Conflict and Peace

As this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku draws closer, negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to be drifting further apart. Despite hopes that the opposite would be true, a lack of clarity and confusion instead continues to reign. Does the draft Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations contain 17 points or 16? Initially, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had announced that consensus had been reached on 13 points while 3 were partially agreed and there was no agreement at all on a fourth. Since then, official statements and media in Armenia instead refers to 16 points though Yerevan has reportedly ditched the three incomplete articles to make only 13.

The Bonn Contact Group on Climate, Peace and Security ahead of COP29, held its final report presentation on 9 October at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany. The meeting was attended by representatives of Berlin-based civil society organisations, policymakers, academics and international organisations. The meeting focused on three critical reports examining the intersections of climate change with water scarcity, land degradation and food insecurity. The event was organised by LINKS Europe in collaboration with the Restart Initiative and the Candid Foundation. 

On Tuesday (8 October), Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed at the summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to withdraw Russian border guards from the Armenian-Iranian frontier as of January 2025 and replace them with Armenian border guards. In addition, the Turkish border will be guarded by both Russian and Armenian guards.

Alexander Bortnikov, the director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), has claimed that Armenia is postponing peace talks with Azerbaijan in order to deploy a NATO contingent in the South Caucasus, in line with a Western agenda. These remarks have been refuted by Peter Stano, a spokesman for the European External Action Service (EEAS). Stano claims that the West strongly supports the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan and has no intention of establishing a NATO presence in the region.  

The US Helsinki Commission on Tuesday (1 October) published an analysis of Russia's political and economic agenda. The document addresses, among other things, various developments in the South Caucasus. The region is experiencing various political shifts as Russia's material influence wanes due to its focus on its war with Ukraine. On the one hand. Armenia was once one of Russia's strongest allies. However, following the Nagorno Karabakh war in 2020, Armenia has moved away from Moscow and more towards a Western agenda. On the other hand, Azerbaijan has adopted a cooperative approach with Russia, especially given the similarities between the two countries' strong governmental grip.   

Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian ex-official of the self-declared Nagorno Karabakh administration, was arrested and imprisoned along with other top Karabakh officials during Baku's recapture of Nagorno Karabakh in September 2023. On Thursday (3 October), Vardanyan's lawyers filed a lawsuit in Baku for alleged torture and denial of a speedy trial. 

NATO's new Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv on Thursday (3 October). It is Rutte's first working trip since officially taking office earlier this week. Earlier, Rutte announced that Ukraine's NATO membership would be one of the spearheads of his policy.

The Israeli army has begun 'limited, localised and targeted attacks' on Hezbollah targets in the border area of southern Lebanon, the army announced in a statement overnight Monday to Tuesday. Soldiers on the ground will be supported by the Israeli Air Force.

The Armenian government plans to increase military spending by about 20 per cent, equivalent to 110 billion drams (about $286 million). According to the proposed state budget for 2025, the Ministry of Defence will receive 664.6 billion drams (about $1.7 billion). Military expert Leonid Nersisyan, a researcher at the Armenian analytical centre APRI, describes this defence spending as unprecedented. However, he points out that despite the increased budget, Yerevan still lags far behind Baku in terms of military spending. Military spending remains lower than social spending in the state budget. Although the gap in military spending between Armenia and Azerbaijan is narrowing, with Armenia now trailing by a factor of two instead of five or six as it did in 2013, the difference remains significant.