Author: Parkev Tvankchian

                                        Tuesday, 


Russian Troops Reassure Karabakh Leaders Over New Corridor To Armenia


NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Russian peacekeepers are seen at a checkpoint in the town of 
Lachin, December 1, 2020


Russian peacekeeping forces reportedly assured Nagorno-Karabakh’s main political 
factions on Tuesday that a new road connecting the territory to Armenia will 
have the same status as the existing corridor that will be handed over to 
Azerbaijan next week.

The five-kilometer-wide Lachin corridor became Karabakh’s sole overland link to 
Armenia following the 2020 war. Armenian forces pulled out of the rest of the 
wider Lachin district under the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that 
stopped the six-week hostilities.

The truce accord calls for the construction of a new Armenia-Karabakh highway 
that will bypass the town of Lachin and two Armenian-populated villages located 
within the current corridor protected by Russian peacekeeping troops.

Bowing to strong Azerbaijani pressure, the Armenian side agreed earlier this 
month to evacuate these settlements by August 25 and start using a bypass road 
newly constructed by Azerbaijan about a dozen kilometers south of that area.

The leaders of the five political groups represented in the Karabakh parliament 
met with the commanders of the Russian peacekeeping contingent to discuss the 
functioning of the new corridor. According to a statement released by the 
parliament’s press service, they received assurances that “the new route will 
have a legal status of the same corridor” and will be controlled by the Russian 
peacekeepers.

The statement said they also discussed the August 3 fighting in Karabakh which 
left at least one Azerbaijani and two Karabakh Armenian soldiers dead. It cited 
the Russian officers as saying that they have drawn “necessary conclusions” and 
“will make additional efforts to prevent a repeat of such ceasefire violations 
in the future.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on August 4 publicly criticized the 
Russian troops over the latest deadly fighting there. Pashinian complained that 
Baku has been stepping up ceasefire violations in Karabakh “in the presence of” 
the 2,000 peacekeepers deployed after the Armenian-Azerbaijani war.

The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism.



Turkey Reiterates Normalization Conditions For Armenia

        • Tatevik Sargsian

Turkey - Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speaks during a news 
conference in Antalya, March 10, 2022.


The normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations remains conditional on Armenia 
accepting Azerbaijan’s key demands, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu 
reiterated on Tuesday.

Cavusoglu said normalization talks launched by Ankara and Yerevan early this 
year cannot be delinked from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“Peace in the South Caucasus can become a reality with a comprehensive peace 
agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan which we also support,” he told the 
Turkish TV channel Haber Global. “Azerbaijan made a proposal to Armenia to which 
Armenia did not respond positively for a long time.”

Baku wants Yerevan to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh through 
such a treaty. Cavusoglu also mentioned another Azerbaijani demand: the opening 
of a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave passing through Armenia’s 
Syunik province. The Armenian side has ruled out any exterritorial corridors.

Cavusoglu already put forward these preconditions late last month following a 
fourth round of negotiations held by Armenian and Turkish envoys in Vienna. 
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan likewise made clear later in July that 
Turkey will normalize relations with Armenia only “after problems with 
Azerbaijan are solved.”

The Armenian government says it wants an unconditional opening of the 
Turkish-Armenian border and establishment of diplomatic relations between the 
two neighboring states. Its domestic political opponents claim that Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian is ready to make sweeping concessions to both Ankara 
and Baku.

Cavusoglu said on Tuesday that Pashinian’s administration has a popular mandate 
to make such concessions because it won last year’s Armenian parliamentary 
elections. Yerevan should stop using pressure from the Armenian Diaspora and 
“local extremist forces” as excuses for not accepting the Turkish-Azerbaijani 
demands, he said.



Armenia Still Fighting For Independence, Says Pashinian

        • Nane Sahakian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, 
August 18, 2022.


Armenia is still fighting for its independence more than three decades after the 
breakup of the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Tuesday.

Pashinian stressed the importance of national security and normalizing relations 
with Azerbaijan and Turkey as he congratulated Armenians on the 32nd anniversary 
of a declaration of independence adopted by their country’s first post-Communist 
parliament.

The 1990 declaration stopped short of announcing Armenia’s immediate secession 
from the Soviet Union. It announced instead “the start of a process of 
establishing independent statehood.”

“De facto, that process has not ended until today, not because we don't have 
independence but because independence is like health, which even if you have it, 
you have to take care of it every day,” Pashinian said in a statement issued on 
the occasion.

“The Government is fighting for the independence of the Republic of Armenia 
every day,” he said. “For us, independence is security. The international 
structures that provide it are cracking in front of all of us, and one of the 
first cracks unfortunately manifested itself in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Independence is normalized relations with neighbors. Although we have excellent 
relations with some of our neighbors, there is no significant progress in our 
relations with others because they demand too much from us or they think that we 
are demanding too much from them.”

“For us, independence is strong allied relations, but allies are not always only 
allies to you but also to those who ally against you,” Pashinian added in an 
apparent reference to Russia.

Pashinian’s and political opponents and other critics regularly claim that he 
has put Armenia’s independence at serious risk by mishandling the 2020 war with 
Azerbaijan, weakening the Armenian armed forces and undermining relations with 
Russia. They say that he must therefore resign.

Pashinian did not allude to security issues or improving relations with 
Azerbaijan and Turkey in his previous statements on the 1990 declaration. In 
August 2021, for example, he put the emphasis on internal political and economic 
challenges facing Armenia.


Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

  

                                        Friday, 


Aliyev Again Rules Out Status For Karabakh Armenians


Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (file photo).


Speaking on national television on Friday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
again ruled out any status for ethnic Armenians living in Karabakh, saying that 
they will enjoy the same rights as other citizens of Azerbaijan.

Aliyev also reasserted Baku’s right to conduct military operations in Karabakh 
similar to the one its armed forces conducted in early August along the Lachin 
corridor with the use of drones, mortars and grenade launchers.

Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said two ethnic Armenian 
soldiers were killed and 19 others were wounded in the August 3 attack by 
Azerbaijani forces that prompted calls from the international community for 
de-escalation in the volatile region.

Azerbaijan claimed it had taken retributive action for the killing of an 
Azerbaijani servicemen by “Armenian terrorists.”

“Armenians living in Karabakh should take the right steps. They must understand 
that their future depends on their integration into Azerbaijani society. We live 
in reality. From the geographical, economic and historical points of view 
Karabakh is an inseparable part of Azerbaijan,” Aliyev told AzTV.

The Azerbaijani leader claimed that those who populistically talk about some 
status or independence for Armenians in Karabakh are “the main enemies of the 
Armenian people.”

“Because the Armenians living in Karabakh will not have any status, independence 
or advantages. They will live like all citizens of Azerbaijan. Their rights will 
be protected the way the rights of Azerbaijani citizens and peoples living [in 
Azerbaijan] are protected,” Aliyev said.

In March, Azerbaijan presented Armenia with five elements which it wants to be 
at the heart of a peace treaty to be signed by the two South Caucasus nations 
that fought a bloody six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020.

The elements include a mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity. 
The Armenian government, in principle, agreed to the elements, but said they 
should be complemented by other issues relating to the future status of 
Nagorno-Karabakh and the security of its population.

In the interview to national television Aliyev also claimed that hundreds of 
Armenian soldiers were withdrawn from Karabakh after Azerbaijan’s military 
operation on August 3. He stressed that Azerbaijan wants a full withdrawal of 
Armenian armed units from Karabakh. “It is Armenia’s commitment. It is reflected 
in the act of surrender signed by Armenia on November 10, 2020,” Aliyev claimed.

Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan on August 4, Armenian Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian stressed that there was no serviceman of the Republic 
of Armenia in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Armenian side, however, does not share the view that the Moscow-brokered 
ceasefire that provided for the deployment of about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers 
in the region also stipulates that local Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should 
disarm.

In his interview Aliyev also confirmed that the few remaining Armenian residents 
of the town of Lachin and the villages of Sus and Zabux (Aghavno) situated along 
the Lachin corridor will leave by the end of the month as a new route for the 
corridor linking Karabakh with Armenia is due to be put into use.

Aliyev claimed that Armenians lived in the villages illegally after their 
occupation by ethnic Armenian forces in the early 1990s and, therefore, he 
warned that those Armenians who will choose to stay might be treated like war 
criminals under the Geneva conventions.

“The occupying country cannot carry out illegal settlement of the occupied 
lands. This is a war crime. Perhaps the Armenians from Syria and Lebanon living 
there do not know this, but the leadership of Armenia is well aware of that. We 
hear news coming from there that someone says they will stay and will not leave. 
It is their business, but they are war criminals. They should not test our 
patience. Let them leave by their own will, we don’t care where they go,” the 
Azerbaijani president said.



