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Sharjah Ruler Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al-Qasimi visited Muscat for a two-day official visit – the second Emirati ruler to make the journey in recent months, following a visit by Ras Al-Khaimah Ruler Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al-Qasimi in June.

Fresh fighting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in September has left Azerbaijan empowered and it could now try to realise long-held ambitions to create a land route through Armenia to its Nakhichevan exclave. For Iran, this could mean a de facto end to its own border with Armenia and a sometimes-hostile neighbour stretching across its northwest frontier.

An inquiry into alleged corruption at the European Parliament involving Qatari cash and other gifts has been delayed after a Belgian court ruled that an investigation should first be carried out into the way prosecutors handled the case. 

Emirati Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al-Maktoum was named president of a new medical education body named after his late father, a veteran finance minister who died in 2021. 

There was speculation that during his five-day private visit to Oman, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) may have crossed the border into Yemen. 

Inmates at Bahrain's Jau Central Prison halted their hunger strike on the evening of 11 September, amid the deteriorating health of some inmates and a pledge by the authorities to improve conditions within two weeks. More than 800 prisoners had joined the protest, which began on 7 August.

G20 summit: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was a prominent figure at the G20 summit in New Delhi on 9/10 September. He held talks with a series of other leaders, including India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

A total of 309 candidates are competing in elections for the Federal National Council (FNC), the UAE's nearest equivalent to a parliament – fewer than in any of the previous four election cycles and significantly less than the 478 people who stood in 2019.

The UAE's early September announcement that it had set up a federal gambling regulator is a further sign of how the competition between regional economies is pushing them to diversify into areas that would previously have been regarded as too sensitive or even taboo.

Iraq's Constitutional Court ruled early September that a maritime border agreement between Kuwait and its northern neighbour was annulled for being 'unconstitutional'. The dispute highlights the fragile Kuwaiti position in a changing region and the reduced status of its foreign policy. 

With Kuwait's emir regularly out of the country to receive medical treatment, Crown Prince Mishaal Al-Ahmed is overseeing a fragile political system in which ministerial resignations are almost as frequent as clashes between parliament and the executive, and deteriorating public services are undermining public confidence. Inertia and dysfunction have led Kuwait to fall behind its wealthy neighbours to the south, with medicine shortages just the latest indication of an unhappy direction of travel which adds to pressures for an eventual revised social compact to avoid even greater troubles. 

Some $6bn of Iranian funds that have been frozen in South Korea are expected to be sent to Qatari banks in the coming days, prompting the release of five US citizens held in Iran and the same number of Iranians in American prisons.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stopped in Muscat on 11 September on his way home from the G20 summit in India. Although billed as a "private visit" he arrived with a large delegation and held talks with Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said, covering the Yemen war, Iran and trade.  

A senior Iranian security official has threatened to resume bombing of targets in northern Iraq if Baghdad fails to meet a 19 September deadline to halt cross-border attacks by exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition groups.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani flew to Guyana on 12 September, meeting President Irfaan Ali and overseeing the signing of economic and legal agreements. Ali was in Doha in May to open an embassy and discuss investment opportunities.