
Latest Articles about South Caucasus

Serbia: Looking West, Going East
Serbia is preparing to sign a free trade agreement with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in October, hoping to gain access to a market of 180 million people. At the same time, the Western Balkan country’s accession negotiations with the world’s largest trading bloc,... MORE

Russia’s Caspian Flotilla Gains an Air Arm
Until the Russian Federation launched a barrage of cruise missiles against Syria from ships in the Caspian Sea in October 2015 (see EDM, October 26, 2015), few people in the West devoted much attention to Russia’s Caspian Flotilla, viewing it, if at all, as a... MORE

Debating Belarus, A Country In-Between
“Getting Out From ‘In-Between’ ” was the suggestive title of a 2018 RAND Corporation study devoted to the former Soviet republics that became members of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative. The EaP just celebrated its tenth anniversary; and according to some not quite impartial... MORE

Moscow Deploys Large Network of Far Right–Linked GONGOs Against Belarus
Moscow has organized and deployed a large network of “government-organized non-governmental organizations” (GONGO) in both Russia itself and in Belarus. These entities were first elaborated prior to the 2014 Russian attack on Ukraine to promote the integration and absorption of Belarus into the Russian Federation.... MORE

EU, Azerbaijan Struggling to Convert Partnership Priorities Into Agreement
A long-awaited European Union–Azerbaijani strategic partnership agreement was not signed on May 13–14, at the Eastern Partnership’s (EaP) tenth anniversary summit, despite all the optimism and expectations that had been voiced earlier. The two sides signed a document listing four priority areas for partnership on... MORE

Circassians Mark Two Important Anniversaries and Look to Future with Confidence
May 21 is the most unhappy day of the year for the more than half a million Circassians still living in their ancestral homeland and the more than five million who live in forced exile. On that date, in 1864—after a war that lasted more... MORE

Russia Tries to Bog Down the Anaklia Deep Sea Port Project
On May 6, Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian representatives met in Ankara and issued a joint memorandum on significantly transforming the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway project. The Georgian leadership made clear that it was dissatisfied with the trilateral proposal, which was signed without Tbilisi’s consent (see EDM,... MORE

Russia Eyes Joining BTK Railway Across South Caucasus
Representatives of Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian railways inked a cooperation memorandum on May 6, 2019, in Ankara, to leverage the potential of the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway and increase the volume of freight carried along the route (Azertag.az, May 6). “The tripartite cooperation will boost the... MORE

Azerbaijan and NATO Mark 25 Years of Partnership
On May 4, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release to mark the 25th anniversary of the country’s partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), calling it “one of the important directions” of the Azerbaijan’s “foreign and security policy” (Mfa.gov.az, May... MORE

Ancient Christian Site Straddling Azerbaijani-Georgian Border Highlights Problems Linked to Incomplete Delimitation of Shared Frontier
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the administrative borders between the 15 constituent Soviet Socialist Republics became internationally recognized state borders. Yet, even during Soviet times, some of those administrative borders were, in places, fuzzy and uncertain—a problem inherited by many of the newly... MORE