With Iraq’s collapse in 2003 and the destabilisation of Syria since 2011, the political spectrum in the Middle East has been witnessing other regional actors coming to the fore and seeking to increase their influence. This new order has in particular exacerbated the pre-existing tensions between Riyadh en Teheran to such a point that this antagonism has become an essential media key in decrypting the origins of the “Qatar crisis” and in explaining the sectarian dimension of the armed conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. However, in the context of an increasingly complicated Middle East, it is more than ever necessary to multiply the analytical approaches and to overstep the reductive prism of the “fitna” opposing Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

In order to better understand the diversity of the issues linked to the power struggle between the “Wahhabi kingdom” and the “Mullahs’ republic”, we have the pleasure to welcome Fatiha Dazi-Heni (researcher at IRSEM, Paris) and Adnan Tabatabai (CEO of CARPO, Bonn), who will present respectively the Saudi and the Iranian perspectives regarding the development of this complex relationship.

This conference will take place on Thursday 22 March 2018 at 17:00 hours in the conference centre of the Campus Renaissance (entrance: rue Hobbema 8, 1000 Brussels). The lecture will be given in French and in English with simultaneous translation into Dutch, English and French. Parking is available on the Cinquantenaire esplanade in front of the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History. We are looking forward to welcoming you and kindly ask you to confirm your participation by registering online on the RHID’s website: www.rhid.be.

Pre-registration is mandatory to access the premises and must reach us not later than Friday 16 March 2018.

Programme:

16.30 u                               :           Welcome

17.00 u                               :           Conference and Q&A

18.30 u - 19.30 u           :           Reception