Turan Research Center

The war between the United States, Israel, and Iran has become the most dangerous conflict in the Middle East this century. Now in its second month, it has also produced an unlikely diplomatic protagonist. Pakistan, a country rarely associated with Middle Eastern peacemaking, has positioned itself as the principal intermediary between Washington and Tehran, relaying demands, brokering confidence-building measures, and assembling a coalition of Sunni powers behind a ceasefire framework.

On March 31, Pakistan and China issued a five-point proposal for ending this escalating war. It called for an immediate ceasefire, peace talks, protection of civilians, the provision of humanitarian aid, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and moving towards a comprehensive peace deal in accordance with the “purpose and principles of the United Nations charter and international law”. By joining Islamabad in presenting a roadmap to end the war, Beijing has subtly indicated that it might assume the role of a guarantor that Tehran seeks for a future agreement. The proposal capped a week of shuttle diplomacy in which Islamabad carried messages between the warring sides and convinced Tehran to allow some 20 oil tankers under its flag through Hormuz as a gesture of seriousness.

Pakistan’s centrality in this effort has surprised many observers. But Islamabad’s motivations are not altruistic. The war threatens to activate multiple fault lines that run through the Pakistani state: sectarian, economic, territorial, and strategic. Understanding why Pakistan assumed the role of mediator requires examining each of those vulnerabilities in turn.

Sectarian Fault Line

Pakistan is motivated by self-interest in seeking a peaceful end to a war in which it is not a party, but which threatens its core interests, stability, and even prospects of survival as a state. The foremost factor motivating its actions is its own Shia population. Pakistan has the largest Shia population after Iran. They constitute up to 20 percent of Pakistan’s estimated 250 million population. Islamabad endured violent protests by Shia protestors after the U.S. and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the beginning of the war.

At least 30 people were killed in violent protests across the country on March 1. In the most violent single incident, at least 10 people were killed, and scores more were injured in the southern seaport city of Karachi when U.S. Marines opened fire as a mob attempted to storm the U.S. consulate. In the predominantly Shia northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan, which borders China, at least 20 people were killed, and scores more were injured when mobs burned a UN office and damaged or torched several government buildings. Islamabad imposed a curfew in Gilgit-Baltistan and cracked down hard on the protestors. Islamabad is currently pushing for trying some of the protestors in military courts for allegedly vandalizing military installations during the protests.

By cracking down hard on Shia protestors, Pakistan signaled it would not risk its Shia population mobilizing to participate in the war or protest in opposition to it. The country’s most powerful official, Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshall Asim Munir, met a group of Shia clerics on March 19. “Violence in Pakistan, on the basis of incidents occurring in another country, will not be tolerated,” he told the group, according to a handout by the Pakistani military’s media wing.

But some Shia clerics who participated in the meeting said they felt threatened and humiliated. One participant said that Munir’s comments gave the impression that the country’s dominant military establishment doesn’t trust the loyalty of Shia citizens. “We were told not to be more loyal to Iran. If we were more loyal to Iran, then we should leave Pakistan,” said Allama Syed Hasnain Abbas Gardezi, a Shia cleric in Islamabad who participated in the event.

Like Shia populations across the Middle East, Iran’s Islamic revolution inspired and mobilized Pakistan’s Shias, who are present across the country’s ethnic, class, and geographic fabric. Islamabad’s Islamization drive and its status as a harbinger of Western-funded anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad turned the country into a sectarian frontline between the Sunni and the Shia.

While Saudi Arabia funded anti-Shia Sunni political parties and their militant outfits, Iran also funded hardline Shia parties and their militant wings. During the past four decades, thousands have been killed and injured in the sectarian violence, with Shias making up most of the victims. Since at least 2013, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has mobilized Pakistani Shias to fight on its behalf in Syria. Thousands of members of the Zainabyoun Brigade, as the Pakistani Shia militia is formally known, have fought in Syria, which raises the possibility that they can be mobilized again to defend the Islamic Republic while it faces an existential crisis during the ongoing war.

Saudi And Gulf Connections

Closely tied to Islamabad’s complex relations with Iran’s Islamic Republic, led by Shia clerics, is Islamabad’s alliance with its archrival, Sunni Saudi Arabia. In September, Islamabad and Riyadh signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement, which requires Pakistan to defend Saudi Arabia if it faces “aggression”. Yet Islamabad now wants to avoid joining the war against Tehran if Riyadh decides to retaliate against persistent Iranian attacks.

Pakistan, however, is hardly eager to join a devastating war against a Muslim neighbor with which it has enjoyed cordial, though occasionally tense, relations. For Pakistan’s powerful military leaders, joining a war, highly unpopular among its people, might prove to be a disaster. In addition, Islamabad's military posture is primarily oriented against archenemy India. Most of its air force, land forces, and navy are deployed along its eastern border with India and in the Indian Ocean. Pakistan is also currently engaged in a simmering war against its western neighbor, Afghanistan.

Islamabad has joined Riyadh, Ankara, and Cairo in a nascent Muslim bloc, which is closely watching the Israel-led effort to remake the Middle East. Unlike the United Arab Emirates, which has normalized relations with Israel under the Abrahamic Accords, these states are anxious about dealing with a possible regional hegemon if Israel succeeds in causing the demise of the Islamic Republic of Iran or severely weakens its military capabilities and regional standing. Before the war, Riyadh had already moved against curtailing Abu Dhabi’s influence. Some in Israel already see Turkey as the next Iran, while Ankara has urged the Gulf nations to weigh the risks of Israel emerging stronger from the conflict. Islamabad has not recognized Israel, but its policymakers are wary of dealing with its growing influence if it defeats Iran. For decades, they have felt threatened by New Delhi’s growing strategic ties with Israel. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel on the eve of its war with Iran and talk of forging a close strategic partnership raised alarm bells in Islamabad and must have raised questions in Tehran.

The economic impact of the Iran war appears to be a more immediate concern for Islamabad. Fuel prices have already doubled since the outbreak of the war. This is expected to unleash a new wave of inflation in the country, where persistent price increases are the top public issue. A prolonged war in the Gulf region could become an economic calamity for cash-strapped Islamabad. Some four million Pakistani workers, nearly half of them in Saudi Arabia, send home over $20 billion annually in remittances from the oil-rich Sunni Arab Gulf monarchies. The loss of these and trade with the Gulf would constitute an economic shock Pakistan can hardly absorb.

Balochistan

Pakistan and Iran share the vast restive region of Balochistan across their 560-mile-long border. The mineral and natural-resource-rich region, with its over 1,000-mile-long Makran coast along some of the busiest sea lanes, is divided into the poorest provinces in both countries. Since the dawn of this century, Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province has been reeling from a festering separatist insurgency by secular ethnic Baloch ethnonationalists. Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced by military operations and militant attacks. Hundreds of separatists, soldiers, and civilians were killed in the largest ever coordinated attacks earlier this year. The attacks proved that Islamabad’s relentless crackdown on the Baloch nationalist has not crushed their insurrection in the absence of a political settlement.

Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan has been historically marginalized. The region's Baloch minority, who are two percent of the over 90 million population, has faced discrimination because of its status as an ethnic and linguistic minority where Persians are the majority. As Sunnis, the Baloch are also a religious minority in a predominantly Shia nation ruled by clerics of the same sect. Since 2004, successive Islamist militant groups such as Jundullah and Jaish al-Adl have attacked Iranian forces and government interests in the region.

Tehran and Islamabad have frequently accused and even attacked each other’s territories over support for Baloch rebels. Tehran has also accused Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel of support for Baloch militants. Islamabad accuses New Delhi of supporting the Baloch separatists. New Delhi, Riyadh, Washington, and Israel have rejected Islamabad and Tehran’s claims. Since 2024, Tehran and Islamabad have attempted some consistent cooperation against militants in their respective parts of Balochistan. Their cooperation followed tit-for-tat strikes in early 2024 in which Iran and Pakistan targeted Baloch separatists in the other country. Both accused the other of harboring Baloch separatists.

At the beginning of the current war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Baloch, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris “to join forces, topple the regime, and secure” their future. Tehran has viewed such statements and attempts to mobilize armed Kurdish separatists as a plan to fragment Iran along ethnic lines. To prevent such an outcome, Tehran has attacked Iranian Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq. Islamabad would like to avoid dealing with Iran’s fragmentation at all costs because of the perceived danger it would pose to its own cohesion. Thus, diplomacy remains a natural low-cost alternative to all the options currently available to its leaders.

The Limits of Mediation

Pakistan's diplomatic intervention is driven less by ambition than by necessity. Every dimension of the Iran war, including sectarian mobilization, Gulf economic dependence, further instability in Balochistan and the risk of Iranian fragmentation, feeds directly into Islamabad's most acute domestic vulnerabilities. Mediation is the lowest-cost instrument available to a state that cannot afford to be drawn into the conflict or to ignore it.

Whether Pakistan can sustain this role is another question. Islamabad has limited leverage over either Washington or Tehran, and its credibility as a neutral broker is complicated by its defense pact with Riyadh and its own crackdown on Shia dissent. The Chinese co-sponsorship lends weight to the ceasefire framework, but Beijing has so far avoided committing the kind of diplomatic capital. It is not clear whether Beijing will offer security guarantees, economic incentives, and enforcement mechanisms required to make a future settlement durable.

For now, Pakistan has succeeded in opening a channel where none existed. Translating that channel into a ceasefire, and a ceasefire into a negotiated settlement, will require far more than message-carrying. It will require the warring parties to see a political off-ramp as preferable to escalation. For now, neither Washington nor Tehran appears ready to make such a calculation.

Abubakar Siddique is a journalist, author, and researcher specializing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the broader geopolitical landscape of South and Central Asia and the Middle East. He is known for his rigorous reporting and analysis on conflict, militancy, diplomacy, regional rivalries, and society. His expertise is reflected in his 2014 book, The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

For years, Russia was Central Asia’s unquestioned economic anchor. That era is over. China has overtaken Russia in trade, investment, and industrial development in the region. Yet beneath the headline numbers lies a more complicated picture. Beijing now dominates balance sheets, but Moscow still shapes livelihoods and continues to wield significant soft power as a result.

China’s growing economic presence is also driving backlash. Locals are concerned about growing debt burdens, deepening dependence, environmental damage from Chinese-backed projects, and encroachments on sovereignty by the region’s powerful eastern neighbor. But, as higher-value, affordable Chinese consumer goods become more widely available and Beijing increases the returns of its investments to local communities, this picture is starting to shift.

China’s Rising Trade

China’s rise as Central Asia’s dominant external economic actor has been swift. Beijing was a minor economic player in the region during its first decade of independence, but overtook Russia in total trade with the five Central Asian republics in 2009. The divergence has only grown since. In 2025, trade between China and Central Asia exceeded $100 billion for the first time. Trade with Russia was roughly half that at around $51 billion.

The scale of the transformation is hard to overstate. Turkmenistan now sends the bulk of its gas eastward. China–Turkmenistan trade approached $10 billion in 2025 alone, making Beijing by far Ashgabat’s most important commercial partner. Chinese investment stock across Central Asia has reached nearly $36 billion, making it the largest investor in the region. More than 11,000 enterprises with Chinese capital operate across the five states. Chinese firms build highways, operate mines, assemble cars, and increasingly manufacture electric vehicles inside the region.

The transformation is visible in smaller ways too. Walk through a bazaar in Bishkek or Dushanbe and Xiaomi phones line every stall. Chinese brands command over half of the regional smartphone market. The increasingly busy roads of the region are now dominated by Chinese electric vehicles.

