Azerbaijan Uses the Middle Corridor to Consolidate Its Geopolitical Position

The Middle Corridor, officially known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), is a vital logistics route connecting East Asia and Europe. It is a multimodal corridor combining road, rail and maritime transport. By bypassing traditional northern transport routes, it helps strengthen regional connectivity and improve trade efficiency. Azerbaijan plays a key role in this transport network, using its strategic position on the Caspian Sea to ensure the uninterrupted transit of goods between China, Central Asian countries and European markets.

BESA Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Digest No. 34 (July 2026)

In July 2026, the BESA PSCR program analyzed political developments in Ukraine, Russia, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus.

Monthly Monitoring of Analytical Publications on Post-Soviet Conflicts

The key word in this issue of our monitoring, analyzing scientific publications and reports from June 2026, is «war». News reports have taught us that war is no longer a crisis, a brief storm between periods of peace, but the new norm. There is less and less research on war itself; more and more research on how war changes and transforms the everyday fabric of life. Israelis have known this for a long time, since the founding of our country. Now the rest of the world is feeling it along with us.

The Status of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian Federation as a Source of Systemic Conflicts: A Typological Analysis (2025–2026)

The institution of indigenous small-numbered peoples (ISNP) in the Russian Federation represents a unique legal phenomenon, combining constitutional guarantees, special federal and regional legislation, and a system of preferences designed to compensate for the vulnerability of ethnic groups numbering fewer than 50,000 persons. However, as an analysis of public information for 2025–2026 demonstrates, the very status of ISNP, which presupposes the granting of special rights and benefits, generates multiple conflicts of various natures.

What Azerbaijan’s Mediation within the Israeli-Turkish Disputes Reveals about the Current State of Affairs between Jerusalem and Ankara

One of the geopolitical aftermaths of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, is the deteriorating bilateral relations between Israel and Türkiye. The South Caucasus state of Azerbaijan, which considers both states its closest allies, unsurprisingly once again serves as a mediator between the two antagonists. Drawing on expert interviews and qualitative data, this paper will be the first to illuminate these mediation efforts in greater detail.

Tolerated Memory, Withheld Recognition: Iran, the Armenian Genocide, and the Politics of Historical Asymmetry

Armenian memory is tolerated because suppressing it would alienate a loyal and historically integrated community; Armenian genocide recognition is withheld because granting it would cost more than it would gain. The community is permitted to remember. The state declines to confirm. This equilibrium becomes considerably more complex — and analytically more revealing — when placed alongside Iran's position on the Holocaust. Here the Islamic Republic has not chosen strategic silence. It has chosen active denial.

The Jews of Ukraine Between Two Narratives

In late June, the most hotly debated issue concerning the Jews of Ukraine was the meeting between Dmytro Korchynskyi, leader of the radical nationalist Ukrainian party Bratstvo ("Brotherhood"), and Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Asman, who holds both Ukrainian and Israeli citizenship. Following the meeting, Rabbi Asman issued a statement asserting that Bratstvo had no connection to the Nazi slogans and salutes displayed during a public rally held on Kyiv's Independence Square on June 21. A photograph showing Dmytro Korchynskyi and Moshe Asman shaking hands was subsequently published.

Renaming the Map: Turkey’s Cognitive War for Central Asia and Its Persian Dimension

In November 2025, Turkish Minister of Education Yusuf Tekin made a declaration that passed largely unnoticed in Western strategic circles but sent a quiet tremor through the Persian-speaking world. Addressing the replacement of “Central Asia” (Orta Asya) with “Turkestan” (Türkistan) in Turkey’s national history curriculum, Tekin offered an explanation that was anything but pedagogical: the term “Central Asia,” he argued, had been deliberately introduced into academic literature to divide the Turkic world. The new curriculum, he made clear, was correcting a historical injustice — not updating a geography textbook (Anadolu Agency 2025).

Azerbaijan Uses the Middle Corridor to Consolidate Its Geopolitical Position

Diplomatic Blow in the Wrong Direction? Gideon Sa’ar’s Initiative for Israel to Recognize the Armenian Genocide

On Thursday, June 25, 2026, an unusual diplomatic development attracted the attention of both the Israeli public and international observers. On that day, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced on his official X account that he intended to submit, at the next cabinet meeting, a draft resolution calling for Israel's official recognition of the genocide committed against the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire during the final years of the First World War. Three days later, the resolution—which, according to the foreign minister, represents "a moral and historical obligation" of the Jewish state and also condemns "the denial, minimization, or distortion of historical truth"—was unanimously approved by the government. The next step, it was announced, will be a vote in the Knesset.

PSCRP