Facebook-f Twitter Youtube

Turkey

Iranian and Turkic influence regions (AI illustration)

Reimagining the Persianate Sphere: Iran’s Response to Turkic Regional Integration

In mid-August 2026, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref met in Tehran with Tajikistan’s Minister of Energy and Water Resources, Daler Juma. The substance of the meeting was unglamorous: oil bitumen and petrochemical exports, aviation fuel, a joint energy commission, and a first half of 2026 in which bilateral trade already ran some 15 percent ahead of the same period in 2025. Only after working through this ledger did Aref turn to build on the “extensive cultural, civilizational, and linguistic commonalities” between the two countries by establishing a “Union of Persian-Speaking Countries and Regions,” and to pursue the idea “seriously” through further meetings and visits.
Written Sovereignty: Turkey, Russia, and Iran in the Battle Over Post-Soviet Scripts

Written Sovereignty: Turkey, Russia, and Iran in the Battle Over Post-Soviet Scripts

Script is rarely a neutral technical choice in this region. Which alphabet a state teaches its children is a declared vector of civilizational allegiance — a public signal of which power it expects to matter for its future. This is what "written sovereignty" means in practice: not legal independence, but the ongoing, contested right to decide whose cultural gravity a nation writes itself into. Three powers are currently making competing claims on that gravity in the post-Soviet Turkic and Persianate world — Turkey, Russia, and Iran — and they are not equally equipped to press the claim.
Transport coridor (AI Illustration)

Azerbaijan Uses the Middle Corridor to Consolidate Its Geopolitical Position

The Middle Corridor, officially known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), is a vital logistics route connecting East Asia and Europe. It is a multimodal corridor combining road, rail and maritime transport. By bypassing traditional northern transport routes, it helps strengthen regional connectivity and improve trade efficiency. Azerbaijan plays a key role in this transport network, using its strategic position on the Caspian Sea to ensure the uninterrupted transit of goods between China, Central Asian countries and European markets.

What Azerbaijan’s Mediation within the Israeli-Turkish Disputes Reveals about the Current State of Affairs between Jerusalem and Ankara

One of the geopolitical aftermaths of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, is the deteriorating bilateral relations between Israel and Türkiye. The South Caucasus state of Azerbaijan, which considers both states its closest allies, unsurprisingly once again serves as a mediator between the two antagonists. Drawing on expert interviews and qualitative data, this paper will be the first to illuminate these mediation efforts in greater detail.

Renaming the Map: Turkey’s Cognitive War for Central Asia and Its Persian Dimension

In November 2025, Turkish Minister of Education Yusuf Tekin made a declaration that passed largely unnoticed in Western strategic circles but sent a quiet tremor through the Persian-speaking world. Addressing the replacement of “Central Asia” (Orta Asya) with “Turkestan” (Türkistan) in Turkey’s national history curriculum, Tekin offered an explanation that was anything but pedagogical: the term “Central Asia,” he argued, had been deliberately introduced into academic literature to divide the Turkic world. The new curriculum, he made clear, was correcting a historical injustice — not updating a geography textbook (Anadolu Agency 2025).
Transport coridor (AI Illustration)

Azerbaijan Uses the Middle Corridor to Consolidate Its Geopolitical Position

The Middle Corridor, officially known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), is a vital logistics route connecting East Asia and Europe. It is a multimodal corridor combining road, rail and maritime transport. By bypassing traditional northern transport routes, it helps strengthen regional connectivity and improve trade efficiency. Azerbaijan plays a key role in this transport network, using its strategic position on the Caspian Sea to ensure the uninterrupted transit of goods between China, Central Asian countries and European markets.
AI generated illustration

Reconfiguration of Power in the Middle East: The Russian and Post-Soviet Dimension

The revival of the Israel–Greece–Cyprus partnership reflects a broader realignment in the Eastern Mediterranean driven by Turkey’s expanding military posture, competition over energy routes, and debates on Gaza’s postwar future. These dynamics are embedded in larger connectivity projects such as IMEC and the Middle Corridor, while provoking sharp resistance from Ankara. Russia’s increasingly ambivalent stance suggests diminishing readiness to back Turkish ambitions as its own priorities shift toward Ukraine, Central Asia, and pragmatic engagement with Washington.

The Baku Process: An Open Triangle in Israel–Azerbaijan–Turkey Relations

Almost half a decade has passed since the diplomatic breakthrough in the previously informal relations between Israel and the "moderate" Sunni regimes of the Saudi-aligned Arab countries. The establishment, under U.S. auspices, of full diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emi, which was subsequently joined by Sudan (North) and Morocco. However, the widely anticipated "wave" of recognition of Israel by Arab states did not materialize at that time.

Accessibility Toolbar