Author: Steven Sahiounie

Turkey is discussing with Russia “how to address the continued presence” of Kurdish YPG militants in areas covered by an agreement between the two countries, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Thursday. Ankara halted its incursion against the YPG last month after agreeing with Moscow to allow militants to pull out of a swathe of land east of the Euphrates river, as well as the towns of Tel Rifat and Manbij, west of the river. Turkey has complained that the withdrawal has not been completed, and threatened to resume its offensive, Reuters said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on…

The United States is ready to work with a new Lebanese government that responds to the needs of its people, the country’s President Michael Aoun tweeted on Thursday, citing President Donald Trump’s cable to him. Lebanon is mired in a deep political crisis amid nationwide protests that prompted PM Saad Hariri to resign on October 29. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Lebanon’s leaders to form a new government capable of enacting reforms and fighting corruption. Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday scheduled a session of parliament next week to discuss draft legislation on banking secrecy and…

By Anas Chihab  The former NSA and CIA agent Edward Snowden revealed that the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was trained in Israel, various Iranien sources reported. Snowden added that the American CIA and the British Intelligence collaborated with the Israeli Mossad to create a terrorist organization that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called “the hornet’s nest”. The “Hornet’s nest’’ strategy aims to bring all the major threats to one place in order to track them, and mostly to shake the stability of…

Damascus has appealed to the international community to put pressure on Ankara for Turkey to cease its aggressive action in northeast Syria which the government says run counter to the agreements reached in Astana and Sochi, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Thursday. “The Syrian Arab Republic staunchly condemns criminal attacks committed by Turkish occupation forces at Syrian people and is calling on the international community to exert influence over Ankara to cease its aggression,” the SANA news agency quoted the statement as saying, TASS reports. The ministry claims that Turkey “continues to commit crimes in…

Steven Sahiounie, political commentator US President Donald J. Trump has campaigned on a ‘tough on China’ policy to US voters, and with a new election in less than a year, his decisions on what deal he will make now with China are influenced by what affect it may have on his re-election chances.  He had initially wanted a comprehensive trade deal with China, but after his 17-month trade war, he is now focused only on a smaller ‘phase one deal’.  Trump threatened for the second time in a week to “raise the tariffs even higher” on Chinese imports if a…

The spokesman for Yemen’s Armed Forces says Yemeni army troops and allied fighters from Popular Committees are fully prepared to deliver a befitting response to the Tel Aviv regime in case the Israeli military launches an act of aggression against the crisis-hit Arab country. Speaking at a symposium organized by the Moral Guidance Department of Yemeni Armed Forces and dubbed “Israeli ambitions in Yemen” in the capital Sana’a on Wednesday, Brigadier General Yahya Saree elaborated on the recent remarks by the leader of the Houthi Ansarullah movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi that “Yemenis won’t hesitate to respond to Israel’s folly.” Saree highlighted that Yemeni Armed Forces…

Around 100,000 Syrians living without approval in Istanbul have left it since early July, when the government set a deadline for Syrians not registered in the city to leave for other provinces, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Wednesday. Syrians registered in other cities had come to Istanbul, leading to an accumulation in the city, the minister told the parliament, adding that a total of 200,000 migrants had left the city. As sentiment toward Syrian refugees among Turks began to sour in recent years, authorities said Syrians not registered in Turkey’s largest city should return to the provinces in which…

By Paul Antonopoulos, From November 3 to November 14, Israeli, U.S., German, Italian and Greek war jets participated in the “Blue Flag 2019” military exercises out of the Ovda Air Base in Israel’s Negev Desert. The timing of these exercises corresponds with Turkey and a whole host of other countries conducting their own naval exercises in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Lines are certainly being drawn in the Eastern Mediterranean between pro-U.S. forces and states seeking their own sovereignty away from U.S. hegemony, especially Turkey. Greece proves to be a curious country at the moment, since one of its warships participated in…

Earlier this week, the militia temporarily released three South Korean vessels and their 16 crew members, including two South Korean nationals, following reports that they had seized a ship carrying a drilling rig from Saudi Arabia to Somalia through the Red Sea. Yemen’s Houthi militia have reported shooting down a Saudi-led coalition F-15 fighter jet. In a tweet cited by Reuters, a militia spokesman wrote: “Our air defence systems have intercepted an F-15 fighter jet belonging to the countries of aggression in Saada province.” The Houthis did not clarify which coalition country the plane belonged to. The Saudi-led coalition in…

By Andrew Korybko Turkish President Erdogan reaffirmed to his American counterpart that his country won’t completely abandon its purchase of Russia’s S-400s like Washington wants but that Ankara would buy its Patriot competitor as well if an offer was made “under suitable conditions”, suggesting that one or the other air-defense system would become a ‘white elephant’ under that scenario, with the odds being likely that it would be the Patriots which would fulfill this expensive but useless role and not the S-400s. Turkish President Erdogan’s visit to the US last week didn’t visibly seem to have accomplished much in repairing the…