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
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