Author: Eduard Nalbandian

Every single minute that Pashinyan stays in power undermines foundations of Armenian statehood – advocate

Eduard Nalbandian
Panorama, Armenia

Dec 22 2020

A group of advocates started a march from the Chamber of Advocates building to the Armenian National Assembly, and then to the Prosecutor General’s Office on Tuesday morning following a nationwide strike declared by the Armenian opposition to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The lawyers planned to submit documents demanding the parliament speaker to lift the martial law and to express no confidence in the prime minister; appealing to the deputies who also have the status of advocates to quit the My Step bloc and reporting a crime to the attorney general.

Speaking to reporters, Chairman of the Chamber of Advocates Ara Zohrabyan stated that there are "elements of treason” in the prime minister's actions, and, naturally, many attorneys have joined today's protests, refusing to participate in either court hearings or investigative operations.

"We expect that through these protests we will force the prime minister to step down, as every single minute that he stays in power is undermining the foundations of our statehood,” he said.

According to Zohrabyan, they represent a professional community, and the fact that they are taking part part in similar protests means that the situation is really devastating, with serious threats facing the country.

He noted that all police officers who are trying to pressure protesters should be held accountable to prevent such actions in the future.


All borders of Syunik are secure, says Governor

Eduard Nalbandian

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 16:05,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, ARMENPRESS. The Governor of Syunik – Armenia’s southernmost province bordering Azerbaijan – says that all borders of the province are secured.

“At this moment all borders of the Province of Syunik, the Goris-Kapan road, our border settlements are in reliable hands and are protected by the Armed Forces of Armenia, Armenian and Russian border guards and volunteers: there is no danger and our defense is strong,” Governor Melikset Poghosyan said in a statement on social media.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

Speaker of Parliament meets with Citizen’s Decision party representatives

Eduard Nalbandian

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 13:38, 16 December, 2020

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan met with the representatives of Citizen’s Decision social-democratic party Suren Sahakyan and Garegin Miskaryan, the Parliament told Armenpress.

The discussion focused on the border security, the possible ways of solving the issues of captured citizens and the domestic political situation.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

The Future of Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan Requires a Major Revision of Approaches

Eduard Nalbandian
The National Interest
Dec 13 2020

Future peace should be based upon a sustainable agreement rooted in coexistence and cooperation. However, the main challenge is not the status of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the lack of will of Armenians to live with Azerbaijanis—either in Azerbaijan or even in Armenia.

by Farid Shafiyev
On Nov. 10, 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire agreement, mediated by Russia, that ended what can now be recognized as the Second Karabakh War. Azerbaijan liberated the strategic city of Shusha in the heart of the Nagorno-Karabakh region as well as seven Armenian-occupied adjacent regions. Russia deployed peacekeeping troops inside Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin Corridor, which connects the region with Armenia. Azerbaijan also secured, on paper at least, a corridor between Azerbaijan’s main territory and its Nakhichevan autonomous region. With this agreement, the almost thirty-year-long occupation of the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, reconfirmed by the relevant UN Security Council resolutions of 1993, ended. However, further diplomatic efforts, both between Armenia and Azerbaijan and involving other international actors, will be required to create a durable peace.

While there has been a plethora of articles in the Western media about the geopolitical consequences of this conflict, mainly focusing on the roles of Russia and Turkey, the overwhelming majority of journalists and experts have concentrated on profiling the interests of the regional powers or the Western bloc, rather than discussing what might constitute a sustainable peace in the South Caucasus. To be overlooked—owing to religious and cultural bias, historical predispositions, and geopolitical interests—has been the fate of both the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples, who have suffered from ethnic cleansing and the losses of war.

The history of the conflict shows the pernicious influence of political elites and the expert community. When, in February 1988, Armenian nationalists for the first time chanted the slogan miatsum, demanding the unification of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomy of Azerbaijan with Armenia, they voiced a xenophobic project for the recreation of Great Armenia. Yet, through a network of Armenian lobbyists and influencers, this concept was presented as a fight for self-determination. Western policymakers and experts saw in this movement an opportunity to challenge the Soviet system. Without going into detail about the history of the conflict, which is closely related to the Russian imperial legacy of managing the peripheries—especially in what was regarded as the Muslim borderland—the West expressed sympathy for the Armenian project in the same way as, one hundred years ago, the Allied Powers (Britain, France, and Russia) promoted the Armenian Question to dismantle the Ottoman empire. Soviet authorities tended to support the Soviet Azerbaijani border to prevent the revision of other republics’ boundaries and thus maintain what the communist state had forged over its seventy-year rule. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moscow chose to support its traditional ally, Armenia, to prevent Azerbaijan from leaning westward during 1992–93. This policy enabled Yerevan to occupy the ex-Nagorno-Karabakh autonomy and seven regions outside of it. However, to maintain its grip, Armenia became heavily dependent on Moscow’s political, military, and economic support. Overall, Russia’s strategy was to freeze the conflict in a state of limbo in order to exercise effective control over both countries.

