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Since returning to office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has shown a marked shift in his approach to South Asian geopolitics, displaying what analysts describe as a more favorable stance toward Pakistan while simultaneously straining relations with India. This represents a significant departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy that had increasingly favored New Delhi as a strategic counterweight to China. The most striking aspect of this policy shift appears to be intertwined with the Trump family’s business ventures. World Liberty Financial (WLF), founded in 2024, is no ordinary fintech startup. The company is 60% owned by Donald Trump’s...

United States President Donald Trump has hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House for the signing of a peace treaty between the two longtime rivals. The US president said during a ceremony on Friday that he believed the two men would have a “great relationship” and that the agreement would bring peace and new economic opportunities to the region. list “I want to congratulate these two great people, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev, for coming to Washington to sign this momentous joint declaration,” Trump said. “The countries of Armenia and...

Donald Trump recently announced that the United States would help Pakistan develop its "massive oil reserves," suggesting it could export oil to India in the future. In response, Baloch leader Mir Yar Baloch has written an open letter to the US president, highlighting how encouraging the exploitation of Balochistan's oil reserves would make the US complicit in enabling ISI to enhance its global terror networks. In his letter, the Baloch leader warned against allowing Pakistan's radicalised military and rogue ISI, long accused of sponsoring Al-Qaeda and various proxy groups responsible for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers in Afghanistan,...

Donald Trump is hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington this week for a summit which could advance a much-anticipated peace agreement between the two. The meeting would send a strong signal to Moscow regarding the two countries' commitment to finding a solution without Russia. The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia are set to meet US President Donald Trump for a peace summit in Washington on Thursday and Friday, which could advance a much-anticipated peace deal between the two countries. After almost four decades of bitter conflict, Baku and Yerevan might finally settle for peace in the region...

Azerbaijani government sources have exclusively confirmed to Euronews on Thursday that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Aktau on Wednesday. According to the sources, the missile was fired at Flight 8432 during drone air activity above Grozny, and the shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight. Government sources have told Euronews that the damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite the pilots’ requests for an emergency landing, and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan. According...

The upcoming summit in Samarkand will bring together for the first time the leaders of the five Central Asian countries and the European Union. Following years of reform and European assistance, the five Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - are embarking on a strategic pivot towards Europe. The EU is seeking reliable partners in the current rapidly changing geopolitical reality. This is for political and also economic reasons, such as trade, investment and energy. On Thursday and Friday, the Uzbek city of Samarkand will host the first-ever high level meeting between the EU and the...

An Iranian cargo ship sank in the Caspian Sea near Azerbaijan's Lankaran port on Friday, according to Iran's state-run news agency IRNA.

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologizes to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, for what the Kremlin said was a “tragic incident” in Russian airspace involving the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25. Putin tells Aliyev that Russian air defense was active when an Azerbaijani Airlines plane tried to land in Grozny before it crashed in a phone call, the Kremlin says. “During this time, Grozny, (the town of) Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian combat drones and Russian air defense was repelling these attacks,” the Kremlin says Putin told Aliyev, without explicitly acknowledging that...

Location of Kaylu archeological site (a no 1), Jebel (a no 2), and Dam-Dam-Cheshme 1 and 2 (a no 3); view of the rockshelter (b1); location of the two burials (b2 and b3); Caspian Sea view from the site (c); human remains state of preservation (d and e); lithic industry from layer 7 of Kaylu (f) – point (1), lunates (2, 3), end-scraper (4), splinted pieces (5, 6), cores (7, 8). Credit: Open Archaeology (2023). DOI: 10.1515/opar-2022-0289 Stone Age humans may have made extended maritime voyages on the Caspian Sea, according to a new study published in the journal Open...

A huge explosion has been seen off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea, sending plumes of black smoke and flames into the sky. The blast, which erupted in an area full of oil and gas fields on Sunday, was caused by a mud volcano. None of the energy stations were damaged and no-one was hurt, it added. The blast took place about 10km (6 miles) from the Umid gas field, which is 75km (45 miles) off the coast of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, state oil company Socar spokesperson Ibrahim Ahmadoc said. The fire continued to smoulder into Monday, but...

