By Fuad Shahbazov
June 1, 2020, the CACI Analyst
On March 1, 2020, India outperformed Russia and Poland in a US$ 40 million defense deal with Armenia to supply it with four domestically made SWATHI counter-battery radars. The system is developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and manufactured by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). It provides accurate information on enemy artillery firing positions weapons up to 75 kilometers away. The decision came amid India’s growing efforts to boost its national “Make in India” brand in the defense industry sector, which could make new inroads into European, Middle Eastern and Asian defense markets. However, the new Indian – Armenian defense deal could undermine Delhi’s relations with Russia on the one hand, and Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan on the other.
By Natalia Konarzewska
April 15, 2020, the CACI Analyst
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited Georgia on March 3-4 to discuss bilateral relations and held several high-profile meetings with top politicians including his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Gakharia and president Salome Zurabishvili. This is Pashinyan’s third visit to Georgia since he assumed office in 2018, following a peaceful power shift ousting the previous unpopular regime. His government has made a broader effort to reinvigorate ties with Georgia. Despite fundamentally different geopolitical outlooks and various challenges, Tbilisi and Yerevan have maintained good neighborly relations based on political pragmatism. Yet their partnership still has room for improvement.
By Vasif Huseynov
April 6, 2020, the CACI Analyst
On 28-30 January, in Geneva, Switzerland, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan held an OSCE-mediated meeting on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The meeting lasted for eleven hours and raised hope, though rather limited, for a breakthrough. Particularly positive developments include a decline in the number of causalities on the line of contact and that the meeting’s final statement for the first time emphasized the confidentiality of the negotiations. However, while these facts may induce some optimism, most other developments in the relations between Baku and Yerevan over the last year indicate that the sides remain far from a breakthrough.
By Nurlan Aliyev
March 2, 2020, the CACI Analyst
In December 26, 2019 , the Georgian National Museum presented a new exhibition titled “Chinese Art in the Georgian National Museum,” dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, and a book on the theme by Georgian authors. Within this project, supported by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Georgia, several exhibitions of works by Chinese painters take place in Tbilisi between December 2019 and February 2020. In recent years China’s growing economic presence in the South Caucasus has been accompanied by developments in cultural and educational relations between China and the regional states.
By Armen Grigoryan
January 21, 2020, the CACI Analyst
A year after winning a two-thirds majority at the snap parliamentary elections, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has acknowledged flaws in the government’s previous approach to the reform process, admitting that some essential reforms have practically been stalled. Pashinyan continually enjoys a considerably high level of public support, and needs to take decisive steps towards more drastic reforms, possibly by mobilizing support from different groups that welcomed the “Velvet Revolution” and the wider expert community.
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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