nytimes.com | By Carlotta Gall and Jack Ewing | May 17, 2019

In Turkey, efforts to shore up lira may backfire

ISTANBUL — Even before the Turkish authorities took the extraordinary step of undoing an opposition victory and calling a new election for mayor of Istanbul, the government had spent billions to prop up the country’s flagging currency over the last year and bolster its candidates.

WASHINGTON — At a meeting of President Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.

nytimes.com | By Ben Hubbard and Eric Schmitt | May 12, 2019

RMEILAN, Syria — Dressed in camouflage and sipping tea, the Syrian commander who emerged as America’s closest ally in the battle that defeated Islamic State looked to an unsettling future.

The commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, who goes by the nom de guerre Mazlum Kobani, at a military base in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Soldiers attached to the Syrian Democratic Forces, checking IDs at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the northern city of Manbij.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Photographs commemorate the men and women from Kobani, a Kurdish Syrian town, who died in the fight against ISIS. CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

foreignpolicy.com | By Henri J. Barkey | May 10, 2019

By overturning an election in Istanbul, he may have triggered a Turkish Spring.

Washingtonpost.com | By Selahattin Demirtas April 19

Selahattin Demirtas is an ex-member of the Turkish parliament and a former co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party of Turkey. He is imprisoned in Edirne High Security Prison.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Jonathan Randal is a highly regarded foreign correspondent, who wrote for The Washington Post and The New York Times. After a career spanning 45 years, Randal is now mostly retired—but not entirely, as Kurdistan 24 spoke with him last week, while he was visiting Kurdistan to update his book, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? My Encounters with Kurdistan.

nytimes.com | By The Editorial Board | April 2, 2019

Opinion A Wake-Up Call for President Erdogan
In local Turkish elections, the opposition, united and organized, took on an autocrat.

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

nytimes.com | By Eric Scmitt | April 3, 2019

WASHINGTON — Now that the Islamic State has been driven from its last sliver of territory in Syria, hundreds of American troops — not just their equipment — are leaving the war zone, just as President Trump ordered in December.

Nytimes.com | Carlotta Gall

ISTANBUL — At a recent rally to open the campaign before municipal elections in March, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was heckled by a group of public workers demanding jobs. But he was having none of it.

www.jpost.com | By Akil Marceau | February 4, 2019

More than ever, a strategic long-term vision is needed.

The December 19 announcement of the withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria has not stopped inflicting damage and creating confusion. This started with the US administration and the resignations of defense secretary Jim Mattis and the special presidential envoy of the global coalition to counter ISIS, Brett McGurk. The two men both had intimate knowledge of the terrain and the serious consequences such a withdrawal would create. They understood the strategically dangerous and morally unacceptable decision to abandon their reliable and effective Kurdish allies in the war against the jihadists.