Open Dialogue Research Journal
The images and reports emerging from Iran are grim and unsettling. Hundreds killed, thousands arrested, the internet cut, and streets filled with fear and anger. It is both morally necessary and human to feel concern for ordinary Iranians caught between economic hardship, political repression, and geopolitical confrontation. But concern must […]
The protests unfolding in Iran have triggered a familiar cycle of headlines, speculation, and political projection in Western media. Claims of imminent regime collapse, dramatic comparisons to 1979, and confident predictions of a “new Iran” circulate widely. Yet beneath this noise lies a far more complex and uncertain reality. Disinformation […]
At present, there is a pot-calling-the-kettle-black approach being taken by the European Union and the United States regarding the imposition of sanctions upon individuals deemed hostile to free speech. On December 23, the US State Department announced that it would bar five European citizens accused of spearheading efforts to pressure […]
The recent visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Belarus and Russia should not be read as a routine round of diplomatic engagements or as a symbolic reaffirmation of existing alliances. It reflects a more deliberate recalibration of Iran’s foreign policy within an evolving Eurasian environment shaped by sanctions […]
When Iran’s first vice-president, Mohammad Reza Aref, travelled to Moscow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) prime ministers’ meeting, it came at a moment of renewed pressure on Tehran. The snapback mechanism has been reactivated, Western sanctions discussions are re-intensifying, and the regional environment remains unsettled after the recent twelve-day […]
For many years, in Soviet and then in Russian society, Finland was considered exclusively as a small friendly, neutral country – our closest northern neighbor, which, on the rights of broad autonomy, was part of the Russian Empire for 108 years and had broad powers granted by Emperor Alexander I […]
Thierry Meyssan had already drawn his readers’ attention to the bias of the United Nations Secretariat. Here, he revisits the controversy between Germany, France, and the United Kingdom and Russia, Iran, and China regarding the coherence of international law. This is not about technical legal issues, but rather about either […]
The sanctions exemption was extended as a quid pro quo for Hungary incorporating itself into Poland’s US-backed regional integration plans, which necessitates gradually ditching Russian energy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted on X that “We secured full, unlimited exemption from sanctions on the TurkStream and Druzhba pipelines, guaranteeing uninterrupted and affordable […]
The question arises of why Russia’s regional partners are going along with this in the first place. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned last week that “NATO and the EU are building their own dialogues and interaction frameworks with Central Asia and South Caucasus. I don’t think anyone can see hidden agendas […]
It might succeed in terms of optics, but this won’t make any substantive difference in reality. The US’ latest sanctions against Russia, the first under the second Trump Administration, are intended less as a weapon against the Russian economy and more as a means of weaponizing energy geopolitics in a bid to break apart […]
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