On March 21, Nowruz day, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani is going to announce about the establishment of independent Kurdistan. The time, in fact, is chosen quite inappropriately, considering the situation in the Middle East. If Barzani is indeed ready to declare independence, he should at least be prepared for various kinds of threat, or simply for invasion by Turkey. It is one thing to join efforts with Iraq to destroy the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and another - aggression against an independent state, if such is ever established.

The scuffle on the football field at Port Said was not something unexpected, at large. Egypt, like all the other countries of the “Arab Spring” came to be involved in the chaos currently on in Libya, Tunisia, and outlined in Syria. Just a reason was necessary for starting the war «all against all», and this football match was just a finest occasion.

The decision of EU Member States on imposing an embargo on Iranian oil imports will especially hit Europe and, certainly, not Iran. The EU states have clearly forgotten that main consumers of Iranian oil are China and India, so these sanctions will only further embitter Tehran, which is about to cut off oil supplies to the EU. Moreover, Iran can put pressure on her OPEC partners, so that they raise the price for a barrel, thus putting Europe in a complete dependence not from Iran, but from all the major suppliers.

The Istanbul court marked the fifth anniversary of assassination of Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the Armenian-Turkish newspaper “Agos”, in a very peculiar manner: one of the organizers of assassination, Yasin Hayal is sentenced to life imprisonment for incitement to murder, 18 suspects are released to freedom, including Erhan Tuncel, who together with Hayal planned the assassination. The court also resolved that Dink’s murder did not result from conspiracy of a radical group...

Azerbaijan is getting ready... but she herself doesn’t know what for: either for a war against Iran, which will never be, or for the “return of territories”, which is not foreseen for the near future, either. And for distant future, as well. In Azeri implementation, this preparation shows itself in just another purchase of arms, this time American F-16 fighters.

After a disastrous round of foreign policy Turkey is now facing an internal political crisis. It's not even about the arrests of top military, especially former head of General Staff of Turkey Gen. Ilker Basbug and dozens of other generals and admirals. The crisis has affected the political parties. It’s worth noting that relations between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People's Party (CHP) have never been particularly warm.

The year of 2012, as expected, marked the continuation of processes that had begun in 2011 and seem almost endless. The “Arab Spring” that excited the whole world is gaining momentum, now under the green banner of the Prophet: victory of Islamists in Tunisia and Egypt, intervention of terrorist groups in the Libyan civil strife cannot but worry the international community.

In 2011 no new developments were registered either in the Karabakh conflict settlement or in the Armenian-Turkish relations. The widely advertised meetings between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in Sochi and, more importantly, in Kazan resulted in not a single document signed between the countries. The OSCE Minsk Group activity stopped at freezing point and hardly is it possible that replacement of the French co-chairman may change anything. Settlement of the Karabakh conflict is directly related to the participation of NKR in the process. If representatives of the elected government of the Republic of Artsakh headed by President Bako Sahakyan join the negotiating table, the negotiations will end much faster.

Having spent a year at the post of U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Matthew Bryza returns to Washington. Nothing else could be expected: the President has the right to appoint an ambassador during a Senate recess, but confirmation is necessary. And because the senators did not agree to Obama’s nomination, consequently, Bryza’s short-lived career in Baku came to an end.

Yet another inglorious war came to an end: U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq. The war in Iraq revealed another detail – the independent unified state of Iraq, established by the British in the years of the World War I, no longer exists. Quite like the once stable Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, perhaps.