Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kamran Gasanov
[REGNUM] The past year in the South Caucasus was marked by three trending events: Armenia’s further distancing from Russia, a crisis in relations between Baku and the West, and a decisive battle between the West and the opposition against the Georgian Dream.
AZERBAIJAN: MULTI-VECTOR CRISIS
In 2023, Ilham Aliyev achieved perhaps the most important goal since the creation of the modern Azerbaijan Republic: he completely regained control over Karabakh.
But everything has its price, and 2024 has become a test of strength for Azerbaijan’s carefully constructed multi-vector foreign policy.
The contours of the looming crisis were already visible at the end of 2023, when the US Assistant Secretary of State announced the end of high-level contacts. Antony Blinken criticized Aliyev for the lack of democracy and called for an end to repression. Washington had previously accused Azerbaijan of provocations on the border with Armenia, but Aliyev did not refuse American mediation. However, when the criticism began to concern him personally, trust was undermined completely.
In this direction, the US and the EU worked hand in hand.
Two events had a resonant impact: the early presidential elections in Azerbaijan in early February and the early parliamentary elections in September, which Aliyev and his New Azerbaijan Party confidently won.
On January 24, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) suspended the powers of the Azerbaijani delegates, accusing Baku of lack of democracy and fair elections, failure to respect human rights, and blocking the Lachin corridor and expelling Armenians from Karabakh.
In response, Aliyev threatened to withdraw from the Council of Europe and revise the jurisdiction of the ECHR. In October, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the need to revise relations with the South Caucasus republic and impose sanctions.
Aliyev did not mince words either, advising the EU to stay away from Azerbaijan and accusing Washington of black ingratitude.
The Azerbaijani leadership was very unhappy with the West's rapprochement with Armenia. Now, not only France, but also the EU as such began to support it. France supplied armored vehicles and self-propelled guns, and the EU allocated military aid to Armenia in the amount of 10 million euros.
The worse ties with the West became, the more incentives there were to strengthen strategic relations with Russia.
In April, when the Karabakh issue had already been exhausted, Aliyev and Putin removed perhaps the last obstacle to full cooperation: the Russian contingent was withdrawn from Karabakh. Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov explained this by the new realities in the region after Armenia recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
That same April, Aliyev visited Moscow. Putin praised the talks as a “good impetus for the development of bilateral relations.” Aliyev called Russia the “founding country” of the South Caucasus. Then, in August, Putin arrived in Baku on a return visit.
The statements following the meeting were nothing but compliments. Aliyev greeted Putin “with all his heart,” and the Russian leader called Baku a “Caucasian oasis.” On the day of Putin’s visit, Azerbaijan applied to join BRICS, and Aliyev soon took part in the Kazan summit.
However, at the end of the year, this trend was sharply called into question by the crash of the AZAL airliner in Aktau. Aliyev accused Russia of trying to cover up the fact that the plane was shot down by air defense systems in Chechnya. However, Putin’s apology and Aliyev’s words about the unintentional strike on the airliner leave hopes for maintaining pragmatic relations.
ARMENIA: AWAY FROM RUSSIA, CLOSER TO THE EU
Since 2020, Armenia's foreign policy has been based on grievances against Russia for its lack of assistance in the confrontation with Azerbaijan. In 2023, these grievances have already transformed into concrete actions: joint exercises with the United States, a visit by Pashinyan's wife to Kyiv, and Yerevan's accession to the Rome Statute of the ICC, which issued an arrest warrant for Putin.
In 2024, Pashinyan decided to go even further.
He began the process of severing military ties with Russia.
On February 23, Armenia officially announced the freezing of its participation in the CSTO. Within a year, Russian border guards completed their 32-year service in Armenia.
If Pashinyan's team finally said goodbye to the CSTO, they still attended CIS and EAEU meetings. But even here the Armenian prime minister began to show his teeth.
Pashinyan did not attend the last summit in St. Petersburg under the pretext of COVID and got into an online spat with Alexander Lukashenko. In early December, the Armenian prime minister refused to hold the EAEU summit in Yerevan, despite the fact that by right of presidency it was supposed to take place there.
He motivated his decision by the fact that “not all members of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council are welcome in Armenia.” Whether he meant Lukashenko, who supplies Baku with weapons, or Putin, who is subject to the ICC ruling, remains a mystery.
Symmetrically to the break with the Russian Federation and the CSTO, Pashinyan accelerated integration with the West.
The April 5 summit in Brussels with the heads of the European Commission and the State Department proved that alliances with the EU, the US and NATO go hand in hand. The EU and the US are ready to provide for Armenia, promising at that meeting to allocate €270 million and $65 million respectively.
The presence of European observers on the eastern borders is in fact a prototype of the EU (NATO) base. Military exercises with the US continued. On September 19-24, the Armenian military conducted maneuvers together with the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The picture regarding European integration is becoming increasingly clear.
More than a year ago, Pashinyan said that “ Armenia is ready to be closer to the European Union, as far as the European Union considers it possible.” In 2024, contacts only intensified. The parties launched a dialogue on a visa-free regime. The European Parliament has already proposed giving Armenia the status of a candidate for membership. In Armenia itself, a referendum on joining the EU is being prepared.
Against the backdrop of problematic Georgia, a pro-Western and “democratic Armenia” is becoming a more priority direction for EU policy in the Caucasus.
ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI TRACK: SLOWLY BUT SURELY
Oddly enough, the orientation of Armenia and Azerbaijan in opposite directions of the political compass did not have a negative impact on their bilateral relations. The normalization process was quite optimistic during the year.
