Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Armenian Official Rejects Turkish ‘Preconditions’
August 31, 2021
• Karlen Aslanian
Armenia - Eduard Aghajanian, the chief of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's
staff, speaks with journalists, September 18, 2019.
Armenia wants to normalize its relations with Turkey but will not accept any
preconditions set by Ankara, a senior Armenian official said on Tuesday.
Eduard Aghajanian, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign
relations, said Yerevan continues to believe that Turkish-Armenian relations
must not be linked to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or the 1915 Armenian
genocide issue.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian spoke on Friday of “some positive signals” sent
by the Turkish government of late, saying that his administration is ready to
reciprocate them.
Commenting on Pashinian’s remark the following day, Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said regional states should establish “good-neighborly relations”
by recognizing each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. “If Yerevan
is ready to move in that direction Ankara could start working on a gradual
normalization of relations with Armenia,” he said.
In that context, Erdogan was understood to echo Azerbaijan’s demands for a
formal Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We certainly welcome positive rhetoric whenever it comes from Azerbaijan and
Turkey,” Aghajanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But unfortunately,
Erdogan’s statement contained points resembling preconditions, which do not help
to launch that [normalization] process at all.”
“I can’t imagine … Azerbaijan being a decisive factor in Turkish-Armenian
relations as has been the case in the last 20-30 years,” he said.
Aghajanian, who is a senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, also
made clear that Yerevan will not stop seeking a greater international
recognition of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire for the sake of a
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.
“I think that the Turkish should also be conscious of this,” he said.
Turkey completely closed its border with Armenia in 1993 and has refused to
establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan since then out of solidarity with
Azerbaijan. It provided Azerbaijan with decisive military support during last
year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Opposition Lawmaker Denied Parliament Post
August 31, 2021
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia -A meeting of the Armenian parliament Committee on Defense and Security,
August 31, 2021.
Pro-government lawmakers prevented on Tuesday one of their opposition colleagues
from becoming the deputy chairman of a key standing committee of the Armenian
parliament.
Armenian law entitles opposition parliamentarians to heading three of those 12
committees. It stipulates that the deputy chairpersons of several other
parliamentary panels should also represent the opposition minority in the
National Assembly.
The main opposition Hayastan alliance nominated one of its deputies, Artur
Ghazinian, as deputy head of the parliament committee on defense and security.
The nominee was also backed by the Pativ Unem bloc, the second parliamentary
opposition force.
However, most members of the committee representing Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party voted against Ghazinian’s appointment after a
90-minute discussion of his candidacy.
The committee’s pro-government chairman, Andranik Kocharian, accused Ghazinian
of throwing a plastic bottle towards Pashinian during a brawl that broke out on
the parliament floor last week.
The opposition lawmaker, who was punched by other pro-Pashinian deputies during
the brawl, insisted that he acted in self-defense and did not aim the bottle at
the prime minister.
“No person, no official was targeted by me. I simply sent back the bottle that
struck me,” he said.
Ghazarian told reporters after the ensuing committee vote that he was rebuffed
because the parliamentary majority wants to see a more “convenient”
oppositionist take up the post. “I would not be a deputy chairman of their
heart,” he said.
Under the parliamentary statutes, Hayastan has five days to again nominate
Ghazinian or propose another candidate.
Gegham Manukian, another Hayastan lawmaker, said the opposition bloc led by
former President Robert Kocharian will discuss the matter within that time
frame. “There is no decision yet,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Armenian FM Slams Azerbaijan On Moscow Trip
August 31, 2021
• Aza Babayan
RUSSIA -- Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (left) meets with his
Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, August 31, 2021
Armenia’s new Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan accused Azerbaijan of not fully
complying with a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped last year’s war in
Nagorno-Karabakh as he met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow
on Tuesday.
Mirzoyan, who previously served as speaker of the Armenian parliament, flew to
the Russian capital on what was his first visit abroad in his current capacity.
Lavrov emphasized this fact at the start of their talks. “This once again
underscores the special character of our relations,” he said.
“Russia is a military-political ally and the main economic partner of Armenia,”
Mirzoyan said for his part. “In this regard I would like to reaffirm the
Armenian side’s readiness to continue forging relations with Russia on the basis
of the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.”
Closer ties with Russia, he said, are even more important for Armenia after the
six-week war with Azerbaijan.
“Peace and stability in the region is part of our strategy and we are prepared
for active dialogue in this direction,” Mirzoyan went on. “But the situation in
the region remains quite tense and that is greatly determined by Azerbaijan’s
destructive policy. I want to point out that Baku is not fulfilling its
obligations stemming from the trilateral statement of the leaders of Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Russia adopted on November 9, 2020.”
Mirzoyan singled out Baku’s refusal to free dozens of Armenian soldiers and
civilians remaining in Azerbaijani captivity nearly ten months after Moscow
helped to stop large-scale hostilities in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. He also
pointed to cross-border Azerbaijani incursions into “sovereign territory of
Armenia” and Azerbaijani leaders’ continuing “Armenophobic rhetoric.”
In a statement issued ahead of the talks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the
situation in the Karabakh conflict zone -- and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border
in particular -- will be a major theme of Lavrov’s talks with Mirzoyan. It said
the two ministers as well as other diplomats accompanying them will also discuss
“the process of unblocking economic and transport links” between Armenia and
Azerbaijan.
That process is handled by a trilateral working group which was set up by the
Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani governments in January. The group co-headed by
deputy prime ministers of the three states met in Moscow on August 17 for the
first time in more than three months.
RUSSIA -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks at a joint news
conference with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in Moscow, August 31,
2021
Lavrov again stressed on Tuesday the importance of reopening the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border for commerce. He said that would facilitate an
eventual resolution of the Karabakh conflict.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Mirzoyan held after their talks, Lavrov
also said: “We agreed during today’s negotiations that the work of the OSCE
Minsk Group is necessary.”
The group’s new Russian co-chair, Igor Khovayev, visited Baku and met with
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Monday.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly questioned in recent months
the need for the Minsk Group’s continued mediation efforts, saying that
Azerbaijan resolved the conflict with its victory in the war. He has also said
that Baku and Yerevan should sign a “peace treaty” which would commit them to
recognizing each other’s territorial integrity.
This would presumably mean a formal Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani
sovereignty over Karabakh.
The Armenian government maintains that the disputed territory’s status should be
determined only through renewed peace talks mediated by the United States,
Russia and France. Mirzoyan reaffirmed this stance during his trip to Moscow.
“If Armenia and Azerbaijan start at some point negotiations on a peace treaty,
their agenda must include the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status based on the
principles formulated by the [Russian, U.S. and French] co-chairs of the Minsk
Group,” he told journalists.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.