Friday, June 3, 2022
Dozens Injured In Police Clashes With Protesters In Armenia
• Gayane Saribekian
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Riot police clash with opposition protesters in Yerevan, June 3, 2022.
Police fired stun grenades and made many arrests late on Friday in fresh clashes
with opposition supporters who continued to demonstrate in Yerevan to demand
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
The violence which opposition leaders blamed on security forces also left dozens
of people injured. At least 42 protesters and police officers received medical
aid in hospitals, according to the Armenian Ministry of Health.
The clashes broke out as thousands of protesters marched through the city center
after the country’s main opposition forces failed to push through the Armenian
parliament a resolution rejecting any peace accord that would restore
Azerbaijan’s control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia - An opposition supporter is injured in clashes between protesters and
riot police, Yerevan, June 3, 2022.
The draft resolution also demanded that Pashinian’s government refrain from
making any territorial concessions to Azerbaijan as a result of a planned
demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. It said the demarcation process
must also be linked to the release of all Armenian prisoners remaining in
Azerbaijan and the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from Armenian border areas
occupied last year.
Lawmakers representing the ruling Civil Contract party boycotted an emergency
parliament session on the resolution and thus prevented the National Assembly
from making a quorum. They again accused the opposition of exploiting the
Karabakh conflict for political purposes.
Opposition leaders condemned the boycott, saying that it proves their claims
that Pashinian is intent on helping Azerbaijan regain full control over Karabakh.
Armenia - Riot police clash with opposition protesters in Yerevan, June 3, 2022.
“Therefore, if we don’t want Artsakh (Karabakh) to end up under Azerbaijani rule
we must oust these authorities,” one of them, Armen Rustamian, told reporters in
the parliament building guarded by an unusually large number of police and other
security personnel.
Shortly after the boycott, Rustamian and other opposition figures led a crowd of
supporters to the prime minister’s office in Yerevan. The protesters blocked all
entrances to the building for about two hours before marching towards
Pashinian’s official residence.
They were confronted by hundreds of riot police deployed at a street
intersection outside the residence. The violent clashes broke there out after
the opposition leaders and their supporters were not allowed to march to the
nearby parliament building.
Security forces used stun grenades as some angry protesters tried to break
through the police cordon. Scores of protesters were arrested as a result.
Armenia - Riot police arrest an opposition supporter in Yerevan, June 3, 2022.
The police did not immediately give the total of number of arrests. Opposition
lawmakers told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that one of their colleagues, Artur
Sargsian, was among the detainees.
Senior police officers at the scene defended the use of force. They said that
some protesters threw stones at policemen.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, the main speaker at the more than month-long opposition
rallies, blamed the security forces for the violence when he addressed later in
the evening supporters who gathered in the city’s France Square, the site of a
tent camp set up by the opposition on May 1. He urged the demonstrators to spend
the night in the square.
“Today Nikol once again declared war on his own people,” charged Saghatelian.
“We accept your challenge and we are ready to defend ourselves.”
Saghatelian also said that the daily anti-government protests will continue
unabated. “We will fight till the end,” he said.
Yerevan Wants Joint Peace Efforts By U.S., Russia, France
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian mees with EU envoy Toivo Klaar,
Yerevan, June 3, 2022.
Armenia’s leadership on Friday called for renewed joint activities of U.S.,
Russian and French mediators co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh.
The United States, Russia and France have for decades jointly tried to broker an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord. According to Russian officials, Washington
and Paris stopped cooperating with Moscow in the Minsk Group format following
the Russian invasion of Ukraine. U.S. and French officials have not denied that.
In a phone call on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reportedly
discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin the possibility of kick-starting
the work of the OSCE Minsk Group.
Pashinian also raised the matter with Toivo Klaar, the European Union’s special
envoy for the South Caucasus, at a meeting held in Yerevan on Friday.
“In the context of regional peace and the peaceful resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Nikol Pashinian emphasized the importance of the
activities of the OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairmanship,” the Armenian government’s
press office said in a statement on the meeting.
At a separate meeting with Klaar, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan likewise
“reaffirmed the importance of restoring the work of the OSCE Minsk Group’s
co-chairmanship,” according to the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
An EU official told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service earlier in the day that the Minsk
Group is “not valid any longer.” The official also claimed that it is the EU,
rather than Russia, that now plays the central role in the Armenia-Azerbaijan
peace process.
