Connections Episode 65
 

South Caucasus on the Brink?

Mouin Rabbani interviews Olesya Vartanyan

On Thursday, 1 June Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani spoke with Olesya Vartanyan about the prospects for war and peace in the South Caucasus. This episode of Connections examines recent military and diplomatic initiatives concerning Nagorno-Karabakh, and the broader conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.  

Connections offers timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production. It combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship. 

Guest 

Olesya Vartanyan is Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region for Crisis Group. Based in Tbilisi, she researches and produces reports on regional security issues in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, with a particular focus on breakaway regions in the South Caucasus – Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia. Before joining Crisis Group in 2016, she worked as a journalist, with a particular focus on security and conflict-related issues in Georgia and its breakaway regions. With her field reporting during the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Olesya contributed to the ground-breaking investigations of The New York Times about the origins of the conflict. 

Host

Mouin Rabbani has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously Senior Analyst Middle East and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine.

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