Oriental Review

We Want War, And We Want It Now

By Pepe ESCOBAR (Brazil)

With friends like these … It all had to do with that Friends of Syria (fools for war?) meeting in Istanbul. Picture Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal – who seems to have a knack for sending US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into rapture – feverishly arguing that the House of Saud, those paragons of [...]

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Active Endeavour and Drug Trafficking

By ORIENTAL REVIEW

We all are aware of the basic frameworks of the US response to barbaric 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Bush’s administration and NATO launched unprecedented media, diplomatic and military campaigns aimed to suppress the adversary inside its haunt in Afghanistan. But few remember that the US Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force weren’t [...]

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Turkish Solitaire

By Vladimir EVSEEV (Russia)

After Syrian security forces liberated first the area west of Homs and then the area northwest of Idlib, it became obvious that now only a foreign invasion can overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. And Damascus is doing its best to exploit its advantage as quickly as possible: It got a new constitution approved by referendum, proclaimed [...]

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US Will Punish Its NATO Allies, Not Iran

By Alexander VISHNEVSKY (Russia)

Will the economies of Greece and Italy finally collapse without Iranian oil? Having declared that the US-EU friendship will depend on whether Brussels supports Washington in its bid for imposing sanctions against Iran, the US president left Europe with no choice. The European Union, desperate to at least slow down the pace of the Eurozone’s [...]

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How the Syrian Case Would Be Tackled?

By Dmitry SEDOV (Russia)

The deeper the crisis in Syria, the more evident it becomes that its former ally, Turkey, has played its part in the process. As the only moderate Islamic NATO member state, Turkey has turned into a springboard for the Syrian opposition. Istanbul announced the creation of a Syrian national council, analogous to the Libyan NTC. [...]

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Moscow and Ankara: Reshaping the Geopolitics of Eurasia

By Vadim VIKHROV (Russia)

Speaking at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London recently, Turkey’s President Abdullah Gül said that the role of the West in global politics was gradually diminishing, and called for the creation of the new world order based on harmonious relations between the US and other world powers, including the EU and the BRICS [...]

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Turkey-Iran: Approach And Rivalry? (II)

By Gregory TINSKY (Russia)

Part I Competing for influence over the Middle East, Ankara and Tehran will inevitably clash in Syria If Iran manages to restore the pre-war state of oil production in the nearest years, Turkey will have all the chances to gain independence from Iranian supplies. According to Davutoglu doctrine, Turkey develops its economic partnership with all [...]

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Turkey – Iran: Approach And Rivalry? (I)

By Gregory TINSKY (Russia)

Erdoğan fights Ahmadinejad for sympathies of Arabs Middle East has once again become the ball game that drawn the attention of entire world. Former empires — Turkey and Iran — approach each other, although desperately competing with each other at the same time. Arabian world is at stake in this struggle of no joke. And [...]

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Blackmail the American Way

Jeyran Bayramova (Azerbaijan) Will the United States go against Turkey’s wishes and recognize the Armenian genocide? That remains to be seen. “United States Blackmails Turkey over Recognition of the Armenian Genocide.” That is the headline that was splashed on the pages of leading Turkish newspapers prior to the NATO summit in Lisbon at which the [...]

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The United States Did the Iranian Opposition a Disservice

Evgeny VELIYEV (Russia) Sanctions have strengthened Ahmadinejad. Turkey intends to continue supplying Iran with petroleum products despite the threat of sanctions from the United States, according to an article in the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post referring to an announcement by Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz. “If the preference of the private sector is to sell [...]

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Iran Signs Uranium Swap Deal

At least we’ve got good news from Tehran: Iran agreed to enrich uranium in Turkey. The menace of imposing international sanctions and further escalation of the Western pressure on this country under nuclear pretext is temporarily diminished. Perhaps it was the first ever notable diplomatic achievement of the BRIC Alliance (as the Brazilian president was [...]

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New Russia and New Turkey in a New World

Earlier this week Moscow and Ankara have signed an agreement to cancel the visa regime between the two countries and several other strategic deals including construction of the first atomic power station in Turkey. Picture: Dmitry Medvedev and Abdullah Gul, Ankara, May 12, 2010. It is the natural outcome of the process of mutual convergence [...]

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