During his September visit to Georgia, Pashinyan spoke about the agreement being 80% agreed upon, while Aliyev allowed for the possibility of signing it by the end of the year. In April, they managed to reach an agreement on disputed villages on the border between the two countries.
The main obstacle was identified by the Azerbaijani side as the existence of territorial claims - Aliyev demanded the opening of the Zangezur corridor between the main territory of Azerbaijan and the Nakhichevan enclave and changes to the Armenian constitution, which contains references to the need to unite Karabakh with Armenia. However, progress was noted here too.
In August, Aliyev and Pashinyan decided to remove the clause on the Zangezur corridor from the conditions for signing the peace treaty, but Baku still insists on amending the basic law of the neighboring country.
At the moment, the main problematic points remain the preservation of European observers and Armenia’s claims against Azerbaijan related to the rights of Karabakh Armenians.
Pashinyan agreed not to deploy third-country forces on the border with Azerbaijan after its delimitation, but judging by how long the delimitation has been going on, resolving this obstacle could take years. Whether the Armenians will drop hundreds of lawsuits is also a big question.
The issue of mediation between Baku and Yerevan has also changed significantly this year. After the aggravation of relations between Azerbaijan and the US, the EU and especially France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed the role of mediator, but he managed to achieve only limited success (Pashinyan and Aliyev were brought together at the Munich Security Conference), and Scholz’s own political prospects are unclear.
Kazakhstan has decided to try its hand at mediation. On May 10–11, Foreign Ministers Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan met in Almaty and announced the possibility of concluding a peace treaty by the end of the year. But Kazakhstan’s success so far appears to be tactical.
In October, both Aliyev and Pashinyan came to the CIS summit, but it was not possible to hold the Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia format, since the idea, as Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said, “was not supported by some people.”
The BRICS summit was a real success. The whole world saw footage of Pashinyan and Aliyev, as if classmates in class, having a long dialogue, turning their chairs towards each other, right during the speeches of other speakers. Pashinyan was pleased, he managed to bring together Aliyev's positions on unblocking regional communications.
For its part, Armenia proposes to Azerbaijan to conclude a strategic agreement for 100 years, which in fact means a non-aggression pact.
GEORGIA: ONE FOOT IN THE MAIDAN
A real internal struggle with the participation of external forces has unfolded in Georgia this year. The opposition has attempted to carry out a "Maidan" at least four times.
The first serious attempt came in the summer, when the ruling Georgian Dream party was passing the law on foreign agents on its second attempt. If under the previous prime minister Irakli Garibashvili the authorities succumbed to pressure from the streets and temporarily withdrew the bill, then his successor Irakli Kobakhidze showed greater determination.
Under him, “Dream” not only adopted a law on foreign agents, making only cosmetic changes to it, but also a law against LGBT propaganda.
Mass protests on Rustaveli Avenue did not produce the desired effect, and the opposition, formed into four blocs, set its sights on the October parliamentary elections.
Although the Georgian Dream failed to obtain a constitutional majority in the elections, it still won: it has 89 of 150 mandates. The United National Movement of the serving Saakashvili gained three times less than in the previous elections, and together with the parties Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia, and For Georgia, they did not even get 40%.
Therefore, the only way out for the opposition was to declare the elections illegitimate and drive people to the barricades.
They failed to instill fear in either the security forces or the founder of the Georgian Dream, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Kobakhidze and co. bravely resisted attempts at revolution.
They were so confident in their victory that at the end of November the Prime Minister froze European integration for four years, which led to hundreds of thousands of rallies. But here too the opposition failed.
The last line of defense for pro-Western forces was the post of President of Georgia, occupied by French citizen Solome Zurabishvili. She promised not to recognize the results of the new presidential elections and refused to leave the Orbeliani Palace.
On December 14, following a collegial vote in parliament, an ally and former member of the Dream, ex-footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili, became president of Georgia.
Zurabishvili was forced to retreat and, in order not to lose face in the eyes of the opposition, when leaving the residence of the head of state, she announced that she was “taking legitimacy with her.”
Protest in Tbilisi against the results of the parliamentary elections
Throughout this year, the European Union and the United States have been trying their best to destabilize the situation in Georgia, willingly joining in comparisons of the Georgian government and the laws it adopts with Russian ones.
The West did not like the fact that Kobakhidze and Ivanishvili refused to open a “second front” against Russia and fought the pro-Western fifth column. The State Department and Brussels imposed various sanctions, from entry bans to refusal to continue the EU integration process. Dozens of Western diplomats came to Tbilisi after the elections to support the protesters.
But every Western attack only weakened its influence in Tbilisi. Georgian officials are no softer in their remarks about Western capitals than their counterparts in Moscow or Baku.
In their rhetoric, Kobakhidze and his colleagues even use conspiracy terms like “global war party,” meaning the “deep state” that is drawing Georgia into a war with Russia. So, for the Georgian Dream, victory in the parliamentary elections is not just a personal victory, but a victory of peace over war.
***
From the point of view of Russian interests, it can be stated that in 2024 the South Caucasus region was engulfed by contradictory trends. Armenia took another step away from Russia towards the West, but there was no final severance of ties.
In Georgia, the US and EU have loosened their grip and almost failed the “Maidan 2.0” mission, while the local government has confidently set a course for pragmatic, peaceful relations with Russia.
And only with regard to Azerbaijan, which confidently defended its sovereignty from the West, the question of the final vector remains open. Over the course of the year, we observed a rapprochement with Russia, which forced some experts to raise the question of an alliance. But the incident with the airliner has called this process into question.
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