As the ISIS terrorist group is collapsing in Syria and Iraq, the competition among powers involved in the conflict increases. In March, Moscow and Astana become the main centers of the diplomatic activity with top leaders from Israel, Turkey, the UK and other powers discussing the issues confronting the Middle East. Ongoing events aim to…
Not long ago, a democratizing Turkey, with the second-largest army in NATO, appeared on track to join the European Union. That’s not likely now, or perhaps ever. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Angela Merkel’s Germany to Hitler’s, said the Netherlands was full of “Nazi remnants” and “fascists,” and suggested the Dutch ambassador go…
The extraordinary war of words erupting between Turkey and the European Union is pushing already strained relations to breaking point. Ankara has banned all Dutch diplomats from its territory after the Netherlands banished Turkish ministers from holding political rallies, while deploying heavy-handed policing to break up the rallies. Now with the rest of the EU expressing solidarity…
Where is the increasingly vituperative spat between Turkey and The Netherlands (and other EU countries) going to lead? Why is this political fall-out between fellow NATO members happening at this precise moment? First, a quick recap of the events. At the weekend, two high-ranking Turkish officials were prevented from speaking at political rallies in The…
The anti-Russian McCarthyism that has spread out from the United States to encompass the European Union, Canada and Australia has at its core an implicit recognition that neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policy have failed. When I recently asked a European journalist why this anti-Russian hysteria had taken root among mainstream European political parties, he…
The Austrians recently called on the Western Balkans, Georgia, and Egypt to build “refugee”/immigrant centers for processing and potentially indefinitely housing the hundreds of thousands of non-Western individuals that are streaming into the EU. Mr. Sebastian Kurz told the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper that “It is not that important where exactly they [the centers]…
