Benyamin Poghosyan - COP29 Post Mortem, Azerbaijan Slams Polish President, Developments in the Middle East, Post-Election Georgia, Russian-Armenian Relations | Ep 390 - Dec 1, 2024 [EP390]

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Guest:

• Benyamin Poghosyan

Topics:

• COP29 Post-Mortem
• Azerbaijan Slams Polish President in Armenia
• Developments in the Middle East
• Post-election Developments in Georgia
• Russian Intel Warnings to Armenia

Episode 390 | Recorded: December 2, 2024

Show Notes

COP29 Post-Mortem

The long-ballyhood PR-stunt that was COP29 in Baku came and went with November.

Last year, following COP28 in Dubai, Armenia chose not to veto Azerbaijan’s bid to host COP29, allowing its proposal to be accepted.

Despite some nations not attending the conference, others sending only low-level representatives, and even despite Greta Thunberg contributing to the awareness raising campaign, Azerbaijan claimed that the event was a success.

Questions:

• Did Aliyev achieve what he was hoping to get out of COP29?
• What did Armenia get for agreeing to let COP29 take place in Baku?

Azerbaijan Slams Polish President

Two weeks ago outgoing Polish president Andrzej Duda was in Baku at COP29, and this past week he visited Yerevan, affirmed strong relations between Poland and Armenia, and so on. More importantly, he visited the EU Mission in Armenia on the borders with Yerevan, and Baku took deep offense and slammed him for provocative, anti-Azerbaijani activities from the leader of a country that has a strategic partnership with them.

Questions:

• What is the root cause of Azerbaijan’s anger here?
• Where do the talks stand, given that Azerbaijan did not concede anything to make it possible for Pashinyan or anyone from his government to attend COP29?
• The term of the EUMA expires in February 2025, why hasn’t Armenia extended it?

The Armenian-Azerbaijani talks over this so-called “peace agreement” have mostly stalled in the past month or more, waiting to see how COP29 would turn out and also how the US presidential election would shake out. Those are behind us now. There was a lot of talk at one point that Azerbaijan might initiate a new war after COP29.

Questions:

• What’s the current risk of such hostilities?

Developments in the Middle East

This past Tuesday Israel and Lebanon reached a ceasefire agreement. Despite dozens of Israeli violations of the agreement, for now it seems to have slowed down the hostilities and bombing of the towns and civilians in Lebanon.

The day after the agreement, terrorists supported by Turkey, the so-called “moderate Syrian opposition,” went on a large-scale offensive in Northeastern Syria.

Syria’s weakness draws both Russia and Iran into a new conflict where their interests would clash with Israel and Turkey. We’ve discussed that such efforts could distract Iran from defending its interests in the north, for example Armenia’s sovereignty over Syunik.

Questions:

• Can the situation in and around Syria lead to a worsening of Turkish-Russian relations?
• Has the potential for war against Iran increased? Some analysts believe the deal with Lebanon allows Israel to focus more on a war on Iran, but Israel alone could not confront Iran without drawing in the United States. So that also brings in the question of what a new Trump administration would do in the region.

Post-election Developments in Georgia

Post-election Georgia is seeing mounting unrest, led by president Salome Zourabichvili who rejects the election results from a month ago, and wants them annulled. In the past week some of the demonstrations bordered on violence, as the new parliament set the date for the next presidential election to December 14, 2024.

Questions:

• How do you see the situation in Georgia developing? Can Zurabishvili prevent Georgian Dream from holding presidential elections, and hold on to her seat?

Unrest in Abkhazia

Also in the past two weeks there have been protests in Abkhazia, where political unrest erupted over opposition to a Russian investment agreement allowing property purchases by Russians. Protests intensified and led to the resignation of Abkhaz President Aslan Bzhania on November 19. A snap presidential election is set for February 15, 2025, to restore stability.

Armenia has a strategic interest in seeing the Abkhaz Railway open again, because it is a key route for Armenian trade relations with Russia. Currently that trade is done through the highly un-resilient Stepantsminda-Lars pass.

Questions:

• What scenarios in Georgia, Abkhazia and Russia could lead to this railway reopening for the first time since 2008?
• Is there a potential for Turkey and Azerbaijan to co-opt this railway to connect exclusively to the east-west Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail lines, instead of connecting south towards Armenia as well?

Russia SVR Warnings

Relations between Russia and Armenia don’t show any sign of improvement.

Several developments from last week:

• Armenia, once again refused to attend the CSTO summit which took place last week.
• The EAEU Summit, which was expected to be held in Yerevan this year (as Armenia is holding the rotating presidency) was moved to Moscow.
• Pashinyan told Armenian Public TV that he might support efforts to have a referendum on joining the EU.
• And lastly, in the duration of 10 days, the Russian external intelligence service published two documents on Armenia:
  • US launches promotion of Armenia’s pro-Western parties
  • Russia Claims U.S. Pushes Armenia ‘To Commit National Suicide’

Over the recent months, some Armenian commentators were predicting that seeing indifference towards Armenia from the west and Russian fortunes in the war in Ukraine increasing, Pashinyan could make overtures towards repairing the strained relations between Armenia and Russia.

Questions:

• How do you see the trajectory in Armenian-Russian relations?
• How realistic is the desire of some Armenians to join the EU? Is this truly a serious topic for consideration?

Wrap-up

That’s our Week in Review, we hope you found it helpful. We invite your feedback and your suggestions, you can find us on most social media and podcast platforms.

Thanks to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts.

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