(This event is organised by MEI’s Arabia-Asia Research Cluster, as part of its annual conference series.)

About the Conference

The recent rapprochement among Iran, Turkey, and Russia over Syria has given this trio greater diplomatic weight in the Middle East as compared to their Arab and American counterparts to the south. Astana, the Kazakh capital in Central Asia, is where the trio regularly meet and learn to manage conflicting agendas without stepping on each other’s toes. Lessons learned there may embolden these old neighbours to collaborate on a variety of other issues in the future, consolidating a new geopolitical tier reshaping the Middle East from the North. Such a rise of what we call “the Northern Tier” urges us to rethink the Middle East within a larger West Asian frame that connects the Arab world to Turko-Persia, Russia, and Central Asia.

This conference brought around the table historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and practitioners to examine the historical conditions and future possibilities of the Northern Tier as an interconnected political landscape. It addressed questions such as:

• What are the historical relations between states in the northern tier of West Asia?
• Is there a common social basis shared by these states?
• How do states use transnational and diasporic networks to collaborate and communicate beyond the confines formal diplomacy?
• What are the historical and contemporary links that bridge the northern and southern tiers of West Asia?

Click HERE to access the draft conference programme.

Panel Topics

• Opening Roundtable: A Two-Tiered West Asia?
• Panel I – History as Infrastructure: Does the Northern Tier Have a Shared Past?
• Panel II – Human Infrastructure: Rediscovery and Reconstruction since the Soviet Collapse
• Panel III – Infrastructure Underground: Pipelines and Politics
• Closing Discussion