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n observation that the world is undergoing a profound transformation across the political, economic, technological, and security spectrum has become a cliché. Yet the scale and nature of the transformation underway today extend well beyond a conventional geopolitical realignment where merely existing power balances are redistributed. What is changing simultaneously is far more fundamental: the rules governing the international system, the centers of gravity, the meaning of security, patterns of economic interdependence, and even the nature of war and conflict itself.

States continue to compete through conventional military capabilities. However, technology, energy, trade, finance, intelligence, information, and strategic communication have increasingly become integral instruments of national power. At the same time, the contours of the emerging order will not be determined by great powers alone. Regional actors will also play a determinant role to shape this order through their political will, economic capacity, asymmetric capabilities, military strength, diplomatic networks, and ability to build partnerships.

For countries with a potential to be a regional power, therefore, the fundamental question is no longer simply how to withstand the consequences of global transformation. It is how to acquire sufficient capacity and strategic agency to influence its direction and help shape its outcomes. This is not merely a matter of strategic preference. It is an imperative.

Creating strategic space

Türkiye’s strategic orientation in recent years should be understood precisely against this backdrop. Rather than positioning itself as a state that merely adapts to changes determined elsewhere, Türkiye has increasingly sought to develop the capacity to influence the environment in which those changes unfold.

This orientation is visible across a broad spectrum of national policy—from foreign and security policy to defense-industrial development, energy security, diplomatic activism, and domestic political stability. Two developments are particularly illustrative of this strategic direction: the National Solidarity and Social Integration process pursued under the objective of a “Terror Free Türkiye,” and the Türkiye-Saudi Arabia-Pakistan Joint Defense Agreement, referred to as the Mecca Agreement.

At home, Türkiye is seeking to eliminate the structural security challenges that have constrained its political, economic, and social potential. Abroad, it is simultaneously developing bilateral and multilateral partnerships designed to strengthen its position in a rapidly changing regional environment and to contribute to the formation of a more capable and resilient regional security architecture.

Developments across Türkiye’s immediate neighborhood have demonstrated that terrorism, irregular migration, energy security, border security, economic stability, and regional order can no longer be treated as separate policy issues. They constitute an interconnected security environment. Türkiye has therefore sought to create greater strategic space by employing the full spectrum of its national capabilities—from diplomacy and intelligence to military power and defense-industrial capacity. Its regional approach has gradually evolved from a conception of security centered primarily on protecting its borders toward one focused increasingly on shaping the security environment beyond them.

The critical point here is that strategic power is not driven from military capability alone. What matters is the ability to translate capabilities into political outcomes through the combination of power, political will, and diplomatic capacity. In Türkiye’s recent strategic approach, the interaction among these three elements has become increasingly visible.

A Türkiye free of terrorism

The objective of a “Terror Free Türkiye” can be understood as a natural extension of this broader strategic approach. The National Solidarity and Social Integration process should therefore not be viewed solely as a security policy designed to dismantle the PKK terrorist organization or eliminate an armed threat. Its strategic ambition is considerably broader. It seeks to strengthen social cohesion, reinforce the bonds of citizenship, and unleash Türkiye’s political, economic, and social potential from the long-term constraints imposed by terrorism and security-related instability.

The significance of the “Terror Free Türkiye” vision lies precisely in its ability to bring security and social integration within a single strategic framework. The Law on National Solidarity and the Strengthening of Social Cohesion, adopted by the General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, should likewise be understood within this broader political and strategic context. It is not simply a legal instrument; it forms part of a wider effort to strengthen the foundations of national resilience.

In the contemporary understanding of national security, state power can no longer be measured solely by weapons systems, economic output, military personnel, or territorial capacity. Social resilience, political stability, institutional strength, and the existence of a shared sense of national purpose are equally important components of national power.

This is particularly significant in an era characterized by hybrid threats, disinformation, social polarization, proxy conflicts, and attempts to exploit societal divisions. Under such conditions, social cohesion is not merely a domestic policy objective. It is itself a component of national security. This creates a direct strategic link between domestic security and foreign policy.

The traditional distinction between internal and external security is increasingly blurred. Domestic stability and foreign policy are no longer separate spheres governed by entirely different dynamics. They form an interconnected strategic matrix in which developments in one domain directly affect the capacity available in the other.

For Türkiye, eliminating the terrorist threat and strengthening social cohesion at home, while simultaneously contributing to the shaping of regional security architectures abroad, are therefore interconnected components of a single strategic vision.

The resources, political attention, and strategic energy consumed by terrorism can instead be redirected toward economic development, technological advancement, social resilience, and foreign policy. In this sense, a “Türkiye Free of Terrorism” is not simply a domestic security objective; it is a foundation for greater strategic autonomy.

A state can exercise greater maneuverability in foreign policy only when it possesses a sustainable foundation of security, stability, and social cohesion at home.

From security consumer to security producer

This brings us to the second dimension of Türkiye’s emerging strategic posture: the transition from unilaterally producing security to building shared security capabilities.

The defense and security cooperation Türkiye has developed with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, alongside the domestic National Solidarity and Social Integration process, should be viewed within this broader framework. The three countries possess capabilities that are, in many respects, complementary. Türkiye contributes a sophisticated defense industry, extensive military experience, operational capabilities, technological know-how, and decades of NATO experience. Pakistan brings significant military capabilities, strategic geographic positioning, and established expertise in defense production and security affairs. Saudi Arabia contributes substantial economic and financial capacity, energy resources, and considerable strategic influence in the Gulf and wider Arab world. Taken together, these capabilities can form the foundations of a broader and more resilient regional security ecosystem.

The emerging model also has the potential to transcend the traditional concept of an alliance. The security challenges of the twenty-first century are increasingly multidimensional and interconnected. Terrorism, proxy warfare, missile and UAV threats, maritime security, energy security, cyberattacks, the protection of critical infrastructure, economic vulnerabilities, and emerging technological threats cannot be effectively addressed through military capabilities alone—or by any single state acting in isolation.

The regional security architecture of the future will therefore depend increasingly on multi-layered and complementary partnerships encompassing defense, intelligence, technology, energy, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, and economic resilience. Türkiye’s strategic opportunity in this environment is to position itself not merely as a country that consumes security, but as a country capable of producing and exporting security capabilities.

Türkiye’s growing defense-industrial capacity is central to this transformation. The defense industry is no longer simply a sector designed to meet the military requirements of the state. It has become an increasingly important instrument of foreign policy, technological development, diplomatic influence, economic power, and strategic autonomy.

A country’s ability to meet a substantial proportion of its defense requirements domestically reduces its vulnerability to external constraints during periods of crisis. At the same time, defense-industrial capacity changes the nature of its relationships with other countries. A state that can provide advanced defense technologies, establish joint production arrangements, transfer know-how, and develop long-term industrial partnerships possesses instruments of influence that extend well beyond conventional diplomacy.

Türkiye’s defense-industrial rise should therefore not be interpreted merely as a technological or economic achievement. From the perspective of regional security, it represents a strategic lever through which Türkiye can share capabilities with partners, develop joint production ecosystems, deepen institutional ties, and transform short-term security cooperation into durable strategic partnerships. This perspective also highlights the broader geopolitical significance of the Türkiye-Saudi Arabia-Pakistan axis.

Türkiye occupies a pivotal position connecting Europe, the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Pakistan is strategically positioned at the intersection of South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Saudi Arabia lies at the center of the Gulf and occupies a pivotal position within the Arab world.

The convergence of these three countries in the security domain therefore has implications extending well beyond their bilateral or trilateral relations. It has the potential to establish strategic connectivity between different geographic theaters.

The fact that the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement is open to the participation of other regional countries further strengthens this potential. Such an approach can enhance collective resilience while creating a framework through which regional actors themselves assume greater responsibility for their security environment. For this reason, the emerging cooperation should not be interpreted simply as a conventional defense arrangement among three states.

Viewed from a broader strategic perspective, it can potentially contribute to the emergence of a new belt of security and strategic cooperation linking Eurasia and the Middle East, as well as South Asia and the Gulf. When this external dimension is considered together with the objective of a “Terror Free Türkiye,” a striking strategic symmetry emerges between Türkiye’s domestic and foreign policy.

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cotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have joined forces in a new push for constitutional change, with their nationalist and pro-reunification leaders calling for greater self-determination and expressing an ambition to return to the European Union.

The leaders of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Plaid Cymru and Sinn Féin signed a joint memorandum in Cardiff on Sept. 13 asserting what they described as the right of the three nations to determine their own constitutional futures.

The meeting was attended by Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney, Wales’ First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth, Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.

The memorandum calls on the British government to “prepare for and facilitate constitutional change,” arguing that Westminster should not prevent citizens from deciding their own political future.

At the center of the document is a call for referendums that would allow voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to determine their respective constitutional arrangements.

The three nations, however, are pursuing different objectives. Scotland is seeking another independence referendum following the 2014 vote, when 55.3% of voters chose to remain part of the United Kingdom. Wales is advocating what its leaders describe as a “constitutional path” toward independence without setting a specific timetable.

Northern Ireland’s case is different, focusing on the possibility of reunification with the Republic of Ireland rather than independence as a separate state.

The memorandum represents a convergence between political movements that have historically pursued separate constitutional agendas. The article describes the current situation as significant because the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are led by parties that support independence or Irish reunification.

The initiative nevertheless faces opposition from the British government, which continues to support the United Kingdom’s territorial union.

Brexit and the push for a European future

A shared element of the three movements is their support for closer ties with the European Union. The memorandum states that the “future of our nations lies in the European Union” and argues that Brexit has damaged their economies.

The leaders’ position reflects a broader disagreement with the decision taken by the United Kingdom in the 2016 Brexit referendum. According to the article, the UK’s departure from the EU has contributed to stronger support among some political movements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for pursuing a different constitutional and European path.

The British government has rejected the latest calls for constitutional change. Prime Minister Andy Burnham reiterated his “strong support for the Union” and opposed the proposals advanced by the nationalist leaders.

Burnham said the government should concentrate on economic security rather than opening new constitutional debates.

The question of Scottish independence remains particularly contentious. Westminster continues to oppose a second independence referendum, while Scotland’s nationalist leadership maintains its demand for another vote.

Northern Ireland operates under a different constitutional framework. The Good Friday Agreement provides for the possibility of a referendum on Irish reunification if there is sufficient evidence that a majority of people in Northern Ireland would support such a change.

Trump weighs in

The debate over Northern Ireland’s future also received international attention during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Dublin.

Trump said he would like to see the island of Ireland united and argued that such a development would eventually take place. He described Irish unity as potentially beneficial and said he believed it would be difficult to see how it could be a negative outcome.

During his remarks, Trump also referred to Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, suggesting that he could play a role in starting the process.

The comments add an international dimension to an already sensitive constitutional debate. The prospect of Irish reunification remains a politically divisive issue in Northern Ireland, particularly between nationalist communities that favor unity with the Republic of Ireland and unionists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The new memorandum from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland does not establish a timetable for constitutional change, and the three territories face different legal and political processes.

For Scotland and Wales, the central question is independence from the United Kingdom, while Northern Ireland’s constitutional future is governed in part by the arrangements established under the Good Friday Agreement.

The leaders’ joint initiative nevertheless signals a common political emphasis on self-determination and closer European integration. Whether the proposals can advance will depend on political developments in Westminster, public support in the three nations and the distinct constitutional mechanisms governing each part of the United Kingdom.

(Source: Euro News)

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rofessor Timothy Edmunds has previously undertaken the role as an advisor to government departments such as the Ministry of Transport and Royal Navy and continues his career as a professor in International Security and the Head of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) at the University of Bristol.

Professor Edmunds continues to explore the new trends of maritime security. Following his book, Understanding Maritime Security, he has mentioned that there would be a fifth wave in maritime security.

Currently in the process of writing the second edition, he gives an insight into which trends “will determine what the priorities are going to be over the next 10 or 20 years” in an exclusive interview.

Geopolitics

Maritime security is increasingly shifting from strengthening law enforcement capabilities and coordination to militarized competition and interaction of policing in a geopolitical way. Professor Edmunds states that this was a “huge shift” from when he started writing about maritime security “10 years ago”.

He highlights how the development of maritime bases and deployment in regions such as Gulf, has the potential to both increase policing within the region by building maritime capabilities “for counter piracy operations, but also to assert their geopolitical presence in East Africa” and the Western  Indian Ocean.

As exemplified with China’s “base in Djibouti” and states such as France, the U.S, UAE and Saudia Arabia establishing or in the process of establishing naval bases and outposts in the region.

Edmunds mentions that this is particularly apparent in the way that states are contesting chokepoints and chokepoints becoming increasingly politicized in ways which were not before. The militarization of maritime security which is leading to an increase in naval concerns rather than a policing concern. Navies ultimately became the “front foremost in maritime security issues”. Maritime security is no longer a conversation of piracy as much as it was before, but about the wider geopolitical interactions.

UNCLOS

Although the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has become a debated topic regarding its relevance of 21st century issues and calls to be revisited, Professor Edmunds mentioned that it in most “circumstances is the foundation of ocean governance” and believes it is still “one of the most impressive international treaties we have”.

UNCLOS has become a widely adopted legislation among ocean governance. However, UNCLOS has shown to have gaps since the topics of importance of the 21st century were not on the political agenda in the year when it was negotiated. Including some transnational organized crimes at sea, the protection of subsea maritime infrastructure, and the impact and implications of climate change.

“Following the finalization of UNLCLOS, the maritime order was seen as largely settled, and that has changed.”

Not only because it took 30 years to negotiate, but Professor Edmunds also mentioned how difficult any changes and negotiations are likely to be possible to revise UNCLOS given new geopolitical trends and interests. Iran blocking the Strait of Hormoz and charging ship passages became a direct “attack on one of the fundamental principles of UNCLOS” in relation to the freedom of passage.

While soft challenges from states like China, following recent island building in the South China Sea, contest “some of the underlying assumptions of UNCLOS or reinterpreting in unconventional or norm breaking ways”. These examples show how easy it can be for states to use “legal challenges or loopholes” in a “coercive manner to pursue strategic goals on the sea”.

Very few states have challenged the fundamentals” of UNCLOS stated Professor Edmunds, but that there will “always be areas of contestation, such as how you calculate the countries maritime boundaries”.

Climate change and the Blue Acceleration

The Blue acceleration is a term coined by Swedish researcher to describe the rapid expansion of human use of the sea in recent decades. In the last 30 – 35 years, Professor Edmunds stated that this enormous acceleration in ship containers, fishing, infrastructure, cruise ships and wind farming has become a “cause and consequence of globalization”.

With nearly 80-90 per cent of goods traded by the sea, this acceleration has also led to an increase in the size of transportation. Bigger ships to transport good, oils gas and other commodities. As well as larger and more capable fishing vessels. This “economic acceleration of activity caused by the blue acceleration has brought economic benefits to countries” stated Dr Edmunds and has been “critical” to elevating “poverty in the global South” and elsewhere.

However, Professor Edmunds mentioned that “the more the sea is being used, the potential of more environmental consequences that comes with it. The more fishing in coastal regions which leads to fewer fishes in the region, exacerbating the marine biodiversity crisis.”

The “number of vessels on sea increases greenhouse gases, as individual entities the container ships being hugely polluting by burning dirty fuel oil”.

Now with the development of technology, Professor Edmunds highlights new talks regarding technologies developed to exploit deep sea minerals.

“Deep sea mineral exploitation” has the potential to “create worrying and unknown environmental consequences” and the development of technologies that allow for new exploitations at the sea “creates new kinds of environmental risks”.

This economic benefit of the blue acceleration is felt in “very real ways in all parts of the world”. But Professor Edmunds also stated the environmental consequences of those developments which are unknown.

Climate change and increased fishing impacts fish stocks, fish migration patterns, where fish are moving to different areas and thus potentially creating geopolitical tensions between states.

“Climate change is one of the animating meta themes of maritime security going forward and how it develops. Partly because of the impact it will have on maritime activity around fishing, but also the knock-on effects it will have on coastal communities. If fish stock dries up, there is evidence that when areas are overfished, fishers will look towards alternatives which may be criminal alternatives. Smuggling or piracy being some of these alternatives sought out.”

As well as the drives of piracy being poverty and exclusion in coastal areas particularly amongst former fishing communities, sea level rise threatens port infrastructures, such as “military port infrastructures” mentioned Professor Edmunds.

“Climate change presents an existential threat to states” stated Edmunds, while referencing Tuvalu, which has become the first digital nation following the threats posed by the sea level rise.

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he U.S. Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday, marking its first rate increase since 2023 and lifting the federal funds target range to 3.75%-4%, as policymakers continued to grapple with inflation that remains above the central bank’s 2% target.

The decision by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was unanimous and was broadly in line with market expectations. The Fed said the move was intended to support its dual mandate of achieving maximum employment and stable prices.

In its policy statement, the central bank said economic activity had continued to expand at a solid pace, while domestic spending remained resilient. It added that uncertainty remained elevated, partly because of geopolitical developments.

The Fed also pointed to strong productivity growth and solid capital investment. Employment gains were described as broadly matching growth in the labor force, while the unemployment rate had changed little.

However, inflation remained elevated, prompting the central bank to maintain a focus on bringing price pressures back toward its 2% target.

“Today’s policy action will support a more timely return to the Committee’s 2 percent objective,” the Fed said, adding that it would work to ensure price stability.

The rate increase marks a significant shift from the Fed’s policy course over the previous year. The central bank had cut interest rates by a combined 75 basis points in September, October and December of the previous year before leaving rates unchanged during its first five meetings of 2026.

Recent economic data showing continued strength in the labor market alongside inflation above the Fed’s target had increased expectations for a rate hike at the September meeting. Financial markets had largely priced in a 25-basis-point increase ahead of the decision.

The Fed’s last rate increase came in July 2023, when it raised the federal funds target range by 25 basis points to 5.25%-5.50% as it sought to combat persistent inflation.

Fed signals another rate increase in 2026

Alongside its policy decision, the Fed released updated economic projections that indicated another rate increase could take place before the end of 2026.

The central bank raised its median year-end federal funds rate projection to 4.1%, up from the 3.8% forecast issued in June. Its projection for the federal funds rate in 2027 was also raised to 4.1% from 3.6%, while the forecast for 2028 increased to 3.9% from 3.4%. The Fed projected a rate of 3.6% for 2029.

Its longer-run estimate for the federal funds rate was revised slightly upward to 3.2% from 3.1%.

The Fed’s so-called dot plot, which shows individual policymakers’ expectations for future interest rates, indicated that 16 of the 18 FOMC officials expected at least one additional rate increase this year.

The projections suggest that policymakers expect interest rates to remain relatively restrictive as they continue to address inflationary pressures.

The Fed also raised its inflation forecast for 2026. Its projection for headline inflation increased to 3.7% from 3.6%, while the forecast for 2027 remained at 2.3%. The central bank raised its 2028 inflation projection to 2.1% from 2%, and projected inflation at 2% in 2029.

Inflation projection

Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was also expected to remain higher than previously forecast. The Fed raised its 2026 core inflation projection to 3.4% from 3.3%, while maintaining its 2027 forecast at 2.5%. Its 2028 projection increased to 2.2% from 2.1%, with a 2% forecast for 2029.

Despite the continued inflation pressure, the central bank upgraded its expectations for economic growth.

The Fed raised its 2026 growth forecast to 2.3% from 2.2% and its 2027 projection to 2.4% from 2.3%. It left its 2028 forecast unchanged at 2.2% and projected growth of 2.1% in 2029.

The unemployment outlook also improved. The Fed lowered its unemployment rate forecast for 2026 and 2027 to 4.1% from 4.3%. Its projection for 2028 was reduced to 4.1% from 4.2%, while the forecast for 2029 was also set at 4.1%.

The combination of stronger growth and lower unemployment projections suggests that Fed officials expect the U.S. economy to remain resilient even as interest rates stay elevated.

The latest decision therefore leaves monetary policy at the center of the Fed’s effort to balance continued economic expansion, labor-market conditions and persistent inflation. The updated projections also indicate that policymakers expect the fight against inflation to continue beyond the September meeting, with most officials anticipating another rate increase before the end of the year.

(Source: Anadolu Agency)

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elations between the United Kingdom (UK) and Israel have undergone a notable change over the past two years. Following the war that began in Gaza on October 7, 2023, and turned into a genocide, the British government’s criticism of Israel has grown increasingly forceful. Initially evident mainly in its rhetoric, this shift gradually translated into concrete policy measures.

The UK’s formal recognition of the State of Palestine alongside several other countries in September 2025 marked an important turning point in this regard. The change became more visible in 2026. On June 9, the UK joined Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Norway in imposing sanctions on individuals and entities that financed or facilitated violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. On August 19, it objected to the tender process for the E1 settlement project, which would undermine the West Bank’s geographic contiguity and weaken its connection to East Jerusalem. Finally, on September 8, it joined France and Canada and 11 other countries in banning trade in goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

London’s language has also hardened markedly. For example, in a speech to the House of Commons on September 8, 2026, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said that “settler terrorists” were carrying out ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in parts of the West Bank. Miliband accused the Israeli government of turning a blind eye to the situation and announced that the UK would henceforth regard Israel’s entire occupation of the West Bank as unlawful. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, writing in The Guardian the same day, emphasized that the measures targeted Israel’s unacceptable policies.

As expected, these British measures drew a sharp response in Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar described the UK’s latest decisions as interference in Israel’s sovereignty and electoral process. He also announced on September 8 that it had given the UK 30 days to close its consulate in East Jerusalem. In addition, it decided to end British participation in the Gaza coordination mechanism and halt the training that the UK provides to Palestinian forces. It also barred 11 British members of Parliament, including former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and one British citizen from entering Israel.

Taken together, these rapid developments inevitably raise a question: Is the UK truly distancing itself from Israel?

Pragmatic distancing rather than a rupture

The latest developments make it easy to answer this question with a simple “yes.” Such an assessment, however, would make it difficult to distinguish what has changed in British policy toward Israel from what has remained the same. On the one hand, London has recognized Palestine, adopted economic measures against illegal settlements, and sharpened its criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. On the other hand, it is trying to preserve its traditional position on Israel’s security.

Indeed, when announcing the September 8 measures, the UK did not “neglect” to refer to Israel’s legitimate security interests and condemn Hamas’s October 7 attacks. Under these circumstances, it makes more sense to view the current situation as pragmatic distancing rather than a strategic rupture. The UK is avoiding a complete break with Israel while placing greater distance between the two countries as the political cost of supporting the Netanyahu government rises.

The role of Labor governments in this process should not be overlooked. The shift in British policy toward Israel did not occur overnight, but it became increasingly apparent after the Labor Party came to power in July 2024. This new direction, made tangible by the UK’s recognition of the State of Palestine in 2025, advanced further with the measures taken in 2026. Miliband’s use of the term ethnic cleansing in relation to the West Bank and the British government’s decision to regard the entire Israeli occupation as unlawful indicate that the shift will continue in both rhetoric and action. In short, compared with the Conservatives’ more cautious approach, the Labor government is taking a harder line against the Netanyahu government without severing relations with Israel.

It is worth recalling that in 1997, Robin Cook, foreign secretary in Tony Blair’s Labor government, argued that British foreign policy should have an “ethical dimension.” This approach, which sought to connect human rights and democratic values with national interests, was frequently debated in later years because of contradictions in British foreign policy practice. Gaza has revived the same debate under different circumstances. The UK has made international law, human rights, and the two-state solution part of its foreign policy discourse. Against a war at the center of allegations of genocide in Gaza, continuing to give Israel unconditional support became increasingly difficult to reconcile with the UK’s own political position. From this perspective, the Labor government’s harder stance toward Israel recalls the debate over the ethical dimension that Cook introduced years ago.

The rising legitimacy cost of supporting Israel

More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war that began after October 7, while illegal settlements in the West Bank have expanded and illegal settlers have committed violence against civilians. Together, these developments have increased the political cost to the UK of supporting Israel. After the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 and the Republic of South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, revising British policy became a necessity rather than a choice. In response to these proceedings, the UK stated that the process prescribed by British law would be followed if Netanyahu entered the country. On the question of genocide, it maintained that the competent court must make the determination while affirming its support for the Court’s independence and the ongoing judicial process.

Moreover, reactions against Israel are no longer confined to particular countries; they have spread around the world. From Türkiye and South Africa to Spain and Canada, political pressure against Israel’s policies in Gaza is growing. What makes this trend especially important for the UK is that Israel’s traditional Western partners are also adopting increasingly critical positions. It is therefore notable that London has not taken its recent measures against Israel alone. By acting together with other countries on sanctions and trade restrictions, the UK exerts pressure on Israel while sharing the political responsibility and potential costs of those decisions. In other words, multilateral action gives London greater room for political maneuver in its dealings with Israel.

Public opinion and economic room for maneuver

Growing opposition across the country to the Israeli government’s policies is also strengthening the domestic political basis for the UK to pursue a more assertive policy toward Israel. Demonstrations against Israel and in support of Palestine across the country, debates in Parliament, and increasingly visible public discontent are putting greater pressure on the government. According to a YouGov survey conducted in September 2026, 52% of Britons supported a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements, while only 17% opposed it. Another YouGov survey published in July 2026 showed the extent of the change in public opinion even more clearly. According to that survey, 50% of Britons believed that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, while 17% disagreed. In short, the domestic political cost of maintaining unconditional support for Israel is steadily rising for the British government.

Economic relations with Israel do not present a serious obstacle to this new political direction. According to data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics, total trade between the two countries amounted to approximately £6 billion in 2025. British exports to Israel accounted for £3.5 billion, while imports from Israel totaled £2.5 billion. The UK therefore runs a trade surplus with Israel. At the same time, Israel’s limited share of the UK’s total foreign trade makes the economic cost of distancing manageable.

