At the end of April, Minister Fahrettin Koca announced that the Ministry of Health had granted emergency use authorization in Turkey to Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine (Anadolu Agency, April 30).  Sputnik V became the third vaccine to receive such approval, after China’s Sinovac and the Pfizer-BioNTech... MORE

In late April, the Turkish military launched a large-scale cross-border counter-terrorism campaign into northern Iraq, targeting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its network. The push into northern Iraq followed two main axes: Operation Claw-Lightning and Operation Claw-Thunderbolt (Pençe-Şimşek and Pençe-Yıldırım). Thus far, the counter-terrorism... MORE

A German court sentenced on February 24 the alleged “Islamic State leader of Germany” to a lengthy prison sentence. The trial against Salafist preacher Ahmad Abdelaziz Abdullah Abdullah, better known as Abu Walaa, lasted three-and-a-half-years and provides insights into radicalization and Islamic State (IS) recruitment... MORE

Turkey’s plan to build a canal bypassing the Bosporus Strait and potentially upsetting the Montreux Convention (see EDM, February 9) along with Russia’s movement of warships from the Caspian to the Sea of Azov via the Volga–Don Canal in order to threaten Ukraine (see EDM,... MORE

The next meeting of the Intergovernmental Council of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) will be held in the central Russian city of Kazan, on April 29–30 (TASS, March 17). A key agenda item for the EEU member states may reportedly be to discuss the... MORE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced earlier this year that a number of large infrastructure projects had been launched in the territories liberated from Armenian occupation as a result of the 2020 Second Karabakh War. Importantly, he added that friendly countries and partners would be involved... MORE

Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and Colonel General Sherali Mirzo, the defense minister of Tajikistan, met last week (April 6 and 8) in Tehran, where they inter alia signed an agreement on creating a joint military defense... MORE

*To read part one, please click here The unblocking of the Zangezur corridor will have wide-ranging geopolitical reverberations for both the directly concerned states, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and surrounding countries. For Azerbaijan, the reopening of the corridor has geostrategic significance in multiple domains. This route... MORE

The local Russian Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS) contingent and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) have shifted their operational focus to targeting energy infrastructure in northwest Syria, including in areas that fall under de facto Turkish control. These offensives have notably involved ballistic missile strikes... MORE

Geopolitical competition over Central Asia is intensifying, with the two most prominent longstanding rivals, Russia and China, now confronted by the rising power of a third, Turkey. Thus, Moscow and Beijing have worked to limit Ankara’s influence in this landlocked region; but each has sought... MORE