The Presidency of the Assembly of States Parties notes with deep concern the additional sanctions announced by the Government of the United States against two Judges and the Deputy Prosecutors of the International Criminal Court. These measures, in addition to earlier designations of elected officials, are regrettable attempts to impede the Court and its personnel in the exercise of their independent judicial functions.
We continue to object to such unilateral measures firmly and unequivocally. They represent an affront to the independence of the Court and the integrity of the Rome Statute system. Such actions risk hampering ongoing investigations and undermining global efforts to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community.
The International Criminal Court is a cornerstone of international justice. It functions as an independent and impartial judicial body, operating in full accordance with its founding treaty, the Rome Statute. US sanctions against the Court threaten the integrity of the Rome Statute system and seek to hamper efforts to bring justice to victims of the most heinous crimes.
We reiterate our full support for the Court, its officials, and all those who contribute to the fulfilment of its judicial mandate. We urge all States Parties and stakeholders in the Rome Statute system to remain steadfast in their commitment to uphold the principles of international justice and to stand united in defending the Court, its elected officials, its personnel and those cooperating with it.
In these challenging times, the international community must reaffirm its collective commitment to the rule of law and to ensuring that no one is above accountability.
Earlier in his distinguished career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr. Laurentius Amrih Jinangkung, served as Political Counsellor – under then Ambassador Junus Effendie Habibie – at the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague. Now he’s returning, this time as the recently appointed ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia in The Hague. He will be the successor of the present ambassador H.E. Mayerfas, who has served his country in The Hague since 2020. In 2023 until now Jinangkung is the Director General of Law and International Agreements at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta. His last foreign post was that of Ambassador to the Holy See (Vatican). Before his previous posting in The Hague he was the of head of Maritime Boundaries section at the Legal department 2003-2006 and after his stint in The Hague between 2006-2010 became Deputy Director of Treaty Affairs all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2010-2014.
Mr. Jinangkung was born in Nanggulan in the Special Region of Yogyakarta on 18 June 1967 and studied Law at Gadjah Mada University and Cornell Law School in the USA.
His nomination by President Prabowo Subianto was approved by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Commission of the House of Representatives in Jakarta last July. Noteworthy are the appointments of several new ambassadors who served previously at the Embassy of Indonesia in The Hague. Being Mr. Umar Hadi who’s been appointed head of Permanent Mission in New York, Mr. Imam A’sari, appointed ambassador to Ecuador, Mr. Witjaksono Adjie who became ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ibnu Wiwoho Wahyutomo as ambassador to Finland and Mr. Fikry Cassidy who presented his letters of credence on July 30th as ambassador to Venezuela.
The Algerian capital, Algiers will become the epicentre of African trade as it prepares to host the 4th edition of the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF 2025) from 4 to 10 September 2025.
With a view to this landmark in Africa’s trade integration, Diplomat Magazine conducted an interview with H.E. Ms. Salima Abdelhak, Ambassador of Algeria to the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Your Excellency, Algeria is preparing to host the 4th Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF 2025) this September. What does this event represent for Algeria and for the continent at large?
“IATF 2025 is far more than a trade exhibition—it is a landmark moment for Africa’s economic integration and a key platform for intra-African cooperation. For Algeria, hosting this 4th edition from September 4 to 10 in Algiers is both an honor and a reflection of our long-standing commitment to African unity and development.
This event comes at a critical time when global geopolitical balances are shifting.
The fair will serve as a beacon of exchange, ambition, and reciprocity, positioning Algeria as a strategic crossroads and reaffirming our role as a champion of continental development. To ensure that IATF 2025 becomes a benchmark event for the entire continent, all necessary resources are being mobilized under the leadership of the President of the Republic, H.E. Mr. Abdelmadjid Tebboune—a committed Pan-Africanist who firmly believes in Africa’s ability to harness its own capacities to drive a new growth dynamic, fuelled by prosperous intra-African trade and strengthened through cooperation with global partners, particularly Europe, given its geographical proximity.”
What is the broader significance of IATF within the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)?
“The IATF is a direct and tangible outcome of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), one of the most ambitious and transformative projects in Africa’s recent history. It is designed to promote trade among African countries, boost investment, and accelerate the continent’s integration into global commerce.
I speak from personal experience: I had the privilege of serving as a negotiator within the Algerian team during the AfCFTA negotiations. In that capacity, I witnessed firsthand Africa’s collective determination to lay the foundations of a unified economic space. It was a rigorous process—building consensus among diverse economies, aligning regulatory frameworks, and developing a shared vision for Africa’s economic future. It required diplomacy, perseverance, and above all, a deep belief in the power of integration.
To witness one of the key instruments of that vision—the Intra-African Trade Fair—being hosted in Algeria, is a source of great pride for for the Algerian nation and for me personally. It is a clear sign that our efforts are bearing fruit and that the AfCFTA is moving from negotiation to implementation.”
What can we expect from Algeria’s participation in IATF 2025, especially in terms of economic outreach and trade?
“Algeria’s participation will be dynamic and multidimensional. The fair will offer a powerful opportunity to highlight our country’s export potential, industrial strengths, and growing logistical infrastructure. Algerian businesses—across sectors—will be able to network, build partnerships, and access new opportunities across the continent.
At the same time, Algeria’s positioning as a regional logistics and trade hub will be on full display. With strategic connections to Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean, we are well placed to play a bridging role that supports both continental and international trade flows. This is in line with our broader economic vision: to diversify our economy and solidify our presence in African markets through innovation, investment, and cooperation.”
How do you see the role of international partners, particularly European countries like the Netherlands, in IATF 2025?
“While the IATF is a platform for African integration, its reach is undoubtedly global. With the AfCFTA granting access to an integrated African market of over 1.4 billion people and a combined GDP exceeding $3.5 trillion, international partners have much to gain by engaging with this initiative.
European countries—such as the Netherlands—are expected to show strong interest in participating. IATF 2025 provides a unique setting for them to explore investment opportunities, forge trade alliances, and stand ready to serve as a gateway to Africa for international partners. Algeria welcomes this engagement and stands ready to serve as a gateway to Africa for international partners.”
Finally, what message would you like to send to participants and observers of IATF 2025?
“IATF 2025 represents a collective African ambition to trade with itself, to innovate from within, and to grow together. At the same time, it represents a dynamic and open continental market that actively seeks meaningful cooperation with partners around the world. I warmly invite all international stakeholders, including European and particularly Dutch to show strong interest in leveraging this platform to deepen trade and investment ties with Africa.
For Algeria, this is more than hosting an event—it is about reaffirming our historic commitment to African solidarity and our belief in Africa’s potential.”
H.E. Mr. Maxim V. Ryzhenkov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus
One initiative associated with Belarus has been attracting much interest recently. It is an idea to develop a Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI Century. It was first voiced at the International Conference on Eurasian Security, held in Minsk in October 2023, when Belarus suggested to develop the Eurasian Charter “as a guidance for our own consolidation and common progressive development”.
The initiative did not emerge out of the blue. Rather, it was brought into existence by real geopolitical needs and aspirations arising from the ground. Moreover, it followed logically from another long-standing initiative of Belarus that called upon the world’s countries to recognize diversity of ways towards progressive development. That call was first made by President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko at the United Nations Summit in 2005.
The “diversity” initiative came up at a time of global uncertainty that resulted from the so-called Unipolar Moment with its concomitant unilateralism and disregard of international law. Therefore, through its initiative Belarus was seeking to contribute to efforts of other countries to forge a fair international order, in which nations would be able to live in peace and realize their aspirations.
Today’s world, however, is more uncertain than the one during the Unipolar Moment. As a matter of fact, it is even more unstable than the world that was in place four decades ago, because for all their ideological and geopolitical rivalry, the Soviet Union and the United States managed to co-exist in a kind of equilibrium that provided stability and predictability necessary for peace and development. But, the mess created at the time of the Unipolar Moment – wars, conflicts, grave violations of international law, massive human displacement – is still with us, due to the perpetuation of unilateral approaches by Western countries in their foreign policies.
