South Caucasus

A European Parliament resolution yesterday urged EU countries to work towards granting Ukraine EU candidate status. A membership perspective in the form of candidate status is not membership. It is a political signal that the door of membership is open, and an opportunity to focus minds on all the sides to start the long and laborious process of EU membership. Whilst the resolution of the European Parliament speaks only about Ukraine, the three trio countries should be given the membership perspective and candidate status simultaneously. All three are very determined in pursuing this path; all three have strong Association Agreements with the EU; and all three are under considerable Russian pressure. A membership perspective will strengthen the hand of those working for reforms in these countries. It will also send another message to Putin's Russia that its nefarious policy towards the neighbours has failed. Now is the right time to do that. Give Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia a membership perspective now! Give them candidate status and work with them to make this an achievable task within this decade.

The prominent human rights organisation, Amnesty International, has accused Russia of indiscriminate attacks against civilians during its current invasion of Ukraine. In its report, Amnesty International says that, "the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been marked by indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas and strikes on protected objects such as hospitals. Indiscriminate attacks violate international humanitarian law (the laws of war) and can constitute war crimes. “The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas. Some of these attacks may be war crimes. The Russian government, which falsely claims to use only precision-guided weapons, should take responsibility for these acts,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

The current events in Ukraine "are part of the shifts in global security architecture amidst the transformation of the world order from a unipolar moment to a multipolar system. It is not about Ukraine, in the same way that the cold war was not about the fate of West Berlin", says Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed.

The signing of the an allied cooperation declaration with Russia should not come as a surprise since official Baku has long been maneuvering between Moscow and the West as much as it is possible to preserve its own “red lines” in terms of national interests, writes Fuad Shahbazov.

In an exclusive interview with commonspace.eu on the margins of his visit this week to The Hague, Georgia's Deputy Foreign Minister, Teimuraz Janjalia reiterated  his country's commitment to the Association Agreement signed with the EU in 2014. "The Association Agreement provides a basis for a strong value-based partnership between EU and Georgia, and we remain firmly committed to it".

"The EU’s reconsideration of its policies towards Armenia and Azerbaijan and its pursuit of a more balanced approach is likely to buttress the EU’s place in the post-war peace process and help it to play a more impactful mediating role", writes Vasif Husseynov in this op-ed. "If successful, this promises to have larger regional, and possibly geopolitical implications, for the South Caucasus, since the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace negotiations have so far been pursued mainly through the sole mediation of Russia".