Friday,
Karabakh Seeks Safe Exit For Leaders
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Residents gather next to buses in central Stepanakert before leaving
Nagorno-Karabakh, September 25, 2023.
The outgoing authorities in Stepanakert are trying to convince Azerbaijan to let
Nagorno-Karabakh’s current and former leaders leave the region along with its
tens of thousands of ordinary residents, a Karabakh official said on Friday.
The official, who did not want to be identified, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
that Samvel Shahramanian, the Karabakh president, is personally negotiating with
the Azerbaijani side on the issue. He said Shahramanian’s three predecessors --
Arayik Harutiunian, Bako Sahakian and Arkadi Ghukasian -- as well as a former
Karabakh foreign minister, Davit Babayan, are among those who risk being
arrested if they flee to Armenia through the Lachin corridor.
It is not clear whether the issue was on the agenda of a second meeting of
Azerbaijani and Karabakh representatives held in the Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh
later in the day.
Babayan, who is now an adviser to Shahramanian, said on Thursday that Baku wants
to arrest him. He said he will turn himself in because he does not want to
jeopardize the evacuation of other Karabakh Armenians remaining in the region.
Babayan’s whereabouts were not known as of Friday afternoon.
Nagorno Karabak - Former and current Karabakh leaders attend Christmas Mass in
the Stepanakert cathedral, January 6, ,2023.
Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian-born tycoon who served as Karabakh premier from
November 2022 to February 2023, was arrested at the Azerbaijani checkpoint in
the Lachin corridor on Wednesday. Vardanyan was taken to Baku to face a string
of serious criminal charges.
According to media reports, a number of other former Karabakh officials have
also been caught by Azerbaijani security services since then. Karabakh sources
confirmed on Friday that they include Levon Mnatsakanian, a general who
commanded Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army from 2015-2018,
The Azerbaijani authorities announced shortly afterwards the arrest of Davit
Manukian, another Karabakh general who used to be the Defense Army’s deputy
commander. They said Manukian will be prosecuted on “terrorism” charges. His
brother, Gegham Manukian, is a prominent Armenian opposition politician.
Citing an unnamed diplomatic source, the Reuters reported on Thursday that Baku
has drawn up a list of about 200 prominent Karabakh Armenians subject to arrest
and prosecution. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev to grant the Karabakh Armenians “broad amnesty” when they
spoke by phone earlier this week.
Baku is currently gradually restoring full control over Karabakh as a result of
the Azerbaijani army’s September 19 offensive. A Russian-brokered ceasefire that
stopped the fighting on September 20 commits it to permitting Karabakh’s 120,000
or so ethnic Armenian residents to leave their homeland. More than 91,000 of
them have taken refuge in Armenia as of Friday afternoon, according to the
Armenian government.
Armenian Defense Chief Shuns Meeting In Russia
• Karlen Aslanian
Armenia - Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian greets U.S. generals watching
a U.S.-Armenian military exercise, September 15, 2023.
Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian declined to attend a meeting of top
defense officials of ex-Soviet states held in Russia on Friday, underscoring
Yerevan’s deepening rift with Moscow.
A spokesman for Papikian gave no reason for his decision. Nor did he say whether
the Armenian Defense Ministry sent other officials to the annual session of the
Council of Defense Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier in the day that military delegations
of eight CIS countries, including Armenia, will attend the meeting in the
Russian city of Tula. It said the participants include Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Shoigu and his Azerbaijani counterpart Zakir Hasanov.
Papikian similarly shunned in May this year a meeting in Belarus of a smaller
number of ex-Soviet states making up the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO). Yerevan has repeatedly accused Russia and the Russian-led military
alliance of not fulfilling their obligation to defend Armenia against
Azerbaijani attacks.
Russian-Armenian relations deteriorated further this month after Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian declared that the alliance with Russia cannot guarantee his
country’s national security. Pashinian went on to send his wife to Ukraine with
a batch of humanitarian aid and to press ahead with parliament ratification of
the founding treaty of an international court that issued an arrest warrant for
Russian President Vladimir Putin in March.
Moscow condemned those “unfriendly” actions. It warned on Thursday the
ratification of the Rome Statute expected next week would be an “extremely
hostile” move on the part of Yerevan. Armenian opposition groups likewise said
that it could have severe consequences for Armenia.
In another development bound to irk Moscow, Armenian parliament speaker Alen
Simonian on Friday made a point of meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Ruslan
Stefanchuk on the sidelines of an international conference of parliamentarians
in Dublin. The Armenian parliament’s press office said they discussed prospects
for closer ties between Ukrainian and Armenian lawmakers.
It also said Simonian briefed Stefanchuk on the grave humanitarian consequences
of Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh which
forced its ethnic Armenian residents to flee their homeland. Ukraine’s current
and former governments have always backed Azerbaijani efforts to regain control
of Karabakh.
Fugitive Blogger Set To Decide Outcome Of Yerevan Mayoral Race
• Astghik Bedevian
A screenshot of YouTube video posted by Vartan Ghukasian, May 25, 2023.
