Azerbaijan officially revealed its acquisition of the sophisticated Turkish Bayraktar Akinci combat drone on Feb. 9, following criticisms by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev of neighboring Armenia’s recent arms purchases.

Aliyev inspected the newly-acquired high-altitude long-endurance, unmanned combat aerial vehicle on Feb. 9 and various accompanying Turkish-made weaponry, including SOM and Cakir cruise missiles produced by Turkey’s Rokestan missile manufacturer. He even signed the drone.

The Akinci ACAV is much larger and has more advanced and sophisticated sensors than its widely exported predecessor, the Bayraktar TB2. It also has more hardpoints and can carry heavier and more sophisticated bombs and missiles than the TB2. Azerbaijani TB2s devastated Armenian ground forces during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, which ended in a decisive victory for Baku.

The Akinci can also carry long-range munitions, such as the cruise missiles Aliyev inspected, meaning it could potentially launch standoff strikes against Armenian targets while staying out of range of air defenses and even without leaving Azerbaijani airspace.

The UCAV’s powerful active electronically scanned array radar and sensors could complete valuable intelligence-surveillance-target acquisition (ISTAR) and command-control-communications (C3) tasks for the Azerbaijani armed forces.

The Akinci is the most advanced drone Azerbaijan has procured to date and is another testament to the close military ties between Baku and Ankara.

The UCAV’s unveiling came mere months after Aliyev sharply criticized France and India for selling Armenia military hardware. He accused those countries of “pouring oil on fire” and creating “unrealistic illusions in Armenia” that it could retake Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku completely conquered the enclave in a lightning military offensive on Sept. 19, which resulted in the entire ethnic Armenian population of over 100,000 people fleeing in terror to Armenia, causing a humanitarian crisis.

Armenia has signed significant arms deals with France and India in recent months. These deals coincided with Yerevan’s growing frustration with Moscow, which traditionally served as its leading arms supplier and security guarantor since the end of the Cold War, after Moscow failed to prevent, or even significantly protest, Azerbaijan’s military offensives. Furthermore, Armenia wants to diversify its sources for military hardware since Russia has become a much less reliable provider of arms, spare parts, and technical support since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Most of the weaponry Armenia has ordered so far is defensive. It’s acquiring short-range Mistral air defenses and Bastion armored personnel carriers from France. From India, it has ordered Pinaka multiple rocket launchers and medium-range Akash air defenses.

Armenia’s interest in diversifying its air defenses is unsurprising. During the 2020 war, Azerbaijan’s Israeli-built Harop loitering munitions sought out and destroyed Armenian Soviet-built long-range S-300 air defense missile systems within Armenia’s borders. The Akash can purportedly target aircraft and cruise missiles from up to 28 miles away, which Yerevan would need if it came under attack from Azerbaijani Akincis. The Mistral can do little more than provide point defense for specific bases or installations, certainly no game-changing capability.

In other words, while these acquisitions will enhance Armenia’s defenses, they won’t alter the balance of military power in the South Caucasus. And Azerbaijan already possesses equivalent and even superior systems.

Azerbaijan notably live-fired an Israeli Barak air defense system during a large air defense drill in the week leading up to its September 2023 Karabakh operation. The move was likely in preparation to prevent Armenia from intervening with its modest air force or retaliating with its Iskander short-range ballistic missiles. Azerbaijan is widely believed to have downed an Armenian Iskander in 2020 with a Barak 8. Like Armenia, it also has S-300s, which participated in a training exercise this month.

Baku also reportedly used Harops and Israeli-made LORA theater quasi-ballistic missiles during the September operation. Israel supplied the Azerbaijani military with equipment and ammunition in the lead-up to both offensives.

Most recently, Armenia lost four of its soldiers to Azerbaijani fire on the border on Feb. 13. Even Aliyev’s closest ally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urged him to avoid such flare-ups and pursue a comprehensive peace deal with Yerevan.

