Middle Orient

Like many Palestinians, Nadia Harhash was not surprised by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision last week to delay the Palestinian elections. Harhash, a prominent Palestinian journalist, author and political analyst from east Jerusalem, was on the Together We Can list for the parliamentary election, which was supposed to take …

Turkish forces last week launched a renewed attack on the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) organization in northern Iraq. This latest offensive follows the “Claw Eagle 2” operation in Gare in February, in which Ankara’s forces unsuccessfully tried to liberate 13 prisoners held by the PKK in the Dohuk area. The …

Does Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei want to see the outcome of June’s presidential election before agreeing to a new nuclear deal? The signs were unmistakable, but they have only become more pronounced. There may be an interim US-Iran deal to move toward returning to the nuclear deal before the May 21 …

Escalation is expected in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, given several strong indicators that portend an imminent explosion. Palestinians’ eyes are set on the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where 28 Jerusalemite families are facing the risk of eviction and forced displacement from their houses. Israeli settlement organizations …

Turkey’s reconciliation with Egypt is not likely to be easy, but progress after the first high-level meeting between the two sides could mark a new course in Ankara’s foreign policy and pave the way for its reconciliation with the Gulf heavyweights as well. Turkey’s quest for fence-mending with Egypt led …

The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps indirectly claimed responsibility for a series of attacks against Israeli interests, adding that it takes just one operation to “blow up” Israel. “Israel could be blown up in a single operation,” said the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. …

President of Executive Committee of the Syrian Democratic Council Ilham Ahmed spoke at a virtual event at the DC-based Newlines Institute today. A Syrian Kurdish official said today she hopes the United States will keep its forces in the region in the future no matter who is president. Ilham Ahmed, …

Ankara is working to supply electricity to Idlib province, which is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in its latest effort to establish an economic foothold there. Regions under the control of control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant group that controls northeast Syria, are set to import electricity from …

Iran’s Quds Force commander, Hassan Erlo, is acting as de facto ruler of areas controlled by the Houthi militia, a senior Yemeni official has said. Erlo (Irlo) is Iran’s ambassador to Sana’a. Erlo’s movements are highlighted by the Houthis’ media outfit, which confirms that he is acting as a leader, …

Cyprus has been divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriots since 1974, Turkish Cypriots in the north, Greek Cypriots in the south with a U.N. monitored buffer zone separating the two. There are still some 40,000 Turkish troops in the Turkish Cypriot area. The U.N. peacekeeping mission (UNFICYP) has been in …