Month: February 2021

Krisp nearly triples fundraise with $9M expansion after blockbuster 2020

Nyrie Kalashian
Tech Crunch
Feb 16 2021
Devin Coldewey
@techcrunch / 10:06 am PST •

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Krisp, a startup that uses machine learning to remove background noise from audio in real time, has raised $9M as an extension of its $5M A round announced last summer. The extra money followed big traction in 2020 for the Armenian company, which grew its customers and revenue by more than an order of magnitude.

TechCrunch first covered Krisp when it was just emerging from UC Berkeley’s Skydeck accelerator, and co-founder Davit Baghdasaryan was relatively freshly out of his previous role at Twilio. The company’s pitch when I chatted with them in the shared office back then was simple and remains the core of what they offer: isolation of the human voice from any background noise (including other voices) so that audio contains only the former.

It probably comes as no surprise, then, that the company appears to have benefited immensely from the shift to virtual meetings and other trends accelerated by the pandemic. To be specific, Baghdasaryan told me that 2020 brought the company a 20x increase in active users, a 23x increase in enterprise accounts and 13x improvement of annual recurring revenue.

The rise in virtual meetings — often in noisy places like, you know, homes — has led to significant uptake across multiple industries. Krisp now has more than 1,200 enterprise customers, Baghdasaryan said: banks, HR platforms, law firms, call centers — anyone who benefits from having a clear voice on the line (“I guess any company qualifies,” he added). Enterprise-oriented controls like provisioning and central administration have been added to make it easier to integrate.

Image Credits: Krisp

B2B revenue recently eclipsed B2C; the latter was likely popularized by Krisp’s inclusion as an option in popular gaming (and increasingly beyond) chat app Discord, though of course users of a free app being given a bonus product for free aren’t always big converters to “pro” tiers of a product.

But the company hasn’t been standing still, either. While it began with a simple feature set (turning background noise on and off, basically) Krisp has made many upgrades to both its product and infrastructure.

Noise cancellation for high-fidelity voice channels makes the software useful for podcasters and streamers, and acoustic correction (removing room echos) simplifies those setups quite a bit as well. Considering the amount of people doing this and the fact that they’re often willing to pay, this could be a significant source of income.

The company plans to add cross-service call recording and analysis; since it sits between the system’s sound drivers and the application, Krisp can easily save the audio and other useful metadata (How often did person A talk versus person B? What office locations are noisiest?). And the addition of voice cancellation — other people’s voices, that is — could be a huge benefit for people who work, or anticipate returning to work, in crowded offices and call centers.

Part of Krisp’s allure is the ability to run locally and securely on many platforms with very low overhead. But companies with machine learning-based products can stagnate quickly if they don’t improve their infrastructure or build more efficient training flows — Lengoo, for instance, is taking on giants in the translation industry with better training as more or less its main advantage.

With AI translation service that rivals professionals, Lengoo attracts new $20M round

Krisp has been optimizing and reoptimizing its algorithms to run efficiently on both Intel and ARM architectures, and decided to roll out its own servers for training its models instead of renting from the usual suspects.

“AWS, Azure and Google Cloud turned out to be too expensive,” Baghdasaryan said. “We have invested in building a data center with Nvidia’s latest A100s in them. This will make our experimentation faster, which is crucial for ML companies.”

Baghdasaryan was also emphatic in his satisfaction with the team in Armenia, where he and his co-founder Arto Minasyan are from, and where the company has focused its hiring, including the 25-strong research team. “By the end of 2021 it will be a 45-member team, all in Armenia,” he said. “We are super happy with the math, physics and engineering talent pool there.”

The funding amounts to $14 million if you combine the two disparate parts of the A round, the latter of which was agreed to just three months after the first. That’s a lot of money, of course, but may seem relatively modest for a company with a thousand enterprise customers and revenue growing by more than 2,000% year over year.

Baghdasaryan said they just weren’t ready to take on a whole B round, with all that involves. They do plan a new fundraise later this year when they’ve reached $15 million ARR, a goal that seems perfectly reasonable given their current charts.

Of course startups with this kind of growth tend to get snapped up by larger concerns, but despite a few offers Baghdasaryan says he’s in it for the long haul — and a multibillion dollar market.

