Tuesday,
Armenian, Azeri Prisoners Not Yet Exchanged Despite Deal
• Astghik Bedevian
ARMENIA -- A freed Armenian captive is escorted off a Russian military plane
upon arrival at a military airport outside Yerevan, December 14, 2020
Armenia and Azerbaijan did not exchange prisoners as of Tuesday afternoon almost
one week after reaching an agreement to that effect welcomed by the
international community.
Under the agreement announced on December 7, Azerbaijan is to free 32 Armenian
soldiers and civilians in exchange for Armenia’s release of two Azerbaijani
servicemen and support for Baku’s bid to host the COP29 climate summit next
year. A senior Armenian lawmaker suggested on December 8 that the prisoner swap
will be carried out within “hours or days.”
Parliament speaker Alen Simonian on Tuesday declined not give possible dates for
the repatriation of the captives. He said only that the deal struck as a result
of direct Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations remains in force.
“We are waiting,” Simonian told reporters. “I think that we will have
information very soon.”
Vagharshak Hakobian, another lawmaker representing Armenia’s ruling Civil
Contract party, said he hopes that the deal will not be scrapped.
The United Nations officially announced on Monday that Azerbaijan will host next
year’s global climate summit. In line with the December 7 deal, Armenia did not
object to that decision.
The Azerbaijani government publicized late last week the list of the 32 Armenian
captives that will be repatriated by it. Most of them were taken prisoner in
Nagorno-Karabakh in December 2020 just weeks after a Russian-brokered ceasefire
stopped the last Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Also on the list is Gagik Voskanian, an Armenian army reservist who was
mobilized a few weeks before straying into Azerbaijani territory in August this
year in unclear circumstances. An Azerbaijani court convicted Voskanian of
“terrorism” just hours before the announcement of the prisoner swap.
Voskanian’s mother, Ashkhen Avetisian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that she
also does not know when he will return home.
“I contacted a Defense Ministry official and was told, ‘Keep waiting, we too
don’t know anything, everything will be alright,’” she said.
The Azerbaijani soldiers to be freed by Yerevan were detained in April after
crossing into Armenia’s Syunik province from Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave.
One of them was charged with murdering a Syunik resident the day before his
detention. Armenia’s Court of Appeals sentenced him to life imprisonment last
week.
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor-general expressed confidence on Tuesday that they will
be set free. But he did not give any dates.
Armenia Revives Amnesty-For-Cash Option For Draft Dodgers
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Soldiers march at an Armenian military base, December 24, 2022.
Armenia’s parliament approved on Tuesday a bill allowing men who illegally
evaded compulsory military service to buy an amnesty.
Armenian law requires virtually all male citizens aged between 18 and 27 to
serve in the country’s armed forces for two years. Refusal to do so is a crime
punishable by five years in prison.
The bill drafted by Hayk Sargsian, a parliament deputy from the ruling Civil
Contract party, and passed by the National Assembly in the first reading will
give fugitive draft dodgers aged between 27 and 37 a range of options.
In particular, they will be able to turn themselves in and perform a
two-and-a-half-year service or legally evade it by paying the state 15 million
drams ($37,000). They could also serve in the armed forces for shorter periods
in exchange for smaller fees.
Sargsian said that about 5,000 fugitive Armenian men will be eligible for these
options. As things stands now, they cannot serve in the army “even if they want
to,” complained the lawmaker.
“I don’t want us to again declare an amnesty in order to exempt these
individuals from prosecution, but nor do I want to see 5,000 citizens sentenced
to five years in prison,” he added during a debate on the parliament floor.
The parliament declared such an amnesty in 2021. More than 1,300 draft dodgers
took advantage of it.
Sargsian also insisted that the new legal arrangements will not encourage draft
evasion among draft-age men. He argued that it applies only to citizens aged 25
and older.
Opposition deputies and even some of Sargsian’s pro-government colleagues were
not fully convinced by his assurances. Civil Contract’s Hovik Aghazarian was
concerned that the bill will foster “wrong behavior” in the country.
“I’m quite uneasy about this idea,” said Sona Ghazarian, another Civil Contract
deputy. “I think that we kind of undermine social justice and social equality
with this bill.”
“We can’t tell people that if they don’t have money … they must serve the
homeland or go to jail but if they have money they can pay up and move on,” said
Tadevos Avetisian of the opposition Hayastan alliance.
Nevertheless, the parliament’s pro-government majority voted for the bill, while
Hayastan and the other opposition bloc, Pativ Unem, abstained, instead of voting
against it.
Armenia already had a similar amnesty-for-cash arrangement from 2004-2019.
Officials say that some 10,000 draft evaders used it to avoid prosecution during
those years.
EU Details Expansion Of Border Monitoring Mission In Armenia
Armenia - European Union monitors patrol Armenia's border with Azerbaijan.
The European Union has decided to deploy an additional 71 observers and experts
to Armenia’s volatile border with Azerbaijan.
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, announced the decision late on Monday
following a meeting of the foreign ministers of EU member states held in
Brussels. He said they agreed to “increase our presence on the ground from 138
staff to 209.”
