Tuesday,
Russia, France Vow More Joint Efforts For Karabakh Peace
France - French President Emmanuel Macron, right, welcomes Russian President
Vladimir Putin at the Elysee Palace in Paris, December 9, 2019
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron
pledged on Tuesday to continue coordinating their efforts to stop the war in
Nagorno-Karabakh and restart Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
In a statement, the Kremlin reported that during a phone conversation they
discussed “in detail” the latest developments in the Karabakh conflict zone.
It said Putin briefed Macron on Russia’s efforts to “prevent a further
escalation of hostilities and quickly resume negotiations aimed at a
politico-diplomatic settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.”
They “emphasized the importance” of the conflicting parties’ compliance with
ceasefire agreements that were brokered by Russia and France on October 10 and
October 17 respectively, read the statement. It added that the two leaders also
pledged to continue the “close coordination” of their peace efforts.
France, Russia as well as the United States lead the OSCE Minsk Group tasked
with helping to find a solution to the Karabakh conflict.
The conflicting parties accuse each other of not respecting the ceasefire
agreements. They both reported on Tuesday continued heavy fighting between
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces at frontline sections south of Karabakh.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke, meanwhile, of continuing international
efforts to stop the fighting and kick-start the peace process. He did not go
into details.
Speaking to journalists in Moscow, Peskov refused to comment on speculation that
Moscow is trying to organize a meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
In interviews with the official Russian TASS news agency, both Pashinian and
Aliyev expressed readiness on Monday to hold face-to-face talks in Moscow.
Pompeo To Meet Armenian, Azeri FMs
• Tatevik Lazarian
U.S. -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a news conference at
the State Department, in Washington, October 14, 2020
Armenia and Azerbaijan confirmed on Tuesday that their foreign ministers will
separately meet with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington later
this week for talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Citing “U.S. government documents,” Politico.com reported that Pompeo’s meetings
with Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian and his Azerbaijani
counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov are scheduled for Friday.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry confirmed the information. The ministry
spokeswoman, Anna Naghdalian, said preparations for Mnatsakanian’s visit to
Washington are already underway.
Naghdalian would not say whether Mnatsakanian and Bayramov could also meet with
each other in the U.S. capital.
“I have no information about a meeting in a different format or preparations for
it,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
According to Politico.com, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United States did not
rule out the possibility of face-to-face talks between the two ministers.
Bayramov and Mnatsakanian most recently met in Moscow on October 9-10. The
11-hour talks mediated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov resulted in an
Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement to stop fighting around Karabakh and resume
“substantive” peace talks.
The hostilities have continued since then, however, with the conflicting parties
accusing each of not respecting the ceasefire deal.
Joe Biden, President Donald Trump’s Democratic rival in the November 3
presidential election, last week expressed deep concern over the “collapse” of
the ceasefire and accused the Trump administration of being “largely passive and
disengaged.”
Pompeo has repeatedly called for an end to the Armenian-Azerbaijani war that
broke out on September 27. He has also criticized Turkey’s military support for
Azerbaijan in the conflict.
The United States, Russia and France have long been leading international
efforts to end the Karabakh conflict in their capacity as co-chairs of the Minsk
Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Armenia Calls For Wider Ban On Drone Technology Sales To Turkey
Nagorno-Karabakh -- An Armenian Defense Ministry photo that purportedly shows a
fragment of a Turkish-manufactured combat drone shot down in Nagorno-Karabakh,
.
Armenia on Tuesday urged more Western nations to suspend the export of drone
technology to Turkey as it publicized purported evidence of Turkish unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) used by Azerbaijan in the ongoing war over
Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Armenian Defense Ministry released photographs of what it described as
fragments of a Turkish-made combat drone Bayraktar TB2 allegedly shot down by
Karabakh Armenian forces on Monday.
The ministry spokeswoman, Shushan Stepanian, said one of the photos depicts the
drone’s largely intact imaging and targeting system manufactured by a
Canadian-based firm, L3Harris Wescam.
