Strategic Council Online: An expert on European affairs, referring to a quartet summit of Europe and Turkey on Syria on the sidelines of the NATO summit in London, said: Turkey has been seeking a series of political concessions over developments in northern Syria in recent years.
Strategic Council Online: Former Middle East Director-General of the IRI Foreign Ministry believes that after the recent drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, the authorities in Riyadh have concluded that the crisis is getting out of control.
Strategic Council Online: The US wants to somehow continue its relative support for Kurdish groups in northern Syria, which is not very pleasing to Turkey, so although at the current juncture it seems that the US support for Turkey’s military presence in Syria would remain within the limits of the agreements between the parties, the trend of these developments in the long-term will depend on the conditions Syria would face.
Siamak Kakai – Turkish Affairs Expert
Strategic Council Online: Turkish local elections were held on March 31st, the first local election in the presidential system in Turkey, and held in the form of a coalition for the first time since the start of the local elections in 1948.
Sadegh Maleki – Strategist and Senior Political Analyst
Strategic Council Online: Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) secured the highest number of votes in the local elections on March 31 throughout the country but did not win in key cities. The interesting point is that the Turkish president, for the first time in his political life, is tasting defeat and maybe this is the beginning of the end of the authority of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the undisputed leader of the Justice and Development Party and the Turkish president.
Firouz Dawlat Abadi – Former IRI Ambassador to Turkey and Expert on Regional Affairs