Armenia has already agreed to relinquish all claims to Karabakh provided its national sovereignty is recognized and not violated in line with its Soviet-era borders. The Azerbaijani president has coveted parts of southern Armenia to establish a land bridge, which Azerbaijan dubs the Zangezur Corridor, to link up with its western Nakhchivan exclave. However, he has shown openness to establishing an alternative corridor through Iran.

In the meantime, without a peace agreement, and with Azerbaijan continually enhancing its modern military with cutting-edge Akinci drones and Israeli weaponry, Armenia is investing in relatively modest defense acquisitions in preparation for the utterly unthinkable: a third conflict in the region in this decade.

YEREVAN, Armenia (JTA) — It’s just after sunset on a chilly February evening as Mama Jan begins filling up with customers. The cozy little café, located on Alexander Speniaryan Street — one block from Yerevan’s Freedom Square — lures passersby with its traditional khashlama (Armenian meat stew), dolma (stuffed grape leaves) and grappa (homemade brandy).

Inside, Edith Piaf melodies play softly in the background, while a blackboard near the bar lists the upcoming week’s activities: Saturday, a meeting of the English-speaking club; Sunday, a lecture on feminism; Wednesday, a screening of the movie “Golda,” and on Friday, Kabbalat Shabbat featuring baked challah and pomegranate wine.

Overseeing it all is Julia Kislev, a vivacious Crimean Jew who immigrated to Israel in 1992, settled in South Tel Aviv and learned fluent Hebrew. In 2016, Kislev joined her Armenian actor husband in Yerevan, and four years later, she opened Mama Jan — which has since become the unofficial gathering place of Armenia’s newest Jews, those displaced by the two-year-old Russia-Ukraine war.

“They find their shelter here,” said Kislev, 55, an Israeli citizen with local residency status.

In the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, this landlocked former Soviet republic in the Caucasus has seen a surprise influx of Jews — mostly liberal young Russians opposed to the war, but also Ukrainians seeking safe haven. Together, their arrival has boosted Armenia’s total Jewish population tenfold, from fewer than a hundred to well over 1,000 today.

That’s a big deal for an ancient land that never had many Jews to begin with, even though Armenia — the world’s first Christian nation — boasts a medieval Jewish cemetery with 64 tombstones in Hebrew and Aramaic dating back to the year 1266.

Armenia became a Soviet republic in 1920, and following World War II, Jews relocated here from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Azerbaijan. But after the USSR itself collapsed in 1991, nearly the entire Jewish community of 15,000 families emigrated en masse to Israel, leaving only a handful of aging congregants to keep the dwindling community from disappearing altogether.

“If it weren’t for the war between Russia and Ukraine, there’d be maybe 50 or 100 Jews left here,” said Rabbi Gershon Meir Burshtein, spiritual leader at the Mordechay Navi Jewish Religious Center of Armenia. “We were thinking this would be the end. But then this influx of Jews came from Russia, mainly young people thirsting for Yiddishkeit.”

According to community organizer Nataniel Trubkin, some 120,000 Russian citizens fled to this Maryland-sized land of 3 million in the weeks and months following President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

Some feared the draft; others were worried about sanctions and freezing of bank accounts. Their arrival contributed to a local construction boom that helped boost Armenia’s GDP by 12% in 2022 and a further 8% last year. Yet many Russians have since gone on to third countries or returned home.

Of the Russian Jews who remain, said Trubkin, about 60% are Muscovites like himself; the rest hail mainly from St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod.

“There may actually be more than 1,000 Russians with Jewish blood here, but for various reasons they have not shared their identity,” said Trubkin, who does copywriting and social media marketing for various Jewish organizations. “It’s interesting that most of these people are from the same social class — sometimes even from the same neighborhoods of Moscow.”

Likewise, of the 5,000 or so Ukrainian refugees who remain in Armenia, about 1,500 are Jews.

Trubkin, 43, is among the regular patrons at Mama Jan, which under Kislev’s supervision hosts gatherings for every major Jewish holiday including Hanukkah and Purim. Burshtein, who bears a striking resemblance to Tevye the Dairyman, comes to the café often to conduct prayers, and some of the recent Russian arrivals have begun attending Shabbat services at his synagogue — the only one in Armenia.

