On first glance, it looks like an archetypal no-brainer; a large Middle Eastern country with a repressive regime and a simmering, angry protest movement.
Twice in the past fortnight, that movement -- encouraged by events in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere -- has come out of hibernation to stage its first demonstrations in a year, albeit only to be met by crushing crackdowns.
DUSHANBE -- Iran's ambassador to Tajikistan says he has the equipment needed to open the long-planned, joint Tajik-Afghan-Iranian television station if Tajik officials will allow it to be installed, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
Iranian diplomat Ali Asghar Sherdust said the new station could begin broadcasting some three weeks after the equipment is set up in a Dushanbe office.
The diplomatic cables downloaded clandestinely from a U.S. government network and published last week without authorization by the activist website WikiLeaks have shone a major spotlight on Turkmenistan and served to validate the reporting done by exile groups about their homeland. The cables from 2009 and early 2010 expose not only the closed society of Turkmenistan, but the use of the U.S.
A diplomatic cable dispatched by the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, part of the cache of documents obtained by the WikiLeaks website, compares Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to two iconic mafia dons from “The Godfather” movie trilogy -- impulsive Sonny Corleone and his brother, the coldly calculating Michael.
The leaders of the five Caspian littoral states have once again failed in a bid to determine the sea's legal status, which in turn will help determine how to divvy up its wealth of oil and gas resources.
A Caspian Sea summit may have been what brought Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Baku recently, but it was Iran’s bilateral relations with Azerbaijan that commanded a greater share of attention.
Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, Azerbaijan appears caught in a delicate balancing act between cooperation with the United States in implementing sanctions against Tehran and the reality of its own longstanding ties to its southern neighbor.
In a move likely to raise eyebrows abroad, Georgia and Iran have dropped visa requirements and resumed direct flights in a bid to expand economic ties. The agreements between Tbilisi, Washington’s closest ally in the South Caucasus, and Tehran come amid ongoing efforts by Iran to press ahead with its nuclear program, despite opposition from the US and European Union.
