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The 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly began on 17 September and ran on until the end of the month. As ever, it offered the opportunity for diplomatic grandstanding and endless glad-handing among presidents, foreign ministers and others.Bahrain’s foreign affairs minister Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on 24 September.

President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to visit Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin on or around 28 March. As many as 11 memorandums of understanding are being prepared for the visit, covering oil and gas co-operation and other areas of trade such as food and engineering products. According to communications minister Mahmoud Vaezi, who is co-chairman of the Iran-Russia Joint Co-operation Council, the two countries are also working on a ‘roadmap’ for medium to long-term co-operation.

If a ‘Trump doctrine’ ever emerges, it will be reflected in the implementation of The Donald’s election manifesto, supported by hawkish officials like national security advisor John Bolton. It will be seen to include the robust promotion of Israeli interests, substantial efforts to keep close to big-spending economies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and its regional policy will be seen to hinge on containing – and potentially eradicating – Iran’s Islamic regime.

With just weeks to go before his inauguration as president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani has been deploying his extensive connections within Tehran’s business and political elites. As a special appointments committee works on the cabinet list, Rouhani – due to be inaugurated in early August – has been seeking to bring together a clutch of effective administrators disposed to delivering economic gains, rather than focusing on anti-western gesture politics. He is keen to put distance between himself and current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi provoked controversy ahead of his visit to the 77th United Nations General Assembly, which opened in New York on 20 September, by casting doubt on whether the Holocaust had happened.

President Hassan Rouhani largely opted for a continuity cabinet following the start of his second term on 5 August. Eight senior ministers were reappointed to the same jobs and three deputy ministers were promoted to lead their portfolios. All but one of Rouhani’s choices was approved by the Majlis-e Shura-ye Eslami (parliament) on 20 August after five days of debate. Mohammad Javad Zarif stays on as foreign minister, as do Mahmoud Alavi at intelligence, Bijan Zanganeh at oil, Rahmani Fazli at interior and Ali Rabiei at labour.

Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah visited Tehran on 1-2 June, the first official trip to Iran by a sitting Kuwaiti ruler since the 1979 revolution. The emir, bringing with him a senior delegation, spent two days in talks and meetings seen as a symbolic step in the tentative thawing of relations between the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states and Iran, prompted by the election of President Hassan Rouhani in mid-2013 and the subsequent improvement in relations between Iran and the West.

Profile of Sharjah deputy ruler Sultan Bin Ahmed Al-Qasimi.

Profile of crown prince Sultan Bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi

Emir Sheikh Mishaal travelled to Riyadh on 30 January for talks with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, further cementing the bilateral relationship. Mishaal then went to Oman in early February to attend the inauguration of Duqm refinery with Sultan Haitham.

Shifting global political arithmetic seems to have fed into a shift in Iranian political calculations – as had been possible since Donald Trump’s election to lead the ‘Great Satan’ last November. A post-nuclear deal presidential election in which Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seemed happy to leave the way open for President Hassan Rouhani’s return as head of government has become much more competitive as the Islamic Republic’s various factions have reassessed their strategies.

The Majlis has approved 18 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 21 nominations to government posts, many of whom are hardliners loyal to the president and with backgrounds in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The composition of the new government further fuels suspicion that the IRGC is seizing power in the Islamic Republic. It has become more prominent since it backed Ahmadinejad in June’s disputed presidential election, subsequently clamping down on dissenters and opposition.

The main border crossing point between Iran and Afghanistan was closed on 23 April, following reports of clashes between the two countries. The border has since reopened, with Iran’s interior minister Ahmad Vahidi attempting to play down the incident.

Foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian embarked on his first extended tour since being appointed in August. He reported having “excellent talks” with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on 6 October, covering Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal and events in the Caucasus.

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.