On February 14th, 2023, IRSEM welcomed Mrs. Olesya Vartanyan who is a Georgian senior analyst at International Crisis Group. Mrs. Vartanyan was part of the first session of the “Young leaders” program that IRSEM launched in 2022, and which gathered 11 promising profiles coming from European countries, all specializing in defense and security matters.

Mrs. Vartanyan shared with IRSEM team the last report of International Crisis Group called “ Averting a New War between Armenia and Azerbaijan” dedicated to the lasting conflict occurring between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

She conveyed her organization's recommendations for immediate action in establishing talks in order “to minimize the risk of a reprise or expansion of last September’s fighting occurring along the border and inside Armenia”.

Since the 2020 Second war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the conflicting global context induced by the war in Ukraine has made the global mapping of mediation in this conflict more complex.

Mrs Vartanyan also expressed her gratitude and renewed satisfaction for the program she had followed with IRSEM back in April 2022, saying that it had opened a lot of perspectives for her and allowed her to exchange on many issues and that she was still in touch with the other Young Leaders from the same batch.