This interview with Rusif Huseynov, Co-founder and Director of the Topchubashov Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan, was held on 10 February 2023. In it, Huseynov shares his opinion and commentary on the view from Baku on apparently dashed hopes for a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the impasse on the Lachin Corridor, Ruben Vardanyan, and the state of Track II diplomacy in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
This interview with Kamal Makili-Aliyev, an Associate Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Malmö University in Sweden and author of “Contested Territories and International Law: A Comparative Study of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict and the Aland Islands Precedent,” was held on 17 February 2022.
This interview with Ahmad Alili, Director of the Baku-based Caucasus Policy Analysis Center (CPAC) was held on 28 October 2021.
This interview with Richard Giragosian, Director of the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center (RSC) was held on 27 October 2021.
This interview with Arnold Alahverdian, one of the co-founders of Bright Garden Voices, an online platform to engage ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis living outside of the South Caucasus, was recorded on 1 March 2021.
This interview with Dr. Arman Grigoryan, an Associate Professor at Lehigh University in the United States, was held on 19 February 2021. An Armenian citizen, his focus is on ethnic conflict and nationalism.
This interview with Azerbaijani activist and journalist Nigar Fatali was recorded on 12 November 2020, just days after the 9-point ceasefire agreement.
This interview with Azerbaijani photographer and journalist Jahangir Youssif was recorded on 2 November 2020, a week before the 9-point ceasefire agreement.
KARABAKH BLOG POSTS
Progress and Challenges: Armenian and Azerbaijani Leaders Meet in EU-facilitated Talks in Brussels
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).
Meeting between Armenia and Azerbaijan: little progress for Nagorno Karabakh
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.
Breaking bread in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict
“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.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, new talks in Moscow, Chişinău, and Ankara
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.
Armenia-Azerbaijan, possible progress registered at Brussels meeting
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.
U.S. Hosts Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers for Possible Roadmap to Peace Treaty
As talks between Yerevan and Baku continue, with a spate of meetings between the leaders scheduled in the near future, following last week’s bilateral negotiations between the two foreign ministers in the United States, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa has published another of my updates on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process.
KARABAKH-RELATED ARTICLES
ARMENIA–AZERBAIJAN: THE RISKS FOR GEORGIA
Two sizeable communities of Armenians and Azeris live – mostly separate – in Georgia. The current conflict has exacerbated the spirits of the two minorities, particularly on social media, arousing the concern of analysts
Published by Osservatorio Balcani e Caucasus, October 2020
UNLIKELY NEIGHBOURS: CO-INHABITED VILLAGES IN GEORGIA
Published by Stratfor, May 2017
A NARRATIVE OF PEACE: ETHNIC ARMENIAN-AZERI COEXISTENCE IN GEORGIA
Walking past Tbilisi’s Meidan Square towards Heydar Aliyev Park, it’s difficult not to notice dozens of tourists posing in front of a floral fixture that has become a main attraction for visitors to the city. “Tbilisi Loves You,” it reads.
Published by Meydan TV, May 2017
CULTURE THAT UNITES RATHER THAN DIVIDES
An Azeri teahouse, and naturally Azerbaijani can be heard spoken inside. A dozen men, identical in appearance, sit at tables, chain smoking and drinking cups of çay (tea). “Salam,” we say, before approaching the waitress. The owners of another Azeri teahouse, ironically run by ethnic Armenians just around the corner, directed us here, saying that the waitress too is Armenian. She is, even though the teahouse is owned by an ethnic Azeri. We take our seats at a table with the intention of once again exploring the reality of peaceful coexistence in at least one part of the South Caucasus.
Published 2010
MUSICAL DIALECTS OF THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
The two farmers standing barefoot outside their vegetable enclosure close to Georgia’s border with Dagestan meant well, but the wine they offered tasted like vinegar. Likely to put a grimace on the face of any foreign visitor, it did at least become more bearable with each additional glass. For the Sayat Nova Project, a team of two Americans and one Gibraltarian, the homemade beverage was an interlude to work documenting the diverse musical traditions of the South Caucasus.
LACHIN: THE EMPTYING LANDS
The local residents of Suarassy seem oblivious to the hidden danger as they herd cattle down a road known to have been mined during the Armenian-Azerbaijani war of the early Nineties. Despite the mangled military lorry rusting in a ditch to one side, none of their cows have so far detonated seven anti-tank mines still believed to be buried underneath, so they reckon the road is safe.
Published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 2006
LACHIN CONFRONTS A DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS
The flag of the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh flies over the local administrative buildings in the center of Lachin, the strategic lynchpin connecting the disputed territory with the Republic of Armenia. The town and surrounding area, regarded as vital for Karabakh’s security, appear to be experiencing an unsettling demographic shift.
Published by Eurasianet 2006
LACHIN: LIFE IN NO MAN’S LAND
Anyone taking the road from Goris to Stepanakert has passed through Lachin, the strategic main artery in the lifeline between Armenia and the self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Few actually visit the town now of course, perhaps unsurprisingly given the destruction evident throughout. The only interest for many passing through is that Lachin lies not in Karabakh, but within what the international community considers sovereign Azerbaijani territory.
Published by Transitions Online 2001
CLEARING THE KILLING FIELDS
A few kilometers from the border of the officially unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, a shepherd sits with his grazing cattle in the lush pastures of Armenian-controlled Azerbaijan. The scene could grace the front of any postcard from the scenic Caucasus.
The twisted carcasses of rusting vehicles along the roadside tell a different story, though. The shepherd is sitting in a minefield.
Published 2004
CONFLICT VOICES e-BOOKS
KARABAKH-RELATED PHOTO GALLERIES
LACHIN: LIFE IN NO MAN’S LAND
Documenting the lives of Armenian settlers in the town of Lachin, the crucial artery connecting Armenia with Nagorno Karabakh, in the early 2000s.
LANDMINES AND UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE
Following the first Karabakh war, the work of the HALO Trust inc learning the disputed territory of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO).
REFUGEES IN ARMENIA
Refugees and Internally Displaces Persons (IDPs) in Armenia.