Recent News

UN Resident Coordinator for Syria Visits PRIO

Friday, 13 May 2022

On 12 May, researchers and practitioners held interesting discussions on Syria at a roundtable at PRIO.

PRIO Blog Post: Putin's Blood Trail From Syria to the Ukraine

Thursday, 05 May 2022

Carsten Wieland, an associate at the PRIO Middle East Center, who has served as an advisor to the UN on Syria, contributes a comprehensive blog post in which he draws parallels between Russia’s approaches in Syria and Ukraine. Wieland argues that there is much to learn from these similar playbooks of warfare. Not only is Syria in many ways a precursor to Ukraine, it has also served as a testing ground for Russian power and strategies, politically, diplomatically and militarily.

New Policy Brief on youth unemployment and political protests in the Middle East and North Africa

Thursday, 07 Apr 2022

In a new PRIO policy brief, former visiting researcher to PRIO, and doctoral researcher at Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI), Kari Paasonen, writes about youth unemployment and political protests in the Middle East and North Africa.

PRIO Blog Post: Transactional Engagements: Middle Eastern Responses to the Ukrainian War

Monday, 28 Mar 2022

In the PRIO blog post: Transactional Engagements: Middle Eastern Responses to the Ukrainian War, Research Professor Kristian Berg Harpviken and Senior Researchers Pinar Tank, Jørgen Jensehaugen and Júlia Palik write about the mixed regional responses among states in the Middle East for whom the Ukrainian war can have long-lasting destabilising effects.

Republic of Cyprus looking to the Middle East in its foreign policy

Thursday, 24 Mar 2022

The Foreign Policy of the Republic of Cyprus: Local, Regional and International Dimensions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) edited by Zenonas Tziarras, is the first book on the foreign policy of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC), and the first to develop and systematically apply the concept of Foreign Policy Maturity. It focuses specifically on the post-2004 period, namely after the RoC's accession to the European Union (EU) and the failed Annan Plan that aimed at resolving the decades-old Cyprus Problem. The literature on RoC politics and foreign policy has been dominated by concerns and issues associated with the conflict. This book intentionally approaches foreign policy in a way that takes the conflict into account but is not constrained by it. The authors grabble with issues such as past and present foreign policy drivers, international law, defence diplomacy, international organizations, gender mainstreaming, relations with key international actors, institutional capacities, grand strategic concerns, and Turkish-Cypriot perspectives of the RoC's foreign policy.