Against this background, Belarus came forward with an idea to devise the Eurasia Charter. The initiative is grounded in Belarus’ many previous efforts besides the “diversity” initiative such as, among others, President Lukashenko’s recent call for a global security dialogue in a true spirit of San-Francisco. These initiatives all seek to make a contribution to making the world and, specifically, Eurasia, a safer and better place.
Many may wonder why the Charter’s idea is linked to the notions of “diversity’ and “multipolarity”. Simply put, it is basically the case because the two notions are the defining features of our time.
As a matter of fact, diversity has always been present in the world, but today its importance becomes increasingly evident with the rapid spread of ICTs, as people everywhere become aware of their civilizational differences. As a result, they demand greater respect for diversity, which has been threatened over the past few decades by policies of diktat, violence, sanctions, color revolutions and similar attempts by Western countries to impose some alien “pseudo-universal” forms of governance on indigenous institutions and ways of life.
As for multipolarity, there is ever growing consensus all around the world that multipolarity is already an objective reality. The demise of the Unipolar Moment inaugurated the emergence of multiple power centers – or poles – that define our international life. What is more, we are absolutely convinced of the need to strengthen multipolarity insofar as it is essential to effective multilateralism, whereby all countries could engage in win-win cooperation.
The idea has already been discussed in some international forums and triggered further interest. Importantly, the Presidents of Belarus and Russia voiced support to the idea in their public statements.
Belarus and Russia drafted their “preliminary views” on the Charter in a document titled “Common Vision of Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI century”. In this 21-paragraph long document, the two countries outlined, among other points, how they viewed diversity and multipolarity, how they assessed Eurasia’s importance and its impact worldwide, and what they committed themselves to do to realize their vision.
Despite this Charter-related activities, Minsk cannot escape the feeling that our Eurasian partners would like to see greater clarity about the initiative, and, specifically, regarding its geopolitical rationale, objectives, process, etc. While the above mentioned “Common Vision” provides some clues to the above questions, we cannot help but agree that a more substantive and elaborate response is required indeed, particularly through the lens of evolving geopolitical developments in Eurasia.
Eurasia: Europe Finally Meets Asia or Distances from It?
The notion of Eurasia is in vogue nowadays. Indeed, it is a supercontinent that covers a very significant part of the globe and that is home to some 70 percent of the world’s population. Eurasia is a very diverse region in terms of civilizations, races, cultures, religions, values, countries, their political, economic and social systems, etc. Importantly, it is also the key driver of global economic development today insofar as it hosts the most dynamically growing countries and their vibrant regional economic blocks.
Yet until some decades ago, the notion of Eurasia was not so much in fashion. Indeed, until recently, such a notion would have been viewed as a paradox, because Eurasia was a continent containing essentially two separate worlds – Europe and Asia. While the border between Europe and Asia was always uncertain and illusory, the separation between the two regions was real, most certainly in political and temporal terms, but also, to a certain extent, in special terms as the two were rather poorly connected by physical infrastructure and cooperation mechanisms.
The political separation between Europe and Asia was established by West Europe’s predatory policies vis-à -vis Asia in the past, which sought to subjugate and pillage Asian nations. Interestingly, no significant change has occurred in European attitudes towards Asia since then as the current European Union still views Asia as both a challenger and danger to its own interests, while Asian nations have never seen Europe in a similar light.
For a number of ultimate and proximate factors Europe was able to gain a significant head start over Asia. One of the key factors among those was the Industrial Revolution, which enabled European countries to develop, modernize and subjugate Asia in a very fast way. Asia, meanwhile, as the conventional wisdom goes, kept to its “traditional ways”, missed the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution and was overrun by Europe militarily. As a result, the early XIX century saw a gap in development between Europe and Asia to emerge and to widen throughout the XIX and much of the XX century.
But, there was a hope that due to a rising nationalism in Asia and general technological development, Europe and Asia would meet at some point in a future. It all depended on when and how Asia would be able to catch up with Europe. The collapse of European empires in Asia after WWII was the first step in that direction. It was soon followed by the rise of some Asian countries, which began to work together in order to advance their common developmental priorities. The most prominent example is the establishment of ASEAN in 1967, a 10 Member State body today, which has been excelling in the implementation of its objectives for many decades.
The end of the Cold War and the onset of globalization accompanied by the rapid proliferation of free trade, knowledge, finance, investment and technology has been another powerful tailwind in Asia’s catch-up effort. Indeed, the outsourcing of manufacturing from advanced countries enabled many Asian states to run double-digit growth figures for decades and helped them lift hundreds of millions of their people out of poverty.
Moreover, in recent decades Europe and Asia became interconnected by a multitude of supply chains, transport corridors, air, land and sea traffic, banks, cultural exchanges, etc. These developments transformed Asia in a most dramatic and unrecognizable way. Likewise, these developments transformed Europe as well, because global trends in recent decades served to diminish its standing in the world while increasing its dependence on other powers in Eurasia.
The past three decades have also been marked by vigorous integration and development in the post-Soviet space. Some former Soviet states used European integration as a model for their own similar process, which the Europeans today prefer to disregard when they refuse interaction with the Eurasian Economic Union and other regional structures operating in the post-Soviet space. Sometimes it comes to absurdity on the part of some of their members as, for example, when one of Belarus’ Baltic neighbors deliberately set itself on a path of straining relations with China. All in all, the new integration structures that arose from the former Soviet Union fitted well into the growth of Asia and became part of the incipient Eurasian model of cooperation.
So, the gap in development that separated Europe and Asia for nearly two centuries has been steadily narrowing and today has become significantly less consequential than it used to be in the past. Therefore, these developments made it possible to start talking about Europe and Asia as one continent, as a whole and a unified structure and think from now on in terms of a uniform Eurasia stretching from Lisbon to Manila. One of the best and most effective manifestations of these new realities in Eurasia is China’s Belt and Road initiative, which, in an effort to revive the ancient Silk Road, connects dozens of countries in Asia and Europe so that all its participants share the fruits of economic development and prosperity. Belarus, like some other European countries, is also benefiting from this vital pan-continental initiative.
Due to the previous unequal development of Europe and Asia, nations and peoples in Eurasia generally have not been able to make full and efficient use of that immense potential for development that the continent’s enormous resources afforded. Nor have they ever enjoyed a continent-wide security under which they could have realized their development priorities. Instead, its security landscape has been consistently divided and fragmented, like, for instance under the CSCE/OSCE framework that will be discussed later in the article. As a consequence, hardly has any other continent witnessed so many armed conflicts and human suffering as Eurasia has.
H.E. Mr. Maxim V. Ryzhenkov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus
So, Eurasia stands at present as a place of immense opportunities for its countries and peoples. The way to realize these opportunities is through comprehensive approaches that would account for Eurasia’s wholeness, uniqueness, complexity and diversity and that would also help consolidate and integrate the supercontinent in the interests of its inhabitants. Belarus believes that the above task can be realized by means of the Eurasian Charter for Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI century.
But before laying out some specifics with regard to the Charter, it is worth reviewing some efforts undertaken in the past that sought to consolidate Eurasia or parts of the continent. Such an exercise should, in turn, help better grasp the rationale for the Charter and see ways to advance the initiative.
The CSCE/OSCE Experiment or the West’s Secret Instrument?
The past half a century has seen an interesting experiment in Eurasia that may be characterized as an attempt at consolidation, not of the entire continent, but just of some parts of it. It is the experiment with the functioning of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) followed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Essentially, it was a Euro-centric or, if you will, a Euro-Atlantic experiment attesting to the separation of Europe and Asia existing five decades ago.
Initially, it was a pragmatic and mutually beneficial experiment that brought important positive results, most crucially, in reducing the threat of a nuclear and conventional war in Europe, establishing mechanisms for arms control, as well as nurturing trust and understanding between the parties.
Indeed, what lay at the core of the process was the belief in the possibility not just of reconciling the two ideological camps in Europe, but also of forging between them a pattern of pragmatic, predictable and trustworthy interaction. Then Soviet leadership deserves full credit for formulating the idea, which it began circulating in contacts with Western colleagues from around the mid-1960s with the suggestion to launch a relevant process.