The rush to embrace the new virtual work economy may have spurred Krisp’s growth spurt, but it’s clear that neither the company nor the environment that let it thrive are going anywhere.

Ex-President of Armenia Sargsyan thrashes PM in interview

Jirair Kafian
JAM News
Feb 16 2021
Interview with ex-President of Armenia Sargsyan

    JAMnews, Yerevan

The Armenian public is discussing a recent interview with ex-President Serzh Sargsyan.

For an hour and a half, the former leader of the country harshly criticized the current authorities. In particular, for the fact that Armenia did not recognize the independence of Karabakh in the fall of 2020 during the 44-day war.

He presented the history of the negotiation process on Karabakh, in which he himself participated, refuting the statements of the current prime minister about the mistakes made at that time.

Sargsyan confirmed that he had received an offer of billions of dollars for Karabakh, which was mediated by the President of Belarus. The ex-president does not exclude that the same proposal was made to the current Prime Minister of Armenia.

After two constitutionally allowed terms in office, Serzh Sargsyan was elected by the parliament as Prime Minister of Armenia, but remained in office for about a week. He resigned on April 23, 2018, at the request of thousands of people who took to the streets during the Velvet Revolution. On May 8, the leader of the protest movement Nikol Pashinyan took office in his place.

  • Armenian Ombudsman: Azerbaijani military firing near villages in south
  • Armenia on verge of economic stagnation: what to expect in 2021

Refutation of Pashinyan’s statements

“We negotiated [on Karabakh] around what we get, not what we give back,” Serzh Sargsyan said. This was a refutation of Nikol Pashinyan’s statement that the previous Armenian authorities had entered negotiations on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict into a dead end and only discussed the cession of territories.

Pashinyan, according to the ex-president, did not understand the meaning of the negotiations: for the previous negotiators from Armenia, the ‘red lines’ were that Karabakh should not be part of Azerbaijan.

The negotiation process one way or another guaranteed a referendum on NK’s independence, Sargsyan said.

In particular, he spoke about the Kazan document of 2011. According to this proposal of the negotiators, Karabakh would have an intermediate status and the following guarantees:

  • the security of Nagorno-Karabakh is ensured by the self-defense forces of NK itself
  • Armenia is officially the guarantor of its security
  • all branches of government (legislative, executive, judicial) are recognized by the international community
  • NK receives the right to membership in those international organizations, for entry into which independence is not a prerequisite

“In this case, the Armenian side would transfer five regions to Azerbaijan, but until the referendum on the independence of Karabakh is agreed upon, it would retain the Lachin and Kelbajar regions,” Sargsyan added.

“Lavrov’s plan”

According to the ex-president, the “Lavrov plan” as such did not exist. It was about a modified version of the Kazan document.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposed this settlement option on behalf of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. And it got the name “Lavrov’s plan”.

It is generally accepted in Armenia that he allegedly envisioned the return of some territories to Azerbaijan without agreeing on the future status of Karabakh.

“I wanted to stay in power, being ready to sign this option, but I was not sure that the society would approve of it,” Sargsyan said.

Therefore, he said, he was going to organize broad discussions with the aim of reaching a consensus.

On the “billion-dollar bargaining” for Karabakh

In December 2020, a recording of a personal conversation between former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, which took place in Yerevan on October 14, 2016, appeared on the Internet.

On the tape, Lukashenka says the Azerbaijani president is ready to pay $5 billion for seven regions around Nagorno-Karabakh. Serzh Sargsyan replies that he is ready to give Aliyev six billion to give up these territories.

We are talking about the areas that came under the control of the Armenian side during the first Karabakh war in the early 1990s and which were here considered a “security belt” for Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result of the second Karabakh war, which began on September 27, 2020, these areas returned under the control of Azerbaijan.

Sargsyan confirmed the authenticity of the recording:

“They understood very well what I wanted to say. When I answered Lukashenka, or rather through Lukashenka to Aliyev, I said that Karabakh and people’s lives are not subject to bargaining. My answer was not joking, but dry. ‘If your criteria are measured in money, then I will give more.’ That’s what I wanted to say. And if Aliyev had somehow agreed to this, then I have no doubt that all wealthy Armenians would have collected this money.”

When asked about the likelihood that the same proposal was made to the current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the ex-president said:

“I can’t rule it out. In any case, it became known that Aliyev and the capitulator [as he called in an interview with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan – JAMnews] were in secret negotiations. It is known who led these negotiations.