“The fact that we have decided to increase by such an important number our staff
on this mission shows our clear commitment to stability on the border between
Armenia and Azerbaijan and an important contribution to the peace efforts,”
Borrell told a news briefing.
He said the expansion of the monitoring mission, approved by the ministers in
principle last month, also reflects the EU’s deepening relations with Armenia.
“Armenia clearly sees the benefits of increasing cooperation with us and we are
ready to respond positively,” added the EU foreign policy chief.
The mission was launched in February at the request of the Armenian government
and with the stated aim of preventing or reducing ceasefire violations along the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Russia, Armenia’s increasingly estranged ally, has
opposed it from the outset, saying that it is part of U.S. and European Union
efforts to drive Moscow out of the South Caucasus.
Moscow has pressed Yerevan to agree to a similar monitoring mission proposed by
the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly declined those offers, accusing the military
alliance of not honoring its security commitments to Armenia.
The recent Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh has raised more fears in
Yerevan that Azerbaijan will invade Armenia to open a land corridor to its
Nakhichevan exclave. Pashinian urged Western powers to prevent Baku from
“provoking a new war in the region” when he addressed the European Parliament in
October.
Both the EU and the United States regularly voice support for Armenia’s
territorial integrity. Unlike Russia, they have condemned Baku’s September 19-20
military offensive that forced Karabakh’s practically entire population to flee
to Armenia.
Yerevan Backs Further EU Expansion Into Former Soviet Union
Belgium - Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan arrives for a meeting in
Brussels, .
Amid its growing rift with Russia, the Armenian government has voiced support
for Georgia’s, Ukraine’s and Moldova’s membership in the European Union and
reaffirmed its desire to deepen ties with the EU.
“My government warmly welcomes the European Commission’s [recent] decision to
recommend the European Council to open accession talks with Moldova and Ukraine
and to grant candidate status to Georgia,” Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said
late on Monday. “This decision is welcomed not only by the government of Armenia
but also people of Armenia, who also have European aspirations.”
Yerevan is committed to “coming closer to the European Union to the extent the
EU will deem it possible,” Mirzoyan added in a speech delivered during a meeting
in Brussels of the foreign ministers of EU member states and five ex-Soviet
republics involved in the 27-nation bloc’s Eastern Partnership program.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed that commitment when he addressed the
European Parliament in October. He stopped short of announcing plans to seek
Armenia’s eventual membership in the EU.
In his speech, Pashinian also accused Moscow of using the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict to try to topple him. A Russian official responded by saying that the
Armenian premier is helping the West “turn Armenia into another Ukraine.”
Mirzoyan and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met in North Macedonia late
last month as a team of EU officials wrapped up a visit to Yerevan during which
they explored ways of bringing Armenia closer to the bloc.
Borrell also met with Mirzoyan in Brussels earlier on Monday. He said they had a
“good exchange of views … on concrete ways to enhance EU-Armenia relations” but
did not elaborate.
Armenia Keeps Up Contacts With Ukraine
Beglium - Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Ukrainian
counterpart Dmytro Kuleba meet in Brussels, .
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba met
in Brussels on Monday, continuing diplomatic contacts between their counties
that were denounced by Russia this fall.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said the two ministers discussed “bilateral
cooperation on issues of mutual interest” and “regional issues” relating to the
South Caucasus. Kuleba tweeted, for his part, that they talked about the
“advancement of Ukraine-Armenia dialogue.”
That dialogue appears to have begun in early September amid a further worsening
of Armenia’s relations with Russia, its longtime ally. Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s wife visited Kyiv at the time to attend the annual Summit of First
Ladies and Gentlemen held there. Anna Hakobian also delivered Armenia’s first
humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion.
The Russian Foreign Ministry listed Hakobian’s trip among “a series of
unfriendly steps” taken by Yerevan against Moscow when it summoned the Armenian
ambassador a few days later. The strong criticism did not stop Pashinian from
talking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during an EU summit in Spain
on October 5.
Spain - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet in Granada, October 5, 2023.
Three weeks later, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian,
participated in a multilateral peace forum in Malta initiated by Ukraine.
Grigorian also met with the powerful chief of’Zelenskiy’s staff, Andriy Yermak,
during what Moscow described as a “blatantly anti-Russian event.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, called Grigorian’s
trip to Malta a “demonstrative anti-Russian gesture of official Yerevan” and
linked it with Pashinian’s conversation with Zelenskiy. She accused Pashinian’s
government of “persistently destroying our allied relations.”
The Armenian leaders’ attendance of those events contrasts with their boycott of
recent months’ meetings of top officials of ex-Soviet states making up the
Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization as well as the Commonwealth
of Independent States.
Pashinian embarked on the apparent rapprochement with Ukraie despite its stong
support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In particular, Kyiv was
quick to condemn the September 9 election by Karabakh lawmakers of the region’s
new president, saying that it is “contrary to the rules and principles of
international law.” The election came ten days before the Azerbaijani military
offensive that forced Karabakh’s practically entire population to flee to
Armenia.
“I reiterated Ukraine’s support for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity within
its internationally recognized borders,” Kuleba wrote after meeting with
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov earlier on Monday.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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