Today marks the anniversary of the defeat of Nazism. The 9th of May 1945, Victory Day, marks the date Nazi Germany, bent on subjugating the whole world, was utterly defeated by the Allied Powers. The latter through their commitments signed under both the Atlantic (1941) and the UN Charter (1945)…
Read More“Today Turkey is – and this is not just a political, formal assessment, it is also my very private personal feeling also after our today visit – today Turkey is the best example for the whole world how we should treat refugees. No one has the right to lecture Turkey…
Read MoreThat’s over now, we are going to finish this off thundered Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a televised speech to the state-run Red Crescent humanitarian organization, Monday 4 April 2016. State television channel TRT aired live the speech. The neo-Sultan was referring to the generation old autonomy-seeking Kurdish insurgency…
Read MoreIt is a truism to say there is a price to everything in the world we live in. As more and more ‘atmospheric’ noise is made by international actors (UN, EU) about the imminence of a Cyprus settlement, it is vital that we shed at least some light on the…
Read MoreThe 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 MoreRegrettably, the West stubbornly maintains a unilateral position on the Syrian conflict. Hence the chances of its resolution become minimal. As the conflict enters its third year, the regime of Bashar al-Assad seems to be enjoying the support of the majority of the Syrian people and is not going to…
Read MoreWritten by Dr Yiorghos Leventis* One thing is for sure: the Eastern Mediterranean is going through interesting times. Historically, I guess, we have always been living in such times. The Mediterranean, as the etymology of the geographical name denotes, constitutes the middle of the earth, the place where multiple…
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