... stabilise a crucial region for world trade, resources, and security
After years of furious and brutal fighting, Syria and Iraq seem now to be slowly stabilising. A peace process in Syria is gaining momentum, and ISIS’ defeat is getting closer. However, Middle Eastern problems remain massive. Among them we have selected three main issues, which are also interconnected: the hostility between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Sunni and Shia; the stabilisation of oil prices, which are now rising but remain — as always — difficult to predict; the presence of terrorism, which, despite ISIS’ decline, is still a problem well beyond the region.
Starting with the geopolitics, there clearly are two main contenders....
... excessively insistent statements are being made for the benefit of third countries and domestic audiences.
This does not mean that Russia's work with Iran precludes cooperation with Saudi Arabia. Even so, with investment programmes shrinking in all the oil exporting countries and with the existing strategic contradictions between Saudi Arabia and Russia, Moscow will find working with the two Middle Eastern countries at once to be an extremely difficult balancing act.
The oil-and-gas cooperation plans recently announced by Russia and Saudi Arabia may sound like part of a rapprochement trend. Yet one should not expect too much from this rhetoric....
... an excuse after any non-compliance with a coordinated output cut is detected.
REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail
Maxim Suchkov:
The Middle East between the U.S. and Russia:
Potential Traps for Moscow
Even if Russia decided to keep its word, and its oil companies listened to government orders, the consequences are likely to be limited because of the barriers to OPEC coordinating ... ... members. For example, after the Saudi Embassy in Tehran
was stormed by suspected government-backed rioters
in January 2016, Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic. Saudi relations with Iran and Iraq are very negative at present,...
