July 27, 2023, was the 70th anniversary of the official end of the Korean War. In the DPRK this date is widely celebrated, and this year one of the main events in the ceremonies was the arrival of a Russian delegation, led by Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu. On July 25, the DPRK’s official press agency, KCNA reported: “At the invitation of the Ministry of National Defense of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a military delegation of the Russian Federation led by Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu…

Israel is a small country and is ranked 46^th in the world in terms of land area. Since Israel’s creation in 1948 at the tragic expense of the Palestinians, the state has been worried about its lack of strategic depth as well as its antagonistic Arab neighbors. Its internationally recognized borders leave it just 137 kms across its widest and 14 kms at its narrowest points. Moreover, Israel’s population is small and it relies on reservists as their on-ground combatants juxtaposed to Arab countries and their historically large standing armies. To make things worse, Israel’s…

The Middle East continues to be one of the most important strategic areas in the globe, drawing the attention of the major powers in the world due to its geographic significance and a number of internal inconsistencies. Although, of course, not all of the nations in the region have an adequate supply of these kinds of strategic raw materials, the terms “Middle East” and “rich in oil and gas” are sometimes seen as interchangeable. The majority of the world’s oil reserves, or around 66.5%, are in Middle Eastern nations like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait, each of which has proven oil reserves above 100 billion barrels. In other words…

According to Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, relations between Russia and Turkey are multi-faceted nowadays. This definition’s meaning is obviously self-evident. Over the last two decades, many in Moscow started to think, for some reason, that Russia had acquired a new almost strategic partner in the form of NATO’S Turkey that was more than loyal to Russia and interested in the growth of reciprocal relations and the creation of a multipolar world due to its charismatic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As a result, according to many Russian political analysts and specialists, Turkey will adopt a foreign policy more independent of US…

In the official statements by senior representatives of the United States Mongolia is generally presented as a friendly nation and US partner. Ever since 1991, when US Secretary of State James A. Baker described the US as “Mongolia’s third neighbor”, official statements about Mongolia have been impressively consistent and unambiguous. For example, during his 2011 visit to the country, Joe Biden defined Mongolia as “an emerging leader in the worldwide democratic movement, and … a close friend and partner of the United States.” The US currently sees Mongolia as an “Important Partner…

The two recent overseas trips by Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, which took place two weeks apart between the second half of June and mid-July, is a glaring example of the rising foreign policy activity of the nation’s head of state, who is increasingly asserting himself as one of the key players in the current stage of the “Big World Game.” The nations visited are a reflection of the issues and difficulties that India is now working to resolve, especially by fostering relationships with other major powers…

The reopening of ambassadorial relations between Cairo and Ankara is simply one of Egypt’s new diplomatic orientation, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s new course of constructing a multipolar world, which Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed and has actively promoted. Cairo has selected Amr Al-Hamami as its ambassador to Ankara ahead of the annual declaration on diplomatic appointments, which is generally made in late spring or early summer. At the same time, Ankara announced the selection of Salih Mutlu Şen as Turkey’s next ambassador to Egypt. According to the sources, the news permits both new appointments to work on…

The second Russia-Africa Summit and Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum which will take place on July 27–28, 2023, are widely regarded as the most important and ambitious events in the history of Russian-African relations. These forums are aimed at reaching a brand new level of mutually beneficial cooperation and meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. The event’s objective is to strengthen Russia’s comprehensive and balanced partnership with African nations in all aspects, including politics, security, economy, and the scientific, technical, cultural, and humanitarian fields…

Turkey and Iran continue to be important Middle Eastern nations. Due to their geographical proximity, imperial past, violent rivalry, theological tensions (between Sunnism and Shiism), and, of course, the continuous divergence of geopolitical interests, both nations have a rich history of relations. There were multiple Turkish-Persian clashes and wars, with various interruptions and varying degrees of success, during the Ottoman and Persian empires. Regarding the significance of the harem in the Ottoman Empire, historians have observed that…

Turkey before and during the time of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has tried to conduct active diplomacy in virtually all aspects of its geography, where the Balkans retain a high relevance. This direction of Turkish foreign policy is determined by several factors: geographical proximity; the history of Ottoman rule; the course of European integration; NATO membership; and the strategy of neo-Ottomanism and pan-Islamism. The current fourth generation of Anatolian Turks is the heir to the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed after World War I and at its peak governed practically all of Southeastern Europe (including the Balkan Peninsula), among other regions. Serbia, like other Balkan (South Slavic) countries and peoples, was occupied by the Ottomans…

Recently, while outlining the deterioration in relations between Beijing and Seoul, the present author commented on a new scandal that further inflamed tensions. It has to do with highly critical comments made by Xing Haiming, China’s ambassador to Seoul, concerning South Korea’s foreign policy. The problems began on June 8, 2023, when South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung visited the residence of Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming, for a dinner meeting in order to discuss Japan’s plans to dump radioactive waste water from the damaged Fukushima…

Russian-Turkish relations have been on an upswing, some would say unparalleled, since the early 2000s. The latter occurred or may be associated with the change of power in Russia and Turkey, as well as the arrival of two charismatic leaders, Putin and Erdoğan, respectively, and, more importantly, with certain transformations in geo-economic and geopolitical processes and the construction of regional security in the Middle East and the South Caucasus. It cannot be said that in the centuries-long history…