On 5-6 September 2014, RSC Director Richard Giragosian participated in a two-day joint workshop on “Strategies and Models for Rapprochement with the European Union,” organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) in cooperation with the Committee on European Integration of the Parliament of Georgia and the Association “European Time” NGO. Facilitated by Dr. Canan Atilgan, the head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the South Caucasus, the workshop was attended by parliamentary staff members from Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

In the wake of a series of clashes that were seen as the most serious violations of the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire in two decades, the Regional Studies Center (RSC) formally endorsed a public “call for peace in Karabakh” issued on 9 August.

At the invitation of the Georgian government, RSC Senior Analyst David Shahnazaryan attended a two-day international conference in Batumi, Georgia from 10-11 July and delivered a presentation on regional security and public diplomacy. The conference, entitled “Georgia’s European Way,” was opened by the Georgian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and brought together a number of senior officials and representatives from civil society, as well as leading analysts to “discuss issues related to the implementation of the Association Agreement, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), and the EU-Georgia cooperation agenda ahead of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) 2015 Riga Summit.”

RSC Director Richard Giragosian presented a “critical assessment” of proposed amendments to the Armenian constitution at a public event on 10 July organized by the Apella Institute for Policy Analysis and Dialogue in partnership with the Open Society Foundations- Armenia. The international conference, entitled “Rethinking Constitutional Reforms in Context,” included presentations by Gagik Harutyunyan, the Chairman of the Armenian Constitutional Court, and the head of the Armenian government-formed Constitutional Reforms Commission, Professor Miroslaw Wyrzykowski, Professor, Chair of Human Rights, University of Warsaw, former Judge, Constitutional Court, Poland, Dr. Daniel Smilov, Programme Director, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Bulgaria and Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law, University of Sofia and CEU, and Dr. Alexei Pikulik, Director, Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, and Assistant Professor, European University in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Giragosian’s formal presentation will be posted shortly.

At the invitation of the Armenian Ministry of Defense, RSC Director Richard Giragosian participated in a two-day International Strategic Policy Forum of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The forum, entitled “Integration of National and Regional Peacekeeping Capacities into the Global System of Peace Operations,” was held from 1-2 July and included senior officers and officials from the CSTO Secretariat and Joint Staff, and representatives from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan.