South Caucasus

For the first time in decades, in the South Caucasus there is a new hope for peace. In separate articles for our sister website, Karabakhspace.eu, Benyamin Poghosyan and Vasif Huseynov discuss recent developments, including the emerging role of Georgia as a trusted intermediary.

Saakashvili remains popular with some segments of Georgian society, particularly in Western Georgia. Thousands travelled to Tbilisi to participate in the rally. However many Georgians have negative memories of Saakashvili's presidency and do not want to see his return to public office.

The conference ‘Overcoming the challenges of landmines in Azerbaijan’s quest for peace, development and reconstruction’ was held on Tuesday, 12 October 2021. The event was organised in the framework of the 2021 campaign, ‘Landmine Free South Caucasus’ by LINKS Europe, in association with the Caucasus Policy Analysis Centre, with the participation of ANAMA, the State Demining Agency of Azerbaijan.

After his visit to Baku at the end of September, Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili this weekend paid a working visit to Armenia for meetings with his Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinyan. According to the website of the Georgian Government, the initiative was at the centre of the discussions in Yerevan between the two prime ministers. Garibashvili reaffirmed the readiness of Georgia to continue its active facilitation role in order to ensure peace, stability and the gradual transformation of the South Caucasus into a region of new opportunities, development and peace.

For 30 years, Iran has adopted a cautious approach to developments in the South Caucasus, wary of the risk of encirclement. Iran's current massive military drills on the border with Azerbaijan are meant to send a signal that Tehran has its red lines too, argues Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed for commonspace.eu

Results are coming in from local elections held in Georgia on Saturday, 2 October and it appears that the country is split in half between those supporting the ruling Georgian Dream party and others supporting opposition parties. Elections will have to go to a second round because none of the contestants secured the necessary 50% in the Mayoral elections five self-governing major cities: Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Poti and Rustavi.

Georgians are voting on Saturday (2 October) in local elections to elect 64 mayors and city councils, including the capital, Tbilisi. There are 3,513,884 voters. The vote is being seen as an expression of confidence or otherwise in the ruling Georgian Dream (GD)government that has been in power in Georgia since 2012.

A regional seminar with the theme “Regional Co-operation as a step towards peace in the South Caucasus” was held in Kachreti in Eastern Georgia on Friday 1 October 2021. Experts and officials from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan attended the event which was hosted by LINKS Europe and the Levan Mikeladze Diplomatic Training and Research Institute of the Georgian Foreign Ministry.

The meeting identified several practical ideas for possible confidence-building measures, and agreed to work to further elaborate them. For this purpose three working groups and three contact groups were created.