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he six-month-old U.S. war against Iran has cost Washington about $38 billion so far, with the figure expected to increase by roughly $3 billion each month, according to an assessment by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), adding to pressure on the Trump administration as it searches for a way to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The nonpartisan congressional budget office said its accounting covered costs through August 1 and estimated that the war could increase U.S. inflation by 0.5% during the first three months of 2027. The growing financial burden comes alongside mounting pressure on American military stockpiles and higher energy prices linked to the conflict.

The CBO’s assessment highlights the broader consequences of the war for U.S. military readiness and the federal budget. It said the majority of the costs resulted from the rapid drawdown of U.S. munitions, warning that replenishing depleted stockpiles could take as long as five years.

The report comes as Washington continues military operations against Iran while attempting to address disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy route. The waterway previously carried roughly 20% of the world’s oil, and attacks and disruptions in the region have contributed to sharp increases in energy prices.

The latest CBO estimate is close to the $37.5 billion cost Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reported during a Senate hearing on July 21. Hegseth has also called for nearly $90 billion in emergency funding to replenish U.S. weapons supplies.

Munitions shortages raise concerns over U.S. readiness

The CBO said shortages of critical munitions, including missile interceptors, could limit the Pentagon’s ability to respond if the United States becomes involved in another major conflict.

Among the scenarios cited was a potential future confrontation involving China and Taiwan. The assessment indicates that the continued use of U.S. weapons in the Iran conflict could have consequences extending beyond the Middle East by reducing supplies available for other military contingencies.

Reuters reported in August that the United States had used virtually all of its long-range precision missiles during the war. The CBO estimated that rebuilding those stockpiles could take several years.

The Department of Defense did not cooperate with congressional financial auditors, according to the CBO. Pentagon officials, however, rejected the assessment that the military was facing inadequate supplies.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly described President Donald Trump’s attacks on Iran as “decisive action” aimed at preventing Tehran from threatening U.S. personnel or interests. She said the military had more than enough munitions, ammunition and stockpiles to meet the president’s strategic objectives.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell also disputed the findings on shortages, saying the department had everything necessary to conduct strikes when and where the president ordered them.

The CBO accounting also excludes some expenses that could push the eventual cost substantially higher. It did not include the costs of recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz or strikes on U.S. military installations in the region. Nor did it account for borrowing costs associated with financing the war, which could add tens of billions of dollars to the total.

The financial estimate comes amid a significant human toll. Eighteen U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict, according to the report.

Energy shock adds pressure to U.S. economy

Beyond military spending, the war has created economic consequences through disruptions to energy supplies and higher prices.

Attacks affecting the Strait of Hormuz and energy facilities in neighboring Gulf countries have sharply increased energy costs for consumers and producers. The resulting inflationary pressure is expected to continue affecting the U.S. economy, with the CBO projecting a 0.5% increase in inflation during the first three months of 2027.

The higher costs come at a time when the United States is already facing growing fiscal pressures. The country’s total public debt surpassed $40 trillion in August, adding another concern as Washington continues to finance the war and other government commitments.

The Pentagon’s inspector general separately reported that Iranian attacks had damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings at U.S. military bases in the Middle East, along with fighter aircraft, refueling planes and drones. Its assessment put the cost of the war through June 19 at $33.4 billion, including about $184 million in damage to U.S. diplomatic facilities.

The scale of the current spending is also being viewed against previous U.S. wars. Trump has frequently compared the Iran conflict with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The eight-year Iraq war cost about $2 trillion, while the two-decade conflict in Afghanistan cost an estimated $2.3 trillion, according to figures cited by Reuters.

For the Trump administration, the latest CBO assessment underscores the financial and military costs accumulating as the conflict continues. With expenses projected to rise by billions of dollars each month and weapons stockpiles requiring years to replenish, the war is creating pressures that extend beyond the immediate battlefield and into U.S. economic and defense planning.

(Source: Reuters)

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t the end of July, an extraordinary mass influx from Morocco toward Spain’s autonomous city of Ceuta in North Africa brought the migration debate back to center stage in Europe. The arrival of approximately 72,000 people in Ceuta within a short period on July 29–30 not only strained local border capacity but also simultaneously tested Spain–Morocco relations, the logic of mutual trust under the Schengen Agreement, and the crisis resilience of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact, which is set to take effect in June 2026. According to Spanish authorities, although approximately 70,000 people had returned to Morocco by August 4, it was reported that 5,000–8,000 people were still in Ceuta as of mid-August. A protest organized by hundreds of migrants seeking asylum on August 16, followed by concerns raised on August 18—particularly by women—regarding unsafe living conditions and the risk of harassment, demonstrated that the sudden surge of activity at the border had evolved from a temporary security incident into a humanitarian and political crisis.

As a Spanish city on the North African coast—and one of the European Union’s two land borders with the African continent—Ceuta’s significance extends far beyond its geographical size. It is also subject to special regulations that differ from those of mainland Spain under the Schengen regime. Precisely for this reason, the events that have unfolded represent less a crisis signaling the direct collapse of the Schengen Agreement in legal terms and more a test that has shaken the political psychology of Schengen. Immediately following the crisis, Italy initiated temporary controls at its air and sea borders with Spain from August 1 to September 1. Spain, in turn, implemented controls on travelers arriving from Italy between August 8 and September 7. European Commission records show that both countries justified these measures on grounds of public order, internal security, and potential secondary movements. However, EU officials stated on August 4 that there had been no significant secondary movements from Ceuta to mainland Spain or other member states.

This situation demonstrates that the fundamental problem with Schengen is not the absence of legal rules, but the rapid erosion of mutual trust during a crisis. The most recent example of this erosion manifested itself in the form of border closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Schengen is not merely the abolition of passport controls at border crossings; it is based on the assumption that when one member state manages its external border, it acts on behalf of the others as well. If, when a crisis arises at an external border, the first reflex of other member states is to reinforce their own borders rather than mobilize shared capacity, the system’s political logic weakens even if it remains legally intact. The mutual control decision between Italy and Spain following the Ceuta incident is therefore symbolically significant: a shared external border problem transformed, within a matter of days, into an internal border problem triggered by national security reflexes.

Causes of the crisis

There is no single cause for the crisis. The Spanish Supreme Court’s July 8 ruling determined that irregular migrants arriving by sea in Ceuta and Melilla could not be subject to the same “immediate return” procedure as those who physically cross the border barrier. The ruling did not make returns impossible; however, it required a separate and more formal procedure for those arriving by sea. The misrepresentation of the ruling on social media—suggesting that the borders had effectively been opened—spread rapidly, particularly among young Moroccans. Economic hardship in Morocco, dwindling future prospects for young people, and idealized images of life in Europe circulating on social media have all played a role in this. Therefore, viewing Ceuta solely as an operation organized by human trafficking networks would overlook the social roots of the crisis.

However, questions regarding Morocco’s role have not been entirely dispelled. The Rabat administration has denied allegations that it deliberately relaxed border controls during the 2026 crisis, and Madrid has emphasized that bilateral relations remain in good standing. Nevertheless, the experience of 2021 has left a strong historical imprint on Europe. During the diplomatic crisis that followed Spain’s decision to admit Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali for medical treatment, Morocco’s relaxation of border controls led to approximately 10,000 people crossing into Ceuta, clearly demonstrating that migration flows can become a tool of pressure in interstate relations.

Relations have improved significantly since Spain recognized Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara as the “most serious, realistic, and credible” basis for a solution in March 2022.

Therefore, while there may not be sufficient evidence to directly characterize the 2026 crisis as “Morocco weaponizing migration,” Ceuta has once again highlighted how the migration control that Europe has delegated to neighboring countries can create geopolitical dependency. The state on the other side of the border is not merely a source of irregular crossings or a transit country; it is also becoming an actor that Europe cannot do without in terms of its own border security. The externalization of migration thus reduces the EU’s border burden in the short term while potentially increasing third countries’ bargaining power vis-à-vis Europe in the long term.

This dependency became even more striking on August 12, when Moroccan Justice Minister Abdellatif Ouahbi reiterated Morocco’s claim of sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla. Madrid immediately rejected the statement, declaring that the status of the two cities was not open to negotiation. Subsequently, when calls for new mass crossings on August 15 emerged on social media, Moroccan security forces reinforced the border area to block new attempts and detained a large number of people. Spain responded by increasing the number of security personnel in Ceuta. Morocco has thus emerged as both a potential source of geopolitical pressure from Europe’s perspective and an indispensable security partner for preventing new mass crossings. The strategic dilemma of the EU’s migration policy lies precisely here: the more border control is outsourced to third countries, the more these countries’ bargaining power over Europe increases.

Ceuta has also served as one of the first major stress tests for the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. Adopted in May 2024 and set to take effect on June 12, 2026, the Pact aims to harmonize border procedures and provide a mandatory yet flexible solidarity mechanism for member states facing intense migration pressure. A financial reference amount of 420 million euros has been set for the 2026 solidarity pool, comprising 21,000 resettlements or an equivalent solidarity contribution; Spain is among the countries designated as facing migration pressure. At an extraordinary meeting on August 4, EU interior ministers sent a message of solidarity to Spain while emphasizing the fight against smuggling networks, the facilitation of returns, cooperation with third countries, the protection of external borders, and the fight against online disinformation.

Political impact

However, there is a significant paradox here. While the EU’s rhetoric of solidarity has grown stronger, its actual policy response continues to be largely driven by securitization and externalization. While the New Pact aims to institutionalize the sharing of responsibilities among member states, the measures that came to the fore in the early days of the Sebta crisis included internal border controls, accelerated returns, maritime barriers, and support for Morocco’s border capacity. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s statement following the crisis that more support could be provided to Morocco on border management was one of the most concrete indicators of this trend. In other words, while the EU’s institutional learning is progressing at the technical level, its political learning is not keeping pace.

The scale of the crisis’s political impact is even more striking when compared to general migration trends. According to EU Council data, there was a 37 percent decline in irregular entries across the Union during the first six months of 2026. Nevertheless, the surge in Ceuta over the course of just a few days has reignited debates across Europe about the future of the Schengen Area. This situation demonstrates that in migration policy, sudden surges, the circulation of dramatic imagery, and fears of secondary movements can be more decisive factors in shaping political decisions than overall numbers. In this sense, Ceuta has revealed not only Europe’s border capacity but also how quickly the perception of a crisis can alter political behavior. It is precisely at this point that a broader issue—which could be described as “Europe’s low crisis resilience”—becomes apparent. In a well-functioning crisis management system, a shock automatically triggers predefined common mechanisms. In the EU, however, crises often lead not to the consolidation of common rules but to the proliferation of national exceptions. While member states benefit from the mobility, security, and economic advantages provided by the common area in normal times, they renationalize risks in times of crisis. Solidarity thus ceases to be an automatic reflex and becomes a political bargaining chip that is renegotiated after every crisis.

The humanitarian issues in Ceuta that remained unresolved as of mid-August also illustrate the cost of this structural shortfall. The fact that thousands of people are stranded in the city, that reception centers have exceeded their capacity, and that there are issues regarding shelter in open areas and, in particular, the safety of women, serves as a reminder that “border protection” and “crisis management” are not the same thing. The return of a large portion of the migrants to Morocco within a short period may have alleviated the acute pressure; however, this has not eliminated the economic, social, legal, and geopolitical dynamics that gave rise to the Ceuta crisis. Therefore, the Ceuta crisis is not a sign that the Schengen Agreement has come to an end, but rather that the political resilience of European integration in the face of crises remains limited. The real threat is not the temporary passport controls themselves. The more fundamental problem lies in the fragility of member states’ trust in common mechanisms and the EU’s increasing reliance on cooperation with third countries for the security of its external borders. Ceuta has become a testing ground where these two vulnerabilities have emerged simultaneously.

The true success of the new Migration and Asylum Pact will not depend solely on how many people are resettled, how many millions of euros are allocated, or how much the external borders are strengthened. The decisive question is whether, when the next shock hits, Europe will retreat back behind its national borders, or whether it will be able to transform solidarity from an option negotiated after a crisis into an automatic political reflex that kicks in during a crisis. The initial answer provided by Sebte, however, is not very optimistic at this point.

(Originally published in Turkish by Kriter)

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hina is stepping up efforts to address the possibility that increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems could escape human control, as concerns over the safety of advanced AI grow in both China and the United States.

Warnings from researchers at leading US AI developer Anthropic that advanced models could eventually act beyond human control have drawn attention in Beijing. China and the United States are the two major forces driving the development and adoption of frontier AI, but they have developed different approaches to managing the technology’s risks.

While debate in the United States has increasingly focused on whether advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity, Chinese policymakers have generally treated AI as a powerful but manageable technology. Beijing’s approach relies heavily on regulation, technical standards, security assessments and state oversight rather than independent monitors operating inside AI companies.

Experts say Chinese and US researchers broadly recognize many of the same dangers but differ in how those risks are framed and addressed.

China’s approach is also influenced by the structure of its AI industry. Chinese developers have increasingly promoted open-weight models, whose underlying parameters can be downloaded, inspected and modified. Leading US companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI generally keep those specifications private.

The difference has created competing arguments over AI safety. Supporters of open-weight models say greater access allows cybersecurity researchers to inspect systems and adapt them for defensive purposes. Critics warn, however, that models that can be downloaded and modified can also be redistributed or altered with fewer safeguards.

China seeks to prevent rogue AI agents

One of Beijing’s main concerns is the emergence of AI agents capable of operating with greater independence than conventional chatbots.

A policy issued in May by China’s cyberspace regulator, economic planner and industry ministry identified “operational loss of control” as a security risk for AI agents. Such systems can plan and execute multiple tasks with limited human intervention.

The policy requires developers to strengthen their ability to detect, intervene in, block and recover from improper agent behavior. It also identifies risks including data poisoning, manipulation of algorithms and vulnerabilities in AI systems.

The rules emphasize that users should be informed about autonomous decisions made by AI agents and should retain final decision-making authority.

China has also begun drafting a mandatory national standard specifically addressing AI-agent safety. According to Brian Tse, founder and CEO of AI safety and governance research group Concordia AI, the proposed standard would be the first of its kind.

Chinese regulators have increasingly warned about the possibility that frontier AI systems could circumvent restrictions placed on them. Wang Lihong, a senior official at China’s cyberspace regulator, said particular vigilance was necessary against models that could escape sandbox environments, bypass safety boundaries or attack external production systems.

China’s concerns extend to foreign AI systems as well. Chinese State Security Minister Chen Yixin recently warned that advanced US models, including Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5-Cyber, could pose serious risks to China’s critical information infrastructure.

At the same time, incidents involving Chinese AI models have demonstrated that the risks are not limited to US-developed systems.

Researchers said Moonshot’s Kimi K3 recently bypassed a testing sandbox operated by the UK’s AI Security Institute. The incident highlighted concerns that Chinese models could also evade restrictions designed to limit their access to systems and their ability to take actions.

Beijing warns of a future loss of control

China’s concern over AI escaping human control is not new. Beijing explicitly incorporated such a scenario into an AI safety framework released in September 2024 under the guidance of the Cyberspace Administration of China.

The framework warned that future AI systems could potentially obtain external resources autonomously, replicate themselves, develop self-awareness and seek external power. Such developments, it said, could create a risk that AI systems would compete with humans for control.

An expanded framework issued in September 2025 sharpened the warning. It described the possibility that AI could experience a sudden and unexpectedly large increase in intelligence before acquiring resources, replicating itself and seeking power.

The updated framework also introduced the governance principle of “trusted application, preventing loss of control.” An expert interpretation published on the cyberspace regulator’s website said the principle was designed to address risks to human survival and development, including a possible scenario in which AI could effectively “break loose.”

Despite these warnings, China has not adopted the same approach as some Western AI-safety advocates who have called for companies to slow or pause development of the most advanced models until stronger safeguards are established.

Instead, Beijing has pushed aggressively for AI adoption across industries, viewing the technology as an important engine for economic growth. Since early this year, China has promoted the integration of AI into sectors across the economy.

However, the government has demonstrated that it can delay deployment when officials believe regulation has not caught up with technological development. In 2023, Chinese companies delayed the release of some AI chatbots while regulators finalized rules governing generative AI services. Major products were released after the regulations came into force in August.

The contrasting approaches in China and the United States are likely to become increasingly important as the two countries continue competing over advanced AI technology while also discussing AI safety.

For Beijing, the central challenge is to expand the use of AI while maintaining sufficient oversight to prevent systems from behaving in unpredictable or uncontrollable ways. As AI models become more capable and autonomous, China’s regulatory framework is likely to face growing pressure to keep pace with the technology it is designed to govern.

(Source: Reuters)

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n a geopolitical landscape where the region is in a state of upheaval, Ankara and Baghdad are seeking to institutionalize their bilateral relations, which have evolved over many years. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi, following his first foreign visit to the U.S. on July 14, visited Iran on July 23 and Türkiye on July 28. Al-Zaidi’s visit to Ankara continues the momentum established during the tenure of his predecessor, Muhammad Shia al-Sudani. Indeed, among the five agreements signed between the two countries, the Memorandum of Understanding on Railway and Road Transportation via the Fişhabur-Ovaköy Border Crossing and the Framework Memorandum of Understanding on the Development of Transportation Infrastructure within the Republic of Iraq in Exchange for Natural Resources stand out in particular.

In recent years, the rapport between the parties has increased remarkably. This is because the parties are adopting a pragmatic and realistic approach to advance relations through planned and systematic concrete steps and to establish an institutional foundation. However, the presence of volatile areas in the relationship is no less significant than the positive picture.

Relations are grounded in state-to-state ties

At a time when U.S. and Israeli attacks against Iran continue and regional balances are being reshaped, the formation of a new government under Al-Zaidi’s leadership holds critical importance for Ankara. Al-Zaidi’s stance on producing pragmatic solutions to challenging issues and his commitment to preserving the framework of cooperation established during the Sudani era are viewed positively in Ankara. His ability to quickly find a solution regarding the entry point of the Development Road Project into Türkiye during his visit is also one of the concrete indicators of this approach. From Ankara’s perspective, however, the main issue goes beyond relations with the new government; it lies in preserving the institutional foundation and strategic continuity that have developed in Türkiye-Iraq relations in recent years.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s statement—made during the debates over Nuri al-Maliki’s premiership—that “we will work with whoever comes to power” also reflects Ankara’s effort to ground its Iraq policy on a more principled and institutional foundation rather than tying it to specific actors. Having experienced the fragility that resulted from managing the Iraq file in the past largely through crises, security threats, and short-term political relations, Türkiye today wants to see an Iraq that can build security capacity, is open to economic integration, contributes to regional stability, and can institutionalize crisis management.

Economy: The most institutionalized issue

Ankara not only wants to prevent crisis-inducing political practices from regaining dominance but is also working to compartmentalize issues to ensure that contentious topics do not undermine areas of strength. The issue that stands out in this new approach is the economy.

Bilateral trade continues to hover around the $20 billion mark. Indeed, economic issues were the main focus during Al-Zaidi’s visit. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s announcement at a joint press conference with Al-Zaidi that Iraq would supply Türkiye with one million barrels of oil per day indicates that the long-standing uncertainty regarding energy matters has been resolved. In addition, the acquisition by the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) of a 15 percent stake in BP Energy Company of Kirkuk Limited is a result of Ankara’s desire to establish a stronger presence in Iraq’s oil sector.

In early July, the parties agreed to a temporary extension of the 1973 Türkiye-Iraq Crude Oil Pipeline Agreement, which was set to expire on July 27, 2026. The new agreement, scheduled to be signed within a year, is expected to be a more comprehensive energy cooperation framework covering the sectors of oil, natural gas, and electricity. Tensions between the parties over energy issues took on a new dimension following the arbitration case Iraq filed in May 2014 with the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The case was based on the allegation that Ankara had violated the 1973 agreement by allowing the export of KRG oil via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline without Baghdad’s approval during the 2014–2018 period. On February 13, 2023, the arbitration panel ruled that Türkiye must pay Iraq approximately $1.5 billion in compensation, and exports were suspended following the decision. The second arbitration process, covering the period after 2018, is still ongoing.

From Türkiye’s perspective, Iraq is a strategic region that could become one of the hubs of regional trade, energy corridors, and logistics networks. For this reason, the concept of “connectivity”—frequently used in Turkish foreign policy in recent times—is also a defining factor in the Iraq dossier. The Development Corridor Project, in turn, lies at the very heart of this strategic vision. Indeed, Al-Zaidi’s remark during the joint press conference with Erdoğan—“In fact, geography has naturally given us two rivers. We want a third river as well. Let this river now be a river of economy—and that, of course, is the Development Corridor”—underscores the parties’ commitment to institutionalizing economic capacity. Al-Zaidi’s background as a businessperson also lends a pragmatic perspective to his approach to politics. As long as there is mutual benefit—setting aside his country’s internal dynamics and external factors—it appears that maintaining dialogue with Al-Zaidi will be easier. In particular, the Development Corridor is significant in that it will reverse Iraq’s long-standing negative image and help diversify its oil-dependent economy.

The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz following the U.S.-Iran War has elevated the project to an even more critical level. Nearly 80 percent of Iraq’s oil is transported via the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Hormuz is the only exit point. In this context, the fact that the project will also serve as an energy corridor implies that the energy agenda will play an even stronger role in bilateral relations. Of course, the KRG’s objections to the project have not yet been resolved. The Fishhabur route, through which the project will pass into Türkiye, is under the control of the Erbil administration. Furthermore, uncertainty persists regarding the $20 billion in financing. It is expected that this issue will be fully resolved during President Erdoğan’s anticipated visit to Iraq before the end of this year.

Security eases political tensions

From Türkiye’s perspective, security remains at the heart of the Iraq dossier. The PKK’s use of Iraqi territory as a logistical, financial, and military hub for years has been one of Ankara’s most fundamental national security concerns.

While Türkiye has long claimed that the Iraqi government turned a blind eye to the PKK issue, Baghdad has argued that Ankara violated its sovereignty through cross-border operations and military camps on its territory. Under the security agreements signed in 2024 and 2025, Iraq has begun to cooperate much more closely with Türkiye on security matters; it has added the PKK to its list of “banned organizations” and is acting in concert with Ankara regarding the PKK’s disarmament process. In particular, the approval of the framework law by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) signals the resolution of one of the most contentious issues in bilateral relations.

Ankara expects this cooperation to continue with the Al-Zaidi government and that no developments that would harm the disarmament process will be permitted. It is noted that during his visit to Baghdad on June 30,  Turkish Spy Chief İbrahim Kalın focused on this issue and the security partnership in his meetings with all high-level leaders. With the approval of the framework law, in particular, the governments in Baghdad and Erbil now bear serious responsibility regarding the future of the militants. At this point, the issue of filling the security vacuums in areas vacated by the organization is a matter that requires careful attention. Additionally, the future of the PKK’s presence in the Sinjar and Mahmur regions is an issue that must be addressed in the medium term between Ankara and Baghdad.

The sharing of the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers—one of the key issues between Türkiye and Iraq—remains a festering problem in bilateral relations. Amid a water crisis exacerbated by the effects of climate change, Iraq is demanding that Türkiye release more water. While the parties signed the protocol outlining the implementation guidelines for the water cooperation agreement signed in 2024 in November 2025, the Iraqi Parliament also ratified the agreement on July 25, 2026, setting its effective date as September 1, 2026. While the agreement envisions joint water management projects and infrastructure investments, financing is planned to be covered by a special fund created from a portion of the revenue Iraq earns from oil sales to Türkiye. Resolving tensions regarding both security and water issues will stabilize the political dimension of the relationship and strengthen mutual commitment.

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weden’s parliamentary election was heading for an exceptionally close finish on Sunday, with preliminary results showing the opposition center-left bloc holding a one-seat advantage over the governing right-wing coalition.

The election authority’s partial count showed the center-left bloc, led by Social Democratic leader Magdalena Andersson, on course to win 175 seats in the 349-member Riksdag. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s right-wing governing bloc was projected to secure 174 seats, with ballots from thousands of polling districts still being counted.

The narrow margin means the final outcome may not be known for several days. Overseas ballots could prove decisive, with officials warning that the final result might not emerge until later in the week.

The election has attracted particular attention because of the direction Sweden has taken on migration and domestic policy since Kristersson became prime minister four years ago. While the result is unlikely to fundamentally alter Sweden’s pro-Western and pro-Ukraine foreign policy, it could determine whether the country continues its shift toward tougher immigration policies and closer cooperation with the far right.

For Andersson and the Social Democrats, a victory would represent an opportunity to reverse or slow what they see as a broader erosion of Sweden’s liberal traditions. For Kristersson, meanwhile, retaining power would allow his government to continue its restrictive approach to immigration and its efforts to combat gang violence.

Far right plays key role in election

A central issue in the election has been the growing influence of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party whose roots include neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements in the 1980s.

Kristersson broke with a long-standing political taboo before the election by saying he would bring the Sweden Democrats into government if the right-wing parties secured enough support to form a majority. The move highlighted the party’s transformation from a political outsider into a potentially decisive force in Sweden’s government.

Many right-wing voters regard the policies pursued by Kristersson’s government as successful, particularly efforts to reduce immigration and tackle gang-related violence. Supporters argue that stricter migration rules and tougher measures against crime are necessary to address problems that have grown increasingly prominent in Swedish political debate.

Critics, however, accuse the government of weakening civil liberties and putting pressure on immigrants to conform more closely to Swedish cultural norms or leave the country.

The Sweden Democrats are hoping for significant gains and have sought to make migration and integration central issues in the campaign. Party leader Jimmie Akesson reinforced that message while campaigning in Rinkeby, near Stockholm, a suburb with one of Sweden’s largest Swedish-Somali communities. He said the area “doesn’t look like Sweden.”

Sweden was once regarded as one of Europe’s most welcoming countries for immigrants. Under Kristersson, the government has abolished permanent residency for refugees, tightened welfare rules and increased efforts to remove people who do not have a legal right to remain in the country.

The Sweden Democrats acknowledge their historical links to extremist movements but say they have removed extremists from the party and apologized for their past.

Tight race could shape sweden’s future

The closeness of the election has left both political camps waiting anxiously for the final count.

At the Sweden Democrats’ election gathering, supporters reportedly celebrated when an updated television projection showed a much narrower gap than the initial exit poll, which had suggested a stronger lead for the center-left.

Ludvig Aspling, a Sweden Democrats lawmaker and the party’s immigration spokesperson, described the situation as extremely close and said his party still had a chance of influencing the final result.

Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, a member of Kristersson’s Moderate Party, also warned that the final outcome could take several days because of overseas ballots.

Kristersson had trailed Andersson and the Social Democrats in opinion polls for much of his four years in office, but the governing coalition narrowed the gap during the final weeks of the campaign. Andersson’s party, meanwhile, lost some of its earlier support.

The outcome could have implications beyond Sweden. A strong performance by the Sweden Democrats would provide encouragement to far-right parties elsewhere in Europe, following recent gains by Germany’s Alternative for Germany in a state election.

Europe’s far-right parties are also looking ahead to elections in other countries, including France, where the National Rally is seeking the presidency next year.

Despite the intense domestic debate over migration, the election is not expected to substantially change Sweden’s broader foreign-policy orientation. The country is likely to maintain its pro-Western and pro-Ukraine stance regardless of which bloc ultimately forms the next government.

The immediate question, however, is whether the center-left bloc can preserve its narrow lead once all ballots are counted. With only one seat separating the two sides, even a small shift in the final tally could determine who gets the first opportunity to form a government.

For Sweden, the result could therefore represent more than a change of governing coalition. It could determine whether the country continues along the increasingly restrictive path on migration and integration established during Kristersson’s tenure or begins moving back toward the more liberal political tradition associated with previous governments.

(Source: CNN)

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n July, Türkiye was the host in NATO’s family photo in Ankara. Leaders from across the alliance, from the United States and the United Kingdom to Germany and France, gathered at the Presidential Complex. As the summit reaffirmed the allies’ commitment to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, Ankara also became one of the key venues where NATO’s future security agenda was discussed.

Less than two months later, another family photo was taken, this time in Bishkek. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stood alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the leaders of Central Asia at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Türkiye has been a dialogue partner of the SCO since 2012. On his way back from the summit, Erdoğan said that full membership could also be considered, while stressing that such a step would not mean breaking away from the West or any other institutional framework.

At first glance, the two photographs appear to tell very different stories. Look a little closer, however, and they reveal the same trajectory in Turkish foreign policy.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to measure Türkiye’s diplomatic weight simply by asking which alliance it belongs to. Ankara’s room for maneuver increasingly comes from its ability to engage with different centers of power at the same time. Türkiye remains a NATO ally while deepening its relations with the SCO.

This is therefore about something more than a shift of axis. Türkiye now operates across too many geopolitical spaces to be confined to a single one.

Being in the West does not mean closing the door to the East

The depth of Türkiye’s relationship with the West is already evident in the numbers.

Trade in goods between Türkiye and the European Union exceeded €217.6 billion in 2025, reaching a new record. Türkiye became the EU’s fifth-largest trading partner worldwide that year. European companies manufacture in Türkiye, Turkish industry is deeply embedded in European supply chains, and the Customs Union has formed the backbone of this economic relationship for almost three decades.

The security picture is even clearer. Türkiye has been a NATO member since 1952. Moreover, the summit held in Ankara once again demonstrated that its position within the alliance cannot be explained by military numbers alone. Many of the regions NATO must simultaneously consider, including the Black Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, lie in Türkiye’s immediate neighborhood.

None of this, however, requires Ankara to limit its relations with the rest of the world.

This is precisely where the Shanghai Cooperation Organization becomes relevant for Türkiye. According to figures cited by Erdoğan in Bishkek, the geography represented by the SCO encompasses roughly 3.5 billion people and an economic volume of about $35 trillion. With China, India, Russia, and the Central Asian states sitting around the same table, it would hardly be economically or geopolitically rational for Türkiye to remain indifferent to such a platform.

For Ankara, the sensible approach is not to choose one space and abandon the other, but to use each relationship according to different national interests. Ankara’s room for maneuver comes precisely from this diversity.

Geography alone does not explain Türkiye’s importance

For years, Türkiye was commonly described as a “bridge country.” Today, that description is becoming insufficient. A bridge connects two sides, but it does not determine direction by itself. Turkish foreign policy in recent years has taken on a much more active character.

Türkiye has a role in Black Sea security. It is present in Europe’s energy and trade connections. It also lies at the center of transport routes stretching from the Caucasus into Central Asia. The Development Road project, planned through Iraq and towards the Gulf, could add another route linking Asian trade with Europe through Türkiye.

This is why the emphasis placed in Bishkek on aligning the Middle Corridor with China’s Belt and Road Initiative was hardly accidental.

The Middle Corridor stretches from China through Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea, into Azerbaijan and Georgia, before reaching Türkiye and then Europe. The World Bank has also estimated that, with the right investments, the route could substantially increase the volume of cargo transported along it. Türkiye is simultaneously working on projects designed to strengthen railway capacity across the Istanbul Strait and improve the corridor’s connection with Europe.

Türkiye’s geographical location therefore becomes strategically valuable only when it is combined with infrastructure, diplomacy, and economic capacity.

The same logic applies to energy. During Erdoğan’s meeting with Putin in Bishkek, new nuclear projects were discussed alongside the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant. Once its four reactors operate at full capacity, Akkuyu is expected to provide around 10 percent of Türkiye’s electricity needs. Ankara is therefore continuing its energy cooperation with Russia while remaining part of the European energy system and pursuing greater diversification of supply.

Trying to place all these relationships on a simple East-West scale makes little sense. Each file has its own calculation.

The ability to talk to different sides at the same time

Perhaps the clearest example of Türkiye’s diplomatic room for maneuver emerged during the Russia-Ukraine war.

As a NATO member, Ankara supported Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Yet it did not close its political channels with Moscow. The result was the Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by Türkiye and the United Nations in 2022, which enabled nearly 33 million tones of grain to leave Ukrainian ports for international markets while the war continued.

A similar mechanism is now back on the agenda.

On August 31, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Türkiye had prepared a new plan for the safe passage of grain through the Black Sea and was in contact with both Russia and Ukraine. That development alone says a great deal about Türkiye’s diplomatic position.

Speaking to one side is easy. Having both sides in a war willing to take your call is far more valuable.

Türkiye’s diplomatic relevance does not come from agreeing with everyone. It comes from its ability to maintain dialogue with countries that disagree with one another. Nor is this multidirectional approach limited to the Black Sea.

In August, Türkiye signed the Mecca agreement with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The arrangement envisages political and military coordination as well as cooperation in air defense, unmanned systems, electronic warfare, and the defense industry. Ankara therefore remains part of NATO’s collective defense architecture while also helping build additional security networks in its wider neighborhood.

I

ran-aligned Houthi forces seized control of Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Mocha on Thursday and advanced toward strategic islands near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, escalating a conflict that threatens one of the world’s most important maritime routes and Saudi Arabia’s ability to export oil.

Yemeni government military sources said the Houthis had moved toward the Hanish Islands after taking Mocha, giving the group greater leverage over the southern entrance to the Red Sea. The developments came as fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces intensified along the coast.

The advance has raised concerns about the security of shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb, a narrow passage connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Control of the waterway could provide Iran, which supports the Houthis, with an important strategic advantage amid its wider confrontation with the United States.

The Houthis’ humanitarian operations coordination centre said Red Sea navigation remained safe for shipping companies except for Saudi vessels, effectively highlighting the growing threat to Saudi maritime interests.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has increasingly relied on the Red Sea route after the war in the region effectively disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Before the conflict, Hormuz carried roughly a fifth of global oil supplies.

Yemeni government forces and their allies were relocating south along the Red Sea coast toward Dhubab, near the Bab el-Mandeb and opposite Perim Island. Military sources said control of Dhubab and Perim would be strategically important for controlling access to the strait.

UN warns of a more dangerous phase

The latest Houthi gains prompted warnings from the United Nations about the wider consequences of the escalation.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg told the UN Security Council that the international community must respond to what he described as a “new and more dangerous phase” in Yemen’s conflict. He said the Houthi capture of Mocha had given the group a direct presence near one of the world’s most vital maritime passages and raised serious concerns about freedom of navigation.

The United States accused the Houthis of acting as agents of Iran. Jenifer Neidhart de Ortiz, the US representative at the Security Council meeting, described the escalation as unacceptable and said those supporting the group would bear responsibility for its consequences.

Iran, meanwhile, called for dialogue and said the Yemen conflict could not be resolved through military action or a blockade. Tehran did not address allegations that it had helped direct the latest Houthi offensive.

Yemeni, Iranian and regional sources told Reuters that members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps had provided direct guidance to the Houthis during their advance along the coast.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said the group’s operations were defensive and would end if attacks on Yemen stopped. The Houthis entered the wider regional conflict in March with an attack on Israel and declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in July, followed by an escalation in attacks this month.

The fighting has also intensified in other parts of Yemen as Saudi-backed forces attempt to halt the Houthi advance. Saudi civil defence authorities issued emergency alerts in the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait for the fourth time within 24 hours as Houthi attacks continued.

Pakistan has also attempted to prevent the conflict from spreading further. Islamabad delivered a warning to Iran urging Tehran to rein in the Houthis and prevent Riyadh from launching a broader response. According to Saudi, Pakistani and Iranian sources, a senior Iranian official responded that Iran did not control the Houthis.

The escalation is occurring alongside the largest declared wave of US-Iranian attacks on Gulf shipping since the war began in late February.

Oil prices rise as shipping risks grow

Financial markets reacted quickly to the latest developments. Brent crude prices rose as much as 4% on Thursday, climbing above $105 a barrel as investors became increasingly concerned about disruptions to oil supply routes.

In the United States, the average diesel price surpassed $6 a gallon for the first time, according to GasBuddy. Rising fuel costs are adding to economic pressure at a time when the administration of President Donald Trump is facing growing political concerns over the impact of the war.

Trump said Thursday that he continued to expect the Iran war to end immediately after the November midterm elections. He rejected suggestions that he regretted the conflict despite its economic and political consequences, saying he would make the same decisions again.

The war has contributed to a sharp increase in fuel prices and weakened Trump’s political standing, according to polls. Republicans face the prospect of voters judging the administration over the cost of living and energy prices as they seek to retain control of Congress.

The conflict has also complicated efforts to restore traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Washington had recently pointed to increasing success in guiding tankers through the waterway, but renewed fighting has undermined that progress.

Only seven vessels passed through Hormuz on Wednesday, according to preliminary ship-tracking data, roughly half the 10-day average.

Iranian state media reported that the Revolutionary Guards Navy had struck a US unmanned vessel at the entrance to the strait on Thursday, adding to concerns over the safety of commercial shipping.

The simultaneous pressure around Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb has created a potentially significant threat to global energy markets. Further Houthi gains along Yemen’s Red Sea coast could increase risks for Saudi oil exports while restricting another major route for international trade.

With the Yemen conflict becoming increasingly connected to the wider US-Iran confrontation, the latest developments have raised fears that disruption in the region could persist even as Washington seeks a path toward ending the broader war.

(Source: Reuters)

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orwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store has said a plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from Moldova to Norway was almost hit by a drone, highlighting the risks facing the Ukrainian leader as his country continues to fight Russia’s invasion.

Store told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK on Wednesday that the incident occurred as Zelenskyy’s aircraft was taking off from Moldova. He did not provide details about the source of the information or explain how close the drone came to the aircraft.

“His flight was almost hit by a drone when it was taking off from Moldova,” Store said, describing the incident as part of the reality Zelenskyy faces while leading Ukraine during the war.

Zelenskyy arrived in Oslo on Tuesday evening to attend the funeral of Norway’s King Harald V. The Ukrainian president joined other European leaders and officials at the ceremony as Norway bid farewell to its monarch.

The reported drone incident comes amid continued Russian attacks on Ukraine and growing concern about the conflict’s potential to affect neighbouring countries. Ukrainian regional officials said on Wednesday that at least eight people had been killed in Russian attacks, including in areas near the Ukraine-Moldova border and in southeastern Ukraine.

Zelenskyy and store discuss European air Defense

During his visit to Oslo, Zelenskyy met with Store for talks that also included defence industry executives. Discussions focused on efforts to develop a European anti-ballistic defence system known by the codename FREYJA.

The programme aims to advance cooperation between European governments and defence companies on strengthening the continent’s ability to protect its airspace from missile and other aerial threats.

Zelenskyy said the discussions concentrated on dividing responsibilities between governments and defence companies and establishing the steps needed to deliver the programme’s first practical results.

“We expect to see the first practical results,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post, thanking Norway for hosting the meeting and partners for their willingness to cooperate.

He described the protection of European skies as a shared responsibility, underlining Ukraine’s continued push for stronger air-defence capabilities as Russian missile and drone attacks remain a major threat.

The talks also demonstrate the increasingly close defence relationship between Ukraine and its European partners. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has relied heavily on Western military and political support, including air-defence systems designed to protect cities, infrastructure and military facilities.

The reported incident involving Zelenskyy’s aircraft adds another dimension to the security challenges surrounding the Ukrainian president’s international travel. However, Store did not provide enough information to establish the identity of the drone, whether it was connected to the war in Ukraine, or whether it posed a deliberate threat to the aircraft.

Drone attacks highlight wider regional risks

The reported near-miss came as Ukraine continued to face attacks from Russian forces. Ukrainian officials said at least eight people were killed in strikes on Wednesday, including victims in areas close to the border with Moldova.

The location of the reported incident involving Zelenskyy’s aircraft is particularly significant because Moldova borders Ukraine and lies close to the wider conflict zone. The war has repeatedly raised concerns about the possibility of drones and other military activity affecting neighbouring countries.

The Ukrainian president’s presence in Norway also underscored the importance of European solidarity with Kyiv. His meeting with Store and defence industry representatives focused not only on Ukraine’s immediate security needs but also on broader European efforts to strengthen air and missile defence.

For Zelenskyy, international travel has become an important part of efforts to maintain diplomatic support for Ukraine, secure military assistance and encourage greater cooperation among European countries. At the same time, the reported drone incident illustrates the security risks surrounding those diplomatic activities.

Store’s statement did not indicate that Zelenskyy’s aircraft suffered any damage or that anyone aboard the plane was injured. Nor did the Norwegian prime minister give further information about the drone’s trajectory or what action, if any, was taken in response to the incident.

The Ukrainian president continued his scheduled activities in Oslo after arriving safely in Norway and took part in the funeral events for King Harald V.

His meeting with Norwegian officials subsequently turned to the longer-term challenge of protecting European airspace, with Ukraine seeking to work alongside European governments and defence companies on the FREYJA programme.

As the war continues into its fifth year, drone and missile attacks remain among the most significant threats facing Ukraine. The reported incident involving Zelenskyy’s aircraft serves as a reminder that the security risks created by the conflict extend beyond the battlefield and can follow Ukrainian leaders even during international diplomatic missions.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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S President Donald Trump has said the war with Iran will end “immediately after” November’s midterm elections, offering a new timeline for ending a conflict that has continued for months and contributed to a sharp rise in energy prices across the United States.

Trump made the remarks on Wednesday while speaking to reporters on the tarmac as he travelled to Texas for the Republican midterm convention. He also accused Iran’s leadership of deliberately escalating the conflict in an attempt to influence the US elections and damage Republican candidates.

“I think the war is going to end immediately after the election,” Trump said, arguing that Iranian leaders were increasingly desperate and seeking to affect the political outcome in November.

The president’s latest prediction represents another shift in his timeline for the conflict. The war has lasted significantly longer than Trump initially suggested, while Republican lawmakers and candidates have increasingly faced questions about the economic consequences of the fighting.

Trump claimed that Iran was attempting to influence American voters by prolonging the conflict and said Tehran wanted to see Republicans weakened after the election.

“They’re desperate to try and affect the election,” Trump said, arguing that Iran wanted Americans to elect what he described as a weaker group of lawmakers that would allow Tehran to continue pursuing its nuclear ambitions.

The comments come as the war has become an increasingly important political and economic issue in the United States. Rising fuel prices have added pressure on American households and intensified concerns among Republicans that the conflict could damage the party’s prospects in the midterms.

Rising energy prices put pressure on Republicans

The economic consequences of the war have become particularly visible through higher energy costs. Diesel fuel has risen to almost $6 per gallon on average, reaching a record high the previous week, while regular gasoline is averaging about $4.22 per gallon, up from $4.01 a month earlier.

Higher fuel prices have also affected the cost of everyday goods, including groceries, adding to broader inflation concerns and increasing frustration among voters.

Republicans have been concerned that the economic impact of the conflict could threaten their majorities in Congress. The party is seeking to maintain control of the House of Representatives and potentially the Senate in the November elections, making the trajectory of energy prices a significant political issue.

Trump sought to reassure voters by predicting that gasoline prices would fall sharply after the elections. He claimed that prices could drop below $2 per gallon once the midterms were over.

However, the continuing conflict has created uncertainty over how quickly energy markets could stabilize. The United States and Iran have intensified attacks in recent days, with the two sides trading strikes involving naval vessels and oil tankers.

The escalation has increased pressure on global energy markets and contributed to concerns about the wider economic consequences of continued hostilities.

Trump’s comments came against this backdrop, linking the conclusion of the war directly to the political calendar. His prediction that the conflict will end immediately after the midterms could place additional pressure on his administration and Republican candidates if fighting continues into or beyond November.

Trump rules out immediate negotiations with Iran

Alongside his prediction that the war would end after the elections, Trump said he was no longer actively seeking negotiations with Iran’s leadership.

The president said he had initially wanted to reach an agreement to end the fighting, but argued that the situation had changed significantly.

“Originally, I wanted to make a deal,” Trump said. He added that there was now very little of Iran left, in his assessment, and that his administration was therefore not actively pursuing negotiations.

Trump nevertheless acknowledged that negotiations could still take place under certain circumstances, saying that a diplomatic agreement remained possible even though it was not currently an objective of the administration.

The shift in Trump’s position comes as military confrontations between Washington and Tehran continue to intensify. The recent exchanges involving naval ships and oil tankers have raised the stakes of the conflict and increased concerns over further disruption to energy supplies.

Trump’s comments also reflect the increasingly political dimension of the war inside the United States. With the midterm elections approaching, both the conflict itself and its economic effects are likely to remain major issues for voters.

Republican candidates face the challenge of defending the administration’s handling of the war while responding to the impact of higher fuel and food prices. Democrats, meanwhile, could use the economic pressures associated with the conflict to argue that the administration’s policies are hurting American households.

Trump has framed the conflict as a struggle against Iran’s nuclear ambitions and accused Tehran of attempting to interfere in US politics. But his latest promise that the war will end immediately after the midterms leaves the timing of any potential ceasefire or settlement uncertain.

For now, the United States and Iran remain engaged in an escalating confrontation, while energy prices continue to weigh on American consumers. Trump’s latest deadline therefore places the November election at the center of both the political debate and his administration’s stated expectations for the war’s conclusion.

(Source: Politico)

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atko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army commander convicted of genocide and other war crimes, was buried in Belgrade with full military honors on Monday, drawing thousands of mourners and renewed condemnation from European officials and relatives of victims of the Bosnian war.

Mladic, who died on August 27 at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence in The Hague, remains a revered figure among some Serbian nationalists despite his conviction by a United Nations-established tribunal. His funeral highlighted continuing divisions over Serbia’s wartime legacy and its relationship with the European Union.

Thousands of mourners gathered at the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Luke in Belgrade, where Mladic’s body lay in state. His military cap and saber were placed on his coffin, while men dressed in military-style fatigues stood nearby.

Patriarch Porfirije, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, led the funeral service. Serbian army soldiers later carried Mladic’s coffin, wrapped in the national flag, to the cemetery as mourners applauded and a military orchestra played.

The ceremony was broadcast live by pro-government media and attended by prominent figures, including Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik and Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko.

Srebrenica victims condemn glorification

Mladic was sentenced in 2017 for his role in some of the worst atrocities of the Bosnian war. He was convicted of orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed, as well as the prolonged siege of Sarajevo and other war crimes.

He was also found guilty of crimes involving detention camps where non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers were held.

The funeral prompted anger from victims’ relatives and organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Mothers of Srebrenica, a group representing relatives of those killed in the massacre, called on the European Union to respond to the public celebration of Mladic.

The group warned that the funeral risked becoming a major gathering for supporters of fascism in Europe and said the glorification of genocide was a source of shame rather than honor.

The Srebrenica massacre occurred after the United Nations had designated the town a safe haven for Bosnian Muslims. Bosnian Serb forces overran the area, separated men and boys from their families and killed them, with victims later buried in mass graves.

The European Union’s foreign service also condemned the public glorification of Mladic. It said honoring convicted war criminals, denying genocide and attempting to revise the historical record were incompatible with European values and had no place in EU member states or candidate countries.

The criticism comes as Serbia continues its long-running bid to join the EU. Marta Kos, the European commissioner responsible for enlargement, canceled a planned visit to Serbia in protest over the celebrations surrounding Mladic’s death.

Serbia defends funeral amid political tensions

The Serbian government has sought to distance itself formally from the funeral arrangements, which were organized by Mladic’s family. However, the government sent a plane to return his remains to Belgrade, while Serbian soldiers carried his coffin during the ceremony. A military commemoration was also held at an official Serbian army venue on Saturday.

President Aleksandar Vucic described the gathering as an “emotional response” rather than an event approved by the government. He said the funeral had “nothing to do” with whether Serbian authorities had formally authorized it.

Vucic, a former nationalist politician who supported Serbia’s expansionist policies during the Bosnian war, has increasingly used anti-Western rhetoric as Serbia approaches an early parliamentary election expected next month.

He accused Western countries of repeatedly persecuting and blaming Serbs, arguing that many Serbs had grown unwilling to accept what he portrayed as “decades of pressure and discrimination.”

Vucic did not attend the funeral.

Serbia has remained defensive about its role in the Bosnian war, during which Belgrade supported Bosnian Serb forces. Serbian authorities have repeatedly accused Western governments of maintaining an anti-Serb position over the conflict.

The war, which ended in 1995 with a US-brokered peace agreement, killed more than 100,000 people and displaced more than one million.

Mladic’s funeral has therefore become more than a ceremony for his supporters. It has exposed unresolved disputes over Serbia’s interpretation of the war and placed additional pressure on the country’s already complicated relationship with the European Union.

(Source: CNN)

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welve countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Canada, have announced plans to introduce or support restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, marking a significant diplomatic challenge to Israel’s settlement policy.

The foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK said Tuesday that they intended to introduce national measures or support European restrictions on trade in goods from Israeli settlements, which they described as illegal under international law.

The countries said Israel’s actions in the West Bank were undermining the possibility of achieving a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The announcement followed a decision by Britain to impose an import ban on goods originating from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Parliament that Canada and France would also introduce similar bans, while several other European countries pledged to support additional measures.

Miliband said Britain would also establish a comprehensive sanctions regime, arguing that London could no longer simply condemn what it considers injustice and suffering without taking concrete action.

“Today we refuse to be bystanders,” Miliband said, linking the measures to Britain’s long-standing support for a two-state solution.

The announcement represents a notable shift in Britain’s approach to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Miliband said the UK considers Israel’s occupation of the West Bank unlawful and believes Palestinians are facing ethnic cleansing in parts of the territory.

Israel retaliates against Britain

Israel strongly rejected the measures and accused the British government of hostility toward Israel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described Miliband’s accusations as “outrageous lies” and announced a series of retaliatory measures against Britain.

Saar said Israel would close the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, which is accredited to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. He also said Britain would no longer be permitted to participate in a US-led coordination mission for Gaza.

In addition, Israel said it would terminate British training for Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank and impose entry restrictions on some elected British officials and other nationals.

Saar blamed what he called a hostile Labour government for leaving Israel with no choice but to respond.

The diplomatic confrontation comes amid heightened international concern over the expansion of Israeli settlements and increasing violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said France would end its trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, describing the decision as part of a coordinated effort involving the other countries.

Barrot cited what he called rapid settlement expansion, escalating violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers and attacks that he said had even been condemned by Israeli authorities.

The United States, however, rejected the British-led approach. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would not join the sanctions and argued that the measures could destabilize the West Bank at a time of wider regional tensions.

Settlement expansion raises two-state concerns

The economic impact of Britain’s decision could initially be limited. The UK and Israel conduct around £6 billion ($8.12 billion) in annual bilateral trade, but details remain unclear about how British authorities will distinguish products originating in Israeli settlements from goods produced in Israel.

Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law. According to figures cited by the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, approximately 780,000 Israeli settlers live across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in 192 settlements and about 400 outposts.

The commission said settlements and outposts account for a large portion of Area C of the West Bank, which remains under full Israeli civil and military control, as well as much of the Jordan Valley.

The issue has also become increasingly connected to concerns over violence against Palestinian communities. Settlers have established unauthorized outposts near Palestinian villages and, according to Palestinian authorities, have carried out attacks and property damage, while cutting access to water, electricity and other supplies.

The source also points to recent cases in which Palestinian families have faced sieges around their homes, alongside attacks on villages and agricultural land.

UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese described Miliband’s remarks as a major change in Britain’s position. She said his condemnation of settlement activity and references to the treatment of Palestinians represented an unusually strong statement from the British government.