On Monday, June 21, Turkish President Recep Erdogan said that his recent meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels opens a "new era" in diplomatic relations between the two countries. According to Erdogan, there are no problems in relations between Turkey and the United States that cannot be solved, and there are much more areas for cooperation. Biden expressed the hope that countries can make real progress. At the same time, the parties did not agree on problematic issues, such as the acquisition by Turkey of Russian S-400 anti-missile systems, violation of...

A State Department employee pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday after being charged in an FBI investigation, the Department of Justice announced. Candace Claiborne, who worked in the Caucasus Affairs office of the State Department, is being charged for two felony offenses. Claiborne is being charged with “obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements to the FBI, both felony offenses, for allegedly concealing numerous contacts that she had over a period of years with foreign intelligence agents,” a Department of Justice release said. Claiborne, who has a Top Secret security clearance, failed to disclose her foreign contacts abroad...

Failed political consultant Liz Mair is crowd funding a political attack on billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump and she’s getting noticed. But Mair’s past work as a paid shill of a Muslim dictatorship that jails journalists and activists should make us wonder about her motives, especially as the Middle East once more descends into chaos. Mair was paid $15,000 a month by Ilham Aliyev, the dictator of Azerbaijan, according to documents filed in accordance with the Foreign Registration Act (FARA).

ExxonMobil and British Petroleum have been facing off over the terms of the renewal of the “contract of the century” in Azerbaijan, according to sources that spoke to Reuters. BP currently operates the Azeri-Chigar-Guneshi fields in the middle of the Caspian Sea—a region that contributes a tenth of the firm’s global output. The British company has reportedly agreed with the Azeri government on the terms of a 30-year contract, but in an effort to expand its presence in the ACG region, Exxon has been pushing for a piece of the $100 billion pie.

Admiral Sergei Gorshkov was arguably the greatest naval strategist of the 20th century. In his book, ‘The Sea Power of the State’, the man who transformed the Russian Navy into a global force, wrote: “Naval warfare aimed directly against land targets will play an ever greater part in any future major conflict.” On the night of October 5, four Russian missile boats with a displacement of a mere 1000 tons each started raining down cruise missiles down the throats of ISIS and US-backed terror groups. Flying at treetop level over a distance of 2600 km through Iran and Iraq, and...

Russia says warships in Caspian Sea targeting Isis in Syria Russian defence minister says 26 missiles launched, as Syrian official confirms ground offensive in Idlib and Hama Reuters in Beirut Wednesday 7 October 2015 13.04 BST Last modified on Wednesday 7 October 2015 13.06 BST Four Russian warships in the Caspian Sea have launched 26 rockets at Islamic State in Syria, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told president Vladimir Putin during a televised meeting. The claim, which could not be immediately confirmed, came after a Syrian official and activists said Syrian troops backed by Russian airstrikes battled rebels in two...

1/20/05Danish Archaeologists in Search of Vikings in Iran Tehran, Jan. 20 (Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency) – Researchers from the Copenhagen Museum in Denmark have traveled to the coasts of the Caspian Sea, northern Iran, in search of clues of relationships between Iranians and Vikings. A few years ago, a researcher from the Copenhagen Museum, Nadia Haupt, discovered more than one thousand coins and relics that did not belong to the Danish or other Scandinavian cultures, and therefore set to find out more about the historical roots of the Danish civilization. The ancient items that took the attention of experts...

Washington • The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference at Baku on the Caspian Sea in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Barack Obama appeared as speakers at the conference. Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses...

A summit earlier this week achieves consensus on the inadmissibility of a foreign military presence in the sea. Iran and Russia have built unanimous consensus among the Caspian states, which also feature Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, over the inadmissibility of a foreign military presence in the Caspian Sea, ruling out any future possible deployment of NATO forces in the basin. A political declaration signed by the presidents of the five Caspian states at the IV Caspian Summit held in Astrakhan, Russia, on September 29, “sets out a fundamental principle for guaranteeing stability and security, namely, that only the Caspian littoral...