... being shown up as having no South Caucasus policy. China’s foreign policy hierarchies show that the three South Caucasus countries are all ranked equally at the lowest level of diplomatic relationship of the Eurasian Belt and Road countries. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are all at the 12th tier in China’s diplomatic hierarchy, Friendly Cooperative Partnership. Whereas the South Caucasus peripheral powers all rank more highly, with Turkey at the 6th tier, Iran in the 4th tier along with Belt and ...
After over 200 years, Russia’s commitment to the Caucasus remains firm
On November 9, Russia signed a
peace statement
with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, ending the most recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Overall,
Moscow emerged as the clear winner
by ending hostilities, introducing peacekeepers, and maintaining its central role in the vital Caucasus region. However, Russia’s direct ...
The question is whether Russia has an interest today in completing what it started in Karabakh
Russia managed to stop the second Karabakh war after its mediation in completing a historic agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. After completing the full implementation of the terms of the agreement (among them are "land swaps" or land passages), Moscow will control transportation between Armenia and part of the Karabakh enclave across the territory ...
... for a decade longer; Moldova is torn in both directions, but leaning more toward the West; Azerbaijan is closely allied with Turkey; Uzbekistan is vociferously independent; and Turkmenistan is reclusive, shunning foreign connections. That leaves only Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan—five out of fourteen ex-republics—as Moscow’s formal allies and partners. In many of those countries, however, particularly in Central Asia, China has long been a major outside player.
Moreover,...
In the end, the Kremlin could indirectly benefit from a military presence in the region
On November 10, 2020, Moscow announced its decision to send peacekeeping troops to Nagorno-Karabakh following the attack of its Mi-24 helicopter over Armenia, thus putting an end to more than six weeks of intense fighting and several decades of skirmishes between the pro-Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
Michael Lambert:
Who’s Who in Nagorno-Karabakh
Russia's choice is resembling ...
... negotiating the 1994 Bishkek Protocol. Twenty-six years later, on the 9th and 10th of October 2020, it was Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose mediation role was critical in the more-than-ten-hour negotiation marathon with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, which eventually led to the ceasefire agreement. Nevertheless, it took notably longer than before to bring the sides to the negotiation table and all attempts at upholding the ceasefire (the second agreed upon with ...
... Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”, Samuel Huntington used the example of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to demonstrate the conflict between the Christians and Muslims and civilizational clashes. When Huntington was writing his book in the 1990s, Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan were fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. The American thinker cited this conflict, together with the Balkan conflict to illustrate the transition of world order and regime changes after the Cold War. However, contrary ...
... solely positive light.
Now, this presence is viewed with increasing frequency as an unfounded waste of shrinking resources. For instance, the Russian public has expressed an implicitly negative attitude towards a possible interference into the Azeri-Armenian conflict. It may be concluded that, given the pandemic, the so-called “Crimean consensus” is becoming entirely ineffective, and it is becoming harder and harder to justify Russia’s hyperactive foreign policy in the eyes of the country’s ...
... conflicts an wars in his pursuit for a Neo-Ottoman Empire. This time in the Caucasus. While Turkey held several joint maneuvres with Azerbaijan and there were talks about a Turkish military base in Azerbaijan, we now face a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Erdogan wants to send 4000 Turkish fighters from Syria in support of Azerbaijan. Here is the full story.Qazet.azAzerbaijan and Amernia have a conflict about Nagorno-Karabakh, a region which is the lifeline for oil- and gas pipelines and a transit ...
A Russian fallout with Armenia or Azerbaijan would mean Moscow losing its long-term influence and ability to manoeuvre in the region
From a geographical perspective, the location of the Azerbaijani city of Tovuz, which witnessed penultimate clashes between Azerbaijan and ...
