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2nd South Caucasus Dialogue Forum held successfully in Tbilisi. Next forum will be held in Yerevan and after that in Baku

2nd South Caucasus Dialogue Forum held successfully in Tbilisi. Next forum will be held in Yerevan and after that in Baku

The 2nd South Caucasus Dialogue Forum was successfully held in the Georgian Capital, Tbilisi, on Tuesday, 28 October 2025, with the participation of over seventy experts, activists, diplomats and journalists from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and from a dozen European countries and organisations. The forum is an initiative of LINKS Europe, working with partners across the South Caucasus. This year's forum was special because of the participation of around forty Armenian and Azerbaijanis members of the Thematic Groups for a new Armenian-Azerbaijani Dialogue.  The 2nd South Caucasus Dialogue Forum provided for a very thorough and interesting discussion of current developments in the region. In the Forum the Armenian and Azerbaijani members were also joined by Georgian participants, as well as representatives of the EUSR Office, EUMA and Ambassadors and diplomats from around ten European countries. Also actively participating were the members of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Expert Strategic Platform. During the Forum it was announced that the 3rd Forum will be held in Yerevan in 2026, whilst the 4th Forum will be held in Baku is 2027, accompanying the process and meetings of the European Political Community, which are also expected to be held in the two countries in 2026/7. It was also announced that the members of the Strategic Expert Platform, working under the auspices of LINKS Europe (Dr Dennis Sammut, Chair, Dr Anar Veliyev, Mr Ramazan Samadov and Mr Mehman Aliyev (members Azerbaijan); Mr Stepan Grigoryan, Mr Benyamin Poghosyan and Mr Johnny Melikyan, members Armenia;) shall form the Political Preparatory Committee for the two events.

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Editorial: Armenia-Azerbaijan talks are down to the nitty-gritty

Editorial: Armenia-Azerbaijan talks are down to the nitty-gritty

After months of diplomacy by e-mail, Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Washington DC in the first week of May for negotiations led by the foreign ministers of the two countries, with the United States providing facilitation and support, writes commonspace.eu in this editorial. The presence of US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, at the opening of the talks, raised expectations that the talks may be conclusive. They were not, but enough progress was made for Blinken to return for the closing session, telling his guests that the US appreciated that the last bit of any negotiating process was going to be the most difficult. "The temptation to draw out the ongoing situation for many more months, with the hope that time is on their side, has big risks. Unplanned incidents still have the capacity to escalate quickly and spiral out of control, feeding on the existing level of mistrust. The violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan reported this morning (11 May) is a case in point. So in many ways this is the moment of truth, even if some would argue that we have been here before. Somehow however this time it feels different, even if the nitty-gritty problems have not gone away," they add.
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Russia lifts ban on flights to Georgia, removes visa restrictions for Georgian citizens

Russia lifts ban on flights to Georgia, removes visa restrictions for Georgian citizens

On Wednesday (10 May), Russian President Vladimir Putin signed two separate decrees lifting a ban on flights to Georgia, and abolishing visas for Georgian citizens. From 15 March, Georgian nationals will be allowed to enter Russia without visas for up to 90 days. Lifting the ban on flights reverses a 2019 decision in which the Kremlin banned air traffic with Georgia following a wave of anti-Kremlin protests there. After President Putin signed the decrees, the Russian Foreign Ministry also released a statement reversing its 2019 advice against Russian citizens travelling to Georgia. The statement added that Putin's decrees "are in line with our principled approach of consistently facilitating the conditions for communication and contacts between the citizens of Russia and Georgia, despite the absence of diplomatic relations". Later, Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti reported that the Georgian Deputy Minister of the Economy and Sustainable Development Mariam Kvrivishvili said that Georgia would issue permits for direct flights to non-sanctioned airlines, before adding that authorities were yet to receive any such requests from Russian airlines.