Conflict and Peace

Badra Gunba has won a presidential election in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, state media said on Sunday, months after his predecessor was driven from office following protests over an investment deal with Russia. Gunba, currently acting President, took almost 55 per cent of the vote in Saturday's election in the Russia-backed territory, ahead of opposition leader Adgur Ardzinba on just under 42 per cent, Abkhazian state news agency Apsnypress reported, citing preliminary results from the electoral commission. Reports indicate that 70 per cent of the population took part in the elections - 100,412 people.

The past five years have marked a growing Gulf economic presence in the South Caucasus. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have expanded their regional footprint through equity investments in Azerbaijan and Georgia’s transport and renewable energy sectors. Armenia has been a weak link in interregional chains due to conflict with Azerbaijan and its isolation from regional connectivity frameworks. Yet recently, Yerevan managed to establish profitable trade links to the Gulf, largely thanks to Western sanctions on Russia. The South Caucasus trio sees financial flows from the Gulf as necessary for successful economic diversification. For the Gulf countries, the South Caucasus provides an alternative market for strategic investments, which aligns with their long-term goals of projecting geo-economic influence and boosting trade.

Speaking at a press conference after the 4th Meeting of EU-Armenia Parliamentary Partnership Committee in Yerevan, MEP Nils Ušakovs said that the process of Armenia’s accession to the European Union will require significant reforms over a long time. Ušakovs, co-chair of the committee, said that the reforms will strengthen the country and enable it to make more confident decisions regarding its future.

The US has twice sided with Russia in votes at the United Nations to mark the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the Trump administration's change of stance on the war. First the US opposed a European-drafted resolution condemning Moscow's actions and supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity, voting the same way as Russia and countries including North Korea and Belarus at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. Then the US drafted and voted for a resolution at the UN Security Council which called for an end to the conflict but contained no criticism of Russia. The Security Council passed the resolution but two key US allies, the UK and France, abstained after their attempts to amend the wording were vetoed.

When Nikol Pashinyan embarked on a march from Gyumri to Yerevan at the end of March 2018 to prevent then President Serzh Sargsyan from clinging onto power, few believed he would succeed. Pashinyan was joined by a small group of allies as they made their way to the Armenian capital. Against all odds, Pashinyan’s gambit worked and is the country's premier today. For those that have followed his career to date, that shouldn't have come as a surprise.

The Italian Senate has adopted a resolution supporting the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, calling on the government of Italy to strengthen its commitment for both countries to abandon the use of force in the future and maintain peaceful, constructive and open dialogue. The resolution titled ‘On Initiatives to Support the Peace Process Between Armenia and Azerbaijan’ was adopted unanimously on the 19th of February.

The occupation and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts in the early 1990s by the armed forces of Armenia involved immeasurable atrocities and extreme violence. Realizing that more than 700,000 people in the region would not easily flee their homes, Armenian leaders resorted to force. The ethnic cleansing carried out by the Armenian armed forces resulted in numerous humanitarian tragedies over the years, but the most devastating was the massacre of civilians in Khojaly, a town in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, in the bitterly cold morning of February 26, 1992.

The United States and Russia agreed in Riyadh on Tuesday to press ahead with efforts to end the war in Ukraine, a US official said, as Kyiv and its European allies watched anxiously from the sidelines and Moscow raised a major new demand. US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the two sides agreed to appoint "respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides".

Armenian passport control at the Bagratashen border checkpoint was confused and chaotic, quite unlike the experience on the other side at Sadakhlo in Georgia. Instead of the few minutes it should have taken, it took over twenty. It never had in the past. Perhaps preparations for a visit by the European Union delegation taking place just a few days later to develop a much anticipated Visa Liberalisation Action Plan (VLAP) had preoccupied them.