Georgetown Conference on the West and Caucasus

ByEmil Sanamyan

The Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has released a conference report on “The New Geopolitics of the Caucasus Region.” Hosted by Prof. Shireen Hunter the conference was part of a larger Caucasus research project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

At the conference hosted last October, area experts from the U.S., Europe, Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus aimed to take stock of the quarter century of the Caucasus states’ independence and, amid increasingly violent regional trends, gauge “prospects for regional cooperation and conflict resolution.” Conference panelists argued for continued Western engagement with the Caucasus, including greater focus on conflict resolution and more nuanced approaches to Russia and Iran, particularly as they pertain to the Caucasus.