The West realized that Russia’s policy in this and other conflicts during the post-Soviet era aimed at institutionalizing uncertainty. Western policymakers tried to convince Azerbaijani officials that they should yield Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. (I myself witnessed closed official meetings where Westerners spoke about the need to accept as a fait-accompli the results of the 1988–94 First Karabakh War). In their opinion, such a resolution would enable both countries to remove Moscow’s control, even though this proposal envisaged it at the expense of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory. 

Various Western experts and scholars, funded by both European and American institutions and foundations, through numerous programs and projects, attempted to reconcile Armenians and Azerbaijanis. But, every time, Nagorno-Karabakh was presented as historically Armenian territory. Azerbaijan maintained that the entire internationally recognized territory should be returned to the control of Baku, which would grant a high degree of autonomy to Nagorno-Karabakh. Enjoying full impunity due to the tacit support of the major powers, during the negotiation process, Armenians rejected handing over any territory to Azerbaijan.

In 2007–9, France, Russia, and the United States proposed the so-called Madrid Principles, which recommended that the seven regions be returned to Azerbaijani control and that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh be postponed to some later time when more reconciliatory conditions might enable the resolution of this issue through a “legally binding _expression_ of will.” Both Armenia and Azerbaijan accepted the Madrid Principles, but Yerevan received no international pressure to move forward with their implementation. 

More recently, Moscow responded more favorably toward addressing Baku’s demands, perhaps in acknowledgment of Azerbaijan’s growing military and economic power. In the 2010s, Russia began reassessing its relations with Azerbaijan and Armenia as, in both countries, discontent toward Moscow became more visible, especially after the revolution in Armenia in 2018.

In 2011, Russia proposed the Kazan formula, which stipulated the immediate return of five occupied regions outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, thus excluding Lachin and Kelbajar, which lie between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. However, still shielded by Russia’s military and with international support from Western powers with influential Armenian diasporas such as in France and the United States, among others, Yerevan continued its policy of flouting international norms. Events in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, and developments around the independence of Kosovo, created a false perception that Armenia was winning by ignoring successive proposed settlements and international resolutions.

Azerbaijan’s incumbent president Ilham Aliyev, unlike many other post-Soviet leaders, managed to build a constructive relationship with Moscow and avoided antagonizing rhetoric. The result is that, during the Second Karabakh War, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly acknowledged that the occupied territories of Azerbaijan had straightforward, internationally recognized status and Russia’s obligation to Armenia did not extend beyond Armenia’s borders. In other conflicts, Moscow has not hesitated to interfere on foreign soil.

The Second Karabakh War should be a reminder to the international community, and especially to America, Europe, and Russia, the principal mediators of the original conflict, that a ceasefire, no matter how long in duration, remains only a temporary solution. Furthermore, ignoring international law does not bring stability in any given region, despite whatever short-term benefits global and regional powers might gain from freezing a conflict—or leaving it unresolved. This is equally applicable to both the past twenty-seven years since the adoption of the UN Security Council resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh and the expiration of the five-year Russian peacekeeping mandate under the ceasefire terms.

Since the cessation of military operations after the Armenian defeat, there have been numerous calls for a lasting solution to the conflict. At present, however, the familiar and unhelpful rhetoric that has been voiced not only in Yerevan but internationally in Paris and other Western capitals, which does not give grounds for optimism. 

Armenia needs a new approach to its future, which requires improving relations with its neighbors. If official Yerevan continues to insist on the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh and other xenophobic narratives, the country will be trapped in further isolation without an independent foreign and economic policy. Gerard Libaridian, an ex-advisor to former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian, considers it essential to abandon this policy, which has been pursued for the past twenty-two years. Svante Cornell, Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, believes that the future of Armenia does not depend on the fact of whether the current Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, stays or goes; rather, it remains to be seen whether Armenia will learn from this misadventure and embark upon a serious attempt to negotiate a peace. As Russian expert Maxim Artemiev stresses, the ceasefire agreement “opens the way for Armenia to revival, the opportunity to become a normal country without historical complexes, phobias and myths.”

