Carnegie Moscow Center
Abkhazia is in crisis, but it is not a spillover from events in Ukraine. This is overwhelmingly a local crisis. For the past 20 years Abkhazia has lived in a world of its own.
The Ukraine crisis has opened up a period of intense geopolitical competition, rivalry, and even confrontation between Russia and the West. The area of competition is again Eastern Europe; only this time, further to the east of its Cold War namesake.
The ceasefire, which halted the war over Nagorny Karabakh 20 years ago, has been broken with grim regularity. Ordinary soldiers and civilians are the ones who pay the price for a lack of agreement on the front line, which is called Karabakh’s Line of Contact.
For the first time in many years, the U.S. government made its own policy statement on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the 1994 ceasefire. In his speech, the American co-chair of the Minsk Group of the OSCE issued an invitation to the governments in Baku and Yerevan to step up their commitment to the peace process.
Erdogan’s statement of condolences to the descendants of Armenians murdered by the Ottomans can let Turks feel freer and more comfortable to take a more critical look at their history, as well as reduce the tension between Turkey and Armenia.
The paranoia, intolerance of dissent, spy-mania, and anti-Western mood in Azerbaijan are all painfully reminiscent of Putin’s Russia.
The new Russian legislation allowing regions of another country to seek to join the Russian Federation gives Moscow leverage over a number of regions. Georgians are worrying that South Ossetia could be one of these regions.
In his statement on the “Armenian Question,” Erdogan goes further than any other Turkish leader before him and offers condolences to the descendants of Ottoman Armenians. However, instead of rhetoric, it would be better for each of the nations to concentrate on normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations and opening the closed border.
Despite the fact that political feuds continue, there is a clear political consensus in Georgia on a European path.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan takes the battle against the Gülen movement beyond the national borders, and it seems that his visit to Azerbaijan, to a large extent, was motivated by the omnipresence of Gülen followers whose activities in Azerbaijan are massive and successful.