Wednesday,
Erdogan Praises Pashinian, Chides Iran
Turkey - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stands with the new cabinet
members during the inauguration ceremony at the presidential complex in Ankara,
June 3, 2023.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday praised Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian for attending his inauguration ceremony in Ankara and criticized Iran
for strongly opposing a “corridor” that would connect Azerbaijan to its
Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia.
“Pashinian’s acceptance of our invitation was an important step,” Erdogan was
reported to tell journalists after wrapping up his latest visit to Baku. “Mr.
Pashinian attended our ceremony, overcoming many obstacles emanating from his
country’s opposition.”
Armenian opposition leaders condemned Pashinian’s presence at the inauguration
ceremony held after Erdogan’s reelection and accused him of humiliating Armenia.
They argue that Ankara continues to fully support Azerbaijan and make the
normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on Yerevan meeting
Baku’s key demands.
One of those demands is the opening of an exterritorial corridor passing through
Armenia’s Syunik province, which also borders Iran. Tehran is strongly opposed
to the corridor, having repeatedly warned against attempts to strip the Islamic
Republic of the common border and transport links with Armenia.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei emphasized this stance when he met
with Erdogan in Tehran last July.
“Iran’s approach to this issue disappoints us and Azerbaijan,” Erdogan said on
Wednesday. “I want us to overcome that problem soon.”
The Turkish leader claimed that unlike Tehran, Yerevan does not object to the
idea of the “Zangezur corridor” which he discussed with Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev during his trip to Baku.
Pashinian’s government regularly rejects Azerbaijani demands for such a corridor
and says it can only agree to conventional transport links between Armenia and
Azerbaijan. It has specifically made clear that Azerbaijani citizens and cargo
passing through Syunik cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls.
Pashinian and Aliyev openly argued about the matter during a Eurasian Economic
Union (EEU) summit in Moscow on May 25. Nevertheless, the deputy prime ministers
of Armenia, Azerbaijan as well as Russia reportedly made major progress on
practical modalities of a rail link between Nakhichevan and the rest of
Azerbaijan during a subsequent meeting held in the Russian capital.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk met with Pashinian and his
Armenian opposite number, Mher Grigorian, in Yerevan on Wednesday for further
discussions on the thorny issue. An Armenian government statement said they
concentrated on the “restoration of railway communication” and “border and
customs controls based on the sovereignty and equal jurisdiction of the
parties.” It did not elaborate.
Probe Into Former Karabakh Army Chief Suspended
• Naira Bulghadarian
Nagorno-Karabakh - General Jalal Harutiunian (left) oversees a military exercise.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency has suspended its criminal investigation into
a former commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army prosecuted for serious military
setbacks suffered during the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
The Investigative Committee indicted Lieutenant-General Jalal Harutiunian last
September on two counts of “careless attitude towards military service” One of
the accusations stems from an Armenian counteroffensive against advancing
Azerbaijani forces launched on October 7, 2020 ten days after the outbreak of
large-scale fighting. Its apparent failure facilitated Azerbaijan’s subsequent
victory in the six-week war.
The Investigative Committee said Harutiunian ordered two army units to launch an
attack southeast of Karabakh despite lacking intelligence and the fact that they
were outnumbered by the enemy and had no air cover. It also blamed the general
for poor coordination between the units which it said also contributed to the
failure of the operation. In addition, he was charged over the capture by
Azerbaijani troops of the frontline positions of a Karabakh Armenian artillery
unit on October 12, 2020.
The 48-year-old general, who was seriously wounded in an Azerbaijani missile
strike on October 26, 2020, denies the accusations carrying between four and
eight years in prison. He was not arrested pending investigation, unlike his
successor Mikael Arzumanian, who is facing separate charges in Armenia stemming
from the disastrous war.
The Investigative Committee announced on Tuesday that it has “temporarily”
suspended the probe in order not to exceed a legal time limit set for pre-trial
investigations. It said it has asked a team of unnamed military experts to pass
judgment on Harutiunian’s wartime actions. Their findings are thus expected to
determine whether he will go on trial or be cleared of the accusations.
Harutiunian’s lawyer, Arsen Sardarian, said on Wednesday that the investigators
made the decision because they have trouble substantiating the charges. He
claimed that the counteroffensive in question was not necessarily a failure
because the Karabakh and Armenian forces killed some 300 Azerbaijani soldiers
and suffered only 20 casualties.
Sardarian also argued that the counteroffensive was authorized by Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian and the then chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff,
Lieutenant-General Onik Gasparian. He said that if his client is indeed guilty
of mishandling that operation then so are Pashinian and Gasparian as well.
Pashinian has denied Armenian opposition allegations that he is the one who
ordered the operation in October 2020. He has blamed Armenia’s former leaders
for the outcome of the 2020 war.
