Tuesday,
Pashinian Backs Defense Chief’s Tough Talk On Karabakh
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia -- Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan (R) inspects Armenian army positions
on the border with Azerbaijan, July 21, 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Tuesday threw his weight behind Defense
Minister Davit Tonoyan, who has seemingly ruled out Armenian territorial
concessions to Azerbaijan and promised a more offensive posture against the
Azerbaijani army.
Visiting the United States at the weekend, Tonoyan dismissed the so-called
“lands-for-peace formula” of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “We are
saying the opposite: a new war for new lands,” the Voice of America quoted him
as telling members of the Armenian community in New York.
“Nothing will be conceded,” said Tonoyan. He added, though, that “compromises
are possible.”
“We will rid ourselves of the trench-based, constantly defensive posture and
increase the number of those army units that can shift hostilities into enemy
territory,” warned Tonoyan.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry condemned the “provocative” statement, saying
that it undermined international efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict. It
also challenged the Armenian government to clarify whether Tonoyan voiced his
personal views or official Yerevan’s position.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lays flowers at the Yerablur military
cemetery in Yerevan, April 2, 2019.
“If Davit Tonoyan had made a different statement I would have dismissed him as
defense minister,” Pashinian said, commenting on the minister’s remarks. “What
did the defense minister say? He said that if a war breaks out our objective
will be to win that war.”
“This does not cast a shadow on the peace process,” he told reporters. “On the
contrary, it underscores the importance of a peaceful settlement.”
Asked whether Tonoyan coordinated with him, Pashinian replied: “The defense
minister acts under the prime minister’s leadership and is subordinate to him.”
The prime minister spoke at the Yerablur military cemetery in Yerevan after
leading an official ceremony to mark the third anniversary of fierce fighting
around Karabakh which nearly degenerated into a full-scale Armenian-Azerbaijani
war. At least 190 Azerbaijani and Armenian soldiers were killed during four-day
hostilities halted by a Russian-brokered agreement. It was the worst escalation
of the Karabakh in over two decades.
Nagorno-Karabakh - Karabakh Armenian troops fire rounds from a howitzer in the
Martakert district, 3Apr2016.
Azerbaijan’s President marked the anniversary with a visit to a military base
used by Azerbaijani special forces, which played the key role in offensive
operations launched by Baku on April 2, 2016. Meeting with military personnel
serving there, Aliyev again ruled out any peace deal that would fall short of
restoring Azerbaijani control over Karabakh.
“No country recognizes and, I’m sure, will recognize the so-called
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,” he said, according to the Turan news agency.
Aliyev also said that the new Armenian government has failed to change the
internationally accepted format of peace talks. He clearly referred to
Pashinian’s regular calls for Karabakh’s direct involvement in the talks.
Aliyev and Pashinian met in Vienna as recently on Friday. In a joint statement
with the U.S., Russian and French mediators, the Armenian and Azerbaijani
foreign ministers described the three-hour meeting as “positive and
constructive.” The two leaders discussed “key issues of the settlement process
and ideas of substance” and “recommitted to strengthening the ceasefire,”
according to the statement.
Yerevan Insists On Karabakh’s Involvement In Peace Talks
• Karlen Aslanian
Armenia - Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian, 21 May 2018.
Armenia will continue to press for Nagorno-Karabakh’s direct involvement in its
peace negotiations with Azerbaijan, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian said
on Tuesday.
“If Nagorno-Karabakh does not have a sense of ownership towards this
negotiating process, the process cannot be effective,” Mnatsakanian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian service and Civilnet in an interview. “This is at the heart
of our approach. Taking away this sense of ownership means breaking the
effectiveness of the negotiating process.”
Mnatsakanian would not say whether he thinks Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leaders
can participate any time soon in high-level talks held by Baku and Yerevan.
“One may look at this issue primitively and imagine who will be sitting at the
negotiating table,” he said. “You have to realize that for the last 20 years
there has been an established format, a working model which has reflected
realities of that period.”
Ever since he swept to came in May last year, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
has said on numerous occasions that he does not have a mandate to negotiate on
behalf of the Karabakh Armenians and that they should therefore become a
full-fledged negotiating party. Baku rejects this demand, saying that Karabakh
is Azerbaijani territory occupied by Armenia.
Speaking just hours after his March 29 talks in Vienna with Pashinian,
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that “the format of negotiations
remained unchanged” as a result of the summit. Pashinian criticized that
statement on Monday, saying that it “does not reflect the atmosphere which we
have in the negotiations.”
