The Fall of Ramadi and Turkish Views From the Past…

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

21 May 2015
22 September 2015 will mark the 35th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war which lasted eight years. This was followed by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the First Gulf War. In 2003 it was the turn of the US to invade Iraq. In other words, an Iraqi born in the year 1980 or after does not know what peace is.

On 31 March 2015, PM Haider al-Abadi announced the liberation of Saddam’s hometown Tikrit from Daesh by Iraqi security forces and popular mobilization units. Vice President Biden cautioned that the war in Iraq was far from over but sounded upbeat. There was talk about Iraqi forces getting ready for an offensive to liberate the entire Anbar province and later Mosul. Continue reading →

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US-GCC Camp David Summit: An Overview

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

18 May 2015

US-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit meeting at Camp David ended with a Joint Statement and an Annex which contains additional detail on future avenues of cooperation.

The Gulf States had four major expectations from the summit:
• Assurances that the Iran nuclear deal will not harm their interests,
• As strong a commitment as possible from Washington to their security,
• A further commitment to cooperate in countering Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region, and
• Enhanced cooperation on regional issues.

Continue reading →

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Confusion over the Camp David Summit

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

13 May 2015
Following his visit to Riyadh, Secretary Kerry met with his Gulf counterparts in Paris on Friday, May 8th in preparation of this week’s summit at Camp David. After the meeting, Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister al-Jubair held a joint press conference. This is what the Saudi Minister had to say on the summit:
“… We also spent another hour and a half on Camp David and the objectives of Camp David and the issues that will be discussed at Camp David. Don’t ask me to talk about it because I won’t; I can just tell you in general terms that they have to do with the intensifying and strengthening the security-military relationship between the United States of America and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, as well as dealing with new challenges that we face in the region, foremost of which is the Iranian interference in the affairs of the countries of the region.
“We were very pleased with the discussions. I thought they were very – extremely productive, very useful…” Continue reading →

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Yemen: Time for Decisive Diplomacy

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

9 May 2015
Saudi Arabia has announced a five-day humanitarian cease-fire in Yemen. The cease-fire is supposed to start on Tuesday, May 12th at 11:00 p.m., last for five days and be subject to renewal. During two press conferences with Secretary Kerry, the first in Riyadh on 7 May 2015 and the second in Paris the next day, Saudi Arabia’s new Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair said that there had been no contact with the Houthis on this. A senior Houthi official told BBC Arabic on Friday that the ceasefire had not been formally proposed and the Houthis would not respond until a plan was properly laid out. Continue reading →

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Turkey’s Upcoming Election and the Syria Conflict

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

4 May 2015
On 27 April, the International Crisis Group published the “Statement on a Syrian Policy Framework”. The Statement starts with an analysis of the conflict and then suggests a framework for a political deal based on the understanding that Bashar Assad cannot rule a post-war Syria and Iran’s influence in the Levant cannot be eliminated(*). Following are its key observations on the status quo:

“On its current trajectory, and with no military or diplomatic breakthrough on the horizon, the Syrian war will worsen…
“Whatever the parties to the conflict may think, no side is winning… the regime is losing ground outside its core areas… The mainstream opposition’s scorecard is similarly mixed…
“U.S.-led airstrikes have helped drive ISIS from some Kurdish areas east of Aleppo but have not fundamentally weakened its hold in eastern Syria…
“If Syria and its external stakeholders are to escape more years of war, rising costs, further destruction of the nation’s torn social fabric and worsening trans-border radicalization, a serious effort must be made, first and foremost, to define the parameters of an ultimate political solution…” Continue reading →

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Yemen’s Ordeal Continues

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

28 April 2015

On 24 April Saudi Arabia announced that “Operation Decisive Storm” had achieved its objective and priority would now shift to rebuilding the country and political dialogue. This new phase was to be called “Renewal of Hope”. This led me to be cautiously optimistic because the Saudis through their air campaign had made their point militarily and the UN Security Council Resolution 2216 had given them everything they could reasonably expect diplomatically. Wrong! Hours later the air strikes were resumed. It is now understood that the air campaign had not ended but only entered another, “more limited” phase. Continue reading →

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Refugee Dimension of the Libya Lesson

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

23 April 2015
I hold the view that the Libya intervention went beyond the letter and spirit of what was envisaged in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 of 17 March 2011 and caused divisions within the international community (*). The growing loss of migrant lives in the Mediterranean has once again focused attention on the intervention.

Rick Noack, in his Washington Post article of 21 April 2015 gave three reasons why Europe is being held responsible for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. These were the following:
• The E.U. downsized its rescue mission in a bid to deter refugees from risking crossing the Mediterranean,
• It is nearly impossible to enter Europe legally if you’re a refugee,
• NATO and E.U. member states bombed Libya but failed to rebuild the country. Continue reading →

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UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2216 on Yemen

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

17 April 2015
UNSC Resolution 2216 of 14 April 2015 represents a diplomatic victory for Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, in particular the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. In this Resolution, the Security Council remains silent on the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. But it does; Continue reading →

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Escalation in Yemen

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

15 April 2015
The fighting in Yemen no doubt reminds Turks of a beautiful but sad folk song (Lament of Yemen) mourning the loss of thousands of Turkish soldiers in this far away part of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Its refrain goes;
“… Those who go there do not return, why…”

They did not return because there was no way that the Ottoman Empire, in steady decline for centuries, could hold on to Yemen. It was a lost cause. As a matter of fact, the end of the First World War also marked the end of the Empire and the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence under the leadership of Atatürk.

Pakistan’s Parliament voted unanimously and wisely last Friday not to get involved in the conflict in the far away Yemen. Instead it called upon the Nawas Sharif government to engage in diplomacy to end the fighting. Indeed, this could only have been the “wrong war” for Pakistan. Continue reading →

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Middle East Desperate for a Course Correction

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Ali Tuygan

10 April 2015
President Obama has again spoken to Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times. Although the interview essentially aimed at reassuring the people of Israel and Congressional opponents that the framework agreed upon in Lausanne represents the best possible solution under the circumstances, what the President said about the root causes of Middle East turmoil was also important.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 2013 the President had said, “The United States will at times work with governments that do not meet the highest international expectations, but who work with us on our core interests. But we will not stop asserting principles that are consistent with our ideals…”

This was before ISIS emerged as an additional threat to stability in the Middle East and beyond. Continue reading →

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