Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 28-year war against the Turkish state, is an unlikely candidate for peacemaker. Yet recently he has become Ankara’s key ally in its efforts to end the three-decade-old armed struggle. On December 28, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that More »

In Turkey, it is not “publish or perish” that scholars must fear.  It is prison. There was a time, not very long ago, when Turkey seemed on the edge of a new era of academic and intellectual freedom.  New private universities created institutional support for more independent scholarship, while the Turkish government showed at least More »

Asia specialists will not openly admit it, but they hate the Middle East. To them, the Middle East is the great distraction that keeps people from focusing on what’s really important – their own area in the Western Pacific. The media are primarily to blame, according to this narrative. The media love sudden drama, even More »

Turkey’s largest Kurdish city, Diyarbakir, is at the center of a decades-long conflict between the state and Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy. The city often sees clashes between young people and security forces. But one man has devoted his life to bringing hope and a way out of violence for the city’s youth through More »

With President Barack Obama’s re-election, many people across the Middle East are contemplating what this region might expect from his second term. Over the next four years, Obama will likely continue the policy directions set in his first term: by completing the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example, and reaching out to global players like More »

On October 15 Turkish air force jets forced an Armenian plane en route to the Syrian town of Aleppo to land at Erzurum in eastern Turkey for a security check. Also, according to the Turkish disaster management agency (AFAD), the number of Syrian refugees in camps in Turkey has now exceeded 100,000. Since Syrian shells More »

- NATO is willing to defend Turkey against Syria - The Syrian economy falters, although Damascus is somewhat spared - Why are early elections being held in Israel? - A new poll asks Americans: what if Israel attacks Iran? - A scientist says sanctions on Iran are working – sort More »

This week in the Middle East, fighting continues in Syria and tension develops on the Syria-Turkey border after a deadly attack that killed five Turkish civilians on Wednesday. In Egypt, women protest against the Muslim Brotherhood, demanding rights, and President Mohamed Morsi visited former President Anwar Sadat’s tomb. In Israel, many celebrated the Jewish More »

The Turkish parliament has voted to authorize possible further military operations outside its borders. Turkish forces have already struck Syrian targets in response to a cross-border mortar attack that killed five civilians in Turkey. Bulent Aliriza is Director and Senior Associate of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. VOA’s Susan Yackee asked for his More »

- Turkey’s parliament votes on military operations outside its borders - A new report on Gaza prison abuse - The U.S. secretary of state pledges a full inquiry into the consulate attack in Libya - The U.S. expands its military operations in More »

- Turkey has a new and aggressive policy to get top museums around the world to return its ancient artifacts – sanctions. - Aid agencies are scrambling to relocate refugees sheltered in Syrian school buildings before classes resume in two weeks. - Some 300 Jewish settlers left their homes in a West Bank outpost – some More »

-The White House is studying a new report by the U.N. nuclear agency on Iran, and says the U.S. and its partners have their “eyes on” Tehran’s nuclear program. -Syrian rebels attack security compounds in Aleppo while conditions on the border with Turkey are worsening. -Syria’s neighbors tell the U.N. Security Council they need international assistance More »

More than 200,000 Syrians have fled their country as the civil war escalates, but their neighbors are having difficulty taking them all in. Turkey’s foreign minister is worried that Turkish refugee camps cannot handle any more people. Syrians are also at risk on the Iraqi border and in Jordan, where more than 20,000 have sought More »

- There is new talk about establishing a no-fly zone over Syria. We weigh the pros and cons with Middle East expert Daniel Newman of Britain’s Durham University. - The northern Lebanese city of Tripoli has been the scene of armed clashes between two rival neighborhoods over the past week, with at least 16 people More »

- Our correspondent travels to the Turkey-Syria border, the main conduit for foreign aid to rebel fighters, and finds signs that despite foreign insistence, the aid trail may also include covert arms smuggling. - We hear the reaction to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s groundbreaking decision to force the retirement of his defense minister, military chief More »

- The American Jewish Committee is asking U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to reconsider his planned visit to Iran later this month for the Non-Aligned Movement Summit.  We asked A.J.C. Executive Director David Harris why. - The mandate for the U.N. observer mission in Syria expires August 19th, and the U.S. representative to the U.N. More »

This week in Syria, government forces pushed back Free Syrian Army rebels in Aleppo, a bomb exploded in the state news agency, and President Bashar al-Assad’s newly appointed prime minister, Riad Hijab, defected, raising the question, is the Syrian regime coming apart? In Lebanon, security forces detained for questioning former information minister Michel Samaha, an ally of Syrian More »

Preoccupied with the need to send its most loyal battalions to retake urban neighborhoods in six major cities, the Syrian government has become vulnerable to the political ambitions of a sizeable population of ethnic Kurds who live in portions of three northeastern governates. As Syria’s armored divisions and MIG fighters engage Free Syrian Army units More »

- Daniel Serwer, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a scholar at the Middle East Institute, speaks about the importance of the Syrian prime minister’s defection. - White House spokesman Jay Carney says it’s time for a peaceful transition of power in Syria. - Syrian refugees are seeking smugglers to spirit More »