So far, nothing promising has come out of Yerevan. But even more troubling is that those in the West who decry the current miserable situation in Armenia often voice the same position that brought Yerevan to its current predicament. French president Emmanuel Macron expressed an anti-Azerbaijani position and France’s Senate adopted a declaration calling for the recognition of an independent Nagorno-Karabakh. France’s stance is the _expression_ of its anti-Turkish sentiment and pandering to the Armenian lobby. It will not help Armenia to recover from its wounds caused by a discredited policy based on territorial claims. The Armenian diaspora lobby, detached from the realities of the home country, denies the geography of Armenia by perpetuating animosity against Armenia’s neighbors.

Western policymakers appear more concerned, for the time being, with Turkey’s assertive role, rather than the fate of the peoples of the South Caucasus. The cohort of Western experts is looking for new grants, and for this conflict to reach its endgame is not in their interests.

News about the conflict has also focused on geopolitics, owing to trending news from Russia and Turkey. This approach ignores the real problem, which is between two countries in the region—Azerbaijan and Armenia. The latter hosts a Russian military base and receives military support from Moscow, whereas the former has strong ties with Ankara. However, as experts know, the region was, for two centuries, under Russian rule, and any new actor should be considered as a balance to future Russian ambitions. Instead, the intellectual discussion quickly turns into a primitive, black-and-white picture. 

Russia hopes to create a new status quo that makes both countries further dependent on Moscow, thereby ignoring the reality of its declining power. Even the populations of other traditional partner countries, such as Belarus and Armenia, have begun looking in other directions. 

The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict represents a rare case in which—for the time being—the Russian and Western positions converge. On the surface, this can be explained by factors such as the Armenian diaspora, and even Christian solidarity, but deeper down, perhaps Turkophobic sentiments echo the old imperial rivalries.

The South Caucasus requires a new vision of security. There is no consensus about a solid future peace based on the principle of territorial integrity in accordance with international law and allow all regional countries to be free from the yokes of past grievances and free to develop economic opportunities similar to the European experience manifested after the Second World War. Minority rights, agreed upon with the consent of the concerned parties, might secure safety and maintain the diverse ethnic profiles of the populations in question without the madness of territorial nationalism. In the end, that will benefit Russia, Turkey, Iran, the European Union, and the United States.

However, Russian-Turkish cooperation causes jealousy among Western powers, which ultimately failed to engage effectively in the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Moscow and Ankara can work in tandem to bring together the two ethnic groups in the Caucasus, and such efforts should be supported.

It seems that only the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh ignore the inconvenient facts. The Armenian capital, Yerevan, hosted a large Azerbaijani population, which became a minority only in the twentieth century and then completely disappeared. To create a durable peace, policymakers should speak about all displaced peoples, including Azerbaijanis in Armenia and Armenians in the rest of Azerbaijan (250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and 360,000 Armenians left Azerbaijan in 1988–90). True reconciliation is not possible without efforts to return to more integrated populations such as were prevalent in pre-conflict days.

Unfortunately, the signals thus far give little hope for the radical changes necessary to create a future sustainable peace. However, some voices have spoken out about a vision of future cooperation. Thus, Armenia’s new Minister of Economy, Vahan Kerobyan, in an interview with Public TV of Armenia, discussed the benefits of opening the country’s borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey; they “will open and many vast opportunities will be provided. Perhaps the Azerbaijani market will open for us, and our market for Azerbaijan.”

The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, in his address to the nation on Dec. 1, highlighted that the transit corridor between the main territory of Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan, running through the Armenian Megri region, will open up vast opportunities for all regional countries.

Dr. Farid Shafiyev is the chairman of the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations and Adjunct Lecturer at ADA University, Azerbaijan.

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to arrive in Armenia on December 13

Eduard Nalbandian

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 17:07,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Stéphane Visconti of France, Andrew Schofer of the United States of America, and Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, will arrive in Yerevan on December 13, Armenian foreign ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan told Armenpress.

“The Co-Chairs will arrive in Yerevan on December 13. Their meetings in Yerevan are scheduled on Monday”, she said.

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are currently in Baku as part of their regional visit. They already met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

 

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Lessons from the Nagorno-Karabakh deal

Eduard Nalbandian
Reaction
Dec 11 2020

The agreement chiselled out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region adds some valuable lessons to the international diplomacy playbook. Armenia’s political woes are a timely reminder of the perils of overplaying your hand militarily when your national institutions have been eroded by deep-rooted corruption and poor governance. Europe should take note and learn from the Armenian government’s mistakes.

There is no doubt that the outcome of the agreement brokered by Russia is a poor one for Armenia as it represents a defeat which its people are likely to remain resentful about for generations to come. However, there is also little question that the Armenian leadership must bear a great degree of responsibility for the nature of this outcome, which was far from inevitable.

