Karel Valansi'nin kaleminden...

“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”           - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, interview with  Al Jazeera Arabic  on 26 February 2025  Three months later, this strong warning looks less like a threat and more like a prediction.  A decade ago, Iran was the region’s shadow puppeteer, proudly proclaiming its control over  four Arab capitals . However, its projection of power through proxies backfired. Ironically, this helped facilitate the surprise offensive of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, backed by Tehran’s regional rival, Türkiye. Moreover, its archenemy, Israel, has steadily weakened Iran and Hezbollah’s military capabilities in both Lebanon and Syria, especially following Iran-backed Hamas’ deadly cross-border attack on  October 7, 2023,  which indirectly enabled HTS’ takeover of Syria, the indispensable “jewel in the crown” of Iran’s regional network.[Met...

The relationship between Turkey and Israel has gone through several ups and downs since ties between the two nations were formalized in 1949. After a recent period of turbulence, Turkey is eager to normalize ties; Israel, however, is unlikely to rush into a relationship.   Turkey’s growing isolation in its neighborhood and strained ties with the United States are driving a bid by Ankara to normalize relations with countries in the region, including Israel. A combination of economic, energy, intelligence, and political interests may have also persuaded Ankara to rethink its policy on Israel. Specifically, Turkey is feeling pressure as a result of the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab states, and the reconciliation between its ally, Qatar, and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as well as Egypt. It is also concerned about the shift in regional alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean—Turkey, for example, was excluded from the  East Mediterranean Gas For...

The signing of Abraham Accords is a significant development in the unstable Middle East. We talked with Prof. Dr. Efraim Inbar, the Israeli position and the future of the Turkish-Israeli relations. Prof. Inbar is the president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies (JISS), and professor emeritus of political science at Bar-Ilan University. He was the founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), a position he held for 23 years. He specializes in Middle Eastern strategic issues, Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, and Turkey-Israel relations. We witnessed a historic event last Tuesday. How do you evaluate the peace deals between Israel and United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain? First of all, I think that it is a warm peace. Which means full interactions between people and movement of goods. We did not have it with Egypt, we did not have it with Jordan. We have an entirely different deal with UAE and Bahrain. Definitely, it is a peace of a qualitative diffe...

The EU-Turkey statement of March 2016 has become one of the main pillars of the EU’s migration strategy, essentially limiting the flow of migrants to the EU. The statement is accepted as a turning point in Europe’s crisis over refugees. On the third anniversary of its signing, we talked with Ambassador Christian Berger, the head of the EU Delegation to Turkey, the agreement’s impact on refugees and on Europe, Turkey-EU relations, EU relations with the Middle East including Israel and the rise of antisemitism in Europe. How would you define the EU-Turkey deal of 2016 in its third anniversary? As a success? Does the outcome meet the expectations? The  Turkey-EU statement of March 2016 is trying to address two issues; to reduce the number of people -including illegal migrants- crossing to the islands, and also reduce the number of people dying in the sea. The numbers have dropped significantly. Both as the EU and Turkey, we believe that the statement is achieving its purpose. The...

On stage we are witnessing the realization of Iranian precise and detailed plan of reintegrating themselves into the international community while continuing on with their much-discussed nuclear program. After an alienated period during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Iran is returning step by step to the international system with the new President Hassan Rouhani. His campaign slogan was moderation and wisdom. Working to ease the sanctions and bringing back dignity to the Iranian nation was his promise. 'Is he moderate or not?' was the main topic of discussion for Rouhani till the beginning of his term. But one thing is for sure, he managed to improve the image of Iran in the eyes of the international community. That has been enough to persuade the world powers to ease some sanctions and continue with the nuclear negotiations.

During his visit to Istanbul, Joseph Bahout was kind enough to share his views on Charlie Hebdo attack, the situation in Middle East, the foreign fighters and the refugee problem. Bahout is a visiting scholar in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, Washington, DC. He is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Institut d´Etudes Politiques de Paris and served as a permanent consultant for the Policy Planning Unit at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs How can you explain the motives behind the attack to Charlie Hebdo? Charlie Hebdo attack is a very complex issue. From outside it is seen as a terrorist attack like any other one against Western target. It is important to keep in mind that France has this very radical way of separating religion from public sphere. France has intellectual tradition criticizing religion, making humor of some religious values. The second thing is that contrary to 9/11 or other attacks, it was not an outsider attack on a Western country. It was an attac...

In this sense, Turkey's rapprochement with Israel would provide significant support for a possible defusing of tensions in the region and that is of utmost importance for any democratic regime. Istanbul-based Shalom newspaper in an important article published by Karel Valansi , who underlines Israel's most important trump card, the natural gas deposits and who, succinctly, sums up the situation in two sentences: " Is a 'peace pipeline' between Turkey and Israel possible? Can natural gas diplomacy provide this rapprochement?" PERHAPS A TURNING POINT IN MIDDLE EAST POLITICS Tulu Gümüştekin 01 November 2014, Saturday