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After half a century of stasis, there are big new strategic realities in the Middle East, but people are having trouble getting their heads around them. Take the United States, for example. Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state in President Barack Obama’s first administration, is still lamenting her former boss’s failure to send more military help to the “moderate” rebels in Syria.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strong-worded criticism against Israel and the United States over the former’s military operations in Gaza has transformed into a diplomatic spat between Ankara and Washington, with Erdoğan calling for the U.S. to be “self-critical” over its Israel policy. 

Turkey and the United States are in close coordination over developments in Iraq, as security conditions have worsened since last week after jihadists seized control of a number of key cities, Turkish diplomatic sources have said.

The U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and President Barack Obama’s key foreign policy aide, Samantha Power, will visit Turkey this week to discuss the Syrian crisis and other regional issues, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials have told the Hürriyet Daily News.

As Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani starts his two-day official visit to Ankara today hosted by President Abdullah Gül of Turkey, high rank delegations from the U.S. and Iran will meet in Geneva for two days of nuclear talks in the first direct diplomatic contact since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Murat Yetkin murat.yetkin@hdn.com.tr Frank Ricciardone, the U.S. Ambassador to Ankara made important remarks regarding “national security” of both countries in the farewell lunch given to him by Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) in Istanbul on June 5.

What if Russia gets upset by energy pipelines through Turkey to Europe and decides to hit the US in an attack staged in Pennsylvania? Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan has not sent any of his ministers to this year’s American-Turkish Council (ATC) conference; no such thing has happened in many years.