Tuesday,
Russian Troops Reassure Karabakh Leaders Over New Corridor To Armenia
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Russian peacekeepers are seen at a checkpoint in the town of
Lachin, December 1, 2020
Russian peacekeeping forces reportedly assured Nagorno-Karabakh’s main political
factions on Tuesday that a new road connecting the territory to Armenia will
have the same status as the existing corridor that will be handed over to
Azerbaijan next week.
The five-kilometer-wide Lachin corridor became Karabakh’s sole overland link to
Armenia following the 2020 war. Armenian forces pulled out of the rest of the
wider Lachin district under the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that
stopped the six-week hostilities.
The truce accord calls for the construction of a new Armenia-Karabakh highway
that will bypass the town of Lachin and two Armenian-populated villages located
within the current corridor protected by Russian peacekeeping troops.
Bowing to strong Azerbaijani pressure, the Armenian side agreed earlier this
month to evacuate these settlements by August 25 and start using a bypass road
newly constructed by Azerbaijan about a dozen kilometers south of that area.
The leaders of the five political groups represented in the Karabakh parliament
met with the commanders of the Russian peacekeeping contingent to discuss the
functioning of the new corridor. According to a statement released by the
parliament’s press service, they received assurances that “the new route will
have a legal status of the same corridor” and will be controlled by the Russian
peacekeepers.
The statement said they also discussed the August 3 fighting in Karabakh which
left at least one Azerbaijani and two Karabakh Armenian soldiers dead. It cited
the Russian officers as saying that they have drawn “necessary conclusions” and
“will make additional efforts to prevent a repeat of such ceasefire violations
in the future.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on August 4 publicly criticized the
Russian troops over the latest deadly fighting there. Pashinian complained that
Baku has been stepping up ceasefire violations in Karabakh “in the presence of”
the 2,000 peacekeepers deployed after the Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism.
Turkey Reiterates Normalization Conditions For Armenia
• Tatevik Sargsian
Turkey - Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speaks during a news
conference in Antalya, March 10, 2022.
The normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations remains conditional on Armenia
accepting Azerbaijan’s key demands, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu
reiterated on Tuesday.
Cavusoglu said normalization talks launched by Ankara and Yerevan early this
year cannot be delinked from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
“Peace in the South Caucasus can become a reality with a comprehensive peace
agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan which we also support,” he told the
Turkish TV channel Haber Global. “Azerbaijan made a proposal to Armenia to which
Armenia did not respond positively for a long time.”
Baku wants Yerevan to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh through
such a treaty. Cavusoglu also mentioned another Azerbaijani demand: the opening
of a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave passing through Armenia’s
Syunik province. The Armenian side has ruled out any exterritorial corridors.
Cavusoglu already put forward these preconditions late last month following a
fourth round of negotiations held by Armenian and Turkish envoys in Vienna.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan likewise made clear later in July that
Turkey will normalize relations with Armenia only “after problems with
Azerbaijan are solved.”
The Armenian government says it wants an unconditional opening of the
Turkish-Armenian border and establishment of diplomatic relations between the
two neighboring states. Its domestic political opponents claim that Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian is ready to make sweeping concessions to both Ankara
and Baku.
Cavusoglu said on Tuesday that Pashinian’s administration has a popular mandate
to make such concessions because it won last year’s Armenian parliamentary
elections. Yerevan should stop using pressure from the Armenian Diaspora and
“local extremist forces” as excuses for not accepting the Turkish-Azerbaijani
demands, he said.
Armenia Still Fighting For Independence, Says Pashinian
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan,
August 18, 2022.
Armenia is still fighting for its independence more than three decades after the
breakup of the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Tuesday.
Pashinian stressed the importance of national security and normalizing relations
with Azerbaijan and Turkey as he congratulated Armenians on the 32nd anniversary
of a declaration of independence adopted by their country’s first post-Communist
parliament.
The 1990 declaration stopped short of announcing Armenia’s immediate secession
from the Soviet Union. It announced instead “the start of a process of
establishing independent statehood.”
“De facto, that process has not ended until today, not because we don't have
independence but because independence is like health, which even if you have it,
you have to take care of it every day,” Pashinian said in a statement issued on
the occasion.
“The Government is fighting for the independence of the Republic of Armenia
every day,” he said. “For us, independence is security. The international
structures that provide it are cracking in front of all of us, and one of the
first cracks unfortunately manifested itself in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Independence is normalized relations with neighbors. Although we have excellent
relations with some of our neighbors, there is no significant progress in our
relations with others because they demand too much from us or they think that we
are demanding too much from them.”
“For us, independence is strong allied relations, but allies are not always only
allies to you but also to those who ally against you,” Pashinian added in an
apparent reference to Russia.
Pashinian’s and political opponents and other critics regularly claim that he
has put Armenia’s independence at serious risk by mishandling the 2020 war with
Azerbaijan, weakening the Armenian armed forces and undermining relations with
Russia. They say that he must therefore resign.
Pashinian did not allude to security issues or improving relations with
Azerbaijan and Turkey in his previous statements on the 1990 declaration. In
August 2021, for example, he put the emphasis on internal political and economic
challenges facing Armenia.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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