Thursday,
Russian FM Meets Armenian, Azeri Counterparts
Turkey - Foreign Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan of Armenia and Sergei Lavrov of
Russia meet in Antalya, Mar10, 2022.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held on Thursday separate talks with his
Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts on the sidelines of an international
security conference in Turkey.
Lavrov discussed with them the implementation of Russian-brokered agreements to
ease tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and unblock transport links
between the two South Caucasus nations.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Lavrov and Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Jeyhun Bayramov agreed to speed up preparations for the second session
of a multilateral platform meant to promote peace and economic cooperation in
the South Caucasus. The platform comprises Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey
and Iran.
Lavrov’s talks with Bayramov and Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan followed an upsurge
in ceasefire violations along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border as well as in
Nagorno-Karabakh where several villages were shelled by Azerbaijani forces in
recent days. Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in Karabakh reportedly
intervened in to prevent a further escalation of the tensions.
“We haven’t seen each other in a while, and a lot has accumulated,” Mirzoyan
told Lavrov at the start of their meeting held in the Turkish resort city of
Antalya.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said he briefed Lavrov on the consequences of
Azerbaijan’s “provocative actions” and called for “necessary steps to ease the
tensions and prevent incidents” in the conflict zone.
The two ministers agreed on the need to restart Armenian-Azerbaijani
negotiations on a “comprehensive and lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
Lavrov and Mirzoyan also discussed Russian-Armenian “allied relations” and ways
of “further reinforcing” them, added the statement.
In his opening remarks publicized by the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Lavrov
stressed the importance of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s official visit to
Moscow scheduled for the beginning of next month.
“I am confident that it will help to further advance our allied relations,” he
said.
Dashnaktsutyun Eyes Renewed Anti-Government Protests
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Dashnaktsutyun party leaders Armen Rustamian (left) and Hagop Der
Khatchadurian hold a news conference in Yerevan, .
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) signaled on Thursday its
readiness to launch a more broad-based opposition movement and street protests
aimed at toppling Armenia’s government.
Leaders of the opposition party accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
administration of planning to make sweeping concessions to Azerbaijan and Turkey
that would threaten the very existence of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
“This resistance must be directed at those who try to lead us to vital
concessions with false pacifist calls,” said Armen Rustamian, a member of
Dashnaktsutyun’s new governing Bureau elected during a party congress held in
Yerevan.
The weeklong congress brought together senior members of the party’s branches in
Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora. A statement adopted by it says that
Dashnaktsutyun must be ready to play a “decisive” role in the fight for regime
change.
Dashnaktsutyun is now affiliated with the opposition Hayastan bloc led by former
President Robert Kocharian. The bloc finished second in the snap parliamentary
elections held last June.
Speaking at a joint news conference, Rustamian and the Canadian-Armenian head of
the Bureau, Hagop Der Khatchadurian, gave no indications that Dashnaktsutyun is
considering leaving Hayastan.
Still, they said they are open to cooperating with more opposition forces that
share their concerns about “existential” threats facing Armenia. They also made
a case for new methods of political struggle against Pashinian’s government,
notably street protests.
Hayastan already announced in November the start of a “nationwide resistance”
campaign during a rally in Yerevan. But it has staged no further protests since
then.
Kocharian said in December that despite what he sees as a sharp drop in
Pashinian’s approval ratings Armenians are still not willing to attend
anti-government demonstrations in very large numbers. The ex-president stood by
his view at a news conference held last month.
Rustamian seemed to acknowledge that opposition groups need more time to
generate a strong protest movement.
“The people do not feel an existential danger,” he said. “I’m sure that as soon
as the people feel that existential danger they will fill the streets. This is
why the authorities are doing everything to keep the people in the dark.”
New Armenian President Hopes For Quick End To War In Ukraine
• Nane Sahakian
People evacuate from Irpin, near Kyiv, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine
continues, March 9, 2022.
President-elect Vahagn Khachatrian stuck to Armenia’s cautious position on
Russia’s war in Ukraine on Thursday, expressing hope that it will end soon.
The Armenian government has not condemned the Russian invasion, underscoring its
close political, military and economic ties with Moscow. It abstained last week
from voting on a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate
withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on March 3 that Yerevan is “deeply saddened”
by the war and hopes that Russian-Ukrainian negotiations “will produce results.”
Khachatrian, who will be sworn in as Armenia’s new, largely ceremonial head of
state on Sunday, echoed this stance before attending his last cabinet meeting in
his capacity as minister of high-technology industry.
“We all should hope and do everything so that this war ends as soon as
possible,” he told journalists. “We know very well what it means.”
Khachatrian would not be drawn on economic consequences of the West’s crippling
sanctions against Russia. He said only that their precise impact on Armenia is
difficult to predict at the moment.
Armenia - Vahagn Khachatrian, March 2, 2022.
“We just need to prepare our system, especially the financial system,” added the
62-year-old economist elected as president by the Armenian parliament last week.
The government and businesses should not brace themselves for a worst-case
scenario, he said.
Russia is Armenia’s number one trading partner and export market.
Russian-Armenia trade totaled $2.6 billion last year.
Officials in Yerevan admit that the Western sanctions will likely hit hard
Armenian exports to Russia as well as remittances sent home by Armenians working
there. They also expect a further surge in food prices in Armenia.
The South Caucasus country imports a large part of its wheat, cooking oil and
other basic foodstuffs from Russia.
