South Caucasus

"Recent developments underpinning the peace efforts are not insignificant, and were truly unimaginable a few years ago", writes Vasif Huseynov in this op-ed. Yet, the recent "series of events runs the risk of transforming the peace process into  a 'one step forward, two steps backward' ritual,  indefinitely delaying the negotiations. This  trend should be countered by all means possible. It  needs to be seriously  taken into account by the European Union  whilst exercising its efforts to bring the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to  the negotiating table", he adds.

July 2022 saw the 19th edition of what has become a staple event in the Georgian cultural calendar. Founded in 2003 by artists Tamar Melikishvili and Giorgi Baramidze, musicians Zaza Korinteli and Niaz Diasamidze, sculptor Nika Anjaparidze, and photographer Maria Lanevski, the Art-Gene music and crafts festival has played a huge role in reviving Georgia’s now thriving traditional cultural scene since its dog days of the early 2000s. Looking forward to Art-Gene’s 20th anniversary next year, commonspace.eu’s Deputy Editor Patrick Norén spoke to Tamar Melikishvili about Art-Gene’s origins, ethos, community, and future. Melikshvili told commonspace.eu that ‘if a country keeps and loves its own culture, it will become very open and interested in the culture of other countries. The world is nice because we are so different, but we also make one big picture, like a painter. When I am working on the canvas, all of these different moods and colours become one symphony, and that is what makes the picture interesting.’

Since 1992, the OSCE Minsk Group had the mandate to facilitate a resolution of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Their failure to do so and the fact that there is no agreement between the parties in the conflict on its future role in the changed situation after the 2020 war leaves this process without any legitimacy, argues Vasif Huseynov in this op-ed. "The calls of the French and American representatives to give a second chance to the Minsk Group are perceived in Baku as more of geopolitical nature rather than as an honest attempt to contribute to the peace efforts", he argues.