Friday, Yerevan Links Armenian-Azeri Peace Deal To Karabakh’s Security • Karlen Aslanian Armenia - Acting Foreign Minister Armen Grigorian speaks at a news conference in Yerevan, August 16, 2021. Armenia will not sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan without negotiating security guarantees for Nagorno-Karabakh, a senior Armenian official said on Friday. “There is no question that agreements to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh issue need to be reached,” Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “And our understanding with our international partners is that the peace treaty could be finalized if there is progress on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, if there are guarantees of ensuring [the Karabakh Armenians’] security and rights, and if Armenia is certain that there will be no ethnic cleansing in Karabakh.” Grigorian said that such guarantees could include the establishment of a “demilitarized zone” around Karabakh or “international presence” in the Armenian-populated territory. He indicated that Baku and Yerevan have reached no agreements on that so far. The two sides have exchanged in recent months written proposals regarding the peace treaty which Baku hopes will help to restore full Azerbaijani control over Karabakh. Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian said late last month that they continue to disagree on “three or four” elements of the would-be treaty. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke of “progress” in Armenia’s position on the issue after holding U.S.-mediated talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Munich on February 18. Still, his foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, accused Yerevan of obstruction. Grigorian insisted that it is the Azerbaijani side that is not interested in negotiating in good faith. He pointed to the March 5 armed incident near Stepanakert which left three Karabakh police officers and two Azerbaijani soldiers dead. Pashinian on Thursday described the incident as an Azerbaijani “terrorist act” aimed at torpedoing dialogue between Azerbaijani and Karabakh officials. He said that Baku is preparing the ground for a “new military provocation.” Earlier this week, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry threatened to “disarm and neutralize” Karabakh Armenian forces as it accused Armenia of continuing to send military personnel and weapons to Karabakh. The authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert strongly denied the allegations. The deadly shootings occurred four days after a meeting between Azerbaijani and Karabakh officials organized by the commander of Russian peacekeepers. During that meeting, the Karabakh representatives refused to discuss the Armenian-populated territory’s “integration” into Azerbaijan demanded by Baku. Moscow Raps Armenian Travel Ban On Another Russian Media Figure Russia - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov listens during Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow, December 19, 2019. Russia criticized Armenia on Friday for imposing a travel ban on another prominent Russian media figure highly critical of the Armenian government. Aram Gabrelyanov, the ethnic Armenian head of the Saint Petersburg-based Baltic Media Group, was barred from entering the country on his arrival at Yerevan’s Zvartnots international airport on Tuesday. He was due to deliver a lecture at a training course for Armenian journalists organized by Victor Soghomonian, a former spokesman for ex-President Robert Kocharian. Immigration officers at Zvartnots reportedly told Gabrelyanov that his name is on a list of “undesirable individuals” drawn up by the Armenian government. The government has not commented on his inclusion on the blacklist. Gabrelyanov, who is a staunch supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Thursday blamed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian for the entry ban. In a Facebook post, he pledged to sue Pashinian’s government and “force them to let me into Armenia.” Russia - Russian-Armenian media figure Aram Gabrelyanov. Gabrelyanov has for years harshly criticized Pashinian and supported Armenian opposition attempts to topple him. At least two other prominent Russians -- pro-Armenian lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin and RT television network chief Margarita Simonyan -- were banned from entering Armenia last fall. They too are very critical of Pashinian’s administration. Simonyan is one of the most influential figures in the Kremlin-controlled media. A senior Armenian official accused her and other prominent Russians of Armenian descent in October of disrespecting the South Caucasus country’s leaders. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Moscow’s reaction to the travel bans is “negative.” RUSSIA – Russia's President Vladimir Putin awards an Order of Honour to RT and Rossiya Segodnya editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan at the Moscow Kremlin, December 20, 2022 “Armenia is our great friend, ally, strategic partner,” Peskov told reporters. “And, of course, the level and nature of bilateral relations requires us to protect our bilateral relations from such cases. We hope that our bilateral relations will be free from such cases in the foreseeable future.” Armenia’s traditionally close relationship with Russia has soured lately because of what Yerevan sees as a lack of Russian support in the continuing conflict with Azerbaijan. At least four Armenian Diaspora activists from France and the Netherlands have also been denied entry to Armenia over the past year. They all are affiliated local chapters of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun). The party’s organization in Armenia was at the forefront of antigovernment protests staged by the country’s leading opposition groups in Yerevan last spring and summer. Armenia Spurns Leadership Position In Russian-Led Bloc ARMENIA - The leaders of Russia, Armenia and other CSTO member states pose for a picture during a summit in Yerevan, November 23, 2022. Armenia has refused to name a deputy secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in a further sign of its estrangement from the Russian-led military alliance. An Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to give any reason for the rebuff on Friday. The development comes two months after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian called off a CSTO military exercise that was scheduled to take place in Armenia this year. He again accused the alliance of refusing to defend Armenia against Azerbaijani military attacks in breach of its statutes. Late last year, Armenia also turned down other CSTO member states’ offer to deploy monitors along its volatile border with Azerbaijan, citing their reluctance to acknowledge and condemn the “Azerbaijani aggression.” Yerevan appealed to the CSTO for support during the September 2022 border clashes which left at least 224 Armenian soldiers dead. Armenian leaders afterwards accused the alliance of ignoring the appeal in breach of its statutes. Pashinian went as far as to question on January 11 the need for close military ties between Armenia and Russia. He said that they may be putting his country’s security and territorial integrity at greater risk. The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the claim as “absurd.” These tensions have fuelled speculation about a pro-Western shift in Armenia’s geopolitical orientation. Armenia’s leading opposition groups are seriously concerned about such a prospect. Tigran Abrahamian, an opposition parliamentarian, criticized Yerevan’s refusal to fill one of the three posts of CSTO deputy secretary-general. He said Pashinian is thus downgrading Armenia’s membership in the alliance uniting six ex-Soviet states. “I have the impression that with this step Armenia is starting a process of dissociating itself from the CSTO or giving new impetus to a course that started earlier,” Abrahamian wrote on Facebook. U.S. Insists On ‘Immediate’ Reopening Of Lachin Corridor Armenia - U.S. Ambassador Kristina Kvien visits an Armenian border checkpoint leading to the Lachin corridor, . The new U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, Kristina Kvien, called for the immediate reopening of the Lachin corridor on Friday as she visited an Armenian province adjacent to the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Kvien posted on Twitter photographs of her and Syunik province Governor Robert Ghukasian standing at an Armenian border checkpoint leading to the corridor that has been blocked by Azerbaijani government-backed protesters for the last three months. “Syunik governor Ghukasian reported the effects of the ongoing blockage, including the impact on hundreds of separated families,” she wrote. “The Lachin corridor should be opened immediately.” The United States has repeatedly called on Baku to lift the road blockade that has caused serious shortages of food, medicine and other essential items in Karabakh. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted on the restoration of “free and open commercial and private transit through the Lachin corridor” when he hosted talks between Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s leaders in Munich on February 18. The Azerbaijani side has dismissed such calls, also made by the European Union and Russia, claiming that the lifeline road is not blocked and that the protesters are right to demand an end to “illegal” mining in Karabakh. “We will continue to press this matter,” Louis Bono, the U.S. special envoy for South Caucasus peace talks, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday. But he made clear that the U.S. is not considering imposing sanctions on Azerbaijan. “Sanctions would be counterproductive,” he said at the end of a visit to Yerevan. Bono met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku earlier this week. The U.S. State Department spokesman, Ned Price, reiterated on Thursday that Washington will do “everything we can” to support a peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. “We’re going to continue to do that by working bilaterally with these countries, trilaterally with Armenia and Azerbaijan, supporting their own efforts at dialogue and diplomacy, but also through all appropriate mechanisms to help these countries themselves conduct the diplomacy and reach the agreements that we hope that they will be able to make,” he said. Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.