Over the course of the past three decades, the Armenian government in Yerevan made several significant strategic and diplomatic mistakes which have led to this military defeat. As such, it is simplistic and unhelpful to blame the plight of the Armenian people on Azerbaijan.

The truth is that their government has played its hand poorly on their behalf. It is now incumbent upon the Armenian leadership to accept responsibility for the circumstances in which the country finds itself, and behaves in a way that will advance the long-term interests of its people.

Since the Armenian army seized the enclave at the end of the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s, the Armenian leadership has consistently failed to effectively leverage its position of strength to ensure long-term stability in the region. This has been most palpable in its conduct within the Minsk Group created by the OSCE, co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States.

The Armenian government grew complacent about the status of the occupied territories, underestimating the degree to which Azerbaijan expected sincere compromise. In a series of summits, including in Madrid in 2007 and again in Kazan, Russia, in 2011, it was stipulated that a number of occupied territories adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh would gradually be returned to Azerbaijan. Obstinacy prevailed however as the Armenian position radicalised, further entrenching the Azeris’ desire for revenge.

Eventually, as has been evident in recent years, the positions of both sides solidified and seemed devoted only to maintaining this precarious status quo. In Yerevan the concept of compromise eventually dissolved entirely. Any mention of concessions became synonymous with both the surrender of national identity and – given the stakes had been needlessly raised – the possibility of incurring an existential threat.

Radical rhetoric became the name of the game on both sides. It was naïve at best and dangerous at worst for Yerevan to expect that Baku would eventually back down. The Armenian side in particular was guilty of indulging in a romantic fantasy of invincibility, buoyed by its successes in the fighting between 1988 and 1994.

The leadership in Yerevan’s greatest and most damaging complacency however resided in its misplaced faith in Moscow. Granted, the two countries shared an old friendship, and are bound by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) defence pact of 2002, a military alliance of six former Soviet states. Moscow’s allegiance also appears to be on display in the shape of a military base in Gumri that stations 3,000 Russian troops.

However, the CSTO pact does not apply to the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The Armenian government proved willing to believe its own bravado in comfortably assuming that Russia would come to its aid when push came to shove. The short conflict of April 2016 should have been a wake-up call for Armenia. It provided ample evidence of both Azerbaijan’s technological superiority and Russia’s reluctance to back them to the hilt.

The Armenian leadership chronically overestimated its own strength and underestimated that of its adversary. Throughout this time, its political institutions were being gnawed away by corruption and poor governance. The leadership drummed up support for the Nagorno-Karabakh cause to distract attention from this fact, all the while propagandising the strength of its position to its population.

Henry Kissinger once remarked that the bargaining position of the victor always diminishes with time. Yerevan should have settled the long-term status of Nagorno-Karabakh from its position of strength. Instead, the Armenian leadership failed to push ahead with domestic reforms and overstretched its military. Armenia now finds itself in the worst of all possible scenarios.

The international community must now ensure that Azerbaijan lives up to its side of the agreement. Crucially, Armenian human rights must be upheld, and their cultural sites respected. But Yerevan must also be held to the highest of standards. The Armenian government has routinely failed its people. We must not allow Yerevan to exploit the sympathies of the wider world to the detriment of its population.

Franco Frattini is a former Foreign Minister of Italy (2002-2004 and 2008-2011) and European Commissioner (2004-2008).

Pashinyan appoints new deputy minister of health

Eduard Nalbandian

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 16:22, 8 December, 2020

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 8, ARMENPRESS. Gevorg Simonyan has been appointed deputy minister of healthcare of Armenia.

The respective decision has been signed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

According to the PM’s another decision, Shavarsh Grigoryan has been relieved from the position of deputy minister of healthcare.

Edited and Translated by Aneta Harutyunyan

Armenian FM calls attention to Azerbaijan’s barbaric treatment of POWs at meeting with Russian counterpart

Eduard Nalbandian
Panorama, Armenia
Dec 7 2020

"My first visit as foreign minister is in line with the spirit of Armenian-Russian relations," Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian told a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov after their talks in Moscow on Monday, underlining the partnership, cultural and historical ties between the two countries.

The Armenian diplomat highlighted that the war unleashed against the people of Artsakh by Azerbaijan with the support of Turkey and the active involvement of terrorist militants from the Middle East in late September was a new big shock for the region. Ayvazian thanked the Russian side and personally Sergey Lavrov for the great contribution and consistent efforts to the full establishment of the ceasefire in the conflict zone.

According to him, the difficult situation which emerged in the region requires assessments and solutions, which are possible through the prism of consolidation of the society and the Armenian people, clear efforts of Armenian state structures, a country with dynamic economy and high-level defense, and finally through the prism of a strong Armenian state in close cooperation with its partners and friends.

Ayvazian expressed hope that the discussions that started in Yerevan in November will continue.

"We must pay attention to issues such as the activities of Russian peacekeepers, the return of refugees, further steps to provide humanitarian assistance to the public, logistical issues, including the restoration of infrastructure and others," he said.

Ayvazian emphasized that the search for missing servicemen, exchange of prisoners of war and retrieval of victims' bodies are very sensitive issues, which require an urgent solution.

"This is especially important in light of numerous facts of barbaric – in the literal sense of the word – treatment of Armenian prisoners of war and not only. The preservation of Armenian religious sites is among those issues," the foreign minister said.


In Nagorno-Karabakh, an ancient rivalry is driving a modern war and the losses are mounting

Eduard Nalbandian
ABC News, Australia
Dec 5 2020
 
 
 
By Filippo Rossi
 
 
After a long, cold night on the frontline Sos and David returned to the building where they grew up and dropped their gear and AK-47 assault rifles to the floor, exhausted.
 
"The main enemy is panic. We teach that to our children," says Sos, 30, and the father of a four-year-old boy. "The most important thing is self-control."
 
For several days the Azerbaijan army has been besieging Sos and David's hometown of Shushi — as it is known in Armenian — or Shusha in Azeri.
 
The area Sos (pictured) and David are willing to die to defend is called Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)

In the background, mortars and cannons are rumbling and the war's frontline line sits just a few hundred metres away from their home. "Everything is getting worse. But we will not let them enter our city. We will die for Shushi and for Artsakh," says David, using the Armenian term for the contested region.
 
The area Sos and David are willing to die to defend is called Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan. Following war in the early 1990s this pocket of land is home mainly to ethnic Armenians and controlled by a separatist government supported by Armenia.
 
But the region remains disputed and on September 27 this year, fighting erupted again.
 
Azerbaijan will continue to retain the Armenian ethnic majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh.(ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser)
 
'We like peace'
 
Sos and his brother are ethnic Armenians. They were children during the first war and Sos remembers his father returning home with his rifle which seemed so huge and heavy back then.
 
David keeps a photograph of Sos's son in his pocket. They are both visibly traumatised by what they have seen.
 
"It is difficult to see so many bodies, especially when you lose a loved one or see family suffering," says Sos, who sent his wife and child to Armenia as soon as the fighting began.
 
"We don't want to kill anyone, we like peace, but when they attack us and threaten our families we are forced to resist. The longer the war lasts the more brutal it becomes."
 
But entrenched ethnic rivalry that goes back centuries can turn even the most peaceful person into a fighter.
 
Sos is well-educated, a computer programmer and graduate of the Yerevan Technology Institute. His brother David is a mathematician. A third brother fought on another frontline and even their mother joined the fight — baking bread for the soldiers before being forced to evacuate.
 
"When we saw our city being attacked we came back to defend it," says Sos. "We are ready to die for our motherland and our city."
 
But it wasn't to be. Over a few weeks of fierce fighting, and with support from Russia, the region was won back by Azerbaijan, displacing thousands of Armenians who live there.
 
The shelter is full of soldiers and civilians with guns. They have a table, a gas heater to cook on and some beds, but little more.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
A desperate last stand
 
Sos and David's hometown of Shushi, located on a rocky hill in the heart of the Artsakh-Nagorno-Karabakh region, is symbolic for both sides. An old Armenian saying states that "whoever controls Shushi, controls Karabakh". This was a decisive battle.
 
Shushi's residents, along with the Armenian army's reinforcements, have made a desperate last stand to defend the town from attacks by the powerful and technological advanced Azeri army.
 
As the battle for Shushi rages, Sos and David are the first line of defence. "I remember when we were children we used to play war in these streets," says Sos. "It breaks my heart to see them ravaged by conflict."
 
The shelter is full of soldiers and civilians with guns. They have a table, a gas heater to cook on and some beds, but little more.
 
The walls are protected with plastic to keep in the heat.
 
Suddenly, there is a loud explosion. "It's 50 metres from here," says Yuri, 60, a relative. "Stay in the shelter. Don't move.


 
Suddenly, there is a loud explosion, and Yuri (pictured) tells those around him not to move.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
"They will wait two minutes before shooting another one. It's their tactic," he tells the people who try to go out and check on the damage.
 
After a while, there is another explosion, just as Yuri predicted.
 
Sos and David run out from the shelter to join their positions.
 
They know the Armenian army faces a critical situation, but no one is ready to accept the bad turn the war has taken.
 
After a week-long siege, Azeri troops surrounded the town at the beginning of November. They sent in ground forces, supported by shelling from heavy artillery.
 
