World roundup: May 13 2025
Stories from Syria, Myanmar, Bolivia, and elsewhere
You’re reading the web version of Foreign Exchanges. If you’d like to get it delivered straight to your inbox, sign up today:
TODAY IN HISTORY
May 13, 1805: The Battle of Derna ends with US and allied mercenary forces in control of that eastern Libyan port city, having driven off a Tripolitanian relief army. Though a relatively small affair, Derna was the climactic battle of the First Barbary War (1801-1805). In its wake the Jefferson administration negotiated a peace deal with the governor of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, under which the US ransomed its prisoners for a relatively small sum and returned possession of Derna to Tripoli. The issue underpinning the war, North African pirate attacks on US vessels, remained essentially unsettled and the result was the Second Barbary War (1815), whose outcome was considerably more decisive. Despite the ransom payment the US government claimed victory in the war, and the still young nation was able to demonstrate an ability to carry out military action overseas.
May 13, 1846: The US Congress votes to declare war on Mexico, marking the formal start of the Mexican-American War although the fighting had actually begun several days earlier. The war ended formally in February 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which has to be one of the most lopsided treaties ever negotiated, in which Mexico acknowledged US sovereignty over the whole of Texas and ceded most of what is now the southwestern United States.
May 13, 1981: A Turkish man named Mehmet Ali Ağca opens fire on a vehicle carrying Pope John Paul II as it enters Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Square, seriously wounding the pontiff. The Pope famously forgave Ağca, who was pardoned by Italian authorities in 2000 and extradited to Turkey on another murder charge. Several theories abound as to why Ağca and his compatriots attempted to assassinate the Pope, including that it was a KGB operation, that it was a German intelligence operation that was supposed to look like a KGB operation, and that it was the result of a plot within the Vatican. Ağca himself has apparently made multiple contradictory and sometimes bizarre claims about the attack.
MIDDLE EAST
TURKEY
It’s only been one day since the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced that it’s disarming after more than 40 years at war with the Turkish state, so it’s not at all surprising that the situation is still a bit nebulous. As far as I know the overall plan is for thousands of PKK fighters in northern Iraq to hand over their arms and either return to Turkey or go into exile by the end of the summer, but most of the procedural details still seem to be up in the air. Again, that’s to be expected.
But it does seem noteworthy that there’s been very little comment from Turkish officials as to what, if anything, they’re planning to do as the PKK stands down. This could prove to be an issue if, say, those fighters are expecting to see some sort of gesture—protections for Kurdish rights, improvements in imprisoned PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan’s living conditions, etc.—before they actually disarm. Turkey and the PKK have started down the road toward peace and seen the process derailed often enough that these kinds of things are relevant.
Over at The Financial Times, analyst Gönül Tol argues, as I did yesterday, that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism limits any realistic expectations regarding the outcome of this peace process. A genuine end to the PKK conflict would be massive, both for the people hardest hit by it and for the Middle East as a whole. But if Turkey’s Kurdish population can’t achieve meaningful improvements in its status then it’s unlikely that what’s happening now will in fact end the conflict.
SYRIA
Donald Trump’s trip to the Persian Gulf (more on this below) produced one unexpected outcome on Tuesday, when he announced to an audience in Riyadh “the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.” Previous reporting had indicated that Trump plans to meet with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa while he’s in Saudi Arabia, though it seems like that might be a brief encounter. Nevertheless, the lifting of US sanctions should offer a substantial economic boost to Sharaa’s government at a time when it badly needs one.
The US had been slow to relax sanctions on Syria following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December, presumably hoping to keep using them as leverage against Damascus. Lobbying by Trump’s Gulf Arab counterparts/patrons may have been the final factor in his decision to take this step, but Drop Site News reported last week that Sharaa’s government has been hard selling the Trump administration on the potential for US companies to reap the benefits of sanctions relief via huge reconstruction contracts in areas like energy and telecommunications. So it seems like much of the groundwork for this announcement was already in place.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli military (IDF) bombed Gaza’s European Hospital near the southern city of Khan Younis on Tuesday, killing at least 28 people in the process. Wounded were transferred to the nearby Nasser Hospital, which the IDF had also struck earlier in the day. That earlier attack seems to have been intended to kill Palestinian journalist Hassan Aslih, who was in the facility after surviving a previous airstrike and was one of two people killed there. According to the IDF, the strike on the European Hospital targeted a—and you’ve probably already guessed this—Hamas command and control facility. Subsequent reporting indicates that the target was no less than Mohammed Sinwar, brother of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and one of the group’s senior-most remaining figures. At time of writing it was unclear whether he’d been killed in the attack.
