Towards the end of October, a lone Azerbaijani Airlines Gulfstream G650 landed in Yerevan, Armenia. It wasn’t the first to do so in over three decades of conflict but it could well change the future of multitrack diplomacy. Although mutual visits by Azerbaijanis to Armenia and Armenians to Azerbaijan are also not new, before October's flight they always occurred under the auspices of an international organisation or intergovernmental body including countries outside the region. Last month’s visit not only flew direct between the capitals but was bilaterally agreed.

The United Nations Secretary-General has warned that the war in Sudan is “spiralling out of control” after a paramilitary force seized the besieged and famine-stricken Darfur city of el-Fasher. Speaking in Qatar during the opening of the World Summit for Social Development on 4th November, Antonio Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire in the two-year conflict that has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday 5th November that he planned to visit the five Central Asian countries in the coming year, as he met their foreign ministers as part of a Trump administration charm offensive aimed at the resource-rich region. The presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are set to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on 6th November for talks that are likely to include discussions of rare earths minerals and other resources in the Central Asian nations.

Tehran will rebuild its nuclear facilities "with greater strength", Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian told Iranian state media adding that the country does not seek nuclear weapons. U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that he would order fresh attacks on Iran's nuclear sites should Tehran try to restart facilities that the United States bombed in June. Pezeshkian made his comments during a visit to the country's Atomic Energy Organization on 2nd November during which he met with senior managers from Iran’s nuclear industry.

In todays’ crowded field in international relations, Sudan hardly is ever in centre stage. These days news, in the mainstream western media at least, is where Donald Trump decides to focus. But the events of the last days in Sudan were too grotesque to ignore. The rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF), finally won complete control over the Southern region of Darfur, overrunning the last base of the Khartoum government army (SAF), in EL Fasher. In the process, the RSF forces went on a spree of violence, killing at random civilians, and conducting a massacre in a hospital. The world twinged. Western governments issued condemnations, and the mainstream western media, with the exception of the BBC which has kept an interest in the country throughout, reached out for its atlases to find out where Al Fasher was. Sudan is the third largest country in Africa, occupying, an area of 1,886,068 square kms (728,215 square miles ) and with a population of around fifty million. A key role can be played by four countries that form the so-called "Quad initiative" — the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia  and the UAE. They include the states that could exert real influence in Sudan. The initiative's objective was a roadmap to end the war or, at the very least, a humanitarian truce. However last week (26 October), Quad talks  in Washington failed. At the moment Sudan’s only hope is that international pressure can convince countries like UAE and Egypt to back an immediate ceasefire, and return Sudan to international humanitarian law. Sudan is already a failed state. But its people are resourceful, and given the right conditions they can rebuild their country. The world must help them to do so.

Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people at a hospital, including patients, after they seized the provincial capital of North Darfur over the weekend, according to the U.N., displaced residents and aid workers, who described harrowing details of the atrocities. The 460 patients and their companions were reportedly killed Tuesday 28 October at Saudi Hospital by fighters from the Rapid Support Forces in the city of el-Fasher, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation. 

The Netherlands is set to elect its youngest ever prime minister after the far-right party of Geert Wilders was projected to suffer losses in an election he brought about by bringing down the government. Rob Jetten, the 38-year-old leader of the pro-European centrist D66 party, is on course to claim the top job with most votes counted. His party is projected to win 27 of the 150 seats in the country's lower house of parliament, beating Mr Wilder's Freedom Party on 25, according to an exit poll by Ipsos. It comes just two years after he led his party to victory in the last election, winning 37 seats, although his coalition partners refused to endorse him as prime minister. Mr Jetten will also need to rely on a coalition himself, with 76 seats needed for a majority. At least four parties will be required for him to get there.