Thursday,
Leaving Russian-Led Blocs ‘Not In Armenia’s Interests,’ Says Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his year-end press conference at Gostiny
Dvor exhibition hall in central Moscow on .
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Thursday that Armenia is not
planning to leave Russian-led military and economic blocs despite boycotting
recent high-level meetings of their member states.
Putin also again blamed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government for the
recent Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exodus of its ethnic
Armenian population.
“I don’t think that it is in Armenia’s interests to end its membership in the
[Commonwealth of Independent States,] the [Eurasian Economic Union,] and the
[Collective Security Treaty Organization,]” he told a year-end news conference
in Moscow. “Ultimately, this is still the choice of the state.”
“As for the absence of the prime minister of Armenia [Nikol Pashinian] from
common events, we know that this is due to some processes in Armenia and is not
related to a desire or unwillingness to continue working in these integration
associations. We'll see how the situation develops,”
Those processes are “connected with Karabakh,” Putin said, referring to
Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive in the region launched despite
the presence of Russian peacekeeping forces there.
“But it’s not we who abandoned Karabakh,” he went on. “It’s Armenia that
recognized Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan. They did so purposefully and did
not quite inform us that they are about to make such a decision.”
Putin already claimed earlier that the Russian peacekeepers could not have
thwarted the Azerbaijani assault because Pashinian had downgraded their mandate
by recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh during Western-mediated
negotiations.
Armenian leaders have faulted the Russians for their failure to prevent, stop or
even condemn the Azerbaijani military operation despite the 2020 ceasefire
brokered by Putin.
The resulting mass exodus of Karabakh’s ethnic population added to unprecedented
tensions between Moscow and Yerevan. Pashinian and other senior Armenian
officials have since attended no meetings of their counterparts from other
ex-Soviet states making up the CSTO, the EEU and the CIS, raising more questions
about Armenia’s continued membership in those organizations. They have sought
instead closer relations with the United States and the European Union.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly accused Pashinian of systematically
“destroying” Russian-Armenian relations. Last week, it rebuked Yerevan for
ignoring its recent offers to organize more Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks and
warned that Pashinian’s current preference of Western mediation may spell more
trouble for the Armenian people.
No Agreement Yet On Armenia-Azerbaijan Talks In Washington (UPDATED)
• Astghik Bedevian
U.S. - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosts Armenian Foreign Minister
Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov for talks in
Arlington, Virginia, June 29, 2023.
Official Baku and Yerevan denied on Thursday an Armenian official’s claim that
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has agreed to meet with his
Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in Washington next month.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been scheduled to host the talks on
November 20. However, Baku cancelled them in protest against what it called
pro-Armenian statements made by James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant secretary of
state for Europe and Eurasia.
O’Brien met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Bayramov in Baku last
week. He said he told them that Blinken “looks forward to hosting foreign
ministers Bayramov and Mirzoyan in Washington soon.”
“Azerbaijan has accepted the U.S. offer to hold a meeting of the foreign
ministers there in January,” Edmon Marukian, an Armenian ambassador-at-large,
told state television late on Wednesday. He said he hopes that Mirzoyan and
Bayramov will finalize an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry effectively refuted Marukian’s announcement. “If
there is an agreement to meet, we make it public,” a ministry spokeswoman told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Baku insisted, meanwhile, that the two sides have still not agreed on a date and
venue of the next meeting between their foreign ministers.
Speaking at a daily news briefing on Wednesday, the U.S. State Department
spokesman, Matthew Miller, declined to clarify when the ministers might meet
with Blinken in Washington.
“Stay tuned,” he told reporters. “I’m not going to make an announcement on that
from here today.”
Miller also said: “We will continue to work with Armenia and Azerbaijan to move
the process forward. We continue to believe that peace is possible if both
parties are willing to pursue it.”