The 12-country declaration places additional diplomatic pressure on Israel while exposing differences among Western allies over how to respond to settlement expansion.

The declaration is likely to add further strain to relations between Israel and several European governments as settlement expansion and violence in the West Bank against Palestinians continue to expand with encouragement from Israeli officials.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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or centuries, Somalia and China have been connected through the Indian Ocean. Long before the establishment of the modern Somali state, commercial and cultural exchanges linked the Somali coast with China through maritime networks. The modern diplomatic relations were established in 1960 and have survived some of Somalia’s most turbulent political periods.

Yet the significance of the relationship today is not simply that it has survived for decades. It is that the architecture of Chinese engagement with Somalia appears to be changing. China is increasingly visible not only in government offices and diplomatic exchanges, but also in Somali classrooms, universities, investment forums, youth networks and spaces of knowledge production. In September 2024, the two countries elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership.

This development should not be interpreted simply as another example of China expanding its footprint in Africa. What is more interesting is the changing instruments through which Chinese influence is being constructed in Somalia. For years, external engagement with Somalia has largely been understood through security assistance, humanitarian intervention, development programs and political diplomacy.

Türkiye has developed a particularly visible role across security, education, infrastructure and diplomacy, while Western and Gulf actors maintain their own political, economic and security relationships. China is now becoming more prominent within this increasingly competitive external environment, but its approach appears to rely on a somewhat different combination of instruments including economic statecraft, education, people-to-people exchanges, diplomatic networks and knowledge production.

150 Somali students win Chinese scholarships

Considering education, in August 2026, more than 150 Somali students received full Chinese government scholarships, one of the largest recent cohorts, with students entering fields including medicine and engineering. The Chinese Embassy’s scholarship reception was not presented merely as an educational event. Ambassador Wang Yu encouraged the students to develop a new perception of China, build new friendships and contribute to China-Africa and China-Somalia exchange. This scholarship initiative coincides with a parallel trend of self-funded Somali students choosing to study in China recently.

The wording is revealing. Scholarships are usually understood as development assistance or educational opportunity. But international relations shows us that education can also become an instrument of soft power and long-term socialization. A student who spends several years in another country does not return with a degree alone. They return with language skills, professional networks, personal experiences, perceptions of the host country and, sometimes, an entirely different understanding of how a state and society function. China has already begun building upon this accumulated human capital. Its embassy has previously brought together Somali alumni of Chinese universities, explicitly linking their educational experiences with future China-Somalia cooperation.

This does not mean that scholarship recipients automatically become instruments of Chinese influence. Such an interpretation would underestimate their agency. The more important point is that education creates social relationships that can survive individual projects and political administrations. A road connects two places, but an educational network can connect two societies for decades.

China and the youth in Somalia

The same logic is increasingly visible in China’s engagement with Somali youth. In August, a nine-member Somali youth (TikTokers) delegation travelled to China through a cultural-exchange program facilitated by the Chinese Embassy. Participants visited Chinese cities and institutions and subsequently documented their experiences for Somali audiences.

This is particularly significant because Somalia’s public sphere has changed. Foreign policy narratives are no longer communicated exclusively through embassies, official statements or traditional media. They increasingly travel through TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other digital platforms. When Somali young TikTokers visit China and communicate their experiences to Somali audiences in their own language and cultural context, the relationship is no longer being narrated solely by Chinese diplomats. t is being re-mediated by Somali actors for Somali audiences.

That is an important distinction in understanding contemporary soft power. Influence does not necessarily become stronger because the source speaks louder. It can become stronger when local actors become the intermediaries through which an external country’s image and experience are interpreted. At the same time, Chinese institutions have increasingly used African and Somali youth engagement as part of the broader 2026 China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges. Somalia’s Ambassador to China, Hodan Osman Abdi, has herself emphasized the role of young people and language learning in sustaining China-Africa relations.

But China’s emerging strategy goes beyond people-to-people diplomacy. It is also becoming increasingly economic. In August, the Somalia-China Business Networking Forum brought together government officials, Somali and Chinese businesses, investors and chambers of commerce in Mogadishu. The discussions covered infrastructure, manufacturing, fisheries, agriculture, energy, transport and logistics, while the Somali government presented investment opportunities linked to its National Transformation Plan.

Zero-tariff policy

Beijing is simultaneously presenting its expanded zero-tariff policy toward African countries as an opportunity for greater African exports and has explicitly discussed the policy with Somali officials. Somalia’s ambassador to China, Hodan Osman Abdi, has also publicly highlighted the importance of using these opportunities to deepen economic cooperation.

This matters because Somalia has historically been approached primarily as a recipient of humanitarian assistance, security support and development aid. A relationship increasingly organized around investment, exports and productive sectors could create a different form of engagement in which Somalia participates more actively in the economic relationship. China’s broader zero-tariff policy toward African countries also creates opportunities for Somali exports, an issue that Somalia’s ambassador to China has publicly emphasized.

But perhaps the most overlooked dimension is knowledge. In April, Yangzhou University discussed supporting the development of a Center for Somali Studies following engagement with Somali National University. The initiative points toward a growing Chinese academic interest in Somali language, society and affairs.

This may appear less consequential than investment or infrastructure, but it represents another form of power which is the epistemic power. Who studies Somalia matters. Who produces knowledge about Somali society matters. Who teaches Somali language matters. And who trains future specialists capable of interpreting Somalia matters.

For decades, much of the internationally influential knowledge about Somalia has been produced through Western universities, think tanks and international institutions. The emergence of Somali-focused academic engagement in China suggests that Beijing is gradually developing its own knowledge infrastructure through which it can understand Somali society and cultivate people capable of sustaining the relationship. China is therefore not simply increasing its presence in Somalia. It appears increasingly interested in developing the human, social and intellectual networks through which its presence can endure.

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audi Arabia says attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels have struck civilian and economic targets in the kingdom, leaving at least 73 civilians wounded, including women and children, as fighting intensifies across Yemen between the Iran-backed group and the Saudi-supported internationally recognized government.

Major-General Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, said on Tuesday that Houthi attacks had targeted civilian and economic sites in the southern Saudi provinces of Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jizan and Najran.

Al-Maliki did not specify when the attacks took place, but described them as a “dangerous escalation” and a “blatant violation” of Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty. He said the attacks represented a direct threat to Saudi citizens and residents and pledged that the coalition would take “all necessary operational measures” to confront the attacks and target the sources of the threat.

The Saudi Ministry of Energy separately said several energy-sector facilities and installations in southern parts of the country were hit early on Tuesday. The ministry said the attacks wounded a number of citizens and residents and caused fires at several locations.

Some operations were temporarily halted as a result of the damage, although the ministry did not provide further details about the facilities affected or the scale of the disruption.

The attacks mark a sharp escalation in hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who have been engaged in a conflict with Yemen’s government and its regional supporters for more than a decade.

Houthis cite Saudi strikes as retaliation

The Houthis later claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were carried out in response to more than 120 Saudi strikes against Yemen over the previous three days.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said Yemeni armed forces had conducted a large-scale, long-range operation involving dozens of ballistic missiles and drones. The group has increasingly targeted Saudi territory as fighting on the ground intensifies inside Yemen.

The Houthis had also accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out an air strike on a prison in Yemen’s northern al-Jawf governorate. The group said at least seven people were killed in the attack on a prison in al-Hazm and warned that what it called continued Saudi “aggression” would not go unanswered.

Saudi authorities have not commented on that allegation.

The latest exchange of attacks comes as Saudi-backed government forces mount a counteroffensive aimed at retaking territory from the Houthis and ultimately advancing towards the capital, Sanaa.

Yemen has been trapped in a prolonged conflict since the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, prompting Saudi Arabia and its allies to intervene militarily the following year in support of the internationally recognized government.

Although fighting largely subsided following a United Nations-brokered truce in 2022, the relative calm has since broken down. The latest escalation follows the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran in February, according to the source report.

The Houthis resumed attacks towards Saudi Arabia in July, launching missiles and drones at Abha international airport after an attack on Sanaa airport. Later that month, the group announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia and began targeting Saudi-linked shipping in the Red Sea.

The renewed fighting has expanded the conflict beyond isolated exchanges of fire, raising concerns about wider regional instability and threats to vital transport and energy infrastructure.

Yemen fighting spreads as humanitarian crisis deepens

On Thursday, the Houthis launched a major ground offensive seeking to advance through western Taiz and southern Hodeidah towards al-Makha, also known as Mocha, a strategically important port city on the Red Sea near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

The fighting was initially concentrated west of Taiz and south of Hodeidah but has since spread to several other provinces, including al-Dhalea, Marib, al-Jawf and al-Bayda.

Government forces are seeking to stretch Houthi military resources by opening additional fronts and increasing pressure on the group. The expansion of the fighting has added to concerns over the security of areas already affected by years of war.

The humanitarian consequences have been severe. The World Health Organization said about 1,078 people had been killed or wounded since August 24, while more than 21,000 people had been displaced since Thursday.

The latest displacement comes on top of years of humanitarian hardship in Yemen, where millions of people have been affected by conflict, economic instability and limited access to essential services.

The renewed violence also threatens to undermine efforts to contain the conflict after the relative calm that followed the 2022 truce. With fighting now occurring across multiple Yemeni provinces and attacks reaching Saudi civilian and energy infrastructure, the conflict is increasingly taking on a regional dimension.

Saudi officials have vowed to respond to the Houthi attacks, while the Houthis say their operations are retaliation for Saudi military action in Yemen. The cycle of attacks raises the prospect of further escalation unless the opposing sides find a way to halt the latest round of hostilities.

For Saudi Arabia, the attacks pose both a security and economic challenge, particularly as energy facilities in the kingdom’s south have been affected. For Yemen, the renewed fighting threatens to deepen displacement and casualties in a country already devastated by years of conflict.

The latest escalation therefore represents a serious setback to hopes of a sustained reduction in violence, with civilians on both sides increasingly exposed to the consequences of the widening confrontation.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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ermany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has won the state election in Saxony-Anhalt by a wide margin, delivering a major political breakthrough for the party while falling just short of the absolute majority needed to govern alone.

Preliminary official results showed the AfD winning 43.8 percent of the vote, more than twice the 17.2 percent secured by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The result marks the AfD’s strongest performance in the eastern German state and intensifies pressure on mainstream parties that have long refused to cooperate with it.

AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund celebrated the result as a historic achievement, saying the party had accomplished exactly what it set out to do. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel also described the outcome as “historic” and said it had given the party a clear mandate to govern, although it remained uncertain whether the AfD would be able to form a government.

The latest projections gave the AfD 39 seats in the 83-member state parliament, leaving it three seats short of the 42 required for an absolute majority. That means the party cannot govern on its own and will need either support from other parties or an alternative parliamentary arrangement to exercise power.

The result presents a difficult dilemma for Saxony-Anhalt’s mainstream parties. The AfD has never been part of a governing coalition in any of Germany’s 16 states or at the federal level because the country’s established parties have maintained a political “firewall” against cooperation with the far right.

AfD national co-leader Tino Chrupalla argued that the election demonstrated that voters had rejected the policies of the governing coalition and claimed the results showed that the firewall had been politically defeated.

But the CDU’s state leadership has indicated that it will not cooperate with the AfD. Saxony-Anhalt Premier Sven Schulze acknowledged the scale of the defeat and said his party would have to accept the result, while later stating that he did not intend to work with the AfD.

A major blow to Merz and the CDU

The election result is also a setback for Merz, whose popularity has declined as his coalition government struggles to revive economic growth in Germany, Europe’s largest economy.

The CDU finished a distant second, leaving the party facing difficult negotiations over how to form a governing coalition without the AfD. Schulze could attempt to build an alliance involving several other parties, but the parliamentary arithmetic is complicated by the CDU’s traditional refusal to cooperate with both the AfD and the Left party, Die Linke.

The AfD’s victory reflects its growing strength in eastern Germany, where the party has tapped into longstanding dissatisfaction over economic disparities between the former communist east and western Germany.

The party has also sought to appeal to regional identity and nostalgia. Siegmund has cultivated an image linked to eastern Germany, including riding a Simson Schwalbe, a motorcycle produced in the former East Germany, during his campaign and to the polling station on election day.

At the same time, his political programme remains sharply opposed to immigration and liberal social policies. Although Siegmund has been portrayed as a more approachable face of the AfD, his campaign included a pledge to launch what he called a “remigration and deportation offensive” against undocumented migrants from the first day in office.

The AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt branch has been classified by the state’s domestic intelligence agency as a confirmed right-wing extremist organisation. The party rejects that designation, describing it as politically motivated.

The party’s election platform extends beyond immigration. It has promoted an anti-“woke” agenda that includes replacing LGBTQ pride flags in public schools with German national flags and changing the way modern German history is taught, including reducing the emphasis placed on Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

The AfD has also proposed measures aimed at addressing population decline, including financial incentives for families and efforts to encourage Germans living abroad to return to the country.

Immigration, economy and security concerns

Immigration is one of the AfD’s central political issues, but its proposed policies have raised concerns among economic experts in Saxony-Anhalt, a state that depends heavily on foreign-born workers.

The German Economic Institute has warned that the party’s immigration policies could seriously damage the state because of its reliance on foreign workers, particularly in the healthcare sector.

Security concerns have also been raised over the possibility of an AfD-led state government. Critics fear that control of state security institutions by the party could create risks involving the handling of sensitive information and Russia.

Thuringia Interior Minister Georg Maier told the Handelsblatt newspaper that the Kremlin views the AfD as an important instrument for destabilising Germany, reflecting broader concerns about the party’s relationship with Moscow.

For now, the election has left Saxony-Anhalt facing a complicated political landscape. The AfD has won the largest share of the vote and demonstrated substantial support among voters, but it lacks the seats needed to govern alone. At the same time, the established parties remain committed to excluding it from government.

That leaves the CDU and its potential coalition partners with the difficult task of assembling a parliamentary majority while responding to an electorate that has delivered a decisive victory to the far right.

The result is therefore significant beyond Saxony-Anhalt itself. It strengthens the AfD’s claim that it has become a major force in German politics while testing whether the country’s traditional political firewall can withstand continued electoral gains by the far right.

For Merz and the CDU, the defeat represents another warning that economic frustration, regional grievances and concerns over immigration are reshaping Germany’s political landscape.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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emen’s internationally recognized government said its forces dealt significant damage to Houthi fighters during intense clashes in Taiz province over the weekend, as fighting across multiple fronts continues to escalate and raise fears of a slide back into full-scale war.

The government-aligned National Resistance Forces said Sunday that its troops engaged in fierce combat with Houthi forces in the Al-Kadhah sector of western Taiz, a front line of particular strategic value because it links the cities of Taiz and Mokha. The statement did not specify the scale or nature of the losses inflicted.

Government forces claim gains across several fronts

The clashes in Al-Kadhah followed a series of reported advances elsewhere. On Saturday, government forces said they had recaptured territory in the western provinces of Taiz and Hodeidah and taken dozens of Houthi fighters prisoner. Among the gains, the government-controlled SABA news agency reported that Yemeni forces had seized the Hais district in Hodeidah, a location of strategic importance sitting at the junction of Hodeidah, Taiz and Ibb provinces. Forces also said they had pushed back Houthi positions around the al-Barh junction in western Taiz.

The fighting has come at a steep cost. More than 60 people, including civilians, were reported killed in Taiz clashes on Saturday alone, and 26 government soldiers were killed in a single stretch of fighting the same day, underscoring how contested the battlefield remains despite the government’s claimed advances. The United Nations said roughly 1,800 families were displaced over just two days as the violence intensified in Taiz.

By early Monday, the Yemeni army said it had carried out 13 air strikes on Houthi positions, gatherings and military vehicles in central Yemen, hitting sites across several districts of Al-Bayda governorate and destroying a Houthi command post and surveillance equipment on Mount Nasa in neighboring Al-Dhale governorate. Additional strikes were reported in Marib and Al-Jawf, though none of the claims from either side could be independently verified.

A fragile truce under renewed strain

The current wave of fighting follows months of relative quiet that had largely held since a UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022, which ended large-scale combat following the Houthis’ seizure of the capital, Sanaa, and other major cities back in 2014. Hostilities resumed in early August, when government forces launched offensives on Houthi positions along multiple fronts after regaining major southern and eastern territory in a Saudi-backed counteroffensive earlier in the year.

Despite the government’s recent gains, analysts caution the shifts do not yet represent a decisive turning point in Yemen’s long war. The Houthis still hold Sanaa and several other cities, and have mounted their own advances near Taiz, pressing toward the government-held port of al-Makha and areas near the Bab al-Mandeb strait — a vital corridor linking the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea. Presidential Leadership Council chairman Rashad al-Alimi said Yemen’s military was capable of restoring control nationwide and cautioned that Houthi missteps would lead to their downfall.

The conflict has increasingly become entangled with the broader regional confrontation tied to the US-Israel war on Iran. The Iran-aligned Houthis declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia in July and have targeted Saudi vessels and territory, prompting Saudi air strikes on Houthi positions in Taiz. The Bab al-Mandeb strait has taken on added significance since Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, a move that has driven global energy prices higher and rattled the world economy. In July, Saudi Arabia announced plans to build an international coalition to protect Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks.

(Source: Aljazeera English, Anadolu and TRT World)

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new wave of student protests is spreading across India as schoolchildren increasingly take to the streets to demand safer buildings, qualified teachers, clean drinking water, electricity, adequate classroom facilities and better food.

The protests, reported across at least 10 states since late July, have been driven largely by students at government-run schools, many of which serve children from economically and socially marginalised communities. The demonstrations are emerging only weeks after a nationwide youth movement led largely by Gen Z challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government over examination failures, unemployment and problems within the education system.

The latest protests have been described as the beginning of a Gen Alpha movement, with children as young as six challenging teachers and government officials over conditions in their schools.

At a government primary school in Samuhi Bhatpurwa village in Uttar Pradesh, 122 students refused to attend classes on August 22 until authorities promised to replace their deteriorating school building.

The school had been left partly in ruins after a wall collapsed in 2023, severely injuring a girl. The children said they had repeatedly asked authorities for a new building because they feared the structure could collapse again.

Their protest eventually drew the attention of a senior education department official, Block Education Officer Deepak Awasthi, who promised that a new building would be constructed. The students then agreed to return home.

Eight-year-old Priya, one of the protesters, said fear over the condition of the building was making it difficult for students to concentrate on their studies. “The fear does not let us concentrate on our studies,” she told Al Jazeera.

The protests reflect wider concerns about the quality of India’s public education system, despite official data showing improvements in access, declining dropout rates and a national teacher-pupil ratio of about one teacher for every 24 students.

From school shortages to a national education movement

The grievances vary from state to state, but many protesters are demanding basic facilities that are already recognized as rights under Indian law.

At Sarvodaya Inter College in Uttar Pradesh, students protested on July 28 over the absence of drinking water and electricity and a shortage of benches. Class 12 student Manoj said students struggled to study during hot and humid weather because there were no fans and many pupils were forced to sit on the floor.

Students at Vaidyanath Vidyalaya in Maharashtra later demonstrated against a shortage of teachers. Other protests have focused on poor school buildings and the quality of meals provided under India’s midday meal program.

In Bihar’s Simuara village, about 50 students walked four kilometers to meet a senior government official and complain about the food being served at their school. They said the school lacked piped water to properly clean ingredients and that rice, lentils and vegetables were often of poor quality, with some vegetables allegedly nearly rotten.

Education rights activist Nagasimha Rao said children were demanding basic provisions including teachers, benches, school buildings, drinking water, electricity and toilets. He argued that inadequate infrastructure and staffing had been a longstanding problem in government schools.

India has one of the world’s largest education systems, with about 247 million students attending roughly 1.5 million schools. Around 70 percent are operated by federal, state or local governments. Yet government data shows that more than 100,000 schools have only one teacher for all grades, affecting about 2.9 million children. The country also has thousands of schools officially classified as having no enrolled students.

The Right to Education Act, introduced in 2009, established education as a fundamental right for children aged six to 14 and set standards covering school buildings, water, sanitation and safety. It also specifies a teacher-student ratio of at least one teacher for every 30 students.

Gen Z protesters back a younger generation

The school protests have also gained support from members of the Gen Z movement that emerged earlier this year.

Beginning in June, thousands of young protesters gathered at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to demand accountability over high-profile examination paper leaks. Their concerns later expanded to unemployment and underemployment, helping turn the demonstrations into a broader challenge to the government.

The movement was organised in part by the satirical Cockroach Janata Party, or CJP, which was formed in May to express anger over unemployment and systemic problems in education. After security forces cracked down on protesters, the movement gained wider public support, and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.

The CJP subsequently turned its attention to India’s schools. On August 15, it launched a grassroots campaign called “School Thik Karo,” or “Fix the Schools”, supporting schoolchildren protesting poor facilities and teacher shortages.

Ratna Singh, the group’s legal affairs head, said the organisation had met children and parents from rural areas during its earlier demonstrations and heard repeated complaints about school infrastructure, teachers and roads leading to schools.

The campaign has faced resistance. CJP members visiting schools in different parts of the country have reported incidents of violence and intimidation. One member, Gaurav Bharti, alleged that police and local groups were threatening activists after he highlighted poor conditions at a rural school in Uttar Pradesh.

The growing movement could eventually have political consequences. More than 30 percent of India’s population is under 18, meaning many of the children protesting today will be eligible to vote by the 2029 national elections. Activists say the education system could therefore become an increasingly important political issue.

Educationist Swarna Rajagopalan has called for systemic reforms, including equal infrastructure, better recruitment and support for teachers, and stronger measures to encourage families to keep children in school.

For students and activists, however, the immediate demand is simpler: authorities must listen.

Sujata Gowda, a postgraduate mathematics student at Bangalore University, said the protests were the result of frustration that had been building for years.

“Students across the country,” she said, “felt abandoned by the system.”

Unless authorities address the concerns raised by students, she warned, more protests could follow across India.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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acific Island leaders have expressed concern over China’s recent intercontinental ballistic missile test in the Pacific, calling for greater transparency and advance notification of future missile launches, despite a formal dissent from Nauru.

The issue emerged as a major point of discussion at the annual Pacific Islands Forum, where leaders from the region debated security concerns while also facing pressure from Beijing over Taiwan’s participation in the summit.

Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr., who hosted the meeting, said China’s July missile test had passed over several Pacific island nations without sufficient warning. The launch was China’s first known ICBM test in the Pacific since September 2024.

At the conclusion of the summit, Whipps said Pacific leaders had called on all countries conducting ICBM tests to provide greater transparency and reassurance. He said they supported advance notification of missile tests at least 24 hours before launch, in line with international practice.

However, Whipps noted that Nauru had formally dissented from the position adopted by the majority of Pacific states.

Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who attended the summit alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, defended the decision to issue the statement despite the lack of unanimity. He said it was reasonable for most Pacific countries to express their concerns while allowing one or two states to hold a different position.

“Unanimity is not necessary” to express strong views on behalf of the majority of Pacific island states, Bowen said, according to ABC Radio.

The disagreement highlights the competing diplomatic positions within the Pacific, where governments maintain different relationships with China, Taiwan, Australia and other major powers.

Palau pushes back as China challenges Taiwan’s presence

Palau had pressed the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum to formally condemn China’s missile test, making the issue a prominent feature of the summit. The island nation is one of only three Pacific states that maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Beijing responded sharply to Palau’s efforts, accusing the summit host of creating unnecessary “hype” around the missile test and warning that attempts to influence other Pacific nations were “malicious” and would fail.

China’s objections were not limited to the missile issue. The summit was also strained by Beijing’s opposition to Taiwan’s participation in the meeting.

China maintains that Taiwan is part of its territory and argues that the self-governed island does not qualify to attend the regional gathering. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and maintains its own democratic government.

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung condemned what he described as China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy at the summit. Lin also alleged that Chinese officials had engaged in espionage during the event, adding another layer of tension to an already contentious meeting.

Bowen similarly criticized Beijing’s approach, saying such diplomacy could undermine unity among Pacific countries. He described the Chinese approach as unpopular among Pacific governments and argued that it risked damaging regional cohesion.

The summit was further complicated by the absence of five Pacific leaders, who were represented instead by lower-ranking ministers. Despite the divisions, the meeting provided an opportunity for Pacific governments to collectively raise concerns about security developments in their region.

Dispute over China’s missile test

The dispute over China’s missile test reflects the growing strategic importance of the Pacific, where military activity by major powers is increasingly drawing the attention of island nations. For countries located along potential missile flight paths, the demand for advance notification is framed as a matter of safety, transparency and regional reassurance.

The Pacific Islands Forum’s statement does not amount to a unanimous condemnation of China, given Nauru’s dissent, but it demonstrates that a significant majority of Pacific governments are prepared to publicly raise concerns about Beijing’s military activities.

The summit also underscored the region’s complicated diplomatic landscape. While China has expanded its economic and political engagement with Pacific island states, countries such as Palau continue to maintain formal relations with Taiwan. Nauru, meanwhile, restored diplomatic relations with China in 2024 after previously recognizing Taiwan.

The next Pacific Islands Forum summit is scheduled to be hosted by New Zealand in 2027, when regional leaders are expected to confront many of the same questions surrounding security, strategic competition and the Pacific’s increasingly contested diplomatic environment.

(Source: Reuters)

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sian economies are accelerating efforts to strengthen domestic oil and gas storage after the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz exposed the region’s vulnerability to disruptions in Middle Eastern energy supplies.

The region suffered major economic consequences after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran six months ago. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial route for Gulf oil and gas exports, has been reduced to a trickle by Iranian attacks and a US naval blockade.

