Following last week's Arab League summit in Jeddah, "it is expected that Saudi Arabia will continue to use its year-long chairmanship of the Arab League to reshape the institution, and more broadly to reconfigure pan Arab-affairs, of course with Saudi Arabia at the helm," writes commonspace.eu in this editorial. "For it is this new ambition of the Kingdom to become a leading regional and global player that has defined the summit, and will define its chairmanship of the Arab League over the next year." The summit formally healed some of the divisions of the last decade. Syria’s President Bashar al Assad attended, marking the full return of Syria into the Arab fold. There was a lot of talk of a new era of peace in the Middle East, and even Iran was now perceived as more of a partner rather than an enemy. Yet the summit gathered whilst a few miles away, across the waters of the Red Sea from Jeddah, a bloody civil war raged on in Sudan.

"The Armenian government and Armenian society have reached the limits of concessions on Nagorno Karabakh, and any agreement which will not explicitly secure a long-term and solid international presence in Nagorno Karabakh (either through the deployment of peacekeeping forces or a large-size mission) will be rejected by the majority of the population", writes Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed for commonspace.eu. He adds that "it should be clear to the international community that any new government in Armenia will pursue a tougher policy on the issues related to Nagorno Karabakh and relations with Azerbaijan. Thus, all those external actors, who are interested in the stability of the region, should understand that any additional pressure on the Armenian government to drop its demands for a solid international presence in Nagorno Karabakh, and failure to explicitly secure that presence in the peace agreement, is a recipe for significant political destabilization in Armenia, and has the potential of ruining the ongoing Armenia – Azerbaijan negotiation process, and bring the region back to a renewed cycle of violence."

The US Department of Defense has announced another package of military aid to Ukraine, this time totalling $375m. It is the 38th round of equipment sent to Ukraine by the US since August 2021. The statement released by the US Department of Defense on Sunday (21 May) following President Joe Biden's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the G7 meeting in Japan details the capabilities included in the latest package. It will include further ammunition with HIMARS rocket systems that have wrought havoc on Russian troop and equipment concentrations since they were first supplied to Ukraine in June 2022. It will also supply Javelin anti-tank missiles and AT-4 anti-armour systems, as well as armoured bridging systems, logistics support, and thermal imagery systems. This latest package comes after Joe Biden signaled that he would authorise the third-party transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, something that Ukraine has pressured allies over for months. He would also support an international intiative to train Ukrainian pilots on the jets, he added while at the G7 summit in Japan.

Leaders of China and Central Asian countries on Friday (19 May) signed and released the Xian Declaration following the first China-Central Asia Summit. The Declaration hailed the cooperation between the two sides as all-round and productive, stressing that the six countries agreed to build a closer community with a shared future between China and Central Asian countries. "This summit has added new impetus to the development and revitalisation of the six counties, and injected strong positive energy into regional peace and stability," Xi said later at a press conference with his Central Asian counterparts. "We will jointly foster a new paradigm of deeply complementary and high-level win-win cooperation." Xi said China and the Central Asian countries should deepen trust and offer "clear and strong support" on core interests such as sovereignty, independence, national dignity and long-term development. "China is ready to help Central Asian countries improve their law enforcement, security, and defence capability construction," he said. In what appears to be a concession to Central Asian states who are keen to diversify their export routes, China said that "in the longer term", it supports construction of a cross-Caspian Sea international transport corridor, and would strengthen the construction of transport hubs of China-Europe freight train services.