Caucasus
Coverage across the South Caucasus — Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan’s GDP grows 1.5% in nine months as the oil sector shrinks 1.2%
Azerbaijan’s gross domestic product reached 102.0 billion manats in January to September, 1.5 per cent more than a year earlier, the State Statistics Committee reported on Friday, with the oil and gas sector down 1.2 per cent to 30.3 billion and the rest of the economy up 2.6 per cent to 71.7 billion. Budget revenue ran 2.8 per cent above plan.
Georgian prosecutors investigate a central bank board member over an alleged crypto stake
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia opened an investigation on Friday into Nana Keinishvili, a member of the National Bank’s board since September 2023, under article 337 of the Criminal Code on illegal participation in entrepreneurial activity by a public official, acting on statements and audio recordings that the crypto operator Bitexchange sent to the bank. The board will consider her temporary recusal at its next sitting, the bank said.
Kobakhidze calls the European Parliament worse than the Supreme Soviet of the late 1980s
Georgia’s prime minister answered Thursday’s 445-vote resolution on Friday by saying the European Parliament reminds him of the Supreme Soviet, which in his words was in better shape in the 1980s, while Speaker Shalva Papuashvili counted the ninth hostile resolution and Kakha Kaladze called them riddled with lies. EU foreign ministers take up Georgia under current affairs in Luxembourg on Monday.
Putin, Aliyev and Pezeshkian hold the first three-way summit since 2017 at Avaza
Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Masoud Pezeshkian held a trilateral meeting after the Caspian Ecological Summit on Friday, Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Interfax, the first sitting of the Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran format since Tehran in November 2017. APA’s correspondent reported the North-South transport corridor as the main topic, Aliyev then received Pezeshkian separately, and Putin boarded his plane at Turkmenbashi after two full-format bilaterals in two days.
Five presidents create a Caspian commission as Aliyev and Putin differ on the cause
The first Caspian Ecological Summit ended on Friday with a decision by the five heads of state to create a commission of three deputy prime ministers and senior Iranian and Russian representatives on the sea’s falling level, which meets first in Azerbaijan in the first half of 2027. Aliyev named reduced river flow and man-made factors among the causes beside the climate, Putin named climate change the main one.
CIS leaders sign 15 documents at Avaza and Azerbaijan is absent from the memory statement
Azerbaijan is not among the eight signatories of the statement on historical memory adopted at Avaza on Friday, by the Kremlin’s text, one of 15 documents signed as the Commonwealth’s 35th-anniversary council handed the chair to Uzbekistan from 1 January and heard Mirziyoyev invite the leaders to Bukhara next year and Aliyev offer to chair in 2028. Iran’s president sat in for the first time.
Armenian and Azerbaijani officials meet in Goris on where TRIPP’s power lines will run
Representatives of the relevant structures of Armenia and Azerbaijan held a technical meeting in Goris on Thursday on the placement of power transmission lines within the TRIPP project, Armenia’s Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure and Azerbaijan’s Cabinet of Ministers said in near-identical texts the same afternoon. The sides discussed technical questions, coordination between their bodies and the next steps needed to move the work forward.
Rospotrebnadzor ends the Irkutsk watch as Armenia’s new commission sits for the first time
Medical observation of every contact of the laboratory worker who died in Irkutsk has ended, the whole set of preventive measures was completed on 8 October and more than 5,500 laboratory tests found no dangerous pathogen, Rospotrebnadzor said on Thursday, calling social-media reports of a second case false. In Yerevan an interdepartmental commission created by the prime minister’s decision held its first meeting the same evening.
MEPs pass the Georgia and Azerbaijan resolutions by 445 and 492 votes as Baku protests
Strasbourg adopted the joint motion on Georgian Dream’s lawsuit to ban the opposition parties on Thursday by 445 votes to 37 with 97 abstentions, and the motion on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners by 492 to 23 with 60, by the minutes of the sitting. Within four hours the Milli Majlis called the Azerbaijan text a biased political action, and Georgian Dream’s Irakli Kadagishvili said the resolutions serve narrow political interests.
Six leaders sign two documents at Avaza as Tokayev counts 200 initiatives and few results
The eighth consultative meeting of Central Asia’s heads of state, the first with Azerbaijan as a full member, closed on Thursday with a joint statement and a decision on its own rules, and handed the 2027 chair to Baku. Tokayev told the five that more than 200 initiatives have been raised since 2018 and only a small part carried out, while Putin, Pezeshkian and Lukashenko landed for Friday’s CIS summit.
