The Jamestown Foundation: The Azerbaijan-Armenia-Georgia trilateral format can be a platform for regional decision-making

Georgia hosted the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan on April 17 for a closed trilateral summit to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation between the countries and geopolitical stability of the South Caucasus.

As the Jamestown Foundation notes, the new format is yet another demonstration that the South Caucasus states are shifting their foreign policies and attempting to gain autonomy as regional, trilateral decision-makers while reducing reliance on external powers such as Russia and Iran.

The publication states that global geopolitical circumstances allow for a trilateral framework to emerge in the South Caucasus largely because of the definitive progress on a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The actual signing might not take place in the coming weeks or even months, but progress toward this end indicates that Baku and Yerevan are willing to build neighborly relations, or at least resolve their decades-long territorial disputes.

“Cautious optimism is necessary as the peace agreement, and thereby trilateral cooperation between the three South Caucasus states, may still fail. Since the 1990s, the South Caucasus has never been an area conducive to pan-regional frameworks. Distrust between Baku and Yerevan still runs high, and there is always a potential for major military clashes along the border. Russia’s war against Ukraine and any progress on peace negotiations, as well as other uncertainties around Iran’s nuclear program, will also affect the security situation in the South Caucasus given the region’s proximity to and different relations with Russia, Ukraine, and Iran.

“The trilateral format between Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan represents a promising direction in regional cooperation. If properly realized, it will allow the three South Caucasus states greater maneuverability in foreign relations and increase their geopolitical weight in the new regional balance of power relative to states such as Iran and Russia. The trilateral format holds the potential to enable the three states to withstand external pressure and potentially further facilitate cooperation across the South Caucasus,” the Jamestown Foundation states.