Valdai Club

The Republic of Azerbaijan, along with its close ally, Turkey, is trying to define new relations with the new leaders of Syria. The important and long-term consequence of this development will be greater alignment between Syria, Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus, Vali Kaleji writes.

Integrating the two countries’ banking subsystems can accelerate the de-dollarisation process and facilitate economic relations and tourism between Iran and Russia, which can be used as a pattern for the use of national currencies in the Eurasian Economic Union, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS, writes Valdai Club expert Vali Kaleji.

The opening of the 37-km railway of the Rasht-Caspian project near the southern part of the Caspian Sea on June 20, 2024 is an important development in the cycle of “multimodal transportation” and “combined transport” (CT) in the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), Vali Kaleji writes.

If Armenia wants to take steps to reduce its military and defence obligations to Russia by withdrawing from the CSTO, France has a difficult road ahead filling the military and defence vacuum there, writes Valdai Club expert Vali Kaleji.

Iran’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been one of the most important aspects of Iran’s foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a complex combination of ideology and pragmatism, Vali Kaleji writes.

On October 18, 2023 the UN Security Council’s sanctions on the development and export of Iranian missiles quietly expired, but the European Troika and the United States persisted in their missile embargo against Tehran outside the UN’s purview; this will not prevent the development of Iran's missile programmes, writes Valdai Club expert Vali Kaleji.

In his article, Dr. Vali Kaleji, a Tehran-based expert on Central Asia and Caucasian Studies, postulates that the 3rd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that was held between 17 and 18 October 2023 in Beijing, can have important results on transportation and transit in Eurasia. On the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this mega project has been significantly affected by the conflict in Ukraine and the Western sanctions against Russia.

The banking and financial relations between Iran and Russia have developed significantly in recent years under the influence of several factors, which is unprecedented in the history of relations between the two countries, Vali Kaleji writes.

The rapid and significant horizontal and vertical expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has had a negative impact on the coherence, coordination, efficiency and especially the executive guarantee of the organisation's policies and decisions, writes Vali Kaleji.

The Chabahar Port Transit Project, is of great importance in the “International North–South Transport Corridor” (INSTC), because it is the only Iranian port with direct access to the Indian Ocean., writes Valdai Club expert Vali Kaleji.