Middle East & North Africa

NPR's All Thing Considered talked to Amanda Sloat, Fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, about Turkey's investigation into the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

David Greene talks with Amanda Sloat about President Trump's recent hard-line stance with Turkey which sparked an economic crisis for the country.

Amanda Sloat, Robert Bosch senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings, and Nahal Toosi foreign affairs correspondent at Politico, discuss how tensions have been simmering between the U.S. and Turkey, and how Turkey's refusal to release an American pastor hasn't helped. They also discuss the Trump administration's new sanctions and tariffs on Turkey, and why the deteriorating relationship is a problem.

The tense relationship between the United States and Turkey is reaching an inflection point. As the Turkish government has taken an increasingly authoritarian turn and made questionable foreign policy choices in recent years, Washington has tried to exercise strategic patience and engage Turkish leadership to resolve differences between the two countries. But that patience is wearing thin.

In this new oped for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, MTA Associate Aaron Arnold and colleague Nikos Passas consider the role of banks in monitoring and verifying proliferation-related transactions. He outlines steps that the P5+1 and Iran can take in a final agreement that will allow them to remain vigilant about proliferation financing.

In this op-ed for Iran Matters, Aaron Arnold provides a crucial update on the status of the economic sanctions placed on Iran. He argues that in the short term, a lack of sanctions relief will continue to damage the Iranian economy and undercut efforts by the Rouhani Administration to revitalize growth. However, he points out that new developments in the global economy, such as the creation of an alternative to the SWIFT financial messaging system pushed by Russia and China, will possibly degrade the effectiveness of sanctions in the long run.

"Washington needs to make a decision about its foreign-policy priorities, if tensions in eastern Ukraine are not reduced. Giving the events in Ukraine priority over all other international developments is a hazardous strategy. Negotiations have gotten us nowhere, and way more assertive steps against Russia are not likely to make Putin give in, since he seems to be determined not to lose his influence over eastern Ukraine and eager to demonstrate Russia's power."