This op-ed first appeared in The New York Times on June 16, 2014. Click here to view the full article.
This week’s visit to Tehran by the Kuwaiti emir, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, is about more than Iranian-Kuwaiti relations. It might even be a pivotal moment in the shaping of Iran’s ties with the Arab countries across the Gulf. Kuwait, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is acting as a conduit for the collective unease that the GCC’s six member states, particularly Saudi Arabia, have about Iran’s regional policies.
Allen Keiswetter is a scholar at the Middle East Institute and an analyst at the law firm of Dentons. This is an updated version of a paper originally published by Dentons-GPS.
Following the recent progress on the Iranian nuclear issue and the subsequent easing of sanctions, South Korean businesses are reengaging the Iranian market. A South Korean trade delegation visited Iran on March 9, 2014 to expand bilateral trade ties in the mining, industrial, and food sectors. On March 17, South Korea’s Finance Ministry lifted a ban, allowing South Korean auto, construction, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications industries to resume trade with Iran, though sanctions remained in the shipbuilding, shipping, and harbor sectors.
Geography alone should make the Arab world Iran’s key foreign policy focus. Of Iran’s 13 immediate neighbors, seven are Arab countries.[1] But Tehran’s approach to the Arab world, with its 22 states extending from North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, varies widely in intensity, and Iran’s objectives are equally varied depending on the country in question.
This article first appeared on the Partners for Progressive Israel Blog.
Israel’s recent natural gas discoveries have the potential to transform the country into a major supplier of natural gas to the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Israel’s Leviathan field alone is believed to contain tens of billions of dollars worth of natural gas, and is the world’s largest offshore natural gas discovery of the last decade. In addition to representing a tremendous boon for Israeli domestic energy needs, the finds are likely to result in significant windfalls for the Israeli state and could dramatically impact the political economies of neighboring states.
U.S. diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians have in the last year focused on relations between Israel and the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, led by PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Yet there is arguably a far more dynamic and perilous front: one that encompasses Israel, Egypt’s lawless Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip, the latter of which is run by Hamas.
This article first appeared in the Winter 2014 issue of the Caspian Report.
The political crisis in Ukraine and subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia have sent reverberations throughout the Middle East, where Western and Russian influences continue to weave a complex geopolitical web. MEI interviewed four of its scholars to produce this detailed account of the challenges the conflict poses to the region’s political, security, and economic conditions.
This article first appeared on Iran Matters, a publication of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
John Kerry’s extraordinary efforts to make peace between Israel and Palestine through six months of bilateral talks have produced no significant results. Kerry, determined to succeed, is turning to a “framework” that would create a new basis for continued negotiations. The framework has not yet been released. But if it is a clear outline of an American plan for peace, not just a collection of ideas that avoids laying out U.S. positions, it could be a game changer.
Fatemeh Aman co-authored this article.
As President Obama met his top Afghanistan commanders in the Oval Office on February 4 to discuss his decision to reduce the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, he received a compliment from an unlikely source. Ali Akbar Velayati, the top foreign policy aid to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, called Obama’s Afghan withdrawal policy “wise.”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in Tehran January 28 and 29 for his first meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, and Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci are accompanying him. MEI spoke to Gonul Tol, Director of the Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies, about the meeting.
What is the reason for this high-level visit?