Website of Kourosh Ziabari, award-winning journalist and reporter

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence. The International Court of Justice subsequently stated that the declaration did not violate international law. Since then, the newborn nation, yearning for a prosperous economy and constructive international ties, has undergone ups and downs and received diplomatic recognition from 110 countries. Eight nations, including the United States, Britain and France, recognized Kosovo one day after its declaration of independence. However, aside from the question of recognition, Kosovo faces other issues as well. It wants to join the European Union (EU), forge stronger ties with NATO, improve its economic indicators, make progress on its human rights...

Kourosh Ziabari - Your Middle East: Anti-American sentiments have been a pivotal part of the ideology that gave rise to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, toppled the U.S.-allied monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and introduced the world’s first Islamic Republic. Of course at that time, there was some good reason for feeling unhappy about the role the United States had played in Iran’s political developments; a role which the former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw once famously said had a “malign” influence over the country. In 1953, in what came to be known as the Operation Ajax, the Central Intelligence Agency and the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6 staged a coup d’état against Iran’s nationalist, democratically...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: On the sunny spring afternoon of Monday, April 13, I got to the Istanbul Bilgi University’s central campus with a tram which took me from the Aksaray neighborhood in the Fatih District to the Kabatas quarter where the shuttles for the Santral Campus, available every 30 minutes, would pick up the students and drop them at the entry gate of the university. Istanbul Bilgi University, founded in 1996, is ranked among the top 10 institutions of higher education in Turkey. Although I arrived at my appointment with some 45-minutes delay, Prof. Ilter Turan, one of Turkey’s leading political scientists and the former rector of the Istanbul Bilgi University, received me warmly, and after a few minutes of...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The debate on “Islamic fundamentalism” has turned immensely heated and intense in the West, especially as the terrorist group ISIS continues its relentless campaign of mass killing and executing non-Muslims and threatens to take the fight to the European capitals. ISIS has played a central role in creating skepticism towards Islam in the West that the religion preaches violence. It was about 4 months ago that a deadly shooting spree at the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris claimed 12 lives, saddened millions of French people over the dramatic loss and also incited a new wave of Islamophobic attacks across Europe. Several mosques were set on fire...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: Will Iran and the group of six world powers be able to reach a final solution on Iran’s nuclear standoff? It will have to wait until June 30, which is the self-imposed deadline for Iran and the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) to conclude the marathon talks. The negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program get closer to the critical phases, and now the two sides are wrestling over the most miniature details: when and how the sanctions against Iran will be terminated, whether or not the UN Security Council will endorse the removal of the sanctions, and what parts of Iran’s nuclear activities will be stopped or limited. The former U.S. Ambassador to NATO believes...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Aleksander Kwasniewski is a respected name in Polish politics. He served as the president of Poland from 1995 to 2005. He is known for negotiating the accession of Poland to the European Union (EU) and NATO. Kwasniewski was a critic of the Iraq War in 2003. However, he now says the early withdrawal of US troops from the country was not the correct decision, and that Iraq is a model example of “unfinished business,” in terms of ill-prepared stabilization plans. The veteran politician says the United States is Poland’s “strongest and the most reliable ally.” He also believes that US plans for installing a missile defense shield in Poland is a necessity, given the unstable and turbulent...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: Iran and the six world powers are moving closer to singing a historic deal that will bring a happy and peaceful end to more than one decade of dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Almost all the details regarding the foundation of a comprehensive nuclear accord were agreed upon in the Swiss city of Lausanne on April 2, and the Iranian negotiating team is talking to interlocutors from the United States, three European countries (Britain, France and Germany), Russia and China to work out the text of the comprehensive agreement that is due to be signed on June 30. Although the Congressional hawks in Washington, Israel and some Arab states in the Persian Gulf seem to be nervous about the possibility of a...

Kourosh Ziabari: Islamophobia is on the rise in the West, and certain governments have built their foreign policy towards the Islamic nations upon propagating an imaginary fear of Muslims as the perceived culprits behind several problems our world is facing today. A prominent US-based scholar who has investigated and studied Islamophobia in an extensive book believes that it’s the racist nature of the American society that permits Islamophobia to grow and turn into a point of confrontation between the Muslim community and the government. “Islamophobia in the US is very different from Islamophobia in Europe, for example. This is because the United States is built on a racial and class hierarchy. It is fundamentally a racist country...

Kourosh Ziabari: The Persian New Year has just started and the Iranians, Persian-speaking nations and many people across the Middle East and Central Asia are celebrating the arrival of spring and Nowruz. Nowruz is an ancient Iranian festival that marks the beginning of Vernal Equinox and the solar New Year. It’s observed by some 12 nations as well as Iranian Diaspora in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and elsewhere. Nowruz is a time for amicable family gatherings, exchanging of gifts, tasting special sweetmeat and cuisines, paying tribute to the dead, and visiting the holy shrines and practicing specific religious rituals including the recitation of a special prayer at the moment of the transition of the year. A...

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: He is indubitably the greatest name in Islamic rock and pop music. Iranians feverishly call him their fellow citizen, but he has spent only his first 3-4 years of life in Iran. He immigrated to Britain with his parents when he was a child. He prefers to be simply called a Muslim artist, and not be associated with his national roots in order for his message to reach out to as many people across the world as possible instead of simply appealing to a certain nation or group of people. Referred to as “Islam’s biggest rock star” by the Time magazine, Sami Yusuf is a well-known singer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist who was has received widespread worldwide acclamation for his unique...

Kourosh Ziabari: An eminent American journalist believes that the publication of the US Senate’s report on CIA’s “detention and interrogation program” indicates a growing rift between the legislative body and intelligence apparatus of the United States. Reese Erlich, who is the author of several books about the Middle East and US foreign policy, says that the torture methods used against the terrorism suspects following the launching of the War on Terror by President George W. Bush were endorsed and approved by the high-ranking White House and CIA officials and they were certainly aware of the extent and severity of the torture program used in the US’s overseas jails. The winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The horrific actions being committed under the banner of religion, as manifested in the atrocities of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have made people across the world, especially youths, doubtful about the peaceful nature of divine religions and raised many questions on the relationship between Islam and terror, and the growth of what some have come to call Islamic fundamentalism. There are hardline commentators and pundits who capitalize on the mass killings and executions of civilians by the ISIS to propagate this belief that Islam is a religion of violence that preaches the killing of innocent people, and that Islam and peace are irreconcilable. They ignore the calls by...