Author: Garnik Tadevosian

                                        Monday, 


Vehicles ‘Escorted By Armenian Border Guards’ On Azeri-Controlled Road

        • Susan Badalian

An Azerbaijani checkpoint set up at on the main road conneting Armeia to Iran, 
September 14, 2021.


Armenian border guards have reportedly begun escorting Armenian vehicles driving 
along an Azerbaijani-controlled section of the main highway that connects 
Armenia to Iran.

The 21-kilometer section is part of contested border areas along Armenia’s 
Syunik province which were controversially handed over Azerbaijan following last 
year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijani forces set up a checkpoint there on September 12 to check and tax 
Iranian commercial trucks transporting cargo to and from Armenia. The move 
caused serious disruptions in Armenian-Iranian trade operations.

Officials in Syunik have also accused masked Azerbaijani officers of bullying 
some Armenian drivers and their passengers at the same section of the road that 
also connects the Syunik towns of Goris and Kapan.

Two Armenian men were detained by Azerbaijani authorities in the area in unclear 
circumstances on Saturday. Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) said they 
“deviated” from the highway.

Both men were set free late on Sunday night as a result of what the NSS 
described as joint efforts of Armenian as well as Russian border guards deployed 
in Syunik.

“The Goris-Kapan highway is safe,” an NSS officer said on Monday, answering a 
call to the security agency’s hotline. “They [the travellers] are escorted right 
now. So no problems arise at that four-kilometer stretch.”

The security escorts began on Sunday morning, according to the NSS.

Two Iranian truck drivers were arrested at the Azerbaijani checkpoint last week 
for allegedly travelling to Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku’s permission. The 
Iranian Foreign Ministry called for their immediate release on Sunday.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi discussed the road crisis with Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian at a meeting held in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe on Friday.



Pashinian Congratulates Putin On Election Win


Russia - A man casts his ballot during parliamentary and local elections at a 
polling station in St. Petersburg, Russia, September 18, 2021.


Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Monday congratulated Russian President 
Vladimir Putin on the Kremlin-backed United Russia party’s “convincing” victory 
in parliamentary elections held over the weekend.

“The election results testify to support shown by citizens of Russia for 
policies consistently implemented by the country’s political leadership,” 
Pashinian said in a congratulatory message publicized by his office.

He expressed confidence that “close cooperation” between the newly elected State 
Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, and Armenia’s National Assembly 
will help to “advance the Russian-Armenian alliance.”

With 99.7 percent of ballots counted, the Russian Central Election Commission 
said United Russia, which backs Putin, won 49.84 percent of the vote. Its 
closest rival, the Communist Party, had 18.95 percent, and the nationalist 
Liberal Democratic Party received 7.5 percent.

United Russia Secretary-General Andrei Turchak said the party expects to control 
315 of the Duma's 450 seats, giving it a comfortable two-thirds majority that 
continues to allow it to change the constitution.

The three-day elections were marred by allegations of voting irregularities and 
ballot tampering.

An independent monitoring agency called them "one of the dirtiest" elections in 
Russian history.

Germany said on Monday that the allegations must be taken “seriously and should 
be clarified” and the European Union denounced the climate of "intimidation" in 
the run up to the vote.

The vote is widely seen as an important part of Putin’s efforts to cement his 
grip on power ahead of a possible run in the 2024 presidential election, making 
control of the State Duma key.



Transport Corridors ‘Not Discussed’ In Armenian-Azeri Talks

        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk speaks with journalists 
during a business forum in Yerevan, .


Armenia and Azerbaijan have not discussed possible transport corridors in 
Russian-mediated talks on restoring economic links between them after last 
year’s war, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said on Monday.

The Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani governments set up in January a trilateral 
working group to try to work out practical modalities of opening the 
Armenian-Azerbaijani border for commercial traffic. The task force co-headed by 
Overchuk and his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts has met regularly in 
Moscow since then.

A Russian-brokered ceasefire deal that stopped the six-week war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh last November commits Armenia to opening rail and road links 
between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave. Armenia should be able, for its 
part, to use Azerbaijani territory as a transit route for cargo shipments to and 
from Russia and Iran.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that the deal 
envisages a permanent land “corridor” that will connect Nakhichevan to the rest 
of Azerbaijan via Armenia’s Syunik province. He has threatened to forcibly open 
such a corridor if Yerevan continues to oppose its creation.

