President Barack Obama on Sunday heralded the release of Americans held prisoner in Iran and the full implementation of a historic nuclear accord with the Islamic Republic, holding both up as victories for "smart" diplomacy and his pledge to deal directly with enemies of the United States.

The prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Iran capped 14 months of secret diplomacy and talks between Washington and Tehran as the U.S. and world powers negotiated the pact to curb Iran's nuclear program, reflecting a thaw in relations between the sworn enemies.

The cultural dimension of Turkish-Iranian relations and the scope of Turkey's soft power were discussed at a seminar jointly organized by the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM) and the Tehran branch of the Yunus Emre Institute over the weekend in the Iranian capital of Tehran. 

While drinking tea by the Bosphorus a few days ago, I looked up and there sailing past me was the Moskva, a formidable-looking Russian missile cruiser returning home from its mission in support of Russia's Syrian pal, Bashar Assad. [...]Turkey possesses the political stability, economic vitality and military strength to play an ever greater role in its tumultuous region and beyond.

As a challenge to this phenomenon, in September 2015, a group of young Iranian students established "See You in Iran," a Facebook platform where former and future Iran travelers can connect and exchange information. Non-Iranians can share their unfiltered narratives about their visit to Iran, and future travelers can ask questions about their upcoming trips. Through this mechanism, "See You in Iran" aims to promote travel and provide an unguided understanding of Iran, a country that been demonized in the West for a long time. 

Following a dizzying sequence of events, including the Saudi execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr together with 46 others, the storming of the Saudi Embassy and the breakdown of diplomatic relations, Saudi Arabia and Iran have expanded their fight to the soccer pitch. Several Saudi clubs […] issued statements [...] demanding that they play Asian championship matches against Iranian squads at neutral venues.

In her examination of cultural diplomacy, Von Maltzahn looks briefly at its relationship with ‘soft power’, with the Europeans developing structured programmes between the world wars, followed lately by China, but with few Arab countries taking the practice seriously, other than recently through satellite television channels.  Compared to Iran, Syria has had little desire to propagate its culture abroad.