BBC Monitoring: Representatives of the Armenian community of Georgia and the Georgian nongovernmental sector have
condemned the violent dispersal of peaceful protests in Yerevan. They held a protest rally today outside the Armenian embassy in Tbilisi, where they signed a joint statement which they later gave to the staff of the embassy. The statement urges the EU and OSCE to pay more attention to the situation in Armenia.

Nino Tsikhistavi, head of the Women’s Network of the Caucasus said:” We, representatives of nongovernmental organizations and representatives of the Armenian diaspora, have gathered here in order to firmly express our solidarity with the Armenian public and the Armenian people. We understand very well what kind of unrest has broken out there. We believe the measures used by the Armenian authorities are absolutely unacceptable.

Kosovo is an independent country now, not still recognized by any country but I am sure, some will start that very soon,starting from United States to European Union. Russia opposes the move furiously,Georgia too and Azerbaijan too. Armenia may welcome that,though i am not sure since Armenia buys weapons from Serbia and that for sure will upset Serbs.
more…

Today as I read the newspaper, Serzh Sarkisyan’s comments struck me as unbelievably short sighted and almost comical. I was reading a week old paper and in it Serzh said that he does not see Russia’s acquiring of Armenia’s utilities as dangerous. He continued to say that he does not see Russia using its economic interests, implying that Russia is not using its economic power to control Armenia. What? Serzh, are you living in the same country as I am?

more…

…that probably wasn’t the first point in Sahakashvili’s agenda. Still, that’s what Georgia is clearly getting out of the scandal: according to data from the Regional Electoral Committee of Akhalkalaki (the predominantly Armenian populated town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region in Georgia), Akhalkalaki with 7052 voters will have 1 delegate to the regional sakrebulo (the local representative self-government body), which is as many as the Georgian village Ptena with 204 voters. The elections in Georgia certainly look promising… and will probably go by unnoticed, lost in the overall spy-scandal fuss!!!
more…

According to Interfax, the natural gas pipeline to Georgia and Armenia has been restored:

Gas supplies to Georgia and Armenia on the North Caucasus-Transcaucasus gas pipeline in North Ossetia resumed at 10:17 a.m., Moscow time, on Sunday, Viktor Krainov, director of Kavkaztransgaz’s Mozdok gas pipeline department told Interfax. “The pipeline has been purged of an explosive gas-air mixture and the tap has been turned. Gas will flow to Georgia and further to Armenia,” he said. Earlier reports said that welding operations at the damaged stretch of the pipeline were over on Saturday evening.

One can only be glad that the Russian-Georgian ‘love-fest’ did not end up hurting Armenia. For some absurd reason, the Georgian government cut off gas supplies to teh Russian embassy in Tbilisi, and backed off only after the Russians promised to reciprocate in Moscow.

The Georgian Messenger reports that there is some trade between Armenia and Azerbaijan going through Georgian hands.

Armen Avestinian, the Chairman of the Armenian Customs Office Committee, states that the amount of trade carried out between Armenia and Azerbaijan totaled USD 1,770 in 2005 [mostly food like caviar]… while exported products from Armenia to Azerbaijan totaled USD 220.

The article also has some information on the legal side of trade between the two countries.

It would be interesting to know how much unofficial trading occurs closer to the border.

An update on the gas situation:

Georgia’s getting gas from Azerbaijan. Leaders in Georgia are still saying that Russia did it on purpose. [Forbes]
Jamestown has a summary of the whole thing.
RFE/RL says that the Georgians are really mad. [RFE/RL]
RFE/RL Armenia has coverage as well. They say that authorities are asking people to chill out on using gas for now. The reserves should be fine for a few days. [RFE/RL]

It is REALLY snowing in Armenia - [PanArmenian.Net]

Snowy

Originally uploaded by mkdotam.

Two explosions ripped through Russia’s main natural gas supply pipeline to Armenia and Georgia, halting supplies to the two Caucasus countries for possibly several days, Russian officials said.

They aren’t sure why the explosions occured yet.

Georgia has started importing gas from Azerbaijan. No one is sure yet what Armenia is going to do.

Kocharyan was supposed to go to Russia later this week - he’s likely not to go now.

Blogs:
Ben at neweurasia.net is covering the story. He says that Kazakhstan may benefit from this situation.
Myrthe is covering this too.

News:
Forbes
CNN
RFE/RL

Cross posted on neweurasia.

Tonight I went to a great talk at SOAS by Forum18. You probably recognize the name Felix Corley, as that is the individual that sends the information to Groong.

