Trump has ostensibly compromised by promising Turkish President Erdogan that he’ll stop arming the Syrian Kurds. The US and Turkish leaders spoke by phone last Friday, during which time Trump allegedly gave his counterpart his word that he will stop giving arms to the Syrian Kurds. The Turkish side reported that Trump called the previous…
The idea involves playing both sides against the middle, keeping options open, promising support for both sides, a strategy to benefit the manipulator – dirty politics, the way America operates, why it can never be trusted. According to Turkish Foreign Minister Melvut Cavasoglu, Trump “instructed (the Pentagon) in a very open way that the YPG…
President Trump is attempting to calm down the U.S. conflict with Turkey. The military junta in the White House has different plans. It now attempts to circumvent the decision the president communicated to his Turkish counterpart. The result will be more Turkish-U.S. acrimony. Yesterday the Turkish foreign minister surprisingly announced a phone call President Trump…
As of 17.30 Damascus time, intense fighting continues between Turkish proxy militants and the Kurdish led US proxy militia group SDF in Syria’s Aleppo Governorate. Although Turkish backed militants had previously exchanged fire with the SDF, the ensuring battle in the town of Ain Daknah appears to be the most intense instance of fighting to-date, between Turkish…
“Fake facts!” exclaimed a senior Iraqi official in exasperation as he pointed to photographs online allegedly showing the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Kirkuk, orchestrating the Iraqi government retaking of the city last month. He said that in reality the picture, tweeted by a Kurdish leader as evidence of Iranian hegemony, dates from 2014. The…
There is a growing mood of self-confidence in Baghdad which I have not seen here since I first visited Iraq in 1977. The country seemed then to be heading for a peaceful and prosperous future thanks to rising oil revenues. It only became clear several years later that Saddam Hussein was a monster of cruelty with a…