It is known that the one providing operational communication [with Azerbaijan] from the Armenian side handed over a letter to the capitulator. And he did not break it, did not say that there were unacceptable things, but said: “Very good.” I cannot insist that there was a proposal, but I cannot deny. “

“What prevented the recognition of independence?”

Armenia should have recognized the independence of Karabakh during the military actions of 2020, the former president is sure. He said that he did not understand why “these authorities” did not take this step in 44 days:

“If the co-chairs, if the international community believed that in the negotiation process, recognition of the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenia would mean entering the negotiation process into a dead end and, as a result, military actions, and if military actions [were already underway] – what prevented the recognition of independence?”

Sargsyan recalled the four-day war in Karabakh in 2016. Then, in his words, he told the ambassadors accredited in Armenia that if the war drags on, then Armenia will recognize the independence of NK.

“Thank God, the war did not last long, as a result of the war we had Vienna and St. Petersburg [talks about meetings with Ilham Aliyev in Austria and Russia in May and June – JAMnews], so I thought it was too early to recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh” , – he said.

When asked whether it is too late to recognize the independence of Karabakh, Sargsyan said: “Sooner or later we will come to this”:

“But we have to be judicious and find the right time. We were obliged to do this and were obliged to tell the world that we are doing this in order to try to save the population of Nagorno-Karabakh from destruction. “

Ex. Armenian pres. Sargsyan hurls new accusations at Pashinyan gov’t

Raffi Khondkarian
JAM News
Feb 16 2021
Continuation of the interview with ex-President Sargsyan

    JAMnews, Yerevan

The continuation of the interview with ex-President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan caused in the country no less a ‘boom’ than the first part of his speech.

For two days in a row, an interview with the ex-president was broadcast by one of the opposition Armenian TV channels.

In the first, the former president focused on the details of the Karabakh negotiation process and criticism of the current Armenian authorities for not recognizing the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020, during the war.

In the final part of the interview, Sargsyan accused the authorities of surrendering the strategically important city in Karabakh of Shushi (in Azerbaijan it is called Shusha), of inability to protect the interests of the country and of deteriorating relations not only with a strategic ally – Russia, but also with all neighbors.

After two constitutionally allowed terms in office, Serzh Sargsyan was elected by the parliament as Prime Minister of Armenia, but remained in office for only about a week. He resigned on April 23, 2018, at the request of thousands of people who took to the streets during the Velvet Revolution. On May 8, the leader of the protest movement Nikol Pashinyan took office in his place.

  • Ex-President of Armenia Sargsyan thrashes PM in interview
  • Why is Shusha/Shushi so important for Azerbaijanis and Armenians?
  • Armenia on verge of economic stagnation: what to expect in 2021

“Shushi was surrendered”

“I’m not saying that intentionally, but Shushi was surrendered. The roots of failure [in the war] should be found there,” the ex-president said.

In his opinion, the capture of the city was the original goal of Azerbaijan – based on the statements of President Ilham Aliyev and the actions of the enemy army.

Serzh Sargsyan says that the defense of Shushi was transferred under the leadership of the former Minister of Defense of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan only at the end of the war, and the defense of Stepanakert was transferred to the ex-head of the Karabakh Defense Army Levon Mnatsakanyan.

It was a tactical move, the ex-president believes, in order to blame the former in case of losses.

According to Sargsyan, despite his many connections among the military, he is unable to clarify several important issues:

“Who commanded the defense of Hadrut? And in general, who commanded this front. Okay, then it was a secret. But why now we do not know who it was”.

The stories about the fall of the impregnable fortress-city of Shushi are the most discussed topic in Armenian society. And during the war, until the evening of November 9, information was spread in the Armenian segment of Facebook and Telegram that fighting in Shushi was continuing.

Moreover, in the evening of the same day, the Prime Minister of Armenia himself published a status on Facebook stating that the Armenian army continues to defend the city. A few hours later it became known that Nikol Pashinyan had signed a trilateral statement on the cessation of hostilities in Karabakh. According to this document, Shushi passed to the Azerbaijani side.

“Iskander should have been used on the fourth day of the war”

Sargsyan accused the Armenian authorities of not using Iskander systems at the main stage of the war in Karabakh.

