Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
While Russia officially has no problem with the Islamic NATO and even hopes that it'll one day include Iran to fulfill Russia's regional collective security vision, it would be inaccurate to claim that Russia is naïve about the latent threat that this bloc could pose as a result of Turkiye's rivalry with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov opined in early September on his country's position towards the Islamic NATO in response to a question about the role that Russia could play in restoring stability to West Asia. He began by referencing Russia's over-two-decade-old collective security vision for the Gulf, which he also brought up earlier this spring during the Third Gulf War, since it's an enduring part of its regional policy. Lavrov then said that the latest conflict imbued this concept with a
