Middle Orient

Russia’s military will set up positions around the northeast Syrian town of Ain Issa as part of an agreement with the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to reduce attacks from Turkish-controlled areas nearby.

Ankara’s growing isolation and a combination of broader geopolitical factors, including Iran and the Caucasus, are driving a fresh bid to normalize Turkish-Israeli ties.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this evening thanked President Donald Trump and Morocco King Mohammed VI for the announcement over normalizing ties with Israel.

Iran has made it clear that if the new US administration of Joe Biden wants to reenter the nuclear deal, no preconditions are acceptable to Iran. In his final weeks in office, outgoing US President Donald Trump is insisting on leaving his mark on the United States’ Middle East policy. …

The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced sanctions on Christopher Henzel, the US ambassador to Yemen. Iran on Wednesday slapped sanctions on the US envoy to Yemen, a largely symbolic gesture that followed the Trump administration’s sanctioning of the Iranian ambassador to the Houthi rebels.

Egypt appears to be leading Arab efforts to bring Damascus back to the Arab League and find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, in a bid to confront Turkey’s military ambitions in Syria.

Turkey and Azerbaijan deny that Syrian mercenaries were used in the recent offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh but four Syrians have told the BBC that after enlisting for sentry duties in Azerbaijan, they were unexpectedly thrown into battle on the front line.

Head of the government of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani revealed on Wednesday that the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist organisation had brought additional forces from Syria and did not leave the district of Sinjar in the Nineveh governorate.

Iran-trained Syrian fighters were killed in an attack by the Islamic State in a dawn attack on the desert outpost outside the Euphrates Valley town of al-Mayadeen reports Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

From the lack of a clear Israeli strategy on the Iran nuclear deal to the new Middle East approach of President-elect Joe Biden. What are the several geostrategic Middle East challenges Israel will have to face with the changing administration in the United States?