December 2020 – Page 128 – Armenian Directory & News

Azeri, Turkish War Crimes Against Armenians Must Not Go Unpunished by Uzay Bulut

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Jack Hunanian

Modern Diplomacy

Nov 13 2020

Published

3 weeks ago

November 13, 2020

Uzay Bulut

‘Only Putin can help us’: Families of Armenian MIAs in Karabakh turn to Moscow for support

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Lilit Nahapetian

TASS, Russia

Dec 1 2020

On Sunday, Armenian celebrities turned to the Russian Embassy with a similar plea

YEREVAN, December 1. /TASS/. Dozens of relatives of Armenian servicemen, who went missing in action during the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, have filed a letter with the Russian Embassy in Yerevan Tuesday, asking the Russian authorities for their assistance in finding them.

"Only Russia and President Putin can help us find our children. They fought in Zangilan. Maybe, they are still alive, hiding in the woods, or captured," one of those relatives told TASS.

On Sunday, Armenian celebrities turned to the Russian Embassy with a similar plea.

Rallies demanding the return of Armenian POWs in Azerbaijani custody have continued for several days near Armenia's central government offices.

On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint declaration on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the agreement, Azerbaijani and Armenian forces will maintain their current positions, with Russian peacekeeping forces deployed in the region.

Is This the End of Azerbaijan?

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Suren Karakhanian

The National Interest

Nov 30 2020

Azeris may celebrate November 10 as the date of their victory over Armenia in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War but, when the heady days of celebration recede, they may just realize it marks the beginning of the end to true Azeri independence.

by Michael Rubin

When Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan accepted a ceasefire on Nov. 10, 2020, Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev had reason to feel triumphant. He reversed the territorial losses suffered by his father, Azerbaijan’s former president, at the end of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War. He had successfully fooled the United States by committing to diplomacy in exchange for cash and military aid only to then launch a surprise attack to achieve militarily far more than he might have diplomatically. He also cemented his own power: By transforming himself into an indispensable ally for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian president Vladimir Putin, he may calculate that they will preserve his power in Azerbaijan should there be any significant unrest, much as Putin has spared no effort to protect Russian interests by propping up Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Armenia lost the war and Aliyev won. But Azerbaijan also lost. Azerbaijani flags may fly over Shusha, also known among Armenians as Shushi, and Kalbajar, but Aliyev’s victory comes at the expense of Azerbaijani independence. In order to cement personal power and the likely guarantee that his wife and son will succeed him, Aliyev has sold out Azerbaijani sovereignty.

Russian troops are now in Azerbaijan. In both theory and reality, they are enforcing a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but the re-insertion of Russian forces in the region has also been Putin’s longstanding goal as step-by-step he appears to return all former Soviet states to his fold. Perhaps Aliyev felt confident accepting Russian troops because they cemented the gains he and Turkish forces achieved during the war, but Aliyev forgot that while Russian troops are quick to enter, they seldom exit.

The Turks, too, are unlikely to leave Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s war aim was Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding Azeri districts, which Armenia had taken in the 1988—1994 war. But Turkey’s motivation was different. Erdogan and the military’s intellectual drivers like Doğu Perinçek have long embraced pan-Turkic ambitions to link Turkey culturally, economically, and politically with Azerbaijan and Turkic states of Central Asia. Driving from Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport into town, visitors pass a roadside mural decorated with the flags of Turkic republics from Azerbaijan to East Turkestan, as pro-independence Chinese Uighurs call it. Armenia, however, is an impediment to Erdoğan’s grand ambitions as it (and Georgia) physically separate Turkey from the Turkic republics. The ceasefire agreement not only reportedly gave Turkey a corridor through Armenian territory (although the mechanisms of that road remains unclear), but Turkey will also send troops to a joint Turkish-Russian monitoring center. Turkish special forces are in Baku, and Turkish F-16 jets remain stationed at Azerbaijani bases. Aliyev may look at Erdoğan as a friend but Erdoğan sees Aliyev as the means to an end.

Finally, there are the Syrian mercenaries. Turkey facilitated their transport into Azerbaijan, and Aliyev welcomed their contribution. Now, however, it is unlikely Aliyev has the ability to force their exit, even if he wanted to do so. Just as Turkey was able to direct the mercenaries’ fire against Armenians, they could just as easily utilize them to target any Azeris who oppose Turkey’s aims.

Azerbaijan first won independence in 1918, but that lasted a mere twenty-three months as Russian forces moved in on Azerbaijan’s oil-rich territory. The dissolution of the Soviet Union gave Azerbaijan a second chance. The Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic declared Azerbaijan’s independence on Oct. 18, 1991, a move subsequently confirmed by referendum. While this period of independence has lasted considerably longer, the end result is the same: foreign troops on Azeri territory answering not to Baku but rather to the Kremlin and the Ak Saray. Azeris may celebrate Nov. 10 as the date of their victory over Armenia in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War but, when the heady days of celebration recede, they may just realize it marks the beginning of the end to true Azeri independence and the beginning of the country’s subordination to Russian and Turkish suzerainty.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a frequent author for the National Interest.

Armenian-American activist details fact-finding mission in Artsakh

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Mary Lazarian

Fox 11 Los Angeles

Dec 1 2020

By Araksya Karapetyan

Mariam Khaloyan who serves as the Congressional Relations Director for the Armenian Assembly has been on a fact-finding mission in Artsakh and Armenia. She is documenting the destruction and the aftermath of what happened during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Now, more images are being released that show the destruction in the Armenian Republic of Artsakh.

"Arriving in Stepanakert, I immediately saw the damage that the shelling, the intensive shelling for 44 days took place in the city of Stepanakert, the capital," said Khaloyan.

The historic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan was invaded in late September when more than half the territory in Armenian control was taken over by Azerbaijan. Officials believe an estimated 4,000 Armenian soldiers and civilians lost their lives.

Khaloyan added that countless residential buildings have been damaged and destroyed.

"One of the biggest issues was the heating, as well as the damage to civilian and residential buildings. Many windows have been blown out. Those issues need to be addressed right away," she said.

In addition, the city’s main power station was destroyed.

"This did leave a significant impact as electricity is scarce in Stepanakert and so are other everyday needs, which the people of Artsakh need such as internet connectivity, electricity, heat and all of this comes from damage from the infrastructure," Khaloyan described.

RELATED: Click here for more coverage of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Stepanakert’s central market was shelled heavily, leaving many shops without walls or roofs.

Thousands of people have returned home and they are eager to get back to whatever the new normal will be.

But the danger still looms.

The Halo Trust — a U.K.-based charity that removes landmines — said it doesn’t have enough time to clear the area of dangerous munitions from unexploded parts of cluster bombs.

RELATED: Halo Trust to help communities rebuild after Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

"They can be found on roofs and attics. These unexploded, undetonated munitions are filled with small metal balls inside, which if detonated can explode and result in severe damage, if not permanent loss of limbs," Khaloyan explained.

On top of all of the issues in the nation, residents who had to hide in bunkers to survive got sick from COVID-19. Hunkering down in cold, dark basements turned into super spreader events.

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"The central church in Stepanakert, the Holy Mother of God Cathedral at one point housed 120 people who sought refuge in the basement of the church. It was horrible to see and hear that there were so many people who were sick and they couldn't do anything about it. They couldn't leave because of the constant alarm that was going off in the city and the constant shelling. So they had to all stay there together," said Khaloyan.

But perhaps the biggest and most urgent matter right now is the missing POW’s.

Khaloyan recently met with the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh — Mr. Artak Beglaryan.