Pashinyan calls the Shaki shooting an ordinary crime and keeps the trial in Armenia
The Azerbaijani serviceman held over the 1 October shooting in Shaki will be tried in Armenia’s courts and, if sentenced to prison, will serve the term in Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan told the National Assembly on Wednesday, calling the incident “an ordinary criminal situation”. Defence Minister Suren Papikyan acknowledged shortcomings over the border crossing and said the man did not resist arrest, which to him shows he was no saboteur.
Bulgaria ends the search for ten sailors as Erdoğan raises Black Sea safety with Putin
Bulgaria ended the search for the ten crew of the Turkish-owned Alfa Watan at 17:00 on Tuesday after finding three life rafts, an overturned lifeboat and no one, and expects the second ship hit, the Able, to sink, its rescue chief Rumen Nikolov said in Varna on Wednesday, by Euronews. The same day Erdoğan told Putin by telephone that navigational safety in the Black Sea matters.
Britain’s trade minister sits in Akorda as UK Export Finance takes a seat in Yerevan
Tokayev received Lord Anas Sarwar, the UK Minister of State for Trade, on Wednesday and invited Prime Minister Andy Burnham to visit, citing trade up 83% in 2025 to over $1.6 billion and more than 500 British companies, by Akorda’s readout as Zakon carried it. The same evening the first Armenia-United Kingdom Business Forum drew about 2,000 participants and a UK Export Finance team to Yerevan, by Armenpress.
Three ministers answer the Irkutsk laboratory death as Moscow clears 90% of contacts
The death of a laboratory worker at Irkutsk’s anti-plague institute, pneumonia of unspecified etiology to Rospotrebnadzor and suspected pneumonic plague to ECDC, drew three answers on Wednesday: Mongolia’s health minister said temperatures are taken at the border and isolation rooms stand ready, Armenia’s minister told parliament arrivals face enhanced checks, and Georgia’s said there is no reason for panic. Moscow reported more than 90% of contacts released from observation.
MEPs vote on Georgia’s party-ban bid and Azerbaijan’s prisoners at noon in Strasbourg
The European Parliament votes between 12:00 and 14:00 Strasbourg time on Thursday on a five-group motion that condemns Georgian Dream’s lawsuit against the opposition parties and names Bidzina Ivanishvili, Irakli Kobakhidze, Shalva Papuashvili and Kakha Kaladze for sanctions, and on a six-group motion on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners that asks the member states to prepare measures under the EU’s human rights sanctions regime. Neither binds anyone outside the chamber.
Avaza’s first day ends with four CIS decisions and no word on the Caspian ministers
The CIS foreign ministers signed four documents at Avaza on Wednesday, among them a decision making 2029 the Commonwealth’s transport year, and fixed their next council for Bishkek in April 2027. Listed for the same day in the host’s programme, the Caspian states’ ministers had no readout on Turkmenistan’s state portal, TDH, the foreign ministry’s site or News Central Asia by Thursday morning as the presidents landed.
Three summits come to Avaza while the sea beside them is leaving
A volunteer with a camera found a new island off Kulaly days before the presidents arrive on the Turkmen shore. Moscow’s aide names the climate as the cause of the shallowing. The river that feeds the sea is Russia’s.
The World Bank lifts Kyrgyzstan to 9.6% and Georgia to 7% as the region slows to 2.2%
Growth in Europe and Central Asia is likely to slow to 2.2% in 2026 from 2.6% in 2025, the World Bank said in its Economic Update released in Washington on 6 October, with Central Asia the fastest subregion at 5.8%, Kyrgyzstan at 9.6% and Uzbekistan at 7.9%. Georgia’s forecast rises to 7% from the 5% of April, by Georgian press accounts of the same update.
The EAEU’s economic partnership with the UAE takes effect with duties cut on 85% of lines
The agreement on economic partnership between the Eurasian Economic Union, its member states and the United Arab Emirates entered into force on 6 October, Kazakhstan’s trade and integration ministry said as Kazinform carried it at 17:06. It abolishes or lowers import duties on more than 85% of the tariff nomenclature. Signed in St Petersburg on 27 June 2025, it was ratified by Kazakhstan in July.
Uzbekistan’s inflation rises to 6.4% in September while Georgia’s holds at 5.6%
Consumer prices in Uzbekistan rose 6.4% in the year to September, 0.7% in the month and 4.2% since December, the statistics committee’s release of 5 October shows, against 8.0% a year earlier. In Georgia annual inflation stayed at 5.6% in September, unchanged from August, with transport up 18.7% on fuel, Geostat said on 2 October.