They were used only at the end of the war, and they fired from them at Shushi, the ex-president shared information from his ‘reliable sources’:

“But why there were no strikes on the territory of Azerbaijan itself? I can assume that they were afraid of retaliation. Perhaps not by means of the same accuracy or range. But Iskander had to be used already on the fourth or fifth day of the war, when Azerbaijan accumulated a huge amount of manpower in Horadiz and in other areas.”

The ex-president also wonders why long-range strikes were not delivered to oil and gas infrastructures:

“I am not saying that the first target should have been the pipeline. But in the end, why did we buy these missiles? Not to use at the right time? The Iskanders are ours, and we are the only ones to whom the ally gave such weapons. And we didn’t use them.”

“Not even half of the army of Armenia participated in the war”

The defense army of Karabakh was practically left alone to face the adversary, the armed forces of Armenia were not fully involved in the war, Serzh Sargsyan said:

“We are constantly told that there were more Azerbaijanis, the forces were too unequal. Well, why wasn’t the Armenian army involved then? I know that even half of the Armenian army was not transferred to the combat zone.”

Sargsyan called the talks about the Armenian army defending its borders ‘fairy tales’. In his opinion, they could be protected with the help of an ally – Russia.

The ex-president believes that Armenia should have asked Russia to take on this function, explaining that it sends its army to Karabakh, as it is the guarantor of its security.

“Aliyev defeated not the Armenian army, but Pashinyan”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in January that he “defeated the army of Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sargsyan.”

Commenting on this statement, Sargsyan noted that Aliyev had a complex due to the fact that over the past ten years he has always lost to the Armenian side – both in negotiations and during the “four-day” war in Karabakh in 2016:

“In fact, Aliyev defeated the incapacitated authorities of Armenia. It was not the Armenian army or the Armenian people that capitulated. The Prime Minister of Armenia and his team capitulated … The capitulator did not serve in the army for a day.”

“Relations with neighbors are ruined”

There were no condemnations against Azerbaijan because of the outbreak of hostilities in Karabakh. Moreover, Georgia and Iran closed the airspace, since, according to Sargsyan, Armenia has managed to spoil relations not only with its strategic ally, Russia, but also with neighboring countries over the past two years:

“When you, violating the laws of your own country, do not meet at the airport the head of a UN member state [talking about the President of Russia], who is also your ally, then you give fakes and sites of unknown origin to point out that you allegedly increased this the sovereignty of the country, you must understand that tomorrow you will be punished. When you enter into secret negotiations behind the backs of others, you must understand that tomorrow these others will change their attitude towards you.

When you have violated all diplomatic norms, trying to make a personal decision and endanger the authority of the CSTO, you must understand that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow you will have problems. “

Sargsyan is not going to occupy leadership positions anymore

“I consider my service in high positions in the state system completed. Many will say that I said the same thing in 2015, but I became prime minister [in 2018], but this is a topic for a separate interview, ”Sargsyan said.
And yet he is not going to leave active politics.

Putin, Pashinyan discuss implementation of agreements on Karabakh

Suren Karakhanian
TASS, Russia
Feb 17 2021
The Kremlin pointed out that the talks touched upon a range of pressing bilateral issues

MOSCOW, February 17. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan discussed the implementation of agreements on Nagorno-Karabakh, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

"[They] discussed practical issues of the implementation of the statement of the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh of November 9, 2020, along with the agreements reached at the trilateral summit in Moscow on January 11, 2021," the statement says.

The Kremlin pointed out that the talks touched upon a range of pressing bilateral issues.

"It was agreed to continue contacts at various levels," the Kremlin added.

In the meantime, the Armenian government’s press service said that the leaders touched upon the return of prisoners of war.

"In particular, the need for early repatriation of prisoners of war, hostages and other detainees was stressed on both sides," the Armenian cabinet’s press service said in a statement, adding that the two leaders also focused on bilateral cooperation and further development of allied cooperation.

 

Karabakh agreements

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them.

On November 9, 2020 Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. Under the deal, Azerbaijan and Armenia maintained the positions that they had held, Baku took control of some of the districts, and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the contact line and to the Lachin corridor, which links Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

After Russian peacemakers had been deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation stabilized, as just one ceasefire violation has been reported since. Tens of thousands of Karabakh residents, who fled their homes over fighting, have come back assisted by the peacekeeping contingent.

