Hopes that Armenia and Azerbaijan might take a step towards normalising relations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 29) in Baku this month were dashed when Armenia failed to send a delegation to the event, despite receiving an official invitation.
Many remain skeptical that such a breakthrough can materialise, though it is clear that international pressure, especially from the United States, continues unabated. It is believed that both Yerevan and Washington hope to have an agreement signed before the U.S. presidential elections on 5 November and especially by COP29 just days later.
On 22 August, representatives of the Azerbaijan Reclamation and Water Management OJSC visited the Sarsang Reservoir located in the Aghdara/Mardakert region of that part of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) now under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Constructed in 1976, the Sarsang Reservoir has a capacity of 560 million cubic meters and was used to irrigate 96,000 hectares of arable land in Barda, Terter, Agdam, Agjabedi, Yevlakh and Goranboy.
Yesterday saw another action in Tbilisi’s Vake Park, but this time to mark Stray Animals Day. Although officially marked on 4 April, actions at the Guerrilla Gardening Tbilisi Camp usually take place on Saturdays or Sundays, hence this event being held on the 5th.
BBC Azeri yesterday published some of my photos documenting the environmental protest in Tbilisi’s Vake Park and so I paid a return visit the night before to check if there were any new developments. Basically, there are none although legal action has not been rejected by the courts. Instead, more information needs to be provided before any case against the construction can proceed.
Braving the recent snowfall and plummeting temperatures, environmentalists have managed to prevent construction from continuing in Tbilisi’s central Vake Park — for now at least. Blockading the road leading to the site where a new hotel is being built, activists from Guerrilla Gardening Tbilisi are now camped out adjacent to the construction site.