Armenia Reaffirms Readiness For Transport Links With Azerbaijan
• Nane Sahakian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks during the Ministerial Meeting
of the Landlocked Developing Countries held in Yerevan, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Thursday reaffirmed Armenia’s readiness to
establish transport links with neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey while insisting
that all railways and roads passing through Armenian territory must be under
Yerevan’s full control.
“The Republic of Armenia expresses its willingness to create and restore railway
communication between Azerbaijan and Armenia, notably through the previously
existing railways,” Pashinian told the annual UN-sponsored Ministerial Meeting
of the Landlocked Developing Countries held in Yerevan.
“The first is the northern route which connects the Gazakh district of
Azerbaijan with the Tavush region of Armenia, and the second is the southern
route which, among others, also connects the western regions of Azerbaijan with
the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan,” he said.
He said Armenia is also ready to provide three highways for passenger and cargo
traffic between the exclave and the rest of Azerbaijan.
“In addition, we show the same readiness in terms of opening the Armenia-Turkey
railway, reconstructing and reopening the two previously existing Armenia-Turkey
roads,” Pashinian added during the conference attended by a senior Turkish
Foreign Ministry official but shunned by Baku.
The Armenian leader went on to reiterate his government’s position that all
regional transit routes “must operate under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of
the countries through which they pass.” This means that people and goods passing
through them cannot be exempt from border controls, he said, clearly alluding to
Azerbaijani demands for an extraterritorial corridor to Nakhichevan.
The so-called “Zangezur corridor” would pass through Syunik, Armenia’s only
province bordering Iran. Tehran strongly opposes it, having repeatedly warned
against attempts to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and
transport links with Armenia.
A senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in October that the
corridor “has lost its attractiveness for us” and that Baku is now planning to
“do this with Iran instead.” Earlier in October, Azerbaijani and Iranian
officials broke ground on a new road that will connect Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan
through Iran.
The European Union’s top official, Charles Michel, noted earlier this week that
Baku and Yerevan continue to disagree on practical modalities of mutual
transport links that would be part of a broader Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal.
“President Aliyev made it very clear many times that he doesn't have any
territorial claim [to Armenia,]” Michel told RFE/RL. “But there is a debate on
the concrete modalities to make sure that those modalities will respect the
sovereignty and the jurisdiction of Armenia.”
Armen Khachatrian, a senior lawmaker from Pashinian’s Civil Contract party,
praised Michel’s remarks on Thursday. He suggested that Baku has not given up on
the “Zangezur corridor.”
“Baku has pursued that goal for many years, long before the 2020 war,”
Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “It’s just that their desire
sometimes becomes more acute and is sometimes suppressed until a more opportune
moment. Right now they are not talking about that and are even saying that if
Armenia doesn’t want to open that road it will pass through Iran.”
Russian Firm Contracted For Another Upgrade Of Armenian Nuclear Plant
Armenia - A general view of the Metsamor nuclear plant, 12May2011.
The Armenian government will pay a Russian company up to $65 million to
modernize the Metsamor nuclear power and extend the life of its sole operating
reactor until 2036.
The funding will take the form of a “budgetary loan” to be provided to the
state-owned plant’s management. The latter will sign a relevant contract with
Rusatom Service, which is part of Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear agency.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet formally approved the contract during a
weekly session held on Thursday. It said Rusatom Service will carry out the
upgrade of Metsamor from 2023-2026 in close coordination with Armenian nuclear
energy specialists.
The Metsamor reactor, which generates roughly 40 percent of Armenia’s
electricity, went into service in 1980 and was due to be decommissioned by 2017.
Armenia’s former government decided to extend the 420-megawatt reactor’s life by
ten years after failing to attract funding for the construction of a new and
safer nuclear facility.
Russian and Armenian specialists essentially completed Metsamor’s first major
modernization in 2021. Armenian officials have since repeatedly said that the
Soviet-era facility, located 35 kilometers west of Yerevan, can safely operate
until 2036.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi,
praised those safety upgrades monitored by the UN nuclear watchdog when he
visited Armenia and inspected Metsamor in October 2022.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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