On January 11, Putin, Aliyev and Pashinyan held talks in Moscow, initiated by the Russian leader. After the four-hour summit, they signed a joint statement establishing a working group chaired by deputy prime ministers of the three countries, which should focus on mending the transport and economic ties in the region.

Putin, Pashinyan review Nagorno-Karabakh armistice

Elizabeth Jabejian
XINHUA, China
Feb 17 2021

Source: Xinhua| 2021-02-18 04:38:34|Editor: huaxia

Video PlayerClose

MOSCOW, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the implementation of the Nagorno-Karabakh truce in a telephone conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan Wednesday.

The leaders covered practicalities in relation to the implementation of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace deal and discussed the agreements reached during a trilateral summit in Moscow on Jan. 11, 2021, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Key issues of Russian-Armenian bilateral cooperation were also covered.

Putin, Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met in Moscow on Jan. 11, where the leaders agreed to take joint measures aimed at unblocking all economic and transport connections in the Nagorno-Karabakh region with the aid of a trilateral working group. Enditem

Sports: FC Krasnodar’s Eduard Spertsyan to play for Armenian national team

Garnik Zakarian
Public Radio of Armenia
Feb 17 2021

FC Krasnodar midfielder Eduard Spertsyan will play for the Armenian national football team. Spertsyan is supposed to join the Armenian national team ahead of the preparation for FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers.

Eduard Spertsyan was born in Krasnodar on June 7, 2000.

He joined FC Krasnodar in 2018.

After a fabulous start of the season in FC Krasnodar-2 (12 goals), Spertsyan made his debut in Russian Premier League in September 2020.

He made his debut in UEFA Champions League, when he came on to the pitch during the group stage match against Chelsea in October 2020.

He has made five appearances in RPL and two appearances in UEFA CL this season.

Iran to set up permanent exhibition of knowledge-based products in Armenia

Alex Nanijanian
Public Radio of Armenia
Feb 17 2021

 Iran is going to set up a permanent exhibition of products manufactured by knowledge-based companies in Armenia, Tehran Times reports.

A delegation comprising representatives of 26 Iranian knowledge-based companies headed to Armenia on Wednesday with the aim of promoting their technological products and expand the market in the neighboring country.

Organized by the vice presidency for science and technology, the delegation is scheduled to hold meetings with Armenian high-tech and health ministers and pay a visit to Alliance free zone during the four-day visit.

The delegation comprises companies active in the fields of textile, agriculture and related machinery, construction, petrochemicals, cosmetics and hygiene, organic food, and digital equipment.

On January 27, Vice-President for Science and Technology, Sourena Sattari, met with Armenian Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan in Tehran to discuss ways to expand technological cooperation.

Praising Iran’s scientific and technological achievements, Kerobyan said “We agree with the implementation of a project in the field of creating a joint technology park between Iran and Armenia as soon as possible and the formation of a team to develop bilateral cooperation.”

Sattari, said for his part, that Iran has four million students with high knowledge capacity so that the country relies on them to move toward a knowledge-based economy.

There are currently 6,000 knowledge-based companies operating in Iran, and last year they generated a revenue of about $12 billion, he highlighted.

He emphasized that Iran has the largest startups in the region in the field of information and communication technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, stem cells, etc., and about 50 technology parks have been formed throughout Iran.

Noting that 98 percent of the medicine needed in the country is produced domestically, he said that a large number of Armenian scientists and academics are studying in Iranian universities.

Armenia, UAE discuss perspectives of high-tech cooperation

Meline Chalian
Public Radio of Armenia
Feb 17 2021

Armenia’s Minister of High-Tech Industry Hakob Arshakyanand UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Teleworking Applications Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama discussed the possible directions of cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence and high technologies.

Omar Bin Sultan Al Olam noted that they are moving toward a new digital strategy.

Minister Arshakyan informed, in turn, that the Armenian government has recently approved the Digitalization Strategy, which can also serve as a platform for cooperation and the translated version of which can be transferred to the Arab side.

During the meeting, they also discussed the idea of having an Armenian corner within the framework of the “Armenian Virtual Bridge” program in the UAE, which will allow Armenian technology start-ups to have a proper representation in the UAE, participate in various state events, competitions and receive investments from the Arab side.

