Following mid-November’s bloody terrorist attacks in Paris and the ongoing international campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and northern Iraq, Georgian authorities have grown increasingly concerned about the security situation in the Pankisi Gorge area, which is located on the border with the Russian... MORE

On October 31, Georgia held by-elections for two vacant parliamentary seats in the districts of Martvili and Sagarejo (Channel 1, Rustavi 2, Civil Georgia, October 31). The by-elections did not have much significance from an electoral perspective, since even if the ruling Georgian Dream (GD)... MORE

The leader of Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev, arrived in Georgia, on November 5, for a two-day official visit (Vestnik Kavkaza, November 5). This was Aliyev’s first trip to Tbilisi in a decade, and the talks he held there with Georgian officials were particularly tense. Cooperation... MORE

The ongoing political and legal stand-off between the Georgian government and the opposition over the ownership of the Rustavi 2 TV channel (Rustavi 2, Media.ge, October 2; see EDM, October 26) has become even more tense as new wiretapped recordings surfaced on October 29. The... MORE

Georgian prosecutors have questioned the head of the Rustavi 2 TV channel, Nika Gvaramia, in connection to his accusations of government pressure on his company (Civil Georgia, October 22). Gvaramia had claimed that a certain businessman, Aleksi Akhvlediani, told him on behalf of the government... MORE

The wider South Caucasus region is conspicuously located between the battlefields of Syria and the Caspian Sea. Therefore, Russia’s use of cruise missiles, launched (on October 7) by ships belonging to its Caspian Flotilla, to hit targets in Syria had inadvertently put the region briefly... MORE

For the last several weeks, political life in Tbilisi has been largely dominated by ongoing negotiations between the governments of Russia and Georgia regarding Russian natural gas giant Gazprom’s large-scale return to the Georgian market. The news of these negotiations first broke on September 26,... MORE

Around 200 activists of the pro-Russian organization “The Society of Tsar Irakly II” marched through the streets of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, on September 24. The protest concluded in front of the Avlabar Palace—the residence of the president of Georgia. Supporters of former president... MORE

Turkey has been one of Georgia’s closest economic and political partners in the wider Middle East since the latter country regained its national independence in 1991. Currently, Turkey is Georgia’s biggest trading partner, with a 15.4 percent share of Georgia’s total trade turnover with the... MORE

The Tbilisi municipal court has sentenced the former mayor of the city and one of the leaders of the opposition party United National Movement (UNM), Gigi Ugulava, to four and a half years in prison for the misspending of public funds (Civil Georgia, September 18).... MORE