"What Mr. Beglaryan is saying is that the crimes that are committed and the human rights abuses are war crimes, and those need to be called out. As we've seen all the videos that are shared on social media. — the desecrating of the church sites, the gravesites, desecrating Holy sites, cultural heritage sites, as well as committing human rights abuses towards those they have captured," said Khaloyan.

Khaloyan is set to return to Washington D.C. this week, as Congress is set to get back in session, where she will present her report.

Before Congress went into recess New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez– who is the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee– took the Senate floor and demanded the U.S. sanction Turkey and Azerbaijan and urged for $100 million immediate aid to be sent to Armenia and Artsakh.

RELATED: Sen. Bob Menendez demands U.S. sanctions on Turkey, Azerbaijan

"If we don't seize the moment to call on our members of Congress and Senators to urge for a $100 in humanitarian assistance that ask will go away as the year ends. The congressional term will end and we will have to wait for the next congressional, the next appropriation cycle in March, to ask for humanitarian assistance," she said.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s President Armen Sargsyan has asked Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to mediate the return of Armenian prisoners of war who are currently held in Azerbaijani custody.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.

NYT: In Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Deal, Putin Applied a Deft New Touch

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Yeghisabet Arthur

New York Times

Dec 1 2020

In Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Deal, Putin Applied a Deft New Touch

The iron-fisted tactics used against Georgia and Ukraine seem to have fallen out of favor, replaced by a more subtle blend of soft power and an implicit military threat.

Armenian soldiers and a Russian peacekeeping soldier, on the vehicle, at a checkpoint last month in Nagorno-Karabakh.Credit…Mauricio Lima

By Anton Troianovski and Carlotta Gall

Dec. 1, 2020Updated 10:27 a.m. ET

STEPANAKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh — As a dilapidated old van pulled up at a hillside checkpoint, an Azerbaijani soldier inside scrubbed furiously at his fogged-up window, then cast a glowering look at an Armenian standing just a few feet away.

Just days before, they were on opposite sides of a bitter war. But now the Russian peacekeeper next to them was in charge. He waved the van through toward Azerbaijani-held territory to the right. The Armenians traveled on to Armenian-controlled land to the left.

The vicious war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has settled into a tense truce enforced by heavily armed Russian troops. For Russia, long a provocateur in the broader Caucasus region, the peacemaker role is a switch — a new test and opportunity for a country struggling to maintain its influence in the former Soviet lands.

“They say that things will be OK,” said Svetlana Movsesyan, 67, an ethnic Armenian who remained in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital of Stepanakert, even after narrowly escaping an Azerbaijani strike on the market where she sells dried fruits and honey. “I believe in Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”

It was Mr. Putin, the Russian president, who by all accounts stopped the war that killed thousands this fall in the fiercest fighting the southern Caucasus has seen this century. But he did so by departing from the iron-fisted playbook Russia has used in other regional conflicts in the post-Soviet period, when it intervened militarily in Georgia and Ukraine while invading and annexing Crimea.

Image

At the open air market in Stepanakert, which was partially destroyed by shelling during the six-week war.Credit…Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

Those tactics, which helped turn those countries into implacable adversaries, seem to have fallen out of fashion in the Kremlin, which analysts say is increasingly applying a more subtle blend of soft and hard power.

The Kremlin’s lighter touch has been visible in the recent Belarus uprising, where Russia refrained from intervening directly and offered only lukewarm support for President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, whose violence against protesters was infuriating the population.

In the negotiations to end the recent war, Mr. Putin leaned on the threat of Russia’s military power, forcing concessions from both sides in the conflict but gaining a grudging measure of trust in the rival camps. Russia has a mutual-defense alliance with Armenia, but Mr. Putin insisted it did not apply to Nagorno-Karabakh. He has maintained close personal ties to President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.

The strategy seems to have paid immediate dividends, providing the Kremlin with a military foothold in the region and welding Armenia firmly into Russia’s sphere of influence, without alienating Azerbaijan.

