The conflict between Turkey and the anti-Turkey bloc is hurting everyone’s energy interests, making an investment in the region costlier for energy companies. Without compromises on all sides, everyone stands to lose.
MEI’s Gonul Tol and Jonathan Winer join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the state of the conflict in Libya, where the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) forces supported by Turkey have made significant gains in recent weeks over Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) forces, which are backed by Russia, the UAE, Egypt, and France.
Absent major military escalation by his foreign patrons, Khalifa Hifter has now lost the war he initiated against Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli. The question remains, however, of how to end Libya’s proxy war and restart the necessary political process to bring about sustained peace.
COVID-19 is a humanitarian problem, and containing the pandemic as soon as possible is an urgent obligation to save human lives. Yet we have to deal with the economic fallout from the pandemic just as urgently because the costs are substantial.
The growing U.S. strategic reliance on India has fomented closer bilateral ties between China and Pakistan, straining the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
The lifting of lockdown restrictions could lead to a spike in cases for which the country is ill prepared.
There was no other way to end the political logjam in conflict-ridden Afghanistan than to make current President Ashraf Ghani and the outgoing Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah agree to share power. The deal announced on May 17 has been widely welcomed by the international community because the political tensions between the two rivals were viewed as one of the major hurdles to the advancement of an intra-Afghan reconciliation process. The political jockeying in Kabul is far from the only impediment to reconciliation though and there are deeper obstacles to the peace process.
The U.S.’s willingness to grant wide berth to the Taliban has effectively given them license to continue a campaign of violence.
With the recent move, 45 out of the 65 HDP-run municipalities have been placed under state-appointed trustees.
Arguably the time is now ripe to begin accumulating such nuances in regard to Turkey. The difficulties of dealing with Turkey and President Recep Erdogan are incontestable and well-known. Nevertheless, Turkey’s geopolitical significance is equally indisputable and far-reaching. Many of the major issues in European security – migration, Libya’s civil war, confronting Syria’s civil war (the equivalent in our time of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s), stabilizing the Balkans, defending the Black Sea, European energy security, and in particular accessing the energy in the Eastern Mediterranean – would benefit from the restoration of a true and ongoing strategic dialogue with Turkey. Indeed, neither we nor Turkey can make progress on them without such a dialogue.
The central bank has depleted its reserves dramatically by funding state bank interventions in defense of the lira.
On April 30, roughly a week after the Southern Transitional Council (STC) declared self-administration in Aden, a military confrontation broke out on the remote Yemeni island of Socotra between members of the STC and government forces. After just a few days, the situation was diffused when the island’s governor and the STC asked the Saudis to intervene. Although an agreement was reached quickly, it is likely to be fragile because the causes of the conflict are not entirely local. The island of Socotra is simply too important to multiple international players that are not willing to let it easily slip outside their sphere of influence.
The tensions between the two sides are unlikely to ease anytime soon.
Rather than seeing the spreading virus as a common enemy, the Taliban seem to be viewing the health crisis as opening new military opportunities.
With its territory under increasing pressure, its finances dwindling, and manpower more challenged than ever, HTS’s ability to balance its extremism with controlled uses of pragmatism is under strain. Internally, its leadership is bitterly divided over decisions of the past, present, and future and externally, its rivals and enemies all appear to be conspiring against it. In an attempt to protect internal cohesion, HTS has become determinedly self-assertive in recent weeks, pursuing unpopular policies such as trading with the regime and lashing out at those brave enough to express their dissatisfaction. In response to HTS aggressions, a wider array of opposition voices — both moderate and Islamist — are declaring loudly that HTS now represents a threat to their revolution.