Research & Publications: Energy

Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar traces the logic of Iranian conservatives as they stake out their position on nuclear negotiations. The conservatives, Tabaar argues, are looking for a middle ground between a deal that fails to deliver economic recovery in exchange for nuclear concessions and a deal that over-delivers, giving the "pragmatist faction" a massive political boost.

Coverage of Egypt over the past three years has focused on the dramatic political events, yet it was the dire economic situation that created the pressure for the multiple uprisings. And if economic decline is not reversed over the next few years, Egypt might fall over an economic precipice that risks rendering the country eventually ungovernable. Security and political reform are urgently necessary in their own right, and will have a positive effect on the economy if achieved, but bold structural economic reform is also necessary to reverse Egypt’s downward spiral.

Ninety years after the foundation of the Turkish Republic, Ankara appears to be on the verge of a paradigmatic change in its approach to the Kurdish question. It is too early to tell whether the current negotiations between Ankara and the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) will manage to accommodate Kurdish cultural and political demands. Yet, for perhaps the first time in its history, the Turkish Republic seems willing to incorporate Kurds into the political system rather than militarily confront them.

The Sultanate of Oman has made remarkable strides over the past three decades in transforming a tribal desert country into a functioning modern economy. By all metrics—rapid economic growth rates, improved social indices, enhanced availability and use of commercial energy, a favorable investment climate for foreign entrepreneurs, widespread technology use, and growing global links—Oman today is a “high income developing country.” However, there is a difference between a “high income developed” versus a “high income developing” country; the latter denotes a state undergoing a structural change in its modes of production, from agriculture to manufacturing to distribution to services.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in Tehran January 28 and 29 for his first meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, and Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci are accompanying him. MEI spoke to Gonul Tol, Director of the Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies, about the meeting.

The latest round of peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) remains the Turkish government's best bet not just to solve the country's 29-year old "Kurdish problem" but also to feed its energy-hungry population and wean it off costly and politically risky Russian and Iranian energy imports.

Post-occupation Iraq's oil production ― buoyed by the existence of vast unexploited reserves ― is resurgent. Asian national oil companies (NOCs), which tend to be less risk averse than many of their Western counterparts, are increasingly making their presence felt.