Leaders in Tajikistan are wrestling with increasingly complex threats posed by the Taliban regime and cross border attacks by Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K) fighters. The hostile relationship with the Taliban is a function, in part, of Tajikistan’s longstanding support for Afghan Tajiks and other opponents of the Taliban regime. …

In the shadow of Russia’s war in Ukraine, a series of clashes and a subsequent period of quiet have raised both fears about renewed fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh and hopes that diplomacy might still bring the parties closer to peace. In March, Azerbaijani forces seized territory around Farukh, an ethnic Armenian-populated …

Since early May, Iran has been rocked by protests over a precipitous rise in food prices, triggered by the government’s decision to cut existing subsidies on food products. Since then, prices have gone up dramatically, with staples such as imported wheat increasing by up to 300 percent and cooking oil …