It is now time for Armenian and Azerbaijani analysts and political scientists to elaborate potential models for integration in unison. Though Baku says it already has a plan, no details are known or even if it exists at all. And even if it does, then Armenian and Azerbaijani civil society could have suggestions and recommendations.
On 12 September, after nearly months of not receiving any, humanitarian assistance finally arrived in Karabakh, albeit not without controversy. Having crossed the border between Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation three days earlier, it was meant to travel from Samur to Askeran via Baku, Barda, and Aghdam. However, it remained delayed for days as some wondered whether it would ever arrive at all.
Arayik Harutyunyan, the de facto leader of what remains of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), has resigned. Though many were skeptical, given similar pronouncements in recent months, Harutyunyan, who held the otherwise unrecognized position of ‘president’ of the mainly ethnic-Armenian breakaway region, was true to his word this time.
Georgia has long been an obvious choice for hosting most Track II initiatives that bring Armenians and Azerbaijanis together on neutral ground. Despite this, however, it rarely gets the credit it deserves for doing so. Bordering both Armenia and Azerbaijan, not only is it perfectly situated geographically, keeping travel and accommodation costs lower, but it also keeps such initiatives in the region.
To little fanfare, campaigning last week kicked off for municipal elections to be held in Yerevan next month. Despite the inauspicious start, however, the vote could prove eventful with local matters such as public transportation and garbage collection playing second fiddle to much larger issues facing the country – Karabakh and the future of the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, in particular.
Delays in signing an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement open the prospects that the process may be derailed as a result of domestic politics. Next month, Yerevan will go to the polls to indirectly elect a new mayor. The parliamentary opposition is boycotting the vote, and a large number of voters remain apathetic or undecided, but the vote can still be seen as demonstrative enough ahead of the 2026 national parliamentary elections.
Next month, on 17 September, Yerevan will cast its vote in municipal elections that could prove decisive in determining the country’s future. Despite a significant decline in popularity since Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s favoured candidate, Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinyan, is nonetheless still considered the favourite to win.
“Today, the media in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and also among those niche market publications based abroad that report on the region, amplify the negative and nearly always ignore any positive developments or glimmers of hope,” writes Onnik James Krikorian in this op-ed for commonspace.eu.
Just two weeks after the 15 July EU-facilitated meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels, Yerevan and Baku find themselves once again in a standoff on the Lachin Corridor, the 5 km-wide highway that connects Armenia through Azerbaijan with the besieged former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO).