Representatives of Azerbaijan and the defacto authorities representing local ethnic Armenians today met under the auspices of the Russian peacekeeping force at its headquarters in Khojali. Such meetings are not new but there are a few major differences.
A week after the deployment of the European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA), a dedicated 100-person strong observation of the country’s border with Azerbaijan, there’s still much that remains unknown about its activities. However, in two pieces published this week by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) and Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, I’ve tried to summarise what we do know.
Actually, not a tale, but rather two articles on last weekend’s meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations, led respectively by Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev, and the return to the stage of the two leaders at the annual Munich Security Conference.
The 100-strong European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) today started its two year mission observing the border with Azerbaijan. The deployment follows the temporary two-month European Union Monitoring Capacity (EUMCAP) that ended its duties on 19 December last year. Last week I completed a 1,200 word article on EUMA that includes comments from Armenian and Azerbaijani analysts as well as those involved in the EU’s recruitment process for the mission.
Unannounced until the last moment, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday facilitated and mediated a long overdue meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference in Germany. With Blinken were Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried and newly appointed Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations, Louis L. Bono.
The Caspian Post last week published my first piece on what can be hoped are real and genuine efforts to accelerate the latest efforts to normalise relations between Yerevan and Ankara following the recent and devastating earthquake in Turkey. During the last attempt to establish diplomatic relations in the late 2000s I covered that process extensively, including working with the BBC, Al Jazeera English, and The Wall Street Journal on various stories. Looks like I’ll now be doing the same throughout 2023.
In what could possibly prove to be a milestone in relations between the Republics of Armenia and Turkey, Yerevan today sent five trucks carrying 100 tons of humanitarian assistance to its neighbour following last week’s devastating earthquake. The aid was destined for the southeastern Turkish city of Adiyaman.
At time of writing, the number of fatalities from the tragedy, which reached a magnitude of 7.8, has already surpassed 21,000 with over 80,000 injured. A state of emergency in Turkey has been declared.
In an interview with the Georgian Public Broadcaster, the European Union’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, has stressed the importance of Tbilisi’s role in bridging the divide between its immediate regional neighbours, Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is highly welcomed and not least because some of us have long argued for the emergence of some kind of “Tbilisi Process” given that it would be both logical and practical.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the resignation of Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s Yerevan Bureau on 3 February published a summary of a batch of declassified documents relating to attempts in 1997 to end the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh.