South Caucasus

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are meeting on Thursday 10 July in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to discuss the next steps in finalising the peace agreement, their offices have confirmed to international news agencies. This is the first formal bilateral meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan since they agreed on the draft text of the peace agreement, following nearly four decades of conflict. The results of this meeting will shape the future of the South Caucasus and how the two countries can live peacefully next to each other after decades of conflict.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has called for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Georgia in a declaration adopted during the Assembly’s 32nd annual session held in Porto, Portugal on 3 July. The declaration expressed alarm over the developments since the parliamentary elections held on 26 October last year including reports of arbitrary detentions, violence and ill-treatment of protesters, opposition leaders and media representatives, as documented by civil society organizations and the Public Defender of Georgia. The declaration also called for new elections to be held in Georgia.

The animosity between Armenians and Azerbaijanis runs deep. The two nations fought many battles against each other. In the wars of the last forty years, tens of thousands of people were killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, and billions of euros were lost in economic harm. On Thursday, 13 March 2025, the two sides finally announced that they had agreed on the text of a peace agreement. The agreement will be signed soon. Within societies, on both sides, there are expectations of what this peace will bring. There is also a sense of uncertainty and confusion, which is being used by spoilers, internal and external. A dialogue involving different segments of society, is now more important than ever. But this dialogue needs to have new characteristics to respond to new realities. LINKS Europe, an organisation that has been involved in many peace initiatives in the South Caucasus in the past, is currently engaged in such a process. It recently launched a new Armenia-Azerbaijan dialogue format in the framework of the European Union's EU4Peace initiative. In the last two weeks, dozens of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, including academics, students, civil society activists, journalists and other professionals, many of them young, were involved. The work is organised in five thematic groups focusing on peace and security, connectivity, environment, governance and gender and equality and in phase 2 of the project, which has just ended, around fifty participants took part in in-person and online meetings, and more than twenty others were involved indirectly. The Chairpersons of the five thematic groups met in Vilnius, 3-6 July to launch the third phase of the program.

The governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have recently agreed the text of a historic peace agreement that ends years of animosity and warfare. The agreement is expected to be signed soon. LINKS Europe, which has a long history of engagement with the process of peace in the region, recently launched a new Armenia-Azerbaijan dialogue format in the framework of the European Union's EU4Peace initiative. In the last two weeks dozens of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, including academics, students, civil society activists, journalists and other professionals, many of them young, were involved. The work is organised in five thematic groups focusing on peace and security, connectivity, environment, governance and gender and equality and in phase 2 of the project, which has just ended, around fifty participants took part in in-person and online meetings, and more than twenty others were involved indirectly. The Chairpersons of the five thematic groups met in Vilnius, 3-6 July to launch the third phase of the program. The five thematic groups are now working on separate reports, which are expected to be finished in November and presented to the two governments and other stakeholders. The reports will outline a vision, up to 2040.

In Mackinder’s terminology, Eurasia is the heartland of geopolitics and the South Caucasus, though small in economic terms compared to the surrounding major powers, constitutes the heart of that heartland. No major power can afford to ignore or neglect it. Strategically located at the crossroads of East and West and being the only region that borders two most controversial actors of Eurasia (Russia and Iran), control over the South Caucasus equates to control over a vital part of the Eurasian continent. This is why the region’s geopolitical orientation carries immense significance, particularly amid the evolving landscape of international relations shaped by the war in Ukraine and the recent escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel in the southern neighborhood. Today, the geopolitics of the South Caucasus is in flux, and most importantly, this transition has now reached to the most important nation-state of the region: Azerbaijan.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas has ended her official visit to Armenia after signing a partnership agreement with authorities in Yerevan. Following talks with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, a joint press conference was held in which the media was briefed about an agreement outlining Armenia’s participation in the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy crisis management operations. According to Kallas, the document envisions Armenia’s participation in EU missions around the world.