Thursday,
Armenian Defense Chief Chides NATO Over Turkey’s Role In Karabakh War
• Emil Danielyan
Armenia - Armenian Defense Minister Arshak Karapetian at a meeting with a
visiting NATO envoy, Yerevan, .
NATO member Turkey’s active involvement in last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh
undermined Armenia’s trust in the U.S.-led alliance, Defense Minister Arshak
Karapetian told a visiting NATO envoy on Thursday.
Javier Colomina Piriz, the NATO secretary general’s new special representative
for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, held separate talks with Karapetian and
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian during his first visit to Yerevan.
Official Armenian sources said the talks focused on the future of Armenia’s
relations with NATO as well as regional security and the current situation in
the Karabakh conflict zone in particular.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said Karapetian spoke about “NATO member Turkey’s
role in the 44-day war unleashed against Artsakh.” He said that it “reduced
confidence towards NATO in the task of maintaining peace and stability in the
region,” the ministry added in a statement.
It did not specify whether Karapetian, who has frequently visited Russia since
being appointed defense minister in July, signaled Yerevan’s plans to reconsider
its relationship with the alliance because of that.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with NATO envoy Javier Colomina
Piriz, Yerevan, .
A separate statement released by the Armenian government’s press office, said
Pashinian “attached importance, in the political sense, to cooperation with
NATO.” It was not clear whether he too complained about the Turkish involvement
in the six-week war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire last November.
Turkey provided decisive military assistance, including sophisticated weapons
and personnel, to Azerbaijan during the hostilities. Armenia maintains that
Ankara also sent Islamist mercenaries from Syria to fight in Karabakh on the
Azerbaijani side. The Turkish and Azerbaijani governments deny that.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Karabakh war, President Emmanuel Macron of
France, another key NATO member state, also accused the Turks of recruiting
“Syrian fighters from jihadist groups” for Azerbaijan.
U.K. -- French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to the press on arrival at the
NATO summit at the Grove hotel in Watford, northeast of London, December 4, 2019
"A red line has been crossed, which is unacceptable," Macron said on October 1,
2020. "I urge all NATO partners to face up to the behavior of a NATO member.”
Armenian President Armen President Armen Sarkissian brought up the matter with
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg when they met in Brussels later that
month. At a joint news conference with Stoltenberg, Sarkissian charged that
Turkey is also obstructing international efforts to broker an
Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire.
Belgium -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and Armenian President
Armen Sarkissian hold a news conference after talks in Brussels, October 21,
2020.
Stoltenberg expressed serious concern about the hostilities but stopped short of
criticizing Ankara. He said that NATO is “not part of this conflict.”
According to Pashinian’s press office, Piriz said NATO stands ready to use its
ties with regional states to contribute to peace and stability in the South
Caucasus.
Successive Armenian governments have sought to deepen ties with NATO while
keeping Armenia allied to Russia politically and militarily. Armenian troops
participated in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, and dozens of them remain
deployed in Kosovo as part of a multinational peacekeeping operation also led by
the alliance.
Yerevan Silent On ‘Positive Messages’ To Baku
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia/Iran - A view of the Arax river separating Armenia and Iran.
Armenia’s political leadership on Thursday pointedly declined to comment on what
Azerbaijani officials have described as “positive messages” sent by it to Baku
of late.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov spoke of such signals coming from
Yerevan ahead of Wednesday’s session of a Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani task
force working on the restoration of transport links between Armenia and
Azerbaijan. He expressed hope that they will translate into “concrete results”
soon but did not go into details.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s office and the Armenian Foreign Ministry had no
comment on Bayramov’s remarks. Pro-government lawmakers also declined to say
what signals, if any, were sent to Baku.
Earlier this week, Azerbaijan released and repatriated five more Armenian
soldiers taken prisoner during or shortly after last year’s war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
“I think that ‘velvet’ messages sent by the Armenian authorities are clearly
pleasing the Turks and the Azerbaijanis,” said Tatul Hakobian, a veteran
political analyst. “They are therefore trying not to use very tough rhetoric
[against Armenia,] even if their actions suggest that they are sticking to their
tough positions.”
“It’s hard to tell what understandings have been reached,” Hakobian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But it is obvious that there is a certain process
which is leading to some understandings.”
The Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani working group co-headed by deputy prime
ministers of the three states did not announce any agreements in a statement on
its latest meeting in Moscow issued late on Wednesday. It said the three parties
agreed to meet again soon.
RUSSIA -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian (R) and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev deliver a joint statement
following their talks in Moscow, January 11, 2021.
The trilateral group has been discussing practical modalities of opening the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border for commercial traffic in line with the
Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the Karabakh war last November.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that the deal
envisages a permanent land “corridor” that will connect the Nakhichevan exclave
to the rest of Azerbaijan via Armenia’s Syunik province also bordering Iran. He
has threatened to forcibly open such a corridor if the Armenian side continues
to oppose its creation.
Armenian leaders have denounced Aliyev’s threats as territorial claims, saying
that the truce accord only calls for transport links between the two South
Caucasus states.
“I repeat that the issue of providing corridors is not discussed,” Deputy Prime
Minister Mher Grigorian told journalists before flying to Moscow on Tuesday.
Aliyev claimed, meanwhile, that Azerbaijan is succeeding in securing the
“Zangezur corridor.”
IRAN - A handout photo shows an explosion during a military exercise by the
Iranian Army in the northwest of Iran, close to the border with Azerbaijan,
October 1, 2021.
