This past week, Iran satisfied its obligations for implementing the nuclear deal reached last July with world powers, earning it relief from sanctions. The prisoner swap with the United States that followed hinted that a new era of possible cooperation between Washington and Tehran could be in the cards as the result of last year’s hard-earned diplomatic victory. But how relations will unfold, and how they will fare under the next U.S. administration, remain unclear. Iran’s other relationships are also in flux. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties with Iran following an attack on its embassy in Tehran [...]
Maritime Issues
On Saturday, Jan. 16, Taiwan will hold a critical election that is likely to see the country vote in its first female president, Tsai Ing-wen. If elected, Tsai, who currently holds a double-digit lead in most polls, would herald a new era of politics in Taiwan and establish only the second government led by the liberal Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), after more than seven decades of political dominance by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party. Adding to the intrigue is the race between the DPP and the KMT for the legislature, known as the Legislative Yuan. The KMT currently has 64 [...]
Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the South China Sea territorial disputes and the various claimant countries’ approaches to addressing them. Last November, Malaysia’s deputy prime minister spoke out against China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and questioned Beijing’s historical claims to the region. In an email interview, Prashanth Parameswaran, an associate editor at The Diplomat, discussed Malaysia’s defense of its South China Sea claims. WPR: What are Malaysia’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, and with what other countries do they overlap or conflict? Prashanth Parameswaran: Within the South China [...]