... more by the absence of diligence on the part of Western analysts covering the Middle East than by any miraculous strength of force on the part of ISIS. The ISIS movement in Iraq has been bolstered by the hardened fighters located largely in eastern Syria, where there has always been a heavy population of Sunni Muslims. The reality of life in Iraq, however, is that Sunnis do not dominate throughout the entire country and they are in fact a miniscule percentage in the capital city of Baghdad. Indeed,...
Interview with Aleksei Sarabyev
The Syrian presidential elections were held on June 3, 2014, with Bashar al-Assad emerging victorious.
Aleksei Sarabyev
, head of the Information and Publishing Department at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, talks to ...
Assad will remain. However, the devil, as always, is in the details
The Syrian crisis continues to occupy a central place in world politics, even as the events in Ukraine have become the primary focus. The presidential elections in Syria will essentially change nothing: their easily predictable results will confirm the legitimacy ...
On May 20, 2014 RIAC Program Director Ivan Timofeev and Program Manager Lyudmila Filippova held consultations on Syria with
UN
Director of
Middle East
and West Asia Antonella Caruso and political expert Shuhrat Suleymanov.
The expert commentary was provided by Alexander Shumilin, Head of the Centre for Analysis of Middle East Conflicts at RAS Institute for US ...
The Intelligence Community, regardless of regime type, has famously always tried to co-opt and ultimately adopt advancements and evolutions in technology, especially in terms of media. Newspapers, radio, and television have long been appropriated in order to influence, massage, and outright manipulate messages and events important to the national interest. Often the question is not so much whether a country’s intelligence community engages in such activity but rather how explicit and open will...
On May 14, 2014 the Russian International Affairs Council and the U.S. Embassy to Moscow held a roundtable on future bilateral interaction toward the Syrian crisis settlement.
The Russian side was represented by Andrey Panov, Deputy Director of the Middle East Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Andrey Kortunov, RIAC Director General and Ivan Timofeev, RIAC Program Director, as well as experts ...
... exodus of refugees and concerns over terrorism are on everyone’s lips today due to recent developments in the Middle East. However, there is another sensitive, but much less frequently discussed issue. The point at stake is that the conflict in Syria, which being not religious in nature, has often provoked hostility on religious grounds.
In his speech at the opening of the International Conference on Syria in Montreux, Switzerland on January 22, 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized ...
Syria’s Transit Future
Syria has always played an important role in the development of Middle East transport corridors, and the country has long held a particularly special place in the transit of energy resources.
Due to the mass protests that began ...
....
So what is the West trying to achieve by slapping symbolic and, at first sight, irrelevant sanctions on Russia, especially now that the US and the EU no longer harbour any illusions about Crimea having become part of Russia for good?
Sanctions and Syrian chemical weapons
The following episode in the West’s pressure campaign against Russia provides a useful insight into the rationale behind the sanctions. Take cooperation on dismantling and recycling Syria’s chemical weapons. Bear in ...
Though Syria has somewhat fallen off the media radar in the West because of a Malaysian plane crashing into the Indian Ocean and Crimean referendum consequences booming across Europe, an on-going conflict and crisis continues in a critically important region ...
