Author: Meline Chalian

Azerbaijan’s aim is the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in NK: Pashinyan calls on to recognize Artsakh

Meline Chalian

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 15:13,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has once again presented the real goal of Turkey-backed Azerbaijani forces to the international community, that is the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh, the PM said on Twitter.

“Turkish led Azerbaijani forces along with terrorists continue intensive military operations in different directions of the front line, including peaceful settlements across Artsakh. Their aim is the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh”, the PM said, calling on to recognize Artsakh.

Editing by Aneta Harutyunyan

Yerevan has irrefutable evidence that Turkey sends militants from Syria, Libya – FM Mnatsakanyan

Meline Chalian

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 18:54,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan has irrefutable evidence that Turkey sends militants from Syria and Libya to Nagorno Karabakh, ARMENPRESS reports Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan told Ria Novosti.

''There are irrefutable documented proofs of the presence of foreign terrorist militants and their regular deployment by Turkey (to Nagorno Karabakh – edit.). This is confirmed by the intelligence data of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries and the footages from the conflict zone'', he said.

''Turkey sees this conflict as an opportunity to increase its influence in another, neighboring region of South Caucasus. The policy of trading on the conflict and inflicting great human suffering on the peoples of the region for spreading its power should be resisted, not encouraged’', Mnatsakanyan said, asnwering the question if Yerevan will give consent to Turkey's participation in the negotiations.

CivilNet: Guerre du Haut-Karabakh: Le Comité international de la Croix-Rouge tire la sonnette d’alarme

Meline Chalian
CIVILNET.AM

19:08

Le 28 octobre, les forces armées azerbaïdjanaises ont frappé plus de 15 fois en direction de Stepanakert et dans différentes parties de la ville de Shushi, ciblant délibérément des établissements résidentiels et publics et un centre de maternité.

Le CICR, ainsi que des milliers de civils, ont été témoins aujourd'hui de bombardements massifs des deux côtés de la ligne de front, qui ont fait des morts et des blessés. Martin Schupp, directeur régional pour l'Eurasie au Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, a tiré la sonnette d’alarme.

Armenia exposes Azerbaijan’s cheap provocation, emphasizes the need for verification mechanisms

Meline Chalian
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 27 2020

Today the Ministry of Defense of Armenia emphasized that the statement issued by Azerbaijan on the missile attack from the territory of Armenia in the direction of the Barda region of Azerbaijan is a blatant lie. Neither the armed forces of Armenia nor the defense army of Artsakh launched any missile in the mentioned direction, the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

“It has been a month since Azerbaijan unleashed a large-scale war against the people of Artsakh. Throughout this period Azerbaijan falsely accused the Armenian sides of violating ceasefire to avoid responsibility for failing to comply with the ceasefire agreements reached through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs,” the Ministry said.

Today was no exception: the Azerbaijani side shelled with cluster munitions Nngi village of Martuni region in Artsakh, where many civilians, temporarily displaced from a number of other communities, took refuge. The attack resulted in destruction and casualties among the civilian population.

At the same time, the Azerbaijani side has disseminated fake news about the missile attack in the direction of Barda region.

“This is yet another cheap provocation by the Azerbaijani side which attests to the fact that there is no alternative to the introduction of the international verification mechanisms. Notably, Azerbaijan persistently rejects the introduction of such mechanisms,” the Foreign Ministry stated.


Asbarez: Seeing No Diplomatic Solution in Sight, Pashinyan Says ‘We Must Fight to the End’

Meline Chalian

October 21,  2020



[see video]

In a video message to the nation on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said since Azerbaijan has opted to resolve the Karabakh conflict through military means, there is no diplomatic solution in sight “at least at this stage,” thus “we must fight to the end.”

“We have to clearly realize that, at least at this stage and for a long time to come, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict does not have a diplomatic solution, and we must give up all those hopes or proposals aimed at finding a diplomatic solution, especially in the current situation,” said Pashinyan.

“We have repeatedly stated our readiness to settle the conflict through compromise. This means that we can lower the bar we set for the sake of a resolution, provided that the other side lower its bar. But practice has shown that this logic is otherwise unacceptable for Azerbaijan,” added Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister stressed that in this situation we must fight to the end if we are to protect the rights of our people.

“No matter what happens, we must fight for the rights of our people. This means first of all taking up arms and defending the Homeland. Only if we organize this process effectively and continuously, we will be able to reach a diplomatic solution acceptable to us. Azerbaijan says it does not agree with anything other than the capitulation of Karabakh. Therefore, protecting the rights of the people of Artsakh implies protecting the rights of the Armenian people. There is no Armenia without Artsakh,” the prime minister said, adding that thereby we will finally manage to reach an acceptable diplomatic solution.

