Significantly, Russia and Iran’s cooperation extends to the military and space fields, with Russia recently helping Iran to launch a new satellite into space.
Iran’s Khayyam satellite “will greatly enhance Tehran’s ability to spy on military targets across the Middle East… [and give] Tehran “unprecedented capabilities, including near-continuous monitoring of sensitive facilities in Israel and the Persian Gulf.” — The Washington Post, August 4, 2022.
Two Palestinians and an Israeli army officer were killed early Wednesday morning in an exchange of fire at an Israeli army checkpoint, the Israeli military and Palestinian medics reported. Israeli troops noticed two Palestinians holding weapons and approaching the Jalame checkpoint, near the West Bank city of Jenin, according to an Israeli army spokesman. The soldiers tried to arrest the Palestinians, who opened fire, killing the Israeli officer, Maj. Bar Pelah, the deputy commander of elite Nahal reconnaissance unit.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “pro-Russian tilt” has grown louder in recent weeks, as Vladimir Putin clearly looks for Erdogan to stay in power.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces the biggest challenge to his nearly two decades of uninterrupted rule as galloping inflation, a wilting national currency and resentment toward Syrian migrants sap his popularity — and one world leader is watching closely: Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
In landmark talks in Baghdad, Hakan Fidan sought to ease bilateral tensions over a deadly attack in July, assert Turkey’s resolve to continue military operations on Iraqi soil and sway the political impasse in Iraq.
Turkey’s intelligence chief Hakan Fidan became the country’s first official to hold high-level talks in Baghdad after bilateral tensions shot up in July. While Fidan’s visit was aimed at soothing the tensions, it was also a Turkish attempt to exert influence in the Iraqi political crisis.
While Turkey has prided itself for mediating between Russia and Ukraine, Ankara has shown no such impartiality in the recent fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia, with Turkish leaders airing their support for Baku.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that a revived nuclear deal with Iran in the near future is “unlikely,” based on Iran’s response to the European Union’s most recent proposal for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. “What we’ve seen over the last week or so in Iran’s response to the proposal put forward by the European Union is clearly a step backward and makes prospects for an agreement in the near term, I would say, unlikely,” Blinken said on Monday during a visit to Mexico City.
Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is also the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, criticized the Biden administration for failing to get other countries to sign on to the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
Why Iran Could Be the Real Loser in Iraq’s Intra-Shiite Struggle
On August 29, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced that he would withdraw from politics after months of failed attempts to form a new government. Thousands of supporters of the nationalist leader, who has emerged as a staunch opponent of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, surged into the streets in anger, clashing with Iraqi security forces, breaching concrete barriers around Baghdad’s Green Zone, and storming the seat of government. After dozens of people were killed, Sadr went on television and instructed his supporters to go home, easing—for the moment, at least—a political crisis that has paralyzed Iraq’s caretaker government for months.
Albanian authorities thwarted a second cyberattack over the weekend after Tirana, backed by the United States with pledges of support and fresh sanctions on Iran, severed all diplomatic ties with Tehran who it blames for the “sabotage”.
Meanwhile, hopes of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal continue to fade as leading European countries expressed ‘serious doubts’ about Iran’s intentions.
The recent Turkish-Greek row over Twitter might be a taste of things to come
Rising tensions between Greece and Turkey over a simple goodwill tweet indicates how alarmingly volatile the relations between two NATO allies are becoming.