Author: Shushan Frangulian

Turkish press: NATO calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to end hostilities

Shushan Frangulian
Agnes Szucs   |04.08.2022

BRUSSELS

NATO on Thursday urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to end hostilities as fighting flared up in the region of Karabakh, and expressed support for normalizing relations.

“NATO calls for an immediate end of hostilities between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces,” Javier Colomina, the NATO secretary-general's special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, said on Twitter.

He added that the alliance urges both sides to “de-escalate and return to the negotiating table.”

“NATO supports the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Colomina added.

The EU, including the office of Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, and Toivo Klaar, the bloc’s special representative for the South Caucasus, has also been “in intense contact with both sides over the past days,” Anadolu Agency learned from an EU official.

Michel has already spoken with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and will soon talk to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, the source said.

The EU pushes for an “immediate de-escalation” and dialogue on other aspects of the relations, the official added.

Azerbaijan said it launched a retaliatory operation on Wednesday against Armenian forces in the Karabakh region after Armenia opened fire and killed an Azerbaijani soldier, according to its Defense Ministry.

Relations between the former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh (Upper Karabakh), a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

After new clashes during the fall of 2020, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and over 300 settlements and villages occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.

The fighting ended in November 2020 with a Russia-brokered deal.

In a statement, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said it has repeatedly pointed out Armenia’s failure to fulfill the provisions of the agreement, particularly how the Armenian armed forces have not yet pulled out of Azerbaijani territories.

Azerbaijan Attacked Armenia 3 Killed Russia Said Ceasefire Broken

Shushan Frangulian
Hindu Wire, India
Aug 5 2022
 Rahul Tarar 
Azerbaijan Attacked Armenia: Tension has also increased in the Central Asian countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia amid wartime tensions in Ukraine and Taiwan region. Azerbaijan, with the help of deadly Bayraktar drones received from Turkey, destroyed many weapons of Armenia and captured many areas of Nagerno-Karabakh. Russia, which has brokered a ceasefire between the two countries, has alleged that Azerbaijan has broken the agreement in the disputed area of Nagarno-Karabakh. Earlier, Azerbaijan alleged that three of its soldiers were killed by illegal armed groups in Armenia.

Earlier in 2020, more than 6500 people were killed in a fierce battle for about 6 weeks in Armenia. After this, due to Russian intervention, there was a ceasefire between the two. In Thursday’s attack, the Russian Defense Ministry said Azerbaijan’s armed troops had broken the ceasefire.

Turkey-Pakistan helping Azerbaijan
Russia said it was trying to calm the atmosphere with representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan and Armenia have long been hostile. It is being instigated by Turkish and Pakistani army. The armies of both countries are helping Azerbaijan. Turkish drones are proving effective against Armenia.

Azerbaijan Attacked Armenia: Tension has also increased in the Central Asian countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia amid wartime tensions in Ukraine and Taiwan region. Azerbaijan, with the help of deadly Bayraktar drones received from Turkey, destroyed many weapons of Armenia and captured many areas of Nagerno-Karabakh.

Russia, which has brokered a ceasefire between the two countries, has alleged that Azerbaijan has broken the agreement in the disputed area of Nagarno-Karabakh. Earlier, Azerbaijan alleged that three of its soldiers were killed by illegal armed groups in Armenia.

Earlier in 2020, more than 6500 people were killed in a fierce battle for about 6 weeks in Armenia. After this, due to Russian intervention, there was a ceasefire between the two. In Thursday’s attack, the Russian Defense Ministry said Azerbaijan’s armed troops had broken the ceasefire.

Turkey-Pakistan helping Azerbaijan

Russia said it was trying to calm the atmosphere with representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan and Armenia have long been hostile. It is being instigated by Turkish and Pakistani army. The armies of both countries are helping Azerbaijan. Turkish drones are proving effective against Armenia.

Armenian humanitarian mission provides medical supplies to Aleppo hospitals

Shushan Frangulian
Public Radio of Armenia
, 14:10

In cooperation with the Consulate General of Armenia in Aleppo, the medical group of the Humanitarian Mission of Armenia delivered 3.5 tons of medical supplies to the medical institutions of Aleppo.

Syrian health officials expressed their gratitude to the Armenian doctors for the aid and for their daily assistance.

Armenian doctors and mine-clearance specialists have been carrying out humanitarian mission in Syria since February 2019.

The tenth group of doctors and sappers left for Syria on July 19.

Will Armenia buy military drones from India? Yerevan and Delhi in negotiations

Shushan Frangulian


  • JAMnews
  • Yerevan

Buying military drones from India

Armenia is in active negotiation with India over the purchase of drones and other weapons produced in India. Information about a possible deal was published by Indian news outlet DnaIndia. The Armenian Defense Ministry has so far refrained from comment.

Military expert Karen Hovhannisyan considers the Defense Ministry’s silence understandable, as the deal has not yet been concluded.

At the same time, he believes that maintaining relations with just one strategic partner, Russia, is the wrong approach. Hovhannisyan says Armenia must find new allies — and India could be one of those.

  • “Are Washington and Moscow watching?” Visits of the heads of US and Russian special services to Yerevan
  • “Was Aliyev right?” On the withdrawal of the Armenian Armed Forces from Nagorno-Karabakh
  • Sharing classroom with your ‘enemy’: how Armenians and Azeris study together in Tbilisi

DnaIndia, which announced Yerevan’s intention to purchase military drones and other weapons, is one of the largest English-language newspapers in Mumbai, India’s commercial and economic center.

According to the publication, in June of this year an Armenian Defense Ministry delegation went to Delhi with a list of weapons it requires.

The ministry’s website did not publish anything about the visit to India. Rumors about a possible deal were neither confirmed nor denied.

Meanwhile, Delhi itself reports the words of an Armenian official that the 2020 war in Karabakh made it necessary to reconsider the military needs of the country. The Indian outlet does not report his name, but quotes him as saying:

“The war has shown how useless Russian military equipment is against Turkish weapons, especially Bayraktar drones.”

DnaIndia does not specify what types of weapons are being sought, whether a deal has been concluded, nor for how much.

Two months ago, the country’s authorities announced the launch of the first Armenian satellite into space, and now they announce that they are setting themselves other “ambitious goals”

The Armenian authorities have repeatedly stated that the development of relations with India is one the country’s foreign policy priorities. Especially after the Karabakh war, contacts between representatives of the two countries have increased. Foreign ministers have held three meetings over the past year, where trade and economic relations were the main topic of their discussions.

Military cooperation has been mentioned twice in the last six months. On April 13, Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan received the Indian Ambassador to Armenia, Kishan Dan Dewal. Papikyan and Deval are said to have discussed “the need for military-political consultations, mutual high-level visits, as well as the signing of an agreement on military cooperation between the Armenian and Indian defense ministries.”

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, Ararat Mirzoyan, also touched upon this topic. During a regular meeting of the Armenian-Indian intergovernmental commission held in July, he stressed that the defense and military-technical spheres have great potential and are extremely promising for both countries.

“In the military sphere, we have already begun to explore the possibilities of concrete cooperation. We look forward to long-term relations,” Sanjay Verma, Secretary of the Western Direction of the Indian Foreign Ministry, said in response.

The parties did not announce any details about possible military cooperation.

Before the Karabakh war, in March 2020, the Indian press reported that Delhi would supply Armenia with four state-of-the-art radars capable of determining the trajectory of artillery at a distance of 50 kilometers. The deal was reported to cost $40 million.

Armenian media did not publish information about this deal. According to the same Indian DnaIndia, the deal had been concluded.

Pashinyan-Erdogan telephone conversation should not be overestimated or underestimated, experts believe, Instead, it should be regarded as a step forward in the Armenian-Turkish normalization process

Yerevan’s silence on the matter is justified, military expert Karen Hovhannisyan believes. The expert did weigh in on whether the transaction would take place at all. There is too little information and it is too early to judge the results.

“We must wait for information from the Armenian side. When it starts to emerge what is meant by “other types of weapons”, we will understand what level the Armenian-Indian relations have reached,” Karen Hovhannisyan told JAMnews.

According to the expert, Armenian-Indian relations can be brought to the level of strategy and alliance.

He maintains that there are still other countries in the world, and there is no need to maintain relations with just one strategic partner — Russia.

“The national interests of Armenia and India coincide on many issues. We should be guided by this and develop a strategic partnership. And why not? It is possible to develop the military industry in Armenia with the help of India or enter joint production,” the expert pointed out.

Some Armenian analysts believe the leak about negotiations in the Indian press indicates that “the Indian side does not want to sell drones to Armenia.” Hovhannisyan says Delhi may have had other intentions:

“Perhaps India is publishing the agreement to show that it is trying to become an important state in the region and the world in the military industry, to assume an important place in this area.”

The expert did not answer JAMnews’ question about the purchase of weapons based on India’s capabilities and Armenia’s needs. According to him, “assuming can hurt the cause.”

https://jam-news.net/will-armenia-buy-military-drones-from-india-yerevan-and-delhi-in-negotiations/

UNGA President Abdulla Shahid pays tribute to Armenian Genocide victims at Yerevan memorial

Shushan Frangulian

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 17:04,

YEREVAN, JULY 27, ARMENPRESS. The President of the United Nations General Assembly Abdulla Shahid and his delegation visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vahe Gevorgyan, Permanent Representative of Armenia to the United Nations Mher Margaryan and the UN Armenia Acting Resident Coordinator Lila Pieters Yahia accompanied Abdulla Shahid.

Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Director Harutyun Marutyan presented the history of the three cross-stones erected in Tsitsernakaberd Memorial’s territory which are dedicated to the memory of the Armenians who were killed during the ethnic cleansings perpetrated in the territory of Azerbaijan against the Armenian population in the end of the previous century.

Abdulla Shahid laid a wreath at the Armenian Genocide memorial and flowers at the Eternal Flame, observing a moment of silence in the memory of the 1,5 million innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide.

The delegation then visited the Armenian Genocide Museum.

UNGA President Abdulla Shahid signed the honorary guest book.

Director Harutyun Marutyan presented books on the Armenian Genocide to the guest.

Photos by Hayk Badalyan




Datablog | What shapes attitudes toward the Soviet Union’s collapse in Georgia and Armenia?

Shushan Frangulian



 

BySasha SlobodovandThe Caucasus Datablog
Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to fundamental economic and social transformations in both Georgia and Armenia. Opinion polling suggests that views of the collapse today may be associated with how one has fared in the post-Soviet period. 

The 2021 Caucasus Barometer surveys in Georgia and Armenia suggest that attitudes toward the collapse of the Soviet Union are correlated with perceptions about satisfaction with life.

Overall, Georgians look back on the USSR much less fondly than Armenians do. Two-thirds (67%) of Armenians view the dissolution of the Soviet Union as ‘a bad thing’. In contrast, just 38% report the same in Georgia. About half (47%) of respondents in Georgia said that the end of the USSR was ‘a good thing’, while only 23% said the same in Armenia.

Though Georgians look back less favourably on the Soviet past, in both countries, those who see the dissolution of the USSR negatively are also more likely to have negative perceptions of life now. 

Georgian respondents who reported being less satisfied with their life were more likely to see the collapse of the Soviet Union negatively. Controlling for social and demographic variables, Georgian respondents who reported being very satisfied with their lives were 34 percentage points more likely to consider the collapse of the Soviet Union to be a good thing, compared to those who reported a very low level of satisfaction with their lives. A regression model suggests that the higher the respondent’s satisfaction with their life, the more likely they are to consider the dissolution of the Soviet Union to be a good thing.

However, this trend was not as pronounced in Armenia, where those who were more satisfied with their lives were only 10 percentage points more likely to consider the dissolution of the Soviet Union to be a good thing, compared to those who reported a lower level of satisfaction with their lives.

When asked the reasons for holding positive or negative perceptions of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Georgians and Armenians gave the same primary explanations. 

The deterioration in people’s economic situation was mentioned by 69% of Armenian respondents and 65% of Georgian respondents who saw the end of the USSR negatively.

Among those who saw the dissolution positively, 79% of Georgians and 88% of Armenians said this was due to their countries gaining independence. 

There were no meaningful differences between those who were satisfied and dissatisfied with their jobs or who considered themselves to have relatively “poor” or “good” economic conditions in terms of whether or not they perceived the collapse of the Soviet Union to be a good thing.

