Ezgi Basaran is a Turkish journalist turned academic who has written a new book examining the outsize influence of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party over Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood party. While both have suffered huge setbacks, Basaran argues they will re-emerge and that the pursuit of power will trump ideology.

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The election victory of heart surgeon Masoud Pezeshkian has aroused hopes and doubts in Iran and beyond. He is a Reformist who says he will be more lenient towards women and will seek to reduce tensions with the West. Yet, his record is spotty. While defying hawkish clerics on some critical occasions, he has stood up for them on others. As with all else in Iran, deciphering the real Pezeshkian is no easy task, says Iranian academic Arash Azizi.

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Washington is piling pressure on Azerbaijan to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan that would allow Turkey to normalize its relations with Armenia. But Azerbaijan is resisting calls to finalize a draft peace agreement and wants further concessions from Armenia. Benjamin Poghosyan, a senior research fellow at the ARPI think tank in Yerevan, explains why.

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