No one can predict what the Trump administration will do in this region where Arabs, Kurds, Iranians and Turks face destitution, death and destruction due to raging and prospective conflicts.

Last Friday’s massacre by a Daesh-affiliate of 305 civilians in a Sufi mosque in the Egyptian Sinai town of Bir Al Abed demonstrates, once again, that the cult remains alive and active although its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been destroyed.The elimination of

The declaration by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) that it is freezing all communication with the US, following the Trump administration’s decision to close its diplomatic mission in Washington is play acting.Although concern has been expressed that cutting communicat

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Tehran was a show of solidarity with Iran at a time the country is facing pressure from Saudi Arabia and its allies, in the region, and from the US, on the international plane.It is hardly surprising that Russia and Iran should m

Since the war erupted in Syria, I have travelled to that country more than ever before, but until my last visit, I was not able to get an overall impression of the impact of that conflict.During earlier visits, I had stayed in Damascus, from where I would go to Homs repeatedly, t

Catalan separatists should have been warned not to declare independence by what has happened to Iraqi Kurds since an overwhelming majority voted in favour of secession on September 25.By voting for separation, the Kurds attempted to escape the reality of the times.The nation

Western powers and Turkey involved in proxy and direct warfare in Syria are staking out territorial redoubts as the war against Daesh winds down and Syrian government forces consolidate their grip on the country’s major cities, natural resources and vast swathes of countryside.Th

The award of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons coincided with rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in this region over US President Donald Trump’s alarming pronouncements.On the one hand, he threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury” i

Turkey’s latest intervention in the Syria conflict appears to reflect a 180-degree shift in its policy of backing Al Qaeda-linked takfiris and a range of largely fundamentalist insurgents, as well as the Saudi-sponsored Syrian opposition with the aim of bringing down President Ba