In a Symbolic City, a Regional Summit Charts a Vision for a Connected Future

For weeks, the governments of the Persian Gulf walked a diplomatic tightrope. Publicly and in private, they urged restraint in Washington. Envoys shuttled between capitals. Messages were passed quietly to Tehran. The aim was simple: prevent a direct American strike on the Islamic Republic and spare the region another war. Then the missiles came.

Early in the morning on February 28, the United States and Israel launched missile strikes on Iranian territory.

In 1926, delegates gathered in Baku for the First Turkological Congress and debated a question that would outlive empires and ideological blocs: could the Turkic world one day share a common alphabet? One hundred years later, in the same city, the idea has returned — not as an abstract aspiration, but as a structured project backed by presidents, parliaments and cultural institutions.

The meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in Baku on January 26 was formally presented as an economic engagement ahead of a bilateral business forum. Yet the political significance of the visit extends far beyond trade delegations and memoranda of understanding.