The Region in Brief
Armenia
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) said it will organize new protests against Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan’s plan to recognize Azerbaijan’s control over Artsakh. “Nikol Pashinian has no mandate to hand over Artsakh to Azerbaijan,” said Ishkhan Saghatelyan, chair of the ARF Supreme Council of Armenia, in a press conference on June 13. Saghatelyan said the ARF will unite with other opposition groups to launch demonstrations this summer. The ARF is part of the Armenia Alliance, one of the two opposition factions represented in Armenia’s parliament. The Armenia Alliance has not announced plans to organize protests. The Armenia Alliance and the I Have Honor Alliance launched demonstrations to unseat Pashinyan from power last summer after he announced that he is ready to “lower the bar” on the status of Artsakh in negotiations with Azerbaijan.
The Meta Oversight Board has upheld a decision to leave up a Facebook post that depicts injured Armenian soldiers being captured by Azerbaijani forces. The video was posted in October 2022, in the weeks following the two-day war in Armenia, when videos appeared online showing Azerbaijani war crimes. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, noted that such videos could have negative impacts by revealing identifying information about prisoners of war. Yet “Meta did not have evidence that videos of this kind were producing these negative impacts but did see evidence that international organizations were using such videos to increase pressure on Azerbaijan to end mistreatment of prisoners of war,” according to a statement.
Artsakh
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his plans to open a consulate in occupied Shushi. “We are ready to open our consulate whenever you wish,” Erdogan said to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during a joint press conference in Baku on June 13. “If we can open a consulate in Shusha, this would be a message to the world and especially to Armenia,” he continued. Erdogan also reiterated Turkey’s support for the construction of the “Zangezur corridor,” an extraterritorial corridor connecting Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhichevan through Armenia. Erdogan said that Armenia does not oppose the creation of the corridor.
Georgia
The ruling Georgian Dream party has passed amendments taking away the president’s power to nominate members of the Central Election Commission (CEC). Under the new system, the parliament will nominate candidates to the CEC based on a shortlist compiled by the Competitive Commission, which will include a representative of the president, representatives of civil society, and academics. The amendments will replace a model set forth by European Council President Charles Michel in a deal brokered by the EU in April 2021. President Salome Zurabishvili has said that she will veto the amendments. The President “fundamentally believes that single-party appointments to such positions go against statehood and the European future,” Zurabishvili said in a statement.
