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Mar 7 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Important days in the war in eastern Ukraine, a major crisis in Georgia, but don’t forget also the situation in and around #Karabakh. Here's the piece I published a week ago on “Armenia’s insecurity” for @Carnegie_Europe @Judy_Dempsey
carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurop…
Since then the situation has got a bit worse. The Lachin Corridor to Karabakh remains closed to all but a few vehicles, chiefly the ICRC. And three Armenian policemen and two Azerbaijani soldiers were reported killed in two separate incidents. rferl.org/a/armenia-azer…
My main point: the ARM-AZ situation is very volatile, it can tip into more violence, or there could be a framework peace agreement. PM Pashinyan has gone out on a limb, but Pres. Aliyev continues to press and make the Armenians insecure--a situation which Russia exploits.
The piece was criticized by parts of Azerbaijani and Armenian Twitter (predictably!), judge for yourself!

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More from @Tom_deWaal

Thomas de Waal Profile picture
Mar 8
1 Pay attention to #Georgia 🇬🇪 today! A THREAD Last night police in Tbilisi forcibly dispersed a protest against a new Foreign Agent law rushed through parliament. It’s an escalation by the ever more authoritarian Georgian Dream govt
2 For good coverage see the websites of @CivilGe
@JAMnewsCaucasus @OCMediaorg (and its @mari_nikuradze) All are small independent outlets, which are incidentally threatened by the new legislation. Also look at @FormulaGe who had these iconic pictures
3 The bill and crackdown are a massive challenge to the EU, which offered GE conditional candidate perspective last year. “This law is incompatible with EU values and standards. It goes against Georgia’s stated objective of joining the European Union,”
eeas.europa.eu/eeas/georgia-s…
Read 12 tweets
Thomas de Waal Profile picture
Dec 13, 2022
1/ If you haven’t been watching the situation in the so-called #Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Armenia and #Karabakh, you should now. The Armenian-Azerbaijani situation may be sliding slowly back into conflict. A short thread.
2/ Self-declared Azerbaijani environmentalists evidently sent there by the government in Baku (Azerbaijan’s version of “Little Green Men”?) have been blocking the Lachin road and therefore access in and out for local Armenians.
eurasianet.org/azerbaijanis-a…
3/ Azerbaijan has legitimate concerns about alleged new mines being laid around the corridor. But as this expert hints Azerbaijan's agenda is much bigger than this: “the establishment of Baku’s sovereign rights over the entire territory of Karabakh.”
jam-news.net/azerbaijan-is-…
Read 8 tweets
Thomas de Waal Profile picture
Jun 9, 2022
1 Credit to @Kamal_Makili for setting out the case for Aaland Islands style autonomy for the Karabakh Armenians very eloquently here.
commonspace.eu/node/11445
2 As Kamal himself points out, neither Baku nor Stepanakert is interested in discussing this at the moment. But he makes some important points, including about how international guarantees underpin the Aaland Islands model.
3 In my recent (not so much noticed) article for Analyticon I also mention the three big Helsinki Final Act principles of territorial integrity, self-determination and non-use of force as 3 conceptual pillars of a peace process.
theanalyticon.com/en/may-2022-en…
Read 9 tweets
Thomas de Waal Profile picture
Jun 1, 2022
Here is a piece commissioned by the Armenian online analytical journal Analyticon on the new EU mediated ARM-AZ talks theanalyticon.com/en/may-2022-en…
Three questions. The role of Russia? What now for the Minsk Group. (It’s frozen but not entirely dead). And what about the #Karabakh Armenians? Territorial independence is off the table but, as I’ve said for many years, the question of their security is paramount.
In a new statement Charles Michel’s spokesperson clarified some details and also stresses the importance of public diplomacy and “rights and security” consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press…
Read 4 tweets
Thomas de Waal Profile picture
May 11, 2022
1 A great despatch by @MarcChampion1 from Bessarabia in SW Ukraine. It’s important for its long Black Sea coast, as a supply route to the EU, more than ever now as Odessa is blockaded. Which is why the Russians destroyed the Zatoka bridge.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
2 It’s also Ukraine's most multi-ethnic region: a legacy of being part of the Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, Romania, the USSR, now Ukraine. A real mosaic of nationalities. And Russian is the lingua franca. Image
3 I loved visiting Bessarabia in 2018, wrote this report with @BalazsJarabik. Fair to say that a) people felt alienated from Kyiv and central government b) there was no great love for Moscow either c) most complaints were economic, esp. about roads
carnegieeurope.eu/2018/05/24/bes…
Read 4 tweets
Thomas de Waal Profile picture
Apr 29, 2022
1 A new chilling imperialist article in the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda openly threatens Moldova, Georgia and the Baltic States. A summary.
kp.ru/daily/27385/45…
2 As ever we can't know if it was written in coordination with Russia’s elite or if the eager pupil is merely trying to please the teacher. It certainly normalizes the idea that Russia has the right to use force against neighbours who make a different geopolitical choice.
3 The Ukraine “events” are, we're told, “a turning point in the contemporary history of post-Soviet politics and a decisive step by Russia towards the complete re-formatting of the geopolitical situation in the territory of the former USSR.”
Read 12 tweets

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