South Caucasus

The 2023 APRI Forum is taking place at the Marriott Hotel in Yerevan on 25-27 October 2023. More than a hundred participants from Armenia and beyond are participating. Speaking at the event in Yerevan on Thursday, 26 October, LINKS Europe Director, Dr Dennis Sammut, spoke about relations between the European Union and the South Caucasus. He said that since the 1990s EU policy was guided by four pillars: Support for the independence of the three South Caucasus countries; support for peace and the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the region; political and economic stability; and prosperity. Whilst these principles guided EU policy towards the region there was not a comprehensive policy towards the region, mainly because the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict made any sort of regional interaction difficult. Thus whilst there is an EU Strategy towards Central Asia, and towards the Black Sea Region, there is no EU strategy towards the South Caucasus. One of the consequences has been that the EU has mainly been conducting its relations with the three countries bilaterally. Dennis Sammut said that the time has now come to develop a regional approach in EU policy towards the region, and that an eventual Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation of relations will open the way for this to happen. This opportunity needs to be seized. Dennis Sammut said that currently the EU has different contractual relations with the three South Caucasus, and bilateral relations will continue to be important. Speaking about EU Armenia relations, Dennis Sammut said that relations between the Armenian state and Europe were stronger today than they have been since the time of Byzantium. The challenge was to turn this from simply symbolic expressions to tangible co-operation. He said that the EU and Armenia should prioritise four sectors: Institution building; education; innovation and connectivity. Think tanks and civil society need to work to develop tangible ideas on how this work can be taken forward. The speaker warned that recent signs of displeasure in Moscow at the policies of the Armenian government may lead to some actions from Russia to try to put pressure on Armenia, and the EU needs to be ready to stand by Armenia in such circumstances. Dennis Sammut said that EU relations with the South Caucasus in general and with Armenia in particular need to keep in mind three important realities: first, the EU is not the provider of hard security – it is not a military alliance, such as NATO, and what it can provide in areas of security was limited; second the EU was not an ATM: it can provide financial support, as it has done in the past, but expectations of what kind of assistance can be expected need to be managed; third, the EU is not a charity, but a geo-political player. It has its own interests in the South Caucasus and these need to be recognised. A solid relationship is one in which both sides recognise the other’s interests. Dennis Sammut said that increased EU engagement in the South Caucasus may bring a reaction from Russia. Russia has for decades been trying to exclude other international actors from being active in the region. The EU is not interested in excluding anyone, but is not ready to be excluded either.

A meeting with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be held in Brussels in the very near future, but it will not be held before the end of this month as had been previously hoped. This was stated by the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar. Speaking about the state of Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations that are being facilitated by the European Union, Klaar said "We are moving slowly in the right direction". The EUSR for the South Caucasus addressed the forum "Making Progress in time of uncertainty" organised in Yerevan by the Applied Policy Research Institute, Armenia. Klaar spoke to participants on-line from Brussels. In his address Klaar spoke about the reaction of the European Union to events in Nagorno-Karabakh in September and said that the EU had taken a clear position , which was robustly communicated to interested parties. The EU is now calling for conditions to be created for the safe return of Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh. As regards on-going negotiations, Toivo Klaar said that the situation now is qualitatively different. The objective is the normalisation of relations between the sovereign state of Azerbaijan and the sovereign state of Armenia. There is now a window of opportunity to move forward with the objective of normalising relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The signing of a peace treaty is not an aim in itself, but simply an expression of this objective. Klaar said that peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan will have benefit for the whole region, and the aim of the EU was to see the South Caucasus as a place where all countries have normal diplomatic relations, there is movement of people and goods, and the whole region is opened up for economic co-operation. Speaking about Russia, EUSR Klaar said that the EU is not in the business of including and excluding anyone from the South Caucasus. Russia was an important close neighbour of the region and has its interests, as have the EU and the US. Klaar criticised the negative rhetoric coming from Moscow. Toivo Klaar said the EU will continue to support civil society initiatives aimed at promoting trust and confidence across the South Caucasus. He however emphasised that this can never be an alternative to political will on the part of the governments who need to lead by changing official narratives.

The foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Turkey, met in Tehran on Monday 23 October in the second meeting of the 3 + 3 format, which however is only 2 + 3 since the third South Caucasus country, Georgia, refuses to participate in the process because of its problems with Russia. Recently, Turkey and Iran have made statements that they prefer this format of interaction with the South Caucasus countries since it excludes external players. Some Azerbaijani officials have expressed similar views. At the end of their meeting in Tehran, the foreign ministers issued a nine-point statement, in which amongst other things, they said that "expressing their positions on various international issues, they discussed the most important issues in the region and emphasized the importance of such platforms as the regional consultative "3+3" platform to provide opportunities for constructive dialogue and establish mutually beneficial cooperation between the countries of the region". commonspace.eu political editor said that the absence of Georgia in the 3 + 3 format hugely reduces the significance of the initiative since it is difficult to discuss regional issues without that country being present. However, the format is important, particularly for Iran, which has been desperately trying to have a role in the region. For the Turks, this is an opportunity to share a platform with Armenia, even as discussions on the normalisation of relations continue. The meeting between the Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers, on the margins of the main event, was perhaps the most significant event in the one-day diplomatic extravaganza in Tehran. For the Russians, such a meeting has limited use. They would prefer to deal with the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis on their own, separately or together. But given that their monopoly over dealings with the two countries, especially on the issue of normalisation of relations, has now been lost, Moscow wants to make sure it is present whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.

Georgia is a parliamentary republic. The people vote for the members of parliament who then appoint a prime minister. He/She and his/her ministers are the executive authority. The president, with one or two small exceptions is a symbolic head of state, a totem pole for the nation to unite around, much as is a constitutional monarch in say Scandinavia or the Benelux. So when the Georgian government says that President Salome Zurabishvili had no authority to travel to Europe without its permission, and to speak to foreign governments on sensitive foreign policy issues without its permission, they were technically right. Yet, the Georgian government’s decision to push forward the impeachment of President Salome Zurabishvili was not only politically unnecessary, but also counterproductive and wrong. The government knew it was unlikely to succeed with the impeachment given it did not have the necessary numbers in the parliament, but proceeded just the same. It sought the advice of the Constitutional Court, which as predicted, on 16 October ruled that the Constitution had been breached. It then moved the impeachment resolution to the parliament, where it only secured 86, out of the 100 votes necessary. Salome Zurabishvili thus remains the president of Georgia. Yet this act of political folly comes with a diplomatic price. It puts question marks on the wisdom of the current government, and it makes Georgia appear increasingly like a banana republic, hardly fit to become an EU member anytime soon.

Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday, 17 October spoke to the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg addressing important issues of Armenia-EU relations, peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and South Caucasus regional co-operation. commonspace.eu political editor said in a comment that this was one of Pashinyan's most important speeches since he took office as leader of Armenia in 2018. Throughout his speech Pashinyan made reference to "common values" and to "democracy", saying that for Armenia this was a strategic choice, and not a choice dictated by circumstances. Pashinyan said that "Armenia is ready to be closer to the European Union, as much as the European Union considers it possible."  But Pashinyan focused most in his speech on peace in  the South Caucasus and Armenia-Azerbaijan relations. He spoke in detail about the issues under consideration, stating "we are ready to sign a peace and relations settlement agreement with Azerbaijan by the end of the year."