Author: Vardan Badalian

Armenia to defend itself until the end if attacked, says Speaker of Parliament

Vardan Badalian

 15:37, 15 January 2024

YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenia doesn’t have any territorial claims against any country but it has been developing its military and will defend itself until the end if needed, Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan has said.

“Is there any signal indicating that Armenia believes there will be peace in any case? Of course not. We have a military, we are developing our military, we will defend ourselves until the end if needed. But we are not planning to attack any country and we don’t have any territorial claims against any country,” Simonyan told reporters when asked on the possibility of war on the backdrop of the latest statements made by Azerbaijan.

Signing of Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty is only theoretically possible

Vardan Badalian
Jan 19 2024
  • Arthur Khachatryan
  • Yerevan

Is the conflict exhausted

Unique conditions for the full establishment of relations between the countries — this is how the current period in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict can be characterized. The confrontation which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union has completely changed its logic over the past three years. The basis of the conflict between Yerevan and Baku was Nagorno-Karabakh. But in September 2023, Azerbaijan used military force and established full control over this territory.

Official Yerevan in fact did not object to this development of events and limited itself to restrained statements. Moreover, the Armenian authorities are ready to document the status of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan. In this case, can the conflict be considered exhausted? At the moment, it seems that this is not enough for Azerbaijan to make a final peace.

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The 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh not only disrupted the status quo, but also led to large-scale and, importantly, rapid transformations in the South Caucasus region. The state of affairs has changed not only on the ground but also in the negotiation process. Against the background of the worsening Ukrainian crisis, the mediating countries began to compete for the status of the main moderator of the Yerevan-Baku negotiations.

At some point, the West began to succeed in this struggle. Personal contacts between the heads of the two countries moved to Western platforms. During these meetings, the Azerbaijani side achieved an important result — Armenia’s agreement to officially recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

European mediators even managed to develop a document that the leaders of the two countries were to sign in Spain in 2023, which stipulates mutual recognition of the territorial integrity of the parties to the conflict within internationally recognized borders. But the President of Azerbaijan did not fly to Granada. The Armenian Prime Minister not only came to the meeting with European partners, but signed the statement.

Armenia recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, but received nothing in return. Now there is no Nagorno-Karabakh at all in the negotiation process.

Although Armenia says that the issue is not closed and the Armenian population should return to their homes, but these statements are rather intended for an internal audience. Yerevan is simply unable to put the NK issue back on the international agenda. At least, not yet.

After Azerbaijan managed to remove Nagorno-Karabakh from the negotiation process, the bilateral agenda focused on other issues. The most important are the demarcation and delimitation of the border and the unblocking of transportation communications. The issue of enclaves has been raised more and more often recently.

The main goal of the negotiations is to sign a peace treaty, which should put an end to the confrontation between the two states. But only Azerbaijan, having received everything it needed on the Western platforms, no longer accepts the invitations of Brussels and Washington to come and continue negotiations.

Instead Baku’s position is tilted towards Russia. And this does not suit Armenia, whose authorities have been boycotting events under the auspices of the CSTO and other Russian integration structures for a long time.

The Armenian Prime Minister himself has also refused several times to participate in summits with the participation of the leaders of Russia and Azerbaijan. Ilham Aliyev in this regard said Armenia’s “destructive position” was particularly due to Nikol Pashinyan’s decision not to participate in the CIS summit in Bishkek:

“We perceive with gratitude Russia’s mediation in the normalization of relations with Armenia. Russia is our neighbor and ally, as well as Armenia’s ally. It takes 6 hours for the Armenian Prime Minister to fly to Granada, participate in an incomprehensible meeting there, where Azerbaijan without Azerbaijan is discussed. And he cannot fly 2-3 hours to Bishkek, he has important business.”

Baku went further and declared the policy of the United States in the region unilateral. Aliyev defiantly refused to receive the US State Department’s Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations, Louis Bono.

The reason for the deterioration of relations was the cancelation of visits of Azerbaijani representatives to the United States. The State Department explained this by the lack of progress in the peace process between Baku and Yerevan. The United States also suspended military aid to Azerbaijan.

However, attempts by Washington and Brussels to put pressure on Baku at the level of statements have not yielded results. Ilham Aliyev enjoys the full support of Turkey, as well as Russia, feels quite confident and intends to get the most out of the current situation.

For more than a year now, expert circles have been discussing whether Azerbaijan will be satisfied with Karabakh or continue escalation on the border with Armenia. In recent months, both sides have claimed progress in negotiations and convergence of positions on some disputed points.

This inspired at least some optimism, giving the impression that Aliyev had chosen a peaceful outcome.

But now the Azerbaijani president is essentially back to square one:

“The process of building our army will continue. Armenia should know that no matter how many weapons it buys, no matter how it is supported, any source of threat to us will be immediately destroyed. I am not hiding this, so that tomorrow no one will say that something unexpected has happened.”

In recent statements, the Azerbaijani leader also mentioned the “Zangezur corridor” and the process of delimitation of the state border.

Since the 2020 war, there has been a fierce dispute between the sides over approaches to unblocking transport communications. Azerbaijan insists on an extraterritorial corridor through Armenia to Nakhichevan. Yerevan wants to control all transit routes through its territory.

This is also acceptable to Western partners, and at some point it seemed that Azerbaijan had gotten used to this approach. However, Aliyev again said that if his country does not get the so-called “Zangezur corridor”, the blockade of Armenia will continue:

“If the route I named is not opened, we do not intend to open our border with Armenia in any other place. Cargo and people must pass from one part of Azerbaijan to another without any checks.”

This and other statements by the Azerbaijani leader provoked a strong response in Armenia. Official Yerevan again had to explain to Baku in restrained, diplomatic language that the provision of a “corridor” is excluded, Armenia intends to control the roads passing through its sovereign territory.

“They are trying to reintroduce corridor logic, which we categorically reject. On the corridor issue, they refer to the statement of November 9 [whose signing stopped the war in Karabakh in 2020]. But the two signatories of the document [Russia and Azerbaijan] demonstrated from the moment of signing until the September 2023 events that there is no such document for them. And there is also no mention of a corridor in the November 9 statement,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

He recalled that the same document stipulates guarantees for the unimpeded functioning of the Lachin corridor, the only road linking NK with Armenia, and for the safety of the Armenian population. But after the September 2023 one-day war and the exodus of the Armenian population from Karabakh, the trilateral statement finally lost its meaning and any legal force.

The process of delimitation and demarcation of the state border also poses serious risks for Yerevan. The Armenian authorities insist that Soviet maps from the 1970s should serve as the basis for this process. They most accurately define the state of affairs at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

At one point it seemed that the sides had managed to agree on this issue. But in the same interview with Aliyev it became clear that there is no change here either:

“Armenia’s proposal to delimit the border on the basis of maps from the 1970s is unacceptable. Either the period of the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic or the period of Sovietization should be taken as a reference point.”

Azerbaijan has recently been increasingly talking about the need to sign a peace treaty without specifying the principles on which the process of delimitation and demarcation of the border will be conducted. Yerevan views such statements as an attempt to make new territorial claims against Armenia.

“The point of the delimitation process is not to create a new border, as these borders have already been fixed by the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration, according to which the existing administrative borders between Soviet states became state borders. Our delimitation commissions should reproduce these borders, they should be reproduced on the ground, on maps and papers. Azerbaijan is trying to form territorial claims against Armenia, which is absolutely unacceptable,” Pashinyan said in response.

It is premature to say that the latest statements from Baku indicate a final decision to go for confrontation. In this regard, Aliyev still has room for maneuvering.

But the Azerbaijani leader’s messages suggest that Baku’s confrontation with Yerevan will continue and it is not worth expecting the signing of a peace treaty in the near future.

However, even if some paper is signed, it will not be a guarantee of peace if Armenia agrees to sign it without specifying the principles of delimitation. Political scientist Stepan Danielyan believes so:

“In such a scenario, it will be a treaty on a future war or on Armenia’s surrender. Azerbaijan refuses to recognize Armenia’s territorial integrity. All the points that should be in the peace treaty are being promoted by Baku. Azerbaijan is preparing for another aggression, and Turkey is behind it.”

Developments in the South Caucasus region will be largely determined by the international situation. The attention of mediators, primarily Washington, is focused on the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip and around Ukraine. Given this and the expected presidential elections in the United States, a new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan seems quite probable.

https://jam-news.net/is-the-conflict-exhausted/

Armenians won’t accept loss of Artsakh

Vardan Badalian
Catholic Register
Jan 18 2024
BY  SUSAN KORAH

The 100,000 Armenians who fled en masse after Azerbaijan seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh — the enclave known to Armenians as Artsakh — last September are now facing a bitter winter as homeless refugees in Armenia.

They and their Church leaders are urgently seeking Canada and the international community’s help in reclaiming their homeland and retrieving their Christian history and heritage in Artsakh, which they fear is being deliberately destroyed by Azerbaijan.

Grieving the loss of their beloved homeland, and haunted by fears of an erasure of their 1,700-year-old history as a Christian nation in Artsakh, their collective anguish can only be described by the Welsh word “hiraeth” (a mixture of yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness and an intense longing for a lost homeland.)

“It’s now over three months since I lost my home,” Siranush Sargsyan, from Stepanakert, Artsakh’s capital, told The Catholic Register. “At the beginning (of the exodus), most people were relieved to be still alive. But now we are going through another stage. We can’t accept the reality that we can’t go back home.”

Sargsyan is an Armenian journalist who has documented through her own experience the persecution and ethnic cleansing of her people by Azerbaijan. Like the thousands who fled Artsakh, she now lives as a refugee in Armenia.

Archbishop Papken Tcharian, Prelate of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Canada, and Archbishop Anoushavan Tanielian, Prelate of the Eastern U.S., appealed to political leaders and the worldwide Christian community for help.

“I appeal to fellow Christian churches to raise their voice and support Armenia, the first nation to adopt Christianity in the year 301 AD as a state religion,” said Tcharian. “Otherwise, the confiscated churches, monasteries and khachkars (Armenian crosses) of Artsakh will be desecrated by Azerbaijan, and the authorities of Baku will distort the history of Armenian Christian Artsakh. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’ ”

Tanielian exhorted the international community to take a lesson from past genocides, including that of Armenians in 1915, and from the ongoing persecution of Christians elsewhere, to stop the aggressors’ actions before it’s too late.

“The best and most effective step the international community and Canada can take, without any delay, is to put into practice the same measures that they usually apply to despots: freezing all the assets of the corrupt government of Azerbaijan; establishing sanctions over their resources, and implementing all resolutions by international bodies,” he said.

 He called on Canada to take a leading role in helping to restore the rights of the people of Artsakh.

“The Canadian government is well-positioned to play an important role in this regard,” he said. “It provided a substantial amount of money via the Red Cross in the first days after the forced evacuation — better to say ‘ethnic cleansing’ or even ‘genocidal attempt’ — of the population of Artsakh.”

He praised Canada’s role in stopping the sale of arms in 2022 to Azerbaijan’s allies that are “bent on erasing the Christian presence in the land of Mount Ararat.” (The mountain where Noah’s Ark is believed to have come to rest).

The sense of loss washed over Sargsyan and her countrymen with particular intensity on Jan. 6 when Armenians — most of whom belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, an Orthodox Christian denomination — celebrated Christmas.

 “Today is Armenian Christmas, and it’s very important to celebrate it at home with family and friends,” she told The Register. “But now we don’t have a home — a homeland, yes, but not a home.”

Christmas, even under bombardment, is preferable to one without a home, she continued.

“Last year, we celebrated Christmas under siege,” she said. “And we thought it was the most difficult ever, but this year is even worse.”

The destruction of their tangible Christian heritage, and the fear of erasure of their 1,700-year history in Artsakh caused by Azerbaijan’s revisionist policies, is another source of excruciating pain, she emphasized.

“One year ago, Christmas was under siege in Artsakh, but at least in the homeland. Now our churches in Artsakh stand silent, devoid of prayers and liturgy,” Sargsyan said.

“We have not only lost our homeland, our homes, memories, but also the cultural heritage of our millennial history,” she continued, adding that dozens of churches, as well as tens of thousands of khachkars and tombstones have been razed to the ground.

She misses the beauty of the landscape, the rhythm of life in the village where she grew up and the iconic Amaras monastery, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world.

 “I grew up near the Amaras monastery built in the fourth century where Mesro Mashtots, the monk, opened the first Armenian school and developed the Armenian alphabet,” she said. “It’s in the Amaras valley and surrounded by mulberry orchards and vineyards, where we worked and eagerly waited for the autumn harvest. It was a family tradition, which we have also lost. All our memories and traditions have been destroyed.”

