The Washington Post published the article headlined “Putin may restore tougher tone to relations with U.S.” It says that when Putin, currently Russia’s prime minister, makes the very short trip back to the Kremlin next May from his current digs, he will likely bring a tougher tone to Moscow’s engagement with the Obama administration, and the next administration, and possibly the one after that. At a conference of the United Russia party over the weekend, Medvedev announced that he would step aside for Putin, raising the prospect that the former KGB agent, who was president from 2000 to 2008, will now rule Russia until 2024. But it is not yet clear whether there will be any substantive change to a U.S.-Russia relationship that has improved significantly since it reached a post-Soviet nadir after the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. After all, Putin was always the paramount figure in the political tandem he formed with Med¬vedev.
The Turkish information agency Press TV reported that despite regional tensions over a Greek Cypriot gas drilling operation in the Mediterranean, the prime ministers of Turkey and Greece have expressed commitments to push ahead with bilateral cooperation talks planned for the coming weeks. Greek Prime Minister Yorgo Papandreou, accompanied by a number of Cabinet ministers, is set to visit Ankara to upgrade bilateral ties in all fields late October or early November. The two prime ministers planned to meet in New York last week, but Papandreou had to call off his visit due to the growing economic crisis at home. Erdoğan said Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu’s proposal on ending the crisis should be seriously considered.
“Iran urges Europe to end confrontation” is an article published by the Iranian information agency Press TV. It says that Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has reiterated Tehran's interest in improving ties with European countries, urging the West to pursue a policy of interaction instead of confrontation. Western countries must adopt an approach based on interaction rather than confrontation, so that existing ties and cooperation would be steered in the right direction, said Salehi in a meeting with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle in New York on Monday on the sidelines of the 66th annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. He also called on Western countries, including Germany, to add the terror group, Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), to the list of terrorist groups and not allow the cell to freely carry out its illegitimate activities.
The same agency reported that Turkish warplanes have once again bombed bases of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists at border areas in Northeastern Iraq. In a series of attacks on Monday night, Turkish war planes heavily bombarded PKK bases in the Amadiya and Matin regions inside Iraq's Kurdistan territory. According to witnesses, the sound of PKK's anti-aircraft weapons could be heard in border areas of Iraq and Turkey, Fars news agency reported. In the latest outbreak of violence, a group of PKK terrorists stormed an army outpost near the Turkish town of Pervari in the southeastern province of Siirt on Saturday. Nine Turkish soldiers were injured in the attack.