One reason Armenia is so attractive to these newcomers — Jewish or not — is its lack of visa restrictions. It’s also easy to get flights to Yerevan from Russia, where air travel is limited because of sanctions imposed after the war’s start. Plus, the new Russian arrivals say, the locals are warm and welcoming, both to Russians and to Jews.

That’s a sharp contrast to neighboring Georgia, 20% of which remains under Russian military occupation following the Kremlin’s 2008 invasion. Anti-Russian graffiti can be seen throughout Tbilisi, where Russian immigrants, regardless of their political beliefs, are widely resented.

And despite Armenia’s unhappiness with Israeli weapons sales to archenemy Azerbaijan, as well as Israel’s refusal to officially recognize the 1915 Ottoman genocide of more than 1 million ethnic Armenians, the new arrivals say they have been pleasantly surprised not to have encountered the kind of violent antisemitism that has existed in Russia for centuries.

“In the media, Azerbaijan has been trying really hard to paint Armenia as an antisemitic, intolerant country. I work in the media here and know full well how it works,” Trubkin said, referring to regular warnings issued by the government of Azerbaijan that Armenia is rife with Nazism.

“We have a lot of experience fighting antisemitism,” he said. “We haven’t seen any here.”

It was after a particularly vicious attack by local neo-Nazis at a Moscow subway station that St. Petersburg native Anton Ronis, 22, decided to give up his spot studying economics at a prestigious academy and leave for Armenia.

The black eye the young Jew received cemented feelings that he had experienced since the beginning of the war.

“When the war [against Ukraine] started, I began talking to my friends at school, but it was like talking to a wall,” said Ronis, who protested against the Putin regime. “I realized that I could not influence the situation. I wanted to be useful, and I understood that in Yerevan, I could do more than in Russia. Those who support this war are people with very scary ideas, and they consider me their ideological enemy.”

For the past year, Ronis has been volunteering for the past year at Dopomoga—an Armenian charity that offers Ukrainian newcomers humanitarian assistance and language classes.

Yan Schenkman, an independent journalist, fled to Armenia from Russia in March 2022, just weeks after the war began.

“There was no reason for me to stay in Moscow. It was very dangerous for me,” said the 51-year-old, who wrote about artists, musicians and other dissidents for a variety of Russian-language print and online media before his departure. He had also visited Israel but didn’t feel comfortable there because, he said, “the Israelis are very aggressive.”

Since his arrival in Yerevan, Schenkman said he only occasionally hears antisemitic comments.

“Armenians know that Israel supports Azerbaijan with arms sales. But they also understand that Russians who come here have nothing in common with Putin, in the same way they distinguish between the Israeli government and ordinary Jews,” he said. “Every country has crazy, resentful people who push propaganda. Fortunately, in Armenia, there are not many of them.”

Tatiana Kliuchnikova, 28, arrived in Armenia on March 3, 2022 — exactly one week after the war began — with her 30-year-old husband Mikhail, who had previous army experience.

“We realized he’d be among the first to be drafted if it came to mobilization, so we came here,” said Kliuchnikova, who gives English and French lessons and also works as a translator. “We also went to Israel for two weeks to see what it feels like, but we don’t know the language and it’s difficult to integrate. Here, we feel accepted.”

Kliuchnikova added that in Armenia, Russian is widely spoken, and it’s easy to make a living.

“If you had asked me six years ago, I wouldn’t have thought of leaving Russia,” she said. “But for now, we want to stay in Armenia. We don’t want to go anywhere else.”

A stateless Armenian poet who died fighting the Nazi occupation of France during World War II on Wednesday became the first non-French Resistance fighter to enter the Pantheon mausoleum for national heroes.

The honour to Missak Manouchian has been seen as long-overdue recognition of the bravery of foreign communists — many Jewish — who fought the Nazis alongside members of the French Resistance.

Members of the French foreign legion carried the coffins of Manouchian and his wife Melinee, also a member of the Resistance, draped in French flags into the secular temple.

