South Caucasus

Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of Armenia's Security Council, made a stark assessment days after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan raised doubts about Armenia's role in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), dominated by Russia.

Armenia has returned to Azerbaijan four border villages it had seized decades ago, officials in Yerevan and Baku confirmed Friday, in a key step towards normalizing ties between the historic rivals.

The two countries in the Caucasus fought two wars in the 1990s and in 2020 for control of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Several thousand Georgians gathered outside parliament in Tbilisi Sunday night in a fresh protest against a Russian-styled "foreign agent" bill, despite government officials warning of arrests.

In a statement made on May 1, 2024, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Kasym Jomart Tokayev welcomed the agreement between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia to hold negotiations at the level of foreign ministers to prepare a peace treaty, at the initiative of the Kazakh side.

Russia has agreed to remove some of its troops and border guards from Armenia, the Kremlin said on Thursday, after months of spiralling tensions between the two ex-Soviet allies.

Türkiye's Foreign Ministry has dismissed a resolution adopted by the Chamber of Deputies of Chile, the lower house of the country's bicameral congress, which recognized the 1915 events concerning Armenians as a "genocide" as null and void.

"Parliaments have no authority to interpret or pass judgment on history," the ministry said in a statement issued on April 25.

With commemorations of the Armenian Genocide taking place across the world, there is a renewed fear that the lessons of "Never Again" have been forgotten following Azerbaijan's attack on Nagorno Karabakh and its continued threats.

Azerbaijan and Armenia again crossed swords before the U.N.'s top court on Monday, with Baku accusing Yerevan of using the high profile hearings to wage a "public media campaign" against its bitter Caucasus rival.

Azerbaijan and Armenia will fight out a long-running "ethnic cleansing" dispute at the top United Nations court from Monday, just as military tensions are ramping up between the historic enemies.

Robed lawyers from the two countries embark on two weeks of hearings, wrestling over interpretations of international law in the gilded Peace Palace of the International Court of Justice.

The United States and European Union will continue to support Armenia and ethnic Armenians from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, leaders from both sides of the Atlantic pledged as they were meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday.