Friday, November 6, 2020 Armenian President Calls For Unity To Cope With War, Coronavirus Armenian President Armen Sarkissian clenches his fist as he addresses the nation, calling for unity in the face of the Nagorno-Karabakh war and the coronavirus pandemic, Yerevan, November 6, 2020 President Armen Sarkissian has called on Armenian political parties and public figures to show unity in the face of an ongoing armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, both of which have claimed hundreds of human lives. “Be united like our people is. Follow the example of our people,” Sarkissian said in his address on November 6. The Armenian president said that unity was the most powerful weapon of Armenians that helped the newly independent nation prevail in the early 1990s when it had a ruined economy and was grappling with the consequences of a devastating 1988 earthquake in Spitak. “Thirty years ago we had no strong economy, no roads, no fuel, we hadn’t enough weapons. But we won because we had the most powerful weapon, ourselves, our unity. Some people ask me today what the guarantee of our today’s victory is. And my answer hasn’t changed – it’s our unity,” he said. Sarkissian said that besides the war in Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia is also combating another enemy – the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 1,500 in the South Caucasus country of some 3 million people to date. “Victory over coronavirus also depends on us, on how united, organized and disciplined we are,” the president said. Sarkissian, who chairs the Board of Trustees of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, also called on all businessmen, philanthropists and organizations in Armenia and its far-flung Diaspora to donate as much as possible to the charity. “Making donations to the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund you help families from Artsakh [the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh] who have taken refuge in Armenia, help solve the problems of refugees, help rebuild destroyed schools and houses,” Sarkisian said. “We place our hope on ourselves and our true friends. We will be creating our victory together. God bless Artsakh, Armenia and our entire nation,” the Armenian president concluded. The current hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh between local ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijan broke out on September 27. The conflict has displaced tens of thousands of people. The ethnic Armenian army has confirmed the deaths of 1,177 of its soldiers to date. Dozens of civilians have also been killed in shelling and rocket attacks during the ongoing conflict. Russia ‘Possesses Precise Data’ On Terrorist Fighters In Karabakh Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Russia possesses precise data about terrorist fighters from the Middle East involved in the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the country’s top intelligence official has said. In an interview with RIA Novosti conducted by Russia Today news agency director-general Dmitry Kiselyov this week, head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin also said that Moscow sees “separate elements of Turkish intelligence work” in the conflict zone. Since the outbreak of hostilities in late September Armenia has insisted that Islamist mercenaries from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East have been recruited by Turkey to fight on Azerbaijan’s side against ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Late last week ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh claimed they had captured at least two Syrian fighters in the battlefield. They showed videos of interrogations of the two men who admit they had been recruited by Turkey to fight for Azerbaijan. Yerevan also claims that Turkish forces are directly helping Azerbaijan fight the war. Azerbaijan and Turkey deny deploying any mercenaries in the conflict zone. Azerbaijan also insists that Turkey’s role in the conflict is limited to political and moral support only. According to Naryshkin, Russia got its information about the presence of terrorist fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh from various sources in the Middle East and elsewhere in the region. “We have been receiving these data from a number of countries, from different sources and from our different partners, partner services in the Middle East,” he said. At a news briefing on November 5, spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova expressed Moscow’s lingering concerns about the deployment of jihadist fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that “it is fraught with the emergence of a new terrorist enclave in the South Caucasus.” At Least Three Killed In Overnight Shelling Of Stepanakert Rescuers remove the bodies of citizens from under the rubble of a building destroyed during shelling in Nagorno-Karabakh At least three civilians have been killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital of Stepanakert in what local authorities say was overnight shelling of the city by Azerbaijan’s armed forces. Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto Emergency Service said that Shushi, a town some 10 kilometers to the south of Stepanakert, was also under intensive fire last night. “As a result of rocket fire several residential houses were burned in Shushi. There is also destruction in the capital [Stepanakert]. Rescue services are working on the spots,” the body reported in the morning. An RFE/RL Armenian Service correspondent in Stepanakert has confirmed the deaths of three civilians in the city, reporting at least a dozen explosions heard in the area last night. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan also reported shelling of its populated areas by ethnic Armenian forces. The country’s Defense Ministry said that the town of Tartar and nearby villages came under fire on Friday morning. Both sides deny they target civilian populations in the ongoing conflict. Meanwhile, the two sides again gave different accounts of the developments along the frontlines in the morning. Armenia-backed ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh claimed to have conducted “effective defensive battles”, stopping attacks by Azerbaijani armed forces at several major sectors of the frontline. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan claimed its armed forces have been on the offensive in several directions, causing Armenian forces to retreat. On November 5, Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto ethnic Armenian leader Arayik Harutiunian said he had visited Shushi (Shusha), a strategic town sitting on a mountaintop and overlooking the region’s capital Stepanakert, to meet with defenders of the town and discuss “the strategy of the struggle against the numerous forces of the enemy.” As Azerbaijani forces were reportedly closing in on Shushi, Harutiunian said that “all possible efforts are being exerted to keep the fortress town impregnable.” Moscow Remains Concerned About Jihadist Fighters In Karabakh Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova (archive photo) Russia has again voiced lingering concerns about the presence of fighters from the Middle East in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. Maria Zakharova, an official representative of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said during a November 5 news briefing in Moscow that jihadist mercenaries with “blood on their hands” are being deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh. “All this cannot but raise our serious concern, as such developments are fraught with the emergence of a new terrorist enclave, now in the South Caucasus,” Zakharova said. “Russia stated about it openly as soon as it got corresponding data,” she added. In an interview with the Russian Kommersant daily earlier this week Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the number of mercenaries from the Middle East in Nagorno-Karabakh was approaching 2,000. Late last week ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh claimed to have captured at least two fighters from Syria fighting on Azerbaijan’s side. According to the Armenian side, both admitted during interrogations that they had been recruited by Turkey. Turkey and Azerbaijan brush aside accusations of deploying thousands of mercenaries to fight against Armenians. In an interview with the Spanish EFE news agency on November 5 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev responded to Lavrov’s remarks about the presence of mercenaries in Nagorno-Karabakh, calling it a rumor. “I regret that high-ranking officials of the countries that should be neutral and act on the basis of the mandate given to them by the OSCE use these unconfirmed ‘information’ and rumors,” Aliyev said, reiterating that there are no mercenaries on the territory of Azerbaijan. “There is not a single proof that any foreign fighter is fighting on our side,” Aliyev said. Armenia’s arguments on the presence of mercenaries on the Azerbaijani side have also been supported by multiple investigative reports by Western journalists, some of which alleged that Turkey began recruiting jihadist fighters to be later deployed in Azerbaijan as early as July. In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service (Azatutyun) in October one such journalist, Lindsey Snell, estimated that the number of Syrian mercenaries fighting for Azerbaijan at one point was around 2,000. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based human rights organization, more than 200 Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries have been killed in Nagorno-Karabakh since fighting broke out in the region in late September. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.