Foreign & Security Policy

Turkey has close ties to the Caspian region, Central Asian, and the Middle East. Its longstanding cultural, historic, and economic interrelationships in the area means that Turkey is an ideal intermediary for the EU in its efforts to develop an energy dialogue.

Nicolas Pelham concludes, that an end to western, Palestinian and Israeli isolation of Gaza and an improvement in Gaza’s lot generally, is likely to empower groups with external connections, and impede rather than accelerate Gaza’s Islamisation. By contrast, the alternative - of maintaining the closure - is likely to hasten the application of Sharia norms.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict was born at the end of last century as a result of "incompatible national aspirations" between the indigenous population of Palestine (the Palestinians) and the Zionist movement over the land of Palestine.

The struggle for Palestine first emerged as a significant issue in the neighboring Arab countries and the wider Arab world in the second half of the 1930s, largely as a consequence of the 1936-1939 Palestinian Arab revolt against the Zionist project and British colonial rule which protected and fostered it.

The Palestinian schism is often referred to as a deep one that pits a secular nationalist movement (centered around Fatah) against a religious movement (centered around Hamas). In his paper, Nathan J. Brown suggests by contrast that the division is not as deep as is often assumed but it is exceedingly wide.

Refugees under occupation - nowhere else in the world are these three words combined to describe the living reality of nearly two million people. But for Palestine refugees in the occupied Palestinian territory, these words have for more than 40 years captured the essence of a doubly deprived existence caught in a political im-passe, denied basic human rights, and largely removed from the international agenda.

We have passed the 60-year mark since the Palestinian nakba, yet the question of Palestine refugees remains unsolved. More than 4.7 million registered refugees continue to live in conditions collectively characterised by uncertainty, injustice and insecurity.

The geographic and social fragmentation of the Palestinian people is essentially a result of the conflict in the Middle East. This topic represents the main focus of our two-day conference with international experts in March 2010. Our dossier provides further information about the conference and the invited experts.

  Interview of Bente Aika Scheller Country Director of hbs Afghansitan - HBSafg Watch on YouTube This external content requires your consent. Please note our privacy policy. Interview with Dr. Bente Aika Scheller, Director of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Kabul, about the Afghanistan Conference in London.

This Afghanistan Dossier offers a variety of articles, analysis and commentary from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Germany, regarding the current situation in Afghanistan and its potential outcomes.