(Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo, May 16, 2019.) The reports from Tokyo indicate that the dates for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s state visit to Iran have been firmed up — June 12-14. Abe will have a meeting with Iranian President …
Continue reading “Japan moves up mediation on Iran nuclear issue”
(Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on May 31, 2019 at New Delhi) Political developments in India inevitably receive big attention in the neighbouring South Asian countries. Sri Lanka is a special case where Indian developments have impacted the country’s political landscape. Unsurprisingly, the Sri Lankan ruling elite is always keenly …
The rocky partnership between Russia and Iran in the Syrian conflict is entering a turbulent period. The unprecedented US-Russia-Israel security summit due to take place in Jerusalem next month has no other explanation. A tersely worded White House statement on May 29 said that the summit, which will be attended by the national security advisors …
Continue reading “Russia has more in common with Israel than meets the eye”
(US President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe chat during dinner in Tokyo, Sunday, May 26, 2019) The extraordinary remarks on Iran made by the US President Donald Trump at his joint press conference with his host Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on May 27 merit careful analysis. There are several elements in it …
(PM Modi met Imran Khan on Dec. 11, 2015 at New Delhi. File photo.) It is no big secret that the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a damp squib. The impression becomes unavoidable that the decision to invite the little-known BIMSTEC leaders to PM Narendra Modi’s inaugural ceremony …
Continue reading “New India expects Pak obedience, not camaraderie”
(Maldives, Diego Garcia, Mauritius, Seychelles & Madagascar make ‘second island chain’ controlling Indian Ocean sea lanes to the west of Straits of Malacca) A British ambassador in Tashkent once narrated to me a curious role she was called upon to play as tutor in international diplomacy with the novices in the foreign ministry of …
(Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, Beijing, May 17, 2019.) The unannounced overnight visit by Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to Pakistan on Thursday can be seen at the very minimum as forming part of a diplomatic campaign in the backdrop of the war clouds building …
Through the looking glass of a staunchly ‘secular-minded’ Malayali — a dirty word in the current idiom when triumphalist cultural nationalism is on the march — the Indian election results evoke mixed feelings. On the one hand, there is the wave of fear, anxiety, despair raging in the mind as one surveys the dismal national …
(Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan — Sushma Swaraj (R) and Shah Mehmood Qureshi (L) — met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Council’s FMs conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, May 22, 2019) The two-day meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on May 21-22 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, assumes importance …
Continue reading “India reengages Pakistan — albeit informally”
(Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the informal summit in Wuhan, China, April 2019) The first Chinese commentaries have appeared on the outcome of the general elections in India. The timing is important, since the counting of votes is yet to take place in India. Yet, Chinese commentaries have presumed that …