Pashinyan urged citizens to sign up as military volunteers to help defend the Homeland. “I call on all Armenian provincial governors, mayors, all state and local self-government bodies, the leaders of those bodies, parties, non-governmental organizations, and civic initiatives to lead the way, to form volunteer groups to protect the rights of the Armenian people. They should be placed at the disposal of the [Armed Force] Chief of Staff, and the moment of formation should be considered equivalent to a military oath, which means that they should stand firm and carry out the task set before them,” Pashinyan emphasized.

“We have gone through genocide, and the genocide took place because many used to believe that there might be individuals other than themselves who would stand up for the people’s rights,” said Pashinyan. “There are such people today, but we need to support them, because many of them – our heroic soldiers, officers and volunteers – died for the sake of the homeland and we must take over the baton. We must all rise up.”

Pashinyan reminded the nation that the situation was much more desperate and challenging during the first Karabakh war. “It seemed that there was no way out, but our people found the solution because there were people who took responsibility for the fate of the Armenian people.”

“Our heroes are watching us. They gave everything to the homeland and spared nothing, now it is our turn,” Pashinyan said.

“We are facing quite a difficult situation on the frontline. Fighting is raging on all the way to Artsakh’s southern borders. Our findings have revealed that Azerbaijan is sending its last reserves to the battlefield. They have sizable resources, but our heroic soldiers are inflicting huge losses on the enemy,” Pashinyan said, noting that Azerbaijan’s heavy losses are one of the reasons behind their reluctance to observe the humanitarian ceasefire.

“The humanitarian ceasefire implies that the victims’ bodies should be collected, cared for and buried. Azerbaijan fears the emergence of tens of thousands of dead bodies against the backdrop of nationwide euphoria. They have huge losses of military equipment, armored vehicles, especially since we have started to attack the Turkish Bayraktars. The humanitarian ceasefire threatens them to expose the dead bodies of mercenaries and Turkish troops,” the prime minister said.

“The will to win should tell us that we will not retreat, we will not back down; we will not be broken. We cannot be defeated. And we will win. Victory depends on one person, and you are that one person. Therefore, long live our children who will live in a free and happy Armenia, in a free and happy Artsakh!” Pashinyan concluded.

NYT: Armenia, Azerbaijan Reach New Cease-Fire for Nagorno-Karabakh

Meline Chalian
New York Times
Oct 17 2020

A truce brokered just a week earlier failed to hold. The war between the two Caucasus countries has already killed hundreds.

By Anton Troianovski

  • Oct. 17, 2020, 5:04 p.m. ET

GORIS, Armenia — Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a new cease-fire in their conflict over a disputed territory, the countries said Saturday, days after a truce negotiated a week earlier had unraveled.

The warring neighbors in the southern Caucasus region announced the agreement over the disputed territory, Nagorno-Karabakh, in terse statements issued by their foreign ministries late Saturday, describing it as a “humanitarian truce” to allow prisoners and the remains of the dead to be exchanged.

But the intense fighting leading up the announcement raised questions of whether this cease-fire would be any more durable than the deal reached after 10 hours of talks in Moscow last weekend, which failed to end the fierce conflict along the front line.

The new truce took effect at midnight, but neither side provided a timeline for how long it would last.

France said it mediated the latest cease-fire in the days and hours leading up to Saturday’s announcement, in coordination with Russia and the United States.

“This cease-fire must be unconditional and strictly observed by both parties,” the office of President Emmanuel Macron of France said in a statement. “France will be very attentive to this and will remain committed so that hostilities cease on a lasting basis and that credible discussions can quickly begin.”

Any halt in the conflict would be welcome for people in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, in the volatile southern Caucasus region between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.

The war has already killed more than 600 Armenian soldiers, scores of civilians and an unknown number of Azerbaijanis. It has threatened to spiral into a wider regional conflict, with the potential to further draw in Turkey, Azerbaijan’s main ally; Russia, which has a mutual defense agreement with Armenia; and even the region’s southern neighbor, Iran.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an ethnically Armenian enclave that is part of Azerbaijan under international law but is closely aligned with Armenia.

A previous war over Nagorno-Karabakh, in the early 1990s, killed some 20,000 people and displaced about a million, most of them Azerbaijanis. Years of tensions since then between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave’s status erupted into open warfare on Sept. 27, with Azerbaijan seeking to take control of the territory by force.

On Saturday, Azerbaijan said 14 people were killed in the city of Ganja, the country’s second-largest, in an overnight missile attack by Armenia.

The capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, had also been attacked overnight Friday, the din of air raid sirens and explosions echoing through the largely empty city into early Saturday morning.

Along the front, Azerbaijan and Armenia have engaged in trench warfare and artillery combat, taking heavy casualties while fighting for small bits of territory.

The powder keg that is Armenia versus Azerbaijan

Meline Chalian
McLean's Magazine, Canada
Oct 15 2020

Image of the Week: The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh was a bomb waiting to go off. It's been that way for centuries.

By Michael Fraiman


If you wanted to explain the current Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, where would you begin? Would you start with the election held this spring by the self-declared (and internationally unrecognized) Armenian government in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan? Or would you go back to Armenia’s Velvet Revolution of 2018, which brought in a new president who sat down with his Azerbaijani counterpart for the first time in years, briefly renewing hope—until he turned out to be as hard-nosed as his predecessor? Do you rewind to 1994, when an international ceasefire was required to stop the two countries’ years-long war and ethnic cleansing? Or even further to the fall of the Soviet Union, when Nagorno-Karabakh first declared independence—and no one listened? In conflicts like these, you can always “go back further,†pointing fingers at the other side, claiming they started it. And this one goes back centuries, Azerbaijan (backed by Turkey) versus Armenia (backed by Russia). Before that, Muslims versus Christians. By this point, as with so many ongoing conflicts, few people outside the region know or care how it started. Months of war follow years of peace. Like the unexploded missile sitting in a field of the largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region is a powder keg. When it explodes, you don’t wonder why. You wonder why it didn’t happen sooner.

CivilNet: Israel’s Scholars Call for the Cessation of Israeli Arm Sales to Azerbaijan

Meline Chalian
CIVILNET.AM

09:18

The following is a collective statement from a group of Israeli scholars working in the field of Caucasian Studies and associated fields.

Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not reflect the opinion of the universities mentioned.

"We the undersigned write to express our deep concern with the fighting that has flared up in the region of Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh). From a reading of independent accounts and analysis we have concluded that this outbreak of violence in the last few days is due solely to aggression of the Republic of Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey and backed up by fighters from elsewhere in the region. This belligerence has been directed towards military and civilian targets in the region of Artsakh and its mainly Armenian population, and deserves to be condemned in no uncertain terms. The response of the authorities of Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia is clearly one of defense of population, property and territory, and should enjoy the support of those who cherish the principle of self-determination of peoples.

We call for an end to this aggression, and a cessation of the fighting. The long-term answer to tension in the region is on-going negotiations that will aim to resolve the claims of various ethnic groups, leading to a mutually agreed upon political arrangement. Clearly, violence of any type will not resolve ethnic and other tensions.

It is with dismay that we address the matter of Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan in recent years, this being one component in the massive armament process in that country. We call upon the Israeli government to cease immediately the sales of arms to Azerbaijan, pending a review of the issue by the government and Knesset. Matters of would-be Realpolitik, as reflected here in arm sales, are not the only basis for foreign policy. Certainly, one needs to question Israel’s role in an armament effort aimed mainly against a people that like the Jewish people suffered genocidal attacks in the twentieth century. We call upon other Israelis to raise their voice on this important issue."

(in alphabetical order)
Prof. Reuven Amitai (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Prof. Yair Auron (Open University of Israel)
Prof. Israel Charny (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Ms. Moran Deitch (Bar Ilan University)
Prof. Benjamin Z. Kedar (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Mr. Yoav Loeff (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Prof. Benny Morris (Ben Gurion University in the Negev)
Dr. Yakir Paz (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Prof. Eli Richter (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Prof. Donna Shalev (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Mr. Marc Sherman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Prof. Michael Stone (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Dr. Yana Tchekhanovets (Ben Gurion University in the Negev)
Prof. Dror Zeevi (Ben Gurion University in the Negev)

For further information, contact: 

https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/10/11/Israel-s-Scholars-Call-for-the-Cessation-of-Israeli-Arm-Sales-to-Azerbaijan/400736

Erdoğan edging towards crossing Putin in Nagorno-Karabakh

Meline Chalian
AHVAL News
Oct 10 2020

  • Ahval
  • Oct 10 2020 09:43 Gmt+3
  • Last Updated On: Oct 10 2020 10:37 Gmt+3

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is on the verge of crossing Russia's red line as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is different from Syria and Libya, Kerim Has, a Moscow-based Russian and Turkish affairs analyst told Ahval in a podcast.

