The President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for the rapid completion of a corridor linking his country to Iran via Turkmenistan. In a meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, held on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand on Friday, Tokayev highlighted the achievements of his recent visit to Iran. He also stressed the need to accelerate […]

In recent days renewed clashes have broken out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus. Fighting between these two countries is nothing new. Since the early 1990s, what started as a “hot war” transformed into a long-lasting “frozen conflict” over Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijani territory in the Karabakh region. In 2020, the situation boiled over and the second Karabakh […]

Wickremesinghe revives India’s plan for close economic integration With the Rajapaksas pushed into the background and due to the high powers vested in the Sri Lankan Executive Presidency, President Ranil Wcikremesinghe is now in a position to take his island nation closer to India and away from China by promoting economic, investment and national security ties. China’s distancing itself from […]

Data protection regulation in India has recently faced several setbacks. The Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced to India’s lower house on 11 December 2019. But the government withdrew the Bill after India’s Joint Parliamentary Committee proposed 81 amendments and 12 recommendations. A new bill with a more comprehensive framework, including modern digital privacy laws, will be released soon. There […]

Russia’s special envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said the United States is no longer included in the Extended Troika, and instead, Iran will take its place. In a televised interview with Sputnik last week, Kabulov said the US was using this structure to advance its own interests, and that Washington’s participation in the Extended Troika was not beneficial for Afghanistan. […]

The Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan, Bahadur Aminian, says at least 6,000 Afghan citizens enter Iran every day and that only about half have visas. The rest enter illegally, he said, adding that these migrants risk falling victim to human traffickers. Speaking to the BBC Aminian said the only way to reduce the wave of refugees into Iran was to create […]

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan said Sunday the border clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were “alarming” and that continued clashes could affect the security of the region. The ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement “these clashes have caused problems for civilians on both sides, particularly, leading to the displacement of thousands of civilians on the Kyrgyz side. The […]

The Taliban’s foreign affairs ministry on Thursday condemned the United States’ decision to transfer Afghan central bank reserves into a Swiss-based trust, saying it was against international norms. On Wednesday, Washington announced it would transfer $3.5 billion in previously frozen Afghan central bank assets into a new trust fund that it said would be shielded from the Taliban and used […]

Authorities in Pakistan said they have offered the Taliban “intelligence and operational assistance” to hunt down the leader of a Pakistani militant group who is believed to be in Afghanistan. Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed organization, was designated a global terrorist by the United Nations Security Council in 2019. The issue of Azhar’s presence in Afghanistan has been […]

The Taliban have summarily executed members of a resistance group fighting against their harsh rule in Afghanistan. A video filmed and shared on the Taliban’s group chats shows a group of five blindfolded fighters who have their hands tied behind them before they are executed by cheering members of the Taliban. In a move that echoes ISIS’s social media strategy, […]