Caucaz

Armenia PM Warns of Escalating Tensions: New War With Azerbaijan ‘Very Likely’

In a recent development, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan issued a stark warning about the escalating tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, raising concerns over the potential outbreak of a new war. The two nations have a long history of conflict over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with efforts toward a lasting peace treaty showing limited progress. Diplomatic mediation by the European Union, United States, and Russia has yielded few results, leaving the situation highly volatile and complex.

It’s Karimov Era 2.0 for Muslims in Uzbekistan

A new wave of arrests in Uzbekistan have centered on religious lectures, songs, and social media posts, calling up memories of the not-so-distant Karimov era.

On May 31, a 57-year-old woman from Navai region was sentenced to three years of restricted freedom for liking a social media post in 2018, when she was in Turkey. The video she “liked” on the Odnoklassniki.ru social media platform was a religious speech in Uzbek delivered by a person named Rafik Kamalov.

WILL AN INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN EMERGE?

The creation of an independent and sovereign state of Kurdistan is a topic that has a long history and different visions for the implementation of this project.

The territory currently occupied by the compact Kurdish population is about 500 thousand km2. They live at the crossroads of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran, as well as in a number of neighboring countries, not counting the diaspora elsewhere. In terms of population, approximately 8.1 million Kurds live in Iran (10% of the population), 5.5 million in Iraq (17%), 1.7 million in Syria (9.7%) and 14.7 million in Turkey ( 18 %).

LATENT CONFLICTS IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS: AN ETHNO-SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Introduction

The current socio-political situation in Russia and its development trends are the object of close attention of both federal and regional authorities. Politicized ethnicity, which is taking on ever more aggressive forms, threatens the Russian community with ethnoseparatism, secession, interethnic conflicts, and ethnopolitical crises.

From the streets to the border: Iran’s growing paranoia toward Azerbaijan

On Dec. 31, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had a phone conversation with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov, in which he emphasized that improving relations with neighboring countries, including Azerbaijan, is a priority for Iran’s foreign policy. This statement indicates a desire on the part of Tehran to de-escalate the bilateral situation, following a bout of saber-rattling with Azerbaijan this autumn. Nevertheless, tensions between the two countries remain high.

South Caucasus: A battle of wills and corridors

On 12 December, under the pretext of environmentalism, dozens of state-backed “eco-activists” from Azerbaijan blocked the only land corridor connecting Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The blockade created a humanitarian crisis for the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, cutting them off from the outside world. This is not the first time Baku has taken such a provocative action. Azerbaijan has long been pushing for the creation of the “Zangezur corridor” to connect itself to close ally Turkiye through southern Armenia, thereby cutting off the strategic Armenia-Iran border.