Thursday,
Government Funds New Plant Moved Away From Azeri Border
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - The site of an industrial plant built in Yersakh, June 15, 2023.
Armenia’s government approved on Thursday a concessional loan worth 3.5 billion
drams ($8.6 million) to a U.S.-Armenian joint venture that relocated, for
security reasons, a metallurgical plant which it began building on the border
with Azerbaijan last year.
The construction site in Yeraskh, a border village 55 kilometers south of
Yerevan, came under fire from nearby Azerbaijani army positions on a virtually
daily basis in June.
The automatic gunfire, which left two Indian workers seriously wounded, began
one week after the Azerbaijani government protested against the $70 million
project. It claimed that building the industrial facility without its permission
is a violation of international environmental norms. The Armenian Foreign
Ministry brushed aside Baku’s “false” environmental concerns, saying that they
are a smokescreen for impeding economic growth and foreign investment in Armenia.
Despite making defiant statements, Armenian and U.S. investors behind the
project suspended work on the plant and started moving construction and
industrial equipment from the site later in the summer.
In a statement issued after its weekly meeting in Yerevan, Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s cabinet confirmed that the facility is now being constructed just
outside the town of Ararat, several kilometers from Yeraskh.
It said that the investors wasted 2 billion drams on the construction work in
Yeraskh and now need additional funding. The low-interest government loan,
repayable in four years, will be channeled into the project through a state
investment fund, added the statement.
The plant is to process scrap metal, employ up to 500 people and have an annual
turnover of at least $200 million. Its owners plan to finish the construction by
the end of this year.
Areg Kochinian, a political analyst, believes that the plant’s relocation set a
dangerous precedent for Armenia, meaning that Azerbaijan is in a position to
disrupt economic activity in Armenian border regions by force.
“This situation could and should have been avoided. It’s a classic example of
irresponsible administration which we have seen many times,” Kochinian said,
commenting on the initial site of the plant located just a few hundred meters
from an Azerbaijani army post.
Armenia’s largest gold mine also located on the border with Azerbaijan was
likewise targeted by systematic Azerbaijani gunfire last spring. The Russian
owner of the Sotk gold mine announced in June that it has no choice but to end
open-pit mining operations there and put many of its 700 workers on unpaid leave.
Breach Of Armenia’s Territorial Integrity ‘Unacceptable’ To Iran
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Sobhani speaks to journalists, January 11,
2024.
The Iranian ambassador in Yerevan, Mehdi Sobhani, on Thursday reaffirmed Iran’s
strong support for Armenia’s territorial integrity, saying that any violation of
it is unacceptable to Tehran.
“We have always supported Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and
anything that causes a violation of Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity is not acceptable for us,” Sobhani told reporters.
Asked what concrete action Iran will take in case of such a violation, he said:
“It won’t be violated.”
The remarks came amid Azerbaijan’s renewed demands for an extraterritorial
corridor to its Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through Syunik, the sole
Armenian province bordering Iran. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on
Wednesday that people and cargo transported to and from Nakhichevan must be
exempt from Armenian border controls.
Last week, a Turkish government minister said that new roads and railways needed
for the functioning of that corridor should be built by 2029. The Iranian
Foreign Ministry responded by repeating its strong opposition to “geopolitical
changes” in the South Caucasus.
Iran has repeatedly warned against attempts to strip it of the common border and
transport links with Armenia. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reportedly told a
visiting Azerbaijani official last October that the “Zangezur corridor” sought
by Baku is “resolutely opposed” by the Islamic Republic.
Raisi spoke less than two weeks after Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh
which raised more fears in Yerevan that Baku will also attack Armenia to open
the corridor.
Andranik Kocharian, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on defense
and security, did not rule out the possibility of such an attack when he spoke
to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday. He said the Armenian government is
reinforcing “every day” the county’s capacity to repel it.
Yerevan Keeps Linking Peace Deal With Border Delimitation
• Shoghik Galstian
Armenia - A soldier at a new Armenian army post on the border with Azerbaijan,
June 16, 2021.
Armenia continues to believe that its peace treaty with Azerbaijan should spell
out a mechanism for delimiting the border between the two countries, a senior
Armenian lawmaker said on Thursday, reacting to Baku’s efforts to delink the two
issues.