“This is an opportunity to play the role of peacekeeper in the classical sense,” said Andrei Kortunov, the director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Russian government. “I want to hope that we are seeing a learning process and a change in the Russian strategy in the post-Soviet space.”

With Russian support, Armenia had won control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan inhabited by ethnic Armenians, after a yearslong war in the early 1990s that was precipitated by the breakup of the Soviet Union. Armenian forces also captured surrounding districts, expelling more than half a million Azerbaijanis.

After a quarter-century of diplomatic failures, Azerbaijan began an offensive on Sept. 27 to retake the area by force, making rapid gains thanks in part to its sophisticated, Israeli- and Turkish-made drones.

Image

Inside a cathedral in Shusha, which was hit by shelling during the war, before the town was captured by Azerbaijan.Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

In early November, Azerbaijani troops wrested the mountaintop citadel of Shusha from Armenian control, scaling the wooded slopes and fighting hand-to-hand in close combat through the streets. By Nov. 9, they were pummeling Armenian soldiers along the road to nearby Stepanakert, home to a peacetime population of some 50,000 ethnic Armenians, and an even bigger battle appeared imminent.

Then Mr. Putin, who earlier had tried to broker a cease-fire, stepped in. Azerbaijan that night accidentally shot down a Russian helicopter, potentially giving Moscow a reason to intervene. The Russian president delivered an ultimatum to Mr. Aliyev of Azerbaijan, according to several people briefed on the matter in the country’s capital, Baku: If Azerbaijan did not cease its operations after capturing Shusha, the Russian military would intervene.

The same night, a missile of unknown provenance hit an open area in Baku, without causing any injuries, according to Azerbaijani sources. Some suspected it was a signal from Russia that it was prepared to get involved and had the capacity to inflict significant damage.

Hours later, Mr. Putin announced a peace deal, and Mr. Aliyev went on television to announce that all military operations would stop. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia said he had no choice but to go along, facing the prospect of even more bloodshed on the battlefield.

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Azerbaijanis celebrating a week after the peace deal was announced.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Mr. Aliyev cast the deal as a victory, with all but a sliver of what was Armenian-controlled territory in Nagorno-Karabakh being returned to Azerbaijan. But he, too, had to compromise: Nearly 2,000 Russian troops, operating as peacekeepers, would now be stationed on Azerbaijani territory. It was a strategic boon for Russia, giving Moscow a military foothold just north of Iran, but also a risk because it put Russian troops in the middle of one of the world’s most intractable ethnic conflicts.

“I don’t know how it will end this time, because there is no good example of Russian peacekeepers in the Caucasus,” said Azad Isazade, who served in Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry during the 1990s. “I am worried how it will end.”

Seared in almost every Azerbaijani’s memory are the bloody events of 1990, when Soviet tanks rolled over demonstrators in Baku’s central square. Russian troops have since intervened repeatedly in troubled corners of the Caucasus, often under the moniker of peacekeepers but acting more like an invading army. Now Russia will be pivotal to the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the region’s long-term status still unclear.

“Russia doesn’t want to leave this alone. They like this frozen state,” said Farid Shafiyev, a former diplomat and director of the government-financed Center for Analysis of International Relations in Baku. “They are going to meddle.”

But the deal with Mr. Putin appears to have suited Mr. Aliyev — only in part because Azerbaijani forces were already strung out and faced a tougher, wintertime fight ahead while bearing the added burden of managing a hostile ethnic Armenian population, one analyst said.

“I don’t think Aliyev needed much persuading,” Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, said. “He values his relationship with Russia.”

For Armenians, many of whom had looked to build closer ties to the West in recent years, the war was a harsh reminder that Russia remains critical to their security. Because Azerbaijan’s main ally, Turkey, posed what many Armenians considered to be an existential threat, Armenians have come back “to our default position: the reflexive perception of Russia as the savior,” said Richard Giragosian, a political analyst based in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

It was Russia that offered refuge to and fought with Armenians against Ottoman Turkey during the Armenian Genocide that began in 1915.

