The September 25 independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan highlighted two important implications for the Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. First, official reactions from Baku and Yerevan have been noticeably cautious. Second, recent debates in Armenia and Azerbaijan have focused on whether the notional independence... MORE

The United States’ ambassador to Yerevan, Richard M. Mills, praised the participation of an Armenian unit in the US-led Noble Partner 2017 exercise, held on July 30 to August 12, in Georgia, along with Georgian, British, German, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian military forces. Ambassador Mills... MORE

The unprecedented escalation of violence, in April 2016, on the Line of Contact in the breakaway region of Karabakh had, in part, kick-started a new round of military preparations between Armenia and Azerbaijan (see EDM, April 6, May 5, 2016). But as bloody incidents along... MORE

The competition between two rail corridor projects in the South Caucasus—the north-south one, long promoted by Moscow, and the east-west one backed by China, Central Asia and the West—has been intensifying. Recently, one Armenian analyst has gone so far as to speak about the outbreak... MORE

On July 14, Russia’s State Duma (the parliament’s lower chamber) adopted a law, which allows citizens of countries where the Russian language has a constitutionally accepted official status—Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan—to work in Russia as drivers without having to exchange their national driver’s license. Leonid... MORE

In mid-June, the CEO of Russia’s gas monopolist Gazprom, Alexei Miller, paid a spontaneous visit to Yerevan, where he met with Armenia’s Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan. Official information about the meeting is rather scarce. Besides mutually exchanged compliments, reports mention plans for the exploitation of... MORE

On June 13–14, the European Union and Azerbaijan held another round of talks on the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA). Those ongoing discussions were first inaugurated on February 6, with the official visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Brussels. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)... MORE

The Georgian coastal city of Batumi hosted, on May 23, a trilateral meeting of the defense ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia (Azertac, May 23). This trilateral cooperation format was inaugurated in 2012, during a ministerial meeting in Trabzon, Turkey. As expected, a new military... MORE

With Azerbaijan and Pakistan currently pursuing a strategic partnership (see EDM, September 28, 2016; December 15, 2016), Armenia and India have decided to step up their cooperation across several dimensions. Indeed, the past six months were marked by a visible reinvigoration of Armenian-Indian bilateral ties,... MORE

The trial related to the most shocking crime committed in Armenia in recent years—the murder of a family of seven, including two babies, by a Russian soldier stationed at the 102nd military base at Gyumri (see EDM, January 16, 2015; January 30, 2015)—has reached a... MORE