Friday,
Pelosi Confirms Surprise Trip To Armenia
• Naira Nalbandian
USA – The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, holds a news
conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 19, 2022.
The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, confirmed on
Friday that she will visit Armenia this weekend just days after deadly border
clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces.
Pelosi told reporters in Berlin that she will fly to Yerevan with two other
members of Congress, who both are of Armenian descent, “because we've had an
ongoing invitation from the Armenians." She said at the same time that the
surprise trip is the result of a "rather spontaneous" decision.
Pelosi declined to give further details about the trip, saying that traveling
U.S. lawmakers "don't like to be a target."
"In any case, it is all about human rights and respecting the dignity and worth
of every person," she said, speaking at a Group of Seven (G7) countries meeting
in the German capital.
Politico was the first to report on Pelosi’s plans to travel to Armenia on
Thursday, calling it a “show of support for the country.” She will meet with
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other Armenian officials, said the U.S. news
website.
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, declined to
comment on the planned trip when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service earlier
on Friday.
“I think that this is a very important trip because [Pelosi] will be the most
high-ranking American official to have ever visited Armenia,” said Suren
Sargsian, an Armenian political analyst.
Armenia, he said, will reeeive “strong diplomatic support” from Washington in
the wake of the large-scale fighting with Azerbaijan which left more than 200
soldiers from both sides dead.
“Especially amid the aggression against Armenia, we can show the world that the
political leadership of the United States is sending a message not only to
Armenia but also to the Azerbaijani government,” added Sargsian.
Pelosi’s California constituency is home to a large number of Armenian
Americans. The veteran lawmaker has long backed causes championed by the
Armenian community in the U.S.
In 2019, Pelosi presided over the passage by the House of Representatives of a
resolution recognizing the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. “It’s a
great day for the Congress,” she declared at the time.
Foreign Diplomats Visit War-Hit Armenian Town
• Anush Mkrtchian
Armenia - A guesthouse in Jermuk damaged by Azerbaijani shelling, September 15,
2022.
A group of foreign ambassadors and other diplomats visited on Friday the largest
of the Armenian border settlements shelled by the Azerbaijani army during this
week’s deadly clashes with Armenian forces.
The Yerevan-based diplomats, among them U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, toured
Jermuk, Armenia’s most famous spa town 170 kilometers southeast of the capital,
and inspected damage to its civilian infrastructure during a trip organized by
the Armenian military. Journalists were allowed to accompany them.
Jermuk was close to one of the epicenters of heavy fighting that broke out at
several sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on Monday night. The vast
majority of its residents, notably children and women, were evacuated or fled
their homes on their own amid cross-border artillery fire. Civilian access to
the largely deserted town remains strictly limited for security reasons.
Local government officials said that the Azerbaijani shelling damaged a spa
resort, three guest houses, a children’s playground, an administrative building
and a cable car line. The cable car director told reporters that about a dozen
shells landed on the facility and seriously damaged it.
Armenia - The tail of an unexploded rocket sticks out by the main road leading
out of Jermuk, .
Just outside Jermuk, the tail of an unexploded rocket fired by Azerbaijani
forces stuck out by the main road leading out of the town.
The fighting also directly affected a dozen other border towns and villages.
According to the Armenian government, a total of 60 houses and other structures
were destroyed by the shelling.
Major-General Eduard Asrian, the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, met
with the visiting diplomats and answered their questions. Asrian told them that
Jermuk and nearby hills were the “main direction of the enemy attacks” launched
at several sections of the border.
Azerbaijani troops managed to advance a few kilometers into Armenian territory
in the Jermuk area, he said, adding that they made far more modest territorial
gains at three other border sections. Although Armenian army units recaptured
some of their lost positions there, the general went on, a hill 4.5 kilometers
east of Jermuk remains under Azerbaijani control.
Armenia - Major-General Eduard Asrian meets with foreign diplomats in Jermuk,
.
Asrian said at the same time that a small Azerbaijani unit occupying the hill is
nearly surrounded by Armenian forces and will have no choice but to leave it
within days. He claimed that another group of Azerbaijani soldiers retreated
towards the Azerbaijani border for the same reason earlier in the day.
According to the Armenian government, at least 135 Armenian soldiers were killed
during the fighting largely stopped by a ceasefire agreement late on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, we understand that this number is not the final one,” Pashinian
told members of his government on Friday.
The government has not yet released the number of Armenian soldiers missing in
action.
The hostilities also reportedly left one Armenian civilian dead and six others
wounded.
Aliyev Insists On Major Concessions By Armenia
• Aza Babayan
Uzbekistan -- Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of
Turkey meet in Samarkand,
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Friday that Armenia must accept his
terms of a bilateral peace treaty and open a land corridor connecting Azerbaijan
to its Nakhichevan exclave.
Speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Uzbekistan,
Aliyev also blamed Yerevan for this week’s large-scale fighting on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
“Azerbaijan presented Armenia with five basic principles of the peace treaty
which are based on mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity and
sovereignty,” he said in a speech. “We must now start [formal] discussions on
the draft without preconditions and artificial delays.”
Those principles were first put forward in March. The Armenian government
repeatedly said afterwards that they are acceptable to it principles but should
also be complemented with other elements relating to Nagorno-Karabakh’s future
status and security. Baku ruled out any talks on Karabakh, saying that Yerevan
should recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh through the peace treaty.
