Thursday, U.S. Names New Karabakh Mediator • Astghik Bedevian Georgia - U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Philip Reeker at a news conference in Tbilisi, June 7, 2021. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “long-term political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” late on Wednesday when he appointed a senior diplomat as the new U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. The diplomat, Philip Reeker, served as acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2019-2021. He visited Armenia and Azerbaijan in that capacity in July 2021. “The United States is committed to helping Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate a long-term political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Blinken said in a statement. “Ambassador Reeker will engage bilaterally, with like-minded partners such as the European Union, and through his role as an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair, to facilitate direct dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he added. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry denounced Blinken’s statement on Thursday, saying that the U.S. risks being left out of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process with its attempts to “revive the Minsk Group.” “The Karabakh conflict is resolved and Karabakh is an integral part of Azerbaijan,” a ministry spokeswoman said, echoing statements made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, Lynne Tracy, has repeatedly stated over the past year that Washington considers the conflict unresolved because there is still no agreement on Karabakh’s status. “It is U.S. policy that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh remains to be resolved,” she said in May. In July, Tracy reaffirmed Washington’s stated readiness for renewed cooperation with Russia on facilitating a Karabakh settlement. The Minsk Group has been co-headed by the U.S., Russia as well as France for nearly three decades. Moscow says Washington and Paris stopped working with it in that format following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried denied that when she visited Yerevan in June. She insisted that the Minsk Group remains a “very important format” for Washington. The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed Donfried’s assurances. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed later in June that “the Minsk Group stopped its activities at the initiative of the American and French co-chairs.” Armenian Military Proposes Shorter Service For Cash • Naira Nalbandian Armenia - Soldiers are lined up at a military base, August 16, 2022. Drawing strong condemnation from opposition leaders, the Armenian Defense Ministry has proposed significantly shortening compulsory military service for conscripts willing to pay a hefty fee. Armenian law requires virtually all men aged between 18 and 27 to serve in the armed forces for two years. A Defense Ministry bill circulated on Wednesday would allow draftees to do only a four-and-a-half-month service in exchange for paying the state 24 million drams ($60,000). An explanatory note attached to the bill says that proceeds from this scheme would be used for sharply increasing the wages of the Armenian army’s contract soldiers. This, it says, would also make volunteer military service more attractive to other citizens. The bill needs to be discussed and approved by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government before it can be submitted to the parliament. Defense Minister Suren Papikian is a key political ally of Pashinian and leading member of his Civil Contract party. Armen Khachatrian, a senior Civil Contract parliamentarian, on Thursday voiced support for the Defense Ministry proposal while saying that the authorities are open to considering other ideas. “We would have more well-paid contract soldiers,” Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Also, people would not have to find loopholes to be exempt from [two-year] military service.” Armenia - Defense Minister Suren Papikian visits an Armenian army post in Syunik, March 17, 2022. By contrast, representatives of Armenia’s main opposition forces rejected the proposed arrangement as unfair and dangerous for national security. “With this draft law, the authorities want to ensure that in the Republic of Armenia two-year compulsory military service is performed only by those people who cannot afford paying tens of thousands of dollars for exemption,” said Gegham Manukian of the opposition Hayastan alliance. This could only deepen inequality in the country, he said. Tigran Abrahamian, another opposition lawmaker, likewise warned of the emergence of a new social division. He also said that the authorities can find other sources of financing military pay increases. “It’s not that there is no money in the country that can be used for raising contract soldiers’ wages,” said Abrahamian. Most of the people randomly interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service in the streets of Yerevan also spoke out against the Defense Ministry initiative. “That means turning a citizen’s duty into payment,” said one man. “This is the lowest level of morality.” “A worker’s boy will have to serve while a rich kid will pay up and get exempted,” complained another. “Twenty-four million drams is pocket money for [the rich.]” Pashinian pledged to gradually make the Armenian military fully “professional” during last year’s parliamentary election campaign. But he gave no time frames for such a transition. Opposition forces blame Pashinian for Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. They also say that his administration is doing little to rebuild the armed forces. Armenian Police Break Up Russian Anti-War Protest • Robert Zargarian Armenia - An anti-war demonstration outside the Russian Embassy in Yerevan, February 24, 2022. At least 22 people were detained in Yerevan on Wednesday evening as riot police broke up a demonstration against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine organized by a group of Russian expatriates living in Armenia. News reports said the police made the arrests shortly after several dozen people, most of them Russian nationals, gathered in the city’s Liberty Square on the six-month anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine. A police statement released afterwards said the protesters were detained because of defying unspecified police orders. All of them were released from police custody later in the evening. They included Yury Alexeev, the main organizer of the protest. “We came [to the square,] unfurled our placards, and all of a sudden police officers turned up, saying they have information that our action has an offensive character and demanding that we stop the demonstration,” Alexeev told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday. “I said that’s not true, that’s nonsense, they have no grounds [to impede the gathering.] They then detained us.” Alexeev, who relocated to Yerevan this spring along with thousands of other Russians critical of President Vladimir Putin, described the police actions as illegal, arguing that the protest was sanctioned by municipal authorities. Armenian civic activists also condemned the arrests. “That was completely illegal because the gathering was sanctioned and peaceful,” one of them, Artur Sakunts, said. The Armenian police did not thwart similar small-scale protests that were staged in Yerevan earlier this year. Russia has long been Armenia’s main ally, with the two nations maintaining close political, economic and military ties. The Armenian government has refrained from publicly criticizing the Russian invasion. Fresh Armenian-Azeri Summit Scheduled For August 31 • Gayane Saribekian Belgium - European Council President Charles Michel, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev begin a trilateral meeting in Brussels, April 6, 2022. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet again in Brussels on August 31 for talks to be hosted by the European Union’s top official, it was announced on Thursday. Azerbaijani media were the first to reveal the date of the next meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. The Armenian government confirmed the information later in the day. “The agenda of Nikol Pashinian and Ilham Aliyev includes the issues which they have discussed before,” a government spokesman told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. He did not elaborate. Senior Armenian and Azerbaijani officials met in Brussels late last week in apparent preparation for the summit. Aliyev and Pashinian already held trilateral talks with European Council President Charles Michel in April and May. Michel spoke with the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders by phone on August 5 following deadly fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. He said afterwards that their next meeting is imminent. Earlier this month, Russia indicated that it is also trying to organize an Armenian-Azerbaijani summit. Incidentally, Pashinian held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. Moscow has repeatedly 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 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the standoff over Ukraine. A senior EU diplomat insisted in June that the 27-nation bloc is not competing with Russia in its efforts to facilitate a “comprehensive settlement” of the Karabakh conflict. It also emerged on Thursday that an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on demarcating the border between the two South Caucasus states will meet in Moscow on August 30. The commission held its first session on May 24 two days after the most recent Aliyev-Pashinian talks. 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.