• Russians Worried about Regime Change in Iran

    Leonid Slutsky According to Slutsky, that was “a response to new US anti-Iranian sanctions and the EU’s inability to launch the promised financial mechanism to bypass them and compensate for losses from Washington’s policy to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero.” “The United States is pursuing an obvious objective: to force Iran to abandon the nuclear deal altogether and therefore push Europeans towards restoring the anti-Iranian package of restrictive measures under US control. The White House hopes to achieve a regime change in Tehran by re-imposing the US and EU sanctions, strengthening Iran’s political isolation and whipping up tensions in the Persian Gulf region in general”, he stressed. Slutsky is certain that Washington’s statements regarding its willingness to maintain a direct dialogue should not be taken seriously. “Unlike North Korea, Iran has neither nuclear weapons nor missiles capable of reaching US territory. So, the only (...)

  • Great Game in Central Asia: Rivalry Persists

    by Andrei Kadomtsev

    Central Asia has been a zone of geopolitical rivalry between the world’s top players for centuries. Even when the main part of this territory was part of the USSR, the USA, China and other countries tried to influence the Soviet “soft underbelly”. After 1991, the region quickly moved to the sidelines of the military-strategic interests of Moscow, Beijing and Washington. At present, the three powers are concerned about the threat of Islamic extremism and an increase in drug trafficking in the region. While sharing the same concerns, the parties interpret the (...)

  • China’s Silk Road Economic Belt

    by Zhang Hongzhou

    The Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) initiative put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his Central Asia visits in September 2013 is considered as one of the two diplomatic initiatives by the new Chinese leadership, with Central Asia the centrepiece of the Belt. Silk Road Economic Belt routes (Credit: kommersant.uz — Click to enlarge) The success of the SREB will to a large extent depend on how well Central Asian countries and the region’s dominant power, Russia, respond to China’s initiative. While official statements tend to suggest that all (...)

  • Economic Consequences of the US Withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal

    by Nazar TAMASHEVSKA

    The Economic Consequences of the US Withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal (PDF) (Click to download) The Economic Consequences of the US Withdrawal from the Nuclear Dealn Murat Aslanr Center for Iranian Studies in Ankara — İRAM (September 2018) ISBN-13: 978-605-7559-02-9 Last May, Donald Trump announced the American withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, a decision that opens a period of great uncertainty on the international relations front. Concluded in 2015 in Vienna between the Islamic Republic and the so-called 5+1 group (China, France, Germany, (...)

  • Do not Ride the Bomb

    by Ali BAKEER

    Some reports said the victims included the personal facilities commander of the Revolutionary Guards in the Khuzestan region, as well as a Revolutionary Guard colonel and military personnel who were said to have fought on Syrian and Iraqi fronts. Although some attributed the attack to the separatist Al-Ahwaz (الأحواز) organization, carried out by a sympathetic group who published videos of the supposed perpetrators, but no further details on how the attack was carried out was given, neither whether the attackers came to Iran (...)

  • Eurasian Rail Alliance Index

    by Nazar TAMASHEVSKA

    The CILF 2018, the 13th China (Shenzhen) International Logistics and Transportation Fair took place from 11 October to 13 October in the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Centre in Shenzhen, China and was organized by the City Government. The Fair gathered more than 1,800 exhibitors from 50 countries, with international companies having over 30% of exhibition platform space. Rail container transit is the newest and indeed the fastest growing segment in the rail transportation market. In 2017, the amount of transit (...)

  • Pakistani Poker: Playing Saudi Arabia against China

    by James M. DORSEY

    The Pakistani moves threaten a key leg of the $60 bln [*] plus Chinese investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a crown jewel of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative. They also could jeopardize Chinese hopes to create a second overland route to Iran, a key node in China’s transportation links to Europe. Finally, they grant Saudi Arabia a prominent place in the Chinese-funded port of Gwadar that would significantly weaken Iran’s ability to compete with its Indian-backed seaport of (...)

  • Turkey’s Lira Meltdown

    by Nazar TAMASHEVSKA

    Turkey’s economy is overheating with an inflation at a 15-year high and a current account deficit gaped at just over 7% of GDP. So when the meeting came and went and the central bank left its policy loose, investors balked. The rate of Turkish price growth has jumped from 17.9% to 24.52% on the year, while on the month an increase from 2.3% to 6.3% has been seen. The Turkish Central Bank (TCMB) hiked interest rates from 17.75% to 24% in mid-September, clearly with no immediate impact on prices. Turkey: Monetary Policy Rates Percent Source: CBRT and Fund staff (...)

  • A Second Iran-Petrodollars War?

    by Babak KHANDANI

    In the economic front, Iran is finding it increasingly difficult to sell its oil and derivatives. Unlike the period before nuclear agreement, EU quickly rallied to the Americans. Russia pretends to support Iran while seeking to take advantage of the absence of Iranian oil to increase its own exports. Even the most loyal customers, such as India and South Korea, are failing. Netanyahu ignores the 9th commandment Click to enlarge (© Satrapia) On the media front, Iran is blamed of all the misery on the planet, from global warming to the giant panda’s disappearance. (...)

  • Eastern Mediterranean Energy Geostrategy on Proposed Gas Export Routes

    by Thrassy MARKETOS

    Eastern Mediterranean Energy Geostrategy on Proposed Gas Export Routes (PDF) Published by Fondation pour le Recherche (Click to download) From 2008 onwards, the security and political order in this subsystem, existing since the onset of the Cold War, collapsed, due to the deterioration in relations between the USA’s two most capable regional allies, Turkey and Israel and the continuing fallout of the Arab Spring. It’s been replaced by a widening civil war in Syria and a geopolitical rivalry among Turkey, Israel, Cyprus and Greece and between Western countries and the (...)

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