Author: Cemil Aydin

Wu Xi, head of the Chinese foreign ministry’s consular affairs department, speaks at the opening ceremony on Tuesday. Turkey has opened a consulate in the Chinese city of Chengdu, the first Middle Eastern nation to do so, as it seeks to strengthen ties with China despite tensions over Beijing’s treatment of the Uygur minority in Xinjiang. It is Turkey’s third diplomatic mission in mainland China – it has an embassy in Beijing and a consulate in Shanghai – and will be responsible for the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan and the city of Chongqing in the southwest, as well as Guizhou province…

US strategy in Ukraine is predicated on the idea that the war there will end or dramatically de-escalate within this year. But what if that doesn’t happen? President Joe Biden’s administration has done well in managing this conflict so far. However, the longer the war drags on, the harder it will be for Biden to manage its political dimensions, and the more pressure they will put on US policy around the world. Ukraine’s prospects revolve around its long-awaited spring offensive. The Ukrainians mostly held off Russia’s furious winter offensive, holding – barely – a part of the besieged Bakhmut in the east. Now it’s Kiev’s…

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency developed plans to conduct covert attacks on Russian forces in Syria using secret Kurdish help, according to a leaked top-secret U.S. intelligence document. The introduction of a new battlefield — thousands of miles from the war in Ukraine — appeared designed to impose costs and casualties on Russia and its Wagner paramilitary group, which is active in Syria, and possibly force Moscow to redeploy resources from Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directed a halt to the planning in December, but the leaked document, based on intelligence gathered as of Jan. 23, lays out in detail how…

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has met his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara, as the two countries make progress towards re-establishing full diplomatic relations after nearly a decade. Thursday’s visit is Shoukry’s second trip to Turkey this year, while Cavusoglu also visited Egypt in March. Speaking at a joint news conference, Cavusoglu said that the two countries were “taking concrete steps to raise diplomatic relations to the highest level”, indicating that the appointment of ambassadors may come soon. But Shoukry did call on Turkey to withdraw its forces from Syria, underscoring some of the differences that still remain. Relations between the…

Kiev is disappointed that the EU countries cannot implement a plan for the joint purchase of ammunition for Ukraine . This was announced on Thursday by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba . “The failure of the EU to implement its own decision to jointly purchase ammunition for Ukraine is disappointing. This is a test of whether the EU has strategic autonomy in making important new security decisions,” he tweeted. Earlier, the Politico newspaper, citing its sources, reported that the EU countries disagree on whether arms contracts for the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine will be concluded only with companies from…

Turkish annual inflation fell slightly to 55.18% in February, official data showed on Friday, just below forecast, following massive earthquakes that hit its southeast region and killed more than 45,000 people just under a month ago. Month-on-month, consumer prices rose 3.15%, the Turkish Statistical Institute said, lower than a Reuters poll forecast of 3.4%. Annually, consumer price inflation <TRCPIY=ECI> was forecast to be 55.5%. The biggest monthly rise in prices was in the food and non-alcoholic drinks sector, which was up 7.36%, while prices of education and restaurants and hotels items climbed 5.69% and 4.07% respectively. The statistics institute said…