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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, on May 15, 2025.

REUTERS

So far, no steps toward peace in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskykept a low-level Russian delegation waiting in Istanbul on Thursday while he met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan in Ankara.

Why is Zelensky in Turkey at all? It was in fact Vladimir Putin who proposed peace talks there in response to a recent European call for a 30-day ceasefire, but the Russian president is not attending personally. Putin’s decision to send junior officials is seen as an indication that he is not really interested in ending his invasion of Ukraine.

European leaders have warned that if Putin does not agree to stop the invasion, they will intensify sanctions on Russia and increase military aid to Ukraine.

But Donald Trump, who also called for peace talks in a social media post, seemed to reduce the pressure on Putin when he told reporters in Qatar that he was not expecting much from the meeting.

“Look, nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he said.

And while there was some speculation that Trump and Putin could yet show up in Turkey on Friday — a development that would substantially increase chances of a breakthrough — there was no sign of that by Thursday afternoon.

If that holds, the negotiations are unlikely to yield much of substance, and the basic deadlock will remain: Putin, keen to play for time while his army slowly advances, is demanding impossible conditions from Zelensky, while Trump, who pledged a swift end to the war, has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin but so far seems unwilling to apply more pressure on him.

Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and US President, Donald Trump, meet with the Syrian president Ahmad Al-Sharaa

REUTERS

Trump pledged to lift Syria sanctions, can Damascus seize the moment?

When US President Donald Trump promised to lift sanctions on Syria this week, the streets of Damascus erupted in celebration.

“It was a huge, huge day for Syrians,” says Ibrahim al-Assil, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., who is from the Syrian capital.

“Many people, my relatives and friends in Damascus, they are saying the same thing: ‘this is the second biggest day in my life after the fall of the regime!’”

For a country battered by more than a decade of war and mass emigration, Trump’s announcement has flung open a window of opportunity that few thought possible as recently as December. That was when current president Ahmed al-Sharaa, a one-time Al-Qaeda member, led a coalition of militias that overthrew the Assad dictatorship.

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People shout slogans in front of the portrait of Sirri Sureyya Onder, a prominent pro-Kurdish party lawmaker and key figure in Turkey’s tentative process to end the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) insurgency who died on Saturday at age 62, during his funeral in Istanbul, Turkey, on May 4, 2025.

REUTERS/Dilara Senkaya

Hard Numbers: Kurds in Turkey formally disband, Burkina Faso’s military murders civilians, White Afrikaners land in US, UK tries to curtail immigration, Top Argentina Court discovers Nazi docs

41: The revolution will not be finalized, as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant rebel group in Turkey, formally disbanded after a 41-year insurgency against the Turkish government. The original goal was to create an independent Kurdish state, but the group’s weakened position in Iraq and Syria forced it to declare a ceasefire in March, before ultimately dissolving. Turkey hasn’t fully secured peace, yet: it must now establish how to disarm the rebel group.

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The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed Israel's responsibility for the attack, which resulted in one fatality.

Rami Alsayed via Reuters Connect

Israel strikes Syria to warn Turkey

As we wrote in February, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has big plans for Syria. Erdogan’s government was a crucial backer of the HTS militia, an Islamist rebel group that ousted longtime Syrian strongman Bashar Assad in December, and it now wants Turkey’s military to take over some air bases on Syrian territory in exchange for Turkish training of Syria’s new army.

This, Erdogan hopes, will allow Turkey to greatly expand its regional influence, return many of the millions of Syrian refugees still living inside Turkey back home, and clamp down on Kurdish militants who have used Syria as a base of operations against Turkey’s military.

That’s the backdrop for a wave of Israeli airstrikes on military targets inside Syria early Thursday. The Syrian government called the attacks a “deliberate attempt to destabilize Syria” and “a blatant violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz quickly fired back at Syria’s president: “If you allow forces hostile to Israel to enter Syria and endanger Israeli security interests, you will pay a very heavy price.” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that Erdogan is doing his “utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate.”

Syria’s fledgling military is no match for its neighbors, and its new government remains at the mercy of outside players. This dangerous competition to fill the vacuum in Syria created by the ouster of Assad is just beginning.

- YouTube

Turkey's protests & crackdowns complicate EU relations

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.

Do you think the Signal controversy in the US will have an impact on the transatlantic relationship?

Well, not in itself. It does betray an attitude to security issues that is somewhat too relaxed, to put it very mildly. But what does betray as well is the disdain, the resentment, the anger against Europeans that is there from the vice president, the secretary of defense, and others, and that is duly noted. And of course, something that is subject of what we have to note it. It's there. It's a fact.

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People attend a rally to protest against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as part of a corruption investigation in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 29, 2025.

REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Mass protests target Erdogan’s grip on power in Turkey

Five days after the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, said it would no longer hold protests against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the arrest of its presidential candidate, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of the capital on Saturday. Now, the CHP has vowed to continue the protests until the authorities release Imamoglu and clear him to run for the presidency.

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- YouTube

US travel warnings issued by its closest allies

Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.

Why are some countries issuing travel advisories for visiting the United States?

You'd call it an abundance of caution, but things are moving very quickly in the US. It's only been two months since Trump has been inaugurated. And many countries, allies of the US, feel that treatment of their citizens will not be aligned with rule of law in the United States. Certainly, worry given, for example, some green card holders facing deportation for what would be considered for an American citizen just exercise of freedom of speech, freedom of organization.

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A person holds a placard during a protest on the day Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was jailed as part of a corruption investigation, in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 23, 2025.

REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis

Imamoglu arrested as protests rock Turkey

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was formally arrested, charged with corruption, and jailed on Sunday. His detainment last Wednesday sparked widespread mass protests across Turkey, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in cities including Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir, despite a four-day ban on public gatherings.

Over 300 people have been arrested, and the government has demanded that X suspend the accounts of protest organizers. The country also banned short-selling and eased buyback rules to help stabilize markets after the benchmark stock index fell significantly last week.

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