On Oct. 1, Andrey Kortunov, director-general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank affiliated with the Russia's Foreign Ministry, said the relationship between Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was a minefield, and the Turkish president might have crossed the line and was close to stepping on a mine with its involvement in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Although the red line has not been crossed yet, Erdoğan is poking Putin's nerve endings," Has said.

The relationship between the two leaders was already strained before fighting broke out around Nagorno-Karabakh on Sep. 27, he said.

Russia and Turkey have managed to establish a relationship that is mutually beneficial but also fraught with complications in the Syrian and Libyan civil wars, where the two support opposing sides. They are strategic partners and competitors at the same time, even direct opponents in some cases. 

However, Nagorno-Karabakh has a distinct significance for Russia, the analyst said. The two countries have had either military advisers, mercenaries or troops deployed on in Syria and Libya, but similar Turkish efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh, a former Soviet stomping ground in close proximity to Russia, could lead to unintentional escalation and permanent destruction of the partnership, he added.

"Putin will not allow more Turkish interference in Karabakh, which is known as Russia's backyard," Has said. 

Russia enjoys good relations with both sides in the conflict: it has a defence pact with Armenia, its traditional ally, and recently fostered warmer ties with Azerbaijan. Moscow also sells arms to both countries.

Turkey, on its part, has not hid its support for Azerbaijan as they share long-standing cultural, historic and economic ties. Ankara provided military support to the Azeri government for the fighting that broke out with Armenian separatists on Sept. 27.

Armenia, Russia, France and Iran all accused Turkey of deploying Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan. The Russian Foreign Ministry said last week that it was “deeply concerned” by the deployment of Syrian and Libyan militiamen to the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported around 900 Syrian mercenaries were transported to Azerbaijan by private Turkish security companies since the clashes started. Members of the Syrian National Army, a group of Turkey-backed opposition militias in northern Syria, told Foreign Policy that such transfers happened even before the fighting. Both Turkey and Azerbaijan deny such reports.

Turkey instrumentalised foreign mercenaries to exert influence on several fronts, Has said. "Putin comes within an inch of publicly announcing that jihadists were sent to Nagorno-Karabakh through Turkey."

Putin is reserving his true feelings of resentment over Turkey’s intervention as part of a strategy to punish Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government that resists returning into Russia’s sphere of influence, the analyst said.

One of Pashinyan’s pre-election promises when he came to power following a series of anti-government protests that unseated a Moscow-friendly administration was to reduce Armenia’s reliance on Russia.

The Russian president has been successfully using Armenia’s phobia of Turkey in his gambit to restore control over the country, Has said.

"The reckoning of the Pashinyan administration with Russian and pro-Russian names and flirting with the West caused Moscow to view the threat of Baku (the Azeri government) from a favourable perspective."

Has said Erdoğan's recent move to test its Russian-made S-400 missile systems should be seen as an effort to calm relations with Putin.

On Tuesday, Turkey began moving its Russian S-400 missile defence systems to a training ground near western province of Sinop for testing. 

"The unveiling of S-400s in Sinop is again based on political calculations. Although it is not activated at the moment, it will be activated sooner or later," he said.

Tensions between NATO allies Turkey and the United States over the S-400 air defence systems appeared to come to a head in April when Erdoğan and his government announced plans to activate them.

However, the costly activation has been delayed for the foreseeable future, with Turkish authorities citing technical issues and the coronavirus pandemic.

Washington has threatened Ankara with sanctions and suspended Turkey from the programme to build and operate the fifth generation F-35 fighter jet last year after Turkey bought the S-400s, which the United States maintains are not compatible with NATO defence systems and threaten the F-35’s stealth capabilities.

https://ahvalnews.com/nagorno-karabakh/erdogan-edging-towards-crossing-putin-nagorno-karabakh-kerim-has-russia-analyst?amp&fbclid=IwAR27mPWtFvQDz8FosaaVqVfeHEnzQow0yVa0Q_YQjzhIWjPw0RvbNdySXj4

CivilNet: Azerbaijan Strikes Church in Shushi, Karabakh, Injuring Reporter

Meline Chalian
CIVILNET.AM

8 October, 2020 19:45

Two Azerbaijani missile strikes targeting the St. Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in the town of Shushi in Karabakh damaged the church and injured several reporters inside. 

One reporter, in critical condition, has been hospitalized. 

Shushi's Ghazanchetsots (Holy Saviour) Cathedral, is an iconic site for the Armenian Apostolic Church. 

Minutes after the strike, the CIVILNET team in Karabakh visited the site and saw a section of the roof had collapsed, and rubble was strewn on the floor.

This latest fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis began on September 27, following a large-scale Azerbaijani artillery attack on Karabakh. International mediators continue to call for a ceasefire.