YEMEN
Sanaa’s international airport will reportedly reopen on Wednesday. It’s been shut down since IDF strikes last week that Israeli officials said had “fully disabled” the facility. It would appear that the damage may have been less severe than previously reported, or at least that Yemeni personnel have been able to restore it to minimal functionality in surprisingly short order.
Elsewhere, Reuters—citing “four US officials”—reported (I use the term loosely) on Tuesday that last week’s US-Houthi ceasefire came about after “U.S. intelligence started picking up indications the Yemeni fighters were looking for an exit after seven weeks of relentless U.S. bombings.” Whatever helps these guys sleep at night, I guess, but this seems pretty transparently to be a retort to the New York Times story published over the weekend that made it pretty clear that it was Donald Trump who was looking for an exit, after it became clear that those seven weeks of relentless US bombings had accomplished nothing. This Reuters piece, which reads like a press release from Pete Hegseth’s office, claims that “the Trump administration moved on initial intelligence to secure what in March seemed unthinkable to many experts in the short term: a Houthi declaration it would stop striking U.S. ships.” But the thing is, the Houthis weren’t striking US ships until the US started bombing them. So seven weeks of bombing finally convinced them to stop doing something that they hadn’t been interested in doing in the first place. Truly a stunning victory.
SAUDI ARABIA
Trump’s Gulf tour is already off to a big and potentially lucrative start, as his first day in Saudi Arabia produced a $142 billion military agreement as part of a whopping $600 billion trade and investment package between the kingdom and the US. Terms of the military package are not entirely clear, though apparently the Saudis will get “state-of-the-art war-fighting equipment and services from over a dozen US defense firms” so that’s nice for them. There’s been some talk of selling F-35s to the Saudis—Trump considered doing so during his first term—but whether or not that’s part of this package is anybody’s guess. The trade and investment agreement overall is more a statement of intent than anything else, but the top-line figure does get Trump close to the $1 trillion he’s been promising to reel in during this trip.
Trump also appears to be doing pretty well for himself as far as the Gulf states are concerned. Whether it’s the UAE including the Trump family cryptocurrency in its investment portfolio or the Qatari royal family gifting him with a swanky new airplane and hiring his company to build a new golf resort in their emirate, business appears to be good for the president on a personal level. The corruption seems pretty flagrant, but is it really so out of bounds for the modern US presidency or are we just unused to seeing it done this hamfistedly? That question is above my pay grade.
IRAN
Iranian officials have reportedly “floated the idea” of forming “a consortium of Middle Eastern countries” that would enrich uranium for civilian nuclear power purposes. In theory this could bridge a major gap in US-Iran nuclear negotiations by easing US concerns about Iran’s domestic enrichment program while still allowing the Iranians to maintain a more or less domestic source of low enriched uranium for reactor fuel.
The Gang could include the UAE, which has a civilian reactor but does not have an enrichment program, and Saudi Arabia, which is looking to build reactors and would like to develop its own enrichment program but faces international concerns about its potential weaponization. The Arab states would be meant to ensure that the Iranians didn’t enrich uranium beyond the 3.67 percent limit specified under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. There’s one glaring problem here, which is that the consortium would repurpose Iran’s enrichment program for regional use. Giving Tehran that kind of control over the program might be a nonstarter for the Saudis.
ASIA
INDIA
The first and most important thing to say here is that the India-Pakistan ceasefire is still holding. Indian forces reportedly killed three suspected militants in a gunbattle in Kashmir’s Shopian district on Tuesday. It’s the first such incident in Kashmir since the Indian and Pakistani militaries reached that ceasefire on Saturday, and the fact that it did not result in any sort of escalation is promising. The Indian government also expelled a diplomat from Pakistan’s embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday, which is an indication that tension remains high but also that the two countries are finding ways to express their displeasure that do not involve military ordinance.
