Thursday,
Azeri FM Seeks Direct Talks With Armenian Counterpart
• Lusine Musayelian
Switzerland - Foreign Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan of Armenia and Jeyhun Bayramov
of Azerbaijan meet in Geneva, October 2, 2022.
More than one month after cancelling a U.S.-mediated meeting between the
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, Baku has proposed that they hold
direct talks at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov revealed the proposal at a news
conference on Thursday. He did not say whether the Armenian side has already
responded to it. There was no immediate reaction to Bayramov’s statement from
Yerevan.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been scheduled to host Bayramov and
his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in Washington on November 20 for
further negotiations on a peace treaty between the two South Caucasus nations.
Baku cancelled the meeting 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 visited Baku early this month in what appears to have been a failed bid
to convince the Azerbaijani leadership to reschedule the cancelled meeting. A
senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on December 19 that
Washington must reconsider its “one-sided approach” to the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict before it can mediate more peace talks.
Aliyev withdrew from talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian which
the European Union had planned to host in October. The EU too has been accused
by Baku or pro-Armenian bias. Armenian leaders have suggested that Aliyev is
simply dragging his feet on the peace treaty in hopes of clinching more Armenian
concessions.
Bayramov said on Thursday that Yerevan’s position on key details of the peace
treaty has become more acceptable to Baku after Azerbaijan’s September 19-20
military offensive that led to its recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh. He did not
shed light on that “progress” or the remaining differences between the two sides.
One of the key sticking points is their border disputes. Mirzoyan reiterated on
Wednesday that the peace treaty should contain a concrete mechanism for
delimiting the Armenian-Azerbaijani border such as Soviet military maps printed
in the 1970s.
Baku continues to oppose that. Bayramov insisted on delinking the border issue
from the treaty. He also said that the signing of the treaty depends on the
“political will” of the Armenian side.
“We hope to see the extent of that political will in the coming days,” added the
Azerbaijani minister.
Armenian opposition leaders have warned Pashinian’s government against signing
the peace accord before the border delimitation. They say that Baku wants to
leave the door open for territorial claims to Armenia.
Ex-President Sarkisian Rejects Pashinian’s ‘Lies’ On Karabakh
• Shoghik Galstian
Armenia - Former President Serzh Sarkisian (right) attends the presentation of
his book, Yerevan, March 7, 2023.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian on Thursday brushed aside Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s latest statement blaming Armenia’s former leaders and foreign powers
for the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Sarkisian said that Pashinian admitted having “consciously sacrificed” Karabakh
to Azerbaijan in a televised interview last week.
Speaking to Armenian Public Television, Pashinian claimed that U.S., Russian and
French mediators leading the OSCE Minsk Group had predetermined the
“dissolution” of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with their peace
plans drawn up prior to his rise to power in 2018. He said virtually none of
those plans offered a comprehensive solution to the conflict with Azerbaijan.
Some of the mediating powers for decades used the conflict as a “truncheon
hanging over Armenia’s head,” Pashinian charged amid his government’s
unprecedented tensions with Russia.
“I saw many lies and falsifications in that speech but must single out one
important fact: Armenia’s ruler admitted that he sacrificed Karabakh
consciously,” Sarkisian told reporters.
“I just didn’t understand what truncheons he is talking about, who had
brandished those truncheons over Armenia’s head,” he said. “The [Minsk Group]
co-chairs who had issued five statements to the effect that Nagorno-Karabakh’s
status must be determined through the expression of [Karabakh residents’] will?”
“Did he mean the country which had provided us with billions of dollars worth of
weapons for free or at discounted prices and which he handed over to
Azerbaijan?” the ex-president added, referring to Russia.
Most of the Karabakh peace proposals were based on so-called Madrid Principles
which the United States, Russia and France originally put forward 2007. This
framework agreement envisaged that Karabakh’s predominantly ethnic Armenian
population would determine the region’s internationally recognized status in a
future referendum.
Pashinian has repeatedly denounced the Madrid Principles in an effort to absolve
himself of blame for the 2020 war in Karabakh won by Azerbaijan. He has said
that this peace formula, largely accepted by Sarkisian and his predecessor
Robert Kocharian, essentially recognized Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan and
called for Armenia’s “capitulation.”
Armenian opposition leaders and other government critics have shrugged off those
claims. They say that Pashinian made the disastrous war inevitable by rejecting
the last version of the Madrid Principles.
In 2021, Sarkisian publicized the secretly recorded audio of a 2019 meeting
during which Pashinian said he opposes that peace plan because it would not
immediately formalize Karabakh’s secession from Azerbaijan. Pashinian said he is
ready to “play the fool or look a bit insane” in order to avoid such a
settlement.
Armenia Turning Way From Russia, Says Lavrov
United Arab Emirates - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting
of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Russian President
Vladimir Putin in Abu Dhabi, December 6, 2023.
Armenia is reorienting its foreign policy towards the West at the expense of its
long-standing alliance with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
in an interview published on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, official Yerevan, succumbing to the persuasion of Westerners, is
trying to reformat its foreign policy line,” he told the official Russian news
agency TASS. “It is exchanging the time-tested alliance with Moscow not even for
concrete help from the West but only for vague promises.”
Lavrov was particularly concerned about what he described as Armenia’s deepening
ties with NATO.
“Yerevan has been developing cooperation with NATO and its individual member
countries lately,” he said. “This year, Armenia took part in several dozen
events with the alliance. It continues to modernize its armed forces according
to NATO standards, and the republic’s military personnel are undergoing training
in a number of NATO member states. This cannot fail to cause us concern.”
“I hope that Yerevan is aware that deepening interaction with the alliance leads
to a loss of sovereignty in the field of national defense and security,” he
warned.
Armenia - U.S. and Armenian troops start a joint exercise at the Zar training
ground near Yerevan, September 11, 2023.
Earlier this week, a senior NATO official praised Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s government for moving away from Russia and seeking “more cooperation
and political dialogue” with NATO.
“Armenia has decided very clearly to make some shift in their foreign policy, to
take some distance from Moscow,” Javier Colomina, the NATO secretary general’s
special representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, told Georgian
television.
Pashinian declared in early September that his government wants to “diversify
our security policy” because Armenia’s heavy reliance on Russia has proved a
“strategic mistake.” He claimed that Moscow is “unwilling or unable” to defend
its South Caucasus ally. Armenia hosted a U.S.-Armenian military exercise later
in September.
The Russian Foreign Ministry denounced these and other “unfriendly steps,”
accusing Pashinian of “destroying” Russian-Armenian relations at the behest of
Western powers. The rift between the two longtime allies deepened further after
Moscow did not prevent or stop Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive
that restored Azerbaijani control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia - Russian soldiers march during an official Armenian ceremony to mark
the 76th anniversary of Soviet victory in World War Two, Yerevan, May 9, 2021.
Despite the heightened tensions, Pashinian has announced no plans to pull his
country out of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Pashinian said in late October that his administration is also not considering
demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Armenia even if it sees no
“advantages” in their presence.
Lavrov described as “harmful” any talk of such a withdrawal. He insisted that
Armenia cannot successfully confront its grave security challenges with the help
of the United States and the European Union.
Pashinian’s domestic political opponents have also criticized his foreign policy
moves while agreeing with his assertions that Russia is not fully honoring its
security commitments to Armenia. They argue that the West is not ready to give
any Armenia security guarantees or significant military aid.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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