Peace

Armenia and Azerbaijan, a rare declaration rekindles hopes for peace

12/12/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

Armenia and Azerbaijan issued a late-night joint statement that surprised even the most seasoned of commentators. Though it remains unclear whether this could be a long-awaited breakthrough in negotiations, the international community was united in welcoming the move

Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian Prime Ministers address Tbilisi Silk Road Forum

03/11/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

In recent days, Georgia once again hosted the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, an event with an economic focus. What is new this year is that for the first time an Armenian leader spoke at such a high-level event in Tbilisi, and high-level officials from all three South Caucasus countries were also on the same stage

Karabakh: following ceasefire, Armenia and Azerbaijan prepare for talks

27/09/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

Following the 20 September ceasefire agreement between Baku and the de facto authorities of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), now Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev are expected to meet for talks that will also involve France, Germany, and the European Council

Oluja, the story of Nikola

06/10/2023 -  Giovanni Vale Zagreb

Nikola was just a few months old when, in August 1995, his family – together with the other 200,000 people of Serbian nationality, left Croatia in a hurry. After living in Serbia for fifteen years, he returned to Croatia where he attended high school and where he still lives and works. We met him

Progress and Challenges: Armenian and Azerbaijani Leaders Meet in EU-facilitated Talks in Brussels

19/07/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

Another meeting took place on saturday 15 july among Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, facilitated by European Council President Charles Michel

Meeting between Armenia and Azerbaijan: little progress for Nagorno Karabakh

05/07/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Armenia and Azerbaijan made further progress towards a peace deal in the three-day US-hosted talks in late June, yet tensions persist in the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh

Russian invasion of Ukraine, the impact on Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

19/06/2023

What is the impact over the Western Balkans of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? What are the possibel future scenarios in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina? Analysts, activists and area experts discussed it in a webinar organized by OBCT and CeSPI

Armenia and Azerbaijan, new talks in Moscow, Chişinău, and Ankara

06/06/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

A tight series of talks and meetings attended by Nikol Pashinyan, prime minister of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, took place in various locations, from Moscow to Chişinău and even in Ankara. The goal was to seek the normalisation of relations between Yerevan and Baku

Armenia-Azerbaijan, possible progress registered at Brussels meeting

17/05/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian Tbilisi

On Sunday, 14 May, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev met in Brussels for renewed talks hosted by European Council President Charles Michel. Still many unresolved points but some small progress appears

U.S. Hosts Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers for Possible Roadmap to Peace Treaty

09/05/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

From 1 to 4 May, the United States hosted a meeting of talks between the Armenian Foreign Minister and his Azerbaijani counterpart. Few details of the meeting: there was some progress but points of disagreement remain on some key issues

EUMA started observing Armenia's border with Azerbaijan

28/02/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

On 20 February the European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) started observing the country’s fragile border with neighbouring Azerbaijan. EUMA is a tool to create a more conducive environment for negotiations between Yerevan and Baku

Armenia-Azerbaijan, a difficult dialogue

23/02/2023 -  Onnik James Krikorian

Hopes and tension at Munich Security Conference as Armenian and Azerbaijan leaders meet to discuss a peace treaty. The initial optimism for the historic meeting soon gave way to unresolved tensions between Pashinyan and Aliyev

EU Monitoring Capacity deploys on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

08/11/2022 -  Onnik James Krikorian

The European Monitoring Capacity (EUMCAP) is the short-term EU mission deployed on the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan with the aim of reducing tensions between the two states and strengthening their mutual trust

Cyprus: halloumi diplomacy

16/08/2022 -  Mary Drosopoulos Nicosia

In Cyprus, cooperating across the lines that divide Greeks and Turks is always complicated. Also thanks to EU intervention, however, halloumi cheese – one of the symbols of the island – is once again a heritage shared by the two communities

Economy and morality on the long way towards reconciliation in Cyprus

09/08/2022 -  Mary Drosopoulos Nicosia

First the pandemic, now the price crisis have been increasingly pushing the Greek and Turkish communities of Cyprus to cross the de facto boundaries that divide them and to interact, despite the persistence of prejudices and mutual distrust. A reportage from the island