Elsewhere, Indian officials appear to be growing increasingly frustrated at claims from the Trump administration that it was responsible for brokering the ceasefire agreement. Donald Trump has been suggesting that he convinced the two sides to stand down by dangling the possibility of trade concessions, but Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Tuesday that “the issue of trade didn’t come up” in any conversations that day between Indian and US officials. Jaiswal also on Tuesday turned down Trump’s offer to mediate negotiations on a broader resolution to the Kashmir dispute. The Indian government as a matter of principle rejects the possibility of outside mediation with Pakistan, hearkening back to the 1972 Simla Agreement in which the Indian and Pakistani governments resolved to manage their disputes bilaterally. This is especially true with respect to Kashmir.
MYANMAR
At The Diplomat, aid worker Rohim Ullah warns that another Rohingya genocide is underway:
A second wave of genocide in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has once again placed the Rohingya population at grave risk.
An uptick in fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and Myanmar’s military, part of a broader conflict stoked by the military coup of 2021, has been particularly devastating for the Rohingya people, who are targeted by both sides. The violence against Rohingya communities has been marked by indiscriminate shelling, aerial bombings, village burnings, and direct assaults on civilian populations – particularly in northern townships such as Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung. Entire villages have been forcibly uprooted. Rohingya civilians have been killed, burned alive, or shot while attempting to flee.
The scale of destruction is alarming. More than 1,000 Rohingya have been killed, countless others injured, and thousands remain missing. Numerous villages have been entirely destroyed. Survivors report that both the AA and the Myanmar military have taken part in efforts to forcibly displace Rohingya communities from their ancestral lands.
CHINA
In keeping with its weekend tariff agreement with China, the Trump administration is temporarily cutting the “de minimis” tariff on Chinese shipments worth up to $800 to as low as 30 percent for items shipped via commercial firms. The tariff for shipping packages via the postal service will be reduced to 54 percent, or alternatively $100 per package. The reduction should offer a boost to Chinese retail firms like Temu and Shein, though even the new rate is high enough to cut into their businesses and the reduction is in theory only temporary.
AFRICA
LIBYA
Factional fighting in Tripoli left at least six people dead overnight in addition to Stability Support Authority (SSA) militia leader Abdelghani al-Kikli—whose killing sparked the violence. Piecing together what happened is difficult but it appears that Government of National Unity Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh moved against Kikli, a powerful warlord whose group was well established in Tripoli, in order to consolidate the GNU’s position in the Libyan capital. The government does now appear to have driven the SSA out of its main stronghold in the city’s Abu Salim neighborhood.
MALI
Mali’s ruling junta announced the dissolution of all of the country’s political parties on Tuesday, the culmination of a process that began with a recommendation from the junta’s “national dialogue” commission late last month. The parties have organized protests against the planned dissolution in recent days, but a security crackdown including the forced disappearance of at least three opposition politicians appears to have stifled their dissent.
NIGER
A roadside bomb in southwestern Niger’s Tillabéri region killed at least eight mine workers on Friday. It’s unclear who set the explosive or whether the workers were the intended target.
NIGERIA
Apparent jihadist attacks on two military bases in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state on Tuesday left at least five soldiers dead. There’s no indication as to the identities of the attackers. Islamic State West Africa Province fighters attacked another base in Borno on Monday, killing at least five soldiers at last count.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
The Russian government flatly declined on Tuesday to say whether President Vladimir Putin plans to attend proposed peace talks in Turkey later this week, or indeed whether he’ll send anyone to those hypothetical negotiations at all. Some of you may be thinking “wait, wasn’t Putin the one who proposed those talks in the first place over the weekend, when he was trying to dodge a new European demand for a 30 day ceasefire?” Yes, in fact it was Putin who proposed direct peace talks in Turkey on May 15. I’m not sure that he meant “direct” as in he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sitting across a table from one another, but that’s how Zelensky is interpreting it and he says that he’ll be “waiting for Putin” in Ankara (then they’ll apparently travel to Istanbul) on Thursday. Trump administration envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg are also apparently heading to Turkey—possibly to be joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio—in anticipation of negotiations, which of course won’t really be possible without some form of Russian representation.
