South Caucasus

President Vladimir Putin of Russia travelled to the Armenian capital Yerevan on Wednesday for a meeting of the heads of state and government of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). At Yerevan airport Putin was welcomed by Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, with who he held discussions soon  after on the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh.  Apart from Putin and Pashinyan also attending the summit are the leaders of the other four CSTO members,   Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the situation in Afghanistan and Ukraine dominated the talks. A report on the Kremlin website said that a number of documents were agreed. At the end of the meeting the chairmanship of the CSTO for the next year passed on from Armenia to Belarus.

Prof. Dr. Nikoloz Samkharadze is the Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament of Georgia. On 21 November 2022, during his visit to The Hague, Prof. Dr. Samkharadze spoke to commonspace.eu about Georgia's Euro-Atlantic trajectory, the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, Georgia's relations with Russia and Ukraine, and recent successes in Georgian rugby. On the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, Prof. Dr. Samkharadze says, "Georgia has a very big asset in its hands, and this is trust and credibility in both the Azeri and Armenian capitals. Georgia is equally respected in Yerevan and in Baku, and equally trusted by Yerevan and Baku. And no other player around us, no big regional power, has the same trust and credibility. This is very important in the South Caucasus. As you know, we came up with the Peaceful Caucasus initiative, and this initiative is supported by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Recently we have had very productive visits of high-level Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations in Georgia, and I believe that there is room for reaching a comprehensive peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We will do our most, we will facilitate, we will mediate, because it is in Georgia’s interests to finally have long-lasting peace and stability in the region. I believe that our partners in Yerevan and Baku also know that we don’t have any hidden agenda other than having peace and stability in the South Caucasus. So we will play a very active role despite the fact that some of our neighbours might not like our activity in that regard."

Over the last year multiple formats have emerged in Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations, and three main external players: Russia, the EU and the US are involved in the mediation process. This may lead to some confusion, says Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed for commonspace.eu. Big power rivalry may also negatively impact the process. Poghosyan argues some co-ordinating mechanism is necessary, and a format, at least involving Russia and the EU, could also help to combine their efforts.

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on Monday hosted at Blair House in Washington DC, talks with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan and foreign minister Bayramov. The ministers exchanged views on the elements of a possible peace agreement, noting that there were a number of outstanding issues. Both sides reaffirmed the commitments made by the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia at the meetings held on October 6 in Prague and October 31 in Sochi. Bayramov and Mirzoyan also agreed to speed up negotiations and hold another meeting in the coming weeks. Both ministers thanked the American side for hosting the peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Making the South Caucasus free from landmines and other explosive remnants of war must remain a priority. "2023 should be a turning point in the efforts in this direction", writes Dennis Sammut in this week's Monday commentary on commonspace.eu. More awareness of the problem within the three countries, more commitment and better leadership by the international community, and increased understanding of the provisions of the 'Ottawa convention' are important steps that need to be taken. In the meantime the issue of landmines and other explosive remnants of war should not be instrumentalised for short-term political gain. This is everyone's problem and a regional approach is the best way to tackle it going forward. The launch of this year's regional campaign 'Landmine Free South Caucasus' on 30 November should help focus attention on these issues.

Dr Stepan Grigoryan, the Chairman of the Board of the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation, is a respected analyst and opinion-shaper in Yerevan who has over many years been a moderate voice in what has often been a toxic inter-Armenian debate on the prospects for peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in the wider region. He spoke to commonspace.eu in Tbilisi on 22 October 2022 about the current state of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, recent events surrounding it, and prospects for the future. Speaking about the current political situation in Armenia Stepan Grigoryan said "We have a strong civil society, active NGOs and active experts, and they act like pillars of independence in Armenia. And this civil society also criticises Nikol Pashinyan, but they are trying to help him. Yes, I myself am sometimes not happy with what Nikol Pashinyan is doing, but I try to help him with my advice, with my publications, with my speeches. So in Armenia one should not only look at the political field - which is polarised - but civil society too. We shouldn’t think that we have an ideal government, they have made many mistakes, but they really want peace."

"After a long pause, on October 31, Russia brought together the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in a meeting mediated by President Vladimir Putin in the Russian resort town of Sochi. Over the past year, ever since the November 26, 2021 summit in Sochi, Russia’s initiatives  in support of a peace process between the two South Caucasus republics did not  give results, while the major mediating role in the process was taken over by the European Union", writes Vasif Huseynov in this op-ed for commonspace.eu. The document shared following the trilateral meeting did not contain any provisions concerning critical issues such as the future of Nagorno-Karabakh or the Russian peacekeeping force in the region. "How will the the peace talks unfold in the immediate future, especially considering that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are supposed to meet in Brussels this month in accordance with the results of August 31 summit", asks Vasif Huseynov.

The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, on Monday (31 October) hosted in Sochi the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and president Ilham Aliyev. Putin met separately with the two leaders, before hosting a two-hour trilateral meeting to discuss the current state of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations. The highly choreographed meetings in the grand settings of the Kremlin's summer residence in Sochi did not, it seems, result in the expectations that the Russian leader had of the sessions. After concluding the discussions only Putin made press comments, saying that they could not agree on many issues, but that he still felt that the meeting was "useful". The Russian president said that many elements that had been included in the draft of the statement prepared by the experts had to be deleted. In the joint written statement eventually issued at the end of the meeting, the three leaders touched upon the current state of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, and the role of Russia. The statement appeared to endorse most of what was included in the Prague statement of 6 October 2022 between the president of the European Council, the president of France and the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The statement appeared to give a nod to a continuing Russian military force in Nagorno-Karabakh, and spoke about dialogue between representatives of societies.

For many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of the newly independent successor states, Russian diplomats counselled their western colleagues on the business of dealing with the people of the Caucasus, and their politics. They often described the Caucasians as the "excitable people of the South", who needed a special kind of handling, and only Russians knew how to do it. It was a Soviet version of "orientalism" that still lingers among the current Russian elite. Putin’s handling of the 2nd Karabakh War - and the subsequent steps he took to establish the post-war order in the region - was very much in this vein. Russia rushed troops to Karabakh to keep the peace, and Russia was to be involved at every stage and in every corner of building a post-war order. There was no space left for others to contribute to this process, except for some general reference to a UN role in providing humanitarian aid. Well content that the excitable people of the South had been calmed down, President Putin turned his attention to other matters – namely what for him were the less excitable, but no less irritable people on the western frontier, the Ukrainians.