In retrospect, it can be argued today that the Helsinki Final Act must be credited with two achievements. First, it set forth 10 pragmatic principles (the so-called Decalogue), formulated in a very balanced way that allowed the two camps to embrace them in their entirety. Second, the Act inaugurated a new understanding of the concept of security with its three baskets: the politico-military, the economic-ecological and the humanitarian that helped the two opposite sides stop viewing each other exclusively through a military and political lens.
The Decalogue of principles and a comprehensive concept of security produced a framework in the form of a conference that helped guide, maintain and normalize relations between the Participating States at a time of enmity and uncertainty prevalent during the Cold War. It was done through regular contacts, various kinds of exchanges, confidence-building measures, etc. As a result, the relations between the East and the West became to a certain extent predictable and normalized. Thus, it is fair to argue that the CSCE helped “manage” the Cold War and diminish the threat of a nuclear Armageddon.
This forward-looking initiative could have certainly outlasted the Cold War once it came to an end. Unfortunately, it did not live up to the high promises of that historical moment because a group of its members decided to advance its own selfish agenda at the expense of other participants.
As a result, the early 1990s were marked by the CSCE’s rebranding into the OSCE and the emergence of some new institutions – the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE High Commissioner National Minorities and OSCE field missions. The OSCE began focusing, inter alia, on advancing democratization and good governance, human and minority rights, election monitoring as well as conflict prevention and resolution. As a result, these new OSCE institutions and field missions in particular fixated on the above sensitive political issues made the OSCE worse than its predecessor.
The missions made the OSCE different from other regional organizations, as they made the Organization “field-heavy” and ultimately set it on a path to irrelevance. The missions were established in Participating States, which allegedly experienced problems in their domestic development. But what is interesting is that the missions were set up exclusively in countries east of Vienna, never in countries of Western Europe given the impression that Western European countries had never experienced challenges with human rights, minority rights, etc. With this approach, the OSCE has essentially introduced a ranking among its Participating States, which did not exist under the CSCE.
In theory, the OSCE missions were supposed to help the hosting countries to implement various kinds of reforms. In practice, however, relying on the OSCE humanitarian mandate, the missions began interfering in internal affairs of the hosting Participating States in pursuit of the agendas and narratives favored by OSCE Western countries. So, what actually happened was that the OSCE began implementing the vision of other key Western institutions like NATO, EU, OECD. The OSCE thus became a biased international player, not a neutral regional organization that it was mandated to be.
Belarus was among those that had the misfortune of going through this scenario. Indeed, we agreed to receive an OSCE Mission in Minsk in 1998 with the mandate to consult and assist the government with democratization and development of national institutions. The Mission, meanwhile, evolved into a biased party as its head German Ambassador Hans-Georg Wieck engaged actively with the opposition in order to bring it to power in the 2001 Presidential election. Belarus had no choice other than to ask for Wieck’s recall. Some years later, we decided to close down the Mission altogether, seeing no added value in its work to our domestic development.
So, there is a paradoxical situation. The CSCE was able to address successfully the challenges of its time. What was remarkable about its success was that the CSCE managed to deliver in a highly tense international and regional environment. The OSCE, on its part, failed to successfully tackle the challenges of its time. And the failure is particular conspicuous given the fact that it occurred in a period of a seemingly benign international and regional environment.
Is the OSCE capable of changing itself for the better? We in Belarus doubt it very much. The OSCE has lost the advantage that was the key feature in the CSCE period – it ceased to be a forum for political dialogue and became instead a place for pollicization of discussion, a tool of pressure and influence used by some Participating States against others. No wonder, then, that the OSCE failed to live up to its recognition of the indivisibility of security in Europe as has been set forth in the Helsinki Final Act. As a consequence, the OSCE failed to prevent European security from unraveling over the past few decades, which resulted in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
It is necessary to acknowledge that the OSCE was essentially highjacked by its Western Participating States for the purpose of using the Organization as just another tool for encroaching into and forcing political change in those Participating States that refused to embrace Western “recipes” for their domestic development. What is more, the OSCE has, essentially, helped the West to expand NATO eastward, not least with its negative involvement in internal affairs of countries comprising the former Yugoslavia. These policies put the OSCE in identity crisis and deprived the Organization of a strategic orientation that would be shared by all of its Participating States. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that trust among the Participating States has been lost and that the Organization has been getting increasingly irrelevant.
Key Post-Cold War Strategies for Eurasia
While the CSCE/OSCE experiment represents a failed attempt to consolidate some parts of Eurasia, the immediate post-Cold War period has witnessed the emergence of some ideas and strategies to shape Eurasia in its entirety. Interestingly, some of the most influential and consequential of those ideas actually came from an outside power – the United States.
The end of the Cold War left the USA in the role of a sole global superpower. Therefore, the US was in search for a new strategic orientation, because its old one – containment that was suitable for the Cold War period – was not useful for a new era. The new strategic orientation was soon presented in a famous speech by former US President Clinton’s National Security Advisor Anthony Lake in September 1993. The speech was titled “From Containment to Enlargement”.
Posited as a successor to the containment strategy, the enlargement strategy sought to expand the “world’s free community of market democracies”. In this, the strategy was clearly based on Francis Fukuyama’s famous thesis about the End of History, because it actually discarded the fact that the world was extremely diverse in political and socio-economic systems, as well as local cultures and traditions, but presumed instead that every country around the globe either wanted or had to be compelled to embrace so-called democracy and market economy.
For all its intents and purposes, Lake’s speech became a spiritual guidance for the US’ post-Cold War policies as the idea of enlargement drove NATO’s eastward expansion, interference in domestic affairs of many countries, attempts at forced “democratization” and “colour” revolutions that sparked numerous wars and conflicts. Therefore, it is thanks to the idea of enlargement that the world has come to see in the post- Cold War period many countries becoming destroyed and many societies getting uprooted, as well as dozens of millions of displaced people and many other related woes.
It is fair to say that the strategy was not specifically invented for the Eurasian region, but undoubtedly it was most diligently implemented in Eurasia, in places, among others, like the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, which were of overriding importance to the US in its long-standing effort to achieve dominance over the Eurasian continent. Seen in retrospect, the strategy also served the objective of anchoring Europe firmly and consistently in the US’ sphere of influence in Eurasia.
Like many other Eurasian countries, the Republic of Belarus has also found itself to be the target of this strategy.
Typically, it was most vigorously applied against us by its proponents during various elections, most recently during the Presidential election in 2020. Notwithstanding, all such attempts against Belarus miserably failed for the simple reason that the Belarusian people firmly stood behind its elected leadership and refused to be manipulated by external forces.
Another “contribution” to the external effort to consolidate Eurasia was made by former US President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. In 1997, Foreign Affairs published his extremely provocative piece titled “A Geostrategy for Eurasia”.
The author’s key point was that America’s emergence as the sole global superpower forced it to develop and implement an integrated and comprehensive strategy for Eurasia in order to preserve its preponderant position in the world. With this, the American political thinker essentially admitted that US global primacy very much depended on developments occurring far away from the US shores.
Brzezinski viewed Eurasia as the world’s axial continent that exerted huge influence over other regions believing that a country dominant in Eurasia would automatically control the Middle East and Africa. Therefore, separate strategies for Europe and Asia would not suffice. Only an integrated and comprehensive American strategy could prevent a hostile coalition in Eurasia from taking shape that could challenge US’ global primacy. According to the American, the US must dominate and control Eurasia and perpetuate beyond a generation its decisive role as Eurasia’s arbitrator.
But how to achieve those goals? By establishing a transcontinental Eurasian security system with NATO at its core, because NATO entrenches American presence and influence in Eurasia. Europe, as Brzezinski viewed it, was a US bridgehead to Eurasia. America’s central goal was to continue to expand the democratic European bridgehead. As far as Russia was concerned, Brzezinski clearly saw it as a potential future rival due to its central position in the Eurasian continent. Hence, his “solution” for Russia was a loosely confederated state emerging in its place in the future consisting of a European Russia, a Siberian Russia, and a Far Eastern Russia.