It was nice meeting Felix in person after all these years and he and his associate editor, John, had a number of interesting things to say about the state of religious freedom in the Caucasus. What was also nice was meeting a lot of new people (and people that I knew their name but hadn’t met) in London.

There is a thriving Armenian-related academic community here. At this event I learned that Dr. Dadrian is speaking tommorow night (which I can’t attend because my best friend from the States is flying in around the same time and I need to get her settled into my house). This weekend there is an Armenian festival — which I am not sure about because I have to teach on Saturday and may go visit a friend in Southern England on Sunday. Next week there is a Karabakh film. I also attended a talk on the region last week.

That’s a lot of events in one month!

Very stimulating and fun. I keep on meeting great people too.

I’ll try to do a write up on the religious freedom talk sometime soon. With my friend coming into town this week, a different friend next week, and a different set of friends the week after, a number of essays to work on and two internships - oh, and tutoring and a help desk job… my life is getting busy again. I’ll get back to business soon!

But, I’ll be in California for December and January for about a month. I’ll be unpacking a house, but if any Blogrel California readers want to meet up - let me know!

A new website, funded by the US and British Embassies, for exploration… newneighbors.am… here’s what they have to say about themselves:

The situation in the South Caucasus changes dynamically. Neighboring countries today and several years ago – are different units, with different role and different approach towards their future. Today we all percept each other as New Neighbors – countries, which are in a new situation and have the necessity for new approaches towards their mutual relations.

There is something else tha is new in our region: it’s the European Neighborhood Policy, which has created a new prospect for the development of our region. The European integration and aspirations towards Western values are the main links to join the neighbors, divided by various problems.

Three Southcaucasian countries are involved in the European Neighborhood Policy. Turkey – the most powerful country of the South Caucasus, has been tending to join the EU for decades. All these processes of course have a deep impact on the formation of a new profile for the region, creating a need to communicate in a new way.

The partnership between Armenia and Georgia, Georgia and Turkey can play an increasingly important role, bridging the separated neighbors through new links, becoming mediators for the establishment of peace and cooperation in the region. The first thing to achieve this is the establishment of really open and positive dialogue between the peoples.

The Public Dialogue will allow discussing all the painful issues in a tolerant atmosphere, showing the world that South Caucasus is ready to integrate into the discourse of societies and civilizations, initiated after the WW II. The Center for Public Dialogue and Development has initiated this project to unite the efforts of all the people, who are not indifferent towards the future of our region, who have something to say in this large dialogue and who know the real value of tolerance and peaceful neighborhood.

Raffi’s in Georgia and shares his observations here.

During his November 9 visit to Armenia, NATO South Caucasus Liaison Officer Romualds Razuks declared that NATO is ready to deploy peacekeeping forces to the South Caucasus, if necessary. Razuks stressed that any potential deployment would be within the context of the OSCE Minsk group negotiation process and would be possible only if both Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to it.

Jamestown has an odd collection of quotes on this topic…

Where the heck would they go?

There are major stories coming from the South Caucasus today.

First, Azeri Economic Development Minister Farhad Aliev (a major oligarch) was dismissed and reportedly arrested on charges of staging a state coup. This relates to the Azeri ex-Speaker attempt earlier this week to retun to Azerbaijan. In addition to Aliev, his brothers and other prominent members of his clan have been detained.
News Story 1, News Story 2, News Story 3, News Story 4

Second, Georgian Foreign Minister Zourabichvili was dismissed for ‘disrespect’ towards the Parliament.
News Story

These major developments happened as the high-level U.S. delegation was touring the South Caucasus. They were in Armenia yesterday, flew to Tbilisi today, and then onwards to Baku.

To say the least, both countries shot themselves in the foot by poor timing. Given the amount of preparation that goes into such trips, the impression this will make on the Americans is disastrous. You don’t want to go somewhere and discover that you don’t have someone to meet with.

Caucuz.com has an interview with Ariel Cohen regarding the U.S. military base in Azerbaijan.

Here are some highlights:

Today, the priority for Washington is to determine if the US needs to carry out an active policy in Eurasia or if, on the other hand, they should limit their presence to the absolute minimum in order to focus on the Middle East, in particular Iraq, before worrying about Central Asia and Caucasus.

This debate is ongoing in Washington. Many experts have been discussing the subject and have recommended different approaches. However, for as long as this debate remains open and unresolved, I think that the probability of establishing an American military base in Azerbaijan is slim.

Armenia is not located in the Caspian-Black Sea corridor. Besides that, Yerevan is a member of the CSTO (the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, created on 30 April 2003 during the Dushanbe summit and which is largely dominated by Moscow) and they maintain historical and privileged relations with Russia as well as with Iran. All these factors put Armenia aside and out of the enclosed circle of America’s favourite allies in the region.

