Latest Articles about South Caucasus
A Dexterous Move Propels Saakashvili Back Into Ukraine’s Political Limelight
What occurred on September 10, at the Medyka-Shehyni crossing on the Polish-Ukrainian border, is remarkable. Earlier that day, Mikheil Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia and a Ukrainian opposition politician, declared his intention to reenter Ukraine after having been deprived of his Ukrainian citizenship on... MORE
Armenia Likely to Yield Even More of Its Sovereignty to Russia
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
Russians Will be Able to Obtain US Visas at American Embassy in Georgia
The Embassy of the United States in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia, has announced that it is ready to issue US visas to Russian citizens, if they apply to the embassy with such a request (News.am, August 26). The statement by the US diplomatic... MORE
Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Evolving Implicit Rivalry Over Nakhchivan
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 Potential Impact of New US Sanctions Law on Pipeline Projects Connecting Europe and Eurasia
While expressing some “concerns,” United States President Donald Trump signed the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” on August 2 (Whitehouse.gov, August 2)—legislation that was overwhelmingly approved by the US House of Representatives late last month. Among other provisions, the new law opens the door... MORE
‘Railroad Wars’ Intensify in South Caucasus
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
Russia Building New Road From Dagestan to Georgia
On July 7, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin and Ambassador Zurab Abashidze, the special envoy of the Georgian prime minister for relations with Russia, held a special meeting in Prague. One of the topics of the meeting was further development of transport coordination between... MORE
Armenian Officials Remain Overly Cautious Despite Citizens Being Discriminated Against in Russia
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
March of Georgians: A Breakthrough for the Country’s Identitarian Groups
On July 14, several hundred agitated participants of the “March of Georgians”—a loose alliance of identitarian political groups, some of them self-proclaimed “fascists” (Facebook.com, July 14)—rallied along Aghmashenebeli Avenue, in central Tbilisi (YouTube, July 14). The political mainstream of the country largely ignored the happening.... MORE
The South-West Transport Corridor Project and the Geopolitical Reshaping of the South Caucasus
Baku hosted the first joint gathering of the heads of the railway administrations of Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Poland, on June 19. The meeting was dedicated to the newly-launched “South-West Transport Corridor,” which links into the broader Trans-Caspian International Route project launched in 2016.... MORE