Diplomacy

“I think what is important is that the issue of international affairs is understood not to be an elitist sphere but something that impacts the lives of everyone in one way or another; and as a result, discussions on foreign policy need to be extended to include the wider citizenry. This is a challenge going forward and an increasingly important one.” – Dr Dennis Sammut on the latest final episode of Global Europe Unpacked

Under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council, several Yemeni leaders, politicians and activists are meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for a week-long consultation aimed at ending the war in Yemen. The Riyadh consultations are considered to be the largest Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue event since the National Dialogue Conference in 2013. 

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and prime minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia will meet in Brussels on 6 April at the invitation of European Council president Charles Michel. The three leaders will review developments since their last meeting on 14 December 2021. In preparation of the leaders' meeting, the European Union on Wednesday (30 March) hosted a meeting of high-level officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels to advance joint efforts to find solutions to a range of issues between both countries.   A statement posted on the website of the European External Action Service said, "the meeting between Secretary of the Security Council of the Republic of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan, and Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev, was facilitated by EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar."

The foreign ministers of Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Egypt along with the American and Israeli foreign ministers are participating in a summit at the Negev Desert in Israel. Iran, Ukraine and regional security are key topics to be discussed on Monday and Tuesday.

NATO, the European Union and the G7 are holding leaders summits in Brussels on Thursday to decide on further measures in response to continued Russian aggression in Ukraine. It is now a month since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The world continues to witness the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people, who have united to repel the invader. US president Joe Biden arrived in Brussels on Wednesday to participate in the three summits, which will bring together the leaders of the 30 NATO member-states, the 27 member states of the European Union and the seven leaders of the G7 countries. At the NATO summit it is expected that the leaders agree the deployment of considerable amount of troops to Eastern Europe in response to perceived Russian threats.

As long as Turkey maintains a fairly neutral stance on the Ukraine issue, Russia will not interfere in the current efforts to normalise Armenian-Turkish relations, says Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed. "However, if Turkey changes its policy towards Russia, and joins the anti-Russian sanctions the situation may change. In such case, this may break the Russian – Turkish understanding for the post-2020 South Caucasus. Russia may assume the role of spoiler in the Armenia – Turkey normalization process, significantly slowing down the movement towards establishing diplomatic relations and opening up borders."