Author: Janet Ekmekjian

The latest round of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan will come as little surprise to most. After all, the two states have been locked in various levels of conflict for three decades, ranging from low-level exchanges of fire to the full-scale warfare that engulfed the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2020.

Yet the latest bout marks a major escalation, one that, if allowed to continue, could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and even a regional war.

Just after midnight on Tuesday, September 13, Azerbaijani forces launched a wide-ranging assault on Armenian positions across nearly 200 kilometers of their shared border. The offensive included drones, artillery and armored vehicles, and Azerbaijani strikes reached targets up to 40km inside Armenia.

Artillery fire rained down upon Armenian towns and villages, including the resort town of Jermuk, destroying civilian homes and apartment blocks.

By the time fighting stopped with a tenuous ceasefire on Wednesday evening, more than 200 soldiers had been killed (135 from Armenia, 71 from Azerbaijan), 7,500 Armenian civilians had been displaced, and Azerbaijani troops had advanced more than seven kilometers into Armenia.

There was little doubt who started the fighting. Azerbaijan initially claimed that it was merely responding to Armenian “provocations” – a claim echoed by its ally, Turkey – but largely dropped this rhetoric in the following days in favor of other justifications.

The same pattern has been seen repeatedly in the past two years, including during the 2020 war – in which a long-prepared assault was initially billed as a “counteroffensive” – and Azerbaijan’s attack last month on Armenian positions in the Lachin corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenia proper.

The goals of the assault were not immediately clear, but they fit with Azerbaijani policy since the end of the 2020 war.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev believes Armenia made a major mistake when it failed to force his country to sign a full treaty enshrining the gains from Armenia’s victory in the First Karabakh War, which ended in 1994.

Aliyev is determined not to repeat his enemy’s error. Instead, he is seeking to force Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to the table to sign a document that would relinquish what remains of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to Azerbaijani control.

Similarly, Aliyev wants Armenia to give his forces exclusive control over a sovereign corridor connecting mainland Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhchivan – something he claims Azerbaijan is owed as a result of a false interpretation of the final clause of the 2020 ceasefire agreement.

Perhaps most important of all, the attacks occurred simply because they could. With Russia bogged down in Ukraine and other powers in no position to intervene, Aliyev took the chance to humiliate his Armenian enemies and demonstrate Azerbaijan’s continued primacy on the battlefield.

The Russian absence from all of this has been striking. Russia is a major ally to Armenia and where Moscow once wielded enough influence over Azerbaijan to halt its aggression, bringing the 2016 “April War” to an end in just four days, it now appears helpless before Baku.

The present offensive took place just days after Moscow’s forces were routed by Ukraine in the Kharkiv region, reinforcing growing perceptions of Russian impotence. The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a defensive bloc including Armenia and four other former Soviet states, was meanwhile fully exposed as a paper tiger after failing to honor Armenia’s invocation of the mutual defense clause its charter contains.

With Russia ever more politically and economically isolated, Vladimir Putin has evidently decided there is nothing to be gained by standing up to Azerbaijan or Turkey, two countries whose friendly relations he desperately needs.

That leaves the response of other powers. The European Union has provided little of anything beyond soft calls for “restraint by both sides.” Many Armenians rightfully point to a July visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Baku, where she posed beaming for the cameras alongside Aliyev to sign a gas deal, as further emboldening Azerbaijan’s actions.

The EU’s search for alternative energy partners amid its break with Russia has left Brussels loath to condemn, let alone punish, Baku’s brazen aggression.

Iran, meanwhile, the other major state in the region, has repeatedly stated that it considers any change in the borders of the region “unacceptable,” especially anything that would cause it to lose its transit corridor through Armenia to the Black Sea (via Georgia). It remains unclear, however, whether Tehran is willing to do anything tangible that might affect Baku’s calculus.

That leaves the United States. As the only other actor capable of influencing Aliyev’s appetite, Washington’s response has been surprisingly robust. State Department officials have shifted their tone from the usual calls for restraint from both sides and placed the blame for the fighting unequivocally upon Baku.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Armenia last weekend where she condemned Azerbaijan’s “illegal and deadly attacks.” It will require more than just words to cow Aliyev, but tangible measures may be forthcoming: By all accounts, it was American pressure that persuaded Baku to cease its offensive last Wednesday night.

The reality is, however, that more attacks are probably coming. Azerbaijan, which never confirmed the ceasefire itself, spent the next few days spreading news of alleged Armenian “saboteur” groups being discovered and destroyed, including in the enclave of Nakhchivan, from where Armenia has warned of a new offensive.

Azerbaijani officials started to call openly for a “buffer zone” on Armenian territory, one that would be large enough for the settlement of those displaced by the fighting.

Pelosi’s visit made it clear that the US is watching the region closely and would use levers at its disposal to dissuade Azerbaijan from attacking again. One must hope they are enough.