Anti-Chinese Sentiments on the Rise

But familiarity can breed contempt. As China’s presence in Central Asian economies has grown, so has anti-Chinese sentiment. Between 2018 and 2021, 70% of protests targeting foreign governments and businesses targeted China, according to data collected for our recent book Backlash. Data from the Central Asia Barometer highlights a significant deterioration in perceptions of China in recent years. Suspicion towards China has especially risen. By 2023, 38 percent of Kazakhstanis, 27 percent of Kyrgyz, and 64 percent of Uzbeks expressed negative opinions of China, up from 16 percent, 23 percent, and 5 percent respectively in 2017.

Several factors are driving rising skepticism towards China’s economic role in the region.

Debt has skyrocketed alongside investment. Tajikistan owes roughly $800 million to China out of $3.2 billion in total external debt. Kyrgyzstan’s obligations to China’s Export-Import Bank amount to about $1.7 billion — more than a third of its foreign debt. Uzbekistan’s liabilities to China approach $3.8 billion. These figures do not necessarily signal imminent crisis, but they do bind governments to Beijing over the long term, and populations have taken notice. By 2023, 80% of Kyrgyz and two-thirds of Uzbeks were concerned about growing debts to China.

Chinese land investments have raised concerns about eroding sovereignty. When Kazakhstan’s government proposed amendments to the Land Code in 2016, which would have allowed foreigners to buy or lease land, the largest protests in the country’s history to that point broke out. Many feared Chinese citizens would purchase land as part of a plan to take over parts of the country. The amendments were quickly scrapped.

Such fears are not wholly unfounded. The border disputes China pursued across Central Asia traced their origins to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the Russian Empire absorbed territories Beijing regarded as historically contested. Those claims persisted through the Soviet period, and following the USSR's collapse, China moved to settle them through bilateral negotiations — on terms that consistently favored Beijing. Kazakhstan was the first to yield, ratifying a border treaty in 1999 that ceded roughly 43 percent of the 34,000 square kilometers of territory China had claimed as disputed. Kyrgyzstan's government followed, ratifying a border deal with China in 2002, ceding 1,250 square kilometers, sparking vocal opposition. Tajikistan followed in 2011, relinquishing 1,000 square kilometers — a figure its government presented to the public as a concession, noting it amounted to just five percent of what China had originally sought. In both cases, officials framed the territorial transfers as a pragmatic price for stability, arguing that yielding a portion of the disputed land was preferable to prolonged friction with a far more powerful neighbor.

Pollution linked to Chinese-backed projects has repeatedly triggered local backlash. In Kazakhstan, residents near Chinese-operated oil and chemical facilities in Atyrau and Aktobe provinces have staged demonstrations over air emissions and fears of toxic discharge, accusing authorities of failing to enforce environmental standards. In Kyrgyzstan, protests have erupted around Chinese-run gold mining operations, including at the Solton-Sary site in Naryn province, where local residents blocked roads and clashed with workers over concerns about water contamination and livestock deaths. While not all environmental grievances can be independently verified, and some incidents are amplified by broader geopolitical suspicion, the pattern is clear: as China’s industrial footprint has expanded, so too have anxieties about pollution, transparency, and regulatory oversight.

China is also viewed as fueling corruption. The most striking example came in 2018. Having just undergone a $386 million renovation by Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co. Ltd, the Bishkek Thermal Power Plant broke down in the dead of winter, leaving the capital city with no heating or hot water for almost a week. A later investigation uncovered that the Chinese company and Kyrgyz officials had skimmed over $100 million from the project by inflating costs. While Chinese investors and corrupt officials profited, residents suffered.

Chinese companies have been accused of unsafe work conditions, poor pay, and preferential treatment of Chinese workers. There are widespread perceptions that Chinese investments take jobs from locals rather than creating them. This is particularly acute in Kyrgyzstan, where job shortages force many to migrate abroad. In November 2025, a mass brawlbroke out between locals and Chinese workers from Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) in Chui province after a dispute over access to a quarry. President Sadyr Japarov was quick to downplay the incident, saying, “such everyday conflicts should not be elevated to the level of interstate problems.” Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev dismissed claims that Chinese laborers are “flooding” Kyrgyzstan and stealing local jobs.

Russian Resilience

Despite impressive gains by China, Russia remains the primary bill payer for a significant share of the region’s population. Remittances are the most powerful reminder. In 2024, Tajik labor migrants in Russia sent home $5.8 billion — roughly 45 percent of Tajikistan’s GDP. Between one and 1.2 million Tajiks continue to work in Russia. Kyrgyzstan received roughly $3.5 billion in remittances in 2025, about 15 percent of its GDP, overwhelmingly from Russia. Uzbekistan-bound remittances reached nearly $19 billion in 2025, $15 billion of which came from Russia — around 12 percent of Tashkent’s GDP.

Russia’s popularity has suffered from its invasion of Ukraine and a generational shift, as younger Central Asians carry no memory of the Soviet Union. By 2023, negative views of Russia and China in Kazakhstan were roughly level. One-fifth of Kazakhstan’s population is ethnically Russian, concentrated in the country’s north near its long border with Russia. Russian nationalists have claimed these areas to be historically Russian territory, leading to concerns about a potential invasion. In 2014, shortly after annexing Crimea, President Putin claimed Kazakhstan "never had any statehood" before 1991. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, former President Dmitry Medvedev called Kazakhstan an “artificial state,” arguing the north of the country is made up of “former Russian territories.” More recently, TV host Vladimir Solovyov called for “Special Military Operations” in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Such moves have sparked anger in the region, especially in Kazakhstan. But elsewhere, Russia remains more popular: just 15 percent of Kyrgyz and 36 percent of Uzbeks hold negative attitudes toward Moscow, roughly half the number opposed to China.

Despite experiencing xenophobia and harsh working conditions in Russia, migration remains a lifeline. Strong personal connections to Russia mean that, although declining, at least a basic grasp of the Russian language remains essential for many Central Asians. Coupled with the ongoing influence of Russian media, this keeps perceptions of Russia largely positive across the region.

China cannot match Russia in this regard. Migration levels to Russia dwarf anything Beijing offers. Remittances from China are negligible, with almost no Central Asian labor migrants working in the country. Most Central Asian citizens residing in China are among the roughly 35,000 students.

How China is Trying to Make Itself More Attractive

Beijing is working to improve its image with a series of initiatives aimed at boosting human capital and delivering higher-value projects. China opened its first Luban Workshop, a vocational training center, in Tajikistan in 2022. Further centers have since opened in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, focusing on practical local needs hydropower in Kyrgyzstan, land surveying in Tajikistan, information technology and logistics in Uzbekistan, and artificial intelligence in Kazakhstan. Such programs help China frame its role as providing real value to the local population.

As the region seeks to harness AI to drive growth and enhance governance, Beijing is a willing partner. Kazakhstan’s Academy of Sciences received $143 million from Zhejiang University of Technology to establish the Laboratory of Spatio-Temporal Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development, a project aimed at developing AI capacity and boosting computing speeds. Chinese tech company LinkWise is partnering with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Digital Technologies to build a Modular Intelligent Computing Center and plans to open two data centers in the country. These moves address local needs and move China beyond extraction towards more valuable investments.

China is also increasingly partnering with local companies to produce goods in Central Asia. In Uzbekistan, Chinese-backed automobile and electric vehicle plants are no longer proposals — they are production lines. The first car manufactured by Chinese EV giant BYD rolled off a new $160 million facility in 2024. Kazakhstan has seen a similar rise in Chinese-funded factories. Three Chinese automakers — Great Wall Motor, Changan, and Chery — are planning to open car factories there.

Where infrastructure cannot be owned, China is exporting high-quality consumer technologies. Cars account for about 10 percent of all Chinese exports to Central Asia. By 2024, almost half of all cars sold in Kazakhstan were Chinese brands. China is also coming to dominate Uzbekistan, the region’s largest market, where it accounts for 80 percent of car imports. Chinese smartphone manufacturers hold over half the regional market, offering an affordable alternative to Apple and Samsung.

Combined, these shifts are helping China blunt some of the criticisms directed at it. But the effort remains a work in progress. Local backlash has forced Beijing to adapt its approach, and China’s footing in Central Asia is far from assured. The deeper challenge is structural: until China can offer the kind of direct livelihood connections that Russia provides through migration and remittances, its social acceptance will continue to lag behind its economic dominance.

Edward Lemon is President of the Oxus Society and Research Assistant Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, Washington DC.

Bradley Jardine is a political risk analyst and managing director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs.

Over the past year, relations between Egypt and Iran have undergone a marked thaw. The war in Gaza, anxiety over Israel's expanding military operations, a deteriorating security situation in the Red Sea, and the practical need for cooperation in trade and investments have pushed Iran and Egypt toward rapprochement. The drive for normalization has been so strong that not even the US-Israel war on Iran has undermined it.

The war and Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone strikes on Gulf countries’ oil and other vital infrastructure have, paradoxically, united much of the Arab world. Egypt, however, is striving to strike a balance and position itself as a mediator between the warring sides. On March 12, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty argued that Cairo would continue working to help end the war. On March 23, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi began a Gulf tour aimed at showing solidarity with the Arab states while also seeking a mediating role. Egypt fears an economic downturn from a potential collapse in tourism, and hundreds of thousands of Egyptians working in the Gulf face instability that would ripple back to Cairo.

But Egypt’s interest in mediation also has a deeper strategic logic. Cairo and Tehran have been normalizing their ties for some time. In February, just before the war broke out, reports emerged that Egypt and Iran had reached an agreement on fully restoring diplomatic ties by reopening embassies in each other’s capitals. If confirmed, this would mark a major development in the Middle East.

The agreement follows a series of high-level exchanges between the two countries. In September, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Cairo to finalize a technical arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, restoring Tehran’s cooperation with the world’s principal nuclear oversight body. Although the so-called “Cairo Agreement” ended following an IAEA Board of Governors resolution urging Tehran to provide greater transparency on its nuclear facilities and enriched uranium, Egyptian officials quietly suggested that Cairo had played a sustained behind-the-scenes role in brokering the deal.

Araghchi’s September trip followed his third visit to Egypt in June 2025, during which he met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to discuss regional security and potential avenues for engagement. But such high-level contact has not been limited to foreign ministers: in December 2024, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attended the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation summit in Cairo, signaling Tehran’s interest in expanding its economic ties. And in July 2025, Iran renamed a street previously dedicated to Khalid Al-Islambouli, the mastermind behind Anwar Sadat’s assassination — a symbolic but geopolitically significant gesture that underscored the Islamic Republic’s willingness to change its posture toward Egypt.

The most recent meeting between Egyptian and Iranian leaders took place on the sidelines of the emergency Arab-Islamic summit in Doha in September 2025, convened in response to the Israeli attack on Hamas in Qatar, when the two sides released a joint statement on the need to deepen bilateral cooperation. This diplomatic tempo continued into late December, when Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke with Araghchi about “ways to enhance bilateral relations and exchange views on regional issues of mutual concern, foremost among them developments related to Iran’s nuclear file.”

A Long Rupture, a New Opening

The momentum behind Egypt-Iran normalization has the potential to reshape Middle East geopolitics. Relations between the two countries have been severed since 1979, when the Islamic Revolution reversed what had been a historically cordial relationship. Tehran cut ties after Cairo granted asylum to the ousted Mohammad Reza Shah and Egypt’s subsequent alignment with Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Although there occurred a brief flirtation with normalization between 2012 and 2013 — marked by then-President Mohamed Morsi’s visit to Tehran and then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Cairo — conciliation never matured into a substantive reset.

Today, however, conditions are markedly different.

