Armenian cemetery (1579) in Surat, India. 16th century onwards, Armenians from Iran formed an important trading community in Surat port city which had sea borne trade with Bandar Abbas. The analysts focusing on the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis through the prism of regional politics fail to factor in that the Caucasus comprises ancient peoples. The Russian President Vladimir Putin …
Continue reading “Historical undercurrents in Nagorno-Karabakh”
The trilateral Armenia-Azerbaijan-Russia statement of November 10 on Nagorno-Karabakh is a major development in regional and international security. A daring attempt is afoot to tamp down an ethnic conflict with political overtones by redrawing territorial boundaries. The agreement bears the imprimatur of President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s separate statement attests to it. Broadly, under the deal, Azerbaijan will hold …
Continue reading “Putin creates conditions for ending bloodshed in Caucasus”
Prime Minister Modi (L) invested on eight years of US President Trump (R) in the White House but expectations fall short. (File photo) From the Indian perspective, the prospect of a Joe Biden presidency becomes a moment of ‘memory mixing with desire’, to borrow from TS Eliot’s famous words from The Waste Land. Prima facie, …
Israel has decided it won’t be the dog in the manger if US President Donald Trump is so keen to sell F-35 stealth jets to the UAE. An understanding has been reached that the US will, as quid pro quo, “significantly upgrade Israel’s military capability” and ensure Israel retains its “qualitative military edge” over Arab …
The Kuwaiti oil fields set on fire by the retreating Iraqi occupation forces during the First Gulf War, 1991 (File photo) The political transition in Kuwait with the departure of Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah is a timely reminder that the Gulf Cooperation Council region is a complex mosaic not only in geography, but in politics …
Continue reading “Once upon a time, Kuwait was a key partner for India”
Women and children read books in a bomb shelter seeking refuge from shelling, Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, Oct 1, 2020 This is the concluding part of a 3-part essay. The first part is here; the second part here. Caucasian chalk circle The United States and Russia are increasingly in each other’s crosshairs on the global …
Continue reading “The Time of Troubles in Transcaucasia — Part 3”
Transcaucasian Trail: Ancient lands & new frontiers in great game Three days into the renewed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in the Transcaucasian region — also known as South Caucasus — it is becoming clear that the binary narrative dished out by western commentators of this being a Turkish-Russian clash of wills and strategies is either simply …
Continue reading “The Time of Troubles in Transcaucasia – Part 1”
The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz transits the Strait of Hormuz as the flagship of US Carrier Strike Group, Sept 18, 2020 (US Navy photo) The US Fifth Fleet announced on September 18 that a Carrier Strike Group comprising USS Nimitz passed through the Strait of Hormuz with the guided-missile cruisers USS Princeton and USS Philippine …
Continue reading “Pompeo threatens to light the fuse in Persian Gulf”
Iranian military delegation led by Defence Minister Gen. Amir Hatami examining Russian weaponry, Moscow, August 24, 2020 The US President Donald Trump’s legacy in the Middle East is going to be that he scattered the region’s Arab unity once and for all. What the successive waves of Cold War, oil, petrodollar, terrorism, political Islam or …
Continue reading “Trump sets the Israeli cat among Arab pigeons”
As expected, the Trump Administration delivered letters on Thursday to both the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and to the president of the Security Council Dian Triansyah Djani notifying them that the United States is initiating the restoration of virtually all UN sanctions on Iran lifted under UN Security Council Resolution 2231. This process, if successful, …