ICG: Baku Pursues Three Goals It Hopes Will Pressure Armenia To Capitulate In 
Negotiations

        • Heghine Buniatian

Azerbaijani military trucks are moving along the Lachin corridor near 
Nagorno-Karabakh in the presence of Russian peacekeepers deployed there as part 
of the Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia 
(file photo).


By escalating the situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijan pursues 
three goals that it wants to achieve either by force or the threat of force, 
which it hopes will pressure Armenia to capitulate in negotiations, an 
international think tank says in its latest report on the region.

In its report titled “Warding Off Renewed War in Nagorno-Karabakh” that was 
published this week the International Crisis Group (ICG) goes on to list what it 
views as these three goals that have to do with the overland connection between 
Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia known as the Lachin corridor, the withdrawal of 
Armenian troops from the region as well as a treaty with Armenia to end the 
conflict that would be to Azerbaijan’s advantage.

The report quotes an unnamed Azerbaijani official as saying that “the Armenian 
side is trying to delay the commissioning of the new road this year, thereby 
purposely delaying the handover of the city of Lachin and a number of villages 
to Azerbaijan.”

Azerbaijan’s second grievance, according to ICG experts, relates to what Baku 
says is Armenia’s failure to withdraw forces from Nagorno-Karabakh, as the 
ceasefire says it must do. “Yerevan says it has done so. The issue, it says, is 
Azerbaijan’s concern that Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto authorities retain an 
armed force. Baku argues that this force is illegal, demanding that Russian 
peacekeepers disarm it, while Armenia and the de facto authorities say its 
disarmament was never part of the ceasefire deal,” the report says.

“Baku seized upon comments Armen Grigoryan, Armenia’s Security Council 
secretary, made in an interview in mid-July that Armenia would withdraw forces 
by September as evidence of its claims. Yerevan has since furiously tried to 
walk back words it says were taken out of context,” writes the ICG, noting that 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reiterated on August 4 that all Armenian 
armed forces have left Nagorno-Karabakh.

An Azerbaijani military official told the ICG that Baku will press ahead with 
operations until the area is fully demilitarized.

The report says that, thirdly, Baku appears keen to proceed to talks over a 
treaty that it hopes will end the conflict to its advantage. Although in April 
the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in Brussels declared their readiness to 
start talks on such an agreement, Azerbaijan has voiced frustration that 
subsequent diplomacy has moved too slowly, the authors of the report note.

An Azerbaijani official alleged that Armenian officials are purposely delaying 
talks. “They think that, by prolonging the negotiations, they can wait for the 
geopolitical situation to change in their favor,” the official quoted by the ICG 
said.

For their part, officials in Yerevan blame Baku, saying it is Azerbaijani 
officials that are “dragging their feet in EU-mediated talks and hoping to take 
advantage of the world’s focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine,” the authors of the 
report say.

“From a military standpoint, Armenia and de facto authorities in 
Nagorno-Karabakh view Baku’s seizure of Farukh (Parukh) in March, as well as 
positions held by the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh forces near the Lachin corridor 
and along the front lines in the entity’s north and north west, as an attempt to 
gain high ground and, thus, strategic advantage,” the ICG notes.

The authors of the report wonder whether Russian peacekeepers can deter 
Azerbaijan and enforce the ceasefire, noting that since early May, they have 
been conducting daily patrols on Sarybaba heights close to the Lachin corridor. 
“The patrols stopped a couple of days before the Azerbaijani advances, however, 
for reasons that are unclear,” the report says.

A senior de facto official in Stepanakert quoted by the ICG said the 
peacekeepers often feel powerless. “Everyone understands that Russia is weaker 
than ever before in the international arena,” the de facto representative said, 
according to the report.

“The clashes have once again highlighted the challenges faced by the Russian 
peacekeeping mission without a clear mandate for how it can engage beyond its 
monitoring role – a problem made worse by Russia’s loss of standing following 
its invasion of Ukraine,” the ICG writes.

In a 2021 report, the ICG called on the sides to hold talks on clarifying the 
peacekeepers’ role. “They appear increasingly unlikely to do so, particularly 
amid increasing criticism of the mission by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Such 
frustration risks undermining the peacekeepers’ ability to carry out their 
existing mandate of observing the ceasefire in the conflict zone. If and when 
the time becomes ripe, international mediators must urge the sides to revisit 
this issue, which will likely come to a head in any case in 2025 when Baku and 
Yerevan must give their assent to the mission’s continuation,” the report says.