With the benefit of hindsight, it can be safely stated that Brzezinski’s recipes have been rather diligently implemented by policymakers in his own country. Indeed, NATO enlargement happened exactly in those deliberate stages suggested by Brzezinski in his Foreign Affairs piece.
So, if Anthony Lake’s “Enlargement” idea was a spiritual guidance for US policies to shape Eurasia in its own interests, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s suggestions presented a practical guide for such policies. Needless to say, both proved to be extremely harmful for the supercontinent, its countries and its population.
But on one particular point in his piece Brzezinski appears to have been right, namely, in suggesting that “defining the substance and institutionalizing the form of a trans-Eurasian security system could become the major architectural initiative of the XXI century”.[1]
Need for Eurasian Order
So, as has been demonstrated in the previous sections, some attempts undertaken in the past 50 years to consolidate either parts of Eurasia or the entire supercontinent failed. Actually, they were doomed to go awry, because their key objective was to shape Eurasia or its parts in accordance with the wishes and visions of external rather than indigenous actors. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the external “recipes” failed to take root in an environment that was alien to them. It is true of both the CSCE/OSCE experiment and the post-Cold War US-driven politics in Eurasia.
In retrospect, however, it would be somewhat fair to suggest that these failures served a rather useful purpose of their own. Indeed, they proved to be useful in a sense that they helped many Eurasian states shake off the illusion that they would benefit from a purportedly benign US-led liberal global order and see instead the need to seek solutions to contemporary challenges primarily in their own backyard.
As a result, many Eurasian states began to coalesce around the need to resist the external pressure and to work together to advance their common cause in their own huge region. A strategic partnership between China and Russia, Eurasia’s key powers, was indispensable for propelling these indigenous dynamics as these two countries were the powerful drivers behind numerous initiatives and ideas that served to promote integration and consolidation of Eurasia.
Importantly, these developments in Eurasia have been taking place at a time when globalization began to decline in general. Indeed, the world has not become flat as American writer Thomas Friedman has famously predicted in his bestselling book (The World is Flat, 2005). Instead, the world has become a bumpy road in economic terms.
Indeed, economic globalization began to unravel in 2008 with the onset of the global economic and financial crisis, which exposed the nature of US-led unregulated and predatory capitalism with its adverse effects on the global economy. In the years following the crisis, it was becoming increasingly evident that economic globalization driven by that type of capitalism was not a “wave that lifted all boats”, as global inequality was steadily on the rise.
What is more, today it is not just developing countries that lost faith in economic globalization, it is also the traditional ardent proponents of globalization like the United States of America.
Indeed, this longtime champion of open markets and laissez-faire economics has been shunning its commitment to free trade and multilateral cooperation, it turns inward, it is keen to reindustrialize, it introduces sweeping tariffs on nearly all countries in the world, it talks about “decoupling and de-risking”, and it shapes its foreign policy around the interests of its own middle class.
So, if the USA is indeed about to turn inward and abandon its quest for global hegemony, that would certainly constitute a very positive development. Such a step would essentially mark a belated recognition of reality, namely, of the fact that the US-led liberal international order has been crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions and is being increasingly replaced by regional dynamics.
These developments were well anticipated a decade ago by the world’s foreign policy doyen Henry Kissinger in his book ““World Order” (2014). Two points from the book are particularly worth citing. First, Kissinger explained why a universal order is impossible, arguing that “no single society has ever had the power, no leadership had the resilience, and no faith had the dynamism to impose its writ enduringly throughout the world”.[2] This premise, in turn, led Kissinger to suggest the idea to “establish a concept of order within the various regions, and to relate these regional orders to one another”.[3]
We in Belarus cannot help but share the above Kissingerian idea that all regions need to establish their internal orders and work to connect them with each other.
This belief comes from our conviction that with the demise of the liberal international order the world will lack any hierarchical system with a single dominant center.
Eurasian Charter to Forge Eurasian Order
So, what Eurasia needs is a regional order, which would help Eurasian states steer clear of the present global disorder. But how to build it? Perhaps, Belarus’ idea to develop the Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI Century may be timely and helpful in this regard. As we see it, the Charter can indeed provide a useful guidance to Eurasian states in their effort to establish Eurasian order and, given the importance of the supercontinent for the entire globe, to connect Eurasian order to orders in other regions.
Essentially, we view the Charter as a kind of a wholistic and coherent long-term geostrategy for our supercontinent in all its dimensions – security, economics, science, technology, culture, civilizational and some other aspects. As any strategic document it should build on some principles and elements. We foresee the following.
First and foremost, the Charter should be a constructive effort in that it would not be directed against any country or a group of states, nor would it strive for benefiting some countries at the expense of others. In that sense it would represent a drastic departure from the previous adversarial and confrontational strategies for Eurasia practiced in the past. Moreover, the Eurasian Charter should be based on the norms and principles of international law set forth in the United Nations Charter and other international legally binding documents.
Second, the Charter should be an indigenous effort, that is, an effort that involves only Eurasian countries, because indigenous actors know best their own interests, they can identify common objectives and means to achieve them and afterwards diligently realize their commonly devised commitments. The past is a good guidance here as it amply demonstrated that solutions for Eurasia invented and imposed by external actors did not and cannot take root in principle.
Third, the Charter should be a collective effort, meaning that it should be drafted and negotiated in a collective way by Eurasian states. We are absolutely convinced that each and every country in Eurasia must feel its ownership of this document and see its position and preferences reflected in the Charter. If that were to be the case, every state would then feel sufficient inducement to uphold the Charter’s provisions.
Fourth, the Charter should be an inclusive effort. It means that the negotiations should be open to all Eurasian states. The reason is straightforward – all of them should have a stake in a peaceful and prosperous supercontinent. At this moment in time, however, it appears doubtful that European NATO countries and its partners would be willing to engage in the work on the Charter. But these potential hold-outs should ask themselves where such a rejectionist stance would ultimately leave them in the context of rapidly evolving global and regional changes. Let us consider.
True, Europe presents a very successful experiment of integration and consolidation. In some respects, it is really close to becoming a United States of Europe, a notion that Victor Hugo famously invoked at the International Peace Congress in Paris in 1849. But the European experiment succeeded in the past because of some specific enabling environment like, above all, enormous wealth accumulated in Europe over centuries of exploitation of others, US security umbrella provided since WWII, free trade and ample access to cheap resources to its east. These factors have nearly all disappeared now. Instead, Europe is being flooded with challenges like, among others, massive migration from the Global South, loss of economic competitiveness, increased indebtedness, rising societal inequality, dysfunctional multiculturalism, rapidly ageing societies. Some of these challenges Europe generated itself by its own involvement in the pursuit of unilateral policies in violation of international law.
By the way, similar factors affect some advanced Eurasian countries in the eastern rim. So, both these groups will ultimately find themselves in a position of agents that would no longer be needed by the external player, which relied on them and backed their development in the past, but now turns inward.
Brussels’ machinery is currently refusing to engage with Eurasian integration entities allegedly out of its sense of superiority. But this sense of superiority is totally unjustified. As Samuel Huntington put it in his famous book [The Clash of Civilizations, 1996]: “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”.[4]
So, Europe should put its complex of superiority aside and stop viewing others in Eurasia as a kind of modern-day barbarians. Instead, Europe and those advanced countries in East Asia would be well-advised to embrace the Eurasian concept insofar as it provides a way for them to address their mounting challenges. Just one example: the migration crisis affecting Europe can be successfully handled only through concerted efforts by both European and Eurasian countries.
Fifth, the Charter should be an engaging effort in a sense that the negotiating parties would solicit advise from relevant Eurasian regional organizations and integration entities like, among others, the Eurasian Economic Union, ASEAN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the League of Arab States, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, the Union State of Belarus and Russia. It goes without saying that if Europe gets on board, the Western European institutions like the European Commission, the Council of Europe and some others would also be welcome to engage in the Charter process.