The head of the EU’s top decision-making body, Charles Michel, has hosted three
face-to-face meetings between Pashinian and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev
since December. Meeting with Klaar, Pashinian praised Michel’s “efforts aimed at
regional stability.”
Unlike Baku, successive Armenian governments have regarded the Minsk Group as
the principal international platform for a Karabakh settlement and praised the
work of its three co-chairs. Pashinian’s domestic political opponents now accuse
him of helping Baku kill that format by agreeing to the EU’s direct involvement
in the peace process.
EU Said To Seek Central Role In Karabakh Peace Efforts
• Heghine Buniatian
Belgium - European Council President Charles Michel, Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev meet in Brussels, April
6, 2022.
The European Union has replaced Russia as the lead player in international
efforts to broker peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, an EU official claimed
on Friday.
The official, who did not want to be identified, also confirmed that the EU will
not work with Russia on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or sponsoring
confidence-building measures for that purpose.
“There is no movement between the EU and Russia on this and no intention to
engage with Russia on this,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“Russia might have stopped the [2020] war between the two parties, but it is
clear that the follow-up is taking place here in Brussels and not in Moscow. The
reason why they [the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan] came to Brussels so
quickly is a sign of this,” added the official.
The head of the European Council, Charles Michel, has hosted three trilateral
meetings with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev in the last five months.
After the most recent meeting held in Brussels on May 22, Michel said Pashinian
and Aliyev agreed to “advance discussions” on a peace treaty and press ahead
with the demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and opening of transport
links between the two nations.
Russia has denounced the EU’s mediation efforts, saying that they are part of
the West’s attempts to hijack Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks and use the
Karabakh conflict in its standoff with Moscow over Ukraine.
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian make statements to the press after
talks in Sochi, November 26, 2021.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged in April that the West is now
ready to “sacrifice interests of the Armenian side” in the intensifying
geopolitical conflict. He said the United States and France stopped cooperating
with Russia within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, co-headed by the three
nations, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The EU official noted in this regard that the joint mediation format established
by Moscow, Paris and Washington nearly three decades ago is “not valid any
longer.”
The official said that both Yerevan and Baku are now “very scared of Moscow”
because of the war in Ukraine. “They are very aware that they can be next,” he
claimed.
Pashinian and Aliyev briefed Russian President Vladimir on the results of their
May 22 talks in separate phone calls earlier this week. The Armenian and
Azerbaijani foreign ministers assured Lavrov earlier that their governments
remain committed to Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by Putin during and
after the 2020 war in Karabakh.
The also agreements commit the two sides to demarcating their border and opening
it to commerce, travel and cargo shipments. They stipulate that Russian troops
will ensure the safety of a road and railway that should connect Azerbaijan with
its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s Syunik region.
The EU official revealed that the EU hopes to “gradually change this” in the
future. “But there is no doubt that this is a long shot,” cautioned the official.
Tajikistan - Russian Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov meets his Armenian and
Azerbaijani counterparts in Dushanbe, May 12, 2022
A Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani commission dealing with practical modalities of
the planned transport links was due to meet in Moscow on Friday for the first
time in almost six months. Armenian and Azerbaijani officials are also expected
to travel to the Russian capital later this month for further talks on the
border demarcation.
Putin and Pashinian reaffirmed Russia’s key role in the Karabakh peace efforts
in a joint declaration issued after their talks held outside Moscow on April 19.
The EU official also said that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the security
of its population will be on the agenda of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations.
“It is inevitable that this will be on the table at some point but they are not
there yet,” explained the official. “This is a topic for the later stage as it
will be the most difficult issue. There is no point in frontloading this issue
right now.”
Reacting to Michel’s comments made after the May 22 summit, Karabakh’s ethnic
Armenian leaders accused the head of the EU’s main decision-making body of
signaling support for Azerbaijani control over the disputed territory. One of
them said on Tuesday that the EU is unfit to be the lead player in brokering a
peaceful settlement.
A spokesman for Michel said afterwards that his comments “should not be
interpreted as favoring a predetermined outcome of discussions” on Karabakh’s
future.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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