Central Asia, Caucasus 2024-

Europe & EU Caucasus 2011-2023
CIA World Factbook ; BBC Central Asia News

Central Asia’s waking giant
Most people in the west have never heard of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but it’s time they did
The SCO emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1996. Today, its members are Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, while Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan and India are observers. (The Guardian, January 2009)

Is Caucasus Asia or Europe?
One widely accepted scheme draws the dividing line along the crest of the Greater Caucasus range, putting the portion of the region north of the line in Europe and the portion south of it in Asia

Regional Division and Geopolitical Situation in the Area of Caucasus
There is almost no period of history in which there were no wars in Caucasus. This is a strategically important area because it covers a narrow land between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. It represents one of the two roads that help people reach the Middle East from the mainland of Europe. During its history, the Caucasus was part of the Russian Empire, the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, or it consisted of a large number of independent states. During the whole of the XIX century on the territory of the Caucasus, the battles were fought in order to obtain the exit to the Caspian Sea. Only in Soviet times there were no conflicts. Some historians claim that this is the result of the correct national policy of the USSR, while others, contrary to them, are convinced that the peace occurred due to a firm socialist regime, which led to an extremely tense situation right after the collapse of the USSR. Also, the Caucasus is one of the few regions of Russia where Islam is the dominant religion. Many times, this fact served as a trigger for conflicts, including the armed conflicts. In this paper, the geopolitical situation of the given territories, mainly after the disintegration of the USSR, is presented with a special reference to the North Caucasus and the South Caucasus (Transcaucasia). (Sept. 2018)
Nagorno-Karabakh votes to secede from Soviet Azerbaijan – archive, 1988
13 July 1988: The predominantly Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan declares itself an autonomous part of the neighbouring republic of Armenia.
With one abstention, the local council of deputies said they were taking the region out of Azerbaijan and uniting with Armenia as an autonomous area, to be called in future Artsakh. The move put into effect unilaterally a petition which the council had made in February, but on which no action has yet been taken by Mr Gorbachev and his colleagues.
The dispute has pitted two Soviet republics against each other for the first time, and also highlighted the contradiction in the Soviet constitution between the article which calls for every people’s self-determination and another which forbids boundary changes unless both sides agree.
The region’s declaration of independence is, on the face of it, purely formal, since troops occupy the region’s capital, Stepanakert, and it cannot be enforced. But it is an expression of the Armenian majority’s frustration and the rising tension there.
6 October 2020
The Graphic Truth: How do Azerbaijan and Armenia stack up?
(GZERO media) Heavy fighting between Azeris and Armenians over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, which broke out in late September after years of mostly low-level clashes, has intensified in recent days. Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists, has long been a regional flashpoint: a years-long war between the two sides in the 1990s led to at least 30,000 deaths and displaced more than 1 million people. So how do the two nation states locked in this enduring conflict stack up against the other?

6 November
Trump to meet Central Asian presidents as US seeks to counter China, Russia influence
Trump to host talks with five Central Asian leaders
US seeks partnerships on critical minerals, energy and trade routes
Central Asia remains economically tied to Russia, with China in the wings
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will host the leaders of five Central Asian nations at the White House on Thursday as the U.S. seeks to gain influence in a region long dominated by Russia and increasingly courted by China.
The talks take place amid intensifying competition for Central Asia’s vast mineral resources. Western nations are seeking to diversify supply chains away from Moscow and Beijing.
In particular, the U.S. is pursuing new partnerships to secure critical minerals, energy supplies, and overland trade routes that circumvent its geopolitical rivals.
Rich in minerals and energy, the five nations remain economically tied to Russia, their former Soviet ruler, while neighboring China has expanded its influence through large-scale infrastructure and mining investments.
Together, the countries are home to about 84 million people and hold vast deposits of uranium, copper, gold, rare earths and other strategic minerals essential to global efforts to transition to greener forms of energy.