Sixth, the Charter should be a comprehensive effort. It means that in terms of substance the document should cover all areas of potential cooperation – security, economics, humanitarian issues, civilizational exchanges, etc. Naturally, however, the topic of Eurasian security should be of paramount importance in the Charter. The Charter should essentially help establish a new architecture of Eurasian security. This kind of pan-continental security is needed because previous attempts at security provision either under the CSCE/OSCE mantle or in the post-Cold War period failed, not least because they all sought to achieve security of some countries at the expense of others.
With this experience in mind, the principle of indivisible security should lie at the core of a new security architecture. The idea of indivisible security per se was present in the Helsinki Final Act, but not in the Decalogue of principles, only in a preambular part. This time around this principle should be put front and center in the Charter. Importantly, erecting a Eurasian security architecture would be vital for generating a new concept of global indivisible security given Eurasia’s central role in global affairs.
In economic terms, the Charter should help Eurasian states move away from Western-centric economic interdependence because it was weaponized by the West against its opponents and instead attempt to spur further economic integration and connectivity in Eurasia. Successful economic processes in Eurasia, in turn, could help revive the idea of fair economic globalization.
Seventh, the Charter should be a well-conceived procedural effort. It implies that Eurasian states negotiating the Charter’s text should have a clear understanding of their end game. We in Belarus believe that the process to develop the Eurasian Charter may in many respects look like the one that resulted five decades ago in the Helsinki Final Act. If so, the past process may serve the purpose of being a useful point of reference for planning the forthcoming negotiations on the Charter. In particular, we believe that it would make sense to replicate the rather successful experience of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe by setting up a similar conference that would cover the entire supercontinent.
Finally, the Charter should be a forward-looking effort. In our view, it should seek not only to establish principles whose implementation throughout the continent would bring about a safer, stabler and more prosperous Eurasia, but also to reach beyond the region with the view to seeking partnerships with other regions. The gist of such kind of thinking was well captured in the 2024 Annual Report of Russia’s Valdai Discussion Club: “Eurasia’s connection to the rest of the world is so deep that Eurasian processes will have a decisive impact on the other parts of the planet and on approaches to addressing crucial security and sustainability issues, such as food, energy, and the environment”.[5]
So, all in all, the Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI Century should help establish a system of pan-continental security that would enable the region’s stable and progressive development, which, in turn, would help shape a global system capable of addressing the planet’s complexity and diversity thereby transforming the globe into a better place for everyone.
We are convinced that with the idea of the Eurasian Charter we have chosen ourselves and suggested for other Eurasian countries a path in a right direction.
It is necessary to note that Belarus does not claim the prerogative of knowing alone how to turn matters for the better in Eurasia. As a matter of fact, we support any effort that aims to realize the above objective like, for instance, the idea to establish a Great Eurasian Partnership put forward by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in 2015. In the meantime, we are ready for the work lying ahead of us on the Charter and call upon our Eurasian partners to join this endeavor.
References
[1] Brzezinski, Z., 1997. A Geostrategy for Eurasia. Foreign Affairs, 76(5), p. 64.
[2] Kissinger, H., 2014. World Order. New York: Penguin Press. P. 105.
Pedaling into diplomacy, discovering The Hague’s surroundings, and enjoying a classic Dutch Saturday — this was the spirit of the X annual Biking Spree for Diplomats, organized by Diplomat Magazine. Despite the summer holidays, the event gathered enthusiastic ambassadors and diplomats from Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Burundi, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Ireland, Palestine, the Philippines, Spain, Uruguay, the United States, and Venezuela.
The Biking Spree is a unique tradition that combines eco-friendly transportation, healthy living, and informal networking on two wheels. On Saturday, 16 August 2025, participants gathered at the Leonardo Royal Hotel The Hague, where they enjoyed coffee and friendly conversations before setting off. Led by Emma Stubbe of the Dutch Cycling Embassy, the group cycled through scenic dunes and along the route to Kijkduin, exploring The Hague’s charming landscapes.
This year’s edition was made possible through the collaboration of Diplomat Magazine, the Dutch Cycling Embassy, and Leonardo Royal Hotel The Hague. Dr. Mayelinne De Lara, Publisher of Diplomat Magazine, emphasized the importance of the event: “Biking is a fundamental part of the Dutch experience. This activity not only promotes healthy living but also combines informal diplomacy with sustainability and cultural immersion.”
Roy Lie Atjam, Diplomat Magazine’s editor together with Ireland and Dominican Republic diplomats.
Along the way, Emma Stubbe introduced the mission of the Dutch Cycling Embassy, which works worldwide to help cities design safe, functional, and enjoyable cycling infrastructure inspired by Dutch expertise. She also explained the fascinating history of cycling in the Netherlands and how bicycles became deeply integrated into daily life. At every stop, participants learned about the infrastructure developed to encourage cycling — including the new facilities in Kijkduin.
By around 2:00 p.m., the group returned to the Leonardo Royal Hotel. Diplomats gradually left the ride at the points closest to their homes, marking the end of a memorable day of cycling, learning, and connection.
The X Diplomats Biking Spree once again proved to be a joyful highlight in The Hague’s diplomatic calendar. We look forward to an even larger group joining us next year 11th Diplomats Biking Spree.
The Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, H.E. Kumar Tuhin, recently spoke with Diplomat Magazine about the latest developments in India–Netherlands relations. In the conversation, he reflected on the growing political and economic partnership between both countries, India’s engagement with international legal institutions in The Hague, and ongoing collaborations in water management, sustainable agriculture, and innovation. Ambassador Tuhin also shared his vision for cultural diplomacy, the role of the Indian diaspora, and the opportunities that lie ahead for deepening cooperation in areas such as technology, security, and green energy.
Since presenting your credentials in November 2024, how do you view the current state of India–Netherlands political and economic relations, and where are the main opportunities for growth?
India and the Netherlands share a longstanding partnership that has evolved into a trusted and valued friendship, grounded in shared democratic values and mutual respect. Bilateral cooperation spans political, economic, and technological domains, with regular high-level exchanges reinforcing our ties. Recent interactions include External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar’s visit to the Netherlands in May 2025, where discussions with Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp focused on enhancing collaboration in trade, technology, and security. Foreign Minister Veldkamp visited India earlier in April 2025, when he held detailed discussions with his counterpart Dr. S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Water, agriculture, and health remain cornerstones of our cooperation, while we are increasingly exploring strategic areas such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and green hydrogen.
Economically, the Netherlands is India’s 11th largest merchandise trading partner globally and the largest in the European Union. In FY 2023-24, bilateral merchandise trade reached USD 27.33 billion, accounting for 2.45% of India’s total merchandise trade. The Netherlands is India’s largest merchandise export destination in Europe and third largest globally, with exports including key items like petroleum products, telecom instruments, and pharmaceuticals. Investments are robust, with cumulative FDI from the Netherlands to India totaling over USD 52 billion and from India to the Netherlands being about USD 25 billion between April 2000 to September 2024. Over 300 Dutch companies operate in India, including Philips, NXP, Signify, Akzo Nobel, DSM, KLM, Rabobank, Heineken, TomTom, Paques, Boskalis, Van Oord, Damen Shipyards, Vopak, and Aegon. Conversely, more than 300 Indian companies are present in the Netherlands, such as TCS, HCL, Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, Sun Pharmaceuticals, and Apollo Tyres.
The greatest opportunities lie in infusing a strategic dimension into our technology partnership, leveraging the Netherlands’ expertise in innovation. We are prioritizing new and emerging technologies, including semiconductors, clean energy solutions like green hydrogen, and digital domains. Our economic partnership continues to expand, offering immense potential to strengthen ties through enhanced investments, joint ventures, and sustainable development initiatives.
How is India engaging with The Hague’s key international legal institutions, and what are your priorities as India’s representative to them?
India has consistently played a constructive role in global affairs through active participation in multilateral institutions, and The Hague’s status as host to the OPCW, ICJ, PCA and many other institutions underscores its importance for international diplomacy.
