In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Armenian Service on 12 October, RSC Director Richard Giragosian hailed the EU’s official mandate to start formal negotiations over a new legal framework for relations between Armenian and the European Union.

RSC Director Richard Giragosian was a guest on the weekly talk show hosted by Hrair Tamrazian, the Director of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Armenian Service on 4 October. Joined by journalist Hakob Badalyan, Giragosian discussed the recent week’s events, including the Armenian president’s attendance at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York and visit to Washington, as well as developments related to the set of proposed amendments to the Armenian constitution and the escalation of tension and recent surge in fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. The 40-minute talk show was in Armenian, with Giragosian’s English-language analysis dubbed into Armenian.

In the latest in our series of RSC Staff Papers, entitled, “Russian Hard Power in the South Caucasus,” RSC Resident Fellow Kathleen C. Weinberger offers an innovative analysis of the main drivers and determinants of Russian strategy for securing its power and influence throughout the “near abroad.” 

In a joint commentary by Professor Tornike Sharashenidez, the Head of the MA Program of International Affairs in Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA) and RSC Director Richard Giragosian, the implications of engaging Iran on the wider South Caucasus region were examined.  The article was published as a commentary piece for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on 18 September 2015.

www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_engaging_iran_implications_for_the_south_caucasus4022

In the latest in our series of RSC Staff Papers, two RSC staff members offered a fresh analysis of various aspects of the ongoing discussion in Armenia over the government’s plans to amend the Armenian constitution.  In the first paper, Dr. Mikayel Zolyan, RSC Analyst, assessed the course of Armenia’s proposed constitutional reforms in a 5-page article entitled, “Parliamentary Democracy or One-Party State: What is Behind Armenia’s Constitutional Reform.”  The second paper, authored by RSC Resident Fellow Kathleen C. Weinberger and entitled, “Armenia’s Constitutional Reforms: Forward Movement or Momentous Fallacy?” examines the issue of Armenian constitutional reform in the broader international context with an added comparative analysis.