Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan risks destabilizing the region and alienating the United States as he scrambles to deal with “hardline domestic criticism” in the aftermath of having been diplomatically out-maneuvered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in settling on terms for restoring ties between Israel and Turkey. At...

• Kindle

After coming under scrutiny for de facto facilitating weapons shipments from Iran to the Bashar al-Assad regime, Iraqi officials have declared their readiness to carry out random searches of airplanes: While Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s spokesman spoke of newly tightened restrictions on Iranian flights to Syria, the head of Iraq’s...

• Kindle

At least 600 Syrian refugees were deported from Turkey following clashes with military police at a refugee camp near the Turkish-Syrian border. Turkish officials deny that anyone was expelled — they insist that the refugees left voluntarily — but human rights organizations are pointing to evidence of the opposite, and are...

• Kindle

Turkey is reiterating warnings and objections — which were already explicitly issued by Ankara last week — against Cypriot moves to leverage the country’s offshore energy reserves as part of Nicosia’s efforts to stave off an economic collapse. Cyprus used its offshore natural gas reserves as a last-ditch guarantee to secure bailout...

• Kindle

Turkey has appointed former Ramallah Consul General Sakir Ozkan Torunlar ambassador to the “State of Palestine,” the latest in a long line of diplomatic gambits which have put Ankara at odds with Israel. The announcement comes days after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Zionism a “crime against humanity”...

• Kindle

The U.S. has come down hard on Turkey for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statements earlier this week calling Zionism a crime against humanity. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Erdogan Friday evening and scolded him for the comments, made at a conference for the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations in...

• Kindle

Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who in recent weeks has belittled Israeli efforts to seek rapprochement, mocked Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad for not militarily attacking the Jewish state, and accused Jerusalem of “state terrorism” — declared Wednesday that Zionism is a “crime against humanity”: Speaking in Vienna at a United...

• Kindle

Turkish media is reporting that renewed Israeli overtures to mend ties with Ankara – conveyed via multiple messages about hopes for a more “positive dynamic” – have, again, been declined: Turkish diplomatic sources have declined to comment on a report in a Jerusalem-based online newspaper that said efforts initiated by...

• Kindle

Syrian opposition figures are claiming that a car bomb that ripped through a Turkish border crossing on Monday was an assassination attempt targeting their delegation. Fourteen people were killed in the blast at the Bab Al-Hawa crossing on the Syrian-Turkish border. Analysis is now pivoting to speculation regarding Ankara’s reaction to the bombing,...

• Kindle

Turkish officials are evaluating what if any diplomatic damage will result from new evidence of past anti-Semitic remarks by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Samuel Westrop of the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy just published a series of old comments documented by Western and Turkish sources and going back...

• Kindle