South Caucasus

The Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili and the President of the European Council Charles Michel met in Brussels on Tuesday (25 April) to review Georgia's progress towards membership of the EU. According to a press release from the Georgian government, "Irakli Garibashvili briefed the President of the European Council about Georgia’s efforts toward fulfilling the European Commission’s 12 priorities and pointed out that, in this process, the authorities maintain continuous consultations with EU institutions and member states, also the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR." Garibashvili also stressed the importance of granting Georgia candidate status by the end of the year because "a large portion of the recommendations has been fulfilled". The Georgian Prime Minister also argued that EU-Georgia Association Agreement, the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU, visa-free travel, and the recently granted European perspective "demonstrate Georgia’s progress toward European integration". 

The last two weeks have seen missed opportunities for the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, and for the Georgian government to establish facts and proving the truth over the US sanctioning of four Georgian judges, writes commonspace.eu in this editorial. Instead of building trust and confidence, the burning of the Azerbaijani flag at the European Weightlifting Championships in Yerevan "further entrenched the enemy imagery". Meanwhile in Georgia, "by obstructing the establishment of a parliamentary investigative commission to assess the US accusations against Georgian judges, the Georgian government missed an opportunity to deal openly and transparently with what is clearly a very sensitive and controversial issue."

Another serious incident between Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces happened on Tuesday (11 April) in the border area of Tegh, resulting in several Armenian and Azerbaijani servicemen being killed or injured. In Armenia, as in Azerbaijan, someone lost a son; someone lost a husband; someone lost a father. One can argue about who started, who shot first, and why. The truth is that incidents like this are going to continue happening for as long as the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaderships do not finish what they started, and take the necessary steps to normalise relations between them. Normalisation leading to peace, leading eventually to co-operation, is the endgame that both sides have publicly committed to. But the process continues to drag on as both sides remain attached to maximalist or unattainable positions. This state of affairs can drag on for a long time to come unless there is a resolute political will to move forward. And in the meantime, young Armenians and young Azerbaijanis die on a regular basis. Let’s be clear, every casualty is a sign of the failure of the political leadership, and declaring the victims heroes is not enough.