'A sniper almost killed me'
 
On the Armenian side of the city chaos rules.
 
From the separatist's capital city Stepanakert — known as Xhankendi in Azeri and just a few kilometres as the crow flies from Shushi — it is possible to see the bombs exploding and you can hear the sound of Kalashnikovs.
 
The small Soviet-styled Tabletka ambulances fill up the city's main hospital, one after the other, evacuating dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of badly injured soldiers.


 
Dozens of wounded arrived at the hospital.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
A soldier gets down in panic: "A sniper almost killed me," he screams, showing the scratch the bullet left on his neck. He walks around with red eyes. People try to calm him down.
 
A winding road connects the two cities. It is blanketed in fog and seems to mirror the Armenian defeat.
 
Soldiers walk along the side of the road. A sign of retreat? "It's hell up there," shouts one, but keeps moving, an RPG on his shoulder.
 
Further along the road ambulances lie flipped on their sides, then bloody bandages mixed with piles of empty ammunition boxes.
 
The road has been shelled and is dirty and torn up by tank tracks.
 
A winding road connects the two cities. It is blanketed in fog and seems to mirror the Armenian defeat.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
Snipers are silent killers.
 
"They are everywhere," says Sos, on the phone the next day.
 
A few hours after our phone call, the Armenian government decided on what for many is the worst-case scenario: The complete evacuation of Stepanakert.
 
It was November 7 and the city was all but surrounded by Azeri fighters.
 
Soldiers wait in Stepanakert the night before the evacuation of the city.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
Civilians gathered quickly what possessions they can before jumping in cars heading for the Armenian border. Traffic lines up for kilometres.
 
Despite their best intentions rising panic is all but impossible to control. Everyone is trying to escape fast.
 
Armenian artillery batteries reposition outside the city and soldiers set up last-minute checkpoints to make sure no male citizen below 58 is leaving. They will have to stay and defend the town.
 
'We are out of the city'
 
Sos's second phone call two days later, on November 9, puts an end to all Armenian hopes: "Me and David are good. But Shushi is lost. We are out of the city".
 
The news is astonishing. Nagorno Karabakh's most symbolic town has fallen into Azeri hands.
 
The Armenian government keeps denying what has happened but the Azeri leaders publish a video showing Azeri flags waving over Shushi's city hall.
 
From the hill, Stepanakert is an easy target. The war may be over.
 
Later that day, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announces a new ceasefire with Azerbaijan, brokered by Russia, which will hold the re-conquered territories and will hand over control of three more regions occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.
 
The deal will cut off what remains of Nagorno Karabakh's territories from direct connection with Armenia.
 
"We had no other choice but to sign. If we didn't stop the hostilities we would have suffered much more human and territorial losses," Pashinyan argued.

 
Demonstrators storm the parliament building in Yerevan, Armenia's capital city and their rage feels unstoppable.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
Rage feels unstoppable
 
Officially, more than 2,300 Armenian soldiers lost their lives.
 
The defeat is hard for the Armenians to digest. Rage feels as if it will become unstoppable. Demonstrators storm the parliament building in Yerevan, Armenia's capital city.
 
The next day, protestors line front of the building to call for the Prime Minister's resignation.
 
"This is a betrayal. What for did all those young soldiers die for?" asks Vaghe, 52. "It makes no sense to finish a war like this. We have to keep fighting."
 
Officially, more than 2,300 Armenian soldiers have lost their lives defending the country.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
On the other side is Susannah, 66. She was forced to evacuate Stepanakert a few days earlier.
 
"I demand the immediate resumption of all the hostilities and Pashinyan's resignation," she screams. "He made an agreement while people were sleeping."
 
She is traumatised. She has been forced to leave her home with little warning.
 
Susannah was forced to evacuate her home.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
But on the same day some commanders, like Artur Grigoryan, couldn't believe the Government's decision.
 
Grigoryan, 40, is a lieutenant with the Armenian special forces who fought in Shushi.
 
"The town is still under our control," he says, defying the evidence. "If the Prime Minister will not find a solution, we will find it by ourselves. We are ready for anything."
 
Yerevan and many other cities are now full of Karabakh refugees who are relying on benefactors and public aid to survive.
 
Evelyna, 62, a widow and mother of three with a son at the frontline, was living in a small village in the south which fell into Azeri hands two weeks after the war started.
 
"When they stormed into the village, we had no other choice but to leave. I had no time to gather anything," she says, gesturing to her clothes to indicate she left empty-handed.
 
"I don't know what I will do now. Our houses are burnt down".
 
Evelyna will probably never see her belongings again.
 
'Thank God I didn't renovate'
 
As a consequence of Putin's brokered agreement, the region of Kalbajar was the first region scheduled to return to Azerbaijan in mid-November.
 
