After a week of intrigue and speculation, Iranian-Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab has finally pleaded guilty to charges of evading U.S. sanctions on Iran, agreeing to testify against his co-defendant, former Halkbank Deputy Manager Hakan Atilla.
The outrage ignited by the recent NATO drill scandal in Norway has sparked a debate on Turkey’s membership in the Transatlantic alliance, compounding the latent anti-Western and anti-American sentiment.
The resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri – likely as a result of Saudi Arabian pressure - threatens to unleash a new cycle of sectarian violence in the Middle East.
For quite some time we have been observing the end of the Western-dominated era and a worldwide shift toward a multipolar system. Along the way, the liberal democratic order seems to be unraveling. But it is still too early to define the basic characteristics of the emerging new world order.
The U.S.-Turkey visa crisis is simply the rupture point of a fault-line between Ankara and Washington that has accumulated considerable tension in recent years.
The Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum seems to have united Ankara, Baghdad and Tehran against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Although Turkey and Iran have been cooperating in Syria recently, the three countries do not see eye to eye on various issues, and it is no secret that Turkey has been uncomfortable with the growing Iranian influence in the region – especially in Iraq – over the last decade.
The pressure on Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is building as the date for the Sept. 25 referendum on independence nears; unsurprisingly, Turkey’s attitude is also hardening considerably.
News reports emerged last week that Israel had struck Syrian positions in Hama; it is already well-known that Israel has been periodically hitting alleged Hezbollah arms shipments to Lebanon since the start of the Syrian war.
The war of words between Ankara and Berlin is creating ever more risk, perhaps in unintended and unforeseen ways.
