Latest Articles about Middle East
Reviving a Forgotten Threat: The PKK in Nagorno-Karabakh
The decades-long war between the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish army has had a significant impact on Azerbaijani politics. Being a staunch ally of Turkey and suffering from problems of separatism and terrorism itself, Azerbaijan has always expressed its full support for... MORE
RUSSIA WANTS TO SELL GREECE WEAPONS AS WELL AS GAS
Following the defeat of German General Erwin Rommel’s vaunted Afrika Corps in North Africa in 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed for a subsequent Allied invasion of either Italy, the Balkans, or Greece, arguing that the regions represented the “soft underbelly of Europe” to... MORE
Al-Qaeda at Year’s End 2007: What Do the Facts Say?
If an analyst in al-Qaeda’s intelligence services or a journalist friendly to al-Qaeda were asked to compile a roundup of news stories from 2007 that support his sympathies, here is what he would write. It would be a reasonably effective and sophisticated bit of open-source... MORE
U.S. Air Base at Incirlik Faces Political and Security Threats
The frequent battles between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) constantly direct the world's focus to the Turkish-Iraqi border area. Over 450 miles to the north and west, however, and six miles from Turkey’s fourth largest city, Adana, lies a prime U.S. asset in... MORE
MEDVEDEV-PUTIN: DREAM TEAM OR UNWORKABLE DIARCHY?
With President Vladimir Putin having now accepted Dmitry Medvedev’s invitation to serve as prime minister if, as is virtually certain, Medvedev is elected president next March, observers are now focused on the question of how this “diarchy” will work in practice, particularly given that Putin,... MORE
BALUYEVSKY ESCALATES WAR OF WORDS OVER U.S. MISSILE DEFENSE
Last Saturday, December 15, at a press conference in Moscow, First Deputy Minister of Defense and Chief of the Russian General Staff General Yuri Baluyevsky, together with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak, expressed frustration over U.S. plans to build missile-defense bases in the Czech Republic... MORE
RUSSIA’S FAR EASTERN WORKERS WARY OF CHINESE MIGRANTS
The Russian government has urged accelerated development of the country's Far East and pledged sizable investments for regions bordering China and the Pacific. However, some executives of Russia's state-controlled enterprises apparently prefer to rely on imported labor in their Far Eastern projects, prompting loud complaints... MORE
WILL PUTIN ACCEPT MEDVEDEV’S INVITATION?
The United Russia party is holding a congress today, December 17, during which it will likely officially nominate First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as its presidential candidate, thereby formalizing a move that the party made jointly with three other pro-Kremlin parties a week ago... MORE
RUSSIA MULLS BAIKAL-AMUR RAILWAY UPGRADE, IN LIGHT OF ECONOMIC, ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES
Russia has unveiled a sizable investment program to improve the Baikal-Amur Railway line (BAM), which was originally designed to become an alternative route to the Trans-Siberian Railway. However, after years of operation, BAM is yet to prove its economic viability, and the railway may eventually... MORE
WILL KREMLIN USE 1990s PRIVATIZATIONS TO STRENGTHEN ITS GRIP ON BUSINESS?
Analysts and observers both inside and outside Russia have pointed to President Vladimir Putin’s apparent choice of First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to be his designated successor as a sign that Kremlin policy, at least in the realm of economics, may be moving toward... MORE