Etiket arşivi: Russia

The World Needs a Broad Coalition Against Terrorism

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October 12, 2021

On July 8, 2021, in remarks on the drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan President Biden said:

“We went for two reasons: one, to bring Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, as I said at the time. The second reason was to eliminate al Qaeda’s capacity to deal with more attacks on the United States from that territory. We accomplished both of those objectives — period.”

On August 16, in the middle of a chaotic withdrawal he said:

“Today, the terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan: al Shabaab in Somalia, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. These threats warrant our attention and our resources.

“We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed.”

Finally on August 26, upon the terror attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport he declared:

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay…”

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Turkey’s Vicious Circle of Foreign Policy

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October 5, 2021

In late September,  President Erdogan traveled to New York and addressed the UN General Assembly. He also hoped to have a face-to-face meeting with President Biden. When such a meeting failed to materialize, President Erdogan vented his pent-up frustration with Washington.

On September 29, he met with President Putin in Russia’s Black Sea city of Sochi, their first for a year and a half.

Before the meeting, the two leaders delivered remarks to the media.[i]

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How Long the “Wait and See” to Judge the Taliban

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September 20, 2021

The world is waiting to see whether the Taliban has changed or not, if so to what extent. Countries involved in Afghan affairs know that they would not witness  fundamental change but hope for a move towards minimum moderation. The question is for how long they would wait and see.

Last week, in remarks to the High-level Ministerial Meeting on the Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan, UN Secretary General Guterres said:

“Even before the dramatic events of the last weeks, Afghans were experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.”

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The Rules-based International Order

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May 10, 2021

The “rules-based international order” is now a recurrent theme in policy statements by senior officials of the Biden administration.

Secretary Blinken, meeting with his Chinese counterparts in Anchorage on March 18, 2021, started the talks by saying that the rules-based international order is not an abstraction; that it helps countries resolve differences peacefully, coordinate multilateral efforts effectively, and participate in global commerce with the assurance that everyone is following the same rules; that the alternative to a rules-based order would be a far more violent and unstable world for everyone.

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The Taliban Are Back

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April 19, 2021

An open-ended US/NATO military engagement in Afghanistan was never an option. The aim was achieving optimal conditions for withdrawal.

In a Washington Post op-ed on March 12, 2012 President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron mentioned shifting to a support role in Afghanistan.

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Recalibrating America’s Relationships

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March 1, 2021

On February 19, President Biden addressed the global community for the first time. At 2021 Virtual Munich Security Conference he defined the partnership between Europe and the US as the cornerstone of all that the West hopes to accomplish in the 21st century, just as it did in the 20th century. He said, “I know — I know the past few years have strained and tested our transatlantic relationship, but the United States is determined — determined to reengage with Europe, to consult with you, to earn back our position of trusted leadership.” (emphasis added)

He expressed his strong belief that democracy will and must prevail.

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The Path to Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh

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January 13, 2021

On Monday, Presidents Putin, Aliyev, and Prime Minister Pashinyan held a second trilateral meeting in Moscow, exactly two months after the first one on November 9, 2020.

They signed another Statement which focuses on the “unblocking of all economic and transport communications in the region”. To achieve that, a trilateral working group co-chaired by deputy prime ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia and Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation is established.

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More Than a Lost Year

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December 22, 2020

The main foreign policy topics of the past decade have been China’s ascendancy, relations between the West and a resurgent Russia, the rise of authoritarianism, democracy’s decline, the failure of multilateralism and climate change. With the Trump White House, most of the questions raised in recent years focused on Washington. People started asking “what went wrong?” to use the title of Bernard Lewis’s remarkable book on the clash between Islam and modernity in the Middle East. Pundits in the West, including the US, started talking about Washington’s external military interventions and their political/diplomatic/economic cost, racism, gridlock. Some of the questions raised went beyond the Trump years. With major foreign and security policy challenges and 251,000 new coronavirus cases recorded last Friday, Mr. Biden will not be moving to a dream house on January 20.

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Nagorno-Karabakh: The Road Ahead (2)

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December 14, 2020

With the signing, by President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan, of the Russian-brokered statement on a complete ceasefire and the termination of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh the conflict has entered a new phase.

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Nagorno-Karabakh: The Road Ahead

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November 30, 2020

The last round of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan started on July 12, 2020.  During the war between 1988-1994, Armenian forces had occupied not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also the seven surrounding districts of Azerbaijan before a Russian-brokered ceasefire was declared. Thereafter peace talks were mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States. Since all three co-chairs are long-time supporters of Armenia, the Group only served to preserve the status quo. i.e. continued occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the seven Azerbaijani districts.

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