11 August
Canada alone in G7 with call for prisoner release as Armenia, Azerbaijan in peace talks
Statement comes after Trump holds meeting with leaders of 2 countries
(CBC) The federal government is calling for the release of Armenian detainees and prisoners of war in Azerbaijan as it praised the road to peace paved by a White House-brokered meeting last week between the two countries locked in decades of conflict.
… On Monday, the two countries published the 17 articles of the agreement, which largely focus on respecting each other’s territorial integrity.
Armenian media outlets have been documenting the imprisonment and trials of Armenian prisoners of war in the Azerbaijan justice system, including those of soldiers who fought in a 44-day war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, and the political leadership of the enclave’s former de-facto republic.
Published statements by Canada’s G7 allies make no mention of detainees or the right of return of Nagorno-Karabakh’s former inhabitants to their homes, though a joint multi-country declaration to the UN Human Rights Council raised the refugees’ right of return in October 2023, signed at the time by a list of nations including Canada, France and the U.S.
“Those are issues that can’t be swept under the rug. They’re really important,” said Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Global Security think-tank.
“The Armenian government is taking a risk here and it needs to find the right balance so that the Armenian population will support [the agreement].”
He said it is possible the remaining G7 nations are too consumed by the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war to play close attention to the South Caucasus deal. But he hopes that European countries are bringing up these issues privately.

8-9 August
Iran and Russia stand to lose from US deal with Azerbaijan and Armenia
Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor
Trump-brokered peace treaty predicted to suffocate geopolitical influence of Washington’s rivals in region
Iran expressed concern about foreign interference on Saturday, fearing it had been carved out of a declaration brokered by Donald Trump between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The two countries have come closer to ending 35 years of enmity by signing a peace treaty in Washington and agreeing to a US private consortium taking control of a strategic corridor on Iran’s border.
The corridor passing through southern Armenia will link Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhchivan, a longstanding demand of Baku. The US will operate the corridor under Armenian sovereignty on a 99-year land lease, changing the balance of power in the region. Some Iranian commentators claimed the deal amounts to “Iran’s geopolitical suffocation in the region”.
Control of the corridor that runs along the border between Armenia and northern Iran has been the single biggest block to a peace deal between the two countries.
The deal is also a further blow to Russia’s diminished influence in the region, as Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, guides his Christian-majority country towards the west, and eventually the EU.
… In the most novel part of the deal, an – as yet unformed – US consortium will take control of a 20-mile-long transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave. It will be named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”.
The proposal, first discussed during the Biden administration, raises the prospect of a US presence right on the Iranian border. Tehran worries such a development might cut off its access to the Black Sea as well as to Europe via Georgia.
A further opening of the border with Turkey would integrate Armenia into the Middle Corridor project, an economic trade route between Europe and China that bypasses Russia and Iran. Armenian leaders have long seen economic benefits in this project for their landlocked country.
The White House said the new transport corridor would “enable unhindered connectivity between the two countries, while respecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity and people of Armenia”. The route is billed to include roads, railways, oil and gas pipelines and fibre-optic lines. A US commercial presence lowers the incentive for either side to resort to military solutions

Iran threatens planned Trump corridor envisaged by Azerbaijan-Armenia peace deal
Iran threatens Caucasus corridor announced on Friday
Analysts say unclear how Tehran could block it
Diplomat says final peace deal faces just one obstacle
Armenia must amend its constitution, he says
Armenia PM has called for vote on the change
(Reuters) – Iran threatened on Saturday to block a corridor planned in the Caucasus under a regional deal sponsored by U.S. President Donald Trump, Iranian media reported, raising a new question mark over a peace plan hailed as a strategically important shift.
A top Azerbaijani diplomat said earlier that the plan, announced by Trump on Friday, was just one step from a final peace deal between his country and Armenia, which reiterated its support for the plan.
Leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan shake hands as they join Trump, sign agreement at peace summit (video)
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan shook hands as they joined President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday for a peace summit where they signed an agreement aimed at ending decades of conflict.

