On 8–9 September, SIPRI and the Middle East Council on Global Affairs (ME Council) co-hosted a workshop on the theme ‘Asia and the Middle East Beyond Energy: Towards Security and Defense Cooperation’. The workshop was held in Doha, Qatar, at the ME Council’s offices. Attendees included policy analysts and senior researchers from a range of universities and research institutes.
The pace of defence cooperation between Middle Eastern and Asian countries has increased in recent years. Indeed, Asian countries have emerged as significant stakeholders in the Middle East’s security and defence. Against this backdrop, participants explored key questions including:
- What is catalysing the growth of this defence cooperation?
- How will rising geopolitical tensions across the Middle East impact security ties?
- How can Asian countries contribute to reshaping the region’s security architecture?
Dr Alaa Tartir, co-convener of the workshop and Director of SIPRI’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, provided opening remarks for the two-day event. On day two, SIPRI held a panel on ‘Defence and Armaments’. Panellists presented the state of defence and armaments in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia based on statistics from the SIPRI databases. Dr Mathew George and Dr Jingdong Yuan, both Programme Directors at SIPRI, were panellists, with Dr Jiayi Zhou, SIPRI Researcher, acting as moderator and Dr Ahmed Morsy, SIPRI Associate Senior Researcher, as discussant.
This joint workshop in Doha was the second iteration following an earlier workshop in Stockholm, Sweden, in December 2023 entitled ‘MENASIA: Geopolitics, Energy and Security’, which focused on three broad themes: geopolitics, economics and regional dynamics; hydrocarbons, energy transitions and environmental risks; and defence and technology.