Author: Jhanna Virabian

Politico



The EU risks becoming irrelevant in conflicts in its wider neighborhood.

By Nicu Popescu


After six weeks of fighting over the disputed region of
Nagorno-Karabakh — and several failed cease-fires — Russia has
mediated a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan that appears likely to
hold.

With the conflict now officially re-frozen, the situation has yielded
two clear winners: Russia and Turkey, who flexed their muscle in the
region while the European Union sat on the sidelines, appearing
increasingly irrelevant in its own neighborhood.

Unless the EU rethinks its strategy in the region, it seems relegated
to observing as others take charge.

The Russia-brokered deal bears striking resemblance to what Armenia,
Azerbaijan and the international community agreed would be a
reasonable compromise, under the so-called Madrid Principles a decade
ago.

The main difference is that it is being implement by military force,
not diplomats or politicians.

As part of the deal, Russia will deploy some 2,000 peacekeepers,
ensuring that Nagorno-Karabakh will have a Russian-protected land
connection to Armenia, and that Azerbaijan will have Russian-protected
communication lines and transport links through Armenia to the Azeri
exclave of Nakhchivan.

But if Azerbaijan might seem the victor and Armenia the loser, the
situation is more complicated for both.

For Baku, this is more of a Faustian bargain than a victory.
Azerbaijan acquired seven territories around Nagorno-Karabakh,
previously occupied by Armenia, and will get to keep the territorial
gains it made in the enclave, but will have to accept constraints on
its future foreign policy and security.

With Russian military presence on what is internationally recognized
as Azerbaijan’s territory, and Russian security personnel ensuring
Azerbaijani access to its exclave in Nakhchivan, Moscow suddenly
acquires much more security leverage in the country.

Nagorno-Karabakh will now look more like Georgia’s secessionist
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia before 2008. Georgia’s two
separatist regions have long been geopolitically convenient conflict
zones that allowed Russia to raise or lower the security temperature
to influence domestic politics and the security situation in Georgia.

Azerbaijan has joined the club now. In the short term, this will lead
to an Azeri-Russian honeymoon but could become a source of future
instability and acrimony in Moscow-Baku relations.

Armenia, meanwhile, retains de facto control of part of
Nagorno-Karabakh, and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers on the
ground makes the country less vulnerable to future conflagrations.

As a result, however, Armenia finds itself in the much more difficult
situation of having dramatically increased its already high dependence
on Moscow, with what remains of Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh
now indefensible without Russia. Yerevan now faces the possibility
that Russia will push it even harder into making painful concessions
in domestic or foreign policy.

The real winners of the latest flare-up over Nagorno-Karabakh,
ultimately, are Turkey and Russia. Moscow has tightened the screws of
its control of Armenia and the country’s domestic and foreign
policies. It also has much more military and security leverage on
future developments in Azerbaijan.

Turkey also has cause for celebration. Its ally Azerbaijan re-acquired
its seven districts and part of Nagorno-Karabakh thanks in large part
to Turkish support. The Turkish military and Turkish-made drones got
good publicity, as did Turkey’s credibility as a power that truly
supports its allies (unlike Russia). And despite Turkey’s bold
military maneuvering, Ankara and Moscow’s capacity to remain on good
terms remained unshaken.

None of the above bodes well for the EU’s own foreign policy and
international profile.

Foreign policymaking in the EU’s wider neighborhood has become
increasingly militarized. The key players in the region are not EU
countries; instead Turkey, Russia and now Azerbaijan increasingly see
bold military action as an efficient and sure way to success, from the
South Caucasus to Syria and Libya.

As long as the EU continues to focus almost exclusively on diplomatic
and economic means to exercise its power in its neighborhood, this
trend will continue.

There is no quick way out of this irrelevance for the EU. Still, short
of sending military troops and inserting itself into every military
imbroglio on its periphery, there is another possible way forward.

The EU must start developing military, intelligence and cybersecurity
partnerships with several countries around its eastern and southern
flanks. It needs to become a power that can exert influence in the
security realm, in addition to its political and economic clout. Only
then, with time, will the EU’s voice be better heard where it matters
most.

*
Nicu Popescu is director of the Wider Europe programme at the European
Council of Foreign Relations.
*


 

                                        Thursday, November 5, 2020

Armenia Prioritizes Ceasefire Verification Mechanisms For Karabakh

        • Tatevik Lazarian

Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian (archive photo)

Armenia believes the introduction of mechanisms for the verification of a 
possible future ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh is a priority at the moment.

Speaking to reporters while attending a budget discussion session in the 
Armenian parliament on Thursday, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian 
said that work in this direction is currently underway.

Armenia and Azerbaijan three times reached ceasefire agreements since the 
current armed conflict broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 27. But the 
October 10, 17 and 26 ceasefires brokered by Russia, France and the United 
States, respectively, did not hold, with each side accusing the other of 
violating the deals reached with the mediation of the three co-chair countries 
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group.

Mnatsakanian said today that verification mechanisms were important in this view 
even if no ceasefire has been achieved yet.

“The introduction of a verification system will make it possible to carry out 
this function more effectively. In this sense, the work is being pursued today 
as well. And we need to achieve that,” he told reporters.

Mnatsakanian described ceasefire verification mechanisms as a priority issue 
today. “Under the direction of Turkey, Azerbaijan has violated the reached 
agreements three times, but this does not mean that the work on establishing a 
ceasefire will not continue. It does not follow from this that we will stop 
working on establishing a ceasefire, and we will be working not alone, but also 
with the co-chairs,” he said.

