Posts tagged : "Asia"

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: War in Ukraine rages on nine months after Russia initiated a full-scale invasion of its neighbouring country. The world has been shocked by the unfolding scenes of brutality, pillaging of towns and cities, mass burials, hospitals being shelled, and civilian infrastructure being knocked out by drones and missiles. As the world celebrated the New Year, on social media Ukrainians were posting photos of their cities eclipsed in darkness as their access to electricity shrinks daily. Damages incurred by Ukraine as a result of the war can amount to $700 billion by the end of the year, and the civilians are expected to live with power outages through mid-March. Now, amid a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington: The countrywide uprising precipitated by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police has been described as the first feminist revolution of the Middle East. Taking wing after years of inertia, Iran’s civil society was incentivized by its women to defy patriarchal structures and enforcement of laws that have been steeped in religious fundamentalism. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement is less visible these days as street protests have waned in the face of a government crackdown, but the long-term social change set in motion because of the upheaval is consequential. Young and old Iranians rebelled against the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Institute: Iran and Russia, two isolated fossil fuel giants suffering under U.S. sanctions, are rapidly trying to develop new areas of bilateral cooperation in order to make up for their pariah statuses. But rather than being spurred by shared values or a history of warm ties, the Tehran-Moscow bond is incentivized by their shared enmities as well as short-term calculations about their present standing in the world. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which fast-tracked Moscow’s progressive estrangement from the West, drove Russia and the Islamic Republic to solidify their connections in the face of the United States’ apparent determination to cement their isolation. From reports that Iran...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: As Iran and the Taliban take cautious first steps towards formalizing relations, a new worrying wave of anti-Afghan sentiment is sweeping across Iran amid new heated calls for the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees. On April 5, an assailant stabbed two Iranian Shia clerics to death on the premises of the revered shrine of the 8th Shia Imam Reza in the pilgrimage city of Mashhad. The attacker, apparently motivated by anti-Shiite motives, was later identified as an Uzbek national who had crossed illegally into Iran last year. However, after the footage of the assault captured by pilgrims went viral on social media, many Iranians mistook the aggressor for an Afghan citizen, sparking...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Russia’s blitzkrieg on Ukraine and endgame talks to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iran nuclear pact have become increasingly interlocked in an emerging new geopolitical order. But hopes that a new nuclear deal will allow Iran to quickly replace Russian energy supplies to the West are likely premature for a multitude of reasons. In remarks last weekend, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked the US for written guarantees that the JCPOA’s revival be made contingent on Russia being allowed to maintain trade and economic ties with Iran exempt from US sanctions over its Ukraine invasion. Many analysts interpreted the request, made after months of negotiations and with...

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: In today's irreversibly globalised world, international travelling and mobility are not merely deemed a privilege, but a fundamental entitlement the informed and probing citizens of the 21st century assertively expect the governments to provide. To a large extent, the power of the passports people hold illustrates the standing of their countries in the community of nations, the shades of respectful treatment they receive while away from home, and in many cases, the boundaries of their freedoms and prerogatives. Last October, the London-headquartered global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners published its quarterly repertoire of the most desirable passports in terms of their...

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: Withdrawing from the internationally-celebrated Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, extolled by every major democratic leader in the world at the time it was signed, was not only a foreign policy blunder on behalf of the former US President Donald Trump but a catastrophic betrayal of years of painstaking efforts to resolve one of the intractable dilemmas of international relations and the instigation of a critical nuclear proliferation risk. When the JCPOA was agreed, the EU high commissioner for foreign policy Federica Mogherini said it could "open the way to a new chapter in international relations." Trump wreaked havoc on that opening. But instead of filling the void ensuing that misstep by...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: In a bid to shore up its wobbly legitimacy, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration is appealing to the sizable Iranian diaspora to consider returning to its ancestral homeland and contribute to Iran’s economic, social, industrial, and technological development. As the ultraconservative cleric finds his government hamstrung by its own nebulous economic and foreign-policy agendas, capitalizing on the enterprise and assets of the thriving community of Iranians abroad could serve as a handy remedy to the nation’s myriad challenges. In December 2021, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian announced the administration was preparing to submit a bill to parliament to “support...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi recently posed for a photo-op with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the top-level meeting in Moscow was trumpeted by state media as a bilateral “turning point,” “new chapter” and even “diplomatic triumph.” But a closer examination of the optics suggests something unspoken is still diplomatically amiss. Critical observers of the January 19 meeting noted that Raisi’s arrival at the Kremlin was not received by a guard of honor befitting his status as a foreign leader. In the meeting room, the two countries’ flags were not placed, which the same observers noted is a rarity for Putin’s meetings with heads of government and even a possible...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Armenia has suffered the wounds of abiding traumas over its history that still haunt the average citizen, ranging from the 1915 genocide in which nearly 1.5 million people were exterminated to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War where the small state lost large swaths of territory to Azerbaijan. Yet Armenian President Armen Sarkissian is upbeat about the country’s future, saying he believes a new generation of Armenians pushing for change can transform Armenia into a truly “global nation.” Sarkissian, a former ambassador to the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands, and who served a brief stint as prime minister between 1996-97, is also looking to the Armenian diaspora of some 7-10 million...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have been a mainstay of world news. Most journalists who talk to the leaders of the two countries start their conversations by directing vexed questions about why conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave has dragged on for so long and what the future holds for relations between two neighbors whose differences seem unbridgeable. But Armenia is not all about its skirmishes with Azerbaijan. The first world country to officially adopt Christianity as a state religion in 301 AD, Armenia is the wellspring of an ancient civilization and has fared notably well in cementing its democratic credentials. It scores better than Singapore and Malaysia in the Freedom House’s...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: Since taking office, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other top officials in President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration have repeatedly floated their new “balanced foreign policy” approach that prioritizes developing closer ties with neighbors and bolstering alliances with Asian countries. Shortly after his confirmation as the nation’s top diplomat in August, for instance, Amir-Abdollahian wrote on his Instagram page that he would pursue “a balanced, active, dynamic, and smart foreign policy based on mutual respect, prioritization of relations with neighbors and Asia, development of balanced relations with all regions of the world, and the strengthening of the role...