Before Gaza’s woe, there was Nagorno-Karabakh
Ishaan Tharoor
Nagorno-Karabakh’s population of ethnic Armenians was expelled in 2023, and the world did nothing to stop it. Gaza may be on track for the same fate.
(WaPo) For years, a community lived a tenuous, yet proud existence in their ancestral homeland. Its people toiled, worshiped and raised families on territory recognized by the international community as belonging to a government and country to which they had no loyalty. They found themselves locked in periodic battles with that country. And then, the hammer fell: A spiraling conflict led to a blockade, growing hunger and, finally, the wholesale evacuation of the population away from their homes. An ethnic cleansing happened and the world did nothing to stop it.
It’s what befell Nagorno-Karabakh, the enclave within Azerbaijan whose majority ethnic Armenian population was forced to flee en masse in September 2023 in the face of an Azerbaijani offensive. But as exiles motored their way to Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, there was little chance that any foreign power would help enable their return. Within weeks, Hamas’s strike on southern Israel convulsed global politics and plunged the Middle East into months of ruinous war.
On Friday, that footnote may work its way back into the headlines, with President Donald Trump slated to host Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, in a bid to broker peace between the feuding neighbors. The proceedings, like many of Trump’s other showy performances of peacemaking, may prove to be more symbolic than substantive. The centerpiece of discussions is economic rather than political — the potential creation of a transit corridor helping to bridge the bulk of Azerbaijan’s territory with an Azerbaijani exclave on Armenia’s southwestern border. According to Reuters, Armenia plans to award the United States special development rights for the project, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.

2024

5-14 December
Georgia lawmakers elect Western critic as new president
Kavelashvili is a hardline critic of West and EU
Country in crisis since ruling party froze EU accession talks
Current pro-EU president says doesn’t intend to leave post
(Reuters) – Georgian lawmakers elected Mikheil Kavelashvili, a hardline critic of the West, as president on Saturday, setting him up to replace a pro-Western incumbent amid major protests against the government over a halt to the country’s European Union accession talks last month.
The ruling Georgian Dream party’s move to freeze the EU accession process until 2028, abruptly halting a long-standing national goal that is written into the country’s constitution, has provoked widespread anger in Georgia, where opinion polls show that seeking EU membership is overwhelmingly popular.
Why the Russians Need Georgia and the Caucasus
by Peter Zeihan
Russia would love to keep Georgia under its thumb for a few reasons, but its geography is in the driver seat. Georgia and its geography act as a key barrier against invasions through the Caucasus, and a limiter to Chechen expansion.
If Georgia exited Moscow’s orbit, Russia’s southern flank would be exposed. If Tbilisi joined the EU, Brussels (and, perhaps, NATO) would play a bigger role in one of Russia’s most traditionally restive regions. Russia can ill-afford to divert attention away from its war in Ukraine, and with Syria heating up, public unrest in Georgia is a low-cost, high-reward move to push Moscow to divert resources away from other theaters.
Tensions escalate in Georgia as nightly protests intensify: Opposition members arrested, clashes continue
Tensions in Georgia have reached a boiling point as protests continue to grip the nation for a seventh consecutive night, sparked by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s recent announcement that Georgia would suspend its EU accession negotiations until at least 2028. What began as a peaceful demonstration has morphed into widespread unrest, with nightly confrontations between protesters and security forces. The protests, which first erupted last week, show no sign of waning, as civil servants, opposition leaders, and citizens alike voice their opposition to the government’s increasingly autocratic actions.
In a shocking turn of events, today saw a marked escalation in the government’s crackdown. Opposition headquarters were searched and Nika Gvaramia was arrested, in what can only be described as a coordinated effort to silence dissent.

1 December
Georgia protests spread as prime minister dismisses call for new elections
Demonstrations spread across the country over ruling party’s path away from EU membership, shift towards Russia.
(Al Jazeera) Demonstrators in Georgia have taken to the streets for a fourth night in growing protests against the government’s decision to suspend talks on joining the European Union.
The protests on Sunday topped months of tensions fuelled by critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party, which some charge has moved the country away from its path towards greater integration with Europe and instead towards Russia.
30 November
Georgia’s president will not step down until ‘illegitimate’ election rerun
Pro-EU critic of governing Georgian Dream party says she won’t leave office next month as parliament elected fraudulently.
The president, whose powers are largely ceremonial, maintains that the country’s October 26 election, which was won by Georgian Dream with 54 percent of the vote, was fraudulent and therefore renders the elected parliament illegitimate.

