With a first ever visit by a Japanese prime minister to Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, many Iranian commentators were quick to declare that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the best hope for successful mediation between the US and Iran, since Tokyo has warm relations with both sides. Some have argued that pacifist Japan has the capacity and motivation to ...

Discussions between the United States and Turkey over the purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system have been going on for more than a month. America continues to threaten Turkey with sanctions in the event that it does not immediately refuse to purchase the defense complexes. Will our relations with Washington improve, if Turkey declares that it is ready to ...

During an Iftar session in Ankara, the Turkish Minister of Defense, Hulusi Akar, met with leading media representatives. The minister made a number of important statements on issues such as the threats Turkey faces in the region, the fight against terrorism, the country’s need for its own air defense system and the purchase of Russian S-400 systems. Below are the ...

The twelfth round of the Syria negotiations (the so-called “Astana format”) was held in Kazakhstan`s capital Nur-Sultan. On Thursday, the Ritz Carlton hosted a closed meetings of participants. Delegations from Russia, Turkey and Iran (the guarantors of the “Astana” process) held intensive talks in a bilateral and trilateral format. Representatives of Damascus, the Syrian opposition and the special envoy of ...

Turkey’s local elections Turkey held local elections on March 31, which ended in numerous disputed regions, leading the Commission to recount the votes. Particularly controversial was the battle for Istanbul, where the candidate from the ruling party, ex-speaker of parliament Binali Yıldırım and opposition member Ekrem İmamoğlu faced off. The US State Department had previously called on the parties to ...

The fourth summit of the Astana process on the Syrian settlement will be held on February 14 in Sochi. The participants will focus on creating zones of de-escalation in Syria and launching a political transition in the country. The attention of the world community is focused on the upcoming summit, causing concern among European countries and the United States. Turkish ...

Less than a week after Ali Shamkhani returned to Tehran, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi announced that representatives of the Taliban had visited Tehran and that the Afghan government was aware of the visit. Before the announcement, news and rumors were already circulating claiming that Tehran and Moscow had initiated talks with the Taliban, but Tehran never approved or ...

US President Donald J. Trump’s late October announcement that Washington intends to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia, coupled with his personal distaste for arms control treaties and multilateral agreements, his interest in massive arms sales (especially to the autocratic Middle Eastern monarchies) and his perceived efforts to undermine NATO and the European Union (EU), have ...

Europe NATO summit: Realist Trump against European liberals July 11-12 in Brussels the NATO summit took place. The behavior of the President of the United States Donald Trump attracted the attention of most of the world media. He firstly criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for buying gas from Russia and refusing to raise military spending to a level agreed to ...

Trump and Putin met on the 16th of July in Helsinki. The meeting was held amidst a complex political background: just several days after the NATO summit (where Trump criticized Germany for collaboration with Russia) and his visit to UK, where he tried to establish the new anglo-saxon economical axis, including criticizing Theresa May’s lack of commitment to fulfilling the ...