
Latest Articles about South Caucasus

Iran-US Crisis Spotlights Vulnerabilities Across the South Caucasus
The three countries of the South Caucasus—Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan—found themselves in a precarious situation following the United States’ killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, on January 3, 2020, due to their parallel relationships with both Tehran and Washington. Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan offered... MORE

A Year in Review: Azerbaijan Pursues Internal Reforms and External Multilateralism
The politics of Azerbaijan were unusually dynamic in 2019, compared to recent years, shifting dramatically between January and December. President Ilham Aliyev notably continued the transformative reforms he began several years earlier. And almost every month, the Azerbaijani leader caught domestic and international observers by... MORE

A Year in Review: Georgia’s Security and Democratic Foundation Face Tests From Within and Outside
A series of turbulent political events, anti-liberal processes and degrading security conditions in the region that unfolded in 2019 have left Georgia at a perilous crossroads ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 31, 2020. The main question that many local politicians and experts... MORE

CAPTURED: Chechen Islamic State Commander al-Bara al-Shishani Arrested in Ukraine
On November 12, the Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) apprehended al-Bara al-Shishani, a leader of the Russian-speaking faction of Islamic State (IS). Al-Bara was arrested in a private house located in the region surrounding Kyiv. According to SBU officials, al-Bara had been residing in Ukraine since... MORE

Pashinyan Tries to Leverage Armenia’s CSTO Membership Against Azerbaijan
The Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) political-executive body, the Collective Security Council, held a session on November 27–28, in Bishkek, at which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared that member states “must leave orders of [the] Azerbaijani side to acquire new weapons unanswered” (Aysor.am,... MORE

The OSCE in 2019: Epitaphs to Cooperative Security Doctrines
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has marked this year the 25th anniversary of the OSCE’s Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security, 25th anniversary of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances to Ukraine (both pacts adopted at the OSCE’s 1994... MORE

Tehran Expanding Efforts to Counter US, Israel and Turkey Across South Caucasus
Iran’s approach to the three countries of the South Caucasus—Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia—is derivative of its concerns to keep its geopolitical opponents, the United States, Turkey and Israel, from being able to threaten the Islamic Republic from the north. At the same time, despite the... MORE

Azerbaijan: Hedging Toward Russia and Europe
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov traveled to Azerbaijan on December 2–3. This came after his November 11 Yerevan visit, which caused an uproar in Baku due to Lavrov’s reference to the ethnic-Armenian population in Karabakh as the “people of Nagorno-Karabakh” and his oblique suggestion of... MORE

Georgia’s De Facto Leader Attacks American and Georgian NGOs
On November 27, in an interview on Georgian television, the country’s de facto leader—the chairperson of the ruling Georgian Dream party and Georgia’s sole billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili—denounced American non-governmental organizations (NGO), including the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Specifically, Ivanishvili... MORE

Murder in a Berlin Park Scrambles Russia’s Diplomatic Overtures to Germany
On August 23, 2019, Georgian national and former Chechen rebel commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili (40) was fired on by an assailant on a bicycle, in a Berlin public park. Khangoshvili died on the spot, shot twice in the head. German police quickly apprehended the suspected killer... MORE