Armenia’s recent general election saw Prime Minister Nikolai Pashinyan return to office with a substantially increased majority. Instinctively a moderate and pragmatic voice, Pashinyan has in the past found himself having to make concessions to his own ‘ultras’ whose only vision for their nation is one of isolation and eternal grievance against Turkey.
A certain part of Russian society has a somewhat skewed picture of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, which found its just and logical resolution in the fall of 2020, and the sympathies of some ordinary Russian citizens sometimes lie with the Armenian side. There are several reasons for this.
Pan-Turkism is seeing a revival as an increasingly ambitious Turkey asserts its influence in the post-Soviet world, setting off alarm bells in Moscow in particular.
Following the Second Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Turkey’s support for the latter in that conflict, Ankara has been pushing for Baku to become more involved in Turkish geopolitical plays.
The November 2020 and January 2021 declarations of the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia called for the unfreezing of transportation routes including most importantly the one between Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan’s non-contiguous autonomy, Nakhichevan, and between Armenia and Iran.
2020 was a tumultuous year in the South Caucasus region that saw a widespread of COVID-19 pandemic and a new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On July 27, the parliamentary speakers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan signed a strategic partnership document—the “Baku Declaration”—in Baku, Azerbaijan, which creates a new format for political cooperation between the three states.
On Saturday (!), August 14, 2021, President of Poland Andrzej Duda signed the “restitution law”. Whether it was a deliberate act or a coincidence, but it was on a day sacred for the Jewish people that the surviving prisoners of Nazi death camps, as well as descendants of the six million Holocaust victims, who live today across a vast territory from Canada to Australia, found out that Poland took away their right to compensation and reclamation of the property confiscated from their families in the Holocaust and after the war.
Armenia-Azerbaijan relations are again getting dangerously tense, argues Vasif Huseynov in this opinion piece for KarabakhSpace.eu. “It is therefore urgent for the international community to take all possible measures to ensure the implementation of the ceasefire accord of 10 November 2020 and bring the sides to the negotiations table.”
People tried to manipulate each other since ancient times, and various methods were used for these purposes, such as fear of curses, natural forces, higher powers (gods, religion), or deliberate spread of rumors/false information, in order to mislead the opponents or strike terror into their hearts, etc.
Geopolitical self-interest has no place when it comes to true peace-making. Armenia and Azerbaijan are learning that the hard way.
The Azerbaijani authorities held a groundbreaking ceremony on July 1 for the planned Alat Free Economic Zone (AFEZ), which will be linked to the new Baku International Seaport also under construction near the village of Alat, around 50 miles south of the capital of Baku.
On July 28, The United States’ House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 Foreign Aid Bill proposed by Congressional Armenian Caucus co-chair Frank Pallone to restrict US foreign military financing and training assistance to Azerbaijan.
Baku's over-reliance on oil has long been acknowledged, but the Covid-19 pandemic has only served to highlight the urgent need to diversity its economy.
One of the most important consequences of the November 2020 and January 2021 joint Armenian-Azerbaijan-Russian declarations ending the latest round of fighting between Yerevan and Baku was a commitment to the reopening of transportation corridors in the South Caucasus region.
The Russian government has taken two steps clearly intended not to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict all its claims to the contrary but rather to freeze the situation there in a status quo that will make it impossible to realize the November and January declarations but allow Moscow to continue to play one side against the other.
Azerbaijan’s belief in the values of international cooperation and multilateralism became the driving force behind its chairmanship of NAM, which, although originally set to run from 2019–2022, was recently extended by one more year, until 2023.
Following the so-called ‘44-Day War’ in late 2020 between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the conflicting parties lodged inter-State applications to the European Court of Human Rights (Court) alleging various breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights (European Convention) and international humanitarian law.
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War beginning on September 27, 2020, and terminating on November 10 due to a fourth, Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement, resulted in a historic sea-change in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict itself and has major implications for the international relations of both countries.
Whilst the EU is seen as a valuable partner for Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus, Baku has several concerns over perceived inconsistencies. In this op-ed, Vasif Huseynov says Azerbaijan welcomes Brussels playing a more active role in the region but argues that it must maintain balance in its relations with each of the countries.
Public activity is fraught with worries about the popularity ratings. Along with theorizing and practicing many ideas, actors within the public arena have to make sure they do not become an object of ridicule. Many a popular figure with a solid baggage of dividends has turned into an antihero overnight just because of one blunder.
Macron introduced the so-called "passe sanitaire", a Covid-19 health pass: starting in August, people will not be allowed into bars, restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes, trains and planes without one. Another measure makes vaccination mandatory for health workers. The people of France responded with mass protests.
Arya Aminipour, a literature student and linguaphile from northwest Tabriz city, speaks his mother tongue of Azeri-Turkish as fluently as he does Persian, Iran’s official language.
Azerbaijan and Israel enjoy strong relations underpinned by several factors, including security, trade, tourism and humanitarian cooperation. Israel is one of the main suppliers of the modern weapons that performed so well during the recent 44-days war when, in fall 2020, Azerbaijan managed to liberate its territories that were formerly occupied by Armenia.
