Wednesday,
Azeri FM Encouraged By Karabakh Talks
TURKEY -- Azeri Foreigner Minister Elmar Mammadyarov attends a joint press
conference with Turkish and Iranian counterparts in Istanbul, October 30, 2018.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has voiced satisfaction with his
most recent meeting with his Armenian counterpart Zohrab Mnatsakanian, saying
that it resulted in a rare “mutual understanding” between the two sides.
Mammadyarov and Mnatsakanian met in Milan on December 5 in the presence of the
U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group. They
described the talks as “useful.”
“I think that at the last meeting with my Armenian counterpart we achieved some
mutual understanding for the first time in a long time,” Mammadyarov said late
on Tuesday at a yearend reception hosted for Baku-based ambassadors of foreign
states.
The chief Azerbaijani diplomat did not go into details of the talks. According
to Russian and Azerbaijani news agencies, he stressed only that he will again
meet with Mnatsakanian next month in an effort to achieve “tangible results” in
the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.
Commenting on understandings reported by Mammadyarov, the Armenian Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman, Anna Naghdalian, pointed on Wednesday to the fresh talks
planned by the two ministers. She also said that they signed a joint statement
with the Minsk Group co-chairs issued after the Milan meeting.
“We had long failed to adopt statements in such a format,” added Naghdalian.
Armenia -Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalian speaks at a news
briefing in Yerevan, 13 November 2018.
In that statement, the mediators expressed hope that “an intensive
results-oriented high-level dialogue between the leaders of Azerbaijan and
Armenia” will resume “in the near future.” The statement also said that
Mammadyarov and Mnatsakanian “reaffirmed their commitment to work intensively
to promote a peaceful resolution of the conflict.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
spoke to each other on December 6 at a summit of ex-Soviet states held in
Russia. They also had a brief conversation during the previous CIS summit held
in Tajikistan in September. There has been a significant decrease in ceasefire
violations in the Karabakh conflict zone since then.
“The year 2019 will give a new impetus to the Armenia-Azerbaijan
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process,” Aliyev wrote on his Twitter page
on December 14.
Pashinian tweeted about two hours later that a Karabakh settlement “remains a
top priority” for Armenia.
Armenia Named The Economist's 'Country Of The Year'
ARMENIA -- A man waves an Armenian flag at the Republic Square in Yerevan,
Tuesday, May 8, 2018.
The Economist magazine has named Armenia as its country of the year, saying the
South Caucasus nation has a "chance of democracy and renewal" after street
protests led to a peaceful change of government.
Nikol Pashinian, a former journalist and opposition lawmaker, "was swept into
power, legally and properly, on a wave of revulsion against corruption and
incompetence," the London-based weekly news magazine said on Tuesday.
He was elected to the prime minister's post in May after spearheading weeks of
mass protests that forced his predecessor, long-entrenched leader Serzh
Sarkisian, to resign. Pashinian’s My Step alliance won more than 70 percent of
the vote in December 9 snap parliamentary elections.
"A Putinesque potentate was ejected, and no one was killed. Russia was given no
excuse to interfere," The Economist said, adding that "an ancient and often
misruled nation in a turbulent region has a chance of democracy and renewal."
However, the weekly cautioned that Armenia’s "nasty territorial dispute" with
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh "has not been resolved and could ignite again."
The Economist has picked a "country of the year" since 2013. The title goes to
a country that "has improved the most in the past 12 months.”
Russia Urges Armenia To Resist ‘U.S. Interference’
• Emil Danielyan
Switzerland -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks to Vice Foreign
Minister Grigory Karasin (L) before a meeting between representatives from
Ukraine, the EU, and Russia in Geneva, April 17, 2014
A senior Russian official on Wednesday accused the United States of meddling in
Armenia’s internal affairs and said Russia expects its South Caucasus ally to
stand up to Washington.
“Against the background of radical changes taking place in the country this
year, Washington’s interference in its internal and external affairs is
becoming increasingly unceremonious,” charged Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory
Karasin.
“We expect that the current leadership of Armenia, which received a necessary
mandate in the [December 9] parliamentary elections, will have the courage to
resist the unhidden external blackmail and pressure and will defend its
sovereign right to independently make decisions based on national interests,”
he told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Karasin pointed to recent statements made by U.S. National Security Adviser
John Bolton and Richard Mills, the former U.S. ambassador in Yerevan.
Visiting Yerevan in October, Bolton said that normalizing relations with
Azerbaijan and Turkey would enable Armenia to break “historical patterns” that
have shaped its traditional foreign policy. He also indicated that Washington
is ready to sell Yerevan U.S. weapons and thus reduce Russia’s “excessive
influence” on Armenia.
Armenia - U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at a news
conference in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.
Bolton further stated that the administration of President Donald Trump will
enforce renewed U.S. sanctions against Iran “very vigorously.” The
Armenian-Iranian border is therefore “going to be a significant issue,” he said
after talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Karasin claimed that Trump’s national security adviser “ordered Armenia to buy
American weapons and join the anti-Iranian sanctions as soon as possible.” “If
this is the public side of U.S.-Armenian relations then one can imagine what
kind of arm-twisting is taking place behind the scenes,” he said.
The Russian official went on to note the “tragic fate” of Ukraine and Georgia
which he said have been let down by the West. “Such obvious disregard by the
West of the interests of countries which it has been drawing into its orbit
must serve as a warning [to Armenia,]” he said.
Armenian officials earlier played down the significance of Bolton’s public
statements. In particular, they insisted that Yerevan has received no concrete
offers to buy U.S. military hardware.
Also, Pashinian made clear last month that Armenia will maintain its close
relationship with Iran despite the U.S. sanctions. Pashinian said that the U.S.
administration “understands our situation and policy.”
Earlier in November, a team of officials from the U.S. State and Treasury
Departments visited Yerevan to explain implications of the sanctions to
Armenia’s government and private sector.
Pashinian has also repeatedly ruled out any major changes in Armenia’s policy
towards Russia ever since he came to power in May. He has specifically made
clear that his country will remain part of Russian-led military and trade blocs.
Tajikistan - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian talk during a CIS summit in Dushanbe, Septmeber 28, 2018.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to congratulate Pashinian on
becoming prime minister after weeks of mass protests that toppled Armenia’s
former government. But Moscow subsequently criticized the new authorities in
Yerevan for prosecuting Yuri Khachaturov, the secretary general of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and former President Robert
Kocharian.
Putin made a point of telephoning of Kocharian in August to congratulate him on
his 64th birthday anniversary.
Kocharian, who denies coup charges brought against him as politically
motivated, was again arrested on December 7 two days before the Armenian
parliamentary elections won by Pashinian’s My Step alliance.
Putin has still not congratulated Pashinian on that landslide victory. The
Russian ambassador in Yerevan, Sergey Kopyrkin, downplayed this fact on
Tuesday. Citing the “inter-state protocol,” Kopyrkin hinted that Putin will
send a congratulatory message after Pashinian is formally reappointed as prime
minister.
Putin congratulated former President Serzh Sarkisian two days after his
Republican Party of Armenia won the previous parliamentary elections held in
April 2017.
Pashinian Defends Choice Of National Security Aide
• Naira Nalbandian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Nagorno-Karabakh - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian walks through
Karabakh Armenian trenches on "the line of contact" with Azerbaijan, September
18, 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian defended on Wednesday his decision to appoint an
Armenian army general sacked following the 2016 war in Nagorno-Karabakh as his
national security adviser.
The appointment of Major-General Arshak Karapetian, the former chief of
Armenia’s military intelligence service, was announced on Monday. Pashinian’s
office gave no reasons for it.
Karapetian and two other senior military officials were fired in April 2016 by
then President Serzh Sarkisian more than three weeks after the outbreak of
heavy fighting around Karabakh that nearly escalated into a full-scale
Armenian-Azerbaijani war. About 80 Armenian soldiers and volunteers were killed
during four-day hostilities stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Azerbaijani troops captured several heights at northern and southern sections
of the Karabakh “line of contact” but failed to advance farther. According to
independent sources in Baku, at least 92 Azerbaijani soldiers, many of them
members of special forces, died in action.
Sarkisian said at the time that Armenian military intelligence failed to get
“precise information” about the Azerbaijani offensive beforehand. “Had we had
[such intelligence] the Azerbaijanis would have suffered much greater losses
and failed to seize those several meters [of land,]” he told the Bloomberg news
agency a few days before the high-profile sackings.
Pashinian’s decision to appoint one of the sacked military officials to his
staff was therefore criticized by some commentators. The premier dismissed the
criticism when he spoke to journalists in the town of Dilijan.
“Those who mention that Arshak Karapetian was fired by Serzh Sarkisian as a
result of those events also say that Serzh Sarkisian is a just arbiter who made
a just decision,” he said. “I have read dozens, if not hundreds, pages of
secret materials about the four-day war and found nothing in those materials
about the absence or lack of intelligence data.”
Pashinian expressed confidence that Karapetian will properly perform his new
duties.
Pashinian’s chief of staff, Eduard Aghajanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
earlier in the day that Karapetian will advise the prime minister on national
security issues.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” quotes Russian Ambassador Sergey Kopyrkin as saying that the
December 2 death in Gyumri of an Armenian woman attacked by a Russian soldier
must not be politicized. Kopyrkin also said on Tuesday that the views of
Armenians matter to Russia. The paper says that if is really the case then
Moscow should hand over the suspect, who is held in detention at the Russian
military base in Gyumri, to Armenian law-enforcement authorities. Failure to do
so, it says, would mean that the Russians “don’t give a damn” about Armenian
public opinion.
Lragir.am comments on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s “ambiguous”
statement on Armenia’s U.S.-funded biological labs. The publication says that
the Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Anna Naghdalian, reacted to the
statement on Tuesday, saying that the labs belong to Armenia and are used for
solely civilian purposes. “There are some contradictions between these
statements,” it says. “If those labs belong to Armenia, are civilian in nature
and have no military personnel, then what is the point of ongoing
Russian-Armenian negotiations? The situation requires a clarification.”
“Zhoghovurd” says that after holding parliamentary elections widely recognized
as democratic the Armenian authorities should now amend the Electoral Code. The
paper says they must first and foremost abolish electoral districts where
candidates of parties and blocs have run on an individual basis. It says that
apolitical individuals must no longer be able to run for parliament. “But it
must be noted that the introduction of this system is beneficial for the
authorities because they can have guaranteed votes [for the ruling political
force] through such individuals,” it says.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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