extent, but not without the risk of damaging side effects. Desperate against galloping inflation but bent on keeping interest rates low, Turkey’s government has turned to interventionist measures akin to capital controls to bolster the embattled …

Israel’s political landscape will shift dramatically over the next few weeks, as the US president is set to visit. Yair Lapid is scheduled to take over from Naftali Bennett as Israeli prime minister next week under a complex job-sharing agreement. It’s an open question whether Lapid intends to maintain Bennett’s …

Following the signing of a memorandum between Turkey, Sweden, and Finland, Erdogan lifted his veto against the Nordic expansion of NATO hours before the Madrid summit started. After a day of phone diplomacy, conflicting statements, and last-minute political posturing, Turkey has given the nod to NATO hopefuls Sweden and Finland …

U.S. forces on Monday killed a “senior leader” of an al-Qaida-aligned terrorist organization during a strike in Syria, U.S. Central Command said in a news release. Abu Hamzah al Yemeni, a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, was traveling alone on a motorcycle in Idlib province at the time of the …

Geopolitics is written all over Saudi religious soft power efforts. Nowhere more so than when it comes to Israel and Jews because of the growing importance of security cooperation with the Jewish state and the influence of the Israeli lobby in the United States, the kingdom’s most important yet problematic …