30 October
Georgia prosecutors investigating allegations of election fraud
State prosecutors say probe comes at request of electoral commission as they summon President Salome Zourabichvili who alleges Russian interference.

25-28 October
Thousands protest in Georgia as opposition challenges election results
Georgian Dream wins 54% of vote, electoral commission says
President says election was stolen
Opposition parties reject results, alleging violations
EU, US call for probe into reports of violations
Kremlin denies accusations of vote interference
(Reuters) Monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said they registered incidents of vote-buying, voter intimidation and ballot-stuffing that could have affected the outcome, but stopped short of saying the election was rigged.
Are we headed for more mayhem in Georgia?
(International Intrigue) The pro-Western and mostly ceremonial president of Georgia stepped up to the palace’s lectern in Tbilisi last night (Sunday) and delivered an extraordinary statement:
Flanked by leaders from the country’s fractured, pro-West opposition, Salome Zourabichvili declared Saturday’s elections had fallen victim to a “Russian special operation”, involving the “complete falsification and theft of your votes”.
That’s because Georgia’s electoral commission had just announced that the country’s Russia-friendly ruling party (Georgian Dream) had won 54% of the vote, an outcome the president was now openly rejecting as “Georgia’s subordination to Russia.”
Meanwhile the country’s day-to-day leader (prime minister), recently installed by his Georgian Dream party’s shadowy billionaire founder, declared the victory was actually “impressive and obvious”, and shrugged off fraud claims as “doomed to failure”.
Georgia prepares for a divisive election which could determine its future in Europe
(AP) Many in this South Caucasus country of 3.7 million people believe the election will be the most important of their lives, a pivotal vote on the chance to join the European Union. It pits a coalition of opposition parties against Georgian Dream, which has governed in an increasingly authoritarian fashion since 2012.
Polls indicate around 80% of Georgians favor joining the EU, and the constitution obliges leaders to pursue membership in both the bloc and NATO.
In July, Brussels put Georgia’s bid for EU entry on hold indefinitely after Georgian Dream passed a “foreign influence law,” modeled on similar legislation in Russia. It requires media, nongovernmental organizations and other nonprofit groups to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.
Georgian Dream argues it is needed to curb harmful foreign actors trying to destabilize the country. Many journalists and activists say its true goal is to stigmatize them and restrict debate before the election.

23 August
Georgia goes ‘North Korea’ with bombshell plan to ban main opposition parties
EU ambitions face new blow as analyst warns the government’s move “would be the end of Georgia’s democracy.”
(Politico Eu) Georgia’s ruling party has vowed to outlaw virtually all of its political opponents if it wins parliamentary elections later this year.
The ban would likely leave Georgia’s already frozen bid to join the EU in tatters, after recent clashes between Tbilisi and Brussels on human rights and the rule of law.
On Friday, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the government would seek to ban more than half a dozen parties following October’s critical nationwide vote.
Opposition parties have sought to join forces ahead of the vote to defeat Georgian Dream, which has faced widespread street protests in recent months over its introduction of a Russian-style law that brands Western-backed NGOs and media outlets as “foreign agents.”

12 June
Armenian leader announces plan to leave Russia-dominated security alliance as ties with Moscow sour
(AP) — The leader of Armenia on Wednesday declared his intention to pull out of a Russia-dominated security alliance of several ex-Soviet nations as tensions rise between the two allies.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his government will decide later when to leave the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, a grouping that includes Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Amid the widening rift with Russia, Armenia earlier froze its participation in the alliance, canceled its involvement in joint military drills and snubbed CSTO summits.
Pashinyan said Wednesday for the first time that Armenia will leave CSTO altogether. He spoke during a question-and-answer session in parliament, saying that the government will decide later when to make the final move.