Although warmly received by her compatriots in Armenia, she, like other refugees, is grappling with financial problems and physical hardship since arriving with little more than the clothes on their backs.

“If we were lucky, we could bring some documents but not much else. The government (of Armenia) and some international organizations provide some help, but it’s nowhere near enough for our basic needs,” she said.

The onset of winter, the lack of winter clothing and fuel for heating homes, not to mention inflated rental prices due to the influx of Russian refugees escaping the war with Ukraine, are multiplying the burdens of a traumatized community, she added.

https://www.catholicregister.org/home/international/item/36348-armenians-won-t-accept-loss-of-artsakh

Lydian hands 12.5% stake in Amulsar gold project to Armenian govt

Vardan Badalian
Interfax
Jan 18 2024

YEREVAN. Jan 18 (Interfax) – Armenia's government has taken ownership of a 12.5% stake in Lydian Armenia, which operates the Amulsar gold mine, at zero cost.

"A decision has been made to accept the donation of a 12.5% stake in Lydian Armenia. We hope that the Amulsar mine will serve as a platform for introducing new standards in the mining sector," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

The Amulsar gold deposit is located in the southeast of the country, 13 km from the resort town of Jermuk on Mount Amulsar. Development of the Amulsar field has been suspended since 2018 due to protests by environmental activists.

The Armenian government, Lydian Armenia and the Eurasian Development Bank signed a memorandum of understanding in February 2023 to resume the use of the Amulsar gold deposit, the second largest in the country after the Sotk deposit. "By signing the memorandum, the parties declare their intention to raise $150 million; another $100 million will be raised outside this document," Armenian Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan said at the time. The EDB will allocate $100 million in loans, and another $50 million will be provided by a local bank, he said. Armenian government will receive a 12.5% stake in Lydian Armenia and will ensure the management of possible risks, Kerobyan said.

Lydian Armenia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lydian Canada Ventures, which in turn is owned by U.S. investment company Orion Mine Finance and Canada's Osisko Gold Royalties. The latter's website said that Amulsar's reserves are estimated at 2.6 million ounces of gold and 12.7 million ounces of silver. The overall resource base is 4.8 million ounces of gold and 25.1 million ounces of silver.

Lydian is the sole shareholder of the Armenian Geoteam Corp., which received an exploration and appraisal license for Amulsar in 2006.

https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/98549/ 

Controversy after Armenian Catholicos’ New Year speech not aired on Public TV

Vardan Badalian
Jan 4 2024
 4 January 2024

ByArshaluys Barseghyan

Armenia’s Apostolic Church and Public TV are in dispute after the head of the church’s New Year’s Eve speech was not broadcast for the first time in Armenia’s post-independence history, amidst a souring in relations between the church and the government. 

In previous years, the public broadcaster has aired a speech by the Catholicos, the head of the Armenian church, shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve. 

A statement released by the Mother See, the Church’s governing body, on the evening of 31 December alleged that the public broadcaster had ‘at the last minute’ and ‘without any reason’ informed them that the message would not be broadcast. 

‘Instead, it was proposed to present the address of the Patriarch of All Armenians during the evening edition of the news, which was judged to be inappropriate by the Mother See and accordingly rejected,’ said the statement. It added that any other explanations of the event were ‘fabrications’. 

The statement came after government-affiliated media shared claims by an Armenian pro-government blogger that the church’s Catholicos Karekin II had given an ultimatum that his speech be broadcast at midnight or not be aired at all. 

The Council of the Public Broadcaster, the body overseeing Public TV and Public Radio, issued a response on Wednesday evening, claiming that the church had withdrawn their approval on New Year’s Eve. 

It stated that the speech had been scheduled for broadcasting ‘at the time set aside for official addresses this year’, but following the speech of Armenia’s President, rather than prior to the Prime Minister’s speech as had previously been the case. 

It added that a representative of the church had on 31 December voiced the institution’s disagreement with the scheduled timing, and ‘demanded not to broadcast or use the video recording of the Catholicos’ message, whose copyright belongs to the Mother See’. 

The statement also noted that the request had only related to Public TV, meaning that the message was still broadcast on Shogakat, a religious and cultural TV channel, and Public Radio. 