As an original signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, India attaches great importance to its full, effective, and non-discriminatory implementation. While the destruction of declared chemical weapon stockpiles marks a significant OPCW achievement, India emphasizes vigilance to prevent re-emergence and advocates for universal adherence, urging non-party states to join at the earliest. We engage actively in OPCW meetings.
Regarding the ICJ and PCA, India participates regularly at appropriate levels, contributing to discussions on international law and dispute resolution. India has been involved in several ICJ cases, and supports the court’s role in upholding international justice. For the PCA, India utilizes its arbitration mechanisms for resolving disputes in accordance with international law and promotes peaceful settlement of conflicts.
As India’s representative, my priorities include advancing India’s commitment to multilateralism, ensuring our representation in these institutions, and fostering dialogue on global challenges like disarmament, climate justice, etc. We aim to collaborate with the Netherlands to enhance these platforms’ effectiveness. Strengthening these engagements aligns with India’s broader aspirations to uphold equity, justice, peace, and a rules-based international order.
What concrete projects are underway between India and the Netherlands in water management, agriculture, and innovation?
The Netherlands’ global leadership in water technologies, innovation and sustainable agriculture aligns well with India’s priorities, leading to robust collaborations under our Strategic Partnership on Water, launched in 2021. In water management, we are working together on the National Mission on Clean Ganga Programme for river rejuvenation, pollution abatement, and conservation, drawing on Dutch expertise. We are also partnering in initiatives in Tamil Nadu, particularly Chennai, focused on urban resilience against droughts, floods, and water quality issues. For flood management, we are adapting the Dutch “Room for the River” model in Kerala, following the 2018 floods, with ongoing risk reduction programs that could extend to other states. The Joint Working Group on Water, elevated to ministerial level, held its first meeting in April 2023 and continues to drive these efforts.
In sustainable agriculture, we are establishing a number of Centres of Excellence across India with Dutch partnership, of which 7 are already functional, focusing on advanced farming techniques, agri-innovation and food processing. Many Dutch seed companies are present in India. In health and innovation, under the MoU on Healthcare, we are progressing on digital health cooperation, including interoperability, AI applications, disease surveillance, and antimicrobial resistance surveillance. Planned efforts include expanding our cooperation in health and pharmaceuticals with joint research and policy dialogues, and initiatives on cooperation between Ports, green hydrogen, etc.
Drawing on your ICCR experience, what cultural diplomacy initiatives are you planning to strengthen people-to-people ties here?
Cultural diplomacy is vital for enhancing India’s connection with our global partners, and the Indian diaspora plays a pivotal role in bringing our nations closer by preserving and promoting India’s rich heritage through music, dance, Indian cinema, Ayurveda, and Yoga. The diaspora in the Netherlands, well-integrated locally yet connected to their roots, serves as advocates for India’s interests and cultural projection.
Leveraging my experience as DG ICCR, I plan to bolster initiatives such as exchange programs, scholarships, youth exchanges, the Distinguished and Academic Visitors Programme, visits of artists in performing and visual arts, India studies in academic institutions, cultural festivals, etc. Our Gandhi Culture Centre at Parkstraat in The Hague, operational since 2011, offers free classes in Yoga, Indian dance, Hindi and Sanskrit, hosts regular programs to foster people-to-people connections, and serves as a thriving hub for Indian culture. We will expand collaborations like the International Day of Yoga events, explore residency programmes to deepen artistic exchanges, and forge collaborations between cultural institutions of both countries. These efforts aim to celebrate our shared 400-year cultural history and build enduring ties.
Looking ahead, what are your main objectives as Ambassador, and what message would you like to share with the diaspora and Dutch public about the future of India–Netherlands relations?
As earlier mentioned, the Netherlands is a trusted and valued partner of India. The leaders on both sides are extremely clear about the need to further strengthen our relations. I am very happy to be representing my country at this stage of ties, when the cooperation prospects appear especially bright and exciting. My main objectives include advancing bilateral relations across all sectors, as well as to strengthen cooperation in multilateral fora. We will work to strengthen ties in traditional areas like water, agriculture, and health, while expanding into strategic domains such as defence, security, semiconductors, AI and green hydrogen and explore emerging synergies. Enhancing people-to-people ties through cultural and diaspora initiatives is also key.
To the Indian diaspora—the largest expatriate community in mainland Europe—and the Dutch public, I convey that India-Netherlands relations are built on a strong foundation of trust, mutual respect, and shared values for global peace and prosperity. The diaspora’s contributions to Dutch society are invaluable, and together, we can unlock new opportunities in technology, sustainability, and innovation. We are all the inheritors of a proud history, and should continuously strive to make ourselves worthy of that heritage, through our work, our conduct, our kindness, our politeness and our concern for the fellow human being, wherever we are, whatever we do. The future is bright, promising deeper partnerships for mutual benefit.
The summit of the US and Russian presidents in Alaska is an extraordinary opportunity to launch a renewed and productive dialogue between the main powers of the Euro-Atlantic area. It can lead to the end of damaging development and long confrontation: the bloody war in Ukraine since 2022 and the (second) Cold War since 2014.
For the Fathers of a united Europe after World War II, peace action was determined by a careful analysis of realities, awareness of duties and the search for possibilities. At the same time, they had the courage, creativity and perseverance to implement the necessary actions on the basis of proven principles and values.
The European integration process has stagnated in the last decade, or even reversed (Brexit). If we want to succeed with the peace plan for the whole of Europe, we need to perceive the whole and complex reality of Europe and its neighborhood. Now is the time.
For reminder and inspiration, let us recall the words of three important Europeans.
Robert Schuman, French post-war prime minister and statesman: “We must construct Europe not in the interest of the free peoples alone, but also to be able to welcome in it the peoples of the East, who freed from the repression that they have been subject to until the present, will ask us for their adhesion and for our moral support. … We consider as integrating part of a living Europe all those who desire to rejoin us in a reconstituted Community.”
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in his message on Security and Peace for All in 1953 spoke about two major actions:
In order to meet a possibly existing Soviet security requirement the regional alliance of the European Community, after being joined to the NATO, can be brought into a contractual relationship to the regional alliances of the East Bloc within the scope of an all-embracing structure… including military side of the system.
As economic cooperation and political security are interdependent, the funds becoming available by a general control of armaments can be utilized to increase the international exchange of goods and raise the standard of living of all nations.
Charles de Gaulle, President of France, in his famous speech in 1959 declared: “Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, all of Europe, which will decide the fate of the world!”
Were all these personalities wrong? These visions were openly communicated during the hard confrontation years of the Cold War. It must be much easier to formulate a true road to peace, stability and security for all nations after collapse of communist regimes in Europe.
But there are no statesmen in Europe who experienced WWII. Regrettably, today many lack foresight, generational thinking and a comprehensive geopolitical action. The US and EU leaders were unable to secure peace after the victory in the Cold War (1989-91) and build pan-European unity for the benefit of peace and security for all. Equally, they were unable to prevent the conflict inside Ukraine in 2014, nor to resolve it effectively (Minsk Agreements I, II). This helped to get this multinational country with disputed leadership into a fateful confrontation. In 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and started the war.
There is a narrow path from this war in Ukraine to peace, which includes several critical conditions and important goals:
1. The sequence of ceasefire – peace agreement – stability – security – reconstruction – prosperity is an invitation for fair negotiations and compromises between Ukraine and Russia starting with a ceasefire, but valid also other states (the USA and Europe), in order to guarantee the agreed steps and conditions.
2. Displaced populations and refugees from war-affected territories must be given a respected right to return.
3. If the destructed territories are to be restored soon and successfully, they cannot remain isolated and internationally unrecognized. A reasonable transition period (7-10 years) with international supervision and local self-government and subsequent regional plebiscites under international control (with the participation of the UA and the RF) on the basis of the right of the population to self-determination will decide on their future constitutional status or integration with international recognition.
4. The destroyed territories need reconstruction with great financial potential. A common fund will be established for the reconstruction of all war-ravaged territories and infrastructure, which will operate over the same period of time.
5. Creation of conditions and instruments of common markets for strategic resources and commodities (energy and energy infrastructure, natural raw materials, information technologies, intellectual property), initiated by the US and RF and open to all free nations can be a long-term instrument for security and prosperity of all.
Under the original Schuman Plan for Europe from 1950 the participating states live in peace, security and prosperity. Now we need to invent and implement the Schuman Plan 2.0. Original principles are the same and equally viable today. A potential Big Deal adopted by the USA, RF, Ukraine and the EU with fair and acceptable conditions for ending the war in Ukraine, but also for security, mutual cooperation and prosperity can build a new West-East or Northern Hemisphere Community. Practically it may represent an unprecedented Community from Alaska to Kamchatka through Europe and Central Asia.
With realism, this can be achieved in the spirit and legacy of the successful Fathers of Europe. Will there be the courage and determination, the creative ability and perseverance to realize this positive vision and actions, based on proven principles and values?
About the author
Ján Figeľ ]is a Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Clementy Foundation´s Chair for the Ven. Schuman´s Legacy in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican, the former EU Commissioner and Deputy Prime Minister of Slovakia, the founder of the EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology), the first Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief outside the EU, and current President of FOREF (www.janfigel.sk)
Their Majesties King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands welcomed ambassadors and heads of international organizations to the Annual Diplomatic Gala Dinner, traditionally held in the stately Citizens’ Hall of the Royal Palace of Amsterdam.
This long-standing tradition is a hallmark of the Dutch monarchy’s engagement with the diplomatic community, offering a moment of reflection, celebration, and renewed commitment to the values of peace, dialogue, and multilateral cooperation. In 2022, Dutch government representatives joined the ambassadors as special guests.
In 2023, the evening spotlighted scientists and researchers. Last year, it was dedicated to innovative entrepreneurs. This year, ambassadors were paired with leading figures from the world of art and culture—artists, musicians, writers, performers, architects, designers, heritage experts, and museum directors.
In his address, King Willem-Alexander warmly welcomed the international community and reflected on the richness of cultural exchange, affirming the Netherlands’ support for international engagement and cooperation.
“Relations with other countries and peoples near and far made a large contribution to the growth and prosperity of Amsterdam and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The international orientation of our open society and economy is one of the Netherlands’ biggest strengths. You represent the many countries we share ties with today. And we greatly value your presence.
The world we all live in is changing fast. Long-standing rules and agreements are under pressure. Increasingly, healthy competition is turning into bitter rivalry. And sadly, tensions and conflicts are disrupting the lives of millions of people. Our hearts go out to the victims of violence in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, and other troubled regions.
The future is unpredictable. In these turbulent times, the Netherlands is working to promote stability and security, prosperity and good governance. Everyone ¬– all around the world – wants the same basic things: a decent life for themselves and their loved ones. Food on the table. A strong economy. Security and healthcare. Effective governance. That’s the only way people can build successful lives in their own countries. Everyone needs socioeconomic security and prospects for the future.” It is with that conviction that the Netherlands seeks cooperation with partners.” the King remarked
His Majesty spoke of Dutch reputation in the field of food production, water management, healthcare and sustainable energy. and addressed the international representatives “The unifying role you play as diplomats is crucial. And the significance of your work has only increased as global tensions have risen.”
This year’s Diplomatic Gala Dinner highlighted our shared humanity and the timeless ties forged through beauty, art, diplomacy, and cultural dialogue. In a world often divided by difference, the evening offered a compelling reminder of what unites us.
“Eendracht maakt macht — unity makes strength.”
Speaking on behalf of the Diplomatic Corps, H.E. Ms. Sahar Ghanem, Ambassador of Yemen and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, delivered a stirring address:
“Your hospitality reflects the importance you place on diplomacy and the vital role diplomats play in fostering international understanding and cooperation,” Ambassador Ghanem said, expressing collective gratitude to Their Majesties.
Reflecting on the symbolic grandeur of the Royal Palace, the ambassador shared with warmth and humor : “ I must admit that on more than one occasion, I secretly wished that royal receptions would be held in The Hague instead. But definitely not tonight!
She then turned to the deeper theme of the evening: the enduring power of art and culture as universal languages “Viewed through the lens of culture, our world resembles a vast mosaic. No two pieces are the same, yet each one complements the other, contributing to a stunning and harmonious whole,” praising the Netherlands as a living example of cultural blending and innovation. Drawing from history, she referenced the VOC-era import of Chinese porcelain, which evolved into the iconic Dutch Blue Delft, and the transformation of Turkish tulips into a national symbol.
Ambassador Ghanem shared a deeply touching personal story about her mother: “Would Johannes Vermeer have ever expected that a woman from a faraway country called Yemen would one day dream of visiting the Netherlands because of his masterpiece Girl with a Pearl Earring? Today, that woman’s daughter is standing before you as the ambassador of that far country to the very Netherlands her mother always longed to visit! ”
Addressing the impact of modern technology, Ambassador Ghanem acknowledged the opportunities digital platforms offer for global cultural exchange but also issued a gentle warning, quoting a viral social media post: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing—not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes!”
The comment underscored the need to strike a balance between technological progress and the preservation of human creativity and imagination—a shared responsibility for diplomats, artists, policymakers, and innovators alike.
In closing her speech, Ambassador Ghanem addressed Queen Máxima directly with warm and gracious birthday wishes, “May your day be filled with cherished moments with those you hold dear, and may your distinguished grace and charm continue to shine year after year” and invited the assembled guests to raise their glasses:
Ten years ago, the idea of a global day dedicated to “yoga” might have seemed far-fetched. But here we are—yoga mats unrolled across the globe, from bustling urban parks to silent, icy outposts in Antarctica. The International Day of Yoga (IDY) has become much more: a movement rooted in well-being, connection, and a shared sense of humanity.
The journey to make yoga a global movement started in the year 2014, when our Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi addressed the UN General Assembly in September that year. His message was simple and powerful:
“Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment. It is not about exercise, but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world, and nature.” On the directions of our Honorable Prime Minister, India’s permanent representative to the UN moved the resolution in the UN General Assembly on December 11, 2014, to observe June 21st as “International Day of Yoga,” which was approved by 177 member states of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
PM participates in the mass yoga demonstration, on the occasion of the 8th International Day of Yoga in Karnataka 2022
In the resolution, adopted under the agenda of “Global Health and Foreign Policy,” the UN General Assembly recognised that yoga “provides a holistic approach to health and well-being”. For the wider dissemination of information about the benefits of practicing yoga for the health of the world population, the 21st of June is celebrated every year as International Day of Yoga (IDY) across the globe. The main significance of the UN declaring an “International Day” is to focus the attention of the international community on the topic and to encourage activities among the member states to commemorate the day.
As we celebrate the 11th anniversary of International Day of Yoga, the 2025 theme, “Yoga for One Earth, One Health,” brings the message home. It’s a reminder that our health and the planet’s health are deeply intertwined. Yoga embodies the philosophy of holistic well-being – uniting the health of individuals with the health of the society and the planet. The principle of “One World, One Health” emphasizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, echoing the ancient yogic wisdom of unity (Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam – the world is one family). It is a philosophy that tries to foster an understanding that the whole of humanity is one family. It is a social philosophy emanating from a spiritual understanding that the whole of humanity is made of one life energy or Universal Consciousness.
International Day of Yoga celebrations in The Hague, 2023.
Yoga is a code to connect people with life and to reconnect mankind with nature. It expands our limited sense of self to see our families, societies, and mankind as extensions of our own selves. Yoga is a journey from me to we. Yoga makes an individual a better person in thought, action, knowledge, and devotion. Once an individual develops an interest in yoga and starts diligently practicing it, it will always remain a part of his or her life. Yoga is the entrance point to one’s spiritual journey. By practicing yoga, a spirit of oneness is created—oneness of the mind, body, and intellect. Oneness with our families, with the society we live in, with fellow humans, with all the birds, animals, and trees with whom we share our beautiful planet… this is yoga. Yoga has the potential to herald in a new Yuga (a new era) of peace, compassion, brotherhood, and all-round progress for the human race. Yoga is not only about Asanas. It is much more. It is a blend of Gyan (knowledge), Karma (action), and Bhakti (devotion). Yoga is a symbol of universal aspiration for health and well-being; it is health insurance on a zero budget. Yoga is not only about “Rog Mukti” (eradication of diseases) but also about “Bhog Mukti” (desisting from worldly greed). June 21, 2015, marked the first IDY celebration. In Delhi, nearly 36,000 people, including the Prime Minister, gathered on Rajpath for a mass yoga session. It wasn’t just a moment of national pride—it was the beginning of a global tradition.
