The Levant Files

More than 50,000 crossings, 34 bodies recovered, and two official explanations that cannot both be true. The instrument was Moroccan and the decision was Rabat's — but Washington had just spent three months making that decision cheaper to take.   Spain deployed its armed forces to the North African enclave of Ceuta on Thursday and Friday after tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco within twenty-four hours, in the largest and deadliest irregular entry ever recorded on Spanish territory. By the early afternoon of Friday 31 July, Spain's Interior Ministry estimated that more than 50,000 people had entered. Juan Jesús Vivas, president of the autonomous city, put the figure at around 60,000 and called the situation untenable. Interior estimated that roughly 25,000 had already returned voluntarily to Morocco. Thirty-four bodies had been recovered from the sea over the preceding twenty-four hours, up from nine on Thursday evening. Ceuta's resident population is approxim...

by Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias The Levant Files Chief Editor, Journalist, Historian, Writer, Researcher    The Secretary-General of the United Nations arrives in Cyprus on Monday night, as part of a wider tour of the Levant, to take the temperature of a conflict that has outlived almost every diplomat who has tried to settle it. The stated purpose is modest: to observe the situation on the ground and to sound out the two sides. The unstated purpose is more delicate — to establish whether anything is left of a negotiating process that has not formally existed for nine years. The Cyprus talks have been on hold since July 2017, when the Crans-Montana summit collapsed over the two issues that have always been the hardest: security — meaning the future of Turkey's military presence and of the 1960 guarantee system — and power-sharing, meaning how much political weight a community of roughly one-fifth of the island's citizens is entitled to hold in a reunified state. Everything since has ...

  In what future journalism textbooks may charitably describe as "an ambitious geography own-goal," Turkey's Sözcü newspaper has managed the impressive feat of being furious at the correct topic, aimed at entirely the wrong institution, and somehow still confident about the whole thing. Here is what actually happened, for anyone keeping score at home. On 8 July, the European Parliament — Brussels, EU, the actual legislature Turkey has spent decades not joining — passed a resolution on the effects of Turkey's 1974 intervention on Cypriot women and girls, drafted under rapporteur Eleonora Meleti of the FEMM Committee. Ankara's Foreign Ministry, never one to let an insult go unrebutted, declared the resolution "null and void" the following day and accused it of harbouring baseless slander against the Turkish Armed Forces. A perfectly ordinary diplomatic spat, by regional standards. And then Sözcü arrived, notebook in hand, apparently having left its atlas...

A European Union delegation is set to arrive in Ankara on June 30, just ahead of next week's NATO Summit, with an agenda that prioritizes security, migration and commercial interests over Turkey's human rights record, according to prominent Turkish columnist Murat Yetkin, writing in his column published June 29. Yetkin, a veteran political analyst, reported that the delegation will be led by EU Commission Vice-President and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, accompanied by Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos and Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner. On the Turkish side, the visitors are expected to meet Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, and Trade Minister Ömer Bolat. According to the columnist, the composition of both delegations signals where Brussels' real priorities lie: military and diplomatic cooperation, infrast...

Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias In an exclusive interview with The Levant Files, Dr. Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis — former Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Minister of Communications and Works of the Republic of Cyprus — delivers a sober diplomatic reading of the present moment, warning that, absent genuine political will, the island risks drifting irreversibly toward partition. Speaking exclusively to The Levant Files, one of Cyprus’s most experienced diplomats offered a measured but unmistakably cautious assessment of suggestions that the island may be approaching a new and final phase in the search for a settlement. ‘A Mile From the Solution’ Asked whether the government’s signals of an imminent “final process” reflect a realistic prospect or merely a pious aspiration, the former Foreign Minister was careful not to inflate expectations. The UN Secretary-General, she noted, has achieved little of substance since the intense early months of his tenure in Geneva and Crans-Montana, and would un...

Belgian judicial authorities have issued a European arrest warrant for former European Commissioner and current Greek MP Dimitris Avramopoulos, marking a major new turn in the long-running Qatargate investigation and pushing one of Greece’s most senior political figures into the centre of the scandal. The move, reported on Monday by multiple European and Greek outlets, is linked to the Belgian investigation into alleged corruption and influence-peddling networks surrounding the European Parliament. Belgian prosecutors are also seeking the lifting of Avramopoulos’ parliamentary immunity, a step required before any arrest or further judicial action can proceed in Greece. Avramopoulos, a former EU Commissioner for Migration and one of the most recognisable figures in Greek politics, has rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing. In a public response, he described the case as “completely unfounded,” insisted that he would not hide behind parliamentary immunity, and said he would personally req...