The names of 23 of his communist comrades-in-arm — including Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish and Romanian fighters — will be added to a commemorative plaque inside the monument.

“Grateful France welcomes you,” President Emmanuel Macron said.

– Refugee turned fighter –

Manouchian arrived in France as a young man in the mid-1920s, after fleeing World-War-I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as a child to French-mandate Lebanon.

He joined the French communist party’s armed resistance in 1943, soon leading dozens of foreigners fighting the German occupiers in the Paris region.

Under his watch they carried out sabotage, derailed trains, attacked German soldiers and assassinated a German SS colonel in charge of the forced enlistment of French workers.

Manouchian was arrested in November 1943 and tortured before being shot dead by firing squad aged 37 with around 20 of his comrades in February 1944.

After their death sentences, a Nazi propaganda poster showing images of ten from the group on a red background, which became known as the “red poster”, sought to demonise them as members of a “criminal army”.

But it backfired, and later inspired a poem by French poet Louis Aragon, a song and several films.

During Wednesday’s ceremony, French singer Patrick Bruel read out the last letter Manouchian wrote to his wife before he was shot.

“My dear Melinee, my beloved little orphan, in a few hours, I will no longer be,” he had written.

– Foreigners –

Manouchian, who pursued poetry and literature while working in a shipyard and a factory before the war, had requested French nationality in 1933 and 1940, both times without success.

He was one of many foreigners in the French Resistance.

They were mostly “anti-Nazi Germans and Austrians, Spanish Republicans who had fled Francoism, anti-fascist Italians, Poles who had fled anti-Semitism, Armenians, and Jews from eastern Europe and Germany”, according to the French defence ministry.

It is unclear how many exactly of the 2.2 million foreigners in France at the time joined the Resistance.

But of the 1,000 Resistance fighters executed by the Nazis at the Mont-Valerien fort outside Paris during the occupation, 185 were foreign, historian Denis Peschanski told AFP.

That was a much higher proportion of foreigners than in the country’s pre-war population of around 40 million.

– ‘Quiet heroism’ –

Under Macron, since 2017 three people have been awarded a place inside the Pantheon: writer Maurice Genevoix, women’s rights icon Simone Veil, and US-born entertainer and French Resistance member Josephine Baker.

Baker, the first black woman to receive the honour, had been awarded French nationality before the war.

Last year, Macron said Manouchian would also receive the honour, paying tribute to his “bravery” and “quiet heroism”.

At the time, parliament was debating a contentious immigration bill that Macron eventually signed into law earlier this year.

The roughly 2,000 people invited to Wednesday’s ceremony include Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and representatives of the French Communist Party.

Far-right former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said she would also be attending, sparking controversy.

The parliamentary leader of the anti-immigration National Rally party was invited, but Macron said this weekend that the far right should be “inspired not to be present”.

Georges Duffau-Epstein, whose Jewish immigrant father Joseph Epstein was among those being honoured, said Le Pen was “not welcome”.

bur-vl-ah/giv

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met in Munich on February 17 with the mediation of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. 

According to Azerbaijan's APA news agency, Scholz left the room at some point and the meeting continued in bilateral format. 

Afterwards, the sides expressed satisfaction with the meeting but offered few specifics on a way forward. 

It was the first meeting between the two leaders since last July, though they did have a brief encounter at a CIS summit in December. 

One of the main reasons for their failure to meet has been disagreement over who should mediate, particularly since Azerbaijan's seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh in September and the exodus of the region's Armenian population. 

Armenia has favored mediation by the EU and U.S. while Azerbaijan first expressed preference for authoritarian regional powers Russia and Turkey, and then began rejecting all outside mediation. 

The sides have met in bilateral format several times, however, to discuss border delimitation in November and agree a prisoner exchange in December.

Armenia has not explicitly rejected bilateral talks on a comprehensive peace deal, though its preference for Western mediation is evident as it seeks closer ties with the EU and U.S. and attempts to move away from its traditional strategic partner Russia. 

