On June 4, 1878, Britain concluded a treaty with the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II, officially known as a Convention of Defensive Alliance. In this treaty Abdul Hamid agreed to the loan of Cyprus to Britain,

Since 1991 the region of the Balkans has been a place of dynamic change. The region (excluding Greece) has been divided into two subregions: the Western Balkans, consisting of Albania and the entities

The State of Kuwait is one of the Gulf States, located at the head of the Persian Gulf, with Iraq to its north and east and Saudi Arabia to its south. Iran is located directly across the Gulf waters. The

The Islamic Republic of Iran was established in April 1979 after the revolution overthrew the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and religious clerics assumed political control. Years of turbulence

The Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Republic were constituent members of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991 when the former became the Republic of Armenia and the latter the Azerbaijani

Picture courtesy of Jeffrey Pentel (Reuters) The Kurds were most likely an Indo-European people who migrated from Central Asia to Asia Minor and northern Mesopotamian regions, living among Assyrian and

Present-day Turkey lies in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia and shares borders with Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. It is made up of 780,580 square kilometers.

The dream of an Arab-Muslim state stretching across the Middle East has never been realized, despite British promises to help establish one, which were broken with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. But the United

The Arab Republic of Yemen is located on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, sharing borders with Saudi Arabia and Oman. Three-quarters of its population in 2004 - at the last avaliable census,

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country on the Arabian Peninsula. Bordering Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen, Saudi Arabia has played an important

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), an oil-rich Arab country, is located on the southeast side of the Arabian Peninsula. This country, bordering Oman and Saudi Arabia, comprises seven emirates: Abu Dhabi,

Singapore became an independent country on August 9, 1965. This island nation at the southern tip of western Malaysia has since become a regional powerhouse. Singapore’s 4 million citizens, by marked contrast