Nournews, a news outlet affiliated with Iran's state apparatus, has published a sharp analysis titled "Europe's Foreign Policy: Between Claim and Reality," examining the European Union's stance regarding the recent preliminary understanding between Iran and the United States. Citing a source inside the first paragraph, the report describes the European position as a "symbol of the decline and exhaustion of the Western structure." According to Nournews, while European countries have reacted to the Iran-U.S. deal with "conditional welcome," their approach reveals a "challenge to the independence of foreign policy and a reduction in the Union's influence in global equations." The report argues that European actions signify a "repetition of a worn-out pattern of power display" rather than effective international role-playing. Contradictory Claims and a Worn-Out Power Display The analysis points to recent statements by Europe...

Israeli naval commandos boarded vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters off Cyprus on Monday morning — deep inside the maritime neighbourhood of two European Union member states, neither of which has taken any public action to stop it. The interception, the third in roughly a year and the second carried out hundreds of kilometres from Israel's coast, seized a number of the convoy's lead boats and detained hundreds of activists from 45 countries; the remainder were expected to turn back. The flotilla had departed the Turkish port of Marmaris on Thursday, May 14, bound for Gaza, whose Israeli naval blockade has been in place since 2007. Livestreams from the flotilla showed commandos in tactical gear boarding several of the lead vessels with weapons drawn, while activists wearing life jackets raised their hands and, in some cases, threw mobile phones into the sea before transmissions cut. According to Israeli reporting, the operation was designed to seize roug...

Ankara has signaled that relations between Turkey and the European Union have entered a new and more fragile phase, pairing diplomatic messaging with symbolic moves. The timing of Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz’s May 4 agreement in Yerevan with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on restoring the historic Ani Bridge coincided with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s renewed remarks on Turkey–EU ties, underscoring a coordinated political message. Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Erdoğan argued that Europe now needs Turkey more than Turkey needs Europe, and that this imbalance is likely to grow. He framed the relationship as being at a crossroads, urging European leaders to abandon what he described as political and historical prejudices and to pursue “sincere and equal” engagement. His remarks pointed to Ankara’s frustration with what it sees as a selective and transactional approach by Brussels. These statements came against the backdrop of messaging from EU leadership emphasizing ener...

The complaints Turkish Cypriot politics levels against the EU, Turkey, and the Greek Cypriot leadership are justified — but incomplete. The real question is whether we're willing to confront our own responsibility. Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias The grievances rising from the segments that backed Tufan Erhürman in the latest presidential election point to three major fault lines in Turkish Cypriot political life: the European Union's "loophole" diplomacy that turns a blind eye to Turkish Cypriots, the bloc's double-standard approach toward Turkey, and the Greek Cypriot leadership's rejection of political equality. No one can deny there's a kernel of truth in each of these three areas. The problem is that grievance can all too easily settle into a comfortable groove — a way of avoiding the mirror. This piece takes each of the three fault lines in turn and makes the case that the issue isn't solely about external actors; it needs to be sought at home, too. The EU...

Kıbrıs Türk siyasetinin AB, Türkiye ve Rum liderliğine yönelik şikâyetleri haklı — ama eksik. Asıl soru, kendi sorumluluğumuzla yüzleşip yüzleşmeyeceğimiz. Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias Son cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimlerinde Tufan Erhürman’a destek veren kesimlerden yükselen serzenişler, Kıbrıs Türk siyasal hayatının üç temel kırılma noktasına işaret ediyor: Avrupa Birliği’nin Kıbrıslı Türkleri görmezden gelen “delik” diplomasisi, Birliğin Türkiye karşısındaki çifte standartlı tutumu ve Kıbrıs Rum liderliğinin siyasi eşitliği reddeden çizgisi. Bu üç başlığın her birinde gerçeklik payı olduğu yadsınamaz. Ne var ki serzeniş, çoğu zaman aynaya bakmaktan kaçınmanın da konforlu bir halini alabilir. Bu yazı, üç başlığın her birini sırayla ele alıp meselenin yalnızca dışarıda değil, içeride de aranması gerektiği görüşünü öne çıkarıyor. AB’nin “Delik” Diplomasisi: Yalnızca Brüksel’in Suçu mu? Kıbrıs Türk tarafının küçümseyerek “delik” diye andığı diplomasi, aslında tarihî bir gelişme. Kıbrıslı Türklerin AB...

Bulgaria's eighth parliamentary election in five years produced the clearest result the country has seen since 1997, but the landslide victory of former president Rumen Radev and his newly formed Progressive Bulgaria (PB) party is already sending a chill through European Union capitals. While the vote may finally end the Balkan state's grinding political paralysis, it has also raised urgent questions about Bulgaria's reliability as an EU partner on Ukraine, Russia, and the bloc's geopolitical agenda. The Vote and Its Result Held on 19 April 2026, the election saw PB secure approximately 44.6 percent of the vote and around 131 seats in the 240-seat National Assembly — an outright parliamentary majority. GERB-SDS, the centre-right party of former prime minister Boyko Borissov, collapsed to just 13.4 percent and 39 seats, while the reformist We Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria coalition (PP-DB) took 12.6 percent and 37 seats. In a striking historical footnote, the B...