Salman Rafi Sheikh

When the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Saudi Arabia in August, months before the start of the Gaza war, he declared that bilateral ties were “on the right track”. Later, in the second week of October, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) had a telephone conversation about the situation in Palestine. Now, Ebrahim visited Saudi Arabia from November 13 to participate in the OIC-organized Gaza summit…

With annual trade between China and Latin America reaching almost US$ 486 billion in 2022 – which is almost an eight percent increase from the previous year – Beijing has already become one of the top trading partners of this region. During the Belt and Road Initiative Forum held last month in China, 26 new agreements worth US$6.32 billion were signed. China, in short, has secured a deep footprint in the US backyard, turning the Monroe doctrine – which said that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americans would be considered…

On the 26^th of October, the US military carried out strikes against what it calls the Iran-backed militias operating in Syria and Iraq. This was allegedly in response to attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq. On the 27^th of October, US President Joe Biden reportedly sent a direct message to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, warning him of the consequences of Iranian support for the groups targeting the US forces. These clashes and strikes have a geopolitical context. Recently…