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 Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.