Word: standoff
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There are risks besides an all-out confrontation. The fledgling Iraqi security forces could fracture along ethnic or sectarian lines. A Kurdish battalion commander and 200 of his Kurdish soldiers stationed in Nineveh deserted en masse last summer during the Khanaqin standoff, taking their weapons with them into Erbil, says Vines. At the same time, a Kurdish brigade stationed in Diyala refused orders from the central government, according to other sources...
...winner in the current standoff, if there is one, may be the departing Gyurcsany, who retains a measure of power after orchestrating his re-election as MSzP party chairman over the weekend. He may be the most unpopular man in Hungary right now but Gyurcsany's opponents may regret his departure...
...course, is precisely what has been advocated by some key voices in Washington, most notably Dennis Ross, recently named the State Department's top adviser on Iran. Ross and others have strongly argued that imposing harsher penalties on Iran is the key to changing its behavior in the nuclear standoff but that those penalties should be tied to a diplomatic outreach that includes more incentives and allows Tehran to back down without being humiliated. (They've also argued that such outreach will help the U.S. win support from reluctant allies for harsher measures should Iran fail to respond positively...
...fighter plane collided with a U.S. Navy spy plane, killing the fighter pilot and damaging the Navy's EP-3 so severely that it and its 24-member crew were forced to land on the island, where they were held for 11 days in a tense diplomatic standoff. For both that run-in and this recent one, China said the U.S. was operating illegally inside its 200-mile "exclusive economic zone," based on the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. China signed that treaty...
...Since last May, Ankara has hosted several rounds of secret peace talks between Syria and Israel. It also played a role in helping secure the tenuous cease-fire that ended hostilities in Gaza earlier this year. Turkey has also been approached by Tehran to mediate in its standoff with Washington over Iran's nuclear program. A day after Secretary Clinton's Ankara visit, a high-profile Turkish delegation flew to Tehran, with whose regime Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's moderate Islamist-rooted government enjoys good relations...