Tuesday,
Russia ‘Closely Monitoring’ Armenian-Azeri Border Crisis
• Aza Babayan
• Naira Nalbandian
Russia - A view of the the Russian Foreign Ministry building in Moscow, February
22, 2019.
Russia said on Tuesday that it keeps trying to ease tensions between Armenia and
Azerbaijan as troops from the two South Caucasus countries remained locked in a
border standoff threatening to reignite the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow is maintaining intensive contacts with
both sides “at the highest and high levels” and pressing them to stick to a
ceasefire accord that stopped last year’s war in Karabakh.
“We are continuing to closely monitor the situation connected with the border
incident between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the ministry said in a statement.
“We believe that all such incidents should be resolved in a solely peaceful and
negotiated way,” it said. “We see the launch of a process of delimitation of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border and its subsequent demarcation as a long-term
solution.”
Russian military officials participated in a series of Armenian-Azerbaijani
talks held after Azerbaijani forces reportedly advanced several kilometers at
some sections of the border last week. The talks are due to resume on Wednesday.
Armenia has condemned the Azerbaijani troop movements as a violation of its
territorial integrity and asked Russia and the Russian-led Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO) for military support.
Moscow has still not publicly commented on the appeal or openly backed Yerevan
in the dispute. The foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and the four other CSTO
member states are expected to discuss the issue when they meet in Tajikistan on
Wednesday.
Some Russian analysts on Tuesday blamed Yerevan for the Azerbaijani territorial
gains made on the border and the resulting crisis.
“The country is demonstrating utter helplessness,” one of them, Nikolay Silayev,
told the Moscow daily Izvestia. “[Armenian] state bodies are not even trying to
solve the problem on their own. One has the impression that Yerevan is looking
for someone who would solve the border conflict for it.”
Echoing statements by Armenian opposition politicians, Silayev said the Armenian
authorities have failed to properly fortify vulnerable border portions since the
Karabakh war was halted six months ago.
Armenia says that Azerbaijani troops crossed into its Syunik and Gegharkunik
provinces. The Armenian military responded by sending reinforcements to those
areas. According to it, Baku has pulled back some of its troops in recent days.
No shooting incidents have been reported so far.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan said on Tuesday morning that Armenian troops are
“preventing” the Azerbaijani side from providing “logistical support” to its
soldiers remaining within Armenia’s borders.
A ministry source confirmed reports that Armenian and Azerbaijani servicemen
deployed at a Gegharkunik section of the frontier scuffled at one point on
Monday. The dispute was quickly resolved and no gunshots were fired by either
side, the source told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
In Gegharkunik, Azerbaijani forces advanced towards three Armenian villages,
depriving some local residents of their traditional summer pastures. Sima
Chitchian, who runs one of those villages, Kut, said they continue to occupy
hills overlooking the community heavily dependent on animal husbandry.
“We look through binoculars and can see their tents and troop movements,” said
Chitchian.
Redrawing Of Armenia’s Borders ‘Unacceptable’ To Iran
• Heghine Buniatian
Armenia - A cargo terminal at a border crossing with Iran, November 29, 2018.
(Photo by the State Revenue Committee of Armenia)
A senior Iranian official reportedly voiced strong support for Armenia’s
territorial integrity when he commented on the continuing military standoff on
its border with Azerbaijan.
“The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is very clear, unequivocal and
resolute: the territorial integrity of the regional states must be preserved,”
Mojtaba Zolnour, the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s committee on national
security and foreign policy, told the Russian Sputnik news agency.
“It would be unacceptable for us if they took away a part of Armenian territory
and changed our borders. That is, if we had a new neighbor. The existing borders
must be fully protected and Iran’s border with Armenia must be preserved,” said
the conservative politician who previously served as Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei’s representative to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province bordering Iran and Azerbaijan is the
epicenter of the standoff that began after Azerbaijani troops reportedly
advanced several kilometers into Armenian territory on May 12.
Armenia has condemned the Azerbaijani troop movements as a violation of its
territorial integrity and asked Russia and the Russian-led Collective Security
Treaty Organization to for military support.
