Friday, August 5, 2022
Blinken, Pashinian Discuss Karabakh Escalation
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at a sideline meeting of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in New York, August 1, 2022
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed with U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken the latest upsurge in violence in Nagorno-Karabakh during a phone
conversation on Friday.
According to the Armenian government’s readout of the call, Pashinian accused
Azerbaijan of “deviating” from key terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that
stopped the 2020 war in Karabakh. He also reaffirmed his administration’s stated
commitment to “regional peace and stability.”
“Secretary of State Blinken expressed concern about the tension and willingness
to assist in stabilizing the situation,” added the statement.
Blinken and the State Department did not immediately make any statements on the
call.
The department spokesman, Ned Price, called for “immediate steps to reduce
tensions and avoid further escalation” on Wednesday hours after two Karabakh
Armenian soldiers were killed and 19 others wounded in fighting with Azerbaijani
forces.
“The recent increase in tensions underscores the need for a negotiated,
comprehensive, and sustainable settlement of all remaining issues related to or
resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” said Price.
Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed, among other
things, the situation in the Karabakh conflict zone when they spoke on Thursday.
The top U.S. diplomat held separate phone calls with Pashinian and Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev on July 25. He said afterwards that he sees a “historic
opportunity to achieve peace in the region.”
Hovannisian Blames Armenian Government For Karabakh Entry Ban
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - Heritage party leader Raffi Hovannisian speaks at a news conference in
Yerevan, August 5, 2022.
Raffi Hovannisian, a veteran opposition politician, on Friday again accused the
Armenian government of thwarting his trip to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Hovannisian headed to Karabakh on July 31 to attend his grandson’s baptism.
Russian peacekeeping soldiers manning a checkpoint in the Lachin corridor did
not allow him to enter the territory for still unknown reasons.
Speaking at a news conference in Yerevan, Hovannisian said that he still does
not know why he was turned away. But he again held the government and Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian in particular responsible for the travel ban.
Asked why Pashinian would want to bar him from visiting Karabakh, Hovannisian
said: “I can’t speak for him.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry put the blame on the Russian peacekeepers. In
written comments to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, it said that their actions ran
counter to the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the war in
Karabakh in November 2020.
Hovannisian, who has repeatedly visited Karabakh since the ceasefire, also
accused Pashinian of mishandling not only the war but also its aftermath and
demanded the prime minister’s resignation. It must be followed by the formation
of a provisional government, he said, presenting a list of individuals who he
believes should join the “national trust council.”
Hovannisian, who had served as Armenia’s first foreign minister, announced no
concrete plans to organize street demonstrations for that purpose.
The U.S.-born politician and his Zharangutyun (Heritage) party, which has not
been represented in the Armenian parliament since 2017, did not join the daily
anti-government protests which the country’s main opposition forces launched on
May 1 in a bid to topple Pashinian.
Karabakh To Evacuate Settlers From Corridor To Armenia
• Susan Badalian
A view of the village of Aghavno in the Lachin corridor connecting
Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, April 16, 2022.
Bowing to strong pressure from Azerbaijan, authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have
ordered ethnic Armenian residents of the Lachin corridor connecting the
territory to Armenia to leave their homes before the end of this month.
The five-kilometer-wide corridor became Karabakh’s sole overland link to Armenia
following the 2020 war. Armenian forces pulled out of the rest of the wider
Lachin district under the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped
the six-week hostilities.
The truce accord calls for the construction of a new Armenia-Karabakh highway
that will bypass the town of Lachin and two Armenian-populated villages located
within the current corridor protected by Russian peacekeeping troops.
Karabakh’s leadership revealed on Tuesday that Azerbaijan has demanded through
the peacekeepers the quick closure of the existing corridor and suggested that
the Armenian side use a bypass road which has yet to be constructed. Armenia’s
government dismissed the demands as “not legitimate” before two Karabakh
Armenian soldiers were killed and 19 others wounded on Wednesday in heavy
fighting with Azerbaijani forces.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian argued on Thursday that the truce accord requires
Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to work out before 2024 a joint “plan” for the
construction of a new Armenia-Karabakh road. No such plan has been drawn up yet,
he said.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said, however, that the three sides did agree
on the “route” of the new corridor early this year and accused Yerevan of
dragging out work on its Armenian sections.
Later on Thursday, the few remaining residents of the town of Lachin said local
officials told them to evacuate the town for good. A senior official from
Stepanakert, Hayk Khanumian, communicated the same order to some 200 people
living in the nearby village of Aghavno at a meeting on Friday.
“He said that the Azerbaijanis will come and the Russians will leave [the
current corridor] on August 25,” Mariam Hakobian, an Aghavno resident, told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“The people [of Aghavno] look like they are hypnotized,” she said. “We don’t
know what to do.”
Hakobian said that the Karabakh government promised that each Aghavno family
will receive 10 million drams ($24,000) for buying a new home in Karabakh or
Armenia. He dismissed the promised aid, saying that it is well below the current
housing prices.
“We have nowhere to go,” said Anna Margarian, who lives in the town of Lachin
with her family.
Officials in Yerevan and Stepanakert did not publicly comment on the planned
evacuation.
It is also unclear how traffic between Armenia and Karabakh will be carried out
if the existing Lachin corridor is handed over to Baku by the end of this month.
More than a dozen kilometers south of the corridor, Azerbaijani and Turkish
firms are reportedly completing the construction of a 32-kilomer-long highway
that should link up to new road sections in Armenia and Karabakh. Work on those
sections has yet to start in earnest.
Moscow Reacts To Armenian Criticism Of Russian Troops In Karabakh
• Lilit Harutiunian
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov in Yerevan, June 9, 2022.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded on Friday to Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian’s criticism of Russian peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh
which followed Wednesday’s deadly fighting there.
Pashinian complained on Thursday that Baku has been stepping up ceasefire
violations despite the presence of the 2,000 peacekeepers deployed after the
2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. He called for “adjusting details of the
peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.” In particular, he suggested giving
the Russian contingent a “broader international mandate.”
“If we see that solutions are not possible in a trilateral
[Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani] format, we will have to think about activating
additional international mechanisms,” Pashinian warned without elaborating.
Commenting on Pashinian’s remarks, Lavrov said: “It’s hard for me to answer this
question because we haven’t seen concrete proposals which the Armenian prime
minister wants to discuss in the context of the Russian peacekeeping operation
in Nagorno-Karabakh. So I can’t guess now.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the peacekeepers are “making
every effort to stabilize the situation on the ground.”
Viktor Bondarev, a senior member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, also
defended the peacekeepers, saying he is confident that they will prevent another
Armenian-Azerbaijani war. In a social media post, Bondarev also argued that the
Karabakh conflict is “extinguished but not resolved.”
“Moreover, it was extinguished by the Russian peacekeepers, not by the goodwill
of the conflicting sides,” he wrote.
The peacekeepers’ commander, Major-General Andrei Volkov, met on Thursday with a
group of Karabakh public figures and fringe politicians. A statement released by
the Russian contingent said Volkov assured them that Moscow will do everything
to prevent another upsurge in tensions.
Some participants of the meeting came away dissatisfied and rallied several
dozen supporters in Stepanakert on Friday.
“Yesterday we heard nothing that gives us reason to believe that the situation
will be peaceful today,” one of them, Artur Osipian, said. He cited Volkov as
saying that the peacekeepers lack personnel and powers to prevent fresh
Azerbaijani attacks on Karabakh Armenian forces.
Wednesday’s attacks left two Karabakh Armenian soldiers dead and 19 others
wounded. The warring sides blamed each other for the fighting.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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