Armenian leaders have denounced Aliyev’s threats as territorial claims, saying 
that the truce accord only calls for transport links between the two South 
Caucasus states.

“We don’t have corridors [on the working group’s agenda,]” Overchuk told 
journalists while attending a Russian-Armenian business forum in Yerevan. He 
said that no such issue is being discussed by the trilateral group.

“We discuss the issue of economic unblocking. The parties have been exchanging 
views,” added Overchuk.

The group’s Armenian co-chair, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian, said 
Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian officials have been exploring “possible 
infrastructure solutions” and a legal framework for customs and other border 
controls. He did not give any details.

“We are very interested in the opening of transport links because we see that as 
an opportunity to overcome the blockade in which Armenia has been more than 25 
years,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian told Overchuk later in the day. He said 
he hopes that the ongoing talks will yield “concrete decisions.”



Pashinian Said To Seek Meeting With Turkey’s Erdogan

        • Heghine Buniatian
        • Tatevik Sargsian
        • Nane Sahakian

CYPRUS -- Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the Turkish Cypriot 
Parliament, in Nicosia, July 19, 2021.


Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Armenian Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian has offered to meet with him for talks on improving 
Turkish-Armenian relations.

Erdogan appeared to make such talks conditional on Armenia agreeing to open a 
transport corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave.

“It is bewildering that on the one hand Pashinian is saying that the Armenian 
side is not discussing that [corridor] issue and on the other expressing a 
desire to meet with me,” he said. “If he wants to meet with Tayyip Erdogan then 
clear steps will have to be taken.”

Erdogan said that the offer was communicated to him by Georgian Prime Minister 
Irakli Gharibashvili. The latter met with Pashinian in Tbilisi on September 8.

Pashinian did not explicitly deny making such an offer when he reacted to 
Erdogan’s remarks through his spokeswoman, Mane Gevorgian, on Monday.

“As of now, there have been no contacts between Armenian and Turkish officials, 
even though the Armenian government is prepared for such contacts,” Gevorgian 
told the Armenpress news agency. “In the event of such productive work, Armenia 
will also be ready for meetings at a high and the highest level.”

Gevorgian also criticized Erdogan’s calls for the “Nakhichevan corridor,” saying 
that such statements run counter to efforts to establish “peace and stability 
and overcome the atmosphere of enmity in the region.” She said that Armenia 
stands for the opening of all regional transport links.

Pashinian spoke on August 27 of “some positive signals” sent by the Turkish 
government to Yerevan and said his administration is ready to reciprocate them.

Erdogan responded by saying that Ankara is open to normalizing Turkish-Armenian 
relations. But he cited in that context Azerbaijan’s demands for a formal 
Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinian described Erdogan’s statements as encouraging and reiterated his 
readiness to embark on a dialogue with Ankara hours before flying to Tbilisi on 
September 8.


GEORGIA -- Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili (L) and his Armenian 
counterpart Nikol Pashinian attend official welcoming ceremony in Tbilisi, 
September 8, 2021

Armenian opposition leaders and some analysts say Ankara continues to link the 
normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations to a resolution of the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict favorable to Baku. They say the Turks also want 
Yerevan to stop campaigning for a greater international recognition of the 1915 
Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

Erdogan expressed hope on Sunday that the “problem between Armenia and 
Azerbaijan will be overcome through the opening of corridors.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev threatened earlier this year to forcibly open 
a corridor to Nakhichevan through Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province 
repeatedly described by him as “historical Azerbaijani lands.” Yerevan strongly 
condemned the threat.

A Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement that stopped last year’s war in Karabakh 
commits Armenia to opening rail and road links between Nakhichevan and the rest 
of Azerbaijan. Armenia should be able, for its part, to use Azerbaijani 
territory as a transit route for cargo shipments to and from Russia and Iran.

Armenian leaders maintain that the agreement does not call for the creation of a 
permanent land corridor for Nakhichevan. The Azerbaijani region also borders 
Turkey.

Turkey provided decisive military assistance to Azerbaijan during the six-week 
war in Karabakh. Armenia says that Turkish military personnel participated in 
the hostilities on the Azerbaijani side along with thousands of mercenaries 
recruited in Syria’s Turkish-controlled northern regions.


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