By Mamuka Tsereteli
February 8, 2022
Armenia’s decision to refuse hosting of the military exercises of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on January 10, 2023, is an indicator of a trend of major geopolitical significance. Armenia is at an important junction in its recent history and needs greater Western and regional support to make a geopolitical turn away from Russian domination. A Comprehensive Peace Strategy, based on a balance of interests, and a package of security guarantees and economic incentives could bring lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and elevate the South Caucasus to the next level of development.
By Stephen Blank
February 7, 2023
At the end of 2022 Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, announced on television that Armenia is under strong pressure, presumably from Moscow, to join the union state of Russia and Belarus and open an “extraterritorial (trade) corridor” to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan province through its own Syunik province. While Armenia’s acute security predicament provides an opportunity for this Russian move, the question is why Moscow has chosen this particular timing and what it portends for the future of the Caucasus.
The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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