Tag: Iran
Turkey Accused of Outing Israeli Spies in Iran
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote Wednesday that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan had previously contacted Iran to reveal the identities of a group of Iranians who had been secretly meeting with Mossad agents in Turkey. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu denied the allegation and other Turkish officials claimed it was part of a campaign to discredit Turkey.
Obama’s Best Friend? The Alarming Evolution of U.S.-Turkish Relations
By: Dr. Ariel Cohen / Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Dr. Ariel Cohen penned the 100th report of Begin-Sadat Center’s Middle East Security and Policy Studies. Cohen is a senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy at the Katherine and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Below is the executive summary of the report, which you can access in full here.
Testing Turkey
By: Soner Cagaptay / Foreign Affairs For all the talk of Turkey’s “zero problems with neighbors,” no amount of soft power has been able to protect the country from the protracted civil war in Syria. Now over two years old, that conflict has laid bare Ankara’s inability to match Tehran’s influence in the region — or even to secure itself against violence as the conflict has spilled over its borders. After years of trying to go it alone in the Middle East, Turkey’s leaders and public must face the fact that their country needs the United States and NATO for security and stability.
The stakes of U.S. prosperity, LNG trade
By: Neil Brown and Marik String / Politico It is a rare opportunity that isolates Iran, undermines Russian energy dominance and broadly benefits the U.S. economy. But those are the stakes for Americannei prosperity as the Obama administration contemplates whether to allow the trade of natural gas with our closest allies. Whereas oil is freely traded on global markets, natural gas has traditionally been a regional commodity locked in pipelines, creating wide price disparities among global markets and making diplomatic relations with (and proximity to) suppliers fundamental. In Europe, for example, certain allies of Russia pay as little as half as much as other neighbors, which actually lie closer. Still a relatively small part of global trade, liquefied natural gas , on the other hand, affords gas-importing nations access to diverse and flexible global supplies.
Decoding Erdoğan’s visit to Washington
By: Ian Lesser / German Marshall Fund of the US The visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the United States has been animated by the deepening crisis in Syria and its mounting costs for Turkey and the region. The nature of the security challenge facing Turkey was dramatically underscored by the recent terrorist bombings in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, which claimed dozens of lives. The mounting cross-border instability, with no end in sight, will be difficult to suppress, or even contain, without close U.S.-Turkish cooperation. Syria may be the most pressing item on the bilateral agenda, but it is accompanied by a series of longer-term questions surrounding the future of U.S.-Turkish relations.
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