There is a one-storey house with 5 windows and a door right on the Armenian-Turkish border. Window frames have recently been given a fresh coat of white paint typical of provincial Soviet train stations. This little house is called Akhuryan Station of South-Caucasian Railroad.

It is already the fifteenth year that the coming of spring along the Line of Contact of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces is marked by increased deadly sniper activity.

This is connected with the start of spring agricultural work in areas near the border, which largely predetermines the crop capacity of the year for the local farmers and, therefore, the degree of population in the near-frontline area.

February 24 political consultations took place in Yerevan between foreign ministries of Armenia and Serbia. At first sight there was nothing principally important, especially taking into account the participation of deputies rather than ministers.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev is fond of making war rhetoric concerning settling the long-running Armenia-Azeri conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

He made one such statement in his interview to the pan-European TV news channel EuroNews prior to his Armenian counterpart’s visit to Great Britain.

Azerbaijan is planning events on February 26-28 in several countries aimed to achieve “the recognition of February events of 1992 in Khojalu as Armenian’s act of genocide towards the Azeri people”.

Eighteen years ago the Defense Army of Nagorno Karabakh took control of the Azeri military springboard stationed 10 km west of Stepanakert. Khojalu airdrome was located there through which mercenaries were airlifted to Nagorno Karabakh from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and Chechen Republic.

Goran Lennmarker, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s special rapporteur on the conflicts in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh, stated commenting on the Sochi meeting of the Armenian and Azeri presidents that “an agreement on the conflict settlement might be reached this spring”.

Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made an official statement saying that “if the RA Constitutional Court sticks to its decision the normalization process of the Armenian-Turkish relations may be frozen”.

The unusually warm climate in Yerevan this winter has been matched by an atmosphere of political heat generated by significant visits among heads of states, by fiery declarations, and by the ongoing debate over Armenia-Turkey protocols.

For more than two centuries Russia and Turkey waged wars for political influence in the Middle East. Today, they maintain their aspirations for power over as much territory as possible in this intricate region of the world, but strategies have changed.

Twenty years ago today, January 13, the slaughter of Armenians in Baku started and continued for a week before it was stopped by Soviet troops brought into the city.