According to Turkish daily Sabah, Turkey’s new strategic focus is shifting from the Aegean towards East Mediterranean. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had indicated earlier that Turkey would take steps towards ensuring freedom of navigation in Eastern Mediterranean, as a reaction to the Palmer report. In the following days it is expected that the Turkish Navy […]
When eminent scholar Walter Russell Mead tackles a subject he does not do it on the cheap. One of his latest long articles attempts to discern the current trajectory of Turkey’s foreign policy and he takes his readers through quite a ride. Mead, an American history, smoothly goes through modern Turkish history and then ties […]
After Gaddafi Libya may not find what it is looking for. As I write this, the majority of pro-Gaddafi forces have lost, or are in the process of losing their resistance against the mostly civilian rebels. The pictures and stories coming from Libya are not incomparable to Egypt and/or Tunisia. Young men holding rifles in […]
Since the beginning of the popular uprising, Yemen’s government has had to intensify its military recruitment campaign. With the recent waves of defections and the opening of several new fronts, the army is in great need of fresh blood. But most importantly, the government is trying to gather new loyalty under its banner in order […]
Turkey’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Benghazi last week, where the Libyan opposition is getting stronger every day. Davutoglu was welcomed, as any other AKP official in a Muslim country, and the crowd cheered for him holding interesting posters with the words, “Thank you Erdogan, Turkey and Islam” written on them. Davutoglu was pleased. This […]
Turkey faces a growing danger of Syrian economic and social disruption spilling onto its soil, with some fearing an influx of refugees could draw Turkish troops into border operations uncomfortably close to Syrian forces.President Bashar Al Assad’s crackdown on opposition has pushed once-warm ties between Turkey and Syria close to breaking point. Syrian policy towards […]
Last week, Alberta’s Energy Minister Ron Liepert was in the US to promote his province’s energy sector. During breakfast at the Penn Club in Manhattan organized by the Canadian Consulate-General, he discussed a wide array of energy-related subjects. The message he had for US foreign policy was simply that Alberta (and by extension Canada as […]
Not one single word in Obama’s Middle East speech included or even made a remote reference to Turkey. This, from Turkey’s perspective, was the most important part of yesterday’s policy position statement. In traditional Turkish collective memory, Middle East has been a realm of ‘problem’, which Turkey had to stay away from; some of those […]
President Obama’s speech on Thursday was designed to introduce a symbolic redefinition of American policy in the Middle East. Assuring his international audience that an ever-changing world demands continued leadership, his words ushered in a new chapter of American diplomacy.
AFGHANISTAN: ALREADY AT UNEASE FOR POST-WAR Afghanistan may be one place, where its people have legitimate worries after the elimination of one of the strongest points of the U.S. war on terror. Now that the “terrorist” is gone, the war might be shortened, making the Afghan lands abandoned once again. No surprise that there were […]
Muneer al-Maweri who is an exiled Yemeni political analyst and a bit of an expert when it comes to presidential maneuvering, has been warning against what he believes to be the president secret plan. According to him, Saleh is following the same pattern he has for his entire political career: to rule by deception. While […]
India has an inclination for strengthening democracy as opposed to spreading it. With the recent flurry of popular protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other countries of the Middle East it looks like balancing support for democracy with strategic national interests has emerged as the central theme for contemporary global relations. The United States while expressing […]
I just returned from a fourteen-day tour of the Middle East. As dictators falter and topple left and right, this is certainly an exciting time to be in the region. “The new Middle East,” you might call it. Simmering resentment, propelled by youth movements, disappointment in the status quo, and a sense of serious social […]
As the Middle East is being swept off by a revolutionary wind, many analysts are drawing parallels between the Egyptian Revolution and the uprising in neighboring countries. However, recent events in Libya prove that if indeed a need for Freedom and self political determination unify the protesters across borders, each and every uprising […]
By now, everyone monitoring the developments in the Middle East can’t help but liken them to dominos: once the first dictatorship fell (in Tunisia), the rest were just a matter of time. Of course societies do not behave like toys – what is common among the revolting populations of the Middle East is that they […]