“Armenia is now ever more firmly locked within the Russian orbit, with limited options and even less room to maneuver,” Mr. Giragosian said. “The future security of Nagorno-Karabakh now depends on Russian peacekeepers, which gives Moscow the leverage they lacked.”

The Nov. 9 peace deal says nothing about the territory’s long-term status, and ethnic Armenians who trickled back to their homes in buses overseen by Russian peacekeepers said they could not imagine life in the region without Russia’s protection.

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A destroyed Armenian tank along the former frontline region of Fizuli.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Down the road from the Stepanakert military college now housing the Russian command, Vladik Khachatryan, 67, an ethnic Armenian, said there was a rumor going around Stepanakert that gave him hope for the future.

“Soon, we will get Russian passports,” he said. “We won’t be able to survive without Russia.”

Across from the Stepanakert market, in Room 6 of Nver Mikaelyan’s hotel, a maroon bloodstain still covered the bedsheets more than a week after the war’s end. The boxers and towels of the room’s last guests hung on the headboards, pierced by shrapnel from the Azerbaijani bomb that hit in October.

Echoing other ethnic Armenians in the area, Mr. Mikaelyan said he saw one clear path to a sustainable peace: Nagorno-Karabakh becoming part of Russia. The idea seems far-fetched, but it has been floated by political figures in Russia and Nagorno-Karabakh over the years, though not by Mr. Putin.

“What else is to be done?” Mr. Mikaelyan asked, after taking another look at the blown-out hotel room door, the TV ripped off the wall, the trails of blood still stuck to the third floor. “The European Union is doing nothing. The Americans are doing nothing.”

Anton Troianovski reported from Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Carlotta Gall from Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Minsk Group: Karabakh War’s Diplomatic Casualty (Part Two)

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Diana Dabaghian

Jamestown Foundation

Dec 1 2020

December 1, 2020 04:51 PM Age: 57 mins

OSCE Minsk Group co-Chairmen (L-R) Bernard Fassier, Matthew Bryza, and Yury Merzlyakov in Prague in May 2009 (Source: RFERL)

The second Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan (September–November 2020) has conclusively discredited the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, the instrument of multilateral diplomacy mandated 28 years ago to mediate a solution to the Karabakh conflict (see EDM, November 12, 13, 17, 25).

While the Minsk Group’s discredit accumulated over time since 2010 (see below), the second Karabakh war has now robbed the Group as such, and its triple co-chairmanship in particular, of its raison d’être. The Kremlin-brokered armistice agreement of November 9, 2020, and subsequent documents do not even pro forma mention the Minsk Group and its decade-old Basic Principles for resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

Nominally accountable to the OSCE, the Minsk Group operates through its triple co-chairmanship of Russia, the United States and France, each co-chair being, in fact, accountable to its own government rather than the OSCE (the Group’s collective reports to the OSCE are a purely ceremonial exercise). Its multilateral legitimation through the OSCE notwithstanding, the Minsk Group’s triple co-chairmanship in fact attempted to introduce a concert-of-powers diplomacy to the South Caucasus.

The Kremlin, however, turned that concert into a Russian solo performance, practically monopolizing the role of mediator for the Russian co-chair from 2010 onward, after the Minsk Group’s three co-chairs had jointly tabled the Basic Principles for solving the Karabakh conflict (2009). From that point onward, Russian Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin took over the process, both through the Minsk Group and unilaterally by circumventing the Minsk Group. The United States allowed this to happen through its own passivity, and France through its own irrelevance to the South Caucasus. During the second Karabakh war, however, US and French diplomacy both switched to a largely pro-Armenia stance. If that was their quickly improvised way to recoup some of their lost influence over the diplomatic process, their attempt failed; and in that attempt, they forfeited the impartiality that qualifies any mediator for that role.

