RSC Project Coordinator Haykak Arshamyan appeared in an interview on the Shoghakat TV station on January 22, offering an analysis of Armenian national identity. Hosted by Anna Sargsyan, the interview, entitled “Totalitarian System and Man: National Identity,” included the opinions of anthropologist Mkhitar Gabrielyan. For his part, Dr. Arshamyan noted that Armenian national identity was “national in form, and socialistic in content,” as “this was how the system and the formation of national identity would relate to each other as forced by the Soviet totalitarian system.” Arshamyan then focused on how national identity was transformed in the totalitarian and post-totalitarian period.

In a series of articles, RSC Director Richard Giragosian offered his assessment of the crisis in Armenian-Russian relations in the wake of the tragic murder of an Armenian family by a Russian soldier stationed at the Russian military base in Gyumri.

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Participating in the “Հարթակ” (“Platform”) talk show hosted by the Lragir.am electronic news agency on 28 November, RSC Project Coordinator Haykak Arshamyan assessed the latest wave of assaults targeting civil society activists in Armenia. Arshamyan noted that the latest incidents, involving both a physical assault of a young activist and a coordinated series of arson attacks against the vehicles belonging to civil society activists, were part of a broader context of “impunity,” as demonstrated by the complete failure of the police to arrest or even identify any of the assailants involved in such attacks against civil figures.

The LIBERTAS – European Institute GmbH think-tank published a recent RSC report entitled, “Nagorno-Karabakh Situational Assessment,” in the 28 November issue of its “European Union Foreign Affairs Journal” (EUFAJ). The RSC Assessment was prepared in response to the 12 November downing of a Nagorno-Karabakh army helicopter by an Azerbaijani frontline unit. The three page assessment ( www.regional-studies.org/en/publications/analytical/400-171114) warned that the shoot down of the Mi-24 combat helicopter marked a fresh escalation of tension, only enhanced by an earlier surge in fighting in August that was the most serious since the May 1994 ceasefire. The RSC report further noted that the repercussions from this one incident are even more significant, however, with broader implications, ranging from the military situation to the peace process itself.

www.libertas-institut.com/de/EUFAJ/EUFAJ_4_2014.pdf

The Armenian news agency Arminfo reported on the presentation of RSC Director Richard Giragosian at the South Caucasus Security Forum 2014. Held from 18-19 November in Tbilisi, Georgia, the conference was entitled “New regional Security Environment and Global Challenges,” and was organized by the Center for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENNA) and the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS).