Bundesheer

This combined Study Group Information booklet gathered the papers and the policy recommendations from the 21st and 22nd workshops of the Partnership for Peace Consortium Study Group on “Regional Stability in South Caucasus” (RSSC SG), held in Rome, on 07-09 September 2021, and Reichenau, on 04-07 November 2021, respectively.

The former workshop addressed “Risks and Opportunities of the Emerging South Caucasus Regional Order” and explored the evolving situation in the South Caucasus one year after the start of the 44 days war on Nagorno-Karabakh. In practice, the Trilateral Statement signed on November 9th, 2020, in Moscow, by the presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia and the primeminister of Armenia has created a new geopolitical reality founded upon a Russo-Turkish strategic partnership, possibly leading into an emerging new regional order. This new reality has been established in the South Caucasus, which have been the catalyst for renewed diplomatic and government activity in the region. They called into question new patterns of relationships and expressions of interests mainly by great powers, but diplomatic and administrative initiatives which align with the RSSC SG’s mission of helping forge a strategic personality for the South Caucasus have also been carried out.

The latter workshop aimed to review the progress in the implementation of the Trilateral Statement on Nagorno-Karabakh, against the backdrop of the RSSC SG agreed Policy Recommendations, and thereby to provide means of “Supporting New Conflict Management Platforms in the South Caucasus”. It focused mainly on the idea of regional cooperation promoted by the prime minister of Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili, as to the establishment of a “Peaceful Neighbourhood Initiative” – PNI, which would likely involve all three South Caucasus countries. The overall intention was to generate new ideas that help bilateral and regional dialogues move forward towards new forms of conflict management and regional cooperation. In that latter case, much has been made of the promises of economic cooperation in bringing about a more lasting peace to the region. A proposal was made to set up a distinct sub-platform to discuss economic issues. The RSSC SG has chosen to take up this challenge at its 22nd workshop as a separate panel in the agenda. This panel could symbolically represent a model for an eventual subplatform of an “official” PNI.