Hakob Arshakyan invited his UAE counterpart to participate in the 3rd International Exhibition of Defense Technologies #ArmHiTec2021, which will be held in Armenia on March 25-27, 2021.

 

The Second Karabakh War and Georgia’s Threatened Transit Role

Boris Nahapetian
Jamestown Foundation
Feb 16 2021

05:42 PM Age: 24 hours

The aftermath of the second Armenian-Azerbaijani war in Karabakh (September 29–November 9, 2020) initiated new geopolitical and geo-economic adjustments for the South Caucasus, including possible competition between existing and prospective transit routes in the region. This competition is expected to be entwined with significant political factors. The Georgian foreign ministry reaffirmed earlier this month (Mfa.gov.ge, February 2) that Tbilisi would not participate in the six-country (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Turkey, Iran) regional “3+3” cooperation platform, proposed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey (Hurriyet Daily News, December 11, 2020), because of the presence of Russia in this format. The suggested composition most likely aims to supplant the West as a player from the region, so Euro-Atlantic aspirant Georgia’s refusal to participate is, thus, quite understandable—despite warnings from some pundits that full a disengagement from the 3+3 grouping might entail political and economic risks (Newspress, December 24, 2020).

The construction of new railway and road transport corridors across the region, combined with the restoration of preexisting routes long abandoned because of the Karabakh conflict (as provided for by the January 11, 2021, trilateral agreement between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan—see EDM, January 12) promises a new transit reality for the Caucasus and beyond. Namely, heretofore-isolated Armenia will be able to acquire a transit function, while Azerbaijan will have the opportunity to further diversify its transport connections with global markets (Vzglyad, January 26, 30). But Georgian experts are divided on the extent to which Georgia’s regional transit role may be undermined by these anticipated postwar realities.

Some of these analysts believe the concerns have been exaggerated, arguing that the new transit corridors cannot compete with routes already developed across Georgia. They argue, first of all, that a restored Kars–Gyumri–Nakhchivan–Baku transport corridor cannot challenge or replace the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) regional rail link, launched and in use for trans-Eurasian trade since 2017. Moreover, they consider groundless the apprehensions that projected new natural gas and oil pipelines from Azerbaijan to Turkey might undermine Georgia’s transit function in the energy sphere. The Southern Gas Corridor—whose easternmost link, the South Caucasus Pipeline, crosses via Georgia—remains unchallenged for the foreseeable future and may in fact be expanded over the coming years (see EDM, January 19, 27).

Nonetheless, other Georgian experts contend that their country’s continued value as a transit country may become degraded over the longer term if Armenia succeeds in developing reliable railway links with Iran and Turkey and intercepts part of the freight currently traveling across Georgia. Pessimistic local experts also predict that Georgian seaports (especially Batumi and Poti) might lose some of the containerized cargo shipments flowing westward from China if carriers opt to stop at the closer and economically more profitable Bandar Abbas seaport in Iran.

Russia plays one of the key roles in designing the new transit architecture in the region. Almost certainly it was Moscow that prompted the de facto authorities of Georgia’s secessionist region of Abkhazia to rekindle the long-dormant issue of reopening the Abkhazian section of the north-south railway line that once connected Russia with Armenia (via Georgia) (see EDM, November 12, 2012). Tbilisi understandably remains skeptical of this offer, not only because of the minimal economic benefit it would bring but also due to the project’s potential to spoil relations with Armenia’s main regional rival, Azerbaijan (Jam-News, January 14, 2021; Interpressnews, January 13, February 13, 2012).

