With Hassan Rowhani as president of Iran, the Caucasus countries will still be pulled between Iran and the West. But they will be better placed to make the argument that their Iran policies are a case of positive cultural diplomacy.

Iranian system resembles Russian matryoshka–doll—you open one doll and there is another inside. The first matryoshka—the regime embodied by the presidency—is the subject for beating and for doing unpleasant things. Inside the shell is the real power—the authority of the Supreme Leader.

The international community is most interested in the foreign policy implications of the Iranian election. The combination of Rowhani in Tehran and Obama at the White House looks fortunate for diplomacy and peace. The reality will clearly be more complicated.

The G8 stands as a monument to unfulfilled promises and expectations of Russia’s integration into the West and its transformation along Western standards.

Indian newspapers did not pay much attention to the G8 Summit. Yet some reflections on two of the issues raised at the summit can be found in the Indian mass media. The first issue was Syria which clouded the G8 Summit. The second issue was related to tax evasion and lack of business transparency.

There is a wide scope for policy coordination amongst the leading economic and military powers on a global level. In this sense, the “G8 plus Five” format maybe more relevant at this point in time, given a “transition” in global governance.

That the final communiqué was signed by all the G8 members can hardly delude anyone: the disagreements between Russia and the other Seven look deeper than ever.

The annual G8 summit has been the occasion in recent years for a statement by three presidents on the often ignored conflict over Nagorny Karabakh. This year, it looks more like a “statement for the sake of a statement” or, more crudely, an affirmation that “the Minsk Group is not dead.”

G8 Summits reflect two things: firstly, the ungrounded hopes of the 1990s, and the lack of understanding at that time where Russia was heading; and secondly, the inability of the West to find an alternative forum to interact with Russia—one that is not dependent on the idea of a Russian democracy.

Each time the leaders of the G8 meet, someone asks the question, does this group still make sense?

The issue is how to transform the post-imperial polity which is today’s Russia into a nation state.

Not everyone likes to celebrate June 12 as a holiday. Yet what other date can be offered to mark the creation of a new Russia?

June 12, when the citizens of the Russian Federation celebrate Russia Day, is a good occasion to recall the lessons of history. One of such lessons leads us to Allahabad, a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The meaning of the June 12 holiday remains murky and the nation’s leadership is evasive on what we are actually celebrating. No wonder that less than half of the Russians polled in 2012 knew even the name of Russia’s major national holiday.

Turkey is not alone in having mutually incompatible elements of its history on display side by side, such as graves honoring Armenians and a man who had them murdered. But it is a sign of unresolved contradictions.

The tumultuous protests in defiance of Turkish prime minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan are inevitably evoking comparisons. A more plausible parallel is of the December 2011 protests in Moscow. However, inevitably the Russian comparison is not a perfect fit either.

Russia’s declaration of independence and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in reality helped the system of personalized power to survive in a new incarnation.

With the Soviet Union no more at the end of 1991, and the Russian Federation fully on its own, June 12 became known as Russia’s Independence Day. On what is now known popularly as “Russia Day,” Russians, whether they realize it or not, actually celebrate their self-liberation from their historical empire.

Many fear China’s rise because of the challenge that its authoritarian system, based on a fast growing economy, poses to the West and the U.S. domination of global politics. In fact, such competition can be salutary for both the West and China.

In China’s geopolitical vocabulary, those who speak about Eurasia refer to the space of the former Soviet Union. During the more than 20 year since the disintegration of the USSR, Eurasia has been evolving into sub-regions. These various groups hold different meanings for China.