It is mountainous and remote. This region, too, is symbolic for both sides.
 
However with such short notice to evacuate the whole territory, a 10-day extension was agreed.
 
But it was too late. As soon as the agreement was made public, chaos has ruled in Kalbajar's valleys.
 
People packed what they could and then burnt down their own houses.
 
They have removed metal sheets from the rooves and the wooden planks from the ground.
 
Beds, tables, chairs and clothes were piled on trucks and cars. Some tied horses behind their vehicles and others led their sheep and cattle along the cold and winding mountain pass — the only route to Armenia.
 
"You have to burn it," says one man to his wife.
 
"I cannot," she replies. "My hands will not allow me".
 
"Do it," he repeats.
 
Together, they throw a gas-filled plastic bottle over the wooden parts of their house.
 
Soon, smoke rises to the sky from dozens of people's homes.
 
People packed what they could and then burnt down their own houses.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
"Thank God I didn't renovate my bathroom. I would have wasted my money," says an old man sarcastically as he gathers some cables and an antenna. "Before going tonight, I will burn it".
 
Behind him, his neighbour's house is ravaged by flames.
 
'I couldn't stop crying. I cannot sleep'
 
The region of Kelbajar was the first to be evacuated(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
The Kalbajar district is witnessing its second mass exodus in less than three decades.
 
During the first war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s, thousands of Azeris were forced out after losing the region.
 
The rubble of their homes remain, a testament to their presence, next to new Armenian homes. Now the story is repeating itself the other way around.
 
Anahit lives in Bersham village, next to the Terter river.
 
She watches on, as her husband removes the roof of their home and loads a small truck with their belongings. The ground is covered with clothes.
 
Anahit watches her husband remove the roof of their home and load a small truck with their belongings.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
"We've been living here for more than two years," she says. "I don't know what we will do now. We will take our cows and go to Armenia.
 
"When I heard about the agreement I couldn't stop crying. I cannot sleep. What are we going to do?" she says.
 
Anahit and her husband are an example of the many Armenian families who came to the region as part of a government program to repopulate Kalbajar after 1994.
 
"They gave us free electricity, free building material for the house. We discovered that there was the chance and we took it," she says.
 
Many Armenian citizens from disadvantaged communities took this step, unaware of the potential consequences or the way they were being caught up in the government's political goal to colonise the region.
 

A man looks around his destroyed home.(ABC News: Filippo Rossi)
 
A never-ending revenge
 
In the region's main town, Qartvachar, the sound of people escaping breaks the usual silence of this beautiful region.
 
Many looters sneak in silently from Armenia to steal what others have left behind.
 
"These are our lands. Historical monuments can prove it," says Mariam, 38. "I will leave only by force."
 
She has invested everything in a small guesthouse next to her home.
 
"I already took off the windows in case we have to go," she says. Behind her, a soldier removes a public sign from the municipality. It will not be needed any longer.
 
Kalbajar burns. Queues of traffic to trying to escape of the region stretches for kilometres.
 
Some people dismantle entire electrical power stations. Others cut down trees with a plan to resell the wood in Armenia or use it to heat their homes as winter descends.
 
As the army steadily evacuates tanks and troops from the region Russian peacekeepers enter from the other direction to take their positions.
 
Kalbajar is the symbol of Armenian defeat: not only have people lost their homes but cultural heritage is now lost to their enemy.
 
With towns and villages lost, and accusations of war crimes on both sides, the foundations of a never-ending cycle remain in place.
 
 
 

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 12/05/2020

Eduard Nalbandian 
                                        Saturday, 

Opposition Sets Ultimatum For Armenian PM To Resign


Armenia -- Opposition supporters demonstrate at Liberty Square in Yerevan, 
December 5, 2020.

A coalition of 16 Armenian opposition parties gave Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian until Tuesday to step down or face nationwide protests as it again 
rallied thousands of supporters in Yerevan on Saturday.

Holding their biggest rally so far, opposition leaders stood by their demands 
for the formation of an interim government and conduct of snap general 
elections. They again blamed Pashinian for sweeping Armenian territorial losses 
in and around Nagorno-Karabakh suffered during the recent war with Azerbaijan.

The anti-government street protests were sparked by a Russian-brokered ceasefire 
that stopped the six-week war on November 10. The opposition forces accuse 
Pashinian’s government of mishandling the war and capitulating to Baku.

They held their latest demonstration three days after nominating veteran 
politician Vazgen Manukian as a caretaker prime minister who they believe should 
prepare for and hold the elections within a year.

