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).
Many consider that negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, “nearly three years after the start of the 2020 Karabakh War, are at a make or break point,” writes Onnik James Krikorian for commonspace.eu.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met again on Saturday (15 July) for talks in Brussels facilitated by European Council President Charles Michel. The meeting was the second this year in this format and comes hot on the heels of a U.S.-facilitated talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in June as well as new developments on the strategic highway connecting Armenia with what remains of the former Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO).
In early June in Chisinau, Moldova, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, would meet again in Arlington, Virginia, on June 12. However, the meeting facilitated by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken only took place on June 27. Baku had requested a postponement the week before due to the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, fresh from re-election, scheduled for June 12-13.
“It is also too early to talk about ‘culinary diplomacy’ in the Karabakh conflict, sometimes also referred to as ‘gastrodiplomacy,’ though countless state banquets demonstrate that is by no means a new concept,” writes Onnik James Krikorian in this op-ed for commonspace.eu.
Following last month’s meeting in Brussels between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev hosted by European Council President Charles Michel, talks between Yerevan and Baku continue to intensify. Not to be outdone by the flurry of activity from the United States and the European Union, Russian President Putin also hosted the two leaders at the sidelines of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting in Moscow on 25 May.
On Sunday, 14 May, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev met in Brussels for renewed talks hosted by European Council President Charles Michel. It was the fifth such meeting organised by Michel and it marked a resumption of the Brussels Process. Last year, the talks to normalise relations between the two countries appeared to stall in early December, when Armenia advocated for the inclusion of French President Emmanuel Macron. Azerbaijan rejected the request and the talks did not take place.