Mnatsakanian said that the basis of the current work is the four points 
expressed in the joint statement of the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan 
and Russia that was published after nearly 11-hour-long talks in Moscow on 
October 10.

In that joint statement, the three ministers announced an imminent ceasefire 
which eventually did not hold “for the humanitarian purposes of exchanging 
prisoners of war and other captives and bodies of the dead.”

The statement said that while “concrete parameters of the ceasefire regime will 
be agreed upon additionally,” Baku and Yerevan were “embarking on substantive 
negotiations with the aim of rapidly achieving a peaceful settlement.” It also 
made it clear that the talks will be held “on the basis of the basic principles 
of settlement.”

It was an apparent reference to a framework peace accord that was first drafted 
by the Russian, French and U.S. co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group in 2007 and 
has been repeatedly modified since then. The conflicting parties have for years 
disagreed on some key elements of the proposed deal.

Amid stalled negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, fighting continues 
unabated in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.

Armenia-backed ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh claimed to have 
repulsed attacks by Azerbaijani armed forces in several directions of the 
frontline, including in the east, on Thursday. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan gave a 
different account of the developments along the frontlines, claiming that its 
armed forces have been making more gains on the ground.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto ethnic Armenian leader Arayik Harutiunian on 
Thursday reportedly visited Shushi (Shusha), a strategic town sitting on a 
mountaintop and overlooking the region’s capital Stepanakert.

In a Facebook post Harutiunian said that in Shushi he met with defenders of the 
town “to discuss the strategy of the struggle against the numerous forces of the 
enemy.”

He said “all possible efforts are being made to keep the stronghold town 
impregnable.”



France Raps Turkey’s ‘Aggressive Actions’ In Nagorno-Karabakh

        • Gevorg Stamboltsian

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (archive photo)

France has accused Turkey of pursuing aggressive policies near European borders, 
including in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In an interview with the Europe 1 radio station on Thursday French Foreign 
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said there have been serious disagreements between 
Paris and Ankara for several years due to Turkey’s actions.

“Turkey is taking aggressive actions in the immediate vicinity of Europe, in 
particular in Libya, in the eastern Mediterranean, in Nagorno-Karabakh and in 
northern Iraq. Now a new factor has emerged. In recent days, the tone of 
President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s statements addressed to France and Europe has 
changed. Erdogan regularly makes statements full of hatred and violence, 
including against French President Emmanuel Macron,” said Le Drian, adding that 
“Paris demands that Turkey abandon such behavior.”

The top French diplomat’s remarks came a day after a Turkish ultranationalist 
organization, Gray Wolves, was banned in France.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry has claimed that “this decision also 
shows that the French government has become totally a captive of the Armenian 
circles.”

Ankara claims that Gray Wolves does not exist as an organization, and that the 
decision of the French government is “imaginary, hypocritical and provocative” 
in nature. Still it calls it “unacceptable to ban symbols.”

“We will reciprocate to this decision in the strongest way,” the Turkish Foreign 
Ministry said in a statement issued on November 4.

In Turkey, the Gray Wolves are linked to the far-right Nationalist Movement 
Party (MHP) of Devlet Bahceli. The party has a political alliance with President 
Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The plan to ban the Gray Wolves came after two anti-Armenian demonstrations by 
people carrying Turkish flags in the Lyon and Grenoble areas. The demonstrations 
are believed to be tied to the Gray Wolves.

French media also reported that a monument in Lyon dedicated to the victims of 
the 1915 massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey was defaced with pro-Turkish 
Gray Wolves slogans and “RTE” in reference to Erdogan.

The Gray Wolves are considered the militant wing of the MHP, known for their 
pan-Turkish and far-right ideology.

In the past, they are believed to have had ties to the Turkish “deep state” and 
mafia, having been involved in street violence against leftists in Turkey during 
the 1970s and 1980s. Its members have also been involved in attacks on Kurdish 
activists and aided the state’s fight against Kurdish nationalist militants.

There have been tensions in France between its large ethnic Armenian population 
and Turkish communities over the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which 
Turkey has strongly backed its ally Azerbaijan.



No Let-Up In Karabakh Fighting Amid Conflicting Frontline Reports


Armenian soldiers stand as troops hold positions on the frontline during ongoing 
fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. October 25, 2020

Heavy fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone continued during the night 
and into the morning, with ethnic Armenian forces and Azerbaijan providing 
different accounts of the developments along the frontlines.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian Defense Army said on Thursday that 
Azerbaijan’s armed forces attempted an offensive in the eastern direction of the 
frontline at around 10:30 am, using armored vehicles in the onslaught.

“Due to competent actions of Defense Army units and reservists the enemy has 
been thrown back, leaving behind one armored vehicle, one truck and many killed 
soldiers on the battlefield,” the Defense Army said.

Overnight Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian forces also reported activities of 
Azerbaijan’s armed forces in other directions, claiming that all attacks by 
Azeri assault groups have been repulsed.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said that fighting continued with 
varying intensity mostly in the direction of Aghdara (Martakert) and Khojavend 
(Martuni) where it said Armenian forces lost both soldiers and materiel and 
retreated.

Both sides have claimed to be in command of the operational situation along the 
frontlines. They have also accused each other of targeting civilian areas.

Claims and counterclaims in the current hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh are 
often difficult to confirm independently.

The ongoing armed conflict broke out on September 27, with Azerbaijan and ethnic 
Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh accusing each other of being the aggressor.

Since then both sides have reported scores of deaths among civilians. Armenians 
have also confirmed 1,177 deaths among their military. Azerbaijan does not 
disclose its military casualties, considering them a wartime secret. Russia has 
estimated as many as 5,000 deaths on both sides.


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