“We could have prevented the war,” Manukian told thousands of people who 
gathered in Yerevan’s Liberty Square. “We could have won the war. We could have 
ended the war earlier and with minor losses.”

Manukian made clear that his interim administration would not walk away from the 
Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire agreement. He said it would seek instead to 
ensure that the agreement’s ambiguous provisions are interpreted in Armenia’s 
favor.

The crowd then marched to Pashinian’s official residence tightly guarded by riot 
police and other security forces.

Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leader of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary 
Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), read out the opposition ultimatum there. “Nikol 
must go. Period,” he said.

Saghatelian warned that the opposition will launch a nationwide campaign of 
“civil disobedience” if Pashinian fails to announce his resignation by Tuesday 
noon.

The idea of an interim government and fresh elections is also backed by 
President Armen Sarkissian and a growing number of public figures. Pashinian has 
rejected it so far.

The prime minister again signaled no plans to resign or agree to snap polls in a 
televised address to the nation aired on Saturday morning. He said he is not 
clinging to power and only wants to ensure that “the people stay in power.”

Pashinian emphasized the fact that Armenia’s last parliamentary elections, held 
in December 2018 and won by his My Step bloc, were widely recognized as 
democratic. In an apparent reference to the country’s former leaders, he said 
that “some circles” want to come to power through a fraudulent vote.

President Sarkissian insisted, meanwhile, that Armenia is in a “deep post-war 
crisis.” “The government cannot act in the spirit of the [public] mood of 2018,” 
he said in a statement issued later in the day. “Today’s reality is completely 
different.”



Kocharian, Pashinian Engage In Bitter War Of Words


Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian attends hearings at the Court of 
Appeals, Yerevan, December 9, 2019.

Former President Robert Kocharian provoked a furious response from Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian on Saturday after joining the Armenian opposition in 
blaming him for the outcome of the Nagorno-Karabakh war and demanding his 
resignation.

In a televised interview aired late on Friday, Kocharian charged that 
Pashinian’s government made the war “inevitable” with reckless diplomacy and 
miscalculations of Armenia’s military potential and needs. He said its “grave 
blunders” committed during the war predetermined Azerbaijan’s victory.

The sweeping territorial losses suffered by the Armenian side stripped Pashinian 
of his legitimacy, Kocharian told the Fifth Channel TV station in his first 
public remarks made since the outbreak of the six-week war stopped by a 
Russian-brokered ceasefire on November 10.

“I can recall only one case in history where a state lost [a war] but did not 
change its government,” he said. “It was [after] the first war in Iraq in 1991. 
Saddam Hussein stayed in power, using his entire totalitarian system. He ended 
up badly: they hanged him.”

“It is only natural that a defeated government must be replaced,” added the man 
who ruled Armenia from 1998-2008.

Pashinian hit back at Kocharian and Armenia’s other former leaders in a 
televised address to the nation aired the following morning.

“We failed not in diplomacy but in our attempts to offset diplomatic failures of 
the last 20-25 years,” he said.

Pashinian claimed that Karabakh peace proposals made by the United States, 
Russia and France during and after Kocharian’s rule were not favorable for 
Armenia and Karabakh. He went on to accuse the country’s former rulers of not 
doing enough to strengthen the Armenian military and illegally enriching 
themselves instead.

“The reason for our failure is that Armenia was a corrupt state for at least 25 
years,” declared the embattled prime minister.


Armenia - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian addresses the nation, Yerevan, 
December 5, 2020.

The bitter war of words came amid continuing calls for Pashinian’s resignation 
and snap general elections voiced by opposition groups, a growing number of 
public figures and even President Armen Sarkissian. The premier has rejected 
them, saying that he is still trusted by most Armenians.

Kocharian urged his supporters to participate in ongoing anti-government 
demonstrations organized by a coalition of 16 opposition parties. He backed an 
interim prime minister nominated by them earlier this week.

In that context, the 66-year-old ex-president did not deny having political 
ambitions. “I will try to do everything in my power to help the country overcome 
this difficult period,” he said.

Kocharian has been standing trial on corruption and coup charges that were 
leveled against him shortly after Pashinian swept to power in the “Velvet 
Revolution” of April-May 2018. He rejects the accusations as politically 
motivated.

Russia has also criticized the criminal proceedings. Russian President Vladimir 
Putin has repeatedly made a point of congratulating Kocharian on his birthday 
anniversaries and praising his legacy.

Kocharian on Friday also made a case for Armenia’s “much deeper integration” 
with Russia. He insisted that only Russia can help his country rearm its armed 
forces and confront new security challenges in the aftermath of the Karabakh 
war. This is why, he said, the next Armenian government should be not only more 
competent but also fully trusted by Moscow.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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