World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The troika has countered Greek Prime Minister Tspiras’s gambit to put the terms of the bailout deal to a referendum by refusing to give Greece an extension beyond 30 June.  By doing so, the troika avoided a possible embarrassing situation if democracy had repudiated the economic terms demanded by the troika.  Without a deal, Greece will not be able to make its debt payment on Tuesday.  No one knows exactly what that situation would mean, but the most likely scenario is that Greece would default on its loans and would therefore leave the eurozone and perhaps the European Union.   The world is clearly moving into uncharted territory.

Tuesday is also a big day for nuclear proliferation.  It is the deadline for an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program and the parties have assembled in Vienna to work out the final details.  Since both sides clearly want a deal, the deadline is not as significant as the deadline for the Greek debt.  A short delay in an agreement will not signal failure.  But there are still some significant details to be ironed out, such as whether the International Atomic Energy agency will have access to military facilities (usually considered off-limits in the Non-Proliferation Treaty) and the timing of how the sanctions will be lifted.  There are harsh opponents of the deal and they are working hard to derail the negotiations.  But all the governments involved in the negotiations have invested a great deal in a successful outcome.

Kurdish fighters have been quite successful against the forces of the Islamic State, but they have been hamstrung because Turkey refuses to allow them to be militarily resupplied by the US.  Turkey fears that a more powerful Kurdish force would lead to increased demands for a Kurdish state.  Kurds live in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.  Turkey fears that Kurdish successes in Syria would lead to a Kurdish state carved out of Syrian territory, and development that might lead Turkish Kurds to make similar demands.  The unwillingness of Turkey to support the Kurds against the Islamic State leaves only Iran as a possible ally in the attempt to degrade and destroy the Islamic State.