nytimes.com  | by By Peter S. Goodman | June 25, 2019

Turkey's economic disaster drives a revolt

ISTANBUL — The shocking rebuke of Turkey’s governing party in Sunday’s mayoral election in Istanbul resonated as more than a yearning for new leadership in the nation’s largest city. It signaled mounting despair over the economic disaster that has befallen the nation under the strongman rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Nytimes.com | By Carlotta Gall

ANKARA, Turkey — Once jailed for reciting a poem at a political rally, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has styled himself throughout his rise as a champion of freedom and justice, and his early push for judicial reforms were widely hailed.

www.wsj.com | By  Benoit Faucon and  Sune Engel Rasmussen | 16, 2019

Infrastructure projects and smuggling help Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps skirt sanctions

TEHRAN, Iran—The country’s top paramilitary force is maintaining support for armed groups in the Middle East and finding new sources of funding, defying U.S. efforts to curb its activities abroad as tensions between Washington and Tehran soar following fresh attacks in the Gulf of Oman.

aljazeera.com | By Ali Bakeer | 30 May 2019

Unable to sustain its Syrian campaign, Iran is rapidly losing ground to Russia.

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.