Orientul Mijlociu

Un război surd are loc în Siria în această perioadă în care trupele ruse şi americane au intrat în contact şi în confruntări directe în numeroase zone pe teren. Flancaţi de companiile militare private controlate de GRU şi de trupele guvernamentale siriene, ruşii au declanşat o campanie de şicanare şi atacuri directe asupra trupelor americane din nord-estul Siriei, pe care doresc să le împingă afară din Siria.

n August 3, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum with Matthew Levitt, Kash Patel, and Juan Zarate to debut the Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Interactive Map and Timeline, the first-ever publicly available interactive multimedia tool charting the group’s history of terrorist plots, attacks, logistics, and financial activities, as well as actions taken against it. Levitt, the map’s creator, is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow at the Institute and director of its Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Patel serves as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. Zarate served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism in the George W. Bush administration. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.

After extensive exploration, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cheerfully announced on Friday that his country had made the biggest natural gas discovery in its history. The gas discovered in the Black Sea was estimated by 320 billion cubic metres. Erdogan said that production for commercial use could begin in 2023.

Turkish soldiers hold their position on a tank as they watch the town of Kobani from near the Mursitpinar border crossing, on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province October 13, 2014. The strategic border town of Kobani has been beseiged by Islamic State militants since mid-September forcing more than 200,000 people to flee into Turkey.

The Chairman of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Mustafa Sanalla stressed that the ongoing conflict on oil facilities is an international political conflict rather than an internal Libyan dispute over the distribution of revenues.

U.S. Ambassador Richard Norland spoke with Libyan political figures and officials on Sunday and Monday to assess progress in operationalizing the statements issued on Friday regarding a ceasefire and resumption of oil production in Libya, the U.S Embassy Tripoli reported.

Turkey has threatened to invade the Greek islands in the Aegean since at least 2018. A recent Egyptian-Greek maritime deal appears to have escalated Turkey’s regional aggression.

“Erdogan’s Turkey has been normalizing its relations with Israel since the establishment of Israel.” — Rawaf al-Soain, Saudi writer, Twitter, August 14, 2020.

Libyans are wary over a statement issued by the Turkish Central Bank regarding a MoU concluded on Monday with the Central Bank of Libya.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, al-Sadiq al-Kabir, dropped a bombshell, surprising everyone in Libya by signing a “vague” memo of understanding with the Turkish Central Bank, just a few days following the visit to Turkey by Fathi Bashagha, Minister of the Interior of the Government of National Accord, and Khaled al-Mishri, head of the Libyan State Council. Both men are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organisation and made the trip to Turkey amid the growing crisis between Bashagha and Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.