In this personal story, Aybaniz Ismayilova describes her hometown of Minjivan in the Zangelan region of Azerbaijan – a town now cheering its de-occupation, yet a deeply wounded one destroyed during 27 years of occupation.

Georgia has effectively abandoned its efforts to advance on the membership issue. True, the work on cooperation and various partnership packages, in itself important, continues. But the membership issue itself has been put on the back burner.

The foundations of Azerbaijan’s pragmatic foreign policy were laid by late President Heydar Aliyev in the early 1990s and, today, this has become Azerbaijan’s brand, i.e., the so-called “multi-vector” or “balanced” foreign policy strategy.

Russian companies have for years relied on migrant workers from typically less affluent ex-Soviet states – Armenia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Armenia's current energy policy is focused on developing indigenous energy sources, mainly renewable, and on replacing the country’s main nuclear reactor.

Azerbaijan's State Oil Fund's (SOFAZ) said it had reduced investments in bonds and currencies by 4.7 percent year-on-year to 64 percent in its investment portfolio in the first quarter of this year.