Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a one-day working visit to Azerbaijan on August 13, his first visit to that country since 2006. Two warships of Russia’s Caspian Flotilla anchored in the port of Baku on August 12, demonstrating military muscle (as in 2006) as an... MORE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s visit to Washington last Friday could have repaired some damage from the predictably canceled presidential summit in Moscow, but the meeting failed to produce any substance for bilateral relations, which had deteriorated beyond the point... MORE

It used to be said in the region that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are one nation that speaks different languages. However, over the past several years, animosity between the two has been growing.To an outsider, the grievances of either government directed against the other sound reasonable.... MORE

If outspoken Chinese military officers are, as Part One suggested, neither irrelevant loudmouths, nor factional warriors, nor yet the voice of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on foreign policy, and are instead experts in the PLA-party propaganda system, then what might explain the bad publicity... MORE

On June 27, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave a speech at the World Peace Forum on the new foreign policy concept called “Major Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, June 27) [1]. Delivered at Tsinghua University in Beijing, the speech was... MORE

When Kurdish forces repelled fighters of the radical Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot, in northern Syria on July 18, Turkey found itself in a major foreign policy dilemma. Should it support the region’s control by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), or by... MORE

It is now official: The White House has cancelled President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow for a summit with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, planned for September 3. Obama will still come to Russia to attend the G20 summit in St. Petersburg on September... MORE

Latin America is not generally thought of as a high priority for Russian foreign policy. But as relations with the United States continue to stagnate as they did in 2008, Russia is apparently turning greater attention to that region in order to advance its goals... MORE

On July 29, the Russian defense ministry’s Zvezda Television announced that new helicopters would “soon” be delivered to Russian “peacekeeping” troops in Moldova’s Transnistria territory. It claimed that the matter “is being agreed upon” with Moldova, following the green light already received from Tiraspol (Zvezda... MORE

In a surprising move, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka did not end up going to Kiev, Ukraine, to celebrate the 1025th anniversary of the baptism of Rus, a common legacy of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, solemnly celebrated in all the three East Slavic countries (https://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2013/07/30/ic_articles_112_182507/). Observers... MORE