Strategic Council Online: An Asian affairs expert has described a security conference between heads of Turkish and Syrian intelligence agencies in Russia after long years an important and eye-catching development. “Considering its field victories Syria seems to have sent a strong message to the Turkish authorities about complete withdrawal from Syrian lands and the decision to fight terrorism and return all occupied Syrian lands.
Strategic Council Online: In Libya, extensive military and material support is extended to General Khalifa Haftar. In regional level too, countries like Jordan, Sudan, UAE and Egypt extend logistical, financial and military support to Haftar. Therefore, the probability of his victory and the defeat of Faiz al-Seraj is one of the leading scenarios.
Strategic Council Online: A university professor cited Moscow’s announcement that Khalifa Haftar has left Moscow without signing a ceasefire agreement with the Libyan National Unity Government, saying: “Until the Arab countries are convinced that Khalifa Haftar will have the upper hand in the agreements to be reached, they will not be willing to allow him to agree to a ceasefire.”
Strategic Council Online: Adviser to head of Saadi Foundation regarded Iranophobia as the biggest blow to the spread of Persian language in the world, saying: Language serves as a bridge between cultures and perhaps it can be said that it is one of the most important tools of public diplomacy.
Strategic Council Online: Former Iranian ambassador to Romania and Hungary, stressing that Europe’s alleged commitment to the Iran Nuclear Agreement (known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) must be accompanied by tangible results, said: Unfortunately, to date we have seen no positive move, other than speech therapy, from the EU in preserving the JCPOA.
Strategic Council Online: An international relations professor touched on US action to prevent Iranian patients with MPS from having access to US proprietary drugs and said: This US action is worse than resolutions imposed against Iran, and therefore such an action is unilateral and violates international law, human rights and humanitarian law.
Strategic Council Online: An international relations professor said that the Iranian military operation against the US military base in Baghdad was merely a blow to American grandeur and that Iran’s response will be given in due time and within the geography of the Resistance. The Americans should estimate their response within the new calculations not the previous evaluations that Iran exercised restraint.
Strategic Council Online: The most important key obstacle for Americans leaving Iraq is the absence of a strong government in the country at the current juncture. The incumbent government has been severely weakened by the recent US-led turmoil and does not have the authority required to decide about territorial integrity and respect for national sovereignty in Iraq.
Jafar Ghanadbashi – Middle East Affairs expert
Strategic Council Online: Despite the geographical, strategic and economic importance of Libya for Turkey, the Mediterranean movements of Ankara occur within the framework of a new policy Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to apply.
Siamak Kakai – Turkey Affairs expert
Strategic Council Online: A university professor said that the US criminal assassination of Lt. General Qassem Suleimani was the result of Washington’s desperation against Iran and General Suleimani and his braveries. He added the Americans thought that with assassination of General Suleimani they would be allowed to revive the US-led and managed ISIS.
Strategic Council Online: Republicans will keep threatening Iran as long as outbreak of war is unlikely. Democrats strongly condemn Trump’s order to assassinate Lt. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, but Republicans do not; however, they disagree on whether the assassination was necessary or not.
Amir Ali Abolfatah – American Affairs expert
Strategic Council Online: Iran cannot execute a multilateral agreement alone! The Europeans have actually pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but have not officially declared it. They expect Iran to implement an agreement that they themselves would not respect.
Strategic Council Online: An expert on strategic issues said that what was not included in the US calculations was the impact of Commander Suleimani’s martyrdom which simultaneously created a dramatic and unimaginable resurgence in all domestic, regional and trans-regional trends.
Strategic Council Online: An expert on Russian affairs, said that China and Russia not only have opposing interests sometimes but could be rivals on other times. “Although the leaders of the two countries term ties as strategic but in the opinion of theorists China-Russia relations are not strategic.”
Strategic Council Online: An expert on Eurasia affairs says Russia’s deployment of hypersonic missiles is a reaction to US moves, adding that the Russians are extremely cautious not to enter a new arms race with the United States; Nevertheless, they would invest in areas which would have significant advantages for them and the Americans would not be able to achieve the technology for years to come.
Strategic Council Online: A professor of international relations has said that if Britain’s exit from the European Union occurs on February 1, not only the Brexit story is not over it is just the beginning. He then outlined the most important consequences of Brexit for Britain and the EU.
Strategic Council Online: An expert on African affairs says the proxy war in Libya has somehow started with the intervention of the regional states, mainly the Arab states. He considers the ineffectiveness of the National Unity Government a means to further intensify the provocative efforts of Khalifa Haftar, emphasizing that in these circumstances, one cannot virtually draw a good perspective for the future of the Libyan government.
Strategic Council Online: The United States bombed five strongholds of Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) in al-Qa’im near the Iraqi-Syrian border on Sunday, December 29, 2019 which left 25 martyrs and more than 50 injured. The Americans claim the attack was in response to an attack on December 27 on an Iraqi military base where a group of US troops were also deployed. During the attack, several Americans and a number of Iraqi Army forces were injured and a US civilian contractor was killed.
Strategic Council Online: An expert on international security affairs pointing to a joint naval exercise between Iran, Russia, and China in the north of the Indian Ocean and the Oman Sea said: This combination could upset the power equation in the region and, before anything, weaken the American unilateralist axis and strengthen the multilateral camp in the region.
Strategic Council Online: Director General of Scientific and Academic Cooperation of the Organization for Islamic Culture and Communications, says the spread of the Persian language and literature in the world is one of the country’s most important cultural strategies in the international arena. “The countries that are hindering Iran’s influence politically are adopting the same policy towards the development of Persian in their own country and want people to pay less attention to the language.”