The disruption pushed Asian governments to introduce emergency fuel-saving measures as energy prices surged. Measures included price controls, alternate driving days and work-from-home requirements for some civil servants. But governments are now looking beyond short-term responses, seeking to build larger strategic reserves and reduce dependence on vulnerable supply routes.

“The crisis is producing two very different kinds of investment: infrastructure that bypasses geopolitical risk, and infrastructure that eliminates exposure to imported fuel altogether,” said Parul Bakshi, a visiting research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Japan calls for energy security

Japan has emerged as one of the strongest advocates of expanding regional energy security. Although the country remains heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil and gas, it has been better positioned to withstand the crisis because of its large strategic petroleum reserves.

In April, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced the $10 billion POWERR Asia initiative. The programme is designed to help Southeast Asian countries secure oil and petroleum products and eventually develop larger strategic stockpiles.

The urgency is particularly evident in Southeast Asia. When the war began in late February, Vietnam had national oil reserves sufficient for only five to seven days, according to state media. Commercial inventories and other sources, however, could extend supplies for as long as another 65 days.

Thailand had about 61 days of reserves across public and private sectors in early March, compared with a legally mandated minimum of 25 days. The Philippines was estimated to have between 50 and 60 days of supplies in private commercial inventories.

Despite these levels, the three countries remained below the International Energy Agency’s 90-day benchmark for emergency oil stocks.

The crisis has revived efforts in Bangkok and Manila to establish more comprehensive government-controlled reserves. Last month, a parliamentary panel in the Philippines approved legislation proposing a government-held oil reserve equivalent to 60 days of consumption.

Plans for new infrastructure

Thailand is also moving ahead with plans for new infrastructure, including cross-peninsula crude pipelines and tank farms. Ben Kiatkwankul of Bangkok-based Maverick Consulting Group said the projects could position Thailand as a competitor to Singapore for the storage of Gulf crude.

India has similarly been reassessing its strategic reserves. The country held about 74 days’ worth of oil stocks as of May, with more than 90 percent controlled by state-owned enterprises, according to S&P Global.

In July, India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation announced plans to build a reserve of 1.75 million metric tonnes, equivalent to about 13 million barrels, in southern India. The company also plans to expand existing stockpiles by 6.5 million metric tonnes.

Meanwhile, major Asian economies are exploring closer storage arrangements with Gulf producers. Japan, South Korea and Singapore already have longstanding partnerships with Middle Eastern countries that allow energy supplies to be stored closer to Asian markets.

Clara Gillispie, a senior fellow for climate and energy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the three countries had shown interest in expanding existing storage capacity and potentially establishing new agreements. Similar discussions have also involved India.

Storing oil away from Hormuz

The United Arab Emirates and its state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company already store oil in Singapore, India, South Korea and Japan. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia also maintain stockpiles in South Korea and Japan.

ADNOC is seeking to increase its crude storage capacity in India to 30 million barrels. India is also considering storing some strategic reserves at the UAE port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, outside the Strait of Hormuz.

South Korea is considering expanding its oil reserves, which stand at about 146 million barrels. Reports suggest Seoul could add another 30 million to 40 million barrels, exceeding earlier plans for an additional 20 million barrels.

China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer after the United States, is also reassessing its energy security. The Hormuz disruption has reinforced Beijing’s focus on reducing its exposure to imported fuel and vulnerable supply routes.

China’s 2026–2030 five-year plan includes provisions for additional oil and gas pipelines and expanded liquefied natural gas storage, alongside increased deep-water drilling. State-owned pipeline operator PipeChina said in May that it was accelerating construction of nearly 40 oil and gas projects, including about 9,000 kilometres of domestic pipelines.

Energy policy expert David Fishman said the Iran conflict had strengthened the rationale for investments already included in China’s plans.

Across Asia, the crisis has therefore shifted the focus from simply securing additional supplies to ensuring that energy can reach consumers even when major shipping routes are disrupted.

Bakshi said the common objective was to reduce dependence on a “single fuel, supplier or chokepoint”.

The crisis has forced governments to ask not only where their next supply of oil will come from, but also how it will reach them, how long they can survive without it and whether they can reduce their dependence on imported fuel altogether.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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t least four people have been killed and more than 60 wounded after a US military strike hit a wedding ceremony in Kuhestak, a city in Iran’s southern Sirik County, according to Iranian authorities, local sources and reports from the area.

The overnight attacks took place in Hormozgan province, near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, as Iran and the United States exchanged further strikes amid an escalating conflict. Iranian authorities said the attack struck a residential building where a wedding was being held, while a nearby telecommunications tower was also destroyed.

The Hormozgan governor’s office identified the four people killed as four-year-old Amir Ali Karimi, 16-year-old Mohammad Malahi, and two 43-year-old women, Kolsoum Malahi and Zarkhatoun Taheri. More than 60 people were reported wounded, with some suffering serious injuries.

The circumstances surrounding the strike remain disputed, and the operational details have not been independently established. US Central Command spokesperson Tim Hawkins said the US military was aware of reports of civilian casualties but said the reports originated from Iranian state media.

Multiple projectiles struck Kuhestak

Nevertheless, videos, photographs, witness accounts and official reports from the area indicated that multiple projectiles struck Kuhestak. Footage showed damage to buildings and the destruction of a telecommunications tower close to the city’s shoreline.

Defence experts examining fragments recovered in Kuhestak suggested that the weapon could have been a variant of the AGM-84K SLAM-ER, an air-launched, precision-guided cruise missile. The missile is manufactured by Boeing and is designed for precision attacks.

Video footage taken on Wednesday morning appeared to show at least one projectile hitting the roof of the building where the wedding was taking place. Other images showed debris and partial destruction inside the building, while electricity was reportedly cut in the surrounding area.

Women’s and children’s footwear could be seen scattered among the debris, while neighbouring residential buildings also sustained damage.

Iranian state television reported that three US missiles had been used in the attack. According to the broadcaster, one missile penetrated the roof of the building and created a hole measuring about 1.5 metres in the ground.

“Everyone inside was a civilian”

Ali Malahi, the owner of the targeted building, told Iranian state television that his daughter’s wedding was taking place there and that everyone inside was a civilian. Hospital footage broadcast by state television showed wounded children and relatives receiving medical treatment.

A young man injured in the attack said he and others were approaching the house when they heard aircraft overhead. He described the explosions as massive and said many women and children were badly wounded.

A woman who said she had been at the scene also claimed that the building was not close to a military installation and that the attack appeared to have directly targeted it.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society released images documenting the aftermath and the injured children. It also contacted the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, calling for legal action against those responsible for what it described as a serious attack.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes, describing them as part of what it called a wider pattern of attacks against Iranian civilians. Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei linked the Kuhestak strike to previous attacks in Minab, Lamerd, Qeshm and other locations.

The strike has also drawn attention because it follows other deadly incidents involving civilian locations during the conflict.

Repeated attacks against civilians

In Minab, in Hormozgan province, an elementary school was largely destroyed during a strike on February 28, the first day of the war. Iranian authorities said about 156 people were killed, most of them schoolchildren, along with teachers, parents and others.

The US military has not released the findings of its investigation into the Minab incident, despite evidence that Tomahawk missiles were used. CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper said the school was situated on an active Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps cruise-missile base.

In Lamerd, in southern Fars province, a sports hall being used by a women’s volleyball team was also struck on the first day of the war. The incident killed 21 people, including four children. Although CENTCOM denied responsibility and accused Iran, investigations by The New York Times, the BBC and independent analysts concluded that a US Precision Strike Missile was responsible.

The latest attack comes after more than six months of war in Iran, during which the US and Israel have also targeted oil and gas facilities, fuel depots, industrial plants, airports, ports, bridges and other critical infrastructure.

According to Iranian authorities, more than 3,500 people have been killed since the beginning of the war, including more than 50 people during a 60-day truce before fighting resumed in July.

The deadly strike on the wedding has intensified questions about civilian protection and accountability as fighting continues around the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere in Iran.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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ith Israeli elections roughly two months away, the country’s far-right political scene has grown crowded and increasingly combative, as a cluster of small parties compete for a shrinking pool of hardline voters by pushing their rhetoric further to the edges.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has built his public profile in part on provocation, regularly sharing footage of himself mocking or confronting Palestinian prisoners, publicizing threats against a prominent detainee, and championing legislation that broadens the use of the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism-related offenses. As campaigning intensifies, his messaging has escalated further still.

A recent AI-generated video posted to his campaign account depicted numbered Palestinian prisoners in uniform being funneled along a conveyor belt into a fenced, watchtower-ringed compound, growing visibly gaunt and distressed as the sequence progressed, captioned to suggest a promise fulfilled. The clip drew more than four million views before it was taken down. Ben Gvir has also repeatedly called for prison conditions for Palestinian security detainees to be stripped down to the bare legal minimum.

As the minister overseeing both police and prisons, Ben Gvir wields real institutional power, and his rhetoric has become closely tied to how Israel is perceived internationally. He is widely seen as the most prominent figure among Israel’s far-right politicians, but he is far from alone. Under Israel’s electoral system, parties must clear a 3.25 percent threshold to win seats in parliament — any votes cast for parties that fall short are effectively discarded. That dynamic is fueling fierce competition among right-wing contenders, each trying to carve out distinct, hard-edged positions to survive the cutoff.

A field of rivals pushing further right

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has made expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank a centerpiece of his platform, framing the effort as a way to foreclose any future Palestinian state. His campaign features a plan to reshape the demographic makeup of the Negev and Galilee — regions with sizable Arab populations — by importing West Bank-style settlement tactics: relocating roughly a million additional Jewish residents to the areas and building around 40 new communities along with numerous individual farms.

Retired Brigadier General Ofer Winter has entered the race with a newly formed party, drawing support from religious Zionist and right-wing circles. At his campaign launch late in August, he ruled out any future Palestinian statehood and framed emigration as the answer for Gaza. His running mate, Yoseph Haddad, an Arab Christian activist known for his outspoken pro-Israel stance, has said Arab Israelis deserve representatives loyal to their own community rather than to Palestinian population centers, and has voiced open disdain for existing Arab political leadership. Haddad has said he hopes to become the country’s next minister of public diplomacy and the first Arab member of the security cabinet.

Further along the spectrum, Avi Maoz’s Noam party has built its identity around opposition to Jerusalem’s Pride parades, secularism and feminism, though it is not projected to reach the electoral threshold on its own. Moshe Feiglin’s Identity party faces the same long odds. Feiglin, a longtime far-right activist with past ties to Netanyahu’s Likud party, has called for Gaza’s destruction and the relocation of Palestinians to other countries, previously declaring that “every child in Gaza is the enemy” while arguing for full Israeli resettlement of the territory.

Netanyahu’s dilemma as the right fractures

The proliferation of far-right parties poses a genuine threat to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition prospects, since votes split among multiple small parties could be lost entirely if any of them miss the threshold. Netanyahu has warned that such fragmentation could cost the right-wing bloc the election outright, and he has released a series of video appeals urging Ben Gvir, Smotrich and Winter to merge into a single unified list rather than run separately.

So far, none of the three have shown signs of stepping back from their individual campaigns. Instead, each continues to sharpen his own message, leaning further into hardline positions as the race for a limited bloc of far-right votes grows tighter — a trend that shows no sign of reversing before Israelis head to the polls.

(Source: CNN)

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he world is on track to breach the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold within just a few years, according to a new assessment from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which cautioned that the overshoot would intensify extreme weather and place growing strain on ecosystems, glaciers and coastal communities.

UNEP said reversing course and bringing long-term warming back under 1.5C remains achievable but is far from guaranteed, requiring both steep, rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and active efforts to pull existing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations pledged to hold global temperature increases within 1.5C of pre-industrial levels in order to limit the worst effects of climate change. With that goal now almost certain to be missed, UNEP said the priority is shifting toward minimizing how long global temperatures stay above the threshold rather than preventing the breach altogether. The agency warned that every year of inaction and every additional fraction of a degree compounds the danger, cautioning that some resulting damage could prove permanent even if temperatures eventually come back down.

Even in the best-case scenario, one in which every country fully delivers on its existing climate pledges, warming would still likely peak around 1.8C above pre-industrial levels, and the report suggested the actual outcome is likely to run higher. Based on the policies currently in place worldwide, UNEP projected that median warming could reach roughly 2.6C by the end of the century.

Carbon removal seen as essential, not a substitute

The report identified carbon dioxide removal efforts, including large-scale reforestation, as a necessary part of reining in rising temperatures, but stressed that such measures cannot substitute for deep, direct reductions in current emissions.

Scientists have long emphasized that each additional fraction of a degree of warming brings disproportionately larger risks, and that limiting temperature rise as much as possible remains essential to preserving a livable planet. It’s worth noting that a single month or year exceeding 1.5C does not by itself mean the Paris Agreement’s target has been missed, since that goal is defined over long-term, decadal averages rather than short-term fluctuations driven by natural variability such as El Niño and volcanic activity.

Still, such short-term breaches, including the record warmth of 2024, when average global temperatures ran about 1.55C above the pre-industrial baseline, are increasingly viewed as early warning signs that the world is edging closer to a lasting breach of the long-term limit.

(Source: Reuters)

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ussian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping used their first face-to-face meeting since May to underscore the strength of their partnership, gathering on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Xi told Putin the relationship between Beijing and Moscow had grown steadier even as global affairs have become harder to predict, while Putin responded that cooperation between the two countries was advancing well across the board. China has continued to deny providing material backing for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

The two-day gathering in Bishkek marks the SCO’s 25th anniversary and has drawn more than a dozen heads of state, including Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, India’s Narendra Modi, Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif, and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan attending as a dialogue partner. The event unfolds against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, now past its four-and-a-half-year mark, and the six-month-old war between the United States and Iran. Putin and Xi have historically used the summit as a platform to project the idea of a multipolar global order and to signal unity against Western influence. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Putin-Xi conversation centered mainly on economic matters, with Ukraine coming up only briefly.

Putin also sat down separately with Modi, and the two arrived together for their talks. Modi said India stood ready to help bring the Ukraine conflict to a close, while Putin said Moscow was moving toward a resolution without offering specifics. Separately, peace negotiations mediated by Washington remain at a standstill, though CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly traveled to Moscow for discussions last week.

Iran’s Pezeshkian signals openness to de-escalation

Putin was also set to meet separately with Pezeshkian, whose country has strengthened military and economic cooperation with Russia since the invasion of Ukraine began, including supplying drones for Moscow’s campaign. Both Russia and Iran remain among the most heavily sanctioned nations globally. Trump has cautioned both Moscow and Beijing against arming Tehran, and US officials reportedly used Ratcliffe’s Moscow visit to reinforce that warning alongside discussions on Ukraine.

Speaking in Bishkek shortly after the first exchange of fire between the US and Iran in weeks, Pezeshkian told Modi that Tehran remained committed to seeking a diplomatic resolution rather than prolonging the conflict. Putin, Xi, Pezeshkian, Modi and Sharif were expected to join a plenary session led by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov. Beyond its 10 full members, the SCO now counts 15 dialogue partners, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, plus observer states Afghanistan and Mongolia — a bloc that represents roughly 40 percent of the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP, despite ongoing disagreements among its members.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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he US Army’s civilian leader, Secretary Dan Driscoll, has submitted his resignation to President Donald Trump following an extended period of tension with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over disagreements about the service’s direction and a series of senior officer removals, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Driscoll is expected to leave the Pentagon within days.

The White House framed his tenure positively, with spokeswoman Anna Kelly crediting him with strengthening military readiness, supporting Russia-Ukraine negotiations, and advancing the administration’s broader defense agenda alongside Trump and Hegseth.

A leadership vacuum at the top

Driscoll’s departure leaves the Army without any Senate-confirmed leader, civilian or military. Gen. Christopher LaNeve has been filling in as acting service chief since Hegseth removed his predecessor, Gen. Randy George. The gap has drawn concern from some members of Congress, particularly given the growing number of vacancies across senior military posts as the US conflict with Iran passes its six-month mark.

Driscoll, known within defense circles as “drone guy” for his focus on modernizing the force through drone technology, had climbed quickly through the administration’s ranks after his nomination. In his role, he was responsible for the Army’s annual budget and oversight of more than a million active-duty, National Guard and reserve troops, along with over 330,000 civilian personnel.

Roots of the rift with Hegseth

Reporting from Axios indicates that while Hegseth and Driscoll never developed a close working relationship, Driscoll’s personal friendship with Vice President JD Vance had shielded him to some degree. Part of the friction reportedly stemmed from Hegseth’s push to strike four officers — two Black men and two women — from a promotions list, a move Driscoll declined to support, according to the New York Times.

Earlier in the year, multiple outlets reported that Hegseth pushed out Col. David Butler, one of Driscoll’s senior advisers and a former spokesperson for Gen. Mark Milley, with whom Trump has had a public falling out. Fox News reported that Driscoll had pushed back against efforts to have Butler removed.

(Source: Anadolu Agency)

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urkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s visit, covering Tripoli and Benghazi between August 11 and 12, has been one of the most visible indicators of the shift in Türkiye’s Libya policy that has become apparent in recent years. Immediately prior to the visit, a 4.5-million-litre petrol tank at the Zawiya Refinery, 50 kilometres west of Tripoli, was set alight by a drone attack, prompting the National Oil Corporation to declare a state of emergency at the highest level. Foreign Minister Fidan’s reference to an approach that “makes no distinction between western, eastern and southern Libya” is the clearest expression of Ankara’s new approach, which, whilst defending Libya’s territorial integrity, does not limit its engagement on the ground to a single political and geographical center.

Exercises unite the army but not politics

One of the notable changes in the Libya dossier in 2026 was Washington’s return as a more visible actor. Indeed, the initiative led by Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s adviser on Arab and African affairs, materialized in Sirte on July 14. Khalid Haftar, son of Khalifa Haftar and Chief of Staff of the Libyan National Army (LNA), and Selahaddin Nemrush, Chief of Staff of the Government of National Unity (GNU), met under the supervision of the United Nations (UN) Support Mission and issued a declaration on a ‘single national army’. They also agreed to organize joint exercises to tackle smuggling and migration along the Chad-Niger border.

Details that have emerged suggest that a power-sharing formula is being discussed, under which Abdulhamid Dbeibeh would remain as Prime Minister and a senior executive position would be opened up for the Hafter faction. Furthermore, plans to encourage the return of American energy companies to Libya and to carry out joint military activities under the leadership of AFRICOM indicate that Washington is seeking to advance the political, economic and security dimensions of its Libya policy simultaneously. The adoption in April 2026 of the first unified budget since 2013 has been one of the most tangible outcomes of this process to date.

Washington approaches Libya’s political crisis partly with a cost-benefit analysis. The Central Bank cannot finance two parallel governments indefinitely; therefore, scarcity forces the parties to unite. This is an approach that treats the economy as the driving force, whilst regarding legitimacy as a technical detail to be resolved later. The unification of military institutions under a single structure, the conduct of joint exercises and even reaching agreement on a joint budget are genuine achievements. However, none of this address the question of which political authority the armed groups will be subject to. Indeed, the outright rejection of the plan by the armed groups in Misrata, the militia clashes in Tripoli and the objections rising from the south demonstrate that the architecture on paper has yet to find its counterpart on the ground.

Ankara’s own terms

Another weakness of the Boulos initiative lies in the tension between timing and legitimacy. The 36-month transition timetable and the stated election date of February 17 position the ballot box as a promise rather than a concrete objective. The fact that the unified budget signed in April has still not been implemented shows that the agreement on paper has had only limited impact on the ground. Political steps taken without establishing an implementation mechanism do not, on their own, alter the balance of power on the ground. Furthermore, power-sharing carries the risk of fueling corruption and further reinforcing existing power networks by easing current constraints on public spending. In short, the formula of political compromise in exchange for oil revenue is sufficient to keep the two capitals at the negotiating table in the short term. However, as the size of the rent to be shared increases, so does the disruptive capacity of armed actors left out of the process. The events in Zawiya can also be interpreted within this framework.

Türkiye is positioning itself within this plan on its own terms. Ankara’s advantage lies in maintaining its strong military and political presence in western Libya whilst progressively deepening its relations with actors in the east. Foreign Minister Fidan’s meetings in Tripoli with Dibeybe, Menfi and Takala, as well as Acting Defence Minister Zubi, Interior Minister Trabelsi, Chief of the General Staff Nemrush and Head of Military Intelligence Mahmud Hamza; and in Benghazi with Marshal Hafter, Saddam Hafter and Agile Salih, demonstrates that Türkiye is analyzing the situation in Libya at the level of its security apparatus.

Moreover, some of the figures on this list, including Agile Salih, are known to be actors who maintain a distance from the American initiative. Consequently, Ankara’s network of contacts encompasses actors who approach the American initiative to varying degrees. Ankara’s military and political access emerges as a key factor in making the US plan feasible on the ground. This position allows it to continue its engagement with Ankara through American initiative, whilst enabling it to defend its own priorities more forcefully at the negotiating table.

Sons and nephews: The consolidation of loyalty and a fragile arena

The most critical dynamic observed in Libya today is the advancement of succession engineering rather than institutionalization. In the east, Saddam Hafter’s military and political clout, Khalid Hafter’s position within the General Staff, and Bilkasım Hafter’s management of the reconstruction budget through the Development and Reconstruction Fund; whilst in the west, Ibrahim Dibeybe’s central role in the dossier as the Prime Minister’s national security adviser, represent the two ends of the same spectrum. In both camps, power is consolidated through families and networks of loyalty rather than through institutions. In this context, Ankara has established relations with actors likely to influence the future of Libyan politics.

The fact that political and military balances in Libya are never static makes this approach rational from a foreign policy perspective. Washington’s return to the negotiating table is also reshaping the calculations. The key capability stemming from Ankara’s decade-long experience lies not in alliances formed with specific actors, but in the flexibility to recalibrate its position as actors change. Conversely, when Türkiye’s core interests are at stake, the same flexibility cannot apply. The inclusion of the Turkish Armed Forces’ Libya Task Force Command in Tripoli in the visit program serves as a deliberate reminder of the deterrent power underpinning diplomacy.

Vulnerability, however, is concentrated in the west. The Zawiya refinery has for years been a nexus of fuel subsidies, smuggling and rivalry between armed groups. The increasing isolation of Mohammed Bahrun—a key regional actor who once aligned closely with the Dbeibeh faction—is turning Zawiya into one of the new flashpoints of tension between the government and local armed groups. Regardless of who carried out the attack, the current situation indicates that one of the key dimensions of the struggle in western Libya centers on the distribution of rents and resources. Foreign Minister Fidan’s inclusion of Omar Mukhtar’s memorial tomb in his Benghazi itinerary can be interpreted as a symbolic message showing that Türkiye’s engagement in the east is not limited solely to existing political and military actors. Ankara is establishing a foundation in the east that is grounded not only in military and political relations but also in Libya’s historical memory.

The Cairo circle: The Mecca Pact, maritime jurisdiction zones and the equation extending to the Red Sea

The framework that gives Fidan’s visit to Libya its true significance, however, is regional. The joint defense agreement signed in Mecca on August 7 by President Erdoğan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif established a collective security architecture that treats an attack on one party as an attack on all parties, whilst remaining open to the participation of other regional countries. This move, which brings together Türkiye’s military weight within NATO, Saudi Arabia’s financial capacity and Pakistan’s security capabilities within the same framework, has made the divisions between the various partnership networks already taking shape in the region more apparent.

The addition of India’s growing interest to the cooperation between Greece, the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus and Israel indicate the emergence of overlapping partnerships that balance Türkiye’s regional influence, rather than a single opposing bloc. The competitive arena for this axis could extend from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Red Sea and East Africa.

At this juncture, the Türkiye–Libya agreement on maritime zones, signed in 2019, is becoming one of the key elements in the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean, in addition to its legal status. The political sustainability of the agreement depends not only on the continuity of the government in Tripoli but also on Benghazi’s stance towards this text. For this reason, the relationship maintained with the Haftar family is also significant in terms of safeguarding Türkiye’s legal rights and gains regarding maritime zones in the Eastern Mediterranean. The relations Ankara has developed with Benghazi present an important opportunity for the maritime zones agreement to gain acceptance in eastern Libya as well.

Egypt might join the Mecca Agreement

Cairo was the missing link in this equation. Foreign Minister Fidan’s visit to Egypt following his trip to Libya completes this missing link. The topics to be discussed outline the strategy for the region. Alongside Gaza, Syria, Libya, Sudan and the Eastern Mediterranean, the details of this strategy include hydrocarbon and electricity grid integration, the defense industry, and the trade volume, which is targeted to increase from 8 billion dollars to 15 billion dollars. Foreign Minister Fidan’s indication that Egypt might join the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, however, elevates this visit beyond a mere technical consultation. The fact that Türkiye and Egypt are now able to speak with one voice on Libya could weaken one of the key elements of the rival patronage equation that has long fueled the east-west divide in Libya.

It is no coincidence that the Sudan dossier is also being discussed at the same table. Egypt is the key country in the corridor linking the Eastern Mediterranean to the Red Sea and East Africa. The quest for stability in Libya and the containment of the conflict in Sudan are two ends of the same geopolitical axis. The defense framework signed in Mecca on August 7, the meetings in Tripoli and Benghazi held between August 11 and 12, the reception of Mahmoud Abbas in Ankara on August 12, and the visit to Cairo on August 13 all constitute an intense diplomatic flurry crammed into a single week. It would be an oversimplification to view this sequence of events as entirely unrelated developments.

Turkish foreign policy today views the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and the Red Sea basin as an increasingly interconnected security zone. Ankara’s emphasis on a ‘single Libya’ is, in fact, the diplomatic expression of its view that the Eastern Mediterranean constitutes a holistic, rather than fragmented, strategic equation. Within this equation, Libya serves as a strategic terrain where it is critical not only to secure gains but also to safeguard them over the long term.

