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The importance of Turkey to NATO (Credits- Military TV)

Will the EU-Turkey Deal Work? ( Source- IDSA / Author- K.P Fabian)

European Union- Turkey deal on Syria ( Image credits- VOA/ Author) Source- IDSA Author- K.P Fabian After long negotiations in Brussels, Turkey and the 28-member European Union (EU) have signed a deal on Syrian refugees that is both complex and controversial. The deal was inked at the EU headquarters on March 18, with the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu beaming and his EU counterparts looking relieved, but far from beaming. Turkey has extracted a good deal for itself from the EU. The EU found itself in a weak negotiating position, overwhelmed by the inundation of Syrian refugees coming from Turkey threatening its very foundations, the Schengen Agreement and much more. At the same time, it is difficult to dismiss the thought that the EU could have played a smarter game with its weak hand. While it is too soon to say whether the deal is going to work out to the satisfaction of its makers, primarily, President Erdogan of Turkey and Chancellor Merkel of Germany, there a

Locating Turkey Within Outer Space Politics – Analysis ( Source- Eurasia Review / Authors- Can Özcan and Xavier Quintana/ JTW)

Image credits-  Wikimedia Commons / NASA Source- Eurasia Review Author- Can Özcan and Xavier Quintana/ JTW In 2001, the Turkish National Security Council approved a decision titled ‘Establishing a Turkish Space Agency’, and a draft law will be submitted to the Turkish Parliament in the second half of 2016. What accounts for Turkey’s late entry to develop a major space program along with the independent capability to access space? Is Turkey on a path to address this shortcoming? If not, why? The politics of outer space involve planetary defense, asteroid mining, telecommunications, satellite projects, and the observation of Earth. The US-led Global Positioning System (GPS) is an integral part of space technology, whose function ranges from military survey and construction to farming, finance, and air traffic management. Russia, Japan and China are reluctant to be part of this system, and instead have followed their independent paths through the Glonass, Quasi-Zenith

Russian Jet Down in Turkey: Misstep or Game-Changer? ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Nikolas K. Gvosdev)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Dmitry Terekhov Source- The National Interest Author-  Nikolas K. Gvosdev As we continue to gather more information on the shoot-down of a Russian aircraft by Turkish planes, the incident forces not only Russia and Turkey but all NATO countries (including the United States) as well as other regional players to reconsider their positions and assumptions. Over the coming hours, days and weeks, we will have a better sense of whether this will be treated as a tragic mistake or whether it will be seen as a game-changer that alters the trajectory of the Syrian conflict and Russia's relationship with the West. In the immediate aftermath, whatever progress Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan achieved on the sidelines of the Antalya G-20 summit is now completely lost. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's trip to Turkey, which was designed to get the Turkish-Russian agenda back on track, has now been cancelled. The shoot-do

Turk Indigenous Sat Capability on Schedule ( Copy Right @ The Defense News)

A Turksat-4A communications satellite blasts off at Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome on Feb. 15. Turksat 6A will be Turkey's first indigenous communications satellite. (STRINGER/ / AFP/Getty Images) ANKARA — Turkey’s efforts to build the country’s first indigenous communications satellite are progressing “at full speed,” government officials have said. “We are meticulously working on this program, which will be one of our signature projects and pave the way for local production in the field of satellites,” said a senior official from TUBITAK, the state scientific research institute that is building the satellite. The Turksat 6A will be a communications satellite but also will be used for military communications, officials say. “It will be an X-band satellite with geostationary Earth orbit features,” the TUBITAK official said. Industry sources estimate that Turksat 6A will cost Turkey about US $250 million. TUBITAK’s local subcontractors are military electronics specialis