Tal Abyad

What did the Russian soldier holding a missile on the deck of a Russian warship on the waters of the Bosphorus Strait symbolize? 

My answer is that it symbolized the "look at the bird" distraction policy of the Kremlin, which seems to think we are naïve? 

Russian President Vladimir Putin, as he sees it, will draw attention to the straits? 

Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria has incorporated a mixed town they captured from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) into territory they claim in the country?s north.

According to the PYD, Tal Abyad?s local council agreed Oct. 21 their town would be ruled by ?autonomous administration, formally part of the autonomous administration in the Kobane canton.?

The way that Russia has hijacked Syrian policy, concomitant with its willingness to offer help to the Iraqis, has naturally made the Barack Obama administration uncomfortable. Schadenfreude-laced remarks from U.S. officials to ?let Russia fall into the Syrian quagmire?

The Middle Eastern Studies Center of top-ranking Harvard University hosted Turkish journalist-author Cengiz Çandar last week. Çandar spoke in the seminar "Understanding and Misunderstanding Turkey and the Middle East," with American academics bombarding Çandar with questions to unravel the dramatic changes in Turkey since the June 7 election.

Turkey and the United States both agree that the Democratic Union Party (PYD) cannot be permitted to enter an area in Syria in which Turkey plans to establish a zone that will ostensibly be free of jihadists, according to a Foreign Ministry official. 

?What do you expect? Do you want us to sit idle when a terrorist organization like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] takes control of the most vital region in our border?? roared a high level Turkish official last week, when asked by a group of Turkish journalists about possible military intervention scenarios into Syria that have been circulating since the last week of June.

?We are exchanging messages with the PYD [Democratic Union Party]. Our dialogue channels are open. The course of Turkey?s relations with the PYD depends on their attitude. Tal Abyad is a test case for them.?

These words came out of the mouth of a high level official in Ankara amidst allegations that Turkey is about to intervene in northern Syria, which is dominated by the PYD.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are not keen on sending forces into Syria in the near future unless its units are targeted despite a government directive encouraging an intervention, daily Hürriyet has learned, amid reports that the army is considering bombing the extremists from Turkey instead.

As it is unclear when Turkey will manage to end its political uncertainty through the formation of a coalition government, we face a new crisis of foreign policy concerning Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been outraged by the advance of Kurdish forces in northern Syria, regarding the recent developments as a plot by the Kurds and the United

President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli have clashed over which of them has actually displayed solidarity with the Muslim Uighur minority in China's northwestern Xinjiang region.