Russia was, all along, an inescapable participant in any multilateral mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, considering Russia’s proximity and interests vis-à-vis the South Caucasus. But Russia was (and remains) inherently unqualified for a mediator’s role, inasmuch as its interests in the region are hegemonic, and its mediation has only worked to advance those interests. Nor does Moscow meet the criterion of impartiality, since Russia and Armenia are strategic-military allies, whereas Azerbaijan had cast its lot with the West all along and, more recently, also with Turkey. Indeed, Moscow tilted generally toward Armenia after (and despite) the Minsk Group’s determination of the Basic Principles. Thus, the Kremlin’s 2011 proposals in the “Kazan Document” (see EDM, June 29, 2011), which shaped Russia’s position in subsequent years, so departed from the Basic Principles as to become unacceptable to Azerbaijan. The Kremlin, moreover, reinterpreted the Basic Principles to mean that five, not all seven, Armenian-occupied districts around Upper (“Nagorno”) Karabakh were to be returned to Azerbaijan, so that the two other districts would become negotiable.

The operating principle of Russia’s mediation consisted of keeping both sides off balance for more than two decades. Russia underwrote Armenia’s seemingly permanent occupation of Azerbaijani territories de facto; but at the same time, Moscow recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty de jure. And in recent years, the Kremlin delivered weapons to both sides (discounted or gratis to Armenia, commercially for cash to Azerbaijan) (see EDM, April 12, 2016 and May 28, 2018). For its part, Yerevan came to regard Russia as the perpetual guarantor of Armenia’s territorial gains at the expense of Azerbaijan. The Kremlin never dispelled that Armenian perception until it was too late for Yerevan to recognize its overreach.

Never interested in a solution that would not advance its own hegemonic goals, Russia was instead content to maintain a controlled degree of instability between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Kremlin blocked any progress toward a political solution, pending an opportunity to further enhance Russia’s influence over the process and in the region. This opportunity came with Azerbaijan’s military victory over Russia’s ally Armenia, as consecrated in the November 9, 2020, armistice agreement. This agreement concludes one major phase in a protracted conflict that remains unresolved politically, despite Azerbaijan’s military triumph in this second Karabakh war. The Kremlin brokered this agreement on terms that have increased Russian influence on the further evolution of this conflict and in the region beyond Karabakh. Most significantly, the agreement authorizes neighboring Russia unilaterally to deploy troops to the region, in breach of the Minsk Group’s erstwhile consensus, OSCE understandings and United Nations norms on peacekeeping.

At the same time, Turkey has entered the South Caucasus as a political-military power (adding to its economic power) to Russia’s discomfiture. The Minsk Group had excluded Ankara from the co-chairmanship and, thus, from any meaningful role. As if to confirm the Minsk Group’s loss of relevance, Turkey has now entered the region hand in hand with Azerbaijan and even, to a degree, on Azerbaijan’s coattails. This will serve henceforth as an insurance policy for Azerbaijan vis-à-vis Russia’s stronger leverage.

Russia’s unilateral mediation of the armistice agreement has unceremoniously shut out the United States and France. The Minsk Group, with its collective co-chairmanship, looks all but defunct, as Washington and Paris undoubtedly realize. Yet Moscow deems it useful to keep the Minsk Group’s co-chairmanship barely afloat, for possible further manipulative use down the road. Russian officials, from President Vladimir Putin on down, maintain that the Minsk Group’s basic principles are the foundation of the armistice agreement. The Kremlin would welcome Minsk Group collective stamps of approval on those unilaterally driven Russian solutions. It, therefore, received the Minsk Group’s US and French co-chairs in Moscow post factum, to “provide them with full information about the agreement reached by the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, in full compliance with the Minsk Group Principles,” as Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reported to Putin in a Russian inter-agency meeting (Kremlin.ru, November 20). Russia’s presence in this exercise of multilateral diplomacy, however, has doomed the whole exercise; and it will continue to have this effect, if the Minsk Group is allowed to limp further along.

