Turkey

The trip echoed Beijing’s strategy of stringing together initiatives that seem insubstantial on their own but cumulatively threaten to undermine U.S. and regional interests.

Recent understandings between Cairo and Ankara have many of the group’s exiled figures worried about their future on Turkish soil.

U.S. concerns center on Turkey’s democratic backslide and deepening ties between Erdogan and Putin—but the Turkish president also wants to develop a rapport with Joe Biden and fortify his country’s weakened economy.

The former assistant secretary of state in charge of the Middle East portfolio from 2019-2021 discusses his time in office and how the region’s challenges and opportunities are evolving at the start of the Biden administration.

The U.S. response needs to get more specific, while the KRG and Baghdad need to patch up their urgent security differences and stop entangling them with broader territorial, constitutional, or budgetary issues.

U.S. and Iraqi Kurdish officials discuss the future of the region's natural gas sector, including proposals for surmounting various political and commercial hurdles.

If Biden wants to create additional leverage before attempting difficult negotiations with Russia, he will need to display strategic patience by partnering with allies on ten preliminary issues.

Challengers to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are proliferating, with two breakaway parties drawing particular notice. In December 2019, Ahmet Davutoglu, who served under Erdogan as foreign minister and then prime minister, formed Gelecek (Future) in an attempt to resurrect a gentler version of the Justice and Development Party (AKP)

Doing so means finding the right mix of hard and soft power, creating new mechanisms with democratic allies, and answering hard questions about various countries and conflicts in the Middle East.