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.
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 17.04.2024
| External Relations
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.
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 17.04.2024
| External Relations
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.
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 05.04.2024
| External Relations
By Benyamin POGHOSYAN, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies
Since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s March 18 visit to Voskepar and Kiranc villages in the Tavush region, discussions and debates have been underway in Armenia on the situation along the Armenia – Azerbaijan border in that region. The visit took place after the statement of the office of Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev, demanding the immediate return of “four non-enclave Azerbaijani villages’” located in Tavush along the Armenia – Azerbaijan border to Azerbaijan which were in principle covered in the demarcation and delimitation negotiations. During his meetings with villagers, the Armenian prime minister stated that “the process of delimitation and demarcation between Armenia and Azerbaijan was entering the practical stage.” Despite acknowledging that there were no agreements on maps and principles of the process and that Azerbaijan would not leave the Armenian territories currently under its control, the prime minister argued for withdrawing from those villages to avoid a new war. After these meetings, some representatives of the Armenian leadership, including the speaker of the National Assembly, started to state that those territories were not part of Armenia and should be returned to Azerbaijan.
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 05.04.2024
| Security
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
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 27.03.2024
| External Relations
By Vasif HUSEYNOV, PhD, Head of Department, AIR Center, Adjunct Lecturer, ADA and Khazar Universities, Baku
In the shifting landscape of global energy dynamics and geopolitical uncertainties, the relationship between Azerbaijan and the European Union (EU) has emerged as a beacon of mutually beneficial and strategic partnership. The relationship between the two sides is multilayered and is of wider geostrategic importance. While the EU, among others, is a major partner for Azerbaijan constituting about 65 percent of its total foreign trade, Azerbaijan is a critical country for the EU in the Europe-Asia connectivity, and as an energy supplier. The cooperation in the field of energy is particularly of great importance for both sides and has gained momentum against the backdrop of regional geopolitical upheavals and efforts to pursue green transition.
The two sides have forged a strategic partnership in the field of energy that is pivotal for both sides economic prosperity and energy security. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, called Azerbaijan a “reliable partner” of the EU, when she signed the deal on the strategic partnership with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, on July 18, 2022.
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 27.03.2024
| Energy
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.
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 20.03.2024
| External Relations
By Fuad Shahbazov, Baku-based independent regional security and defence analyst
On January 28, 2024, masked assailants attacked a Roman Catholic church in Istanbul, killing one person. Shortly afterward, the Islamic State, through its official Amaq News Agency, claimed responsibility. Turkish police detained 47 people, most Central Asian nationals. The incident shed light on the growing presence in Turkey of a Central Asian offshoot of the Islamic State group known as ISIS-K for Khorasan, once a large portion of the Persian Empire now divided among Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asian states. The January 28 assault was the group’s first successful attack in Turkey since January 1, 2017, when jihadists invaded an Istanbul nightclub, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 80.
Since then, Turkish security forces have launched mass counter-operations against ISIS suspects in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The operations appear to have deterred deadly terrorist attacks in large urban and border areas and to have depleted the militants’ financial resources. With the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, ISIS-K suspended overseas activities to focus more on Afghanistan and try to undermine the Taliban, which resumed control over the country after the Americans left. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 20.03.2024
| Security
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.”
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 20.03.2024
| External Relations
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.
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EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 12.03.2024
| External Relations
EGF Head of Research, Dr. George Vlad NICULESCU, co-edited a new volume on “Understanding Contemporary Information Landscape Handbook (UCIL)” with the Austrian National Defence Academy and the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes: “The idea of this Handbook sprang forth from a policy recommendation issued at a past Regional Stability in the South Caucasus Study Group (RSSC SG) workshop: “Create, with the assistance of PfP Consortium volunteers, a Reference Curriculum on Media Literacy, emphasizing the impact of modern communication techniques and social media on human biology, psychology and behaviour. The aim would be to raise awareness of the media as a tool of hybrid warfare, and how to build resilience to it at individual level.” Looking with an academic eye at the final product of our last three years of work I’d conclude that this Handbook is a great success as a valuable education tool for students and teachers in media studies, politics, international relations. READ MORE
EGF Affiliated expert Benyamin POGHOSYAN appeared in a new episode of the weekly TV program “Viewpoint” where he discussed the implications of the presidential elections in Iran. WATCH HERE
EGF Affiliated Expert Nika Chitadze edited and co-authored a new article on the “Geopolitical situation in the Black Sea region and possible scenarios for future developments” published on researchgate.net: “In summary, the Black Sea region is witnessing an intensification of strategic interests and activities by global powers like the United States and China. These interests encompass energy projects, military presence, socio-economic development, trade, and geopolitical influence, making the region a focal point for strategic engagement and competition.” READ HERE
EGF Affiliated expert Yeghia TASHJYAN has recently published research on: “The Battle of the Corridors: Regional Interconnectivity and the Geo-economic future of the Middle East”. He concluded that “[…] it is essential to analyse Russia’s position in the South Caucasus and the logic of “regional interconnectivity” that Moscow is aiming to have land access to the Middle East. Russia views these regions from a holistic perspective, that is those regions have shared historical, cultural, and economic interactions, and are not geographically separated areas.” READ HERE
Between 11-13 April 2024, Dr Marat TERTEROV and Dr George Vlad NICULESCU participated in the 27th workshop of the Regional Stability in the South Caucasus Study Group of the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes on “Does the European Union Need a Strategy for the South Caucasus?”, held in Chisinau (Republic of Moldova). Please click here for the programme and agenda outline, here for George’s speaking points, and here for the ensuing Policy Recommendations.
On February 7, 2023, the Founder, and former Executive Director of the EGF Dr Marat TERTEROV moderated, and the Head of Research, Dr George Vlad NICULESCU participated in, the first panel of the web-conference on “The War in Ukraine: What Consequences for the Countries of Our Neighbourhood – East and South: What New Challenges for the EU?” organized by the Institute for European Studies of the Saint Louis University Brussels. Click here to read George’s speaking points, here for the conclusions (in French and in English) and here for the summary of presentations (in French only) of the web-conference.