“It was manufactured by the Canadian company Wescam in June 2020 and installed
on Bayraktar TB2 in September 2020,” she said.
The Canadian government temporarily banned the sale of such equipment to Turkey
October 5 just over a week after the outbreak of the worst hostilities in the
Karabakh conflict zone since the early 1990s.
Nagorno-Karabakh -- An Armenian Defense Ministry photo that purportedly shows a
fragment of a Turkish-manufactured combat drone shot down in Nagorno-Karabakh,
.
The move was hailed by Yerevan but criticized by Ankara. It followed a statement
by Canadian arms control group Project Ploughshares saying that video of air
strikes carried out by Azerbaijani army drones indicates that they are equipped
with imaging and targeting systems manufactured by L3Harris Wescam.
A Turkish company manufacturing Bayraktar reportedly also buys components from
other Western countries.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian claimed that Karabakh’s Armenian-backed
Defense Army has shot down about a dozen such UAVs so far.
“None of the destroyed drones fell on territory controlled by the Defense Army
[until Monday.] We now seem to finally possess fragments of Bayraktar,” he wrote
on Facebook.
UKRAINE – A Turkish-made Bayraktar combat drone purchased for Ukraine's Armed
Forces, March 20, 2019
Pashinian described the publicized photos as further proof of Turkey’s “direct
involvement” in the war. “Based on this fact, those countries that supply Turkey
with necessary parts of Bayraktar should follow Canada’s example and suspend
further supplies,” he said.
Armenia has also accused Turkey of deploying Turkish military personnel and
Syrian mercenaries to Azerbaijan ahead of the war. The Turkish and Azerbaijani
governments deny that.
Baku has admitted heavily using Turkish as well as Israeli drones against
Armenian targets. But it insists that they belong to and are operated by the
Azerbaijani army.
According to exports data cited by the Reuters news agency, Turkey’s military
exports to Azerbaijan have risen six-fold this year, with sales of drones and
other military equipment rising to $77 million last month alone. Most of the
purchased drones, rocket launchers, ammunition and other weapons were delivered
after July.
UN Security Council Again Discusses Karabakh
• Armen Koloyan
The United Nations Security Council meets at UN headquarters in New York,
February 28, 2020.
The United Nations Security Council again discussed the continuing war over
Nagorno-Karabakh late on Monday at a meeting initiated by France, Russia and the
United States and, the three world powers trying to end the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict.
Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the UN who chaired the closed-door
meeting, said it discussed ways of ensuring the conflicting parties’ compliance
with ceasefire agreements.
“It is now necessary to ensure the implementation, this is the most pressing
issue because a relevant agreement was reached but not respected,” the TASS news
agency quoted Nebenzya as saying. “The main question remains how to ensure a
verification of its implementation.”
“This issue was certainly discussed during the consultations, and the council
was quite unanimous in its approach,” he told reporters in New York.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Monday that Moscow keeps
pressing Armenia and Azerbaijan to work out a ceasefire “verification
mechanism.” He said the Russian Defense Ministry is also involved in these
efforts.
Lavrov suggested last week that such a mechanism would involve the deployment of
“military observers” to the conflict zone.
Nebenzya did not exclude that the observers would be deployed by and operate
under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE). “The questions of who will be there and in what capacity remain open and
under discussion,” said the Russian diplomat.
The OSCE’s Minsk Group co-headed by Russia, France and the U.S. has long been
the main international body trying to broker a solution to the Karabakh
conflict. All three co-chair nations are permanent members of the UN Security
Council.
The council already discussed the situation in the Karabakh conflict zone on
September 29 two days after the outbreak of the war. It called for an immediate
end to the fighting.
The fighting in and around Karabakh reportedly continued on Monday night and on
Tuesday. The Armenian Defense Ministry said in the morning that Karabakh’s
Armenian-backed army is trying to repel a continuing Azerbaijani offensive at a
frontline section south of Karabakh.
The Azerbaijani military said, for its part, that Armenian forces shelled its
frontline positions overnight.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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