A short journey against the backdrop of the growing humanitarian emergency in Gaza. This will be followed by a stopover in Amman for a four-way summit with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) to discuss “the dangerous developments in Gaza” and their Impact on the region”, but also “to find a political horizon that will revitalize the Israeli-Palestinian peace process”. US President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East has ambitious goals. Here you can find out what is happening on the international stage.
One week to stop the perfect storm. There is not much time left to prevent the explosion of the “time bombs” scattered across the map of the “piecemeal Third World War.” The list spans three continents and traces a route that runs from the Balkans to the Sahara and throughout the Middle East. From Kosovo to Armenia. From Lebanon to Yemen. To the deserts of unresolved African conflicts.
On September 19, Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh and forced the 130,000 Christian Armenians in the enclave to flee to Armenia. But it’s not over yet. Two days ago, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hoisted the national flag in the capital of the former separatist region, and a few hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had warned that Azerbaijan could invade Armenia. The south, a 43 kilometer long high-voltage section, would be particularly targeted. It is the distance that separates Azerbaijan from Naxçývan, an exclave of Azerbaijan that borders Armenia to the east and Turkey to the west. Should Baku manage to take control of it, it would create the long-awaited corridor that would connect Baku directly with Ankara, a major ally of the Azerbaijanis. However, these 43 winding kilometers form the border between Armenia and Iran, and Tehran has already made it clear that it does not want to accept tensions on this border. The entire region is historically one of the transit routes from Europe to the Far East.
The gateway to the country is the Balkans, where the embers of unforgettable resentments have been rekindled since the first Russian attack on Kiev. Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened Western law firms, and if Moldova has to deal with the pro-Russian enclave of Transnistria, the flames in Kosovo will be further fanned. On Saturday, Pristina police confiscated a large amount of weapons, ammunition and explosive devices. Veton Eljshani, deputy police chief, said the raid was carried out as part of an investigation following armed clashes on September 24 in Banjska, in the north, in which a Kosovar police officer and three Serbian attackers were killed. The arsenal was found in a basement in northern Mitrovica.
On his tour of the Middle East, the head of American diplomacy also stopped in the Saudi capital Riyadh, a mandatory stop for any attempt to redress the balance. Official communications from the two law firms confirm that at the meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Farhan Al Saud, “the heads of the two diplomacies also discussed Yemen and Sudan.” Yemen is one of the “forgotten wars” in which the Saudis want to drive out the Houthi militiamen with the support of Iran. In Sudan, however, the latest clash, which was also supported by Russia, has restarted the war machine in Africa.
The consequences are unpredictable, especially when crowds take to the streets. While there is no shortage of demonstrators in almost all Western capitals, it is primarily the Middle East that analysts and secret services are keeping an eye on. In Baghdad last Friday, tens of thousands of Iraqis gathered in the center of Tahrir Square after prayers, waving Palestinian flags and burning Israeli flags. State-organized rallies in support of Hamas and particularly against Israel took place across Iran. Demonstrations that were not stopped by police, unlike the regular demonstrations against young people demanding regime change in Tehran. Thousands of people also took to the streets in Indonesia and Bangladesh as well as in the Indian region of Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt. Pope Francis has understood this for some time and therefore once again called for “no more innocent blood to be shed in the Holy Land, nor in Ukraine, nor in any other place, enough is enough, wars are always a defeat, always.”