In comments for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Armenian Service on 1 August, RSC Director Richard Giragosian offered his analysis of the coming presidential election in Turkey, with a focus on the implications for Armenia.

RSC Director Richard Giragosian assessed recent developments in Armenian-Turkish normalization in an interview on 30 July 2014 with CNN-Turk. Giragosian focused on the impact of both the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian genocide and the coming Turkish elections on the normalization effort and also assessed the diplomatic efforts to overcome Azerbaijani resistance to Turkish engagement of Armenia.

www.cnnturk.com/video/dunya/ermenistan-2015e-nasil-hazirlaniyor

In an interview with the 1in.am electronic news agency (dubbed into Armenian) on 30 July, RSC Director Richard Giragosian assessed recent developments related to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, including an analysis of recent Russian arms sales to Azerbaijan, the increase in ceasefire violations and attacks by Azerbaijani military forces, and the status of the OSCE Minsk Group’s mediation efforts aimed at maintaining diplomatic dialogue and preventing the outbreak of full hostilities.

http://ru.1in.am/1055767.html

As the latest in our regular series of analysis for Radio free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Armenian Service, Regional Studies Center (RSC) Director Richard Giragosian commented on 21 July on the negative impact on Russia from the tragic downing of a civilian airliner over Ukraine. Giragosian noted that while it is now “increasingly evident that the downing of the Malayasian aircraft was committed by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, who mistakenly targeted the aircraft as a Ukrainian military plane, the complicity of Russian President Vladimir Putin in terms of his decision to finance, arm, train and even encourage his pro-Moscow separatist proxy force has led to three distinct developments.”

In an interview with the Ukrainian weekly “Mirror of the Week” newspaper published on 18 July, RSC Senior Analyst David Shahnazaryan was cited for his critical analysis of the outlook for the Russian-led Eurasian Union project. According to Shahnazaryan, it is now increasingly unlikely that Armenia may join the Customs Union/ Eurasian Economic Union in the current year. Further, he argued that actually “it is very likely that Armenia will return to the Association Agreement with the EU.”