Monday,
Armenian Official Cautious After First Talks With Turkish Envoy
• Karlen Aslanian
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Deputy speaker Ruben Rubinian at a session of the National Assembly,
October 5, 2021.
Three days after holding his first meeting with a Turkish diplomat, a senior
Armenian official on Monday expressed caution about the success of negotiations
on normalizing Armenia’s relations with Turkey.
Ruben Rubinian, Armenia’s top negotiator, and his Turkish counterpart, Serdar
Kilic, met in Moscow on Friday. In virtually identical statements, the Turkish
and Armenian foreign ministries described the talks as “positive and
constructive.” They said the two envoys agreed to continue the dialogue “without
preconditions.”
“Very substantive issues were not discussed at the first meeting,” Rubinian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service in an interview. “We discussed general approaches to
the process. … It’s still too early to say what kind of approaches Turkey will
take.”
“We must try to achieve peace in the region and our position is sincere,” he
said. “We expect Turkey to demonstrate a similar position because it’s simply
impossible for Turkey to pursue a policy in the region without having a
relationship with Armenia.”
Rubinian, who is a deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, said that Yerevan
hopes that the next round of negotiations will be more “substantive.”
Turkey - Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar (right) meets Ambassador Serdar
Kılıç to discuss normalization talks with Armenia, January 10, 2022.
“We are interested in solving real issues and those include, first of all, the
opening of the [Turkish-Armenian] border and, secondly, the establishment of
diplomatic relations,” he explained.
In recent months Turkish leaders have made statements making the normalization
of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on Armenia agreeing to open a land
corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave. They have
also cited Baku’s demands for a formal Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani
sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Rubinian insisted that he did not discuss these demands with Kilic in Moscow.
Yerevan continues to stand for an unconditional normalization of
Turkish-Armenian ties, he said.
Armenian opposition leaders remain unconvinced by such assurances, saying that
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is ready to accept Turkish preconditions relating
to not only the Karabakh conflict but also the 1915 Armenian genocide in the
Ottoman Empire.
Rubinian faced harsh criticism from opposition lawmakers when he chaired a
session of the National Assembly earlier on Monday. Some of them deplored what
they see as the secrecy of the Turkish-Armenian dialogue welcomed by Russia, the
United States and the European Union.
Armenia - Deputies from the opposition Hayastan alliance attend a session of the
National Assembly, Yerevan, .
“When you say that ‘we learn about everything from Turkey’ … there has not been
a single development about which our foreign ministry has not informed [the
public,]” responded Rubinian.
The 31-year-old vice-speaker lost his cool when some deputies from the main
opposition Hayastan alliance cited the fact that he lived in Istanbul for
several months in 2017-2018 on a scholarly exchange program to accuse him of
promoting Turkish interests in Armenia.
“I’ll do whatever I want,” Rubinian shouted before walking off the parliament
podium and menacingly approaching Hayastan’s parliamentary group.
With the shouting match nearly degenerating into a violent clash between
pro-government and opposition deputies, Rubinian rushed back to his seat and
interrupted the parliament session. The deputies continued to argue on the
parliament floor during the break.
Armenian Task Force To Work On Rail Link With Azerbaijan
• Robert Zargarian
The Armenian government has set up a task force that will coordinate work on a
railway that will connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through
Armenia’s Syunik province.
The 45-kilometer railway will be part of broader transport links between the two
countries envisaged by the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the 2020 war
in Nagorno-Karabakh as well as follow-up agreements reached by Baku and Yerevan.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
reported decisive progress towards establishing the rail link between
Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan after face-to-face talks held in Brussels
in December.
Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the
construction of its Armenian section will likely cost Yerevan $200 million and
take about three years. But Grigorian did not say when it will start.
The task force formed by Pashinian’s government late last week is to deal with
practical modalities of the transport project. It will be headed by Artashes
Tumanian, Armenia’s former ambassador to Iran, and also comprise nine government
officials and railway and construction specialists.
Tumanian, who is now an adviser to Pashinian, did not return phone calls at the
weekend.
Pashinian insisted last month that the rail link will be beneficial for not only
Azerbaijan but also Armenia. “Through that railway Armenia will gain access to
Russia and Iran, while Azerbaijan will get a rail link with Nakhichevan,” he
said.
Critics of the Armenian prime minister are skeptical about the project’s
economic benefits for Armenia, however. Suren Parsian, an opposition-linked
economist, believes that it is first and foremost a political undertaking.
“We often overestimate the significance of this unblocking of transport
infrastructures,” Parsian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “True, Armenia needs
to have open roads and alternative options. But this must not be presented as a
miracle cure.”
While apparently reaching an agreement on the rail links, Aliyev and Pashinian
failed to patch up their differences on the status of a highway that would also
connect Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan through Syunik.
Aliyev said ahead of their December 14 meeting in Brussels that people and cargo
passing through that “Zangezur corridor” must be exempt from Armenian border
controls. Pashinian rejected the demand.
Opposition Lawmakers Absent From Armenian Delegation Visiting U.S.
Հունվար 17, 2022
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia -- Former National Security Service Director Artur Vanetsian speaks at
an opposition rally in Yerevan, November 21, 2020.
Opposition deputies were not included, for different reasons, in a delegation of
the Armenian parliament that began a working visit to the United States at the
weekend.
The delegation headed by speaker Alen Simonian is due to meet in Washington with
the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and other members of
the U.S. Congress. Simonian personally decided its composition.
He did not appoint any deputies from the main opposition Hayastan alliance. Nor
did he ask it to name a representative for the trip to Washington.
Hayastan, which has the second largest group in the National Assembly, said in
December that it will not join Armenian parliamentary delegations travelling
abroad until the authorities lift travel bans imposed on 12 of its 29 lawmakers.
The bans stem from various criminal charges rejected by the bloc as politically
motivated.
Simonian’s delegation included instead Artur Vanetsian, a leader of Pativ Unem,
the other opposition alliance represented in the parliament. However, Vanetsian
pulled out of the trip at the last minute.
Explaining the decision, A Pativ Unem spokesman, Sos Hakobian, said that just
hours before the delegation’s departure to Washington Vanetsian was informed
that he will not be allowed to attend Simonian’s meeting with Pelosi.
The Armenian speaker will be accompanied only by Hayk Konjorian, a senior
pro-government lawmaker, and Lilit Makunts, the Armenian ambassador to the U.S.
Makunts is also a political ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Hakobian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that Vanetsian’s “undemocratic”
exclusion from the meeting with Pelosi made his participation in the trip
“meaningless.”
“All other meetings and events [in Washington] will be largely ceremonial in
nature,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Simonian rejected the criticism on Monday, saying that Pelosi
is scheduled to meet with her Armenian counterpart, rather than the delegation.
“And the chairman of the National Assembly himself decides the composition of
the delegation,” she added.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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