According to estimates of Turkish and foreign analysts, the foreign policy situation in Turkey this year promises to be difficult, not only because of the new hypothetical challenges possed by the new US President Joe Biden to the Turkish leadership, but also the legacy of previous problems in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Libya and in […]
Turkey’s state-controlled top religious authority has conditionally endorsed usury in a ruling that is likely to fuel debate about concepts of Islamic finance and could weaken President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to garner religious soft power by projecting Turkey as a leader defending Muslim causes. The ruling, issued by the Directorate of Religious Affairs or Diyanet that is part of[Read More...]
Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator Saint Simeon, on the outskirts of Aleppo, was the largest church in the world in the fifth century. After Islam arrived in Syria, the country has remained a dense mixture of cultures and faiths, living in tolerance and cooperation until 2011, when a US-NATO war for ‘regime change’ began which destroyed […]
When Russia’s Vladimir Putin recently remarked that Turkey’s Erdogan is an ardent follower of the logic of national interest, he was perhaps alluding to the way Tukey continues to adjust very consistently between the West and the East, though it doesn’t always work. Turkey is a member of NATO and is a buyer of Russian […]
Philip Roddis What would you do if stuck in a lift with John Pilger? Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, in a new book reviewed here by Media Lens, quotes with approval a fellow journalist saying he’d stick pins in his eyes to avoid such a predicament. Did the drone murders Obama signed off every Tuesday …
Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator On December 26, hundreds of Syrian refugees fled their refugee camp in the Miniyeh region near the coastal city of Tripoli in north Lebanon after their tents were burned when fighting broke out between local youths and camp residents. At least three were injured in the incident said Khaled Kabarra, a […]
By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 28.12.2020 Yet again thrown by their “older American brothers” to the winds of fate, the Kurds in the Levant nowadays are not living through the best of times. On the border running between Syria and Iraq, a new armed conflict entailing human casualties is unfolding, one which […]
The incumbent US Secretary of State’s strong dislike of Turkey is evident from the fact that he never visited Turkey in an official capacity, although he was in the region for more than once during his tenure and visited both Cyprus and Greece, Turkey’s regional rivals. Mike Pompeo, who thinks Turkey is as “democratic as […]
by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times When it comes to sowing – and profiting – from division, Erdogan’s Turkey is quite the superstar. Under the
