Middle Orient

Iran warns IAEA against resolution

Iran has threatened to reduce its cooperation with the IAEA if a resolution is written against it. Iranian officials have continued to fire back at the United Nations nuclear watchdog over its findings as the negotiations to revive the Iranian nuclear deal remain at a standstill. During a television interview, …

Read More »

Palestinian flag raises controversy in Israeli universities

Right-wing Knesset members are advancing a bill that would prevent universities and other state-funded institutions from flying the Palestinian flag. The Knesset approved on June 1 the initial reading of a bill by Knesset member Eli Cohen of the Likud that would ban organizations and institutions budgeted for or supported …

Read More »

UN: Yemen’s warring sides resume talks on ending Taiz siege

Yemen’s warring parties resumed talks Sunday on reopening roads in Taiz and other provinces, the United Nations said, after they agreed to renew a nationwide cease-fire. The U.N. mission to Yemen said delegations from the internationally recognized government and the country’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels began their second round of direct …

Read More »

Death Of Another IRGC Colonel Inside Iran Raises Eyebrows

The killing of a senior officer in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in broad daylight in the capital, Tehran, is rare. But the deaths of two senior members of the IRGC, the elite branch of Iran’s armed forces, inside the Islamic republic in the space of two weeks is …

Read More »

Iran’s Foreign Minister To Visit India Next Week

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian will visit India next week with key focus expected to be on connectivity, particularly through the Chabahar port, and the situation in Afghanistan, Indian media reported. This will be Amirabdollahian’s first visit ever to India since taking charge last year. He was expected to visit …

Read More »

Iraq: Stabilising the Contested District of Sinjar

What’s new? In October 2020, Baghdad and Erbil signed an agreement intended to build stability in Iraq’s Sinjar district through a new administration and security structure that would let displaced people return. The deal is only partly fulfilled, however. Turkey is intensifying bombardment of the PKK and its affiliates in the …

Read More »

Russia-Turkey Talks Crucial To Return Of Grain Supplies

As diplomatic moves continue to shape the future of grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea and Russia’s Sea of Azov ports as a result of Moscow’s aggression, the outcome of attempts to “rewire” worldwide grain transport logistics is complicating the international geoeconomic environment by inducing food security problems. The conflict …

Read More »

Israeli troops kill 2 Palestinians amid West Bank violence

Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank during what the army described as violent confrontations on Thursday. They are among four Palestinians who have been killed in the last two days at a time of heightened Mideast tensions. The Israeli military said forces operating in …

Read More »

Can a new EU strategy bring EU and Gulf actors closer together?

Relations between the European Union (EU) and the Gulf countries have been on life support for a long time. Ever since an early push for a free trade agreement between the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foundered in 2008, few serious efforts have been made to revive the …

Read More »

Traffickers use refugees to smuggle drugs from Iran to Turkey

There are growing claims and indications that refugees illegally crossing the Iranian-Turkish border, the route of an exodus from Afghanistan to the West, are forced to smuggle drugs by their traffickers. The paths of refugees and drug traffickers have crossed at the porous Iranian-Turkish border, the route of tens of …

Read More »