Turkey

In March 2024, Bülent Dizdarlı, a respected Turkish Cypriot doctor and former head of the medical association, speculated on his Facebook page that the population of the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) had reached two million.

“There’s no doubt that, just as in the 1990s, both countries were united this year by bonds of common suffering, allowing the governments to move ahead with rapprochement and providing the legitimacy for it to be accepted,”

But Mete Hatay, a Cyprus-born senior research consultant with Peace Research Institute Oslo who has long studied the conflict, says indications are that the countries will not discuss Cyprus even as they intend to "move further with their bilateral relations."

​"The unfortunate dual calamities hitting Turkey and Greece in the first half of 2023 in the forms of a devastating earthquake and horrendous train crash respectively, revived memories of the summer of 1999, when two major destructive earthquakes hit Istanbul and Athens.

​Successful MIGNEX consortium meeting in Istanbul, with inspiring discussion as the project members continue to build new knowledge on migration, development and policy.

​This new FAIR case brief by Zenonas Tziarras focuses on how the Astana process became central to the peace efforts regarding the Syria conflict after 2017, but it has been heavily influenced by the interests and positions of its three sponsors or guarantor powers: Russia, Turkey, and Iran.

New book by Zenonas Tziarras

​In the MidEast Policy Brief 'Irresolvable Dilemmas? The Prospects for Repatriation for Syrian Refugees', Research Professor Kristian Berg Harpviken and Research Assistant Bjørn Schirmer-Nilsen address the challenges for Syrian refugees in major host countries, the refugees' eroding opportunities for onward migration, and their prospects for repatriation.

​Recent discovery of hydrocarbon has exacerbated existing geopolitical tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

​In a recent article entitled "Energy and Sovereignty in the new Geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean" published in the Oxford Energy Forum, PRIO Cyprus Centre researcher Zenonas Tziarras asks how much of the recent crises can really be attributed to hydrocarbons, given other underlying issues and a history of regional tensions.

​"Turkey’s adventures abroad are about more than hydrocarbons.

​In May, a new PRIO Middle East Centre project started.

​Inthe new PRIO Paper ‘The Shifting Turkish Agenda inSyria’s Evolving Conflict: Understanding the Drivers of Turkey’s Policy in Syria’, Pinar Tank critically examines the Turkishagenda in Syria, identifying Turkey’s domestic drivers and situating thecountry’s policies within an ever-changing regional and international context.

The large PRIO-led project ​MIGNEX examines migration and development at the local level across Africa and Asia.

Full​ article here ​

During the International Seminar-Book Presentation: The Future of Natural Gas: Market and Geopolitics, organised by The International Affairs Institute (IAI) and the OCP Policy Center, Rabat 27.

Russia connects with Turkey seeking opportunities in the Middle East