Srebrenica: denial in the European public narrative

11/07/2022 -  Marco Siragusa

Almost thirty years after the genocide we are very far from starting a dialogue and a public discussion – in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Europe – on the memory of what happened in Srebrenica. An interview with Andrea Rizza Goldstein

Alexander Langer and Bosnia: a book and an educational project

13/07/2022 -  Sabina Langer *Giulia Levi

In the 1990s Alexander Langer, a South Tyrolean politician and MEP, devoted a great deal of effort to seeking peaceful solutions to the conflict in Bosnia. His writings have now been translated into Bosnian and will be the core of meetings for young people on human rights, ecology, and activism

Nadezhda Azhgikhina: “Let’s remember that journalism is a public good"

08/03/2022 -  EFJ

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) interviewed Nadezhda Azhgikhina, Russian journalist, director of PEN-Moscow, and former Vice-President of the EFJ. Her views on media in the ongoing war

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional crisis: Is this time different?

23/12/2021 -  Maja Sahadžić

As the situation in Bosnia escalates, Dr Maja Sahadžić, University of Antwerp, gives her take on the long-running constitutional crisis in the region

Is participation a possible way out of the constitutional conundrum?

16/12/2021 -  Francesco Palermo

It is now clear that constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina is as necessary as it is difficult. A possible solution could come from participatory constitutionalism

Remembering Georgi Vanyan

28/10/2021 -  Onnik James Krikorian Tblisi

Peacebuilder and true activist, anti-nationalist Georgi Vanyan died at the age of 58 on October 15th. He is especially remembered for the enormous effort to bring Azerbaijani and Armenians to dialogue

Bosnia and Herzegovina, from ethnocracy to feasible reforms

14/01/2021 -  Alfredo Sasso

25 years after Dayton, Bosnia and Herzegovina discusses the discriminatory nature of its constitution and its possible reform, but also possible alternatives for a change in the country's institutional system. We talked about it with Nenad Stojanović

Mostar's divers

07/01/2021 -  Veronica Tosetti

Starting from those moments of precipitous flight towards the Neretva, the first long feature directed by Daniele Babbo shows both the love for a city and how hard it is to live in it. An interview

The face of a traitor

23/11/2020 -  Arzu Geybullayeva

Hatred, bullying, threats and insults. Our correspondent Arzu Geybullayeva has been exposed to a repeated series of social media attacks in recent weeks. The reason is simple, she decided to take side for peace during the recent war in Nagorno Karabakh

“Abchazja” and other untranslated bits of Wojciech Górecki's Caucasus trilogy

26/06/2020 -  Giorgio Comai

Górecki spent a lavish amount of time in the Caucasus, meeting people across the region and hearing their stories. His Caucasus trilogy makes for excellent reading. Yet, not all of it is accessible to the international readership it deserves

Of the invisible and the disappeared. Notes from the Turkish-Greek border

09/03/2020 -  Deniz Şenol SertIlhan Zeynep Karakılıç

Two Turkish sociologists and journalists went to see with their own eyes what is happening on the border between Turkey and Greece. An intense reportage

A Contested Attempt at Transitional Justice – the Kosovo Specialist Chambers

20/02/2020 -  Meris MušanovićArolda Elbasani

A "hybrid" institution – based in the Hague, but part of the judicial system of Kosovo, the new special court for the crimes of the UCK promises, among many criticisms, a new approach to transnational justice

The slogans of '89 have been appropriated by neonazis

21/11/2019 -  Paola Rosà

OBCT is among the founders of ECPMF, a media freedom centre based in Leipzig – just where the demonstrations that would lead to the collapse of the Wall started in October 1989. Thirty years later, one of the slogans of that revolutionary autumn has become an angry claim on the electoral posters of the far-right AfD party

Srebrenica: dehumanising the Other

10/07/2019 -  Dunja Mijatović

Srebrenica genocide did not happen by accident and began well before its full horror became visible. It took shape with public discourse that dehumanised the Other

Bosnia and Herzegovina, the "broken pipes" of history

04/07/2019 -  Alfredo Sasso

In several cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from May 28th to June 2nd, an important history festival was held which brought together about 100 historians from the region. This year, however, the History Fest has become a case of ethno-political tension