This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/09/what-azerbaijans-armenia-assault-says-about-new-world-order/

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Azerbaijani forces shelled Armenia’s territory Tuesday and killed at least 49 Armenian soldiers, Armenia’s prime minister said, a large-scale attack that fueled fears of broader hostilities breaking out between the longtime adversaries.

The hostilities erupted minutes after midnight, with Azerbaijani forces unleashing an artillery barrage and drone attacks in many sections of Armenian territory, according to the Armenian Defense Ministry.

The ministry said fighting continued during the day despite Russia’s attempt to broker a quick cease-fire. It noted that the shelling grew less intense but said Azerbaijani troops still were trying to advance into Armenian territory.

The ministry added that the Azerbaijani shelling damaged civilian infrastructure and also wounded an unspecified number of people.

Azerbaijan charged that its forces returned fire in response to “large-scale provocations” by the Armenian military, claiming that the Armenian troops planted mines and repeatedly fired on Azerbaijani military positions, resulting in unspecified casualties and damage to military infrastructure.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week war in 2020 that killed more than 6,600 people and ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal. Moscow, which deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal, has sought to maintain friendly ties with both ex-Soviet nations.

Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, held a meeting with military officials to discuss the situation. “It was noted that the responsibility for the current tension rests squarely with the political leadership of Armenia,” his office said.

Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, also placed the blame for the violence on Armenia. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called for Yerevan to halt its “provocations,” and Defense Minister Hulusi Akar condemned “Armenia’s aggressive attitude and provocative actions.”

Speaking in parliament early Tuesday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Azerbaijani shelling killed at least 49 Armenian soldiers. He squarely rejected the Azerbaijani claim that it was responding to Armenian provocations.

The governor of Gegharkunik province, one of the regions that came under Azerbaijani shelling, said there was a 40-minute lull in the fighting, apparently reflecting Moscow’s attempt to negotiate a truce, before it later resumed.

The governor, Karen Sarkisyan, said that four Armenian troops in his region were killed and another 43 were wounded by the shelling.

As the fighting raged overnight, Pashinyan quickly called Russian President Vladimir Putin and later also had phone calls with French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Charles Michel, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss the hostilities.

Speaking in parliament, Pashinyan noted that the Azerbaijani action followed his recent European Union-brokered talks with Aliyev in Brussels that revealed what he described as Azerbaijan’s uncompromising stand.

The Armenian government said it would officially ask Russia for assistance under a friendship treaty between the countries and also appeal to the United Nations and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated security alliance of ex-Soviet nations that includes Armenia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refrained from comment on Armenia’s request but added during a conference call with reporters that Putin was “taking every effort to help de-escalate tensions.”

The Armenian Foreign Ministry said top officials from the security grouping held a meeting to discuss the fighting. Armenia’s representative at the grouping emphasized during the meeting that Yerevan expects its allies to take “efficient collective steps to ensure security, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Armenia.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry urged both parties “to refrain from further escalation and show restraint.”

Moscow has engaged in a delicate balancing act, maintaining strong economic and security ties with Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base, while also developing close cooperation with oil-rich Azerbaijan.

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Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

https://apnews.com/article/azerbaijan-armenia-1aa2ec4e28135a8667823476c391e3ea

Armenian Christians have written to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to say they are dissatisfied with his Islamo-nationalist government not making good its promise to non-Muslims by giving them freedom to establish and run their religious and social institutions.

Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Sahak II Masalyan in a letter to Erdogan, expressed discomfort and growing dissatisfaction among Armenians in Turkey following a new regulation on the administrative management of foundations linked to non-Muslim faith communities.

Patriarch Sahak's letter was published by the local media, the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos .

In that letter Patriarch Sahak proposes to provide all foundations with clear guidelines setting out the criteria for submitting electoral lists on a regional basis in accordance with the approved regulations.

The text of the new regulation for the election of the governing bodies of the foundations have already been published in Turkey's Official Gazette. 

The publication of the new rule was intended to end a long period of deadlock and legislative uncertainty that in recent years hampered and partially prevented the normal functioning of these bodies for the benefit of non-Muslim communities in Turkey. 

This regulation is an issue of vital importance for local Christian communities such as Armenians and Assyrians, whose places of worship — many of them historic –, other real estate and public institutions are entrusted to and managed by foundations.

This new initiative aims to alert Turkey's highest civil authority to the possibility that the growing unease among Turkey's Armenian communities could lead to an outright boycott of the electoral procedures used to allocate managerial and administrative posts within each individual foundation.

Representatives of the local religious communities of religious minorities, had since the first draft, criticized the new provisions. 

They had objected to the new territorial subdivision of the constituencies for the elections for the renewal of the boards of each foundation and for the requirement that foundations that manage hospitals and other health facilities are subject to the control of the Ministry of Health.

The previous electoral regulation for the top management of foundations had been suspended in 2013, after the government chose to establish new procedures to make the management of real estate more functional and transparent. 

The system of foundations is the legal instrument through which Turkish institutions regulate their relations with non-Muslim religious communities. 

It is still based on the Peace Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923 by Turkey and the Entente powers (British Empire, France and Russian Empire) victorious from the First World War.