A series of regional shifts over the past few years has helped erode the long-standing hostility between Egypt and Iran. The China-brokered normalization between Iran and Saudi Arabia followed Tehran’s earlier rapprochement with the United Arab Emirates. Both shifts signaled that the Islamic Republic was no longer isolated within the Arab world. This is likely to change due to the Israeli-US war on Iran and the latter’s retaliation but Egypt is unlikely to shift its position. At the same time, Turkey’s posture toward Iran has changed. Since Tehran’s regional power has been significantly diminished over the Gaza war, Ankara has moved quickly to expand its footprint in Syria and, to a lesser extent, into Iraq. Yet a severely weakened Iran is not in Turkey’s strategic interest. An unstable Iran could cause instability on their common border, boost Kurdish separatism, and further strengthen Israel. Ankara has therefore sought to bolster Tehran where possible.

The crisis in the Red Sea added a new layer of urgency to Cairo’s calculations. As the Houthis — often acting independently but broadly aligned with Iran’s within Axis of Resistance — began attacking international shipping, Egypt faced the prospect of significant revenue losses and mounting economic pressure. This made Cairo increasingly interested in finding common ground with Iran to minimize the fallout. At the same time, Egypt is seeking to reassert itself as a mediator in the wider Red Sea region, and a normalization of ties with Iran fits neatly into that ambition by expanding Cairo’s influence.

There is also a strategic economic dimension. Should renewed nuclear diplomacy lead to sanctions relief for Iran, Egypt stands to benefit indirectly; Iranian crude routed through Iraq could become more accessible, while a more stable regional environment would reinforce the Suez Canal’s role as a principal artery for the transit of energy.

Egypt is also increasingly uneasy about the dramatic shift in the regional balance of power in Israel’s favor — both along its northeastern frontier and across much of its northeastern frontier and across much of the Middle East. Although Egypt has maintained a stable, decades-long peace with the Jewish state, it views Israel’s expanding military reach and political assertiveness with growing concern. The erosion of Iran’s regional power, accelerated by the Gaza war, has opened space in Syria, particularly along Israel’s northeastern frontier, that Jerusalem has been quick to fill.

Rapprochement with Iran also positions Egypt as a potential mediator between Tehran and Washington. Both capitals see value in Cairo’s regional standing and its interest in regional stability. This dynamic was made explicit before the current conflict, when on January 15, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Cairo was actively working to prevent another round of military escalation between Washington and Tehran.

Another powerful incentive for Egypt-Iran rapprochement is the position of the Arab states. Up until the ongoing war, the Gulf region has generally viewed the trend as positive. The wealthy Arab states themselves have significantly improved relations with Iran, and the shift in Cairo-Tehran dynamics, in their view, will only expand de-escalation in the Middle East. The war may complicate this dynamic, but the Gulf states will likely remain keen to pursue de-escalation with Tehran — and Cairo's mediating role could prove useful in that effort.

Iran, for its part, has seen its regional power sharply curtailed and is now seeking to normalize relations with countries that once formed the core of the anti-Iranian bloc, mainly the Gulf states. Egypt was among them, and rapprochement with Cairo helps Tehran ease political pressure from within the Arab world. Iran is also working to mitigate Western sanctions — a central pillar of its foreign policy, particularly in light of the January protests across the country, which resulted in thousands of casualties and underscored the regime’s vulnerability.

Therefore, the path toward Egypt-Iran rapprochement has long been in the making and, above all, has become a strategic necessity for both countries.

Persistent Constraints

Although momentum is building and both sides seem to have reached an agreement on fully restoring diplomatic ties, constraints remain that would limit the level of rapprochement. For Egypt, a central limitation is its security and overall geopolitical orientation — both are deeply anchored in cooperation with the United States, Israel, and key Gulf states. This alignment makes any rapid — let alone comprehensive — rehabilitation of relations with the Islamic Republic politically sensitive. Cairo also remains highly skeptical of Iran’s Axis of Resistance. In Gaza, Egypt serves as the principal intermediary between Israel and Hamas despite its distrust of Hamas’s Islamist roots. Given that Iran continues to support Hamas, this divergence highlights the limits of convergence. Moreover, any escalation in Gaza, Syria, or the Red Sea could quickly undermine the fragile progress made so far.

On the economic front, the benefits of renewed ties remain limited. Tourism and trade offer only marginal gains, and the Western sanctions imposed on Iran continue to limit any meaningful economic cooperation between Cairo and Tehran. For instance, 2023 bilateral trade reached a meagre $5.1 million. For Egypt, commercial ties with its Gulf partners remain far more important. Another powerful constraint is the US position. So far, Washington has been cautious about Cairo-Tehran rapprochement: too much normalization could harm the US and Israeli interests in the region. At the same time, a certain level of normalization of ties could benefit regional de-escalation.

Outlook

Looking ahead, the thaw in Iran-Egypt relations reflects a strategic recalibration shaped by broader regional changes. For Tehran, engagement with Cairo has become increasingly necessary as its regional strategy adapts to its diminished influence and shifting alliances. For Egypt, the ambition to restore diplomatic centrality requires maintaining dialogue with all consequential actors — Tehran included.

Yet decades of ideological antagonism and strategic rivalry impose clear limits on how far normalization can go. The relationship is likely to remain pragmatic and transactional: it carries the potential to reshape the Middle Eastern balance of power, but for now it remains a tactical adjustment rather than a strategic realignment. The ongoing war will test whether that adjustment proves durable — or whether it becomes another false start in a long history of them.

Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the history of the Silk Roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.

For the first time in their tumultuous and fraught relations spanning nearly eight decades, Pakistan and Afghanistan are locked in a simmering war. The two predominantly Sunni Muslim neighbors are stuck in a political and military stalemate. Both are unlikely to de-escalate or score an outright military victory. The United States and Israel’s war with neighboring Iran occupies international attention, and the Middle Eastern Muslim nations potentially interested in mediation between Kabul and Islamabad. This has further pushed both sides to appear to have given up on diplomacy and instead are settling scores on the battlefield.

