Orientul Mijlociu

While the war in Syria has receded from the international spotlight, residents in the country’s northeast are bracing for a new wave of armed conflict. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for months threatened to launch a military invasion of the region to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters and create a buffer zone in the border area between the two countries. Turkish military deployments and diplomatic outreach to Russia suggest that a decision from Ankara to launch a military operation is likely and may even possibly be imminent.

Back in June 2011, when news began to filter out from Syria of the first signs of armed resistance against the Baathist regime of President Bashar al-Assad, few could have predicted the level of disruption to the global order that the conflict in Syria would go on to produce. After months of brutal violence against protesters inflicted by the Assad regime, local inhabitants around the town of Jisr al-Shughour in the northern province of Idlib seized a police station on June 4, triggering a major shift whose implications few observers fully understood. Two days later, armed resistance led by police officers who had defected to the opposition in the face of approaching Syrian military units marked the beginning of a conflict that would reshape the politics of the Middle East and Europe.

Receiving Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu maintains that the creation of a safe maritime corridor for Ukrainian grain exports should be accompanied by the easing of sanctions against Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated his country’s “understanding” of Turkish security concerns along the Syrian border, saying that the issue of security and Syria’s future will be addressed in trilateral talks between Russia, Turkey and Iran in two weeks.

US and European acquiescence in Turkey’s long-standing refusal to honour Kurdish ethnic, cultural, and political rights has come home to roost with Turkish opposition to Finnish and Swedish NATO membership.

Sidelining the Palestinians Is a Recipe for Violence, Not Peace

On September 15, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump stood on the White House balcony with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain to unveil one of his administration’s signature foreign policy achievements: the Abraham Accords. Trump declared that the pact, through which Bahrain and the UAE became the first two Gulf states to recognize Israel, signaled “the dawn of a new Middle East.” Since that time, Sudan and Morocco have also normalized relations with Israel and the UAE inked a trade deal with the country. This splintering of Arab unity has been remarkable, given the Arab world’s long-standing commitment to withhold political recognition until Israel agrees to end its military occupation over Arab land and comply with international law.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson should dismiss Defence Minister Peter Hullqvist, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the newspaper Expressen reported on Saturday.

Erdogan’s demand is based on a speech Hulqvist gave at a party 10 years ago where he celebrated the Kurdistan Workers’ People, PKK, and its imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan, according to the sources cited by Expressen.

Turkey’s move to pressure Sweden and Finland into extraditing alleged “terrorists” they harbour is a method Ankara used for several years against countries in the Western Balkans, including EU candidate countries, under the idle gaze of Brussels.

While Turkey wields investment and aid as a sword of Damocles over the heads of poorer, less powerful countries, when it comes to the Nordic duo, it is their NATO application filed in May that hangs in the balance.