Opposition leaders maintain that Pashinian is primarily to blame for Armenia’s
defeat in the war which left at least 3,800 Armenian soldiers dead. They claim
that he ordered the criminal charges against Harutiunian, Arzumanian and other
senior military officers to try to dodge responsibility.
U.S. Downplays Cancellation Of Armenian-Azeri Talks
U.S. - The State Department building in Washington, January 26, 2017.
The United States has insisted that an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord is
“within reach” while again warning American citizens in Armenia to “avoid travel
near the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.”
The U.S. State Department also downplayed the cancellation of a new round of
negotiations which the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers were due to
start in Washington on Monday.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said last week that the talks were postponed “at
the request of the Azerbaijani side.” Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian
on Tuesday linked the delay to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest
visit to Baku.
The State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said, however, that it was “100
percent due to scheduling issues.” He said Washington hopes to reschedule the
talks “as soon as we can” but declined to speculate about possible dates.
“We look forward to hosting another round of talks in Washington as the parties
continue to pursue a peaceful dialogue for the South Caucasus region … We
believe an agreement is within reach,” Miller told a daily news briefing.
U.S. - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosts talks between the Armenian
and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Arlington, May 4, 2023.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov
reported major progress towards an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty after
holding four-day talks outside Washington last month. Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met together with
European Union chief Charles Michel later in May. They held two more meetings in
the following weeks and are due to meet again in July.
The two sides say that despite Pashinian’s pledge to recognize Azerbaijani
sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh through the peace treaty, they still disagree
on other sticking points.
Tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and “the line of contact” around
Karabakh have steadily increased over the last few weeks, with the sides
accusing each other of violating the ceasefire on a virtually daily basis.
Armenian officials and pundits claim that Baku is ratcheting up the tensions in
a bid to clinch more Armenian concessions.
Armenia - U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Kristina Kvien visits Syunik province, June
8, 2023.
“U.S. citizens should continue to exercise caution near all international
borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan and avoid travel near the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and line of contact,” the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan
said in a “security alert” posted on its website late on Tuesday.
The embassy also said that American diplomats and their families are still
“prohibited from any non-essential travel” to areas close to the Azerbaijani
border. It listed Armenia’s entire Syunik province and the resort town of Jermuk
among those locations.
U.S. Ambassador Kristina Kvien visited Syunik last week. Kvien said she “saw
first hand the tense situation along the border” and “heard about pervasive
security concerns from local officials, civil society.”
Another Armenian Plant Hit By Cross-Border Fire
• Artak Khulian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - A road sign at the entrance to the border village of Yeraskh, July 20,
2021. (Photo by Armenia's Office of the Human Rights Defender)
Two workers building a new metallurgical plant in an Armenian border village
were seriously wounded on Wednesday in what the Armenian military described as
cross-border fire from nearby Azerbaijani army positions.
The workers, identified by the Defense Ministry in Yerevan as Indian nationals
Muhammad Asif and Mirhasan Sahajan, were reportedly hospitalized as a result.
The ministry accused Azerbaijani forces of firing at its border posts as well as
the construction site in the village of Yeraskh for the second consecutive day.
It released a photograph of a civilian vehicle in the village bordering
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave riddled with bullet holes.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry claimed that its troops returned fire after
being targeted by the Armenian side.
Several Yeraskh residents interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service confirmed
that the under-construction plant repeatedly came under fire. RFE/RL reporters
were not allowed to approach the site for security reasons.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry issued a statement following the first truce
violation reported from Yeraskh late on Tuesday. It said Baku is demonstrating
“overt disregard for Armenia’s internationally recognized borders” and
underlining its desire to “impose solutions on Armenia through the illegal use
of force.”
“Either we negotiate in good faith to find mutually acceptable solutions, or, if
there is a use of force, then such a policy is unacceptable to us and, we hope,
the international community as well,” Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told the
Armenian parliament on Wednesday.
For his part, Defense Minister Suren Papikian said Armenia is not planning any
“aggressive actions” against Azerbaijan and will continue to advance its “peace
agenda” despite the Azerbaijani attacks. Papikian also assured lawmakers that
the Armenian armed forces will defend “our country’s sovereign territory.”
The truce violations came one week after the Azerbaijani government protested
against the construction of the Yeraskh plant located just 800 meters from the
Nakhichevan border. It claimed that building the industrial facility without
Baku’s permission is a violation of international environmental norms.
Yerevan brushed aside that claim. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday
that Baku’s “false concerns” are a smokescreen for impeding economic growth and
foreign investment in Armenia.
Armenia’s largest gold mine also located on the border with Azerbaijan was
likewise targeted by systematic Azerbaijani gunfire this spring. The Russian
owner of the Sotk gold mine announced last week that it has no choice but to end
open-pit mining operations there and put many of its 700 workers on unpaid leave.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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