Escalating Fighting

Following deadly attacks on security forces in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in late February, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khwaja Asif declared an “open war” against the Afghan Taliban government because Islamabad’s “patience has reached its limit.” Since then, Pakistani military jets have targeted alleged hideouts of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban and the Taliban government’s purported installations across Afghanistan.

Under Operation Ghazab Lil-haq (Arabic for Wrath for Righteousness), Pakistan’s much larger and modern military has employed conventional tactics such as airstrikes, artillery barrages, and infantry maneuvers to pressure the Taliban government. Islamabad claimed to have killed more than 650 Taliban soldiers and destroyed hundreds of Taliban posts, command centers, ammunition depots, military vehicles, and installations.

Pakistan’s hardline approach to the Afghan Taliban comes from the country’s most powerful man, Field Marshal Asim Munir. The 56-year-old mercurial general heads the powerful military and is the de facto ruler of the country, which military dictators have governed for most of its history. According to politicians and officials in Islamabad, mounting pressure from the elite officer corps of the army prompted Munir to pressure the Taliban through military strikes. Last year, relentless attacks by the TTP led to the rising casualty rates among the security forces, including the officers leading troops in the field. Army officers are the constituency central to Munir’s power and the army’s institutional dominance. “Peace could only prevail between both sides if the Afghan Taliban renounced their support for terrorism and terrorist organizations,” Munir told soldiers and officers on March 4.

In retaliation, the Taliban has employed asymmetric warfare. Under Operation Rad Al-Zulum (Arabic for Rejection of Cruelty), its forces claim to have engaged and overrun Pakistani border posts in surprise attacks. Kabul has even attempted to target military installations deep inside Pakistan with suicide drones. “If Kabul is attacked, Islamabad too will be attacked,” said Mawlawi Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid, the Taliban Defense Minister and son of the Islamist movement’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar. In the same interview, the Taliban leader said that they are ready to fight against Pakistan for a decade.

The TTP and some smaller Pakistani Taliban factions have also announced an increase in their attacks on Pakistani security forces. There has been a visible uptick in the attacks in the restive districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where civilians sustained casualties in attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban. The mountainous region forms nearly half of Pakistan’s more than 2,500 kilometers (1600 miles) long border with Afghanistan. TTP’s revival has harmed civilians caught between its push for overwhelming the government’s authority and the military’s strong-arm tactics to suppress its expanding insurgency. The TTP has partly financed its insurgency through extortion. Surrendered Taliban, small factions of pro-state militants who are often TTP turncoats, have enjoyed impunity and traumatized locals for decades.

Civilian Suffering

Overall, civilians, most of them members of various Pashtun tribes that straddle the 19th-century Durand Line, as the contested border between the two neighbors is known, are paying a heavy price for the war. Some Pakistani airstrikes have killed unarmed civilians.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), a Pakistani airstrike on March 16 reportedly killed and injured dozens of patients seeking treatment for drug addiction in Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital.  While the Taliban authorities claimed that the airstrike killed more than 400 people, a BBC corresponded in Kabul said at least 100 people were killed based on hospital records and healthcare staff in the Afghan capital. Pakistan claimed it had targeted the Taliban’s military infrastructure. But the airstrike was condemned or questioned by internationally. Before this airstrike UNAMA said at least 75 civilians were killed, and 193 were injured in Afghanistan since the outbreak of the hostilities. It said most of the victims were women and children who “continue to pay the price for the latest escalation in cross-border violence.”

In the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, at least 17 members of a single family were killed in an airstrike on February 22. On March 15, a mortar shell allegedly fired from Afghanistan killed four brothers in Bajaur, a northern district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Committee, an aid group, since late February, fighting has displaced more than 115,000 people in eastern Afghanistan since late February. In Pakistan, too, some border communities are affected by the cross-border shelling. In harsh campaigns since October 2023, Pakistan and Iran have pushed back over 5.4 million Afghan refugees and migrants back into their country. “The speed and scale of these returns have pushed Afghanistan deeper into crisis,” said UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Casualties and displacement are likely to mount as the fighting goes on.

Since October, the complete closure of all the border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan has devastated the fragile economy of their borderlands. While landlocked Afghanistan has historically relied on Pakistan’s southern seaport of Karachi for imports, Islamabad is now paying a heavy toll for cutting trade ties with Kabul. It has lost a sizeable market of about 40 million people in the neighboring country for its agricultural, food, pharmaceutical, and consumer industries. As the dominant partner in the estimated $3 billion annual bilateral trade, Pakistan is set to lose a significant chunk of its international trade and export earnings.

Why Allies Turned Into Enemies

Pakistan was the first foreign power to ally with the Afghan Taliban after its emergence in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in late 1994. It recognized the Taliban government after its ragtag forces overran Kabul with considerable Pakistani covert support in September 1996. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates soon followed. Islamabad became the principal foreign backer of the Taliban’s internationally isolated pariah government. Accounts from a quarter century ago have extensively documented the Pakistani military’s controlling influence over one of the world’s most enigmatic jihadist organizations.

But their alliance, based on their own exigencies, developed deep fissures after the 9/11 2001 attacks in New York and Washington. Taliban leaders turned deeply resentful of Islamabad’s alliance with the United States. They blamed it for facilitating the US-led toppling of their government in late 2001. Yet the persecution of Taliban leaders and their exclusion from the new political system in Afghanistan helped Islamabad to maintain its alliance with the Taliban alive by sheltering its leaders and foot soldiers. As part of its covert policy of double-dealing, Islamabad reaped the benefits of becoming a front-line ally of Washington. Yet at the same time, it helped the Taliban challenge, undermine, and eventually topple the Western-backed Afghan government and the US-led Global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan.

As they ran a deadly insurgency from safe havens in Pakistan across Afghanistan, Islamabad’s tactics gave the Taliban rank and file strong reasons to develop suspicion or even outright hostility towards it. Several key Taliban leaders, including Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur, the successor to Mullah Mohammad Omar, were either killed in Pakistan or captured, handed over to the US, or incarcerated for years. This suspicion may have prompted the Taliban to insist on opening its political office to Qatar in 2013, away from Pakistani control.