His stance and rhetoric have also prompted concern from Iran. Earlier this
month, a senior Iranian parliamentarian accused Aliyev of trying to “cut Iran’s
access to Armenia” with the help of Turkey and Israel.
In an October 11 editorial, the official Iranian news agency IRNA said that the
idea of the “Zangezur corridor” is part of a “hidden plan to change the borders”
of Armenia and Iran.
“This would result in the elimination of Iran's land border with Armenia and
Iran’s exclusion from this important route for international transport in the
northwest,” it wrote, adding that a recent Iranian military exercise was a
warning to “adventurers from inside and outside the region trying to diminish
the Islamic Republic’s geopolitical role.”
Armenian Hospitals Again Overwhelmed With COVID-19 Patients
• Robert Zargarian
• Susan Badalian
Armenia -- A COVID-19 patient at the intensive care unit of Surp Grigor
Lusavorich hospital, Yerevan, May 10, 2020. (A photo by the Armenian Mnistry of
Health)
Armenia reported a record 2,603 coronavirus cases and hundreds of its
unvaccinated citizens awaited hospitalization on Thursday as health authorities
struggled to cope with a new wave of infections in the country of about 3
million.
The Armenian Ministry of Health also said in the morning that 32 more people
have died from COVID-19 in the past day, raising to 5,902 the official death
toll from the disease. The figure does not include the deaths of 1,243 other
citizens which the ministry also links to the coronavirus.
The daily number of new officially confirmed cases has been growing steadily
since June amid a continuing lax enforcement of sanitary rules and a very slow
pace of coronavirus vaccination.
Yerevan’s ambulance service said its medics are working nonstop to respond to
hundreds of phone calls from people infected with COVID-19.
“People call us during the day and they call us at night,” one ambulance doctor
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “People are suffocating in their homes. Only we
can help them.”
ARMENIA -- A doctor wearing a face mask and protective gear gives a call as she
stands next to an ambulance at the Grigor Lusavorich Medical Centre in Yerevan,
June 1, 2020
The Ministry of Health said late last week that Armenian hospitals have run out
of vacant beds for COVID-19 patients, resulting in a waiting list of more than
400 infected people in need of urgent care.
The coronavirus section of the largest of those hospitals, the Surb Grigor
Lusavorich Medical Center, has over 500 regular and 114 intensive-care beds. All
of them were occupied when an RFE/RL correspondent visited the facility on
Tuesday.
“It can be said that we are now at the peak [of the new coronavirus wave,]” said
Petros Manukian, the Yerevan-based hospital’s deputy director.
Zarik Hakobian was one of the patients treated there. The 70-year-old woman was
taken to Surb Grigor Lusavorich two months ago and was still not discharged from
its intensive-care unit.
“I’m very tired and want to feel well, but I can’t,” said Hakobian.
Another patient, Siranuysh Nalbandian, was five months pregnant. She was
connected to oxygen equipment and had to use hand gestures to communicate with
the journalist. Nalbandian, 41, smiled and pointed to a picture of her elder son
Hayk who was killed during last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Only one of the more than 100 patients in intensive care was fully vaccinated
against COVID-19, according to the hospital administration.
Armenia - Passengers on a commuter bus in Yerevan, March 12, 2021.
Vaccine hesitancy remains widespread in Armenia despite the soaring coronavirus
cases and deaths caused by them. Nor do the vast majority of Armenians wear
mandatory masks indoors, including in overcrowded public buses. Authorities
essentially stopped fining them more than a year ago.
Ministry of Health data shows that just over 403,000 people received at least
one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and only about 185,000 of them were fully
vaccinated as of October 17. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
ordered relevant authorities to use their “administrative levers” to speed up
the vaccination process.
The authorities had already obligated all public and private sector employees to
get inoculated or take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense, a
requirement effective from October 1. Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said on
October 11 that they could also introduce a mandatory coronavirus health pass
for entry to cultural and leisure venues.
Russian Schools ‘Not On Armenian Government Agenda’
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - First-graders have a class at a village school in Gegharkunik
province, September 1, 2021.
Education Minister Vahram Dumanian insisted on Thursday that his government is
not considering asking Russia to open Russian schools for Armenian children in
Armenia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said late last week that Moscow is now
setting up in Tajikistan five Russian-language schools that will have “curricula
created on the basis of our methodology.” He claimed that the Armenian
government “recently showed an interest in having the same program drawn up for
Armenia.”
“There is no such issue on our agenda,” Dumanian told journalists. “At the
moment no discussions are taking placing on opening Russian schools in Armenia
or Armenian schools in Russia.”
He suggested that Lavrov may have only referred to Russian-backed educational
programs in schools in former Soviet republics.
“Any such program deserves attention so that one can understand what it is all
about. Let’s familiarize ourselves and understand,” added the minister.
Dumanian also stressed the importance of improving the teaching of Russian and
other foreign languages in Armenian schools. The Russian language is a mandatory
subject there. Schoolchildren study it for ten years.
Armenian has been the country’s sole official language ever since the break-up
of the Soviet Union. A law enacted in 1991 also made it the principal language
of instruction for Armenian children enrolled in both public and private schools.
Several public schools have Russian-language sections for Russian citizens as
well as those Armenian children who lived in Russia and only recently returned
to Armenia. The latter are allowed to study there only temporarily.
Armenia also has five schools financed and run by the Russian government. Most
of their students are children of Russian military personnel serving in the
South Caucasus state.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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