Middle Orient

Turkey and Turkmenistan are working on a gas deal that will likely extend to Europe in a bid to reduce Western dependency on Russian gas. With fears mounting that Russia may cut off gas supplies to Europe, Turkey is working on plans to bring in gas from Turkmenistan and has …

The Turkish, Iranian and Russian leaders are set to meet in Tehran next week amid lingering Turkish threats against Syrian Kurdish groups. Putin and Erdogan will separately discuss the Ukrainian grain crisis. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Tehran next week, …

Diplomats at the United Nations held last-ditch discussions on extending Syrian cross-border aid Sunday, as residents of the country’s rebel-held northwest feared life-saving supplies could soon halt. The lack of an agreement threatens to upend assistance to more than two million people. The aid delivery mechanism across Turkey’s border into …

Iran has already been striking the US in the region in dozens of rocket and drone attacks over the past year. Reports over the weekend said that Iran was upping its rhetoric against any sort of US-backed air defense pact that might link Israel and several Arab countries together. Ostensibly, …

Dressed in their distinctive black uniforms, fours soldiers of Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Services last week revisited the scenes of their bloody battles against ISIS in Mosul, the northern city the elite force played a key role in liberating five years ago.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said its forces had neutralized a “terrorist cell” in Salmas near the Turkish border. The IRGC issued a statement announcing that its ground forces tasked with protecting the border triangle with Turkey and the Kurdistan region of Iraq “neutralized a terrorist cell after intelligence …

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid continues his round of phone calls with regional leaders ahead of US President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia on July 13-16. On Sunday, the Israeli PM spoke with both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Lapid and …

“People will die because of this vote,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said of the Security Council’s failure to reauthorize the cross-border mechanism. Millions of Syrian lives hang in the balance after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Friday that would have kept humanitarian aid flowing …

Algeria’s president managed to bring together Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh for the first time in 6 years, but divisions between the two rival factions they represent may be too deep at this point. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune brought together in the Algerian capital Palestinian President …

Even if the US terrorist designation is not lifted, and there is agreement on the JCPOA, the IRGC will still be the power broker of Iranian domestic politics. As Qatar’s foreign minister visited Tehran Wednesday in an effort to follow up on talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal, there’s …