Karabakh Civilian Wounded In Azeri Shelling
• Susan Badalian
• Gayane Saribekian
Nagorno-Karabakh - A sign outside the village of Khramort.
Azerbaijani forces continued to shell a village in eastern Nagorno-Karabakh on
Thursday, wounding one of its residents and causing others to flee their homes.
The village of Khramort came under mortar fire for the fourth consecutive day.
According to the authorities in Stepanakert, Azerbaijani troops also fired
mortars towards several other Karabakh villages and adjacent farmland on
Wednesday.
Suren Baghrian, a 51-year-old Khramort farmer, was wounded in the back when a
mortar shell landed near his house in the morning. The explosion was caught on a
camera of the Armenian TV station Fifth Channel.
“I was working in my courtyard,” Baghrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service from a
hospital later in the day.
Another Khramort resident, Hasmik Andrian, said most local women and children
were evacuated from the village overnight because of intensifying gunfire from
nearby Azerbaijani army positions.
“But men remain in the village at the moment,” she said. “We must hold out as
much as we can.”
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said, meanwhile, that Armenian forces continued
to fire at its troops deployed in the Aghdam district east of Karabakh. It
earlier denied targeting civilians.
For their part, the Karabakh authorities insisted that Baku stepped up truce
violations as part of its efforts to spread panic among Karabakh Armenians and
depopulate the disputed territory.
Karabakh’s Security Council said it is “cooperating” with Russian peacekeeping
forces to try to prevent more Azerbaijani “provocations.” “Urgent measures are
being taken to force the enemy to honor ceasefire agreements,” it added in a
statement.
Armenian media cited a Karabakh official as saying that the peacekeepers rushed
to Khramort and set up two monitoring posts there early on Thursday.
In what may have been a related development, gas supplies from Armenia to
Karabakh were cut off on Monday night after a pipeline passing through
Azerbaijani-controlled territory was knocked out by an apparent explosion.
The gas supplies have still not been restored. Officials in Stepanakert have
accused the Azerbaijani side of blocking repairs on the damaged section of the
pipeline.
Tensions have also risen along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. One Armenian
soldier was killed and another wounded there on Monday.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian mentioned the escalation on Thursday at
the start of a weekly session of his cabinet on Thursday. But he avoided
condemning Baku.
“Let us not make evaluations at this point. We will just note this situation and
try to focus on ways of solving problems,” Pashinian said, adding that Yerevan
is now “working with the Karabakh authorities and international partners” to try
to ease the tensions.
France’s Macron Vows Closer Ties With Armenia
France - French President Emmanuel Macron greets Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian at the Elysee Palace, Paris, March 9, 2022.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday pledged to increase economic aid
to Armenia and deepen broader French-Armenian relations in the face of what he
called destabilizing effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Macron denounced Moscow’s “historical revisionism” and “imperial dreams” as he
addressed a French-Armenian cooperation forum in Paris after holding talks with
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
The two leaders made a joint appearance at the concluding session of the daylong
event organized by their governments.
“What is happening in Ukraine today is not without consequences for the rest of
the region and not without consequences for Armenia,” Macron declared in his
speech. “So we are extremely vigilant about that.”
“As this war unleashed by Russia is destabilizing your immediate neighborhood,
Mr. Prime Minister, I also want to communicate to you France’s commitment to
bring peace to Ukraine and to continue encouraging lasting stability in the
Caucasus,” he told Pashinian, whose country remains Russia’s closest regional
ally.
Armenia has not condemned the assault on Ukraine or joined the Western sanctions
against Russia. The South Caucasus state’s heavy dependence on Moscow for
defense and security has deepened further after its defeat in the 2020 war with
Azerbaijan.
French President Emmanuel Macron holds video conference with Armenian Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and European
Council President Charles Michel, 4Feb2022
Macron mentioned the six-week war and said the conflict in Ukraine “must not
make us forget” other international hotspots such as Nagorno-Karabakh. France,
he said, will continue to press for the release of Armenian prisoners of war
still held by Azerbaijan, support the opening of Armenian-Azerbaijani transport
links and strive for a comprehensive resolution of the Karabakh conflict.
According to an Armenian government statement, the conflict was high on the
agenda of Pashinian’s talks with Macron held earlier in the day. The Armenian
premier was reported to blame Azerbaijan for recent days’ upsurge in truce
violations in Karabakh and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, which left one
Armenian soldier dead.
Macron spoke of “worrying events” in the conflict zone in his in his speech at
the Paris forum held days after the official start of his reelection campaign.
Armenia - Armenian President Armen Sarkissian meets with Valerie Pecresse, a
Fench presidential candidate and head of Ile de France region, December 21, 2021.
The first round of France’s tightly contested presidential elections is slated
for April. Macron and other major presidential candidates are seen as vying for
the votes of France’s influential Armenian community. Two of them, conservative
politician Valerie Pecresse and far-right commentator Eric Zemmour, visited
Armenia late last year.
Macron said that the French-Armenian forum marks “the start of a process that
will reinforce our bilateral cooperation, our commitment to Armenia and our will
to work together.” The two governments have worked out a “French-Armenian
economic roadmap” for the next five years and are also planning more joint
projects that will benefit Armenia’s public infrastructures, healthcare system
and cultural and historical heritage, he said.
Macron also announced that the French government will set up a special fund for
wide-ranging assistance to Armenia. He urged French regions and charities to
contribute to the fund.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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