The first five days of November 2013 saw the Nobel Laureate (1995) Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. As a guest participant in this 60th biennial world class conference on global security concerns, I was assigned to the Working Group ‘Turkey and its Neighbours’. Central…
Read MoreThe refugee crisis in Europe escalates by the day to an unprecedented scale shaking the very foundations of the European Union. Just a week away from the crucial summit in Brussels, scheduled for the 7th of March 2016, the European Union is in disarray, lost in a fearful tunnel without…
Read MoreNo sooner the first NAVTEX signaling a concerted plan of provocations in the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone expired, Ankara issued a second Navigation Telex notifying the apathetic world that it is here to stay – audaciously seeking to block waters even closer to the southern coast of the Republic of…
Read MoreExactly three years ago, in October 2011, my phone rang at my antique maps gallery-cum-office. At the other end of the line was Dr Gregory Reichberg, an American seasoned researcher, a dear colleague then Director of the PRIO Cyprus Centre. Already at my time at the UN University HQ Tokyo…
Read MoreFour weeks after the Ukrainian presidential election that was meant to normalize the situation in the country, the pacification of troubled Ukraine is still a far cry. Sadly, in the eastern parts of the country violence is rife and the region is plunging further into civil strife. The military approach…
Read MoreCo-author: Justin Lehmann According to the “Rouhani Meter”(www.rouhanimeter.com), an online tool to monitor President Rouhani’s progress in office, Iran’s newly elected, moderate President has taken a clear cut route to improving Iran’s detrimental foreign policy above all else. He has then focused on economic policies followed by improvements to…
Read More‘Turkey is neither Occident nor Orient’ a Turkish colleague of mixed extraction with substantial Western exposure remarked poignantly in a recent private conversation in Istanbul. ‘Turkey is Turkey and no other power can put it in a single box’. This poignant remark encapsulates much of current Turkish foreign, security, energy…
Read More*Written by Dr Yiorghos Leventis As oil started to be pumped out of the Middle East, Cyprus served as London’s outpost securing the uninterrupted flow of the vital energy resource for the formidable industrial machine of the British Isles. It is no coincidence that Sir Anthony Eden explained in…
Read MoreWritten by Dr Yiorghos Leventis* SPECIAL ISF ANNIVERSARY FEATURE ARTICLE The latest incident authored last Sunday (17 April 2011) in Berlin by an excessive and arrogant Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, serves as a cool reminder of the troublemaking policies of his country. Turkey, a staunch NATO ally, sporting…
Read MoreWritten by Dr Yiorghos Leventis* Writing a new analysis on the current state of affairs with regard to the never ending saga of the deep-frozen conflict in Cyprus can be an equally unrewarding task for commentators, political analysts, academics and the like. Over the decades, endless rounds of talks fail…
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