This month marked the third anniversary of the ceasefire statement that was meant to end the second Karabakh war. In retrospect, it might be more appropriately considered a continuation of the first conflict of the early 1990s given that the ceasefire then was hardly implemented too, leading to a new war 26 years later. Meanwhile, hopes that Baku and Yerevan could sign a peace agreement are fading.
In recent days, Georgia once again hosted the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, an event with an economic focus. What is new this year is that for the first time an Armenian leader spoke at such a high-level event in Tbilisi, and high-level officials from all three South Caucasus countries were also on the same stage.
Despite hopes that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would meet in Brussels towards the end of the month, the European Union’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, yesterday said that it will now not take place. Giving the reason as “time constraints,” he made the announcement while participating remotely in a conference held in Yerevan.
On 8 October, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev traveled to Tbilisi to meet with his Georgian counterpart, Irakli Garibashvili. The unannounced meeting concerned regional projects such as a new Black Sea port in Anaklia and the Middle Corridor that will stretch from China to Europe via Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Both leaders expressed a desire to bring peace to their shared but troubled region while Aliyev surprised many by offering to “immediately” launch talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Georgia.
On 17 October, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He was the first Armenian leader to do so. From the region, only then Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had done so in 2010. The invitation stemmed from last month’s blitzkrieg operation in Karabakh.
The suggestion followed Aliyev cancelling a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the European Political Community summit in Granada, Spain, on 5 October.
The idea was to create a win-win situation where Azerbaijan would not only connect to Nakhchivan but Armenia could potentially join the Middle Corridor transportation link from China to Europe via Central Asia and the South Caucasus, ending its semi-isolation and exclusion from regional energy and transportation projects.
Following Azerbaijan’s 19 September military offensive that led to the dissolution of the breakaway but unrecognised mainly ethnic Armenian-inhabited entity of Nagorno Karabakh, there had been hopes Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would meet again at the European Political Community summit in Granada, Spain. However, on the eve of the 5 October talks, Aliyev pulled out, citing the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron in the multilateral meeting that also included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel.
Last week, on 28 September, Samvel Shahramanyan, the de facto head of the self-declared and unrecognised Nagorno Karabakh Republic, signed a decree on the dissolution of the separatist entity. Inhabited mainly by ethnic Armenians but situated within Azerbaijan, what remains of the former Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) will cease to exist by the end of the year.