Hrant Mikaelian, a political scientist and multidisciplinary researcher in social sciences based in Yerevan. He is also a senior researcher at the Caucasus Institute.

And

Emil Sanamyan, a senior research fellow at USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies specializing in politics in the Caucasus, with a special focus on Azerbaijan.

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Topic This Week: The War in Artsakh

International diplomacy on the move?

On Friday, the foreign ministers of both Azerbaijan and Armenia were in Washington DC and met separately with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Right before these trips and afterwards, both foreign ministers passed through Moscow for consultations with Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov. The US has been all but disengaged from the Caucasus in the last few years.

What can we expect from Washington? What are the next steps you see from here?

Why would Putin bring up the Sumgait massacres and mention that the roots of this conflict lie in the criminal treatment of Armenians in Azerbaijan? How does this fit (if at all) into the larger Russian diplomatic initiative?

What is Turkey’s Endgame?

Much has been said of Erdogan’s ambitions of reviving the Ottoman Empire, or the Caliphate, or Pan-Turanic dreams of joining Turkey with Central Asia via Azerbaijan. The Turkish-instigated instabilities in the various neighboring countries such as Iraq, Syria, Cyprus, Libya, and now the Caucasus attest to Turkey's vision of a greater regional role for itself.

Where are Turkey’s sights set?

War and Post-War Economy

The war has been going on for nearly a month now. How do we plan for a post-war recovery? What will rebuilding look like?

Update on Covid

In the past two weeks Armenia has seen a steep rise in the daily numbers of new infections, which have reached the 2000-2500 range. Tests have picked up as well, with daily tests in the 4-5000 range, which puts thee infection positivity rate around 40-50%

Before the war flared up on Sep. 27th Armenia seemed to have COVID-19 under some control, but not anymore. Is this a classic Wave 2? What are the underlying causes of the current situation?

Wrap-up

That concludes our program for This week’s Groong Week in Review. We hope it has helped your understanding of some of the issues from the previous week. We look forward to your feedback, and even your suggestions for issues to cover in greater depth. Contact us on our website, at groong.org, or on our Facebook Page “ANN - Groong”, or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News Network”.

Special thanks to Laura Osborn for providing the music for our podcast. I’m Hovik Manucharyan, and on behalf of everyone in this episode, I wish you a good week. Thank you for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.

Keywords

Armenia, Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Negotiations, Lavrov Plan, Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Trump, Washington, Moscow, Valdai Summit, COVID, Coronavirus