Free Republic

Under no scenario would a unified European Union aligned with China be in the interest of America. Indeed, a united EU might not be a friend but a foe.Joseph Borrell, a former Spanish socialist and current High Representative of the European Union, recently argued the EU needs to be strategically independent. “It is foreseen that in 20 years, we [the EU] will not represent more than 11 percent of world GNP, far behind China, which will represent double it, below 14 percent for the United States and at par with India,” Borrell wrote, adding the next two decades would be...

As the Syrian regime army prepares to launch a campaign for the recapture of Idlib in northern Syria, the Chinese Ambassador to Damascus, Qi Qianjin, told the pro-regime daily Al-Watan on August 1 that the Chinese military would be willing to participate "in some way" in the campaign in Idlib or other parts of the country. The ambassador expressed support for what he called Syria's war against the terrorists, and noted that there is cooperation between the Syrian and Chinese armies. The report also quoted the Chinese military attaché in Syria as saying that the Chinese military wishes to enhance...

A U.S.-backed Syrian-Kurdish militia, a number of Arab rebel groups and an Assyrian Christian group in Syria have formed a coalition to build a democratic representation for a number of moderate parties within Syria, according to a statement seen by Reuters on Monday. The new alliance, which is calling itself the Democratic Forces of Syria, includes the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that beat back the Islamic State (ISIS) with the support of U.S. airstrikes in the Syrian-Kurdish border town of Kobani earlier this year. The YPG continues to battle the radical Islamist group in areas of northeastern Syria and...

Syrian Kurdish Leader: Moscow Wants to Work With Us A senior Kurdish leader is in Washington seeking support and expressing ambivalence about Russian intervention. Oct. 9, 2015 | 12:12 p.m. EDT By: Barbara Slavin, Washington Correspondent for Al-Monitor A Syrian Kurdish leader in Washington this week seeking greater US military support says that Russia has also offered to collaborate with Syrian Kurds in its current offensive against Muslim terrorist groups. Ilham Ehmed, a senior member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Al-Monitor in a brief interview Oct. 8 that "Russia says it wants to work with us" to combat...

Syria's Kurds Are Contemplating an Aleppo Alliance with Assad and Russia 10/9/2015 7:24:00 AM Fabrice Balanche ..............Currently, the Syrian army still controls a third of Aleppo, which is connected to the rest of the government-controlled zone by a narrow road. But this corridor is being squeezed by the Daesh/ISIS on the east and al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra on the west. To win the battle for Aleppo, Assad will therefore need to cooperate with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian franchise of the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PYD is eager to connect its cantons around Kobane and Afrin...