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In Libya, a grand bargain remains elusive

| Opinion
Libya’s putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar left the negotiating table in Moscow last week, putting off …

Bu Konuda Daha Fazla

  • President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend a meeting in Istanbul, Jan. 8, 2020. (AFP Photo)

    With tensions between Iran and the United States de-escalating for now, there is talk about cease-fire agreements in Libya and Idlib.

  • January 10, 2020 | The Iraqi government on Friday demanded the U.S. set a mechanism to withdraw its forces from the country. This came in a phone call between caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The two officials "discussed the recent developments and desire of various parties to avoid escalation," the Iraqi government said in a statement. Abdul-Mahdi asserted Iraq's refusal to all operations that violate its sovereignty including the latest Iranian missile attack on two U.S. military bases. He also asked the U.S. to send representatives to Iraq to set the required mechanisms to apply the recent Iraqi parliament's motion, which called to expel U.S. troops from the country. The Iraqi parliament's call outraged the U.S. President Donald Trump, who refused to comply and threatened Baghdad with sanctions. Earlier Wednesday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against U.S. military and coalition forces in Iraq. The missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases where U.S. military and coalition personnel are stationed in response to the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

    The targeted killing of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force, an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the deputy chief of Hashd al-Shaabi forces in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandisi, is a game-changer for Middle Eastern politics. Immediately after the attack that killed Soleimani, Iranian leadership threatened the U.S. and its allies in the region. Iran fired missiles at two American bases in Iraq in retaliation to the assassination of Soleimani. No casualties were declared in Iran's retaliatory attacks. Leaders of both countries escalated the tension, but they were careful not to let the crisis get out of control.

  • TurkStream natural gas pipeline project

    With Hungary, Bulgaria and Serbia to depend on TurkStream, Turkey’s importance to increase in terms of energy security

  • People in Libya's Tripoli welcome the Turkish Parliament's decision to deploy troops and protest Khalifa Haftar. ( Hazem Turkia - Anadolu Ajansı )

    Following Turkey's decision to throw its weight on regional developments and be a more influential actor in the Mediterranean, countries trying to exclude Ankara and its rights, have been uneasy

  • A drone photo shows thousands of Iranians attend the funeral ceremony of Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Forces, who was killed in a U.S. drone airstrike in Iraq, in Tehran, Iran on January 06, 2020.

    Since the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and senior Hashd al-Shaabi leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a U.S. strike at Baghdad airport, the power struggle between the United States and Iran in Iraq has transformed into a hot conflict. Washington's latest move has the potential to irreversibly up the ante in the long-standing hostilities between the two nations.

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