South-East Europe, and especially the Balkan Peninsula as the main part of it, have traditionally been the object of numerous geopolitical, geostrategic, and publicist analyses, as well as the subject of debates among the Balkan, European, and global experts in international relations. The new Iron Curtain or the Cold War 2.0 between western and eastern Europe was not the end of the Balkan’s importance for the US administration and NATO as well.
Bulgarian lawmakers have voted to approve the purchase of eight F-16C/D Block 70 fighter jets for the country’s Air Force. The forthcoming acquisition is to be worth close to $1.3 billion.
On Thursday, the prime ministers of the six Western Balkan countries convened in Berlin to sign three important agreements—on mutual recognition of ID cards, university diplomas, and professional qualifications—as part of a revitalized “Berlin Process.” The signing is a meaningful step in rebuilding momentum for regional economic cooperation and integration, and it is a signal that European Union (EU) countries are once again focusing on the Balkans in the shadow of Russia’s ruinous invasion of Ukraine. That attention is paying dividends. And it couldn’t come at a more important time.
Rights groups deplore “hysterical and inappropriate language” framing crisis as an issue of security, rather than human rights.
Governments in the Balkans are beefing up borders and readying soldiers in the event of a new influx of migrants and refugees, with Serbia reportedly ready to seal its southern frontier with North Macedonia after Turkey abandoned a 2016 migration pact with the European Union.
The war in Syria has created tensions in Bulgaria’s Syrian community, one of the largest in Eastern Europe, and given some members a pretext to seek asylum elsewhere.
As protests swept Syria in 2011, Abu Kamal’s famous kebab restaurant in the heart of Sofia felt like an outpost of the revolution.
Abstract
Since the emergence of the Islamic State (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS) in early 2014, different countries have followed different paths in dealing with the problem of their citizens who have joined ISIS and have then tried to return to their home countries.
For the families of Albanian men who died fighting for Islamic State, the pain and uncertainty drag on.
Salushe Seferi’s ordeal began in 2013, when her daughter, Ruzhdie Balliu, left Albania for Syria. It ended, of sorts, eight years later in July 2021, when Ruzhdie was repatriated to a shelter in Durres, on the coast. Seferi, however, still suffers the scars of a war that was not hers. And she’s not alone.
Did social networks change a young plumber from normal Muslim believer to radical Islamist – or are Albania’s authorities over-reacting to a non-existent threat?
At sunset on August 2, Bledar Zeneli and his father were attending the Aksham Namaz, one of five daily prayers of Muslim believers, when police came knocking at the door of their home in a newly developed area on the outskirts of Durres, Albania second largest town and main seaport.
The Iranian cyberattack on Albania earlier this year threatened to paralyze public services and digital systems, hack into state records and further sow chaos.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama arrived in Israel on Sunday to strengthen his country’s cyber defense after a series of attacks from Iran that led his country to cut ties with Tehran.
Evidence in terrorism cases is proving difficult to find, while experts warn that the reintegration and rehabilitation of foreign fighters is an even greater challenge.
Since the mid-1990s, more than 200 people have been sentenced to more than 1,100 years in prison in six Western Balkans countries for terrorist acts, or for leaving to fight in a foreign war, according to BIRN analysis.