Azerbaijan denies such a violation, saying that its forces simply took up new
positions on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has suggested that Baku may be intent on
“provoking an armed clash” with Armenia six months after a Russian-brokered
agreement stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. He has pointed to Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev’s recent threats to forcibly open a “corridor” connecting
Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Syunik.
Meeting with Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami on
Monday, the Armenian ambassador in Tehran, Artashes Tumanian, said Yerevan also
counts on the Islamic Republic’s support in the border standoff.
According to the Armenian Embassy in Iran, Eslami reaffirmed his country’s
support for Armenia’s territorial integrity. In that context, he assured
Tumanian that Tehran remains committed to the idea of creating a “transport
corridor” that would connect Iran’s Persian Gulf ports to the Black Sea through
Armenia and Georgia.
During a March visit to Yerevan, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
described Armenia’s territorial integrity as a “red line” for Iran.
Former Yerevan Mayor Arrested, Freed
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Mayor Gagik Beglarian attends public celebrations in Yerevan, October
9, 2010.
Gagik Beglarian, a former government minister and Yerevan mayor facing
corruption charges, was arrested late on Monday but released on bail hours later
after returning to Armenia from Russia.
Beglarian ran the Armenian capital from 2009-2011 and served as the country’s
transport minister from 2012-2016 during former President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.
Law-enforcement authorities issued an arrest warrant for him in March 2020 after
accusing him of a large-scale “waste” of public property and abuse of power. The
National Security Service (NSS) claimed that Beglarian had illegally privatized
a kindergarten building in central Yerevan at a fraction of its market value. He
denied the accusations.
Beglarian flew to Yerevan from Moscow to take part in the funeral of his
deceased brother. According to the Office of the Prosecutor-General, he turned
himself in to the NSS and was arrested on his arrival.
A statement by the law-enforcement agency said Beglarian also paid investigators
a “deposit” equivalent to the “damage inflicted on the state.” It said a
prosecutor overseeing the probe released him on Tuesday on a 50 million-dram
($96,000) bail.
Beglarian’s lawyer, Hrant Ananian, said his client continues to deny the
accusations. “I cannot comment further,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The 57-year-old Beglarian, who is also known as “Black Gago,” is no stranger to
controversy. He was forced to resign as Yerevan mayor in December 2010 after
reportedly assaulting an official from the presidential administration’s
protocol unit.
The official, Aram Kandayan, incurred Beglarian’s ire after asking the latter’s
wife not to sit next to President Sarkisian during an opera concert in Yerevan.
Beglarian and his bodyguards reportedly kidnapped and beat up Kandayan
afterwards.
U.S. Official Phones Armenian, Azeri Leaders
USA – National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks with reporters in the James
Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House. Washington, March 12, 2021
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the leaders of Armenia and
Azerbaijan are committed to resolving an ongoing border dispute between their
countries peacefully after speaking with them by phone late on Monday.
Sullivan phoned Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev after Yerevan warned of “unpredictable consequences” of
the military standoff at some sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, Emily Horne, said he told
Aliyev and Pashinian that “military movements near un-demarcated borders are
irresponsible and provocative.”
“He welcomed the ongoing communication between the two sides and both leaders’
commitment to resolving this issue peacefully,” Horne added in a statement.
Sullivan likewise tweeted that he hailed their “commitment to peaceful
resolution of border tensions through dialogue.” He gave no other details of his
phone conversations.
The U.S. State Department on Friday urged Baku to immediately “pull back all
forces” that reportedly advanced several kilometers into Armenian territory on
May 12.
According to the Armenian government’s readout of Pashinian’s call with
Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s top adviser “considered unacceptable the
movements carried out by Azerbaijani troops inside Armenia’s state borders” and
said he will demand their withdrawal.
“Adviser Sullivan praised the restraint shown by the Armenian side in the
current situation and its steps aimed at settling issues through diplomatic
means,” said the statement.
For its part, Aliyev was reported to criticize Yerevan’s “disproportionate”
reaction to the border incidents and “attempts to internationalize the issue.”
He also welcomed Sullivan’s calls for Armenia and Azerbaijan to start talks on
demarcating their border.
Pashinian said on Monday that the border demarcation and delimitation must be
carried out in a “trilateral format” involving Russia. He said this would be in
line with Russian-brokered agreements that stopped last year’s war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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