Policy Analysis

Two weeks ago, Turkish authorities released the Syrian brigadier general Ahmed Rahal—who had originally defected from the Syrian regime—after months of detention that observers claim is due to his strong and public critique of the Syrian National Army and the policies of Turkish-backed forces in the liberated areas. Rahal’s detention

Given the importance of the role Jerusalem has played in many Sunni terrorist organizations’ public rhetoric in the past, one might have expected the response to the Abraham Accords to be correspondingly strong. Surprisingly, major Sunni terrorist organizations have largely disregarded or made only passing reference to the recently signed

Conflicting priorities in the Syrian war have strained the U.S.-Turkish relationship since 2014, shaping Turkey's foreign policy in the country and the structure of its alliances. Turkey’s geopolitical identity and long-standing alliance with the United States, as well as its status in NATO, have come into question due to its

The low price of oil and gas has not deterred Ankara from continuing to explore disputed waters around the divided island of Cyprus. The Turkish government’s upstream offensive—a combined effort of the state-owned Turkish Petroleum (TPAO) and the Turkish navy—in the East Mediterranean is clearly being driven by its Blue

In August 2019, Mikail Yüksel—a Swedish politician of Turkish origin—founded a new party in Sweden called ‘ Nyans’ (Nuance). Yüksel, formerly a member of Sweden’s small liberal, slightly left-wing, Center-party, started the new party after being forced to resign on the cusp of Sweden’s elections to the European Parliament, where

In a strong and extraordinary statement, the Pentagon accused Moscow on Tuesday of dispatching fighter jets to Libya to bolster Kremlin-linked mercenaries in support of the eastern based commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Haftar. The move marks a dramatic escalation in Russia's role in the Libyan conflict

With the spread of coronavirus restricting travel, European leaders are meeting virtually with Ankara this week in an attempt to resuscitate and potentially fine-tune a flawed migration deal from 2016, which has now effectively collapsed. This will come as the second attempt in less than a month to reach an

Despite the collapse of the Syrian economy due to the ongoing war that has raged for years, Syria’s war economy benefits those known as “war profiteers,” who exploit the war, siege, and mass poverty to amass vast resources. These profiteers operate via border crossings that connect regions in conflict, which

After considerable consternation in U.S. congress against Turkey’s incursion into Syria, and a subsequent successful visit by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House in mid-November, much attention in the United States has been focused on Turkey’s foreign policy agenda. However, Turkey’s foreign policy in Syria is deeply

On Wednesday, Turkey launched its ‘Fountain of Peace operation’ in northeastern Syria after receiving a de-facto green light from the White House to launch a unilateral operation in the area between Tal Abyad and Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-'Ain in Arabic). This operation began immediately after the United States quickly pulled

After a month of negotiations and much previous speculation, Washington and Ankara have agreed on a 75-mile buffer zone between Tall Abyad and Ras al-Ain, with the two armies establishing a joint operations center in Ankara. At the end of last week, U.S. and Turkish forces conducted their first joint

Recently, Turkish municipal politics have become another lens into the complicated relationship between the Turkish government and the country’s Kurdish voters. On August 19, Turkish authorities removed the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) mayors of the majority Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir, Martin, and Van on unspecified charges of terrorism. These mayors

Egypt and Turkey are the two largest countries in the eastern Mediterranean; along with Iran, they make up nearly half of the total population of the Middle East. The two states also possess what are considered the two strongest conventional military powers in the Middle East. Moreover, Cairo and Ankara

On July 2, the Turkish army reportedly shelled Kurdish forces in the Northern Aleppo region of Tel Rifaat, following a similar incident in mid-June where the Turkish Defense Ministry reported killing ten Kurdish soldiers in retaliation for the death of a Turkish soldier. These recent intermittent skirmishes reflect how Tel

In a time where the balance of the Middle East is in flux, regional leaders and the international community alike should be closely following the relationship between Turkey and Iran. While the relationship between Teheran and Ankara has historically been troubled, mutual interests have sprouted newfound cooperation between the two

While Syrian refugees in Turkey often enjoy far better conditions than their compatriots in Arab countries, the majority of Syrians in Turkey—both within and outside of the country’s refugee camps—face difficulties when it comes to employment, residency rights, integration, and movement between Turkish provinces. Despite these challenges, the prospect of

Since 2014, Washington has relied on the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to defeat ISIS in Syria. Yet Washington’s policy of working with the YPG in Syria, where U.S. support has helped the group soar, has concurrently undermined American policy regarding the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, the

It has been almost a month since U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement that American forces would leave Syria shocked American enemies, allies, and Trump’s own officials alike. For Washington, the question of what comes next has been a matter of significant debate and speculation. For Northeast Syria—and the millions

In his public remarks and positions, the Turkish president tends to divide the world into two sides based on his own understanding and self-interest: the world of good and the world of evil. Those who stand by him in his aspirations, both legitimate and illegitimate, fall into the former category

From their establishment in 1957 up to the present time, Kurdish political movements in Syria have focused on demanding national rights for the Kurds, couching cultural rights within a package of political demands. With the outbreak of the Syrian revolt in 2011, the emergence of armed conflict, and the resulting