A “flotilla” including 72 ships from Turkey and 16 other countries converged on Israel on Tuesday, but this time the country is welcoming them with open arms for a yacht rally instead of a challenge to break the sea embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza.

After 17 months of diplomacy, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice was only able to get 12 of the 15 countries on the United Nations Security Council to vote to place increased sanctions on the Islamic Republic's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The U.S. relationship with Azerbaijan is a crucial one at the moment... But recent months have indeed seen "serious issues" surface in the bilateral relationship—so serious that the relationship has sunk to an all-time low. The primary cause of the rift is a development between Azerbaijan’s neighbors: the Turkey-Armenia reconciliation process.

Turkey remains stubbornly fixed in Western culture as a backward-looking land of doner kebabs, bazaars, and guest workers. But take population out of the equation -- an admittedly big variable -- and Turkey promptly becomes a likely candidate for future superpower.

Turkey signed a deal Thursday with its Arab neighbors of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon to establish a cooperation council to create a zone of free movement of goods and persons among them.

In Turkey, diplomacy and commerce go hand in hand: when ministers travel abroad, they take a train of businessmen...A new pipeline running from Russia to Turkey might carry gas onwards to Syria or Lebanon – but not Israel.

Reaching out to the two countries that voted against new sanctions on Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that she thought Brazil and Turkey would continue to play an important role in diplomatic efforts with the Iranian government.

The EU's refusal to accept Turkey as a member swiftly has partly caused Ankara's foreign policy shift and the deterioration in its relations with Israel, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.