Armenia’s parliament is set to consider a bill on recognizing the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state. Just about everyone in Yerevan supports the bill’s intent, but few MPs are willing to vote for the measure at this time.
An appeal by Catholicos Garegin II, Armenia’s religious leader, to President Serzh Sargsyan to hand over to Azerbaijan the body of an Azerbaijani soldier killed in a frontline shootout this summer has set off a church-state debate in Yerevan.
Renowned Russian conductor Vladimir Spivakov has arrived in Yerevan with a group of musicians on an unprecedented direct flight from Baku after giving a concert to mark the anniversary of a prominent Azerbaijani composer.
With the help of American aid, a gleaming new school in central Azerbaijan stands ready to receive the children of internally displaced persons who fled the Agdam Region during the Nagorno-Karabakh war more than 17 years ago.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul ended a two-day official visit to Baku on August 17 with the signing of a strategic partnership agreement, but the details remain a guessing game. Local analysts say that they are left to conclude that the trip, coming a few days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Armenia, was meant mostly for consultations.
The saga of how Azerbaijan lost control of the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh revolves around issues of ethnicity and culture. But it also involves a breed of horse.
A heated political debate in Armenia over a joint statement by US President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicholas Sarkozy about the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process has overshadowed preparations for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s July 4-5 visit to Yerevan.
They have tried threats. They have tried PR. And now, 22 years into the search for a Nagorno-Karabakh peace settlement, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia are turning to the power of faith.
US officials have declared that the United States regards the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia as separate processes. This policy, however, ignores the interests of Washington’s main partners in the region -- Azerbaijan and Turkey.