In addition, Armenia is not only under the influence of South Caucasian geo-political realities, but also under that of a very powerful pro-Armenia lobby group in the US. Therefore, the relations between Washington and Yerevan are more bilateral than integrated and interdependent of American strategies in the region.

Here’s the link. It was a pretty interesting interview, I think.

Mark D. Simakovsky is a U.S. Fulbright Post-Graduate Fellow working with the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS). Simakovsky is following up an MA in International Relations from Georgetown University with research focusing on Georgian—Russian relations. He took time to speak with Georgia Today about his work here, his interest in the Caucasus and Georgia’s increasingly important role as a player on the world stage.

neweurasia, a new headquarter for a number of blogs related to the Caucasus and Central Asia, is up!

Know of any university aged students in Armenia that may be interested in writing for it as well? Please let me know.

Blogrel is going to be partnering with neweurasia, so here’s a bit about it:

Within six months of its existence, Thinking-East was able to garner the attention of an average of around 250 readers a day (peak days saw more than 2,000), and had over 40 different students writing articles for us.

This is good, but of course there is a lot to expand on. We always felt that the acclaim and responses were most heart-felt and active from Central Asia and the Caucasus; most of the material published on our site came from this region, too.

Now we want to capitalise on this. We have founded ‘neweurasia’, a new and dedicated Central Asia / Caucasus web magazine. And now, there are many more people onboard to make this a better and far-more successful version of what we have tested with Thinking-East.

So, please read the following and have a thought or two if you could think of yourself joining our nascent, but definitely very ambitious endeavour.

What we are looking for right now are two things: Do you want to get an article published? Send it to us, we are looking for any material from the region to feature the site when it goes online (which will be around mid-October).

Again, to reiterate, we explicitly seek not only proficient English speakers. All content will be checked by native English speakers, so contributing to neweurasia provides you with free English tutorials as well!

The benefits of both writing articles and editing country weblogs are considerable in many ways: It is a great opportunity to get used to writing articles and seeing them published. It is also very useful for networking and getting involved in other projects.

Most usefully, though, it is a very easy way to stay up-to-date on current affairs in your country (and indeed the wider region), particularly events that may not be directly related to your studies but which are nonetheless still of interest.

Equally, it has the advantage that it is not excessively time-consuming, so fits in alongside your studies and other activities very easily.

Commoner Sense has the new Carnival of Revolutions.

I love flickr.com so much.

Check out this map.

The Moscow Times has an interesting take on the privatization of Armenfilm and what it may offer the Armenian cinema.

…In 2004, private investors took ownership of the Vilnius-based Lithuanian Film Studio, and last month, Armenia headed in a similar direction. Yerevan’s historic Armenfilm, founded in 1923 and long part of the rich film tradition of the Caucasus, passed into the hands of the well-connected local media group CS Media City, or CSMC, and its subsidiary Armenia Film Studios, for the sum of 350 million drams (just over $750,000).

Cinema in the Caucasus has always straddled the present-day national borders, and though Armenia has a considerable reputation in film, it’s often been dwarfed by neighboring Georgia, where directors, especially those from the generation of the 1950s and 1960s, earned particular fame.

For instance, Armenfilm is named in honor of Amo Bek-Nazarov, a Soviet actor and director whose career began before the Bolshevik Revolution. Although of Armenian descent, Bek-Nazarov played a major role in Georgian silent film, and one of his best known works, “Pepo” from 1935, unfolds in 19th-century Tiflis, though it features an almost exclusively Armenian cast. Boundaries are further blurred by the fact that Georgia’s state film production body, Goskinprom, actually started in Baku, now the capital of Azerbaijan.

National loyalties are relative, indeed: One of Yerevan’s most prominent museums may honor Sergei Paradzhanov, the censored and once-imprisoned creator of Soviet-era classics such as “Color of Pomegranates,” who died in the city in 1990, but the director rarely worked in the country and is more often linked to Georgia and Ukraine…

Via Siberian Light, David at A Step Out of Time has excerpted a recent Stratfor piece looking at shifts in US policy towards Russia and linking them to Condoleezza Rice’s appointment of Secretary of State.

The State Department is now “staffed by a team that helped knock the Soviet Union off its superpower perch. Russia can look forward to four years of a State Department with the resources and the will to ratchet back Moscow’s influence throughout the Baltics, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia and even its western Slavic flank. The confrontation over Ukraine was just the beginning.”

Anyone have any inside scoop with the folks focusing on the Caucasus?