The Palestinian Ambassador to Turkey, Faed Mustafa, stated that Palestine was ready to make the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) agreement with Turkey. Answering the questions asked by İsmet Özçelik from the journal Aydınlık, Mustafa assessed the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean. Stating that the Palestinian state has the rights to oil and natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Ambassador ...

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan agree to resume GERD negotiations On June 26, the African Union organized a “mini-summit” with leaders from Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, South Africa, Kenya, DR Congo and Mali. As a result of negotiations on GERD – Ethiopia’s Blue Nile HPP – Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan decided to form a legal and technical committee to work out ...

Diplomacy requires the ability to make assessments not only in the short term, but also in the medium and long term and requires taking historical facts into account before taking any actions. Failure to do so often makes it so the gains made are limited to a short term period, while losses are suffered in the long run. The first ...

France and Turkey clashed this week after the French president’s latest rejoinder of NATO’s ” brain death“. The French leader also harshly criticized Turkey’s actions in Libya, calling it “a dangerous game”. Earlier in June, a Turkish frigate off the coast of Libya refused to carry out an order to inspect the cargo from the French frigate participating in the ...

Today, after 108 years, Turkey is back in Libya. Despite the COVID 19 outbreak, Turkish warships have been flying their flags along Libya’s coast uninterrupted for the past four months. Since Turkey signed an MoU with Libya on November 27, 2019 to delimit the southwest portion of its Blue Homeland maritime border, the roughly 1000-mile zone between Marmaris/ Aksaz naval ...

After the Turkish-French incident off the Libyan coast, French President Emmanuelle Macron called the event further proof of “brain death” of NATO. He claims that Turkey’s line is incompatible with its status as a NATO country, accusing Ankara of a “dangerous game” in the region. “I believe today that Turkey is playing a dangerous game in Libya and is contravening ...

Diplomacy requires seeing an issue from the opposing side’s perspective and coming up with a reasonable offer well defending one’s own demands. Otherwise, the steps taken to ensure diplomacy is effective would not give the desired expectations, and the discourse would in effect remain a monologue. Diplomacy is the art of leaving a gap open for the other side to ...

The political agenda in Turkey last week included the march of the Bar Associations organized by lawyers,air strikes and field operations against the PKK by the Turkish Armed Forces, and new events in Libya. ELECTION PROTESTS OF THE JUDICIAL BAR ASSOCIATION The most striking topic of last week was a march from Istanbul to Ankara which was organized to protest ...

China-EU-USA: an attempt to reach an agreement Over the past week, Chinese and European diplomats have agreed on a joint video conference to cool tensions. After a string of accusations and scandals about the Coronavirus, this will be the first attempt at constructive negotiations. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Charles Michel, President of the European ...

The Exclusive Economic Zone Agreement signed between Greece and Italy shows that Greece has waived its claims regarding the contested islands of the Eastern Mediterranean. The agreement essentially confirms that Turkey has sea borders with Libya, Israel and Palestine. The Greek Foreign Minister and his Italian counterpart met in Athens on July 9, and put their signatures on an agreement ...