Over 27,000 refugees return to Nagorno-Karabakh — Russian defense ministry

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Bedik Zaminian

TASS, Russia

Dec 1 2020

Under a ceasefire deal, Russian peacekeepers have been deployed to the region

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/. Russian peacekeepers have helped more than 27,000 refugees to return to Nagorno-Karabakh, including more than 1,100 during the past day, the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday.

"On December 1, 2020, Russian peacekeepers escorted another convoy of buses with refugees returning to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. As many as 1,168 people arrived in Stepanakert from Yerevan," the ministry said.

According to the ministry, more than 27,000 refugees have returned to their homes since November 14, 2020.

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July.

On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. Under the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the region. The Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh basically comprises units of the 15th separate motor rifle (peacekeeping) brigade of the Central Military District.

The Russian peacekeepers have set up observation posts along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachinsky corridor that connects Armenia with the enclave to exercise control of the ceasefire observance. The peacekeeping mission’s command is stationed in Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh. The situation in the area is monitored round-the-clock.

Turkey, Russia seal deal for Karabakh ‘peacekeeping center’

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Hagop Kamalian

Arab News

Dec 1 2020

Military vehicles of the Russian peacekeeping force move on the road outside Lachin on November 29, 2020, after six weeks of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. (File/AFP)

Azerbaijan Forces Enter Third District Under Nagorno-Karabakh Truce

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Hagop Kamalian

Voice of America

Dec 1 2020

By RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service

09:18 AM

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN – Azerbaijan says its forces have entered the Lachin district, the last of three handed back by Armenia as part of a deal that ended six weeks of fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

"Units of the Azerbaijani Army entered the Lachin region on December 1" under the deal signed on November 9 by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry also released a video showing a tank flying the Azerbaijani flag and leading a column of trucks along a road at night.

Azerbaijan lost control of Lachin during a war with Armenia in the early 1990s as they transitioned into independent countries amid the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Lachin was a strategic link between Armenia's internationally recognized border and ethnic Armenian-held areas in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia agreed to hand over three districts ringing Nagorno-Karabakh — Agdam, Kalbacar, and Lachin — after nearly three decades under Armenian control as part of the Russian-brokered agreement signed on November 9, halting military action in and around Nagorno-Karabakh following the worst fighting in the region since the 1990s.

Agdam was ceded on November 20 and Kalbacar five days later.

Almost 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have moved into the area as part of the truce deal, including along the Lachin Corridor, an overland route linking Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

The agreement also committed the parties to reopening their borders for trade but sets no time frame for that.

Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have been governing their own affairs, with support from Armenia, since Azerbaijan's troops and Azeri civilians were pushed out of the region in a war that ended in a cease-fire in 1994.

Russia has extensive relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan but provides security guarantees to the former.

Journalist Simon Ostrovsky Will Delve into Latest Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Arpi Talalian

Pulitzer Center

Dec 1 2020

Pulitzer Center grantee Simon Ostrovsky will speak at a panel titled “What Just Happened in Nagorno-Karabakh: Deja Vu or Geopolitical Trend?” on Saturday, December 5, at 12:00pm CST. The virtual event will be presented by The University of Chicago.

The panel will consider the causes and repercussions of the fighting that broke out on September 27 between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, how this violence should be viewed in light of the region’s history, and whether the conflict should be understood as part of larger geopolitical trends.

Ostrovsky reported on the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis for PBS NewsHour as part of a Pulitzer Center-supported project. The project looks at the humanitarian consequences of the war, the process of brokering a cease-fire, and the geopolitical implications for the region.

The panel also will feature Dr. Nerses Kopalyan, an assistant professor-in-residence at the Department of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Arman Grigoryan, associate professor in the International Relations Department at Lehigh University.

The University of Chicago is part of the Pulitzer Center’s Campus Consortium network. The event will be presented by The University of Chicago’s Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights.