By Vasif HUSEYNOV, PhD, Head of Department, AIR Center, Adjunct Lecturer, ADA and Khazar Universities, Baku

On April 5, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed support for the “Crossroads for Peace” project of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a press conference before their meeting in Brussels. The project, which was presented to the public during the Armenian premier’s address at the Fourth Silk Road Forum in Tbilisi on October 26, 2023, envisions opening new transportation routes across Armenia with the hopes of transforming the country into a regional transit hub. The project calls for the opening of connections between Azerbaijan and Türkiye via Armenian territory and aims to incorporate these links into east-west trade along the Middle Corridor. Neither Baku nor Ankara, however, has been consulted or declared any support for the initiative. Thus, Pashinyan’s project remains “on paper,” and failure to work directly with the Azerbaijan and Turkish governments may mean the idea never comes to fruition. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 17.04.2024  |  External Relations
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By Yeghia TASHJIAN, Beirut-based regional analyst and researcher, columnist, "The Armenian Weekly”

On March 27, 2024, a high-level group named “Friends of Armenia Network” headed by the former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen published a white paper aiming to “galvanize support for democratic Armenia and promote peace in South Caucasus.” The title of the paper is “Deepening EU-Armenia Relations: More Europe in Armenia; More Armenia in Europe,” and the authors include former prime ministers, European parliamentarians and diplomats.
“Armenia is pivoting to the West,” the paper argues, and the EU has a strategic and value-based interest in supporting this pivot. To succeed, both Yerevan and Brussels need to make a “substantial, long-term strategic commitment in terms of resources, security cooperation, trade relations, and political engagement.” To make this pivot “irreversible,” the EU must grant Armenia “EU candidate status,” which would match Yerevan’s strategic orientation, back up its geopolitical commitments and minimize the impact of Moscow’s reaction to Yerevan by increasing the latter’s resilience. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 17.04.2024  |  External Relations
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Uzbekistan, and Tashkent in particular, is becoming the venue for an important international forum that should give a practical vector to a new format of interregional cooperation based on the traditions of centuries-old exchanges between the peoples of Central Asia and the Arab States of the Gulf and today's huge potential for mutually beneficial co-operation.

The first ministerial meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council-Central Asia Strategic Dialogue was held on 7 September 2022 in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 16.04.2024  |  External Relations
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On 1-7 May, the ancient and unique land of Surkhandarya will host the traditional international “Boysun Bakhori” (Baysun Spring) folklore festival

Preparations for the festival, which will unite bearers, performers and masters of folklore and ethnographic art from all over the world, are being carried out in a completely new spirit. In the modern tourist complex in Bibishirin mahalla, where its main events will take place, all conditions are being created for performances of folklore and ethnographic groups, national sports games and other various performances. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 10.04.2024  |  External Relations
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By Vasif HUSEYNOV, PhD, Head of Department, AIR Center, Adjunct Lecturer, ADA and Khazar Universities, Baku

From March 17 to 19, Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), embarked on his first tour of the South Caucasus, visiting Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (NATO, March 19). During this tour, he engaged with each country’s political leadership. In Azerbaijan, he also met with the defence and foreign ministers. Stoltenberg’s visit occurred amid deteriorating relations between Russia and Armenia, an ongoing stalemate in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process, and political uncertainty in Georgia before parliamentary elections in October 2024. Each one of these situations points toward the possibility of renewed confrontation and prolonged instability in the South Caucasus. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 05.04.2024  |  External Relations
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By Benyamin POGHOSYAN, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies

The September 2023 military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan was a watershed moment in the conflict. Azerbaijan achieved a decisive victory by force, defying decades-long widespread perception among OSCE Co-chair countries and other actors that the conflict had no military solution. Many expected that the demise of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic would pave the way for the Armenia – Azerbaijan peace agreement, thus bringing long-awaited stability to the region. However, it appeared that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh was only one part of the bigger puzzle of Armenia–Azerbaijan relations. After September 2023, Azerbaijan brought back the narrative of a corridor via Armenia to connect Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan, despite the fact that there was no Lachin corridor anymore connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh and started to highlight the necessity to change the Armenian constitution and other laws READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 27.03.2024  |  External Relations
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By Benyamin POGHOSYAN, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies

Armenia and Turkey started a new phase of normalization at the end of 2021, appointing special representatives to draw up recommendations. From the beginning, Turkey stated that the process should be carried out without any preconditions. However, in the last two years Ankara has put forward various preconditions and failed to take steps agreed upon during negotiations.
Armenia–Turkey relations have always been a significant factor impacting regional geopolitics in the South Caucasus. In the period between the first and the second Nagorno-Karabakh wars, many viewed the normalization of Armenia–Turkey relations as having the power to help settle the conflict. Another significant factor influencing the process was the West’s perception that Armenia–Turkey normalization might enable Armenia to reduce its dependence on Russia, as “without fear of Turkey, Armenia will need Russia less. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 20.03.2024  |  External Relations
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By Yeghia TASHJIAN, Beirut-based regional analyst and researcher, columnist, "The Armenian Weekly”

Amid increasing tensions between Russia and Armenia, and Azerbaijan’s growing pressure on Armenia to annex new border villages, the first week of March was characterized by intensive official Armenian- Iranian meetings. What is the nature of these meetings? Is there any coincidence with the timing? And what can Iran do to defuse tensions between Yerevan and Moscow?
On March 6, 2024, a delegation headed by Armenia’s Defence Minister Suren Papikyan visited Iran and met with Iranian officials. In Papikyan’s meeting with his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani, the Iranian minister reaffirmed his country’s position supporting Armenia’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty over its entire territory and opposing a change in internationally recognized borders in the region. He also expressed support for direct negotiations between Yerevan and Baku that aim “to bring peace and security to the region.” However, Ashtiani warned that the pursuit of security from outside the region would backfire and create instability, adding “The architecture of regional security must be formed in the region itself, otherwise it will become a battlefield for major powers.” READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 20.03.2024  |  External Relations
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By Vasif HUSEYNOV, PhD, Head of Department, AIR Center, Adjunct Lecturer, ADA and Khazar Universities, Baku

Following the recent presidential elections, Azerbaijan turned its focus to the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) and its role in connecting the Turkic world, indicating that Baku does not intend to align with the West or Russia. The expansion of defence cooperation within the OTS signifies a pivotal shift in regional dynamics, with member states increasingly prioritizing mutual security and strategic alignment as well as shaping a common foreign policy agenda. The integration of Turkish defence industry companies in other member states’ defence infrastructure underscores the benefits of OTS cooperation and how the organization is emerging as a formidable force in Eurasia.
On February 14, during his inauguration speech at parliament, the re-elected President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, outlined the country’s foreign policy priorities within the framework of regional integration projects (See EDM, February 22). He designated the Organization of the Turkic States (OTS) as the primary focus for his new term, dismissing alternative organizations without explicitly naming them (Azertag, February 14). “This is the main international organization for us because it is our family. We have no other family. Our family is the Turkic world”, he stated about the OTS. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 12.03.2024  |  External Relations
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By Yeghia TASHJIAN, Beirut-based regional analyst and researcher, columnist, "The Armenian Weekly”

The South Caucasus will be the epicentre of any political or economic friction between Russia and the Middle East. The region, located along the International North-South Transport Corridor, is the most feasible gateway to connect Russia to the Middle East. Russia’s increasing economic and political interaction and involvement in the Middle East will further enhance its dependency on Azerbaijan, due to its bridging location, and Turkey, its partner in addressing upheavals in the Arab region. These two factors may push Russia to pressure Armenia to agree on the implementation of article nine of the November 10, 2020, trilateral statement on unblocking economic and transport communications in the region and deploying Russian border guards to control the transit road connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave. By doing so, Russia assumes it would increase its leverage on the main actors in the region that will use the transit route connecting Europe to China. The main actor within this context is Turkey, which aims to use the shortest route (compared to the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey route) to trade with the Central Asian republics and beyond. READ MORE

• EGF Editor  |  Published on EGF: 12.03.2024  |  External Relations
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