South Caucasus

"The Armenian government and Armenian society have reached the limits of concessions on Nagorno Karabakh, and any agreement which will not explicitly secure a long-term and solid international presence in Nagorno Karabakh (either through the deployment of peacekeeping forces or a large-size mission) will be rejected by the majority of the population", writes Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed for commonspace.eu. He adds that "it should be clear to the international community that any new government in Armenia will pursue a tougher policy on the issues related to Nagorno Karabakh and relations with Azerbaijan. Thus, all those external actors, who are interested in the stability of the region, should understand that any additional pressure on the Armenian government to drop its demands for a solid international presence in Nagorno Karabakh, and failure to explicitly secure that presence in the peace agreement, is a recipe for significant political destabilization in Armenia, and has the potential of ruining the ongoing Armenia – Azerbaijan negotiation process, and bring the region back to a renewed cycle of violence."

The European Union continues to play an instrumental part in helping Armenia and Azerbaijan to narrow the differences between them and move closer to signing a peace agreement normalising relations, writes commonspace.eu in this editorial.  On Sunday (14 May), European Council president Charles Michel, hosted Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels for several hours of talks which Michel described as being “frank, open and result-oriented” and “focused on progress on the path towards Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization.” Michel said that “the leaders shared a common willingness for a South Caucasus at peace. I commend their respective efforts. Together, we reviewed all issues on our agenda.” commonspace.eu political editor commenting on the results of the 14 May Brussels meeting said that clearly the negotiations have reached a decisive stage. This is now not a discussion on abstract principles but on tangible and practical issues that will have an impact on the lives of Armenians and Azerbaijanis across the region.

The Georgian Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) announced yesterday (15 May) that Azimuth Airlines will start operating flights between Moscow and Tbilisi from 17 May. On Wednesday (10 May), Russian President Vladimir Putin reversed a 2019 ban on Russian airlines flying to Georgia, prompting many Georgian politicians to insist that no Russian airlines under international sanctions would be permitted to operate flights to Georgia. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that his government's "unequivocal" position was that "flights with sanctioned aircraft will not be carried out. This will happen only with planes and companies not under sanctions", he said. The GCAA statement from yesterday reads: "The Civil Aviation Agency of Georgia issued the necessary permission to the airline today, on May 15. As of today, Azimuth Airlines is not on the European Union blacklist. In accordance with the flight application submitted by the airline to the Civil Aviation Agency, flights on the Moscow-Tbilisi-Moscow airline will be performed from May 17 of this year, seven times a week."

The core team of the Joint Armenian-Azerbaijani Liaison Group on confidence-building measures in support of lasting peace in the South Caucasus (JOLIG) met in Tbilisi on Friday 12 May 2023 to discuss ongoing regional processes and plan its work for the rest of the year. The Group reviewed the current state of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations and the process to normalise them. It welcomed the resumption of face to face negotiations between the two countries held at Foreign Minister level in Washington DC in the first week of May and hoped that the process will continue and be brought to a successful conclusion. It looked forward to the next meeting of the leaders of the two countries in Brussels on 14 May and subsequently, and the planned meetings in Chisinau in June and in Granada in October, and also noted that a meeting of the foreign ministers was also planned to be held in Moscow later this month. The Group noted that this intensive diplomatic activity is necessary and instrumental for the early and successful completion of the negotiations.

After months of diplomacy by e-mail, Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Washington DC in the first week of May for negotiations led by the foreign ministers of the two countries, with the United States providing facilitation and support, writes commonspace.eu in this editorial. The presence of US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, at the opening of the talks, raised expectations that the talks may be conclusive. They were not, but enough progress was made for Blinken to return for the closing session, telling his guests that the US appreciated that the last bit of any negotiating process was going to be the most difficult. "The temptation to draw out the ongoing situation for many more months, with the hope that time is on their side, has big risks. Unplanned incidents still have the capacity to escalate quickly and spiral out of control, feeding on the existing level of mistrust. The violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan reported this morning (11 May) is a case in point. So in many ways this is the moment of truth, even if some would argue that we have been here before. Somehow however this time it feels different, even if the nitty-gritty problems have not gone away," they add.