المشرق العربي

Turkey’s Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar held talks with senior Iranian leaders in Tehran earlier today to discuss ways of boosting military cooperation between the two countries, the Iranian media reported.

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee passed two bills today that tighten sanctions on Hezbollah. The bills amend sections of the Hezbollah International Financing Act of 2015. The first bill imposes sanctions on any foreign person that assists a number of key Hezbollah financial, security, foreign relations, and media institutions. The second bill imposes sanctions on persons responsible for use of people as human shields in the 2006 war or thereafter, and names Hezbollah senior leadership among those intended.

Turkey has been threatening economic sanctions and military action against its long-time ally, the Kurdistan Regional Government (K.R.G.) over Erbil’s decision to hold an independence vote.

It is increasingly clear that Turkey has been seeking to expand its role in the war-torn and conflict-ridden Afghanistan by making a concerted effort to step up diplomatic, developmental, and military engagements in the country. The scope and scale of Turkey’s interests in Afghanistan are an expression of the transformation of Turkish foreign policy in recent years.

Turkey’s Chief of the General Staff Hulusi Akar, leading a high-ranking military delegation, will visit Tehran for strategic talks next week, the Iranian media reported today. Akar is expected to meet with his Iranian counterpart General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, President Hassan Rouhani and other top Iranian military and political leaders.

Iran will start constructing an oil refinery in Syria by this year’s end, a senior official of Iran’s Research Center of Petroleum Industry (R.I.P.I.) announced today.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Gonul Tol, W. Robert Pearson, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the Kurdish independence referendum and how it will impact the K.R.G.’s negotiations with Baghdad, Turkey’s limited options to respond to the referendum, growing ties between Turkey and Russia, and the mounting political pressure on Iran’s President Rouhani amid President Trump’s attacks on the nuclear deal.

Recent surveys conducted in Europe indicate a rise in Islamophobia since 2015, namely since the beginning of the refugee crisis. Islamophobic incidents have been taking place across the whole continent, even in places where Muslim communities are almost absent, for example, in some Central European states. Islamophobia is exacerbated by some European governments and right-wing politicians who openly express anti-Muslim opinions.

On Monday, the new chief commander of Iran’s Army said Israel had a maximum life span of 25 years and that the Jewish state would perish even earlier if it “makes any mistake” over its remaining lifetime. “The notion that the Zionist regime of Israel will not be existing 25 years from now does not mean that it would have a full time span of 25 years to live,” Tasnim News Agency quoted Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi as saying. He also warned that any Israeli mistake would result in the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Iran, Turkey and Russia have agreed to establish the fourth de-escalation zone in Syria’s Idlib Province, according to a joint statement issued by the three countries at the end of the sixth round of talks in Kazakhstan today. Iranian media published the full text of the statement in Farsi and English.

The top Iranian and Turkish military officials discussed the Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum plan and its implications in a telephone call earlier today, Iranian media reported. “The two sides stressed the significance of enhancing bilateral relations and cooperation and described the potential independence referendum in the Iraqi Kurdistan and its ramifications on regional security, peace and stability – including on Iran and Turkey – as detrimental and dangerous,” Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.

Before the conflict in Syria started, Turkey cultivated close ties to the Assad regime. The two countries lifted visa requirements, held joint military exercises and cabinet meetings, and collaborated against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.). Ankara’s newly-adopted philosophy, “zero problems with neighbors,” had—at the time—won praise both at home and abroad. Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, the architect of the policy, at one point described Turkey’s Syria policy as a “striking example” of the success of Ankara’s new foreign policy vision.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Robert S. Ford, Alex Vatanka, and Bilal Y. Saab provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the Iraqi military’s new operation to take back the town of Hawija from ISIS, the operation by the Syrian regime and U.S.-backed forces in Deir Ezzor, the Pakistani foreign minister’s visit to Iran, and the resumption of U.S. and Egyptian war games after being suspended since the 2011.

Senior Iranian officials attended a public gathering in Damascus over the weekend to commemorate the Shiite religious event of Eid al-Ghadeer. According to the Iranian media, Abolfazl Tabatabai, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s special representative to Syria, and Javad Torkabadi, Tehran’s ambassador to Damascus, were among keynote speakers at the event. Hundreds of people attended the celebration at the historic Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque in southern Damascus.

The United States is seeking to keep a significant military presence in Iraq and the broader region after the fall of the Islamic State, warns an article in the Islamic Republic News Agency. The author points out that pro-Syrian regime forces have made important territorial gains against the Islamic State recently and claims that the lifting of a siege over the eastern city of Deir Ezzor marks the beginning of the terrorist group’s end.