Pakistani-Azerbaijani relations in the Afghan rift

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was served a glass of mineral water. Ilham Aliyev, the president of neighboring Azerbaijan, took notice. “You are drinking Georgian water. Try Azerbaijani water as well. I brought some Istisu with me,” Aliyev...

When Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took the floor at the SCO Plus meeting on September 1, his speech was devoted less to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization itself than to the new political reality that Baku is seeking to establish in the...

When the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathered in a new congress hall in the Kyrgyz capital, the scale of the meeting carried a political message of its own. Seated around the same table were the leaders of China, Russia, India, Iran and the nations of Central Asia — countries that together represent more than 40 percent of the world’s population and nearly a quarter of its economy.

The leaders of China, Russia, India, Iran and the Central Asian states gathered in Bishkek on 1 September for an anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — a grouping that increasingly aspires to serve as the political voice of...