ISDA: Iran’s major foreign policy challenge is to improve its relations with the West and its neighbours and overcome its isolation; from this point of view, Rohani provides a ray of hope

ISDA: Iran’s major foreign policy challenge is to improve its relations with the West and its neighbours and overcome its isolation; from this point of view, Rohani provides a ray of hope

    Thursday, July 25, 2013   No comments

The victory of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani as the President of Iran in many ways is a clear indication of continuity with some change in...

Following mass anti-government protests in Turkey, Ankara is now taking revenge on its critics. Activists and demonstrators are being investigated and intimidated, while journalists are getting fired and insubordinate civil servants transferred far afield

Following mass anti-government protests in Turkey, Ankara is now taking revenge on its critics. Activists and demonstrators are being investigated and intimidated, while journalists are getting fired and insubordinate civil servants transferred far afield

    Wednesday, July 24, 2013   No comments

Tayfun Kahraman met the prime minister five weeks ago, but now he is sitting in a hotel in Gaziantep in southeast Turkey, feeling distraught. The...

PM Erdoğan likens Gezi protesters to ‘piteous rodents

PM Erdoğan likens Gezi protesters to ‘piteous rodents

    Wednesday, July 24, 2013   No comments

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has likened Gezi Park protesters to “piteous rodents” aiming to put a hole in the “ship that 76 million Turkish...

While important government figures were playing “brotherhood” at five star hotels, the groups have decided to share the table with the Anti-Capitalist Muslims, who share Alevis’ sorrow and recognize the community as it is, rather than attempting to define the group

While important government figures were playing “brotherhood” at five star hotels, the groups have decided to share the table with the Anti-Capitalist Muslims, who share Alevis’ sorrow and recognize the community as it is, rather than attempting to define the group

    Wednesday, July 24, 2013   No comments

An Alevi association has announced plans to reject an offer from President Abdullah Gül to attend an iftar at Istanbul’s five-star Polat Renaissance Hotel in...

The Telegraph: Hundreds of men who took up arms against President Bashar al-Assad are defecting back to the government side

The Telegraph: Hundreds of men who took up arms against President Bashar al-Assad are defecting back to the government side

    Wednesday, July 24, 2013   No comments

Disillusioned by the Islamist twist that the "revolution" in Syria has taken, exhausted after more than two years of conflict and feeling that they are...

Egyptian politicians and Western diplomats: Mohamed Mursi might still be president of Egypt today if he had grasped a political deal brokered by the European Union with opposition parties in April

Egyptian politicians and Western diplomats: Mohamed Mursi might still be president of Egypt today if he had grasped a political deal brokered by the European Union with opposition parties in April

    Tuesday, July 23, 2013   No comments

Convinced that election victories gave them a sufficient basis to rule, Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood spurned the offer to bridge the most populous Arab...

Kurdish-islamist infighting: fighting has spread from Hasakeh in northeastern Syria to several hotspots in Raqa province in the north

Kurdish-islamist infighting: fighting has spread from Hasakeh in northeastern Syria to several hotspots in Raqa province in the north

    Tuesday, July 23, 2013   No comments

Syrian Kurds made rapid advances in the north of the country Tuesday, expelling jihadists from several villages, as a gulf of mistrust between Arabs and...

EU foreign ministers agreed on Monday to put the military wing of Lebanese group Hezbollah on the bloc's list of terrorist groups. But sanctions will have little impact

EU foreign ministers agreed on Monday to put the military wing of Lebanese group Hezbollah on the bloc's list of terrorist groups. But sanctions will have little impact

    Tuesday, July 23, 2013   No comments

It's a mistake that many make when they first arrive in Lebanon. Along the highway between the airport and city center, they see portraits of...

A senior US intelligence official has warned that Syria's civil war could rage for several years and that the conflict is reviving al-Qaeda in Iraq

A senior US intelligence official has warned that Syria's civil war could rage for several years and that the conflict is reviving al-Qaeda in Iraq

    Sunday, July 21, 2013   No comments

David Shedd, deputy director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, delivered one of the grimmest US public assessments of the Syrian conflict as he described the...

Now we arrive in the Middle East as smiling supplicants, blessing any “people’s change” (unless it is any monarchical autocracy of the Gulf)

Now we arrive in the Middle East as smiling supplicants, blessing any “people’s change” (unless it is any monarchical autocracy of the Gulf)

    Sunday, July 21, 2013   No comments

... Middle East and NABut never before has America joined in our European submission. Take the Obama policy, constructed on the colossal wreck of Bush’s...