David Schenker, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Affairs, told Current Time that all options are on the table for President Donald Trump as the US and Iran remain "very far" apart as they head into negotiations in Pakistan.
Sailors who survived the 1980s tanker war in the Persian Gulf in which scores of merchant sailors were killed say the current crisis over the Strait of Hormuz risks a descent into another all-out maritime conflict.
Iran wants any peace deal to include a right for it to collect fees from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. With around 130 ships crossing the strait every day before the war, the toll would be a windfall for Iran. But would it be legal?
Hungarians vote in elections on April 12 as war rages in neighboring Ukraine and the government’s relationship with Russia is under intense scrutiny. Polls suggest that after 16 years in office, Prime Minister Viktor Orban may lose power to opposition leader Peter Magyar.
19 activists in Kazakhstan who organized a protest against China's mass internment camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang are expected to receive their sentencing from a Kazakh court next week. The decision will be a signal of China's growing influence in the Central Asia country.
RFE/RL spoke with Allison Minor, director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration, about the shaky US-Iran cease-fire and what could come next for the war and the region.
Amid reports Iran and the US are considering charging vessels a “toll” to transit the Strait of Hormuz, maritime insiders says such a move could backfire if other countries decide to charge ships for passing through natural maritime chokepoints.
Veteran ambassador Joey Hood, a career diplomat who has served with a focus on the Middle East under multiple US administrations, says the US and Iran have each drawn stark lessons from the violent new chapter in decades of hostility.
The drop does not signal a political crisis for Putin. But Kremlin officials are sensitive to shifts in public opinion, and the current trend is being scrutinizing internally by the officials charged with managing Russia’s political system.
A cease-fire has paused the Iran war but the contradictions are already multiplying. Who foots the bill for Iran’s Hormuz toll? What did Iran and the United States actually agree to on enrichment? And does the deal even cover Lebanon?
Pakistan appears to have achieved a significant diplomatic breakthrough by playing a proactive role in brokering a 14-day cease-fire and setting the stage for the US-Iran talks in Islamabad on February 10.
The West “must keep Ukraine as a priority” and increase pressure on Russia amid the US-Israeli war with Iran, which is drawing attention away from Europe’s deadliest conflict since 1945, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told RFE/RL. He also said the Iran war “is now also a NATO topic.”
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