Diplomacy

Leaders of the EU Mediterranean countries met in Athens on Friday to discuss climate change and regional security. The summit of southern EU states was established in 2016 by Cyprus, France, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain. This year, Croatia and Slovenia joined for the first time to discuss issues ranging from the pandemic response to migration and the crisis in Afghanistan.

After the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director admitted that the agency had “a major communication breakdown” with Iran, a meeting resulted in an interim agreement to store monitoring data. The Iranian nuclear talks are expected to resume but the determination of actors to reach a deal is not yet clear.

The Ministerial Council of the GCC countries held its 149th meeting yesterday (16 September) where it discussed progress in GCC relations since AlUla agreement was signed. The Iraqi and Yemeni foreign ministers were also present to meet separately with the Council to discuss economic recovery and relations with GCC.

Russia remains our largest neighbour and it remains an important global actor. Not from the economic point of view, the economics of Russia is more or less the same size as Italy. It is much bigger in surface, but economically speaking it is a medium-sized state. They have a lot of gas, and gas is becoming more and more expensive. This is good news for them and bad news for us. They have the atomic arm, they have an important army and they use it when they need it. In any case, Russia will not disappear. It will be there and this will not change overnight.

During the upcoming summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tajikistan, it will be announced that Iran is launching the procedure on joining the organisation. The Russian newspaper Kommersant wrote on 9 September that earlier, the process was hindered by international sanctions, and later, by the objections of one of the members.