Friday, October 6, 2023 EU Official Visits Armenia, Discusses Aid To Karabakh Refugees • Anush Mkrtchian Armenia - EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic talks to refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, October 6, 2023. A senior European Union official visited Armenia on Friday to discuss details of the EU’s humanitarian assistance to the more than 100,000 residents of Nagorno-Karabakh who have fled to the country since last month’s Azerbaijani military offensive. “I came to Armenia to show the full solidarity of the European Union to Armenia, the Armenian people and, in particular, the people displaced from Karabakh,” EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said after meeting with Armenian officials and some refugees. He said they “can count on the EU’s full support in this difficult situation.” “We very quickly mobilized more than 5 million euros in humanitarian aid, doubled it a few days later, and as of today have provided more than 10 million euros ($11 million) in humanitarian aid … In addition, we have mobilized the European Union's stock of humanitarian aid supplies, which will be sent to Armenia in the next few hours,” Lenarcic told a joint news conference with Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatrian. On top of that, he said, the refugees will receive separate aid from 13 EU member states, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain. ARMENIA - Five Armenian families, who fled Nagorno-Karabakh following the Azeri offensive, are seen settled in a house given to them by a neighbor in Goris until they find a new home, October 4, 2023 The head of the EU’s executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, discussed this assistance with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Thursday during a meeting held on the sidelines of an EU summit in the Spanish city of Granada. The Commission confirmed after the talks that it will also allocate 15 million euros to help the Armenian government buy food and fuel and address other “socio-economic needs.” “The EU stands with Armenia,” tweeted von der Leyen. “We condemn Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.” It is not clear whether some of the EU aid will be used for providing the refugees with adequate housing, their most urgent need. The Armenian government claims to have accommodated half of them in hotels, disused public buildings and empty village houses. It says the others have told government officials that they will stay with their relatives or have other places of residence in Armenia. Armenia - Elmira Nersisian, a refugee from Nagorno Karabakh, visits an aid center in Parakar, October 6, 2023 However, there have been multiple reports of refugees remaining homeless days after their evacuation from Karabakh. RFE/RL’s Armenian Service spoke to several such persons outside a government aid center in Parakar, a village just outside Yerevan. They as well as other refugees went there to inquire about a one-off cash payment of 100,000 drams ($245) promised by the government to every displaced Karabakh Armenian. “We are living in a church courtyard, we have no relatives here,” said Elmira Nersisian, a 74-year-old woman from Stepanakert who fled to Armenia with her disabled daughter. “We didn’t know what to do, who to apply to.” “If they give us this [financial] aid, we will get by until I find a job,” she said, adding that government officials have pledged to provide them with temporary housing. The government has also pledged to provide every refugee renting an apartment or house up to 50,000 drams per month for at least six months. The money can only be spent on housing rent and utility fees. Russia Reaffirms Plans For Consulate In Key Armenian Region Armenian - Russian border guards stationed in Syunik province are inspected by Russian Ambassador Sergei Kopyrkin, May 24, 2022. Amid the increasingly uncertain future of Russian-Armenian relations, Russia has reaffirmed plans to open a consulate in Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province bordering Iran and Azerbaijan. The Russian Foreign Ministry first announced those plans in late May, saying that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed and welcomed them during talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A delegation of ministry officials visited Syunik’s capital for that purpose in June. The Russian Embassy in Yerevan reported on Friday that another “advance team” of Russian diplomats visited Syunik and met with the mayor of another provincial town, Meghri, on Thursday. It said they discussed “prospects for the quick opening” of the consulate. The Russian mission in Kapan “will contribute to the strengthening of Russian-Armenian relations and the stabilization of the situation in the region,” the embassy added in a statement. It will provide consular services to about a thousand Russian nationals currently based in Syunik. The bulk of them are soldiers and border guards who were deployed by Moscow during and after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The deployment was aimed at helping the Armenian military defend the strategic region against possible Azerbaijani attacks. Syunik is Armenia’s sole region bordering Iran. Azerbaijani leaders have been demanding that Yerevan open a special corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik. The Armenian side says it can only agree to conventional transport links between the two states. Iran, which opened a consulate in Kapan a year ago, is also strongly opposed to an extraterritorial corridor for Nakhichevan. It has repeatedly warned Baku against attempting to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and transport links with Armenia. While voicing support for Armenian sovereignty over any road or railway link passing through Syunik, Russia has stopped short publicly