In Doha, the Taliban negotiated a withdrawal agreement with Washington in February 2020, which paved the way for its triumphant return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. By then, Islamabad, however, had no real leverage over the Islamist movement, which had transformed into a sophisticated political and military organization during the nearly two decades of insurgency. Still, some Pakistani officials, politicians, and public figures celebrated the Taliban’s return to power as a major geopolitical victory. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the Taliban’s return to Kabul as breaking “the chains of slavery”.

Pakistan’s security tzars, however, knew the reality of their wanning influence and rushed to Kabul to win the Taliban’s support for a settlement with the TTP. Thousands of the group’s fighters had fought for the Taliban, shared the same ideology, and had even pledged allegiance to its leaders. During two decades of the Taliban insurgency, the TTP leaders and fighters had developed camaraderie with the Afghan Taliban. While Pakistani generals basked in the illusion that they still had some lingering influence over the Taliban, the Islamist group systematically paved the way to exploit Islamabad’s vulnerabilities.

The TTP successfully manipulated Islamabad’s keenness on reconciling the group through talks brokered by the Taliban government. While it agreed to engage in a ceasefire, its fighters returned to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in force. They brought back a blueprint of the Taliban’s successful insurgency against the US-led military occupation in Afghanistan. Instead of returning to terrorist tactics targeting civilians, they raised substantial resources through extortion. They focused their kinetic effort on targeting Pakistani security forces. The TTP also benefited from the stockpiles of arms left behind by the US military and the Afghan forces it had propped up. While the Taliban leaders consistently told their Pakistani counterparts to resolve the TTP as an internal security issue, a sizeable number of Afghans joined the TTP’s fighting formations. This signaled to Islamabad that its erstwhile Afghan allies have now turned into its deadly enemies.

This resulted in each subsequent year after 2021 becoming more deadly for Pakistani forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Rising violence in the province magnified the impact of a two-decade-old separatist insurgency in the southwestern Balochistan Province, where a secular ethnonationalist Baloch separatist insurgency has persisted despite a quarter-century of Islamabad's heavy-handed crackdown. Last year was the deadliest in a decade. Security forces members comprised over 40 percent of the more than 1,000 terrorism related fatalities.

Winners And Losers

Islamabad appears keen on pressing its advantage over the Taliban in conventional warfare. Yet, its airstrikes in southern and eastern Afghanistan have failed to either pressure the Taliban to give up support for the TTP or substantially weaken the Taliban's stranglehold over power in Afghanistan. It is not clear whether Islamabad has the political will or financial muscle to launch a prolonged military campaign aimed at forcing the Taliban to comply with its demands or even cause a collapse of its four-year-old rule.

Islamabad’s outreach to anti-Taliban Afghan factions and personalities has not gathered enough momentum to pose a meaningful political threat to the Taliban rule. There is no visible Western or regional appetite for a civil war among Afghans to weaken or replace the Taliban rule. Recent visits by Pakistani Islamist and jihadist leaders have not delivered any visible breakthrough in easing the tensions between Islamabad and Kabul.

The Taliban, however, has gained much from standing up to its erstwhile ally, Pakistan’s powerful military. It has united factions within the Taliban who were increasingly at odds over hardline polices such as the draconian ban on women’s education, social restrictions, and other governance issues. The Taliban has now successfully positioned itself as an enemy of Islamabad. This has won it popular support from many Afghans, both inside the country and among the global Afghan diaspora, who harbor strong grievances against Islamabad either because of how they were treated when they lived there or over its destructive policies during the various phases of war in the country.

For some Afghans, this has changed the Taliban’s status as nothing more than Pakistan’s proxies. This has also positioned the Taliban to champion Afghan nationalism and its irredentist claims over parts of Pakistan. In the words of Afghan political analyst Mushtaq Rahim, “Confronting Pakistan has proved a major political boon for the Taliban; it will only entrench their power in Afghanistan.” The Taliban’s deep ideological ingress, personal ties, and understanding of the Pakistani state and society make them a more formidable adversary for Islamabad compared to secular pro-Western governments preceding their return to power in the twenty-first century or even the royalist, communist, and Islamist Afghan governments during the twentieth century.

In a major reversal of Islamabad’s fortunes in Afghanistan, its confrontation with the Taliban has pushed the Islamist group into an alliance with Pakistan's archenemy India. "It is another attempt by Pakistan to externalize its internal failures,” said Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s External Affairs Ministry, after Pakistani airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan on February 22. “India reiterates its support for Afghanistan's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence." For decades, New Delhi has accused Islamabad of using Islamist militants as an instrument of irregular warfare against its much larger forces. Kabul’s continuing hostilities now might enable New Delhi to undermine Islamabad through a covert military alliance with the Taliban.

Pakistan’s long-time strategic ally against India, China, is set to lose the most because of its war with Afghanistan. Beijing has viewed the Taliban’s return to power as an opportunity to protect its borders from Islamist militants, boost its regional influence, and carve out a stake in exploiting Afghanistan's vast mineral resources and trade potential. But the war between the two neighbors has undermined and even threatened Chinese interests.

In a sign that Beijing has not given up on reconciling Kabul and Islamabad, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called his Afghan counterpart, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, on March 13 to urge a quick ceasefire and dialogue. “Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable brothers and neighbors that cannot be moved away from each other,” a statement by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs quoted Wang Yi as saying. “Issues between the two countries can only be resolved through dialogue.”

But it is not clear whether Beijing is willing to invest some real diplomatic capital in engaging its two neighbors in a dialogue to resolve their bilateral issues. In the absence of such arbitration, Islamabad and Kabul are likely to remain entangled in an unwinnable war.

