... between Moscow and the Kurds has provided Russia with a “Kurdish card”, that is, the ability to modulate its support to various Kurdish national ambitions throughout the Middle East, depending on what the Kremlin was seeking to obtain from Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The current Syrian crisis is no exception and has promoted the Russian-Kurdish (PYD[1]) partnership, especially during the period of harsh tensions between Russia and Turkey. This partnership has three goals: fighting terrorism,...
... construction of an LNG plant in Israel or the use of Egypt’s LNG infrastructure by Israel and Cyprus; 3) the Eastern Mediterranean countries joining the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project that is being implemented to transport Azerbaijani gas via Turkey; 4) transit pipeline export
via Turkey
.
As regards the potential transit of Levantine gas, Turkish diplomacy has both “entry point” and “exit point” problems: for various reasons, its relations with both producer and consumer ...
... scorching weather the country has been experiencing of late. Discussions about the latest trends at home and around the world and what it all means for the future of Ukraine have reached fever pitch. The recent NATO Summit in Warsaw, the attempted coup in Turkey, the complicated dynamics of the development of Ukraine’s relations with important regional partner (Poland) and the threat of the situation in Donbass escalating – all this has sent shockwaves around the country.
The NATO Summit in ...
The events in Turkey demonstrate once again the dangerous fragility of the state system in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The hundred years following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire did not produce a stable and lasting
modus vivendi
among the former ...
In response to the
terrorist attack carried out by Islamic State in the Turkish city of Gaziantep
on August 20, 2016 and the
shelling of the border town of Karkamış
by militants, Turkey
has announced the launch of
Shield of the Euphrates
operation, the aim of which is to destroy the militants’ bases in the Turkey–Syria border regions.
On the first day of the operation on August 24, Turkish fighter jets and artillery ...
On August 9, 2016 a high level meeting between Presidents of Russia and Turkey took place in St. Petersburg. This crucially important summit was the first foreign visit made by Erdogan after the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July, 15.
Historically speaking bilateral relations between Turkey and Russia have been shaped ...
What was praised to become a breakthrough meeting which would get Russia-Turkey relations back to their pre-November 2015 incident times and even better, did not deliver any surprises.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in St. Petersburg on August 9 to meet with his counterpart Vladimir Putin for the first time ...
On August 9, 2016, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Russia and met with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to discuss restoring the relations between the two countries. RIAC Director General Andrey Kortunov comments on the current situation in bilateral relations and the ...
The failed “military coup” in Turkey last month is still replete with discrepancies, insinuations and outright lies. Disinformation and recriminations continue to swirl like an impenetrable black hole, blotting out cogent questions over the innumerable bloopers in this poorly-scripted ...
Turkey’s foreign policy in recent years has limited its room for manoeuvre in the international arena. The course of former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu – "zero problems with our neighbours” – that had underpinned the policy ...