If Putin opts to skip this event altogether, new European sanctions may be in the offing. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that European leaders’ “intention is to impose sanctions” should Moscow continue to reject the 30 day ceasefire that the “Coalition of the Willing” put forward on Saturday, and I think it’s safe to assume that if Russia no-shows the gathering in Turkey it won’t suddenly adopt that ceasefire. And given that he’s sending several high level personnel to Turkey to participate (and has even offered to go personally), one assumes that Donald Trump also won’t be terribly pleased if the Russians don’t turn up.
ALBANIA
Results from Sunday’s Albanian parliamentary election are in and they show a surprisingly strong outcome for Prime Minister Edi Rama and his Socialist Party. Although there were still a few votes left to be counted, the official results released on Tuesday gave the Socialists 52 percent of the vote and at least 82 seats in the 140 seat parliament. Not only is that a comfortable majority, it’s a net gain of at least eight seats and more than 3 percent of the popular vote for the party, compared with its performance in 2021. Opposition parties are challenging the legitimacy of thousands of votes from Albanians abroad, which could in theory shift a few seats but not enough to change the overall outcome.
AMERICAS
BOLIVIA
In what must be considered a bit of a surprise, Bolivian President Luis Arce announced on Tuesday that he will not run for reelection this August. Arce, whose public approval rating is quite low in most polling and who is embroiled in a bitter feud with former President Evo Morales, said that he does not want to risk dividing the electorate and enabling a right-wing candidate to win. His Movement for Socialism (MAS) party’s presidential hopes may now rest on 36 year old Bolivian Senate President Andrónico Rodríguez, who has been close to Morales in the past although I’m not sure what their relationship is like now. Morales, who at one point looked like he would challenge Arce for the MAS nomination, has said that he intends to run under the banner of his new “EVO Pueblo” party—though constitutionally he is not permitted to serve another term as president.
UNITED STATES
Finally, Foreign Policy’s Jonathan Caverley and Rebecca Pincus argue that if Donald Trump wants to expand the US shipbuilding industry, particularly when it comes to manufacturing icebreakers for use in the strategically important Arctic, he’s going to have to do something for which he hasn’t shown much aptitude—accepting help from other countries:
Campaigning on shipbuilding since his first presidential run, Trump sees the industry as intrinsic to his trade philosophy. Like many presidents before him, including Joe Biden, Trump has employed trade policy in the name of national security. But he also reverses the process, using national security, especially large defense-industrial projects, to achieve his economic goals, such as reducing trade deficits. When it comes to almost every aspect of the global maritime industry, however, the United States simply does not have the comparative advantages needed for the coercive leverage the president favors.
That’s especially true for building icebreakers, a specialized capability the United States embarrassingly lacks. These ships help guarantee U.S. economic security and defend national sovereignty against Russian aggression and a growing Chinese presence in the Arctic. In addition, they ensure access to the valuable energy sources and fisheries in the U.S. exclusive economic zone off Alaska’s coast, whose boundaries are disputed by Russia; support freedom of navigation in increasingly important sea lines of communication in the Arctic and Antarctic; and facilitate scientific research and provide support such as search and rescue for remote but economically important U.S. outposts. A healthy number of modern icebreakers will grow the economy and create jobs far beyond the shipyard.
Trump’s recent, high-profile pledge to build these ships also highlights his conflation of security and trade policy. Canada is one of the very few countries in the world with the industrial know-how to make icebreakers. But the president sandwiched his intention to “order about 40 Coast Guard big icebreakers”—a capability the U.S. Coast Guard desperately needs and has unsuccessfully pursued for decades—between his observations on Canada’s “nasty” trade practices.
International industrial deals such as the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact, initiated in 2024 between the United States, Finland, and (as of now) Canada, can still provide large economic and security gains. But they will require the United States playing a role to which it is unaccustomed, and one Trump instinctively loathes: junior industrial partner.