In a wide-ranging interview with Aram Sargsyan for the 1in.am news agency, RSC Director Richard Giragosian assessed the year in review in terms of Armenian foreign policy, regional developments and domestic political developments in Armenia. The 15-minute interview was conducted in English and dubbed into Armenian.
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By Yigit Engin, Alvaro Ortiz, Tomasa Rodrigo
BBVA Research
December 2015
The geopolitical hot spots continue on the fore in the second half of the year. The Syrian war remains complex with no transition plan. The Russian-Turkey tension escalates. Iraq is still in a fragile situation. ISIS tries to destabilize failed states in some regions. The proxy war continues in Yemen. The refugee crisis poses some risks for Europe.
www.bbvaresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Geo-MENA-Report-Dec-20152.pdf
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After a serious escalation of tension and military clashes in clear violation of the fragile Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire in place, the head of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolay Bordyuzha, expressed concern that a full-scale Armenian-Azerbaijani war would destabilize “the whole Caucasus.”
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Ali Çarkoğlu
Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI)
December 2015
The dramatic finale of the election storm in the country came unexpectedly. We have yet to understand the details of the conservative shift that brought the AK Party to power one more time. What is more of a concern at this stage on a speculative level is the potential impact of mass security concerns on Turkish democracy. As Turkey remains in tense international conflict on its southern Syrian border, the saliency of security concerns fueled by the Kurdish conflict also provides ample ground for limitations and constraints to be imposed upon Turkish democracy. These security concerns are likely to be coupled with the waning importance of performance politics. As a rule, without performing acceptably in meeting the demands and expectations of the masses, especially on the economic front, a government could not stay in power. The last experience of the November elections, however, could be taken as evidence of electoral success without noticeable performance advantage. The AK Party’s success appears to be driven not by its performance but rather by its successful management of the changing agenda, by ontological polarisation as a basis for credibility while facing an uncertain future, and by a de facto constrained campaign effort on the part of the opposition. Such constraints upon the opposition and the media at large can only mean deteriorating democratic standards in the country.
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RSC Director Richard Giragosian assessed the risk of war over Nagorno-Karabakh in an article for al Jazeera entitled “Is war imminent in the Caucasus?”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/12/war-imminent-caucasus-151224095948528.html