RSC Director Richard Giragosian participated in roundtable discussion on 30 October entitled, “Repercussions of the Ukraine Crisis in the South Caucasus: Politics and Security.” Organized by the Caucasus Institute (CI) and moderated by CI Director Alexander Iskandaryan, the roundtable featured presentations by Giragosian, which assessed the political and economic challenges facing Ukraine, and a presentation by CI Deputy Director Sergey Minasyan on “the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on regional security in the Caucasus and potential repercussions in the entire post-Soviet space.”

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 cooperation with the Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership, the Regional Studies Center (RCS) co-sponsored a two-day training seminar on 20-21 October 2014 for Armenian public sector communicators, journalists and the members of the civil society focused on the development of EU-related communications in Armenia.

After a successful first part of a two-phase training course entitled, “Closed Borders, Open Minds,” in Yerevan from 12-19 May 2014, with twenty participants from Armenia and Turkey, the second, follow-up training was held in Istanbul from 13-19 October 2014.

In partnership with the Civic Forum NGO, a recognized leader in the field of youth education and training, the second phase of the RSC youth training focused on the deepening of participants’ knowledge, developing their skills and shaping a more positive opinion and political context of the Armenia-Turkey normalisation process.

A more detailed report of the training is attached.