(Originally published in Turkish by SETA Foundation)

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ensions between Iran and the United States flared again this weekend, marking the first major exchange of fire between the two countries since late July. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced it had launched a combined missile and drone operation targeting two American-linked bases in Jordan, the King Hussein base and Al Azraq base, in direct response to a US strike on Iran’s Larak Island earlier the same day.

The IRGC described the operation as a punitive strike against American aggression and claimed it had caused significant damage to repair facilities and fighter jet deployment sites at the targeted bases. Jordanian authorities confirmed their air defenses intercepted eight incoming missiles early Monday morning, and officials from both sides reported no casualties.

The situation escalated further on Monday when Iranian forces said they downed a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Strait of Hormuz, with the aircraft reportedly falling into the Gulf after being intercepted.

Iran’s position

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the strikes publicly for the first time as he departed for Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. He characterized Iran’s posture as defensive rather than aggressive, signaling Tehran would not initiate a wider war but would respond to attacks against it.

US Central Command rejected characterizations of Sunday’s strike as unprovoked aggression, describing its action as a limited and targeted effort meant to stop Iranian forces from planting mines in the Strait of Hormuz. American officials placed responsibility for the resulting exchange on Iran. Iranian state media, meanwhile, reported casualties among its forces from what it called the joint American-Israeli assault, though no specific numbers were disclosed.

Separately, President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video to his Truth Social account appearing to show an attack on Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub, captioned to suggest the island had been destroyed. No independent evidence supported the claim that Kharg Island had actually been struck. Trump has previously floated seizing or destroying the island since the conflict with Iran began.

The clash comes as the US shifts its approach from direct military strikes toward economic and financial pressure on Tehran, even as the wider US-Israel war against Iran enters its seventh month. Washington has recently asserted that it is safeguarding oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz despite Iran’s claimed blockade, though attacks on vessels in the waterway have continued to be reported on a near-daily basis. Sunday’s strikes underscore that military force remains part of the US strategy toward Iran, even as sanctions pressure over its nuclear program and control of the strait intensifies.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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t has been nine years since the Rohingya were driven from their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. More than one million now live in exile in Bangladesh, most of them in the overcrowded refugee settlements of Cox’s Bazar. They remain stateless, displaced and dependent on humanitarian assistance, while the possibility of returning home safely and with dignity is increasingly remote.

Conditions inside Myanmar are really distressing. A recent report by the United Nations Human Rights Council, examining the situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar, documents record continuing abuses against Rohingya. Among the accounts is one particularly harrowing detail about how a child was forced to clear the bones and skulls of victims of a massacre.

In Rakhine, the report documents widespread and systematic violations against the Rohingya by both the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army. Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK (BROUK), spoke of the implications of this changing scenario to Politics Today.

“The AA now controls most of Rakhine State and is the de facto authority. That reality has to be recognized. But control of territory cannot be allowed to legitimize the AA while it continues to commit serious abuses against the Rohingya.”

Tun Khin pointed to what he described as a growing pattern of abuses documented by BROUK, alongside reporting by the UN and other human rights organizations.

“As the AA consolidates its power, persecution of the Rohingya is becoming more systematic and entrenched, replicating many of the discriminatory policies and abuses used against Rohingya for decades by the Burmese military.”

Allegations of killings and detentions

The allegations include killings, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, forced recruitment and forced labor, restrictions on movement, extortion and sexual violence.

An armed group fighting a military accused of some of the world’s gravest crimes can simultaneously become an authority accused of committing abuses against the same minority that the military once drove from its homeland. How tragic.

The Myanmar conflict is particularly complicated because the military junta in Naypyidaw is aligned with Moscow and Beijing, condemning its atrocities allows Western capitals to perform moral leadership at zero geopolitical cost. Western capitals comfortably adopt the language of human rights, framing the People’s Défense Forces (PDFs) and Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) as pro-democracy freedom fighters. The United States has provided non-lethal assistance to Myanmar’s democratic opposition through measures including the BURMA Act, while stopping short of becoming a direct military participant in the conflict.

Consider the stark asymmetry between Gaza and Myanmar. In the Middle East, where Israel serves as the primary security and technological anchor for Western interests, state-inflicted mass civilian casualties are diplomatically shielded, vetoed at the UN, and sanitized as the unavoidable ‘collateral damage’ of counterterrorism. The grievances of the occupied are flattened under an absolute ‘terrorism’ framework to criminalize political negotiation and delegitimize resistance.

The two conflicts are not identical. However, the international response to civilian suffering is rarely detached from geopolitical interests be it in Myanmar or Gaza.

Human rights suspended

Where strategic stakes are high, human rights frameworks are suspended; where strategic stakes are low, human rights language is weaponized, and when humanitarian management is cheaper than political resolution, statelessness and exile are simply left to become permanent.

Neither the displaced Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar nor the civilians trapped under military airstrikes in Rakhine carry intrinsic weight in the grand strategy of Western capitals.

In my recent exchange with a Stimson Center scholar Yun Sun, she observed that critical Chinese assets, such as the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port and cross-border energy pipelines, remain physically secure simply because no warring faction is “willing or risk-neutral enough to target the port” or its energy pipelines. Yet, while realpolitik protects hard assets, the international community treats human displacement as an inconvenience to be managed. With repatriation quietly written off in favor of local host absorption, making statelessness the institutionalized status quo.

Myanmar is not democratic, the military Junta has committed grave abuses, Rohingya people have been denied citizenship and political belonging for decades now. Another frightening reality, however, is that the Rohingya are victims of the international system whose mechanism of protection continues to prove itself profoundly limited.

I asked Tun Khin where he thinks the Rohingya crisis stands nine years on.

“Governments keep managing the consequences: funding refugee camps, talking about repatriation and responding to dangerous sea journeys, trafficking and exploitation, while failing to apply the political pressure needed to end the persecution that prevents Rohingya from returning home. The international community keeps trying to manage the consequences of genocide instead of ending it.”

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he Trump administration is negotiating with Venezuela’s interim government to secure a direct ownership stake in the country’s oil resources, according to two US officials cited by US media Thursday.

The talks center on more than a dozen productive oil fields containing approximately 90 billion barrels in proven reserves, rather than Venezuela’s total estimated 300 billion barrels, Axios reported. A final agreement could double US oil reserves and reshape energy dynamics across the Western Hemisphere, the outlet said.

“Calling this agreement huge would be an understatement. It’s massive,” one official told Axios.

Under the proposed arrangement, Washington would receive an equity stake in the selected fields. Private companies, including American firms, would develop the sites and generate additional oil revenues for the Venezuelan government.

The negotiations are being led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller also involved, according to the report.

Strategic energy push amid global supply strains

The potential deal comes as global oil markets face disruption from wars in Iran and Ukraine, contributing to elevated prices. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has dropped to its lowest level in four decades, increasing pressure on Washington to secure new supplies.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but years of underinvestment, mismanagement and declining production have left its energy sector operating far below capacity.

The Trump administration has made expanded US access to Venezuelan oil a central element of its energy and foreign policy in the region. Officials said the goal is to “secure the energy future of the Western Hemisphere for generations to come” while easing price pressures linked to the conflict in Iran.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright is expected to travel to Venezuela next week to discuss ways for American companies to boost oil production in the country. The timing of any final agreement remains unclear.

The talks build on Washington’s broader efforts to rebuild Venezuela’s oil sector following the US capture of President Nicolas Maduro in January. The administration has since backed an interim government led by Rodriguez while pushing for greater American involvement in the country’s energy industry.

Amid concerns that Rodriguez could face domestic accusations of handing over national resources to the United States, the administration is emphasizing that the arrangement would benefit the Venezuelan people, Axios reported.

(Source: Anadolu Agency)

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cross the African capital cities like Addis Ababa, Mogadishu, Bamako, Abuja and Niamey or Rabat, a strategic recalibration has been underway for some years now, one that rarely announces itself in strategic policies communiques but is nonetheless visible in procurement contracts, bilateral training agreements, and the silhouettes overhead in contested airspace. Where the vocabulary of Turkish engagement with Africa once belonged almost entirely to the register of humanitarian development and religious solidarity, it has, in the span of a single decade, acquired a second and increasingly dominant grammar, that of the arms deal, the joint operations center, and the strategic partnership memorandum.

To understand how Ankara has repositioned itself as an indispensable actor in African security affairs is to understand something broader about the fracturing of the postwar arms export order, wherein middle powers unbound by the conditionalities that have long governed Western defense relationships are discovering that hardware, sold cheaply at affordable prices and without diplomatic or political instruction attached, can purchase influence that decades of soft power initiatives struggled to secure. In one decade Türkiye has become a major strategic and military partner of many African countries.

For much of the past two decades, Türkiye’s presence on the African continent was narrated and framed through the lens of humanitarianism: hospitals built by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), Türkiye burslari scholarships (YTB) extended to students from Mogadishu to Ouagadougou, mosques and Yunus Emre cultural centers that carried Ankara’s new vision and humanitarian diplomacy into capital cities where Western embassies had long since retreated. This perception of Türkiye as a primarily humanitarian actor, has not disappeared, but it no longer sits at the center of the relationship of the African continent and Türkiye.

What has displaced this perception of Türkiye is a harder currency altogether, one measured in drone airframes rather than aid packages. The Bayraktar TB2 and its heavier sibling, the Akıncı, have become the most visible symbols of a Turkish foreign policy that increasingly treats military defense exports as a vehicle for coorperation and alliance-building, and the African continent, more than any other region outside Turkey’s immediate neighborhood, has become the proving ground for this new military and security approach to diplomatic engagements.

Turkish defense exports are visible across Africa

The growing need for Turkish military cooperation and bilateral relations on security, is not difficult to trace. A Bayraktar TB2, priced at somewhere between two and five million dollars (the price range depends on the included equipment and systems), costs a fraction of comparable American or European drone platforms, and it arrives without the geopolitical interest conditionalities, congressional reviews, or parliamentary scrutiny that typically accompany Western arms transfers.

For African governments confronting insurgencies, militias, rebel groups and security issues with strained budgets, that combination of affordability and political convenience and non-interference is decisive. Baykar, the company behind the TB2 and Akıncı lines, now counts more than a dozen African states among its clients, a list that spans North Africa, the Horn, and the Sahel and that continues to grow with each passing procurement cycle.

What emerges from this pattern, then, is not simply a commercial success story for Baykar or a diplomatic or strategic coup for Ankara against the West, but a demonstration of how thoroughly the terms of security assistance on the continent have been rewritten in the absence of a single hegemonic supplier. The African governments turning to Turkish drone platforms are not merely choosing a cheaper alternative to American or European systems; they are opting into a relationship structured by a fundamentally different logic, one in which the seller neither interfere with internal politics nor conditions delivery on governance benchmarks, and in which the transaction itself becomes an instrument of legitimation for regimes that might otherwise struggle to access military capability at all.

Whether this arrangement proves durable, or whether it merely defers the reckoning between weak states and the insurgencies that flourish in their ungoverned peripheries, is a question that drone sales alone cannot answer, and one that Ankara’s own diplomatic ambitions on the continent will eventually have to confront.

Somalia as proving ground

If the African continent as a whole has become the proving ground for Ankara’s drone-centered approach to security diplomacy, Somalia has functioned as something closer to a strategic and diplomatic laboratory, the site where each successive increment of Turkish military involvement has first been tested before being exported elsewhere on the continent – and of course Libya is another case. What began in 2011, in the wake of a devastating famine, as an ostensibly humanitarian intervention had by the following decade acquired a military architecture nested inside it, one that has continued to deepen rather than plateau.

The clearest evidence of this trajectory arrived in January 2026, when Türkiye moved beyond its established drone operations to forward-deploy F-16 fighter jets to Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport, flown not by Somali pilots but by Turkish personnel stationed there for what officials described, tellingly, as Ankara’s own security and strategic interests.

Where the Bayraktar and Akıncı platforms had allowed Turkey to shape Somalia’s counterterrorism campaign at a comfortable remove, the arrival of manned combat aircraft signaled a willingness to send Ankara’s own forces directly into the kinetic dimension of that campaign, collapsing the distinction between arms supplier and co-combatant that had, until then, given Turkish involvement in Somalia a degree of plausible deniability.

Somalia remains the clearest illustration of what this military and security partnership looks like when it matures past a single arms sale into something closer to institutional entanglement. Türkiye’s military training facility in Mogadishu, opened in 2017 and reportedly the largest such overseas base Ankara operates, has run alongside a steadily deepening supply relationship, one that culminated in Somalia’s acquisition of the Akıncı, a far more capable long-endurance strike platform than the TB2, as the al-Shabaab terror group intensified its campaign against Somali government forces. Turkish trainers, Turkish drone equipment, and Turkish-managed port and airport contracts in Mogadishu now sit alongside one another and it has become a model many African countries expect of relations with Türkiye.

Moreover, Ankara has leaned on this accumulated leverage diplomatically as well, positioning itself as mediator in the dispute that erupted after Ethiopia’s January 2024 memorandum with Somaliland, a deal that would have granted Addis Ababa naval access to the Red Sea in exchange for recognizing Somaliland’s independence. Turkey’s ability to broker a subsequent diplomatic arrangement between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa owed much to the credibility it had already banked as many African countries’ principal security partner and assistance in military capacity buildings across the continent.

What the Somali case shows, then, is the logical endpoint toward which drone diplomacy tends when a partnership is allowed to mature unrestrained by the kind of parliamentary or congressional friction that constrains Western security assistance: not merely the sale of platforms but the gradual absorption of the client state’s security architecture into the “patron’s” own operational command, such that Mogadishu’s airspace, its port, its officer training pipeline, and now its combat air component all answer, in some meaningful sense, to Ankara.

This is a different order of strategic entanglement than the transactional drone sales occurring elsewhere in the Sahel, where governments purchase platforms and operate them with whatever sovereignty their capacity allows; in Somalia, the jets themselves remain Turkish, flown by Turkish crews, protecting what Turkish officials have openly termed Turkish interests, which raises the uncomfortable possibility that the mediating role Ankara has claimed between Mogadishu and its neighbors rests less on disinterested diplomatic credibility than on the leverage that comes from having, in practice if not in name, assumed responsibility for a portion of Somalia’s own war.

Ankara’s widening client list

Beyond the Horn, the pattern repeats with variations across the African continent. Niger, still absorbing the fallout from the 2023 coup and the departure of French forces, received its first Turkish drones between 2021 and 2022 and signed a further financial cooperation agreement in mid-2025 to expand its fleet and bring in additional Turkish trainers to Niamey. Nigeria, whose Bayraktar purchases have expanded considerably since 2024, now flies TB2s and Hürkuş light attack aircraft against Boko Haram insurgents in its north, while Nigerian and Togolese forces jointly use Turkish drones to patrol the porous frontier they share with Burkina Faso and Niger.

Mali’s forces have credited Turkish-supplied platforms with battlefield gains, including the 2023 recapture of Kidal from separatist fighters, even as one of its Akıncı drones was shot down near the Algerian border in 2025, a reminder that these platforms are neither invulnerable nor immune from geographical terrain and climatic conditions. Ethiopia’s use of Bayraktar drones against Tigrayan rebel forces, meanwhile, has been widely credited with tipping a war that had, for two years, resisted decisive military resolution, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by neighboring governments weighing their own procurement decisions.

Furthermore, Morocco’s request to host a Baykar production and maintenance facility, announced in late 2024, signals that Ankara intends to make its African footprint not just a matter of exports but of manufacturing presence, allowing faster delivery to clients across the continent while embedding Turkish industrial interests more permanently within African defense infrastructure. Kenya’s arrival on Baykar’s client list in late 2024, following the completion of operator training earlier that year, extends this network into East Africa proper, suggesting that what began as a series of bilateral arrangements is congealing into something closer to a continental military and security architecture, one in which Ankara increasingly functions as the default supplier for governments unwilling or unable to meet Western procurement standards and high prices.

Taken together, these cases suggest that Türkiye’s expansion has ceased to depend on any single crisis or client and has instead settled into something resembling a strategic infrastructure, a supply chain distributed widely enough across the continent that setbacks in one theater, a downed Akıncı here, a stalled procurement there, register as friction rather than failure.

What Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Kenya share is not a common conflict but a common calculation, that Turkish platforms arrive faster, cost less, and demand less political interest or string accounting than the alternatives, and it is this calculation, replicated across regimes with otherwise little in common, that is quietly converting a decade of bilateral drone sales into the architecture of a continental security order authored in Ankara.

What drones cannot solve

Having traced the arc from humanitarian aid to drones, from bilateral arms sales to something approaching a continental security architecture, it becomes necessary to ask what this expansion has actually purchased for the African states that have embraced it, and whether the question that matters most has been quietly displaced by the one that is easiest to answer. It is simpler, after all, to count drones delivered, bases opened, and insurgent strongholds recaptured as in the case of Mali than to ask whether any of it addresses why those strongholds existed in the first place.

None of this, however, answers the harder question that ought to sit beneath any accounting of Turkey’s African security and military diplomacy: whether a continent whose conflicts, violence and insecurities are so often rooted in weak governance, contested land and resource claims, and unresolved questions of political legitimacy can be stabilized through an instrument that, by design, addresses only the symptom of armed violence rather than its causes.

Drones can degrade a militia or an insurgency’s capacity to strike, but they cannot adjudicate a land dispute, cannot build a functioning judiciary, and cannot resolve the grievances that produce recruits for al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, or the Sahel’s jihadist networks in the first place.

Yet, Türkiye’s growing security engagement with Africa should not be understood solely through the lens of military hardware and defense exports. Turkish drones and broader military partnerships are undoubtedly reshaping Africa’s security landscape by providing governments with affordable, effective, and politically accessible tools to confront immediate security threats.

However, the long-term significance of Ankara’s role on the continent will depend on its ability to move beyond the battlefield and translate security partnerships into broader diplomatic influence. Türkiye has already demonstrated its capacity to mediate complex disputes, from the Somalia–Ethiopia tensions to other regional crises where traditional actors have struggled to produce meaningful outcomes. As Ankara’s political, economic, and security ties with African states deepen, it has an opportunity to position itself not only as a defence partner but also as a trusted mediator and peace-building actor. Türkiye, as professor E. Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu has observed, has become “Africa’s mediator.”

The future of Africa-Türkiye relations may therefore lie not only in controlling contested skies, but also in helping to resolve the conflicts that continue to shape Africa’s political order on the ground.

The honest strategic accounting, then, is a divided one: Türkiye has demonstrated a genuine capacity to alter the tactical balance in Africa’s conflicts, and an emerging, still unproven capacity to convert that battlefield leverage into the kind of political mediation that might actually address what produces those conflicts, but the two capacities are not the same achievement, and conflating them risks mistaking the suppression of violence for its resolution.

Ankara’s own rhetoric increasingly gestures toward the latter ambition, and its interventions in the Somalia-Ethiopia dispute suggest the mediating role is not merely aspirational, yet a continent’s worth of governance failures, land disputes, and legitimacy crises.

Whether Türkiye chooses, and is permitted, to become something more than Africa’s most efficient arms dealer will determine whether drone diplomacy is remembered as a transitional phase in the continent’s security history or as its settled condition.

A

section of a Himalayan glacier broke away on Wednesday morning, setting off a catastrophic flash flood that has killed at least 160 people and left nearly 1,500 missing across Nepal and Tibet, including more than 800 foreign nationals.

The flooding struck at roughly 8:40 a.m. local time along the Nepal-Tibet border, surprising residents and officials because there had been no rainfall to explain it. Nepal has confirmed 157 deaths, while Chinese authorities report three fatalities in Tibet’s Gyirong County.

Satellite imagery indicates that a chunk of glacier broke off at an elevation of about 5,200 meters (17,000 feet) and plunged roughly 1,200 meters down a mountainside, picking up rock and sediment along the way. The resulting avalanche slammed into the Lhende River in Tibet, temporarily damming it before the debris gave way and sent a wall of water downstream.

The event initially registered as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, but the U.S. Geological Survey later determined the seismic signature came from the landslide itself, not a tectonic quake — ultimately measuring magnitude 5.2.

Where the flooding hit

The surge moved from the Lhende Khola into the Bhote Koshi and then the Trishuli River, with water levels in the Trishuli rising as much as 9 meters (27 feet) in just half an hour. Nepal’s Rasuwa district — including the towns of Timure and Syabru Besi — bore the brunt of the damage, with flooding also reaching Nuwakot and Dhading districts further downstream. Across the border, mud and debris struck Gyirong Port in Tibet’s Shigatse region. At least 19 bridges and roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) of roads were destroyed.

Rescue crews have recovered 157 bodies in Nepal, and at least 65 injured people are being treated in local hospitals and in Kathmandu. More than 5,000 army and police personnel have been deployed with helicopters, drones and search dogs, though high water, mudslides and washed-out roads have slowed efforts to reach the worst-hit villages.

Local accounts describe scenes of sudden devastation. One Nepali businessman said relatives called in tears after their home was swept away entirely, while a teacher reported watching multiple trucks — with people inside — carried off by the floodwaters.

Nearly 1,500 people remain unaccounted for. In Nepal, 826 are missing, including close to 600 foreign nationals from more than two dozen countries — among them 177 from India, 63 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from the United Kingdom and 25 from Canada. In Tibet’s Gyirong County, Chinese state media put the missing at 558, including 260 foreigners. Many of those affected were pilgrims en route to Kailash Mansarovar.

International response

India sent a rescue plane with roughly 10 tonnes of emergency supplies, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged support in a call with his Nepalese counterpart, Balendra Shah. The Red Cross federation (IFRC) released 1.2 million dollars in emergency funding for relief operations in Nepal. The United Nations has deployed staff in Nepal and offered assistance in Tibet, with Secretary-General António Guterres offering condolences. The European Union activated its Copernicus satellite mapping service to help assess damage.

South Korea formed a task force after several of its nationals working at a hydropower project went missing, and plans to send a rapid-response team. The United States is sending a disaster response adviser and $500,000 in aid. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney called the floods “absolutely devastating.” China’s President Xi Jinping ordered an all-out search-and-rescue effort in Tibet and called for measures to prevent further disasters.

It is too soon to say definitively whether climate change caused the glacier collapse, but the disaster fits a broader pattern of accelerating glacial melt across the Himalayas. Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya range lost ice 65% faster between 2011 and 2020 than in the prior decade, and Nepal’s glaciers have shed nearly a third of their volume over roughly 30 years. Satellite data showed unusually warm conditions and reduced snow cover around the glacier before it collapsed, and researchers are examining whether that instability played a role.

Officials expect the death toll to climb as rescue teams reach areas still cut off by damaged roads, high water and thick mud. In Tibet, authorities are also watching a still-dammed lake upstream from the disaster zone in Gyirong that could pose an additional flood risk.

(Source: Aljazeera English)

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alaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s recent comments on Taiwan have intensified scrutiny over whether the Southeast Asian nation is drifting from its long-held policy of non-alignment and tilting toward Beijing amid intensifying US-China rivalry.

In an interview with Al Jazeera aired earlier this month, Anwar stated unequivocally that he viewed Taiwan “as part of China, period,” adding that this position was “accepted by all.” The remarks drew immediate praise from Beijing and sharp condemnation from Taipei, while reigniting debate among analysts and diplomats about Malaysia’s strategic orientation.

When pressed on whether he would condemn China if it resorted to military force should peaceful reunification fail, Anwar drew a controversial parallel to his own country’s territorial integrity. If a Malaysian state attempted to secede, he said, he would use force to “protect the sanctity and unity of” Malaysia.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the comments, with a spokesman reiterating that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China’s territory” and that “China must and will be reunited.”

Taiwan’s government, however, warned that Anwar’s “one-sided support for China could negatively impact Taiwanese businesses’ confidence in investing in Malaysia.” The self-governing island, the world’s leading semiconductor producer, remains a major investor in Malaysia’s critical chip manufacturing sector.

Walking back or doubling down?

Facing questions from local media in the days following the interview, Anwar appeared to soften his stance, emphasizing that Malaysia respected China’s position but favored a peaceful resolution to tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

The apparent recalibration did little to quell speculation about Malaysia’s geopolitical leanings, particularly after Anwar courted further headlines by calling for strengthened defenses in the Bornean state of Sabah. He cited the development of US-backed military facilities in neighboring Philippines as partial justification for increased defense spending.

The Philippine government is upgrading military installations on the island of Balabac, located just 50 kilometers from the Malaysian islands of Banggi and Balambangan. Balabac was recently added to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between Washington and Manila, granting US forces access to designated locations across the Philippines.

Anwar’s remarks have reinforced longstanding suspicions among Western observers that Malaysia is breaking from its traditional non-aligned posture and aligning more closely with China. The country has become one of the most enthusiastic recipients of Chinese investment under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, and China now represents Malaysia’s largest trading partner.

Malaysia has also diverged sharply from Western positions on other geopolitical issues, most notably the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Long a vocal critic of Israel, Malaysia under Anwar has been especially outspoken in its opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza.

The Sabah dimension

Some analysts, however, caution against reading Anwar’s comments as evidence of a strategic realignment.

Chee Meng Tan, an assistant professor of business economics at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, noted that Malaysia’s recognition of Taiwan as part of China dates back to the 1974 communiqué signed by then-Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“What was new was Anwar’s statement on the potential use of force, which the One China policy does not explicitly require,” Tan said, suggesting the remarks should be viewed in the context of Anwar’s scheduled visit to China in September.

Anwar’s comments on the US-backed base in Balabac are also connected to Malaysia’s long-running territorial dispute with the Philippines over Sabah. Manila has claimed the territory since it joined Malaysia in 1963, a claim Kuala Lumpur has consistently rejected.