“If this principle is not adopted and implemented, it will be unclear how the
delimitation process will take place,” Sargis Khandanian, the chairman of the
Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations, told reporters.
Khandanian also made clear that Yerevan insists on using the most recent Soviet
military maps printed in the 1970s as a basis for ascertaining the long and
heavily militarized Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The leaders of the European Union and its key member states, France and Germany,
backed this stance in a joint statement with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
issued after their meeting in Spain last October.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reiterated Baku’s rejection of the proposed
mechanism for border delimitation on Wednesday. He said that it favors the
Armenian side.
“They [the Armenians] want to put aside maps of the 1960s, 1950s and 1940s and
refer to the 1970s because our historical lands had been given to them by that
time,” Aliyev said in a televised interview. “Therefore, we strongly opposed and
oppose that.”
Echoing statements by other Azerbaijani officials, Aliyev said that the border
should be delimited after the signing of the peace treaty. He did not cite any
concrete delimitation mechanism acceptable to Baku.
Armenian analysts and opposition figures believe that Aliyev wants to leave the
door open to Azerbaijani territorial claims to Armenia. They say this shows that
Pashinian’s “peace agenda” regularly touted by him and his political allies
cannot guarantee the country’s territorial integrity even after the September
2023 fall of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Azerbaijani leader on Wednesday again accused Armenia of occupying “eight
Azerbaijani villages.” He referred to several small enclaves inside Armenia
which were controlled by Azerbaijan in Soviet times and occupied by the Armenian
army in the early 1990s. For its part, the Azerbaijani side seized at the time a
bigger Armenian enclave.
Aliyev said that the return of those enclaves will top the agenda of an upcoming
joint session of Armenian and Azerbaijani government commissions on border
demarcation and delimitation. The office of Deputy Prime Minister Mher
Grigorian, the chairman of the Armenian commission, declined to comment on
Aliyev’s claim. Meanwhile, some opposition lawmakers in Yerevan demanded
explanations from the government.
Armenia To Attend Another ‘Anti-Russian’ Meeting On Ukraine
MALTA – Delegates attend a meeting organised by Ukraine to discuss its peace
formula for ending the war with Russia in an unnamed hotel in St Julian's,
October 28, 2023.
Risking further condemnation by Russia, the secretary of Armenia’s Security
Council will fly to Switzerland this weekend to take part in a new round of
multilateral peace talks initiated by Ukraine.
Armen Grigorian’s office announced on Thursday his participation in the
conference that will take place in the Swiss resort town of Davos on January 14.
Grigorian already attended the last such meeting held in Malta in October.
Security officials from more than 60 countries converged on the island to
discuss Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s plan to end the war with
Russia. Grigorian met with Zelenskiy’s chief of staff during what Moscow
condemned as a “blatantly anti-Russian event.”
Grigorian’s trip to Malta contrasted with Armenian leaders’ boycott of
high-level meetings of Russian-led groupings of ex-Soviet states and highlighted
Yerevan’s mounting tensions with Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the
trip a “demonstrative anti-Russian gesture” and accused Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s administration of systematically “destroying” Russian-Armenian
relations.
Despite the angry Russian reaction, Armenia kept up diplomatic contacts with
Ukraine. The foreign ministers of the two states held talks in Brussels on
December 11 on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the top diplomats of
European Union member states and ex-Soviet republics involved in the EU’s
Eastern Partnership program.
Beglium - Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Ukrainian
counterpart Dmytro Kuleba meet in Brussels, December 11, 2023.
Pashinian did not boycott fresh ex-Soviet summits that were hosted by Russian
President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg two weeks later. But his attendance
did not seem to ease the unprecedented rift between the two longtime allies.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said later in December that Armenia is
reorienting its foreign policy towards the West at the expense of its alliance
with Russia. He warned that the South Caucasus country cannot successfully
confront its grave security challenges with the help of the United States and
the European Union.
Citing an unnamed “informed source,” Russia’s main official news agency, TASS,
claimed on Wednesday that Germany is pressing Pashinian’s government to force
Russian border guards out of Armenia and purge the Armenian state apparatus from
pro-Russian elements in return for greater economic aid.
There was no official reaction to the claim from Berlin or Yerevan. While
pledging to “diversify” Armenia’s foreign and security policy, Pashinian has so
far indicated no plans to demand the withdrawal of Russian border guards or
troops from Armenia.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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