It also suggested that, while there was no legislative regulation regarding the broadcasting of New Year’s messages in Armenia, the issue be settled ‘legislatively’ in light of the public response. 

The news received wide public attention, with many condemning either the broadcaster or the head of the church on social media. 

Some noted that, while the issue was not legislatively enshrined, the order in which the speeches were presented was a tradition that the public broadcaster had disrupted. 

‘Two things are important to me: a) disregarding tradition, b) and most importantly, drawing new dividing lines between Armenia’s political authorities and the Mother See,’ wrote journalist Tatul Hakobyan. 

Relations between the government and the church’s leadership have deteriorated since a change of power took place following Armenia’s Velvet Revolution in 2018. 

The antipathy became more open in the aftermath of the defeat of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, when the head of the church joined calls for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation.

In April 2023, the Catholicos reaffirmed his call for Pashinyan to resign, prompting the Prime Minister to state that  ‘if the church wants to carry out political activities, Armenia is a democratic country’.

‘Nothing prevents them from creating a party and carrying out political activities within the framework of that party, which will be more honest, and they will be on the same level in front of the voters and with other political rivals.’

The church also condemned the ‘dangerous and unacceptable positions adopted by the authorities’ in May 2023, following Pashinyan’s statement that Armenia was ready to recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. 

Despite criticism from the church, the government removed The History of the Armenian Church as a standalone subject from the public school curriculum in April 2023.


Russia says it’s working to achieve peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Vardan Badalian

 15:07, 21 December 2023

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Russia is actively working in the direction of unblocking of connection routes in South Caucasus and the signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian top general Valery Gerasimov has said.

Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said that the situation in the South Caucasus remains tense but has a tendency to stabilize.

“Russia is carrying out active work through political channels in the direction of unblocking of transport connections in Transcaucasia, the signing of a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan, as well as resolving the most pressing Armenian-Azeri disputes,” the general said at a meeting with foreign military attachés.

Gerasimov claimed that during the Azeri attack in Nagorno-Karabakh in September the Russian peacekeepers accommodated over 10,000 civilians in their deployment bases and then ensured the safe passage of civilians into Armenia. He said that the ceasefire was achieved within 24 hours as a result of the mediation by Russian peacekeepers.

“At the same time, our servicemen continue to fulfil objectives, as guarantors of building peaceful life and return of residents of the region,” he added.




High level of Armenian-Georgian relations is a key factor in ensuring security in the South Caucasus: Parliament Speaker

Vardan Badalian

 18:05,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. At the initiative of  the Armenian Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan,  the delegation headed by the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili arrived in Armenia on a working visit.

As the Armenian Parliament's press service reports, the meeting between the speakers of  the parliaments  of the two countries  in Dilijan began with a private conversation, followed by an extended meeting.

Welcoming the Georgian counterpart, Alen Simonyan congratulated friendly Georgia on receiving the European Union membership candidate status and noted that it was an important event for the entire region.

The Armenian Speaker of Parliament emphasized that the deepening of relations with Georgia is of strategic importance for Armenia and expressed hope that in the near future it would be possible to establish a strategic partnership between the two countries.

Referring to the effective cooperation in the economic sphere, Alen Simonyan highlighted the fact that the trade turnover and economic ties between Armenia and Georgia continue rising.

In this context, the head of parliament touched upon the problems arising at the Upper Lars checkpoint for various reasons and lauded the efforts of the Georgian side aimed at transit facilitation.

The Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, in turn, assured that quite positive processes have taken place in this direction recently.

During the meeting, Alen Simonyan referred to regional security and challenges, reaffirming that Armenia remains committed to the agenda of establishing peace and stability in the region.

Referring to the "Crossroads of Peace" presented by Armenia, Armenian Speaker of Parliament offered Georgia to join the project.

"The high level of relations between Armenia and Georgia is one of the important factors in ensuring security in the South Caucasus. We highly appreciate Georgia's interest and efforts in establishing peace and stability in the region. The Peaceful Neighborhood Initiative of the Georgian government is aimed at this very goal," stated the Speaker of the Parliament.

Alen Simonyan underscored the continuous development of the Armenian-Georgian high-level political dialogue.