The Aliyev-Pashinyan-Scholz meeting took place just four days after Azerbaijan killed four Armenian soldiers in what it called a "revenge operation" for the wounding of an Azerbaijani serviceman. 

And the previous day, February 16, Pashinyan had said that his government's "analysis" showed that Azerbaijan was preparing for a full-scale war. 

After the meeting, on February 18, Pashinyan said the two countries' foreign ministers would meet soon for peace talks. It is not clear whether or not any mediators will be present.

Aliyev, meanwhile, called his meeting with Pashinyan "constructive and useful." He declared that there is "de facto peace in the region" and expressed readiness to sign a peace treaty. 

At the same time, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry in a February 18 statement reiterated Baku's demand that Armenia revise its constitution and other laws to remove all reference to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Following the Munich meeting, Olaf Scholz stated that the sides agreed to resolve their differences "without violence." No details about any specific agreements were made public. The meeting took place within the framework of the Munich Security Conference. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Aliyev and Pashinyan separately, expressing support for the peace process. 

While the two countries' leaders maintain that the main principles of the peace treaty have been agreed, the sides voice disagreement over almost all of the parts of the deal, including the opening of the transport links and border delimitation/demarcation. 

The mentioned principles include Armenia and Azerbaijan recognizing each other's territorial integrity, with the latest USSR and Almaty declaration maps being used for the demarcation of the borders and opening of the regional infrastructure based on the respective country's legislation and jurisdiction. Baku, however, demands a corridor through Armenia connecting mainland Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan to be controlled by Russian border troops and without Armenian customs or border checks. 

Via Eurasianet.org

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/The-Armenia-Azerbaijan-Diplomatic-Dance-Continues.html

In a world where diplomacy delicately balances on the edge of a knife, words can either bridge divides or deepen them. Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron found himself at the heart of a controversy that has stirred the already turbulent waters between Azerbaijan and Armenia. His comments on the return of Karabakh Armenians, intended or not, have ignited a fervent response from the Western Azerbaijan Community, leading to accusations of him being 'more Armenian than the Armenians themselves' and labeling his remarks as 'ridiculous'. This incident not only highlights the fragility of post-conflict relations but also raises questions about the role of international actors in regional disputes.

The crux of the matter lies not just in Macron's comments but in the deeper, historical grievances between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The Western Azerbaijan Community's reaction is a testament to the enduring pain of displacement and the yearning for a return to their ancestral lands in Armenia. Their call for a mutual return underscores the complexity of reconciling with the past while navigating the present. The emphasis on a mutual return is a plea for equity and acknowledgment of suffering on both sides, challenging Macron's narrative and questioning the impartiality of international involvement.

France's involvement in the Azerbaijan-Armenia normalization process has been met with skepticism and dissatisfaction from the Azerbaijani side. Accusations of a dishonest approach by France have led to a recommendation that France should remain silent on the matter, a statement that underscores the perceived bias and missteps in diplomatic engagements. This dissatisfaction is not isolated but reflects a broader concern with the Brussels track of negotiations, where Baku has sensed a pro-Armenian bias and provocative statements from European leaders, including Macron. The Western Azerbaijan Community's critique of France's role encapsulates the broader challenges of mediating peace and reconciliation in a context where historical grievances and national identities are deeply intertwined.

The controversy surrounding Macron's comments and the subsequent response from the Western Azerbaijan Community highlight the precarious nature of the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. While the European Union, with France as a key player, has been instrumental in fostering dialogue, the current impasse raises critical questions about the future of engagement. Azerbaijan's economic and strategic dependence on Europe, particularly in areas of energy and transport, juxtaposed with the potential risks of disengagement, underscores the need for a balanced and impartial approach in securing peace and stability in the region. The ongoing negotiations between Baku and Yerevan, amid these diplomatic frictions, reaffirm the importance of maintaining collaborative ties for the sake of regional and international security.

https://bnnbreaking.com/international-relations/a-clash-of-narratives-macrons-comments-spark-controversy-in-azerbaijan-armenia-relations