According to ICG experts, “most importantly, Western capitals and Moscow should 
try to ensure that their standoff over Ukraine does not bleed into mediation 
efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“Even distracted, Moscow pays more attention to Armenia and Azerbaijan than does 
Brussels or Washington. It remains the only country that has been willing to 
dispatch forces to the region and it remains a key trade partner of both 
countries. Working with Moscow, distasteful as it may be in European capitals, 
improves the odds of bringing peace to the South Caucasus,” the ICG says.

The group’s experts conclude that “concerted diplomacy by all outside actors 
might yet avert a return to war and keep nascent talks about an eventual peace 
settlement and new trade routes on track.”



Iran Appoints Consul In Southern Armenian Town

        • Naira Nalbandian

A general view of the town of Kapan in southern Armenia (file photo).


Iran has appointed a consul general to the town of Kapan in southern Armenia, 
the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Yerevan told the Armenian state-run Armenpress 
news agency.

Armenian news website News.am, quoting Robert Beglarian, an ethnic Armenian 
lawmaker in Iran’s parliament, reported on August 11 that the appointed consul 
general, Abedin Varamin, had already taken office and held meetings with 
officials in Yerevan.

Tehran made the decision to open a consulate general in Kapan, a strategic town 
in Armenia’s Syunik province bordering Iran, last December. Officially the 
consulate is likely to open later this year.

Shirak Torosian, a pro-government lawmaker who is a member of the Armenia-Iran 
friendship group in the Armenian parliament, described the decision as “another 
clear message about Tehran’s red lines in the region.”

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reassured Armenian Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian in an August 11 phone call about his country’s opposition to any 
attempt to alter borders in the region.

The reassurance came amid continued statements from Baku that Armenia must 
provide Azerbaijan with an extraterritorial land corridor via Syunik to its 
western Nakhichevan exclave under the terms of the Russia-brokered ceasefire 
that put an end to a deadly six-week Armenian-Azerbaijani war over 
Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020.

Armenia publicly supports the idea of unblocking transport links in the region, 
but insists that it should maintain sovereignty over all transit roads in its 
territory, including in Syunik.

“In Iran’s case it is also a matter of national security,” Torosian told 
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday.

“Opening a consulate general in Kapan means that they consider Syunik to be an 
important region for Iran in terms of protecting the interests of Iranian 
citizens and protecting the interests of the Iranian state in general,” he added.

The Armenian lawmaker said that Iran’s consulate general in Kapan also means 
that Tehran’s repeated statements against geopolitical changes in the region 
“now become visible.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against attempts to block 
Armenia’s border with his country when he held separate meetings with Turkish 
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tehran 
last month.

Under the 2020 ceasefire agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia, which protects 
Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey, is to oversee the security of the 
transport links between Azerbaijan and its western exclave passing through 
Armenian territory.

Images of Russian checkpoints set up along several roads in Syunik that appeared 
on the Internet earlier this week fueled speculations among Armenians about an 
imminent deal on the transport corridor. But Russia’s Federal Security Service, 
which is in charge of the protection of Armenia’s state frontier, said that the 
stepped-up security measures were due to increased drug trafficking and other 
illegal cross-border activities in the area.



Four Killed In Traffic Collision In Karabakh Involving Russian Peacekeepers’ 
Driver


The scene of the car crash on the Stepanakert-Askeran highway, Nagorno-Karabakh, 
.


Four people have been killed in a major traffic collision in Nagorno-Karabakh 
where a vehicle operated by a driver of the Russian peacekeeping contingent 
deployed in the region collided with another car.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian authorities said the apparent accident 
occurred along the Stepanakert-Askeran highway on Friday morning.

They said the 30-year-old driver of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, who was 
identified only by his initials, I. Y., drove a full-size SUV, Haval H9, that 
collided with a compact Lada sedan VAZ-2107.

The Lada’s driver, who was identified by the local police as a 26-year-old 
resident of the village of Sarushen in Nagorno-Karabakh’s Askeran district, 
reportedly suffered bone fractures and bruising of the right lung and was taken 
to hospital, while his four passengers – all women from the same district aged 
from 50 to 56 – were killed on the spot.

No information about the condition of the Haval H9 driver was made available 
immediately.

Local investigators are working on the scene, Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities 
said.

Russia deploys nearly 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh after brokering a 
ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in November 2020 to end a deadly 
six-week war over the region.


Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.