Valdai Club

The thick smoke and chaos in the Middle East is a camouflage for the real ideological conflicts, which are not religious but rather political and economic interests.

The coming war against Iran is pushed by some Arab rulers rather than Israelis who are benefiting from the state of rivalry and enmity between a number of Sunni Arab countries against Iran, blaming Tehran for threatening their countries and interfering in their internal affairs. By the same token, US President Donald Trump has announced his country's withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran early May 2018 and he will not accept any amendments to the pact as he insists on changing the whole deal to include Iranian ballistic missiles.

US President Donald Trump will host Gulf leaders separately in a bid to pave the way for American-Gulf summit scheduled for next spring, albeit in May in Camp David, This year’s meeting is different than those in previous years as almost a one-year rift between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain with Qatar still exists without being resolved in spite of all endeavors and shuttle missions of American officials to the region.

The US with Donald Trump, unlike the president’s expectations, will not meet support for the American international initiatives and policies, facing more and more discordance and counteraction. Trump having get used to manage business is trying to apply the business models to the global stage, which do not work in global politics.

Peace and stability in Yemen is likely to succeed only when all major players and the five permanent United National Security Council members take honest and true measures to end the bloodshed in this poor country, which pays the bill of other countries’ rifts and disputes and has been transformed in a battlefield of their interests.

The November 13h meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi will touch upon a conference that Russia is planning to host under the name: “Congress of Syrian Peoples” to give momentum to the talks among rivals in spite of some conservations by some opposition parties to reach a sustainable ceasefire in the country." However, Moscow's invitation to the Congress initially set for Nov. 18 has been postponed to a further notice because Ankara voiced objection to the invitation of the PKK-linked Democratic Union Party (PYD) to the conference.