Tag Archives: PKK

The “great shakeout” taking place in the Middle East is a state shakeout by conservative states with conservative ideologies. Iran is not an outlier in this company. Certainly rivalry and competition are better than the wars, ethnic cleansing, flight, killing, rape, malnutrition and barbarism of the past five years.

What made a Kurdish victory possible in Turkey’s recent elections – and what does the future hold?

From Mexico to Kurdistan, women resistance fighters have blazed a trail for new gender relations in some of the world's most patriarchal societies.

The 2011 Arab revolutions hugely effected Turkey's orientation towards the Middle East. Its foreign policy moved from a diplomatic, non-interference policy to an interventionist, revisionist one, even imperialist to some people. In terms of policymaking, Turkey resembled the US, relying on its military might to shape the direction of its foreign relations. But now it risks losing all its gains achieved in the last decade.

Once the IS problem is defused, though, the conundrum of what to do with Assad will return. It is doubtful that the international community is really willing to pursue regime change in Damascus, so Turkey may have no choice but to soften its rhetoric and seek a diplomatic exit strategy from the Syrian quagmire.  Otherwise, the civil war could conceivably go on for years to come and continue to destabilize the entire region.

Turkey lives in one of the roughest neighborhoods in the world. As such it has always has special security needs. Ankara’s regional foreign policy was traditionally based on treading cautiously and engaging in balancing acts in order to accommodate this delicate geopolitical situation. The overriding aim was always to ensure that one did not import the seemingly interminable troubles of …