In the latest in a series of regular contributions to the Investor.ge publications, RSC Director Richard Giragosian offered a new analytical article entitled, “The South Caucasus: Regional Division and Divergence.” Published in the October-November 2014 issue of Investor.ge, the article noted that “for the three countries of the South Caucasus, the priority has always been to overcome the limits of geography. And for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the preference has been to look beyond the regional confines of the South Caucasus. But never before has the region been as divided as it is now, as the South Caucasus has become a strategic arena of competition and confrontation with Russia seeking to push back and push out European Union (EU) engagement.”

In an article for the Anadolu News Agency, journalist Handan Kazanci cited the RSC in a report from Armenia that examined the role of Azerbaijan in “stalling normalization between Yerevan and Ankara.” Kazanci was a participant in the “Media Bus” project, along with ten fellow journalists and bloggers from Turkey and ten Armenian colleagues. RSC Director Richard Giragosian was cited in the article, based on comments during the group’s visit to the RSC offices in Yerevan, where they met with RSC staff.

In a wide ranging interview covering the war in Ukraine and the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the situation in Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, RSC Senior Analyst David Shahnazaryan offered his analysis in an interview on 18 October in Kiev with prominent journalist Vitaly Portnikov. The interview, which took place in Kiev, was aired on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service.

www.svoboda.org/content/transcript/26642446.html

audio: www.svoboda.org/audio/26619916.html

In a multi-part interview with the “Aravot” newspaper, RSC Senior Analyst David Shahnazaryan assessed the implications from the Armenian bid to join the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). In the interview, entitled, “Membership in Eurasian economic union makes Armenia a captive,” Shahnazaryan pointed out the negative implications of such a move, adding “there is no single economic reason for Armenia’s membership in the Russia-led union. Armenia has no economic border with any of its member states; its accession to the Eurasian Economic Union will entail a greater economic downfall and further worsening of people’s living standards.”

In an assessment published by the Bertelsmann Stuftung’s Transformation Index BTI 2014 blog, RSC Analyst Mikayel Zolyan reviews the course of Armenia’s state goal of joining the Eurasian Economic Union. In the 6 October analysis, Zolyan noted that “in the run-up to the Ukraine crisis, Armenia rejected an association agreement with the European Union in favor of cooperation with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan,” but stressed that “the country’s future in the Eurasian Economic Union seems uncertain – and the door to Brussels might not be completely shut.”

http://blog.bti-project.org/news/details/1410/an-offer-yerevan-could-not-refuse/