Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a brief press conference at the Cotroceni presidential palace in Bucharest, Romania, April 1, 2015 (AP photo by Vadim Ghirda).

On June 7, Turkish citizens will head to the polls to elect representatives for the Grand National Assembly. Although Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is certain to retain its parliamentary majority, the outcome of this important election will likely determine the future of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since 2011, Erdogan, echoed by the party’s manifesto, has argued that Turkey must change its political system to create what AKP supporters refer to as the “New Turkey.” To do so, Erdogan has called for the drafting of a new constitution that includes a strengthened presidential system imbued with few […]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad speaks with Syrian troops during his visit to the front line in the eastern Damascus district of Jobar, Syria, Dec. 31, 2014 (AP Photo/SANA).

Last week, the value of Syria’s currency hit a record low against the dollar. On the black market in Damascus, dealers told Reuters, a dollar cost as much as 315 Syrian pounds. That wasn’t even as bad as other parts of Syria, where the currency traded for as much as 328 pounds to a dollar—a precipitous spike since the start of the year, when the rate hung around 220 pounds to the dollar. In 2011, when the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began, it was around 47 pounds. The collapsing currency was the latest sign of the Assad regime’s […]

British Prime Minister David Cameron walks by French President Francois Hollande during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels, March 19, 2015 (AP photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert).

Would you rather follow David Cameron or Francois Hollande into battle? The British prime minister and the French president have both had to navigate a steady stream of small wars, and both face criticism for their responses. Cameron was an early advocate for the international intervention in Libya in 2011, but stands accused of mishandling its chaotic aftermath. Hollande won praise for sending troops to stem the conflicts in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2013, but France has struggled to extract itself from either of its turbulent former colonies. The two leaders’ decisions have been under particular […]

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif receives Chinese President Xi Jinping, Islamabad, Pakistan, April 20, 2015 (Photo from Pakistan’s Press Information Office).

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan last month to inaugurate the 1,800-mile China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which will stretch from the landlocked western Chinese province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea port city of Gwadar in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan. The project, which includes investment deals worth up to $46 billion, has the potential to significantly alter the economic geography of the region, spur the next generation of Chinese growth and lift Pakistan out of its economic slumber. But it faces major challenges, including threats from violent ethnic separatists and jihadis, who will seek to play the role of […]

Then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Libya’s then-National Transitional Council leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil and British Prime Minister David Cameron visit Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 15, 2011 (AP photo by Stefan Rousseau).

Deciding whether to remove a dictator by force has long been a vexing problem for American policymakers. With the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, many dictators fell with little direct U.S. involvement. But that simply weeded out the herd, leaving the most ruthless and hardened, like Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Kim dynasty in North Korea and the Assad dynasty in Syria. After the attacks of 9/11 and U.S. President George W. Bush’s “global war on terror,” they, too, were in America’s sights to one extent or another. The insurgency in Iraq should […]

Fighters of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) walk in the damaged streets of Sinjar, Iraq, Jan. 29, 2015 (AP photo by Bram Janssen).

The Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by the Turkish government, have exchanged harsh words in recent weeks over who has control over the strategically imporant city of Sinjar in northern Iraq. In an email interview, Jordi Tejel, a research professor in the international history department of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, discussed intra-Kurdish tensions. WPR: How has the fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS) affected relations between the KRG and the PKK—and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian affliliate of […]

Newly elected northern Cypriot President Mustafa Akinci speaks to his supporters, April 26, 2015 (AP photo by Petros Karadjias).

Mustafa Akinci was sworn in as president of northern Cyprus yesterday, after overwhelmingly defeating right-wing incumbent President Dervis Eroglu, 60.5 percent to 40.5 percent, in Sunday’s election. Though Eroglu, who has been in office since 2010, had just barely finished atop the first-round voting a week before, the leftist Akinci and the two other leading candidates, who all focused their campaigns on change and cleaner politics, together received 70 percent of the vote. The second round became, in effect, a referendum between those content with the conservative status quo, including a hard line in peace talks on Cyprus’ reunification, and […]

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