... forces.
Manbij neither was a target of attacks during Operation Source of Peace. Another factor is at work here, no less crucial than the one applied to Tell Rifaat. The strategically important M4 route runs through Manbij—it connects Aleppo with East Syria up to Iraq. If Manbij transitions under the control of Turkey and the SNA, communications along M4 may be cut off at any moment. Safe area of Operation Source of Peace was envisaged in such a way as to not cross this route.
In the first scenario—if an operation is conducted in the direction of Tell Rifaat ...
The impeachment process of US President Donald Trump and the US role in the MENA region would determine the future of conflicts in many countries starting from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and the future government in Lebanon, Iraq and Algeria, Turkey and Iran
“When I thought I had already reached the bottom,
they knocked from below.”
— Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
This quote of the polish aphorist and poet of the 20
th
century, Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, serves as a perfect epigraph to this in-depth ...
... rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Can Turkey and other states help mediate the Syrian conflict while ultimately bringing the Syrians, Iranians and Saudis into a peace accord?
How should the U.S., Russia, and Europeans deal with the conflict between Turkey, Syria and the Kurds, and between Iraq and the Kurds, given Turkish, Syrian, and Iraqi option to the possibility that the Kurds might use the Syrian conflict to achieve independence in differing regions? Can a loose Kurdish confederation — that does not challenge existing borders — ...
To understand Russia’s foreign policy today, its relations with Turkey and the West, one needs to look at the past.
Today, we have vast nuclear arsenals and the number of countries with nuclear ... ... of such actions.
Of course, the world faces serious problems today: terror group Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant), the war in Syria and Iraq, the migrant crisis, slow growth. But these are issues civilised nations are capable of solving one way or another....
By Zhyldyz Oskonbaeva (RIEAS Senior Advisor & Eurasian Liaison)
On a number of levels, the situation between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the ethnic Kurds of Syria, Iraq and Turkey is creating a power shift that no one is discussing. In this article, I will explain why: 1) The Kurds have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve a political homeland; 2) Tehran's strategy of expanding Shia influence over the Sunnis is ...
In light of the recent developments in Syria and the apparently imminent US military intervention, the blog will take a short break from its relatively academic style ... ... inspectors were in Damascus? The sceptic observer cannot help but remember the false intelligence on which the 2003 US invasion of Iraq was founded; Saddam Hussein did not in fact possess weapons of mass destruction. The parallel is inescapable. In May, Carla ...