A U.S.-based video blogger wanted by Armenian law-enforcement authorities could
determine who will be the next mayor of Yerevan following municipal elections in
which his obscure political party did unexpectedly well.
According to official results of the September 17 elections, no political group
won a majority of seats in Yerevan’s 65-seat municipal council empowered to
appoint the mayor. The ruling Civil Contract party came in first with 32.5
percent of the vote that earned it 24 seats in the council.
It was trailed by a small party represented by former Mayor Hayk Marutian (19
percent) and the radical opposition bloc Mayr Hayastan (15.4 percent) that will
control 14 and 12 seats respectively. The Public Voice party of blogger Vartan
Ghukasian won 7 seats, giving the three opposition contenders a narrow majority
in the city council and thus putting them in a position to jointly install the
mayor.
However, they have failed to agree on a common mayoral candidate primarily
because of various conditions set by Ghukasian. Marutian said on Thursday that
even if they reached such a deal they would not have enough votes because the
man topping Public Voice’s electoral list is in jail while the number two figure
on the list is on the run.
The ex-mayor said he and his allies therefore decided to try to force a repeat
election of the city council. Mayr Hayastan made the same decision.
Armenia - A woman votes in municipal elections in Yerevan, Setpember 17, 2023.
Under Armenian law, such a vote will have to be held if Yerevan’s newly elected
Council of Elders fails to make a quorum during its inaugural session scheduled
for October 10. This will happen if all five council members representing Public
Voice and remaining at large boycott the session together with Marutian’s party
and Mayr Hayastan.
Ghukasian did not disclose his position on the boycott in his latest online
video. Instead, he kept setting more conditions for helping Marutian regain the
post of mayor. Local government jobs demanded by him for his loyalists include
the post of a director of one of Yerevan’s cemeteries.
The Yerevan council will make a quorum if at least one of its members affiliated
with Ghukasian’s party shows up for the October 10 session. In that case, Civil
Contract’s mayoral candidate, Tigran Avinian, would need only 27 votes to become
mayor. Avinian would almost certainly be backed by the pro-establishment
Hanrapetutyun party that will hold the remaining 8 council seats.
A former police officer nicknamed Dog, Ghukasian emigrated to the United States
about a decade ago. He has since attracted large audiences with his hard-hitting
and opinionated comments on political developments in Armenia. He has been
notorious for using profanities in his videos posted on YouTube.
Earlier this year, law-enforcement authorities issued an international arrest
warrant for Ghukasian and arrested his associates in Armenia on charges of
blackmail, extortion and fraud strongly denied by them.
Karabakh Refugees Look For Missing Relatives
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh embrace upon their arrival
in Kornidzor, September 26, 2023. (Stepan Poghosyan/PHOTOLUR Photo via AP)
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has pledged to help
residents of Nagorno-Karabakh fleeing to Armenia search for their relatives who
went missing after Azerbaijan’s September 19 military offensive.
The resulting brief but fierce fighting left hundreds of Karabakh Armenians dead
and unaccounted for and separated many others from their loved ones. This is
especially true for families that lived in communities cut off from the rest of
the region by advancing Azerbaijani troops.
The humanitarian disaster was compounded by Monday’s powerful explosion at a
fuel depot outside Stepanakert. At least 68 people died and more than 100 others
went missing as a result of the blast.
The blast is the reason why Anzhela Hovannisian lost touch with one of her sons
and 14-year-old grandson before fleeing to Armenia along with tens of thousands
of other people.
“I don’t know their whereabouts. My heart is being cut into pieces,” the elderly
woman told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service shortly after crossing the Armenian border.
“What’s the point of coming here without my kids?” she asked, crying.
RFE/RL correspondents have heard in recent days similar stories from dozens of
other refugees. The ICRC, the only international aid organization allowed to
operate in Karabakh, is now trying to help such people.
Vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) transporting
humanitarian aid for residents of Nagorno-Karabakh drive towards the
Armenia-Azerbaijan border along a road near the village of Kornidzor, Armenia,
September 23, 2023.
“If you have a family member who went missing or you think was arrested [by
Azerbaijani authorities] or if you had to leave behind a loved one or their
body, please contact us,” the ICRC’s Yerevan office said in a written notice.
“We get dozens of phone calls every day,” said the office spokeswoman, Zara
Amatuni. “People also visit our office.”
Red Cross workers collect their data before checking with other ICRC offices in
the region and contacting Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities, said Amatuni.
She did not specify how many missing Karabakh residents have been identified or
found by the ICRC so far.
Visiting Armenia on Tuesday, the head of the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID), Samantha Power, said part of $11.5 million allocated by the
United States to Karabakh refugees will support “efforts to reunite families.”
“There are many unaccompanied children who have crossed into the Republic of
Armenia and it is absolutely urgent that they be reunited with their families,”
Power said after talking to refugees in the border town of Goris.
According to the Armenian government, the total number of refugees who have
entered Armenia since September 24 reached almost 98,000 on Friday evening. The
figure accounts for over 80 percent of Karabakh’s estimated population.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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