Overall, the data suggests that the happier respondents are with their lives now, 30 years following the end of the Soviet Union, the more likely they are to see the collapse positively. This correlation is substantially stronger in Georgia than in Armenia. 

Note: The data in this article is available here. Analyses that do not link directly to CRRC Georgia’s online data analysis tool were conducted using logistic regression. The logistic regression included age group (18-34, 35-54, 55+), sex (male or female), education (completed secondary/lower, technical or incomplete higher education/higher), wealth (an additive index of ownership of 10 durable goods, a proxy variable), settlement type (Tbilisi, other urban areas, or rural areas), employment type (employed or not working), and level of satisfaction with life as controls. Whether or not the respondent thought the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a good or bad thing was the outcome.

The views presented in the article are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC Georgia or any related entity.


Armenian FM to visit Czech Republic

Shushan Frangulian

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 15:24,

YEREVAN, JULY 25, ARMENPRESS. On July 26, Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan will pay a working visit to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan said on social media.

FM Mirzoyan will have meetings with Foreign Minister of Czechia Jan Lipavský and President of Senate Miloš Vystrčil.

Within the framework of the visit issues related to the enhancement of the Armenian-Czech relations, strengthening of the cooperation in the field of democracy, Armenia-EU relations, as well as regional security and stability will be discussed.

The meeting of Ararat Mirzoyan and Jan Lipavský will be followed by a press conference of the Foreign Ministers.

AW: Ida Krikorian celebrates her 101st birthday in Cambridge

Shushan Frangulian
 Nancy Kalajian Community News, Local Spotlight 1

Ida Krikorian

It happened not once, but twice. Ida Krikorian had two special outdoor celebrations to celebrate her 101st birthday. The first, a gathering of family and friends on June 19, was followed by a joint community birthday celebration on July 19 for five residents, ages 100 and above, also living at the Neville Center in Cambridge. Sumbul Siddiqui, mayor of Cambridge, presented each honoree with a framed proclamation and a huge golden key to the city of Cambridge. Longtime Massachusetts State Senator Pat Jehlen was also in attendance. Watching a slew of slides showing highlights of her active life full of wonderful memories of family and travel and flanked by golden decorations and balloons, Krikorian easily conversed with guests and celebrated her latest birthday with great style and gusto with daughter Susan and son-in-law Jack by her side. Krikorian is grateful for living a long and happy life to the fullest. She feels if she divulges her secrets to longevity, they won’t be a secret. “The best things in life are the people we love, the places we’ve been, and the memories we’ve made along the way,” shared Krikorian with a warm smile.

Krikorian was a lifelong resident of Methuen in the Merrimack Valley before relocating to the Boston area to be closer to family. She attended St. Gregory’s Armenian Church in North Andover and was a member of its Ladies Guild. Krikorian volunteered for decades at their annual bazaars and picnics. For many years, she worked at Raytheon Company in Andover before retirement.




Catholicos Aram I concerned about recent developments in Armenia

Shushan Frangulian
Panorama
Armenia –

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, has expressed concern over the recent developments in Armenia.

“In particular, the developments concerning the Armenian-Turkish negotiations and the ban on ARF Bureau member Mourad Papazian’s entry to Armenia are disturbing,” he said in a Facebook post on Friday.

“Such developments can negatively affect relations between Armenia and the Diaspora. Clear and complete information must be provided to the public,” Catholicos Aram I said.

Germany’s best business school in Armenia: Joint program with Matena

Shushan Frangulian

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 11:56,

YEREVAN, JULY 14, ARMENPRESS. ESMT Berlin, the #1 business school in Germany by the Financial Times, will deliver a joint program for the business leaders and managers with the Armenia-based international school Matena, IDeA Foundation told Armenpress.

The "ESMT Berlin-Matena" international program will be launched in the fall of this year, and those interested in management and leadership education will be able to participate, both from Armenia and from other countries of the world.

"By partnering with leading educational institutions, Matena makes world-class business education available in Armenia. Our country can and should become the best destination in the region for those interested in international high-quality education," says Ruben Hayrapetyan, co-founder and CEO of "Matena" International School.

Matena already implements a number of international educational programs in Armenia, continuously expanding the network of leading partners and experts.