16 May
France accuses Azerbaijan of fomenting deadly riots in overseas territory New Caledonia
State of emergency has been declared in the Pacific Ocean archipelago after four people were killed in the worsening violence.
(Politico Eu) a French intelligence official granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues of national security, said that “we’ve detected activities from Russia and Azerbaijan in New Caledonia for weeks, even a few months. They’re pushing the narrative of France being a colonialist state.”
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizada strongly rejected claims the country was behind the unrest. “Instead of accusing Azerbaijan of allegedly supporting pro-independence protests in New Caledonia, the Minister of the Interior of France should focus on his country’s failed policy towards the overseas territories that led to such protests,” he said.
Relations between France and Azerbaijan have hit rock bottom in recent years as a result of French military and political support for the South Caucasus country’s neighbor and historic rival Armenia — a situation only intensified by Baku’s military seizure of the ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year.
France’s accusations against Azerbaijan will only heighten the focus on the international meddling and domestic political crackdowns perpetrated by a regime that will host this year’s COP29 U.N. climate talks.

2-15 May
The ‘foreign agents’ law that has set off mass protests in Georgia (podcast)
(The Guardian) The bill requires any civil society organisation that receives more than 20% of its funds from abroad to register as being under foreign influence. Daniel Boffey reports
…the new law Georgia’s parliament passed yesterday has sparked outrage and demonstrations in the capital, Tbilisi. Critics claim the bill is “Kremlin-inspired” as Putin passed a similar law in 2012, which they say has had a chilling effect on civil society. Demonstrators think it is a way to redirect Georgia towards Russia.
14 May
Georgian parliament passes ‘foreign agent’ bill, prompting US anger, new protests</strong>
(Reuters) – Georgia’s parliament on Tuesday passed the third and final reading of a “foreign agents” bill, prompting a warning from the United States that if the legislation failed to meet European Union standards, Washington could review relations.
Thousands of protesters, who along with Western nations denounce the bill as authoritarian and Russian-inspired, massed in the centre of Tbilisi, shutting down a major intersection controlling traffic between different neighbourhoods.
7 May
EBRD warns Georgia ‘foreign agents’ law could hit economy, investor confidence
(Reuters) – Tensions around Georgia’s controversial draft “foreign agents” law could hit the country’s economy and investor confidence, the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) warned on Tuesday.
The draft legislation, which is winding its way through the Georgian parliament, would require organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, a requirement opponents attack as authoritarian and Kremlin-inspired.
2 May
European Union official warns Georgia ‘foreign agents’ bill threatens its EU chances
(The Guardian) An EU official in Georgia has said that the proposed ‘foreign agents’ bill unacceptable and that adoption of the bill would create a very serious obstacle to Georgia joining the bloc, Reuters reported.
Gert Jan Koopman, director general of the European Commission’s enlargement directorate, said the Georgian government still has time to change course.

16 April
Armenia Asks World Court to Pursue Ethnic Cleansing Case Against Azerbaijan
(The World) A human rights organization representing ethnic Armenians submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court on Thursday, arguing that Azerbaijan is committing an ongoing genocide against them. Azerbaijan’s government did not immediately comment on the accusations. The neighboring countries have been at odds for decades over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and are already facing off in a separate legal case stemming from that conflict. Lawyers for the California-based Center for Truth and Justice say there is sufficient evidence to open a formal investigation into Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other top leaders for genocide.

4 April
EU warns candidate country Georgia over disputed ‘foreign agent’ law
‘The EU regrets that it is once again being considered,’ foreign policy department said about controversial legislation.
The European Union criticized Georgia’s ruling party’s decision to reintroduce a controversial Russia-inspired foreign agent law, warning that “ensuring media freedom” is critical to the EU accession process.

19 March
Armenia’s PM warns Azerbaijan could start war over disputed border villages
Armenia could face war by ‘end of the week’ if it does not return four Azerbaijani villages, PM Pashinyan says.
The four villages, which have been uninhabited for more than 30 years, are of strategic value to Armenia as they straddle the main road between Yerevan and the Georgian border.
Azerbaijan has said the return of its lands, which also include several tiny enclaves entirely surrounded by Armenian territory, is a necessary condition for a peace deal to end three decades of conflict over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan’s forces retook last September.