Monday,
Russia, Armenia Reaffirm Commitment To ‘Allied Ties’
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian, Moscow, May 16, 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
again pledged to further deepen relations between their countries when they held
their fourth phone call in a month on Monday.
Putin and Pashinian congratulated each other on the 25th anniversary of the
signing of a Russian-Armenian treaty on “friendship, cooperation and mutual
assistance.”
According to the Kremlin, the two leaders reaffirmed their “mutual intention to
further strengthen allied ties between Russia and Armenia.”
The Armenian government likewise said they expressed confidence that bilateral
ties “will continue to grow stronger in various areas.”
Putin and Pashinian already pledged to reinforce the “privileged alliance” of
Russia and Armenia in a joint declaration issued after their talks held outside
Moscow in April. They said Moscow and Yerevan will seek to “jointly overcome the
challenges” stemming from Western economic sanctions imposed after the Russian
invasion of Ukraine.
“We sincerely value our friendship with fraternal Armenia and are determined to
further strengthen the Russian-Armenian alliance for the sake of the prosperity
of our countries and peoples,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement
on the anniversary of the bilateral treaty.
Putin and Pashinian also discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They
specifically looked at “some practical aspects” of implementing
Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by Moscow during and after the 2020 war
in Karabakh, the Kremlin reported without elaborating.
The Karabakh issue topped the agenda of their three previous phone conversations
that took place earlier in August.
The latest call came two days before Pashinian’s fresh meeting with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev which will be hosted by European Council President
Charles Michel in Brussels. Aliyev and Pashinian already held trilateral talks
with Michel in April and May.
Moscow indicated recently that it is also trying to organize an
Armenian-Azerbaijani summit. It 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 Karabakh conflict in the standoff
over Ukraine.
A senior EU diplomat insisted in June that the EU is not competing with Russia
in its efforts to facilitate a “comprehensive settlement” of the Karabakh
conflict.
Baku Slams U.S., France For Shunning Trip To Azeri-Held Karabakh Town
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Azerbaijan has condemned the U.S. and French ambassadors in Baku for declining
to join other foreign diplomats in visiting the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Shushi
(Shusha) captured by the Azerbaijani army during the 2020 war.
The senior diplomats representing several dozen nations travelled to Shushi over
the weekend to attend a conference organized there by the Azerbaijani
government. The U.S. and French ambassadors were conspicuously absent from the
event.
“We regard this as a disrespectful attitude towards out territorial integrity,”
Hikmet Hajiyev, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide,
said during the conference.
Hajiyev charged that the United States and France have done little to help
resolve the Karabakh conflict in their capacity as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group.
“It’s not clear whether they cannot accept Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity or
the reconstruction work taking place in Shusha,” he said.
The U.S. Embassy in Baku responded to the criticism on Monday in a statement
provided to the Azerbaijani Service of the Voice of America. It said that
embassy officials regularly visit “all regions” of Azerbaijan, including the
Aghdam, Fizuli and Zangelan districts won back by Baku as a result of the 2020
war.
The statement made no mention of Shushi or Hadrut, another town in Karabakh
proper occupied by Azerbaijani forces during the six-week hostilities stopped by
a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Azerbaijan maintains that its victory in the war with Armenia put an end to the
Karabakh conflict. The U.S. and France, which have for decades led the Minsk
Group together with Russia, say, however, that the conflict remains unresolved
because there is still no agreement on Karabakh’s status.
Washington underlined this stance last week when it appointed a senior U.S.
diplomat, Philip Reeker, as the Minsk Group’s new co-chair. U.S. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken said Reeker will strive for a “long-term political
settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry responded by denouncing what it called U.S.
attempts to “revive” the group.
Former Defense Chief Blasts Bill On Shorter Military Service
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Armenian Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan at a news conference in
Yerevan, April 9, 2019.
Armenia’s jailed former Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan on Monday denounced a
Defense Ministry proposal to significantly shorten compulsory military service
for conscripts willing to pay hefty fees.
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 last week would
shorten this period to just four and a half months for draftees paying the state
24 million drams ($60,000).
Representatives of the country’s leading opposition forces condemned the
proposed arrangement as unfair and dangerous for national security.
Tonoyan added his voice to the criticism in written comments to the press
disseminated through his lawyers.
“The presented draft is consistent with the ‘peace agenda’ of the [country’s]
government and political leadership,” he said. “I personally and the Defense
Ministry always spoke out against such initiatives [in the past.]”
“We must welcome and encourage service in the Armenian Armed Forces, rather than
set a ransom for exemptions from serving the homeland,” added Tonoyan.
The bill needs to be discussed and approved by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
government before it can be submitted to the parliament. An explanatory note
attached to it says that proceeds from this scheme would be used for sharply
increasing the wages of the Armenian army’s contract soldiers.
Armen Khachatrian, a pro-government member of the parliament committee on
defense and security, praised the proposed legislation last week. But Gagik
Melkonian, another committee member representing the ruling Civil Contract
party, signaled opposition to it on Monday.
“I said years ago that we must make sure that there are conditions in which the
rich do not serve [in the military] and only [ordinary] people do,” Melkonian
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Tonoyan, who served as defense minister from 2018-2020, was arrested last
September in a criminal investigation into supplies of allegedly outdated
rockets to Armenia’s armed forces. He strongly denies fraud and embezzlement
charges leveled against him as well as two generals and an arms dealer. They
went on trial in January.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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