Aliyev also reiterated Baku’s demands for the opening of the “Zangezur corridor”
that would pass through Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province which also
borders Iran.
“The launch of the Zangezur corridor will further increase the transport
capacity of regional countries,” he said.
The Armenian side rejects these demands, saying that it can only agree to
conventional transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan envisaged by a
Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 war in Karabakh.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Wednesday that Azerbaijan
unleashed military aggression against Armenia in an attempt to force Yerevan to
sign the peace deal sought by Baku and cede Armenian territory for the
“exterritorial corridor.”
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has ruled out such unilateral concessions.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Friday, he demanded that Azerbaijani troops
withdraw from Armenian border areas captured by them this week and in May 2021.
Pashinian had been scheduled to attend the summit held in the Uzbek city of
Samarkand. But he cancelled his participation after the outbreak of the border
clashes on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has personally intervened to try to halt the
hostilities. He was due to meet with Aliyev on the sidelines of the summit later
on Friday. A Kremlin spokesman said that the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict will
be high on the meeting’s agenda.
Yerevan Unhappy With Russian-Led Bloc’s Response To Border Clashes
• Karlen Aslanian
• Nane Sahakian
RUSSIA - The leaders of Russia and other CSTO member states enter a hall prior
to their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, May 16, 2022.
The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has failed to
properly react to large-scale fighting that erupted on Armenia’s border with
Azerbaijan earlier this week, a senior Armenian official said on Friday.
The Armenian government appealed to the alliance for help hours after the
outbreak of the deadly hostilities on the night from Monday to Tuesday. The
presidents of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan discussed
the request at an emergency video summit chaired by Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian late on Tuesday.
They stopped short of openly siding with Armenia and decided instead to send a
fact-finding mission to the South Caucasus state.
Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, clarified that
Yerevan sought the CSTO’s “military and military-political assistance” that
would help it drive Azerbaijani forces out of its territory.
“That was our demand to the CSTO,” Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Up
until now it has not been fulfilled. So in this regard, [the CSTO response]
cannot satisfy us.”
Asked whether Yerevan asked Russia and the other CSTO member states to send
troops to Armenia, he said: “The international community has many instruments,
from military-political to diplomatic and economic ones.”
The official also would not be drawn on growing domestic calls for Armenia to
leave the Russian-led bloc. “It’s the CSTO, not Armenia, that should think about
that,” he said.
Moscow scrambled to end the deadly fighting, with various Russian officials
holding urgent phone talks with their Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts. The
United States and the European Union also engaged in a flurry of diplomatic
activity aimed at halting the hostilities that left at least 135 Armenian and 77
Azerbaijani soldiers dead.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Friday that most key foreign powers
have voiced support for Armenia’s territory and held Azerbaijani responsible for
the worst fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone since the 2020 war.
“But I must also admit that we had a bit higher expectations from some countries
or a country, and it’s no secret that in some cases those expectations were not
quite met,” Mirzoyan told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. He did not
elaborate.
Armenia Warns Of ‘Another Azeri Offensive’
• Heghine Buniatian
US - A Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York,
August 11, 2022.
Armenia accused Azerbaijan of planning another, more large-scale attack on its
territory on Thursday during an emergency session of the UN Security Council
which discussed this week’s fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The fighting broke out on Monday night and practically stopped two days later
after a ceasefire agreed by the two sides.
During separate phone calls with Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and
Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said that although the
ceasefire is largely holding, the situation at the border remains “very tense.”
“We are receiving reports that the fragile ceasefire is under threat,” the
Armenian ambassador to the UN, Mher Margarian, told the Security Council meeting.
“There are credible reports that Azerbaijan is planning yet another military
offensive by widening the geography of the aggression, including from the
direction of Nakhichevan, to realize the unlawful ambitions towards establishing
an extraterritorial corridor through the sovereign territory of Armenia,” he
said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan claimed on Wednesday that opening of
such a corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave is one of the
key aims of the Azerbaijani “aggression.” He reiterated that Yerevan can only
agree to conventional transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
UN- Mher Margarian, Armenia's ambassador to UN, addresses UN Security Council,
New York, .
The corridor sought by Baku would pass through Syunik, the only Armenian
province bordering Iran. Iranian leaders regularly voice strong opposition to
its creation, fearing a loss of the common border with Armenia,
Speaking with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov on Wednesday, Iranian
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reportedly stressed that “Iran’s
border with Armenia is a historical route that must be preserved without any
change.”
During the Security Council meeting, the U.S., Russian and French diplomats
called on Armenian and Azerbaijani troops to pull back to border positions
occupied by them before the outbreak of such hostilities.
Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzya said Moscow is making major efforts to
ensure such troop disengagement and cement the shaky ceasefire.
“Like others, the United States welcomes the cessation of all hostilities and
encourages both parties to continue to exercise restraint,” said U.S. Ambassador
Richard Mills. “Military forces should disengage to allow both parties to
resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations.”
For his part, France’s Nicolas de Riviere urged Azerbaijan to “pull back troops
to initial positions.” “The territorial integrity of Armenia must be preserved,”
he said.
Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the UN, Yashar Aliyev, rejected the Armenian
accusations and blamed Yerevan for the escalation.
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.