Diplomacy

Liechtenstein's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Education and Sports Dominique Hasler is making her first official visit to Georgia from Sunday (11 June) to Tuesday (13 June). Immediately after arriving on Sunday, Hasler visited Odzisi, the closest village to the administrative line separating Russian-occupied South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia "to get acquainted with the ongoing situation in areas adjacent to the line", according to agenda.ge. The First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Lasha Darsalia, accompanied Hasler to the occupation line. On Monday (12 June), Hasler also met with her Georgian counterpart Ilia Darchiashvili, as well as with the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, and the Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Garibashvili. Describing Hasler's first official visit to Georgia as "historic", Darchiashvili highlighted the two states had potential to further strengthen economic ties through Georgia’s agreements via the European Free Trade Association, of which Liechtenstein - the six smallest country in the world - is a member. 

Intense diplomatic efforts over the last month are a good reflection of a sustained determination on the part of Armenia and Azerbaijan to bring their decades-old conflict to an end, and sign a peace agreement, writes commonspace.eu. Meetings between president Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and prime minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia were held in Brussels on 15 May, with the mediation of EU Council president Charles Michel. The three leaders met again on 1 June in Chisinau, this time also with the participation of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Aliyev and Pashinyan met, together with president Putin of Russia, in Moscow on 25 May. And on 4 June the leaders of both Armenia and Azerbaijan were in Ankara for the inauguration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s new term in office, where they also met informally. The next formal meeting is now set to be held in July in Brussels. A lot is also going on behind the scenes with European and American envoys travelling in the region.

Interior ministers from the European Union's 27 member states reached a deal on the bloc's migration policy yesterday (8 June) after some 12 hours of negotiations at a meeting in Luxembourg. The agreement outlines how responsibility for looking after migrants and refugees who arrive in the EU without authorisation is shared out among member states, a topic which has been the source of much disagreement since 2015, when well over 1 million migrants and refugees entered the EU, many of them fleeing the war in Syria. Under the deal agreed yesterday and set to be finalised ahead of a 2024 EU election, each country would be responsible for a set number of people, but would not necessarily have to take them in. Countries unwilling to receive irregular migrants and refugees arriving ad hoc to the EU would be able to help their hosting peers through cash - around 20,000 euros per person - equipment or personnel, reports Reuters. The agreement would introduce a new expedited border procedure for those deemed unlikely to win asylum to prevent them from lingering inside the bloc for years.

Iran has reopened its embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday (6 June), the Saudi outlet Al Arabiya reported on Tuesday. The agreement to reopen embassies in each other's respective capitals was struck on 10 March in Beijing, re-establishing diplomatic ties that had been broken for years. You can read more about the 10 March agreement here. “We consider today an important day in the relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Bigdeli told a flag-raising ceremony, adding that “the cooperation between the countries is entering a new era.” At a meeting with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Cape Town last Friday (2 June), Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian expressed satisfaction with the "good progress made in bilateral ties". The two foreign ministers were meeting in South Africa on the sidelines of the “Friends of BRICS” summit. The next BRICS summit between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will take place in Johannesburg in August. Meanwhile, the opening of the Iranian consulate in Jeddah is expected to take place on Wednesday (7 June).

The second summit of the European Political Community (EPC) is taking place today in Moldova (Thursday 1 June). During the summit, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will meet with European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The brainchild of Emmanuel Macron, the European Political Community's first summit took place in Prague, in October 2022. The EPC says that it is "a platform for political coordination among European countries across the continent," adding that it "aims to promote political dialogue and cooperation to address issues of common interest and to strengthen the security, stability, and prosperity of the European continent." The EPC says that there are three main topics expected to be addressed by the 47 member states, which include every European country except Russia and Belarus. Those three topics are: joint efforts for peace and security; energy resilience and climate action; and interconnections in Europe for a better connected and more stable continent.