Recently, Turkish President Erdogan and Russian President Putin met in Sochi.
In the statement made by the Kremlin just before the Wagner rebellion in June, it was stated that Erdogan invited Putin to Türkiye and that preparations were being made. But the meeting was held in Russia, not in Türkiye as expected. The focus of the meeting was the Black Sea Grain Corridor Agreement.
Highlights
US President Donald Trump announced his support for Azerbaijan in terms of natural gas supplies to European countries. In his opinion, such a solution will ensure global energy security. Obviously, such a situation cannot cause delight in Russia.
What did they talk about at the conference?
ISIS carried out at least 17 confirmed attacks in August in the Homs, Hama, Raqqa, and Deir Ez Zor governorates. These attacks killed at least 40 pro-Assad regime soldiers and wounded 21 additional soldiers and two civilians. There were also seven high quality* attacks during August. August was the most violent month in central Syria since the end of ISIS’s spring campaign when the group heavily targeted civilian truffle hunters across eastern Homs and western Deir Ez Zor. However, as in the months following those attacks, August’s activity was focused on regime security forces rather than civilians.
A U.S.-Iran understanding may have calmed tensions, but this was followed by Kurdish-Arab fighting that did precisely the opposite.
The summer was hot in northeastern Syria, as has been the transition to autumn. The season began with increased tensions between U.S. forces, which maintain a presence in the northeast, on the one hand, and Russia, Iran, and the Syrian regime on the other. According to U.S. officials and leaked documents from the Pentagon, since late 2022 Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus have been cooperating to increase pressure on U.S. forces and drive them out of the northeast. Russia has harassed U.S. and allied aircraft, and has also damaged U.S. drones. Iran-linked groups, in turn, have attacked American forces and carried out escalatory moves such as transporting anti-aircraft missiles into Deir al-Zor Governorate.
The meteoric rise of the Religious Zionists, a sleight of hand that outdoes master Netanyahu, surprises everyone and delights few. How did this happen, who let it happen, and what can be done after the entrenchment of those who hold a prayer book in one hand and a rifle in the other hand? What happened to Theodore Herzl’s Political Zionism and its successor, David Ben Gurion’s Labor Zionism?
On the conflict’s 12th anniversary, everyday Syrians face a dire humanitarian situation, while Assad’s grip on power holds steady.
Twelve years into Syria’s devastating civil war, the conflict appears to have settled into a frozen state. Although roughly 30% of the country is controlled by opposition forces, heavy fighting has largely ceased and there is a growing regional trending toward normalizing relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Over the last decade, the conflict erupted into one of the most complicated in the world, with a dizzying array of international and regional powers, opposition groups, proxies, local militias and extremist groups all playing a role. The Syrian population has been brutalized, with nearly a half a million killed, 12 million fleeing their homes to find safety elsewhere, and widespread poverty and hunger. Meanwhile, efforts to broker a political settlement have gone nowhere, leaving the Assad regime firmly in power.
A U.S.-Iran understanding may have calmed tensions, but this was followed by Kurdish-Arab fighting that did precisely the opposite.
The summer was hot in northeastern Syria, as has been the transition to autumn. The season began with increased tensions between U.S. forces, which maintain a presence in the northeast, on the one hand, and Russia, Iran, and the Syrian regime on the other. According to U.S. officials and leaked documents from the Pentagon, since late 2022 Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus have been cooperating to increase pressure on U.S. forces and drive them out of the northeast. Russia has harassed U.S. and allied aircraft, and has also damaged U.S. drones. Iran-linked groups, in turn, have attacked American forces and carried out escalatory moves such as transporting anti-aircraft missiles into Deir al-Zor Governorate.
For over 30 years, policymakers and scholars have taken for granted that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait simply to seize its oil. That narrative misleadingly suggests that the Iraqi invasion happened to coincide with, but was unrelated to, the dawn of the post-Cold War era. In fact, Saddam’s decision-making was inextricable from his interpretation of the end of the Cold War. In late 1989 and early 1990, he posited that Soviet retrenchment portended a five-year period of American unipolarity, after which Japan and Germany would restore a global balance of power. Until that new equilibrium emerged, Saddam genuinely feared that the United States and Israel would use their unchecked power to destabilize his regime in pursuit of their hegemony over the Middle East. In the summer of 1990, Kuwait’s oil overproduction persuaded the Iraqi leadership that the Kuwaiti royal family was complicit in the U.S.-led plot that they believed was already in full swing.
Introduction
In the fluid global order, initiatives to articulate cooperation to its best mutual outcome, as for exchange of resources and synergies are relevant more than ever. The mighty Asian triangular format of RIC (Russia – India – China) is relatively well known although underreported in scholarly and popular writings.