Category: Opinion

Mon 28 September 2020: Israeli and Emirati relations could lead to a wider empowerment of secessionist and counter-revolutionary actors, while Washington’s favor for both countries would only bolster their cooperation After the normalization ceremony in Washington on Sept. 15, where Israel officially established full diplomatic relations with both Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), […]

Fri 18 September 2020: “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?” “I don’t think so. They’re trying to scare us.” “Maybe my son has been shot or tortured. Maybe they beat him up so badly that now they’re hanging onto him until he heals enough to release. I don’t care. What’s done is done. You […]

Thu 10 September 2020: Paris still views Mali as a French protectorate, in which terrorism constitutes a threat to its own interests Mali has witnessed four military coups since its independence from France in 1960, averaging a coup every twenty years. The exception is that last month’s coup came eight years after the previous one […]

Sun 30 August 2020: Last Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in Istanbul that the Fatih drilling ship has discovered reserves of 320 billion cubic metres of natural gas in the Black Sea, and that Turkey will start using this in 2023. This is also when the country will celebrate its centenary as a republic. Turkey […]

Sun 16 August 2020: The expiration of the treaty of Lausanne by 2023 has triggered a new debate among the global geo-political and geo-strategic thinkers about how Turkey would respond to this tectonic development. Will Turkey resurrect the Ottoman Empire? Will the geopolitical and geo-economic map of the region change? Will Turkey re-assert herself by […]

Sat 15 August 2020: The controversial American journalist who sued the US government for putting him on a “kill list” in war-torn Syria, was arrested yesterday by a Sunni Islamist militant group in rebel-held Syria, sparking outrage both in the Middle East and across the West. Yesterday’s arrest came hours after Bilal spoke to Middle East Monitor about […]

Thu 13 August 2020:  The Emirati foreign minister called his Iranian counterpart last week, in a further sign of the UAE and Iran’s fledgling relations as Abu Dhabi seeks to step out of Saudi Arabia’s shadow. They discussed cooperation over the coronavirus pandemic while consolidating their ties. “Just had a very substantive, frank and friendly video conversation with UAE […]