Every year, Millions of people across the globe practice yoga, even during COVID-19. The theme was Yoga at Home, Yoga with family, and several people across borders participated in online yoga sessions. The Honorable Prime Minister also encouraged the countrymen to practice yoga during COVID times for community, immunity, and unity. Teleyoga guidelines were also released by the Ministry of Ayush during this year. The scale of participation led to several Guinness World Records, the recent one being around 3 Lakh people doing yoga across a 28 km stretch of beach road in Visakhapatnam, AP, along with our honorable Prime Minister. The scale of celebrations and reach has only grown over the years from the poles to the parks, from far off villages to the bustling urban jungles, from Icy heights of the Himalayas to the deserts, from kids to elderly, from layman to the armed forces yoga is being practiced by all irrespective of race, religion, geographies and age.
Prime Minister Modi addresses the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 2014.
This is reflected in the growing participation numbers each year, reaching approximately 25 crore.
IDY is celebrated with different themes each year and innovative campaigns to reach out to the masses. This is celebrated using a whole-of-Government approach wherein all Ministries and Indian Foreign Missions take part in this global campaign. The Guardian ring of yoga starts from the coverage of IDY events across cities from the first Sunrise in the eastern Hemisphere to the last sunrise in the western hemisphere. The Sagar Mala or Ocean Ring of Yoga is a calling to observe yoga at all the seaports among nations friendly to India. The Indian Missions also engage the citizens in their countries on yoga by conducting workshops, IDY Common yoga protocol training, seminars, competitions, etc. to spread the message of yoga.
The International Day of Yoga is now a global movement that spreads the ancient Indian wisdom and culture among the comity of Nations with a call for Health, Harmony, and Well-being. Yoga isn’t just about touching your toes, but is about touching and transforming lives.
About the author:
Dr Raghavendra Rao M, BNYS, PhD (Yoga & Life Sciences), DSc (Yoga & Life Sciences) Director, Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy, Ministry of Ayush, Govt of India.
Reaching for the stars is becoming an everyday affair at India’s space agency, having visited the Moon and Mars with orbital missions, now eyes are set on a mission to Venus and a sample return from the Moon. Human space flight to fly an Indian citizen on an Indian rocket from Indian soil where the countdown will also be by India, is also taking shape fast.
India’s space journey reached new heights with the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 nearer the Moon’s South Pole on August 23, 2023, making India the first country to achieve this feat. This mission demonstrated ISRO’s capability in precision lunar landing and roving. The Vikram lander even performed a hop experiment, and the propulsion module was later maneuvered into Earth orbit for extended operations 2.
Building on this momentum, ISRO achieved its 100th rocket launch in January 2025, launching a navigation satellite, showcasing India’s indigenous cryogenic engine technology.
NISAR is the first of its kind mission, jointly developed by ISRO and NASA. It is an L and S-band, global, microwave imaging mission, with capability to acquire fully polarimetric and interferometric data
The pinnacle came with the July 30, 2025 launch of the nearly $1.3 billion NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar or NISAR satellite, a joint Indo-US Earth observation mission. Launched aboard India’s GSLV F-16, NISAR features dual-frequency SAR payloads from NASA and ISRO, and will monitor climate change, disasters, and agriculture 5. ISRO Chairman Dr. V. Narayanan hailed it as a symbol of India’s technological leadership and global collaboration, emphasizing the precision and reliability of India’s cryogenic launch systems.
In a landmark achievement for India’s space program, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla completed a 20-day mission, including 18 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the multinational Axiom-4 mission—dubbed Mission Akash Ganga. This marks India’s first human spaceflight since Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma in 1984. Prime Minister Modi hailed Shukla’s courage and dedication as inspiring a billion dreams.
Launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Shukla served as mission pilot and conducted seven India-specific experiments. Despite delays, the mission concluded successfully with a splashdown near San Diego. It lays the foundation for India’s Gaganyaan mission, targeting a 2027 launch from Indian soil.
India’s roadmap doesn’t stop at Gaganyaan, Prime Minister Modi has outlined a bold vision: establish an Indian space station by 2035 and land an Indian on the moon by 2040. If successful, India will join the elite club of nations—Russia, the United States, and China—with independent indigenous human spaceflight capabilities.
India’s lunar legacy is already formidable. India’s first foray to the moon with the Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008 discovered presence of water molecules on the moon, fundamentally altering lunar geological history forever. Chandrayaan-2 provided the first independent images of Apollo mission artefacts left on the lunar surface, and Chandrayaan-3 made global headlines by landing nearer the moon’s South Pole—now considered the gold rush zone for lunar exploration.
With cost-effective yet reliable space missions, India is poised to become a major player in the global space race. The government has already allocated billions of dollars for the human spaceflight program, underscoring its commitment to cosmic exploration.
India’s science minister Dr Jitendra Singh who also looks after the affairs of the Department of Space says `India’s quantum leap in space research with India’s space economy standing at $8 billion has been only possible due to the courageous decision to open up or unlock the space sector from the shackles of the past.’ Further highlighting that `India’s space economy is projected to grow beyond $40 billion by 2040 which is going to be a gigantic jump’.
The future space missions include lunar sample return mission named Chandrayaan-4; a mission to Venus; the development of the new mighty rocket, as part of this ambitious roadmap, India plans to establish its own space station, the Bhartiya Antariksha Station, by 2035. A precursor to this will be the launch of a space module in 2028. The culmination of this vision is the planned landing of an Indian astronaut on the moon by 2040.
“When we celebrate the 100th year of India’s independence, in 2047, an Indian flag will already be flying on the moon” asserts Dr Singh.
LVM3 M4 lifting off with Chandrayaan-3 on 14 July 2023
In a historic collaboration between the United States and India, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, also known as NISAR, is poised to revolutionise how we observe and understand our planet, it launched successfully on July 30, 2025 from the Satish Dhawan space Center at Sriharikota in southern India. At its core, NISAR is designed to monitor changes in Earth’s surface with unprecedented precision, capturing movements as small as a centimetre. This capability is vital for tracking natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, volcanic activity, and glacial shifts, as well as human-induced changes like urban expansion, agricultural development, and infrastructure stress.
ISRO says the NISAR satellite weighs 2,392 kg, and it will scan the entire globe and provide all-weather, day-and-night data at a 12-day interval and enable a wide range of applications. NISAR satellite that has cost upwards of $ 1.3 billion to make can detect changes in the Earth’s surface, such as ground deformation, ice sheet movement and vegetation dynamics. Further applications include sea and ice classification, ship detection, shoreline monitoring, storm characterisation, changes in soil moisture, mapping and monitoring of surface water resources and disaster response. It has been dubbed a lifesaving satellite.
Today over 250 space start-ups are driving innovation and fuelling India’s space sector. Among these, Agnikul Cosmos and Skyroot Aerospace made headlines by launching sub-orbital rockets and Pixxel Aerospace makes unique high resolution satellites.
A recent study estimates that for every dollar spent on space, India has reportedly received a return of $ 2.52. India has end to end capabilities in space, as the country makes its own rockets, satellites and has an enviable space technology applications portfolio. Today India has over fifty operational satellites in space which help power India’s burgeoning economy. India’s vast space ecosystem touches the lives of every Indian.
About the author:
Pallava Bagla is an award winning science journalist currently he is Science Editor for New Delhi Television (NDTV) and Co-author of book `Reaching for the Stars’. He can be reached at pallava.bagla@gmail.com