Abubakar Siddique is a journalist, author, and researcher specializing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the broader geopolitical landscape of South and Central Asia and the Middle East. He is known for his rigorous reporting and analysis on conflict, militancy, diplomacy, regional rivalries, and society. His expertise is reflected in his 2014 book, The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In a February 24 interview in France — four days before the launch of the joint U.S.–Israel operation — Alexander Grinberg predicted that Washington would strike not only Iran's military infrastructure but also its senior military leadership. Speaking with Vozpópuli on March 15, he assessed the operation's unfolding logic, the likely death of Iran's new supreme leader, and the broader implications for Western security.

Below are key excerpts from the interview, translated from the original Spanish.

Is a diplomatic resolution to the conflict possible?

I don't believe so.

What are Israel's objectives in the Iran operation? And what about the United States?

For Israel, the objective is reached when Iran can no longer pose a threat. The military is destroying the regime's capabilities, because 7,000 ballistic missiles could theoretically saturate all of our air defense systems. For the Israeli government, we are close to that goal. But the U.S. naturally requires the normalization of energy conditions as well.

On Saturday, the U.S. struck Kharg Island to prevent Iran from controlling the Strait of Hormuz…

Yes, but the U.S. didn't target Iranian oil — it struck Iranian weapons on that strategic island. I believe this is preparation for a U.S. ground operation. While the strategic situation isn't dire, it matters because of Iran's capacity to spike global energy prices. Once the American military machine starts moving, it's impossible to stop. And many Arab countries now want Iran punished for attacks on their territory.

Is there a coherent strategy behind the coordinated strikes, or has the U.S. entered a war it doesn't know how to end?

No country reveals all its military objectives publicly. If we can understand the plan, so can the enemy. For example, early in the campaign, strikes hit sports stadiums. I didn't understand why until an Iranian contact explained that sports facilities serve as military assembly and training centers. Destroying them degraded the ability of military units to organize. And it's not only the strikes that are coordinated — the messaging is too. We see daily that statements from Trump and Netanyahu echo one another.

Trump has denied it multiple times, but he has also called for the fall of the Iranian regime. Is regime change really possible?

Regime change is possible, but it depends on the will of the Iranian people. There is a total disconnect between the Iranian people and their government. In the West and in Israel, we expect a formal process with a clear beginning and end. But I don't think it works that way in Iran, because this is an ideological regime that doesn't think long-term. The regime may not be destroyable with a single blow, but it can be stripped of its capacity to function — to govern or administer the country.

Trump and Netanyahu have repeatedly urged Iranians to rise up against their government. What could come next?

Right now I don't think an uprising is possible — it's dangerous to go out into the streets. We believe Iran is killing its own people with drones, because we see that some attacks within its territory are carried out with quadcopters, not the fixed-wing drones Israel uses. It's still not safe to take to the streets. Iranian society doesn't want this regime. They demonstrated en masse in January. The Iranian economy wasn't functioning before the February 28 strikes — inflation was already extremely high. There could even be a power vacuum for some time. But I cannot imagine a situation worse than one under this regime, which kills its own people.

There has been significant speculation about the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and his absence from the media. What do you think?

I believe he died, or was so severely wounded that it would be impossible to show him on television. Iranian media initially said they would broadcast Khamenei's message but not his image. There is no photograph. If he had only been wounded as they claim, they would show him to make him look heroic.

From a security perspective, how would the end of the ayatollahs' regime affect the West?

We should not forget that Iran has far more Arab and Western blood on its hands than Jewish blood. It maintains alliances with criminal networks in France coordinating with Algeria, with narcotrafficking networks, with terrorist organizations worldwide — Hezbollah, networks across Latin America and Africa. If the Iranian regime falls, these networks will be significantly weakened.

Read the full interview on Voz Populi (Spanish).

Alexander Grinberg is a Senior Fellow at the Turan Research Center

As the war in Iran spreads beyond the Middle East, it is reshaping the South Caucasus, bringing rising proxy threats, refugee pressures, and shifting alliances to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Georgian Service, Joseph Epstein, Director of the Turan Research Center and expert on Eurasia and the Middle East, explains that Azerbaijan faces direct attacks and pipeline threats, Georgia contends with pro-Iranian sentiment and security risks, and Armenia may gain room for Western-oriented initiatives. At the same time, Tehran’s regional aggression and Georgia’s pivot toward Russia, China, and Iran challenge US influence. Yet ongoing American engagement, sanctions, and strategic transit corridors give Washington leverage to shape Tbilisi’s decisions and protect its role in the Middle Corridor.

Read the full article on Georgia Today.

Joseph Epstein is Director of the Turan Research Center.

When on April 1, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met Vladimir Putin in the Russian capital, the Armenian leader’s agenda was clear — to bolster his difficult position before the June parliamentary elections.

It did not go smoothly.

The Russian side used the opportunity to present an ultimatum to Yerevan and to broadcast the videoed exchange — choose us, Putin told Pashinyan, or choose the European Union (EU). You cannot choose both.

The Russian logic is clear — one cannot be a member state in mutually exclusive supranational economic entities such as the EU and the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

Read the full article on The Center for European Policy Analysis.

Emil Avdaliani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.

In October 2025, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, together with Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) — who was appointed as a presidential adviser on digital assets — announced the launch of the national stablecoin KGST, the legal recognition of the digital som (CBDC), and plans for a state cryptocurrency reserve. Officials argue that these initiatives will modernize the financial system, reduce remittance costs, and position Kyrgyzstan as an innovative player in Central Asia. 

In 2025, cryptocurrency transactions processed through licensed operators in Kyrgyzstan reached an estimated $20.5-32 billion — roughly two to three times the country’s entire GDP of about $14 billion. Official data from the Financial Market Regulation and Supervision Service records a total turnover of 2.73 trillion Kyrgyz som across more than 2.1 million transactions. The overwhelming majority of these operations consisted of simple currency exchanges rather than investments or sophisticated decentralized finance (DeFi) products.

Read the full article on The Diplomat.

Aigerim Turgunbaeva is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.