In the context of bilateral relations, Armenian Speaker of Parliament congratulated the parties on the occasion of the opening of the Honorary Consul of Armenia in Georgia's city of Rustavi.Expressing his gratitude for the invitation, Shalva Papuashvili emphasized with satisfaction the effectiveness of the bilateral parliamentary cooperation format.

Referring to regional issues, the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia emphasized their support for the signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which could be a guarantee of long-term stability and development in the region.

During the meeting, ideas were exchanged regarding the immediate return of Armenian captives held in Azerbaijan.

India set to export Akash indigenous air-defence system to Armenia even as Azerbaijan sees red

Vardan Badalian
Dec 20 2023

New Delhi: India is set to export its indigenously developed air-defence system to Armenia, expanding its repertoire of military exports to the Asian nation. The deal, valued at approximately ₹6,000 crores, involves the delivery of Akash supersonic surface-to-air missile system, which is developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and manufactured by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL).

Earlier in April, the defence ministry had alluded to an undisclosed export order for the air-defence system without divulging details about the recipient nation. This move follows a pattern of exports to Armenia, encompassing the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launchers, artillery guns, various ammunition types, and drones.

Sources within the defence establishment indicate that shipments of the Akash air-defence systems to Armenia are poised to commence soon. Notably, the export of the Akash system is not limited to Armenia alone. India has offered it for export to other countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines.

The Indian Army and the Indian Air Force have already operationalized the Akash air defence system.

Recently, as India Sentinels reported, the Akash air-defence system was successful in destroying four aerial targets simultaneously. It was the first such achievement in the 25-kilometre range by any surface-to-air missile system in the world.

Azerbaijan upset

Arms sales to Armenia by other countries, including India, has upset Azerbaijan – Armenia’s archenemy. Earlier this month, the Azeri president, Ilham Aliyev, warned India and France against providing Yerevan with weapons that may pose Baku a threat. Aliyev said such supplies could start a new war in the region.

In a news conference on December 6, Aliyev also said Azerbaijan “will have to react to protect its people” should Armenia start receiving serious weapons from India and France, adding that he has already “warned everybody”.

Previously, in November 2022, Kalyani Strategic Systems announced a deal worth $155.5 million (worth around ₹1,265 crore at that time) for 155mm advanced towed artillery guns with an undisclosed overseas customer, which later was revealed as Armenia.

This peeved Baku and the Azeri media criticized New Delhi’s move to sell the advanced howitzers and the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket system to Yerevan. 

In a July op-ed titled “India’s warmongering in south Caucasus is wake-up call for Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan” in Azernews, the author, Rena Murshid, wrote India’s “main reason” for deep ties with Armenia is Azerbaijan’s “fraternal relations” with Pakistan.

She wrote: “At present, while the situation in the south Caucasus is tense, and when both Europe and Russia are competing to solidify their influence in the region, India’s such behaviour (selling advanced military platforms to Armenia) could mean just an act of destabilizing the region.”

Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

Azerbaijan and Armenia have resorted to military conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh (officially called the Republic of Artsakh or the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh), which is a landlocked enclave inside Azerbaijan but had a majority population of ethnic Armenians until this year. The conflict between the two former Soviet republics over the control of the enclave escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Armenia won that war, which led to the occupation of regions around Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh. This resulted in tit-for-tat expulsions of ethnic Armenians from Azerbaijan and ethnic Azerbaijanis from Armenia.

In 1993, the United Nations security council adopted four resolutions backing Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from all Azeri territories. The ceasefire ending the war, signed in 1994 in Bishkek, was followed by two decades of relative stability.

Things then deteriorated significantly in the 2010s and escalated to a four-day bloody conflict in 2016, in which hundreds of soldiers and people died. However, the frontline remained mostly unchanged.

In late 2020, after 30 years, the second full-scale war erupted between the two countries over Nagorno-Karabakh. This time, Azerbaijan scored a huge victory. An armistice was established by a tripartite ceasefire agreement on November 10, resulting in Azerbaijan regaining all the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as well as capturing one-third of the enclave itself.

Ceasefire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the Armenian–Azerbaijani border continued, and Azerbaijan began blockading Artsakh in December 2022, and launched a large-scale military offensive in September this year.

This resulted in the total capitulation of Armenian forces and surrender of the Artsakh (Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh) authorities. Almost all the ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fled the enclave and Artsakh is set to dissolve by January 1, 2024.

Armenia has not extradited a Russian conscript who fled because of the war in Ukraine

Vardan Badalian
Dec 20 2023

  • JAMnews
  • Yerevan

Armenia did not extradite Russian conscript

“The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Armenia has not received, discussed or approved the petition on the detention, arrest and transfer (extradition) of Dmitry Setrakov to the competent authorities of the Russian Federation,” Lusine Martirosyan, Advisor to the Prosecutor General of Armenia, said, denying the extradition of the Russian citizen.

Dmitry Setrakov, who fled because of the Russian-Ukrainian war, allegedly taken from Armenia to Rostov-on-Don, is in the military police department, as reported by the Russian service of Radio Liberty.

Setrakov faces up to ten years in prison for leaving the unit he served in unauthorized. There is no information yet on how he ended up in Russia. He was detained in Gyumri by military police officers of the Russian base, where he was held until he was taken out of Armenia.

Armenian human rights activists have declared that the Russian military police has no right to detain anyone on the territory of Armenia, including a Russian citizen.

The agreement signed between Russia and Armenia in 1997 regulating the activities of the Russian military base in Armenia stipulates that the base can only detain its own servicemen. Setrakov is not a member of the base.

Armenian human rights activists report that military police appeared at the military base five years ago. At that time, the Russian side assured that their function would only be to observe the internal discipline of the military on the territory of the base.

  • “CSTO technically cannot create a unified air defense system”: Opinion from Yerevan
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Advisor to the Prosecutor General Lusine Martirosyan also said in a Facebook post that the Prosecutor’s Office “has no information about the search for Dmitry Setrakov by the authorized bodies of the Russian Federation and his discovery” on the territory of Armenia.

“The statement of human rights defender Artur Sakunts regarding Setrakov has been sent to the body carrying out operational and search activities in order to verify the information stated therein. After which the issue of opening a case will be discussed.”

Human rights activist Artur Sakunts appealed to the Prosecutor General to “take measures regarding the illegal actions committed by the military police of the Russian military base on the territory of Armenia, as well as to make efforts to prohibit or prevent the possible transfer of Dmitry Setrakov from the territory of Armenia to the Russian Federation.”

The Prosecutor General’s Office considered the application, but no criminal case was opened, and Setrakov has already been removed from Armenia.

On December 9, Artur Sakunts warned that military police officers of the 102nd Russian military base stationed in Gyumri detained Russian citizen Dmitry Setrakov. He received this information from colleagues from a Russian human rights organization, to which Setrakov’s wife had appealed.

According to Sakunts’ report, he was a contract serviceman, but after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war he refused to serve and moved to Armenia.

The human rights activist also called the management of the military base. He received confirmation that the man had been detained. He was told that the base’s investigation department should conduct an investigation, and if found guilty, Setrakov would serve his sentence in the Russian Federation.

The Vanadzor office of the Helsinki Assembly, headed by Sakunts, also appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, reporting about Setrakov’s illegal detention. The human rights organization submitted a demand to the court to apply an urgent measure and oblige Armenia not to extradite Setrakov to Russia.

Human rights activist Artur Sakunts considers the actions of the Russian law enforcement bodies on the territory of Armenia as “encroachment on the legal system of Armenia and Armenia as a sovereign state”.

He said that he asked the leadership of the military base on what grounds Setrakov was arrested. He was told that “this is an order from Russian President Putin.”

“It turns out that the order of the President of the Russian Federation is valid on the territory of the Republic of Armenia. The order of the president of any country cannot obtain in another sovereign state. In such a situation, the security of thousands of other Russian citizens sheltering in Armenia is also under threat,” Sakunts says.

According to the human rights activist, this is a serious challenge for the Armenian authorities, who have obligations to the Council of Europe, including the protection of the rights of any person on the territory of the country.

https://jam-news.net/armenia-did-not-extradite-russian-conscript/

Putin announces 2024 presidential bid

Vardan Badalian

 16:22, 8 December 2023

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 8, ARMENPRESS. Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that he will seek re-election in 2024, RT reports.

Russia’s presidential election will be held between March 15 and March 17, 2024. The winner will be inaugurated in early May.

If Putin wins, it will be his fifth term as head of state.