Voting has closed in elections to choose a new president. 25 candidates contested the election, with over three million voters eligible to vote. Voting proceeded largely peacefully and briskly throughout the day. Turnout appeared to be similar to that in presidential elections in 2013, but 3-4 % lower than in parliamentary elections in 2016.
The leaders of Turkey, Russia, Germany, and France on Saturday expressed their determination to end the bloodshed in war-torn Syria as quickly as possible
Today Bolton is in Georgia on the last lap of his tour of the South Caucasus. Expectations are high that there he will say a bit more about how the US plans to approach the region in the future.
The US National Security Advisor is the highest ranking US official to visit the region for some time. In Baku at the start of his tour, Bolton met with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.
Ivanishvili's marathon TV interview received very mixed response, with GD supporters hailing it as a genuine reflection of the current reality, whilst opposition parties, and some civil society organisations, strongly criticised Ivanishvili's stance on governance and media freedom.
The complicated process for triggering early parliamentary elections in Armenia continued in earnest today as parliament considered whether to elect a new prime minister
"The sides expressed concerns over the difficult situation existing between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Moscow Patriarchate", according to a report carried by the website of the Georgian Patriarchate