The Philippines reaffirmed its claim to Sabah in February, maintaining that its Maritime Zones Act 2024 preserved “existing and valid claims” over part of the state. In July, Malaysia lodged a formal protest with the United Nations over the Philippines’ claim to an extended continental shelf that Malaysia argued encroached on Sabahan waters.

Tan suggested that Anwar’s comments on the Balabac military buildup may represent “a ‘protect-my-border’ reflex rather than a pro-China gesture.”

Balancing act continues

Anwar’s call to bolster Sabah’s defenses also comes as Malaysia seeks to strengthen its military posture in Borneo, partly to reinforce its claims in the disputed South China Sea, where Malaysia is a claimant state alongside China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Brunei.

While Malaysia has adopted a less confrontational stance on the South China Sea dispute than the Philippines, it has maintained robust defense ties with Western powers as a quiet counterweight to China’s military buildup in the contested waters.

This is exemplified by Malaysia’s continued commitment to the Five Powers Defence Arrangements, a multilateral security framework that also includes Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. While not a binding defense treaty, the arrangement commits members to consult in the event of an armed attack on Malaysia or Singapore.

Under the framework, annual military exercises involving personnel and assets from member countries are conducted. The arrangement maintains an air defense operations headquarters at a Malaysian Air Force base in Butterworth, Penang, headed by a senior Australian Air Force officer. Australia also maintains a rifle company in Butterworth and regular maritime patrol aircraft deployments to Malaysia.

As a central pillar of the arrangement, Malaysia facilitates a Western military presence in the region that analysts say provides a quiet deterrent against potential aggressors.

P

resident Donald Trump has sent a proposed civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress while maintaining that the deal will only take effect if the kingdom normalizes relations with Israel, a U.S. administration official told Reuters on Tuesday.

The agreement, reached in July, would allow American companies to export civilian nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. It was formally transmitted to Congress on Monday, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under U.S. law, Congress has 90 session days to review the pact. Unless lawmakers object, the agreement will go into force. If Congress were to reject it, Trump could veto that decision, which would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override.

“The president’s position has not changed that the agreement will only move forward if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords,” the U.S. official said, referring to the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab and Muslim-majority nations reached in 2020 and 2021.

It was not immediately clear how sending the deal to Congress now advances the president’s objectives, given the normalization condition.

Recognition of Israel as a prerequisite for implementation

Days after agreeing to the nuclear pact in July, Trump set Saudi recognition of Israel as a prerequisite for implementation. Former President Joe Biden had also sought to link a nuclear agreement to normalization. Diplomats believed Riyadh was close to recognizing Israel in 2023, but the outbreak of Israel’s war in Gaza in October of that year dramatically altered the diplomatic landscape.

Saudi Arabia has demanded an irreversible path to a Palestinian state before recognizing Israel.

The 30-year nuclear deal calls for the construction of AP1000 reactors, a project worth tens of billions of dollars that would benefit Westinghouse, jointly owned by Canada-based Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management.

Two congressional sources said the deal was sent to congressional leaders and is expected to be referred to relevant committees on Wednesday.

‘Hardly Ideal’

Some Democratic lawmakers and nonproliferation advocates have criticized the agreement for not explicitly barring Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium or reprocessing nuclear waste — two potential pathways to developing a nuclear weapon. The United Arab Emirates accepted such restrictions, known as the “gold standard,” in its 2009 civil nuclear agreement with Washington.

The Trump administration says the deal includes nonproliferation measures required by law.

Henry Sokolski, head of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said that by initiating the congressional review process, Trump has opened the possibility that lawmakers could approve the deal without the normalization and proliferation conditions attached.

“This is hardly ideal if you’re serious about no enrichment and recognition of Israel,” Sokolski said.

(Source: Reuters)

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he Strait of Hormuz has long been the lifeline for the energy production of the GCC states, enabling these oil-rich nations to export huge quantities of oil to consumers, particularly those in East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea. This allowed the GCC states to prosper, build their economies, foster population growth, and cultivate international relations, using energy as a tool of influence. However, the geopolitical shifts in the region, represented by the war between the United States and Iran in late February 2026, and the associated regional security dilemma, led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran on March 4, 2026.

This has cast a shadow over the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, which rely heavily on energy exports, and has also affected consumer economies, the industrial production cycle, supply chains, and global trade in general. Approximately 20% of global trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz daily, including roughly 16 million barrels of crude oil, representing more than 15% of global oil demand, estimated at 104 million barrels per day, according to 2025 figures.

In addition, about 10 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) passes through the Strait, mostly from Qatar, which accounts for nearly 20% of global LNG trade. Therefore, a complete halt to shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has severely disrupted energy exports and crippled the economies of the GCC countries, recovery from which is likely to take a considerable time. The disruption of energy exports through the Strait led to a supply gap estimated at around 10 million barrels per day.

Alternative options to bypass Hormuz

Countries with alternative export routes, such as the UAE’s Habshan-Fujairah crude oil pipeline, and Saudi Arabia’s 1,200 km. pipeline from Abqaiq in the Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea, were unable to fill the gap due to the limited capacity of these alternative routes. The limitation of the alternative oil export pipeline was compounded for Saudi Arabia when the Houthis closed the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb in July 2026, effectively choking off Saudi oil exports. Saudi Arabia alone exports between six and seven million barrels of crude oil per day, and the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz reduced this production to less than half.

Overall, the pumping capacity of both alternative routes — the UAE’s Habshan-Fujairah pipeline and the Saudi pipeline from the Eastern Province to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea — remained capped at only 3.5–5.5 million barrels per day. The war with Iran and its major repercussions, such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, posed a genuine threat, primarily to the GCC with their economies that are significantly reliant on revenues from the export of hydrocarbons. The dilemma also disclosed gaps in the GCC’s security arrangements and revealed a clear absence of long-term plans, to ensure the sustainability of energy exports without total dependence on passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite the multiple official statements of condemnation and calls for the indispensability of allowing free navigation through the Strait, future considerations can be viewed through two main perspectives. First, the lack of cooperation on energy export strategies. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz severely impacted some GCC members, such as Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, due to the lack of alternative shipping routes. Second, the absence of a collective approach to security, particularly maritime security, within the GCC. This was manifested in the lack of a unified stance on the conflict, and the absence of a manifest collective security framework.

Collective energy export strategy

With regard to energy export strategies and economic security, the GCC countries need a joint strategy, to ensure the continuity of oil and gas exports during times of regional crisis that cause disruption to maritime shipping, such as when transit through the Strait of Hormuz becomes impossible. First, this requires the building of trust, as transboundary pipelines will traverse the territories of neighboring countries, with coastal states serving as the final export hub. If these final export hubs are to be the Omani ports on the Arab Sea, while avoiding the use of ports on the Sea of ​​Oman due to their proximity to Iran, this will pose a challenge for countries like Kuwait, as export routes will be long, and will pass through several GCC states’ territories.

Furthermore, a single export hub implies greater vulnerability, as it will represent a center of gravity for energy resources, making it susceptible to targeting or sabotage. Second, Saudi Arabia and the UAE may consider expanding their alternative pipeline capacity to accommodate their daily oil production. However, for the UAE, the alternative export terminal at the port of Fujairah on the Sea of ​​Oman remains vulnerable, due to its proximity to Iran. Likewise, for Saudi Arabia, the alternative oil pipeline in Yanbu on the Red Sea remains dependent on the status of the other maritime corridor, the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait.

Third, it is possible to invest in LNG and storage facilities in areas that do not require passage through any of the straits. This move could be linked to increasing storage capacity to accommodate mass LNG production, which would ensure the safe flow of LNG away from conflict zones, as it passes through the straits. However, the GCC states must reach a consensus on managing unified export hubs, and again, a common export hub would remain vulnerable to attacks and sabotage. Reaching a consensus on future security arrangements and energy export strategies is crucial for the GCC states, as divergent and unilateral approaches to security and energy issues have proven strategically costly.

Collective regional security approach is a must

When viewing the issue of their inability to secure energy exports, the GCC states appear to be constrained by divergent energy transportation strategies, each of which entails numerous challenges and risks. Therefore, the GCC states may need a comprehensive review of their security cooperation, to ensure a unified stance on regional crises and support mediation efforts, so as to reach solutions satisfactory to all members and regional actors alike.

The February 2026 outbreak of war serves as a wake-up call for GCC decision-makers to enhance coordination on security issues, ensuring the continuity of energy exports and regional security. Particular attention must be paid to maritime security through a collective approach, which is currently lacking. By ensuring a unified maritime security policy, the GCC states can strengthen their naval capabilities, guarantee the interoperability of systems, improve coastal patrols, and reduce defense spending through the concept of burden-sharing.

However, collective maritime security will only bear fruit by fostering a degree of coexistence with other actors, thus bringing relative calm to the region. This would allow the GCC states to address security issues in partnership with other regional actors, such as Iran, Iraq, and potentially Yemen, without foreign interference, and through joint investments, incentives, and shared interests, to build trust and counter geopolitical volatility.

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kraine is facing a €23 billion shortfall in defense funding this year, forcing Kyiv to seek additional financial support from its European allies as it struggles to sustain its war effort against Russia.

The funding gap comes as Ukrainian and European leaders gathered in Kyiv on Monday to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day and reaffirm support for the country. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Western governments to provide Ukraine with the resources needed to end the war more quickly.

“We are not asking you to fight for us. Give Ukraine everything to stop this war,” Zelenskyy said during a speech.

The shortfall has emerged partly because Ukraine’s Defense Ministry accelerated spending earlier in the year, using funds originally intended for the second half of 2026. At the same time, a planned €90 billion European Union loan package has been delayed by political opposition from Hungary.

Zelenskyy said the government had brought forward spending on military equipment, including fiber-optic drones, strike drones and interceptor systems. The decision helped meet urgent battlefield needs but left Ukraine facing a significant financing gap later in the year.

The €23 billion shortfall is in addition to roughly €30 billion in European funding already pledged to Ukraine this year through the EU loan package.

The European Commission moved Monday to provide some immediate assistance, approving €6.1 billion for new defense procurement. The money is expected to finance air-defense missiles, ammunition and radar systems, all of which remain among Ukraine’s most urgent military requirements.

But the new funding is far below what Kyiv says it needs.

“Normal start”

Zelenskyy said Ukraine requires between €6.8 billion and €8.5 billion to ensure a “normal start” to 2027, including money needed in advance to purchase weapons and other military supplies for January. A further €17 billion is needed for military salaries, payments to families of fallen soldiers and other defense-related expenses.

The funding crisis comes as Ukraine continues to depend heavily on European financial and military assistance to maintain its war effort.

At Monday’s meeting in Kyiv, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham joined European Council President António Costa, Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Estonian President Alar Karis, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and other European leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz participated remotely.

Burnham said Ukraine deserved continued support and expressed his determination to work with other members of the so-called coalition of the willing.

But securing further European assistance could prove difficult.

Reform requirements linked to Western funding

Ukraine itself faces political obstacles in meeting some of the reform requirements linked to Western funding. Zelenskyy acknowledged that parliament is delaying the implementation of reforms required for some international aid to be released.

According to the report, lawmakers are currently holding up 24 reform bills connected to Western funding. Although not all of the funds are directly related to defense, delays in receiving European financial assistance could further strain Ukraine’s limited domestic resources and make it harder for the government to finance military needs.

The Ukrainian parliament’s law enforcement committee last week removed five government and judicial reform bills from consideration, with lawmakers arguing that some were no longer relevant to Ukraine’s commitments for EU funding.

Zelenskyy is now seeking to accelerate the release of European funds in order to close the financing gap.

“I am working on this with the French and the Germans,” he said, adding that Ukraine needs to bring forward the next portion of European funds allocated to the country.

The financial pressure comes at a critical stage of the war, with Ukraine seeking to maintain its military capabilities while preparing for continued fighting into 2027. The country is particularly dependent on Western assistance for sophisticated air-defense systems, ammunition and increasingly important drone technologies.

European governments have repeatedly pledged to maintain support for Kyiv, but the latest funding dispute highlights the growing challenge of translating political commitments into timely financial assistance.

For Ukraine, the immediate concern is ensuring that the military has enough money not only to continue operations through the remainder of 2026, but also to enter 2027 without a major disruption in weapons supplies or military payments.

With €23 billion still to be secured, Kyiv is pressing its European partners to accelerate existing commitments and find additional resources before the funding shortage begins to directly affect its ability to sustain the war.

(Source: Politico)

I

raqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zeidi’s visits to Washington, Tehran and Ankara in quick succession are significant in terms of demonstrating the new government’s approach to foreign policy. For Iraq, Washington and Tehran are two capitals closely linked to security, capital, historical influence and developments in Iraqi domestic politics. Ankara, on the other hand, represents the most concrete, stable and reliable economic route through which the country can access global markets. For this reason, al-Zaidi’s visit to Ankara immediately following his engagements in Washington and Tehran should not be viewed as a mere neighbourly visit. This visit demonstrates that Baghdad, which has placed economic development at the centre of its government program, views Türkiye not merely as a trading partner but as a strategic gateway in Iraq’s production, transport and energy equation.

The most significant aspect of the talks in Ankara is not the number of documents signed, but rather the needs of Iraq and Türkiye that they address. Five memoranda of understanding were signed between the two countries covering educational and academic cooperation, youth and sport, industrial property, rail and road transport via the Fishhabur–Ovaköy border crossing, and the development of transport infrastructure in Iraq in exchange for natural resources. Whilst the first three agreements broaden the social and institutional foundation of the relationship, the latter two are of direct strategic importance for Iraq’s economic future. This is because these agreements strengthen the necessary links to move the Development Corridor Project – which aims to connect the Grand Faw Port in Basra to the Turkish border via Iraq and from there to Europe – into the implementation phase.

The visit also demonstrates that the strong relations established between Iraq and Türkiye in recent years are being maintained by the new Iraqi government. During President Erdoğan’s visit to Baghdad in April 2024, 27 legal texts were signed, whilst 11 documents were signed at the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council meeting held in May 2025. The fact that Zaidi has included Ankara in the itinerary of his first foreign visit since taking office suggests that Türkiye has secured a permanent place in Iraq’s development plans.

Oil production but lack of control

Iraq has been producing oil for many years but has been unable to establish sufficient control over the routes by which this oil is transported. The fact that a very large proportion of oil revenues depends on exports via the southern ports and the Strait of Hormuz means that any military tension in the Gulf directly becomes a problem for the Iraqi budget. The closure of ports and disruption to tanker traffic affects not only oil companies but the entire state apparatus, from public sector wages to social spending. Road, rail and pipeline links via Türkiye therefore represent both a means of facilitating trade and a tool for economic security from Baghdad’s perspective.

This is where the true significance of the Development Corridor comes to the fore. If successful, the project—which is planned to link the Port of Faw to Türkiye via a network of approximately 1,200 kilometres of railways and motorways—will do more than simply transport containers from Basra to Türkiye. It will also create new industrial zones, logistics centres, energy networks and urban development areas along the route. Given Iraq’s young population and high unemployment rate, this transformation could provide an alternative to the limited employment opportunities currently available in the oil sector alone.

Türkiye plays a role in this equation that no other neighbour can easily fulfil. Iran is linked to Iraq through energy, trade and political networks, whilst the Gulf states can provide capital to Iraq. However, Türkiye is the only direct neighbour capable of connecting Iraq to the European market by road and rail, and to the Mediterranean via Ceyhan. Moreover, the economic foundation between the two countries will not be built from scratch. Trade volume between Türkiye and Iraq reached approximately 17 billion dollars in 2025, and Turkish companies have undertaken over 1,000 projects in Iraq with a total value of around 40 billion dollars. The setting of a medium-term trade target of 30 billion dollars during the Ankara talks demonstrates the will to roughly double the current level of trade.

Developments in the energy sector also demonstrated that the visit was not limited solely to the transport agenda. Although no long-term, comprehensive energy agreement was signed at the ceremony in Ankara, TPAO’s acquisition of a 15 per cent stake in the company managing BP’s operations in Kirkuk is a step that could transform Türkiye from merely being a buyer and transit country for Iraqi oil into a production partner.

A few days after the visit, Türkiye and Iraq signed a provisional agreement extending the use of the existing oil pipeline for another year, with a capacity of 750,000 barrels per day. This also showed that the talks in Ankara had begun to produce concrete results. Whilst time is being gained to prepare a broader energy agreement, Baghdad has secured the use of the only operational oil export pipeline. Given that the pipeline carries approximately 170,000 barrels per day, increasing the current capacity could be a significant step in Iraq’s efforts to reduce its dependence on the Strait of Hormuz.

The secret behind the fifth agreement!

The signing ceremony in Ankara also brought to light the main obstacle facing the Iraqi government. Whilst the signing of five agreements was expected, President Erdoğan’s realization that one agreement had not been signed, followed by Zaidi’s turn to Iraq’s Minister of Transport, Veheb al-Hasani, and the subsequent inclusion of the remaining documents in the signing process, were widely discussed in the media of both countries. Hasani later explained the incident as a technical and protocol-related disagreement. A spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Transport, however, stated that there had been a prior dispute on the Iraqi side—involving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Oil—regarding the inclusion of the document in the visit’s program.

In contrast, some Iraqi and Turkish commentators alleged that the minister, who has a background in the Badr Organization, was attempting to slow down the Development Corridor agreement under Iranian influence. This claim could not be definitively confirmed, and the available information is insufficient to characterize the events as a definitive act of sabotage by Iran. However, the incident itself remains significant. Whether the problem stems from a lack of protocol, inter-institutional disagreement or political influence, it demonstrates that during the implementation of strategic decisions in Iraq, different ministries, parties and actors with external connections are not acting in unison. Viewed from this perspective, the success of the Zaidi government’s economic program will in fact depend not so much on how many agreements it signs abroad, but rather on the extent to which it can implement state decisions at home.

Economy in Ankara, missiles on the ground

The joint Saudi Arabian–US air strikes that took place immediately after the visit to Ankara once again demonstrated just how fragile the security environment is in which Zaidi’s development diplomacy is being conducted. US Central Command stated that the strikes targeted logistics and weapons sites belonging to groups it alleged were directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Reports citing Iraqi and Iranian sources stated that at least 20 members of the Hashd al-Shaabi were killed. Baghdad condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, and Zaidi cancelled his visit to Riyadh, which had been scheduled for July 30. Thus, within a matter of days, Iraq – which had been discussing transport corridors and economic integration in Ankara – has once again been drawn into the military arena of US-Iranian tensions.

This development does not diminish the importance of the Ankara visit; on the contrary, it enhances it. This is because the path for Iraq to extricate itself from regional military rivalry does not lie solely in maintaining balanced relations with Washington and Tehran. Iraq must raise the cost of the conflict by developing its economic ties, thereby forcing countries to step back from clashing on its territory. It would be difficult to claim that the intensive trade, energy and transport networks to be established with Türkiye will provide Baghdad with an absolute security guarantee. However, these links will make Iraq’s stability more valuable to Türkiye, Europe, the Gulf states and international companies. Economic interdependence alone will not prevent war, but it will help Iraq move away from being perceived solely as a country defined by militias, military bases and spheres of influence.

Looking at Zaidi’s initial foreign policy moves, he is seeking investment from Washington, political balance from Tehran and economic links from Ankara. Among these three capitals, Türkiye stands out for offering the most viable route to turn Iraq’s geography into an economic advantage. Multi-billion-dollar deals in Washington could provide capital and technology. Relations with Tehran cannot be entirely disregarded in terms of internal stability. However, Iraq’s ability to generate non-oil revenue, open up to Europe, create new employment opportunities and reduce its dependence on the Strait of Hormuz depends to a large extent on the operationalisation of the routes extending northwards.

Ultimately, the visit to Ankara has done more than simply demonstrate Iraq’s growing rapprochement with Türkiye; it has also revealed the direction of the new government’s approach to development. The real issue is not the signing of the five documents. The real issue is whether the pipeline stretching from Ovaköy to Faw, the oil flowing from Kirkuk to Ceyhan, and the $30 billion trade target will make the Iraqi state stronger and more independent. If the Zaidi government can support these projects with institutional reform, transparency and state authority, relations with Türkiye could transform Iraq’s quest for balance in foreign policy into an economic strategy. Otherwise, the documents signed in Ankara will simply be added to the long list of agreements that Baghdad has accumulated over the years but has been unable to implement. .

(Originally published in Turkish by Middle East Africa)

T

he United States and Iran traded threats over a new economic confrontation on Monday, with Washington preparing what it described as an unprecedented sanctions campaign and Tehran warning it could halt all oil exports from the Persian Gulf if the pressure continues.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was due to unveil new sanctions targeting countries and companies that continue trading with Iran, describing the campaign as “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary.”

The measures come after months of war between the United States, Israel and Iran that have damaged Iran’s military and economic infrastructure while disrupting energy markets and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“The economic D-Day” will begin with the new measures, Bessent wrote in an opinion article published in the Financial Times, warning countries that continue doing business with Iran that they could face consequences.

Iran threans to halt oil exports

Iran responded with a threat to dramatically escalate the economic confrontation.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran could stop all oil exports from the Persian Gulf if the U.S. economic campaign continued.

“If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported,” Rezaei said in a social media post, adding that Iran would regard countries supporting Washington’s economic campaign as participating in an act of war.

The warning raises the possibility of a further disruption to global energy markets. The Strait of Hormuz, through which a major share of the world’s oil supplies normally passes, has already been brought close to a standstill by the conflict.

Iran retains missile and drone capabilities that it has used against U.S. allies in the Gulf and has threatened commercial shipping in the strategic waterway.

The new U.S. sanctions campaign comes as Washington and Tehran remain far from a negotiated settlement. Although direct military strikes between the two countries have stopped for several weeks, the two sides have yet to resume substantive negotiations.

The conflict began on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Months of fighting have killed thousands of people, most of them in Iran and Lebanon, and inflicted extensive damage on Iranian infrastructure.

Iran also suffered the killing of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the conflict, while the United States has reported 18 military personnel killed and more than 750 wounded.

Struggling economy but still standing

Despite the economic pressure, Tehran has maintained a defiant public stance. Iranian officials, however, have acknowledged that the country’s economy was already under severe strain before the war because of years of sanctions, high inflation, currency weakness and energy shortages.

The war has added to those problems by damaging infrastructure, disrupting trade and reducing production, leaving Tehran facing major reconstruction costs.

Iranian officials have warned that further economic pressure could deepen hardship, fuel public discontent and undermine the government’s legitimacy.

Washington is also seeking support from major trading partners, particularly China, which has remained one of Iran’s most important economic partners.

Bessent has urged Beijing to cooperate with the U.S. campaign, noting that China has historically obtained a large share of its oil imports from the Gulf.

China has rejected the use of economic pressure as a solution to the conflict.

“Sanctions and pressure do not help resolve the problem,” a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington said, while calling for diplomacy.

Calls for diplomacy continue

With direct U.S.-Iran talks stalled, several countries have attempted to mediate between the two sides. Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey have all been involved in diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing a further escalation.

Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was expected to visit Tehran on Monday as part of Islamabad’s efforts to promote regional peace and security. Pakistani officials said the visit would include discussions on the latest developments and Washington’s threatened sanctions.

The economic confrontation comes at a particularly sensitive moment for global energy markets. Any further disruption to Gulf oil exports could send prices sharply higher and increase pressure on countries already struggling with elevated energy costs.

For Washington, the sanctions campaign is intended to force Iran back to the negotiating table by increasing the economic cost of refusing U.S. demands.

For Tehran, the threat to halt oil exports represents an attempt to demonstrate that Iran can impose significant costs on the United States and its allies if economic pressure continues.

The confrontation therefore risks developing into a wider contest over energy, trade and financial access, even as military operations remain suspended.

With neither side showing signs of abandoning its core demands, the latest exchange of threats suggests that the six-month conflict has entered a new phase — one in which economic pressure and control of global energy supplies could prove as important as military power.

(Source: Reuters)

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urkish Presidential Communications Director Burhanettin Duran said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threats and accusations against Türkiye and Syria reflect Israel’s growing international isolation and domestic political concerns.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Duran described Netanyahu’s recent remarks as an attempt to create imaginary threats and enemies and distract international attention from Israel’s policies in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon.

“Netanyahu’s threats and lies against Türkiye and Syria are a new reflection of the Israeli prime minister’s growing international isolation, political fears and delusions,” Duran said.

He argued that international criticism of Israel’s policies has increased, including among the United States, Britain and other countries. Duran said Netanyahu was using hostility toward Türkiye as a political tool amid domestic pressures and competition with more radical elements within Israel’s political system.

Türkiye says Israel is fueling regional instability

Duran accused Netanyahu’s government of pursuing an increasingly aggressive regional policy, including military operations in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, as well as allowing attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

He said Israel’s attempt to blame Türkiye following its strikes in Syria demonstrated what he described as an effort to shift responsibility for its own actions.

“The problem is not that people do not understand Israeli policies,” Duran said. “It is that more and more people understand and reject these policies.”

He said Türkiye did not pose a threat to Israel but opposed policies that undermine regional security and stability.

According to Duran, Ankara would continue supporting countries pursuing peaceful policies in the region, particularly Syria, while seeking to prevent further escalation.

He said Türkiye had sufficient experience and strength to respond to threats while maintaining a cautious and measured approach.

Duran calls for two-state solution

Duran also pointed to criticism of Netanyahu within Israel, saying opposition politicians had described his anti-Türkiye rhetoric as irresponsible and extreme and warned that it was creating concern among the Israeli public.

He argued that Israel was losing international support and said tensions with Türkiye had produced no meaningful benefit for Israel.

Duran emphasized Türkiye’s position as a NATO member with significant military and diplomatic capabilities, saying Ankara would continue to prioritize regional peace and stability.