In the near future, Georgia arguably has little to fear regarding the continuing value of its role as a strategic regional transit state. Georgian seaports, coupled with their smoothly functioning railway links, are still important for Armenia. Moreover, Armenia continues to rely on road freight across Georgia (the Upper Larsi corridor) to connect with Russia, despite congestion occurring in winter months. According to some Armenian experts, in terms of costs, railways transit to and from Russia via Azerbaijan would be nearly commensurate with the currently used transportation methods via Georgia, including further ferry shipments. Thus, the “Azerbaijani route” to Russia should only be considered an alternative to, not a replacement for the trans-Georgian corridor. Nevertheless, Armenia is actively seeking to diversify its transport routes by building up the Tabriz–Yerevan railway section. So although Armenia still considers Georgia a key transit partner for the foreseeable future, it does not exclude utilizing Turkish seaports and heretofore closed railway and automotive connections with Turkey as potential alternatives to Georgian routes (EADaily, January 25; Moderndiplomacy.eu, February 6). Of course, the development of these new transit outlets for Armenia will heavily depend on the pace of rebuilding good relations and closer cooperation between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as between Armenia and Turkey, which at this stage still looks rather remote. Moreover, the conflicting interests of the stakeholders involved in the Karabakh conflict and beyond could additionally delay or derail the proclaimed new transit projects.

Around 5 percent of Georgia’s entire gross domestic product (GDP) comes from transit-related income. But the rise of potentially competing regional transit corridors may prove to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the assumed decline of Georgia’s transit role will further diminish foreign direct investments in the country and could negatively affect its security and international position. But on the other hand, diversifying economic connectivity and transit routes in the South Caucasus will contribute to lasting peace in the region, which Georgia acutely needs as a transit state (Jam-News, January 14; Ekho Kavkaza, January 21)

The shifting geopolitical and geo-economic realities in the South Caucasus are putting pressure on Georgia to meet this challenge by diversifying and expanding its own transportation infrastructure. But this is actually in harmony with the unequivocal signals it has received from the United States for the last several years to complete a number of strategically important transit projects, including the Anaklia deep-sea port. That ambitious undertaking fell victim to economic and political obstacles and was formally halted in January 2020. Currently, the government is seeking new investors for the project (Civil.ge, June 12, 2019; EurasiaNet, January 9, 2020; Novost.ge, February 10, 2020; Fpri.org, October 2, 2020).

The new regional postwar status quo may prompt the West to pay greater attention to Georgia’s role as a “geopolitical fault line.” This seems especially relevant amid continuing suggestions domestically that Georgia does not have the luxury to look only to the West or to the East and must be a bridge between the two
.

Russian language law presented to Nagorno-Karabakh parliament

Emil Lazarian
OC Media
Feb 17 2021
 

A new draft law has been presented to the Nagorno-Karabakh parliament, if passed, it would make Russian an official language to be used alongside Armenian. 

The draft law cites the ‘historical memory’ of ‘cultural, military, and economic’ ties with Russia, in addition to Russian being ‘the second language of communication’ for many residents of Nagorno-Karabakh. It also encourages the publications of textbooks, press materials, and other official materials in both Russian and Armenian. 

While the Russian language would gain official standing if the law is passed, it would still not have the same status as Armenian, which is listed as the sole state language in the Nagorno-Karabakh Constitution.

‘The only state language in Nagorno-Karabakh is and remains Armenian’, Aram Harutyunyan MP of the ruling Hayrenik (Homeland) party and the co-author of the bill told OC Media. ‘Changing or adding a second state language can be done only through a referendum.

Rumours of elevating Russian to the status of an official language began to circulate shortly after the tripartite peace declaration on 9 November and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the time, local officials denied that there were any such plans.

Despite the denials, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in December that the Kremlin welcomed the possibility of making Russian an official language in Nagorno-Karabakh, but adding that ‘it is not a subject of negotiations’ and was the ‘internal policy’ of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Aram Harutyunyn said that the necessity to elevate Russian to an official language only became clear over time, in particular, due to ongoing interactions with Russian peacekeepers. He said that the adoption of Russian will be in line with the ongoing usage of the language as a ‘working language’ with peacekeepers. 

‘Besides’, he said. ‘We plan to establish certain relations, which will be much easier with a wider status of Russian’.

The bill has not been without local criticism, however.

‘The change of official language has no justification or necessity’, Mane Tandilyan, Nagorno-Karabakh’s Minister of Social Affairs wrote on Facebook.

‘The basis of the official language is the nationality of people living in that country’, she continued. ‘And to discuss the issue of language in Artsakh, as one of the most homogeneous countries in the world, is the same as to discuss the fact that the people of Artsakh are Armenians’.

Now that it has been presented to parliament, the draft law will come under discussion. The government must give its assessment of the law within a month, following which it will be examined by a parliamentary commission. Only after these processes are complete will a vote be held by parliament on whether to adopt it as official legislation.