Aliyev again ruled out any changes to the format of the long-running talks on
Tuesday. “The conflict is between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said.
Armenian opposition politicians and other critics of Pashinian have seized upon
such statements to accuse the prime minister of failing to fulfill his pledges
to get Karabakh back to the negotiating table.
Mnatsakanian dismissed the criticism. “What are we going to do?” he went on.
“We are going to carry on. We are not going to say that … we won’t sit down and
talk [to Baku.] We will not take a childish approach. This is a very serious
issue. At stake are people’s lives.”
“But the issue [of Karabakh’s participation] cannot be removed from the table
because it contains a very simple logic, and our aim is to pursue this matter
so that we can boost the effectiveness of this negotiating process,” he added.
Asked whether a compromise settlement acceptable to both conflicting sides can
ever be worked out, Mnatsakanian said: “This is what the negotiations are all
about. There have been different approaches, ideas and proposals during all
these years. It should be possible [to achieve such a settlement] through a
combination of them.”
The minister cautioned, however, that this remains an “extremely difficult”
task.
Ruling Party Denies Infighting
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Nikol Pashinian and senior members of his Civil Contract party start
nonstop anti-government protests in Yerevan, April 13, 2018.
The deputy chairman of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party
dismissed on Tuesday media claims about growing tensions and disagreements
within its ranks.
“My answer is definitive: our party is more than united and strong,” said Suren
Papikian, who is also Armenia’s minister for local government. “Of course,
there can always be debates inside all political forces. But we don’t have
disagreements and I must disappoint those who expect the opposite.”
Armenian media outlets critical of the government increasingly report on the
alleged emergence of rival factions within Civil Contract -- and its 88-strong
parliamentary group in particular -- jockeying for influence on Pashinian. Some
of them have claimed that Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian and National
Security Service Director Artur Vanetsian lead two of those factions.
Civil Contract is the dominant force in the Pashinian-led My Step alliance
which scored a landslide victory in last December’s parliamentary elections
held seven months after the “velvet revolution” in Armenia.
Pashinian set up Civil Contract in 2013 after splitting from former President
Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress. It operated as a
non-governmental organization mostly uniting young civic activists before
becoming a full-fledged political party in 2015.
Armenia -- Leaders of the Civil Contract movement speak to journalists,
Yerevan, October 13, 2014.
Party representatives reaffirmed on Tuesday Civil Contract’s plans to elect by
secret ballot a new governing board at a congress expected later this year. In
Papikian’s words, the election will see “healthy competition” among congress
delegates.
Vahagn Hovakimian, another Pashinian associate, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
that the congress should also approve changes to the party’s statutes and
program. Ad hoc team formed by the party leadership is already working on those
changes, he said.
Hovakimian also confirmed that Civil Contract has received more than 10,000
membership applications since Pashinian swept to power in May on a wave of mass
protests that brought down Armenia’s former government. He said the party has
admitted only 300 new members, many of them individuals appointed to senior
positions in the new government.
Deputy parliament speaker Lena Nazarian suggested in February that many
applicants have ulterior motives. The ruling party is therefore in no rush to
recruit new members en masse, she said.
Nazarian stressed it will thus not follow the example of former President Serzh
Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), which had attracted hundreds of
thousands of nominal members thanks to its vast financial and administrative
resources.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” says that the four-day hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh which broke
out on April 2, 2016 took Armenia off guard and demonstrated that the army is
the only state institution which was prepared for war. “The state [as a whole]
was not prepared and that was the most shocking thing for us,” writes the paper.
Lragir.am quotes Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian as endorsing Defense Minister
Davit Tonoyan’s latest statements on the Karabakh conflict. “Prime Minister
Pashinian’s reaction to Tonoyan’s statement made in New York is noteworthy not
from the emotional standpoint, even considering the fact that it was made on
the [second] anniversary of the April war,” writes the online publication. “The
subject matter here fits into the pragmatic framework of state policy.”
“Zhoghovurd” weighs in on controversy sparked by acting Culture Minister Nazeni
Gharibian’s decision to dismiss the director of Armenia’s national opera and
ballet theater, Constantine Orbelian. The paper backs Gharibian’s claims that
Orbelian was appointed as director in 2017 in violation of Armenian laws and
regulations. It says that Orbelian’s track record and professional merits
cannot outweigh people’s equality before the law.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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