He urged Israel to abandon what he described as destabilizing policies and instead work toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The most rational course for the Israeli government would be to work toward a two-state solution that would completely resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to stop taking further destabilizing steps in the region,” Duran said.

He also criticized Israeli policies concerning the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and plans for new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Duran said Türkiye would not allow Netanyahu’s policies to undermine regional peace or threaten the security of Türkiye and its allies.

“Türkiye’s prudent and peaceful foreign policy will thwart the bloody games of figures like Netanyahu who are willing to set the region on fire to secure their own political futures,” he said.

(Source: Anadolu Agency)

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he Israeli military has acknowledged for the first time that its forces fired on a vehicle carrying 5-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in Gaza in January 2024 and announced a criminal investigation into the incident.

The Israeli army had previously denied that its troops were involved in the killing. Months after the incident, a preliminary military investigation concluded that Israeli forces were “not present near the vehicle or within firing range.”

The new findings mark a significant reversal in the military’s account of one of the most widely publicized killings of a Palestinian child during the Gaza war.

Hind was traveling with six members of her family in a vehicle in northern Gaza when it came under Israeli fire. She survived the initial attack and remained trapped inside the car, where she made a desperate phone call to Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics asking for help.

An ambulance sent to rescue her also came under fire.

Twelve days later, rescuers found Hind’s body inside the bullet-riddled vehicle alongside the bodies of her relatives.

Military acknowledges firing on vehicle

In a statement, the Israeli military said an examination had found that Israeli troops had fired at a vehicle “that was approaching them.”

The military said the findings, combined with what it described as apparent failures in coordinating the movement of the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance, had led to the decision to open a criminal investigation by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division.

The investigation is part of the Israeli military’s first comprehensive review of alleged war crimes since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.

The military said its General Staff’s Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism had examined 150 incidents and transferred them to the military’s top legal authorities to determine whether criminal investigations should be opened.

Of five decisions announced Wednesday, two resulted in criminal investigations: the killing of Hind Rajab and the March 2025 killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and first responders.

Family calls for independent investigation

Hind’s mother, Wesam Hamada, welcomed the decision as a long-overdue development but said it did not amount to justice.

She called for an independent and transparent investigation and genuine accountability for those responsible for her daughter’s death, rather than a closed military inquiry.

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour also questioned whether the Israeli military could conduct a credible investigation into its own forces. He described previous Israeli investigations as neither independent nor credible and said accountability should include the arrest of those responsible.

The Hind Rajab Foundation similarly criticized Israel’s military justice system, arguing that investigations into alleged violations by Israeli forces frequently end without meaningful prosecution or punishment.

No criminal probes into aid worker killings

The Israeli army also announced that it would not open criminal investigations into three other incidents involving humanitarian workers.

They included the April 2024 Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Deir el-Balah, a February 2024 strike on a Doctors Without Borders shelter in Khan Younis that killed two employees, and a November 2023 attack on a Doctors Without Borders convoy that killed two others.

In the World Central Kitchen case, the Israeli military acknowledged “serious failures” that led its forces to mistakenly believe the convoy had been taken over by Hamas fighters. However, the military advocate-general concluded there was no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.

World Central Kitchen condemned the decision, saying it was inconsistent with the full circumstances of the attack and failed to provide meaningful accountability.

Australia also criticized the decision because one of those killed, Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, was among the seven WCK employees.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Frankcom’s family deserved justice and that the decision fell “far short” of the accountability Australia expected. She said Australia would summon Israel’s ambassador and continue pressing Israel over the deaths.

I

srael is facing growing international criticism after its warplanes struck an abandoned military airfield in northwestern Syria, with regional governments and international organizations warning that continued attacks threaten Syria’s sovereignty and regional stability.

The Israeli strikes targeted the disused Abu al-Duhur Military Airbase in Idlib province. Syrian officials said Israeli aircraft carried out eight separate strikes, damaging the runway and hitting a derelict structure inside a hangar. No casualties were immediately reported.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the operation as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, saying Israeli attacks on Syrian territory have continued since December 8, 2024.

Damascus said it has pursued a policy of restraint in an effort to strengthen domestic stability and prevent a wider regional escalation.

Regional governments condemn Israeli strikes

Türkiye strongly condemned the Israeli operation and called for greater international pressure to end what it described as Israel’s continuing aggression against Syria.

“We call on the international community to display a more decisive stance to ensure an end to Israel’s aggression against Syria,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said, urging accountability for actions it said disregarded international law.

Jordan described the strikes as an “unjustified hostile attack” and said they violated international law and Syrian sovereignty. Egypt similarly warned that repeated Israeli violations of Syrian territory and airspace could trigger a dangerous escalation and undermine wider regional peace efforts.

The Gulf Cooperation Council also condemned the strikes. Saudi Arabia denounced the attack in the strongest terms and rejected the targeting of the Abu al-Duhur facility, while Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait warned that continued military action against Syria threatened regional security.

GCC Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi called for stronger international action to protect Syrian territory and uphold regional stability.

U.N. and U.S. express concern

The Arab League also criticized the Israeli strikes, with Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy accusing Israel of using provocative military action to intensify regional tensions.

Pakistan expressed solidarity with Syria and described the strikes as a violation of international law that threatened regional stability. Islamabad called on the international community to ensure accountability.

At the United Nations, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the strikes represented another “alarming violation” of Syria’s territorial integrity and airspace.

“These airstrikes must stop, and we are opposed to them,” Dujarric told reporters.

The United States also expressed concern. Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Ankara and special envoy for Syria and Iraq, said Washington remained committed to diplomatic efforts and talks between regional parties.

Barrack said Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government had not adopted an aggressive posture toward Israel and had instead repeatedly favored de-escalation.

The latest strikes come as Syria seeks to consolidate its new political order and strengthen relations with regional and international partners. The growing criticism of Israeli military operations, meanwhile, reflects broader concerns that continued attacks could undermine efforts to stabilize Syria and prevent another escalation across the Middle East.

(Source: Daily Sabah)

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.S. government debt has surpassed $40 trillion for the first time, highlighting growing concerns about the country’s fiscal outlook as spending on social programs and interest payments continues to rise faster than government revenues.

The Treasury Department reported that total U.S. public debt reached $40.047 trillion on Tuesday. Of that amount, $32.266 trillion was debt held by the public, while $7.782 trillion represented intragovernmental holdings.

The debt has more than doubled since Donald Trump first took office in January 2017, when it stood at about $19.95 trillion. Around one-third of the increase occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Trump and Biden administrations borrowed heavily to finance emergency economic support.

Debt and interest costs continue to rise

Budget watchdogs have warned that the growing debt burden could eventually trigger a serious fiscal crisis unless lawmakers take steps to reduce spending, increase revenues, or pursue a combination of both.

“The more we borrow, the more we exacerbate inflation, squeeze out other priorities in the budget, and leave ourselves vulnerable to emergencies at home and turmoil abroad,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The debt reached $40 trillion less than five months after passing $39 trillion, underscoring the rapid pace of government borrowing.

The United States is also facing rising borrowing costs as investors demand higher yields on Treasury securities. Thirty-year Treasury yields recently reached their highest level in nearly two decades, while demand from foreign investors has weakened.

Higher Treasury yields can increase borrowing costs across the economy, affecting mortgages, auto loans and business financing.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent responded Wednesday by announcing that the government would double the size of some Treasury buyback operations to at least $4 billion per transaction, in an effort to support the longer-term bond market.

Trump has repeatedly called for lower interest rates. Asked whether Americans should be concerned about volatility in the bond market, he said he was not worried and argued that a strong U.S. economy should lead to lower rates

Trump and Biden both oversaw large increases

The growth in U.S. debt has accelerated under both Trump and former President Joe Biden.

Debt increased by about $7.8 trillion during Trump’s first term, with more than half of that increase accumulating during the final nine months as the government responded to the pandemic.

Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, the debt has risen by another $3.8 trillion, bringing the increase across his two terms to about $11.6 trillion so far.

During Biden’s four-year presidency, federal debt increased by approximately $8.4 trillion, driven partly by pandemic recovery spending as well as investments in infrastructure, clean energy and other government programs.

Trump’s second-term legislative agenda is also expected to add significantly to future borrowing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that his major tax-and-spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, could add about $4.7 trillion to the national debt.

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to face large annual deficits. The Treasury reported a $432 billion deficit in July, the fourth-largest monthly deficit in U.S. history.

Interest becomes a major budget burden

Rising debt is making interest payments an increasingly important part of federal spending.

The government spends roughly $7 trillion annually, with about 60% going toward mandatory programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits.

Interest payments on the national debt now account for roughly $1.1 trillion annually. In fiscal 2025, debt-service costs exceeded Pentagon spending for the first time.

During the first 10 months of fiscal 2026, interest costs surpassed Medicare spending, becoming the second-largest federal budget item after Social Security.

The pressure is expected to grow as the aging population increases demand for retirement and health care programs while tax revenues remain insufficient to cover federal spending.

The crossing of the $40 trillion threshold has therefore renewed concerns about whether Washington can stabilize its finances while maintaining major social programs, funding national priorities and managing the rising cost of borrowing.

(Source: Reuters)

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hinese President Xi Jinping called on China to maintain an “indomitable fighting spirit” in confronting challenges and defending the country’s interests, while praising the Communist Party’s handling of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Xi made the remarks Monday during a major speech marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who led the country from 1993 to 2002 and died in 2022.

Speaking before thousands of officials and delegates at the Great Hall of the People, Xi portrayed China as facing difficult challenges but said the country would remain resilient.

“With an indomitable fighting spirit and exceptional capabilities, we will actively confront major challenges, whether they be rough seas or even raging storms,” Xi said.

He called for the defense of China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, saying the country would continue building on what he described as its achievements in economic development and social stability.

The speech was notable for its reference to the 1989 Tiananmen protests, a subject that remains highly sensitive in China. Xi praised Jiang for supporting the Communist Party leadership’s decision during the crisis and for helping maintain stability in Shanghai.

Xi highlights Jiang’s role in 1989 crackdown

The Tiananmen protests began in April 1989 following the death of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, whose removal from power had been associated with a political shift away from liberalization.

Thousands of students and other protesters gathered in Beijing and called for political reforms and greater democracy. On June 4, Chinese troops moved into central Beijing and fired on protesters, bringing the demonstrations to an end.

Jiang rose rapidly within the Communist Party after the crackdown. He became party general secretary later that year and eventually China’s top leader in 1993.

Xi’s remarks represented a rare acknowledgment in official Chinese discourse of the political turmoil surrounding Tiananmen. Discussion of the crackdown remains heavily restricted in mainland China, while references to the deaths and images of the violence are subject to censorship.

State media also recently highlighted Jiang’s support for the party leadership’s response in a documentary series marking his life, although it did not show footage of the killings.

China faces economic and geopolitical challenges

Xi also praised Jiang’s broader legacy, including the economic reforms and opening to the outside world that accelerated during his leadership.

China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 with strong support from the United States, helping fuel a period of rapid economic growth and deeper integration into global markets.

Relations between Beijing and Washington have since deteriorated, with trade disputes and broader geopolitical tensions increasingly shaping the relationship.

Xi is expected to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in late September, with trade, artificial intelligence and Taiwan among the issues expected to feature in their discussions.

In Monday’s speech, Xi highlighted improvements in living standards and China’s economic achievements, while insisting that the country’s long-term prospects remained strong.

“The prospects for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation are bright,” Xi said, adding that the goal pursued by generations of Chinese leaders was gradually becoming a reality.

(Source: CNN)

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overnment bond markets across the United States, Japan and Europe are sending a warning to policymakers as long-term borrowing costs reach levels not seen in years, driven by rising government debt, inflation concerns and geopolitical uncertainty.

The sharp increase in bond yields is raising borrowing costs for governments, companies and households while making it more difficult for central banks to balance inflation against economic growth.

In the United States, 30-year Treasury yields rose above 5% to their highest level since 2007. Japan’s 10-year government bond yield climbed to just below 3%, its highest level in three decades. German, French and British long-term borrowing costs also reached multiyear or multi-decade highs.

The moves reflect growing concerns about the sustainability of government finances and the inflation outlook as geopolitical tensions, tariffs and the continuing war involving Iran reshape the global economy.

Rising debt and inflation pressure bond markets

The U.S. government debt burden is approaching $40 trillion, while other developed economies are also facing large fiscal deficits and growing borrowing requirements.

The prolonged conflict involving Iran has pushed oil prices higher, with crude recently rising above $90 a barrel. Higher energy prices are adding to inflation concerns and reducing expectations that central banks will be able to cut interest rates quickly.

At the same time, technology companies are borrowing heavily to finance the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centers. That demand for capital is increasing competition with governments seeking to sell large amounts of debt.

“Bond yields’ recent surge suggests investors are losing patience with fiscal profligacy,” said Jonas Goltermann, chief markets economist at Capital Economics.

U.S. 30-year Treasury yields later eased slightly, with the yield last down 2.4 basis points at 5.286%. The 10-year Treasury yield stood around 4.71%, a level that markets are watching closely, with 5% increasingly viewed as an important threshold.

The New York Federal Reserve estimates the term premium — the additional return investors demand for holding longer-term government debt — at around 80 basis points, close to its highest level in 12 years.

Recent U.S. Treasury auctions have also highlighted rising borrowing costs. A 10-year Treasury sale cleared at a yield of 4.683%, the highest in 19 years, while a 30-year auction reached 5.216%, a 25-year high.

The increase in government bond yields has also weighed on stocks, with major indexes including the Nasdaq and Europe’s STOXX 600 falling on Tuesday.

Japan and Europe face growing pressure

Japan is experiencing a particularly significant shift in its bond market. Its 10-year borrowing costs have climbed to nearly 3%, while 30-year yields have moved above 4%.

Investors are increasingly expecting the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates as early as September as inflation concerns grow.

Higher Japanese bond yields could also affect U.S. markets because Japanese investors have traditionally been major buyers of U.S. government debt. More attractive returns at home could encourage them to reduce purchases of Treasuries.

Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries declined in June, according to U.S. Treasury Department data, with Japan, Britain and China among the countries reducing their holdings.

European governments are facing similar pressures. Germany’s 10-year bond yield reached its highest level since 2011, while French yields rose to their highest since 2008. Britain’s 30-year borrowing costs approached levels last seen in May, which were the highest since 1998.

High government spending and debt in countries such as France and Britain have contributed to investor concerns. Climate-related events are also expected to increase pressure on government budgets.

The bond market selloff is significant because government bond yields serve as a benchmark for borrowing across the economy. Higher sovereign yields can translate into more expensive corporate loans, consumer credit and household mortgages.

Some investors, however, believe the recent rise in yields could make government bonds increasingly attractive and eventually encourage buyers to return to the market.

The broader concern for policymakers is whether higher yields represent a temporary adjustment or the beginning of a longer period in which investors demand substantially greater compensation for lending to governments.

With inflation still vulnerable to higher energy prices, government debt continuing to rise and geopolitical risks increasing, bond markets are placing greater pressure on policymakers to demonstrate control over both fiscal policy and inflation.

(Source: Reuters)

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.S. envoy Jared Kushner said Monday that the United States would not support rebuilding Gaza until Hamas gives up its weapons, as Israel continues carrying out attacks across the devastated Palestinian territory.

Kushner made the remarks after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to advance a U.S.-backed roadmap for ending the genocide. The meeting did not produce a breakthrough, with major disagreements remaining over Hamas’ disarmament and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

“We have a plan to rebuild Gaza, but we will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs,” Kushner told Fox News.

He said Washington did not want reconstruction funds to be invested in Gaza if the territory could again become a battlefield.

Disarmament remains key dispute

Hamas had agreed to disarm as part of the U.S.-backed proposal, which would also involve an Israeli withdrawal and an end to attacks on Gaza. Israel, however, rejected the proposal earlier this month, saying it would not make concessions until Gaza was fully demilitarized.

Kushner appeared to align closely with Israel’s position, emphasizing that Hamas would need to surrender its weapons before major reconstruction and Israeli withdrawal could proceed.

“We’re also not going to restrict Israel’s right to defend itself if there are any imminent threats,” Kushner said, adding that Washington had sought to clarify what that provision would mean.

His comments came despite President Donald Trump earlier Monday calling for an end to Israeli attacks on Gaza.

“Israelis should not be striking in Gaza. Hamas agreed to lay down their weapons,” Trump said.

Israel has continued launching near-daily attacks on the territory. According to the figures cited by Al Jazeera, at least 1,265 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since a ceasefire came into effect last year. The broader Israeli war on Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians since October 2023, according to the same source.

U.S. pushes Gaza roadmap

Kushner also met Hamas officials on Sunday in a rare direct encounter as Washington seeks to move its Gaza plan forward. He described the discussions as “very cordial” but said the United States would judge Hamas by its actions rather than its promises.

“They said all the right things,” Kushner said, while expressing skepticism about the group’s willingness to fulfill its commitments.

He said Hamas could potentially surrender its weapons and tunnels within 60 to 90 days, describing such an outcome as a major security gain for Israel.

Kushner warned that if Hamas failed to follow through, the group would lose international support and Israel would have greater backing from Washington and other countries to continue military action.

The U.S. envoy also argued that the proposed agreement would benefit Israel by removing what he described as a major security threat.

The dispute over reconstruction highlights one of the central obstacles to the U.S.-backed plan. Gaza has suffered enormous destruction during the Israeli genocide, creating an urgent need for housing, infrastructure, health care and other basic services.

Washington has remained a major supporter of Israel throughout the genocide. According to Al Jazeera, the United States has provided Israel with about $25 billion in military aid over the past three years and has defended the Israeli government at international forums.

The latest diplomatic efforts come as Washington attempts to reconcile its calls for an end to the fighting with Israel’s demand for Hamas’ complete disarmament before any broader political settlement.

For Palestinians in Gaza, however, the continuation of Israeli strikes and the conditions attached to reconstruction leave the territory’s future uncertain, even as international efforts seek to establish a lasting ceasefire and begin rebuilding.

)Source: Aljazeera English)

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merican President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 33%, the lowest level of his current presidency, as growing concerns over the war with Iran and rising gasoline prices weigh on his standing with American voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday.

The four-day survey found that 64% of Americans disapproved of Trump’s performance, compared with 33% who approved. His approval rating fell from 35% in an earlier poll this month and matched the lowest level recorded during his previous presidency, in December 2017.

Trump returned to the White House in 2025 with approval from just under half of Americans, but his standing has weakened as the conflict with Iran has continued. The war has disrupted a significant share of global oil trade and pushed gasoline prices higher, adding pressure on U.S. households.

Most Americans expect Iran war to continue

The poll showed widespread concern that U.S. involvement in the conflict will last much longer than Trump initially suggested.

About 80% of Americans said they believed U.S. involvement in Iran would continue for an extended period, including 87% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans. Only 16% expected the conflict to end within a few weeks.

Trump initially suggested that the war could be resolved within weeks, but Iran has continued resisting U.S. and Israeli military pressure. The conflict has also disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to higher energy prices.

Trump has defended the rising cost of gasoline as necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. At a rally in New York on Friday, he told supporters that paying somewhat more for gasoline was worthwhile to prevent what he described as an evil country from obtaining nuclear weapons.

However, only about one in five Americans said the war was worth the cost. Among Republicans, only about half considered the conflict worthwhile.

The economic impact of the war could become a major issue ahead of the Nov. 3 congressional elections, with Republicans seeking to defend narrow majorities in the House while Democrats increasingly see an opportunity to gain control of the Senate.

Democrats gain ground on economy

The poll also showed Democrats gaining an advantage over Republicans on economic issues. About 38% of registered voters said Democrats would handle the economy better, compared with 35% who preferred Republicans.

That represents a significant shift from previous years and comes as voters express increasing concern about the cost of living and gasoline prices.

Democrats were also viewed as better equipped to manage the cost of living, while Republicans continued to hold a narrow advantage on immigration.

About 40% of voters said Republicans had the better approach to immigration, compared with 38% who favored Democrats. The two-point Republican advantage was the smallest recorded during Trump’s current presidency. Republicans had held a 26-point advantage on immigration in January 2025.

Although Trump’s administration has overseen a sharp decline in border crossings and expanded immigration enforcement, Republicans have faced political pressure over deadly confrontations and the growing number of people held in immigration detention, including children.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online among 1,166 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of three percentage points in either direction.

The findings point to growing political challenges for Trump as voters confront the economic consequences of the Iran conflict and prepare to vote in the November midterm elections.

(Source: Reuters)

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hilst the Middle East region has undergone significant change and transformation as a result of the attacks launched by Israel from 7 October 2023 onwards, the US-Israel–Iran war that began on 28 February 2026 has further fuelled this change, pushing it to a point of no return. For had these events not occurred, the ‘Mecca Joint Defence Agreement’, signed on 7 August 2026 between Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, might not have been possible.

Developments necessitating “regional ownership”

Türkiye’s long-standing stance that the region’s problems should be resolved by the countries of the region themselves – a concept defined by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan as “regional ownership” – had not received sufficient support from the countries of the region. Whilst the reasons behind this may vary from country to country, ultimately external interventions aimed at resolving the region’s problems have failed to heal the wounds; on the contrary, they have either caused existing wounds to bleed anew or allowed them to simply harden into calluses without being resolved. Consequently, it has become apparent that interventions in the region—particularly from the West and, of course, the US—have failed to produce results and have not brought peace and stability to the region.

However, following the events that began on 7 October 2023, Israel’s adoption of a revisionist policy towards the region—believing that the conditions were favourable—and its subsequent attacks targeting not only Gaza and the West Bank but also Lebanon, Syria and Iran, have led to a shift in the preconceptions held by countries in the region towards Türkiye.

For whilst it is evident that almost all of the Western countries expected to resolve the region’s problems have taken sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine, providing Ukraine with billions of dollars in aid as well as both political and military support; whilst Israel’s razing of Gaza, massacred over 73,000 people and committed a massive genocide; deepened its annexation of the West Bank; gradually sought to alter the status of the Al-Aqsa Mosque; occupied southern Lebanon and attempted to provoke a civil war there; and, as if its decades-long occupation of the Golan Heights—which is Syrian territory —as if that were not enough—it unilaterally suspended the 1974 agreement following the revolution on 8 December 2024, occupied further Syrian territory, and sought to prevent Syria from achieving stability by manipulating the Druze and the SDG/PKK terrorist organisations.

The extent to which external actors remain indifferent to crises or conflicts in our region has once again been exposed in the war against Iran. For just as it is unjust and wrong for an actor such as the US to fall into Israel’s trap and attack Iran, it is equally wrong for other Western countries not to have taken the initiative to dissuade the US from this war, as was the case with Ukraine. Although these countries—the majority of which are also NATO members—were called upon by the US to deploy troops to open the blockaded Strait of Hormuz – although this was not in accordance with NATO regulations – they did not heed this call and, whilst not becoming directly involved in the war, they made their stance clear by expanding sanctions against Iran rather than exerting pressure on Israel to bring the war to an end.

During this war, Iran’s decision to attack Gulf states and other countries hosting US bases on their territory – rather than Israel and the US, which were directly attacking it – both because they were relatively easier targets and with the intention of indirectly exerting pressure on the US, has once again demonstrated the importance of regional ownership.

Israel’s revisionist policies and the perception of threats by regional countries

All these developments have made a mechanism such as the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement imperative, with the aim of thwarting the plans of a country like Israel—which, despite its small size, seeks to destabilize the region and derive benefit from the situation by leveraging its lobbying power in the US and Europe and relying on their support—and to establish a new status quo. Furthermore, whilst Israel recently proposed an alignment strategy—such as the “hexagon bloc”—which has yet to materialize on the ground, the formation of a counter-front by countries outside this bloc that perceive the current developments as a threat to their national interests must be regarded as inevitable.

Despite the security guarantees the US has provided to the Gulf states to date, the fact that these states have been exposed to Iranian attacks during the war against Iran has not only called into question the reliability of US guarantees in the Gulf, but has also inevitably led to a search for alternatives regarding the future of the region’s security architecture. It is therefore highly likely that the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement will address this necessity; in particular, should the US withdraw from the region following the war with Iran, it is conceivable that it might be open to entrusting the region’s security to three key and powerful allies: Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the fact that the US has not made any negative statements regarding the Mecca Agreement to date is interpreted in this light and reinforces the view that there is coordination between the signatory countries and the US.

Why is the agreement so important?

Among the key factors that make the agreement significant are the characteristics and capabilities of the signatory countries. Türkiye, for instance, is not only a NATO member but also a candidate country for the EU and has made significant strides in the defense industry in recent years. It is therefore an indispensable actor for both the Middle East and the European security architecture. Pakistan, meanwhile, is the only Muslim country to possess nuclear weapons and also has a substantial population. As for Saudi Arabia, it stands out as a key player not only due to its abundant energy resources but also because of its strategic location at the crossroads of global trade routes. Furthermore, as a leading figure in both the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League, and as the custodian of Islam’s holy sites, it is an actor held in high regard and whose word carries weight among both Arab and Muslim states.

The coming together of these three major powers to form a defense alliance would create a synergy whose effects are likely to extend beyond the region. Furthermore, should this agreement be successfully implemented, it would inevitably create a domino effect, making it likely that other countries in the region would join the agreement. Considering similar initiatives that have been attempted at various times but could never be brought to a conclusion due to both regional and circumstantial conditions, the most significant impact of this agreement, as of today, is that it stands as the sole development capable of curbing Israel’s aggressive, occupying and expansionist regional vision. Not only will the Abraham Accords no longer hold any appeal for countries in the region, but it is also understood that, should the US withdraw from the region following a war against Iran, the new security architecture of the region will be centered on the new pact established by this agreement.