issuing similar warnings to Azerbaijan. Its relationship with Armenia has steadily deteriorated since 2020 due to what Pashinian’s government sees as a lack of Russian support in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The rift between the two longtime allies deepened further last month after Moscow decried “a series of unfriendly steps” taken by Yerevan. Those include Pashinian’s declaration that Armenia’s heavy reliance on Russia for defense and security has proved a “strategic mistake.” The statement raised more questions about the South Caucasus country’s continued membership in Russian-led blocs. Russia Signals Peacekeepers’ Withdrawal From Karabakh • Nane Sahakian A view through a car window shows a board displaying a Russian state flag and an image of President Vladimir Putin in Stepanakert after exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, October 2, 2023. Russia gave on Friday more indications that it will withdraw its peacekeeping forces from Nagorno-Karabakh following the Azerbaijani takeover of the territory and the mass exodus of its ethnic Armenian population. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday night that the peacekeepers have dismantled most of their observation posts along the Karabakh “line of contact” that existed until Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive. Citing an unnamed diplomatic source, the official TASS news agency reported the following morning that a Russian military delegation will visit Yerevan later on Friday to discuss with Armenian officials time frames for the Russian withdrawal from Karabakh. The spokesman for Armenia’s Defense Ministry, Aram Torosian, said, however, that he has “no information” about the visit. No Russian-Armenian talks on the issue have been scheduled so far, he said. Russia deployed the 2,000-strong peacekeeping contingent to Karabakh in line with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The Russian troops were due to stay there at least until November 2025. A truck carrying ethnic Armenians fleeing Karabakh drives past a Russian armored vehicle in the Lachin corridor, September 26, 2023. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, indicated earlier this week that Moscow has no plans to pull them out of the region soon but will discuss the matter with Baku. Konstantin Zatulin, a pro-Armenian Russian lawmaker, pointed out, meanwhile, that the Russian peacekeepers “have nobody to protect anymore” because Karabakh’s practically entire population has fled to Armenia. Zatulin said the exodus, accompanied by the restoration of Azerbaijani control over Karabakh, is a “blow to Russia’s positions in the region.” The Karabakh Armenians regarded the Russian military presence as their main security guarantee and expected the peacekeepers to defend their homeland in case of a large-scale Azerbaijani attack. However, Russian officials ruled out such intervention hours after the Azerbaijani army launched the offensive on September 19. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday that the peacekeepers could not have thwarted the assault because Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian downgraded their mandate with his decision to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. Putin acknowledged that there are virtually no Armenians left in Karabakh. EU Parliament Calls For Sanctions Against Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh - A satellite image shows empty streets of the city of Stepanakert, September 29, 2023. The European Parliament has strongly condemned Azerbaijan’s military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, accused Baku of committing “ethnic cleaning” against the region’s Armenian population and called on the European Union to impose sanctions on Azerbaijani leaders. In a non-binding resolution overwhelmingly passed late on Thursday, it also reiterated its earlier demands for the “withdrawal of Azerbaijan’s troops from the entirety of the sovereign territory of Armenia.” The resolution says that the EU’s legislative body “condemns in the strongest terms the pre-planned and unjustified military attack by Azerbaijan against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.” The September 19-20 offensive, which paved the way for the restoration of Azerbaijani control over the region, represents a “gross violation of international law,” it says. The ensuing mass exodus of Karabakh Armenians to Armenia “amounts to ethnic cleansing,” added the European Parliament. It went on to urge the EU’s executive bodies and member states to “adopt targeted sanctions against the individuals in the Azerbaijani Government responsible for multiple ceasefire violations and violations of human rights in Nagorno-Karabakh.” The sanctions require the unanimous support of all 27 member states. None of them -- including France, the main EU backer of Armenia -- has backed the idea so far. French President Emmanuel Macron said later on Thursday that punitive measures against Baku would be counterproductive at this point. EU leaders also resisted calls to sanction Azerbaijan during its nine-month blockade of the Lachin corridor that preceded the offensive in Karabakh. Analysts linked their stance to a 2022 agreement to significantly increase the EU’s import of Azerbaijani natural gas. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, described Azerbaijan as a “key partner in our efforts to move away from Russian fossil fuels” when she signed the deal in Baku. The European Parliament resolution “regrets” von der Leyen’s statement. It says that the EU must suspend oil and gas imports from Azerbaijan “in the event of military aggression against Armenian territorial integrity or significant hybrid attacks against Armenia’s constitutional order and democratic institutions.” 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.