Romania’s minister of foreign affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, is spearheading an initiative within the European Union to involve the EU in the management and eventual resolution of the protracted conflicts in the wider Black Sea region. Ten other EU member states (Portugal, Sweden and eight Central-Eastern... MORE

On July 20, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan paid a working visit to Moscow, upon the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin (President.az, July 20). This was the second working visit of the Azerbaijani head of state to Russia this year, following his earlier... MORE

On July 15, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan reported that Armenia’s Armed Forces had attacked positions of the Azerbaijani Army in the direction of the recently liberated Kalbajar region (Mod.gov.az, July 15). The attack, conducted “using small arms,” was met with retaliation by the... MORE

During the latest session of the Council of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), on July 1, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the participants effectively introduced the category of a CSTO “partner state” by setting the criteria and provisions for granting such a... MORE

Back in 2016, Iran put forward a regional initiative to expand the Persian Gulf–Black Sea International Transport and Transit Corridor, which, in addition to the Islamic Republic itself, involves Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bulgaria and Greece. This multimodal corridor begins from the Gulf... MORE

Despite a rapprochement of sorts in 2019 (see EDM, March 20, 2019), Iran’s relations with the Republic of Azerbaijan faced new strains and challenges during the final year of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency (set to end on August 3, 2021), especially following the outbreak of the... MORE

On June 24, Russia’s state-owned oil transit system operator Transneft announced that hydrocarbon producers Rosneft and Surgutneftgaz had not reserved any pipeline volumes for transporting oil to the Belarusian refinery Naftan for the third quarter of 2021 (TASS, June 24). Transneft’s announcement did not come... MORE

In early July, James Appathurai, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, held a series of top-level meetings in Georgia. The Georgian authorities greeted their guest from Brussels warmly and with much fanfare. President Salome Zurabishvili awarded Appathurai with... MORE

Snap parliamentary elections, held on June 20, resulted in a decisive victory for incumbent Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party: with 53.91 percent of votes in favor, it will receive 71 out of the 107 seats in the National Assembly, fulfilling Pashinian’s declared... MORE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, signed an agreement on June 15, 2021, that may have historic significance not only for the two signatory countries, but also for neighboring states (see EDM, June 23). “The Shusha Declaration,” named after the... MORE