Tuesday,
Russia, Armenia Discuss Defense Cooperation Amid Tensions
Armenia - Russian members of a Russian-Armenian commission on defense
cooperation attend its session in Yerevan, .
A Russian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on bilateral defense cooperation
began a regular session in Yerevan on Tuesday amid growing friction between
Moscow and Yerevan.
The commission is specifically tasked with furthering “military-technical
cooperation,” which mainly involves supplies of weapons and/or their joint
manufacturing.
Opening the annual meeting, Armenian Deputy Defense Minister Karen Brutian
stressed the importance of deepening Russian-Armenian relations in this area.
Brutian expressed hope that the members of the joint task force will hold
“productive discussions” over the next few days.
The Armenian Defense Ministry reported no other details of the meeting.
Russia has long been the principal supplier of weapons and other military
equipment to Armenia.
In an apparent reference to Russia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian complained
last September that “our allies” have failed to deliver weapons to Armenia
despite contracts worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” signed in the last two
years. He did not shed light on those contracts.
Pashinian responded to opposition claims that his government has done little to
rebuild the Armenian armed forces after the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
Brutian visited Moscow and met with his Russian counterpart Alexander Fomin in
November. No concrete agreements between the Russian and Armenian militaries
were announced as a result of that trip.
Russian-Armenian relations have deteriorated since then because of what the
Armenian government sees as a lack of Russian support in the conflict with
Azerbaijan.
Pashinian suggested in January that the close military ties with Russia may be
putting Armenia’s security and territorial integrity at greater risk. The
Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the claim as “absurd.”
The unprecedented tensions between the two allied states rose further late last
week after Armenia’s Constitutional Court gave the green light for parliamentary
ratification of the International Criminal Court’s founding treaty. The ruling
came one week after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President
Vladimir Putin over war crimes allegedly committed by Russia in Ukraine.
Moscow warned on Monday that Yerevan’s recognition of The Hague tribunal’s
jurisdiction would have “extremely negative” consequences for Russian-Armenian
relations. The Armenian government did not publicly react to the stern warning
as of Tuesday evening.
Some Armenian opposition figures claimed that Pashinian engineered the
Constitutional Court ruling to score points among the Western powers at
loggerheads with Russia.
Karabakh Armenians Again Reject ‘Reintegration’ Talks In Baku
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Nagorno-Karabakh - President Arayik Harutiunian chairs a meeting in Stepanakert,
..
Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership dismissed on Tuesday a fresh Azerbaijani offer to
send its representatives to Baku for talks on the Armenian-populated region’s
“reintegration” into Azerbaijan.
It reiterated that Azerbaijani and Karabakh officials should continue to meet at
the Karabakh headquarters of Russian peacekeeping forces and discuss, first and
foremost, humanitarian issues such as the reopening of the Lachin corridor
blocked by Baku for more than three months.
A statement released by the Karabakh foreign ministry also insisted on an
“internationally recognized negotiation format” for discussing with Baku a
broader political settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s office made the offer on Monday two days
after Azerbaijani troops seized a hill overlooking a dirt road that bypasses the
blocked section of the Lachin corridor. The authorities in Stepanakert as well
as the Russian peacekeepers accused Baku of violating the Russian-brokered
ceasefire that stopped the 2020 war in Karabakh.
The Karabakh statement said the timing of Aliyev’s latest offer shows that Baku
is keen to impose solutions on the Karabakh Armenians, rather than negotiate
with them in good faith.
Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, held on Monday an emergency meeting
with local officials and political leaders in Stepanakert. Harutiunian said the
Karabakh leaders need to “soberly assess” the worsening security and
humanitarian situation and “draw necessary conclusions.” The crisis can still be
resolved through “prudent steps,” he said in his publicized remarks.
A senior Karabakh lawmaker, Artur Harutiunian, said on Tuesday that those steps
depend on the outcome of the Russian peacekeepers’ continuing negotiations with
the Azerbaijani side aimed at ensuring their withdrawal from the occupied hill.
“After the negotiations are over and their results clear we will have to decide
our next steps,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Azerbaijani and Karabakh officials most recently met at the peacekeepers’
headquarters near Stepanakert on March 1. According to Karabakh’s leadership,
they discussed the restoration of “unimpeded” traffic thorough the Lachin
corridor and Armenia’s energy supplies to Karabakh.
An official Azerbaijani readout of the talks said, however, that they focused on
the Karabakh Armenians’ “integration into Azerbaijan.”
Arayik Harutiunian insisted afterwards that his representatives refused to
engage in such a discussion. He said Baku responded by threatening to take
“tougher and more drastic steps.” The Karabakh leader linked that to the March 5
shootout that left three Karabakh police officers and two Azerbaijani soldiers
dead.
U.S. Concerned About Azeri ‘Military Movements’ In Karabakh
Armenia - U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Karen Donfried speaks to RFE/RL in Yerevan, June 20, 2022.
The United States has expressed concern about Azerbaijan’s weekend “military
movements” that further tightened its blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh’s land link
with Armenia.
Azerbaijani troops seized on Saturday a hill overlooking a dirt road that
bypasses a section of the Lachin corridor blocked by Baku for more than three
months.
Karen Donfried, the outgoing U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and
Eurasia, appeared to have discussed the development with Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in a phone call on Monday. The U.S. State Department
said she “expressed concern over Azerbaijani military movements.”
The Azerbaijani military claimed that it took “necessary measures” to stop
Armenia’s arms supplies to Karabakh.
The Armenian government and Karabakh’s leadership have flatly denied such
supplies repeatedly alleged by Baku in recent weeks. They say that the
Azerbaijani advance in Karabakh constitutes a serious breach of the
Russian-brokered that stopped the 2020 war.
The Russian Defense Ministry also accused Azerbaijan of violating the ceasefire.
It said later on Saturday that Russian peacekeepers demanded that the
Azerbaijani troops return to “their previously occupied positions.” Baku has
ignored the demand so far.
A State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said Donfried also reaffirmed
Washington’s “commitment to Armenia-Azerbaijan peace negotiations” and called
for “direct dialogue” between the conflicting parties.
“There is not a military solution to this conflict,” Patel told a news briefing
in Washington.
According to the Azerbaijani readout of the phone call, Bayramov accused Armenia
of adopting an “unconstructive position” in ongoing negotiations on an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
The United States has repeatedly called on the Azerbaijani side to lift the
blockade that has caused a serious humanitarian crisis in Karabakh. The U.S.
ambassador to Armenia, Kristina Kvien, made a point of visiting an Armenian
border checkpoint leading to the Lachin corridor earlier this month. Another
senior U.S. diplomat made clear, however, that Washington is not considering
imposing sanctions on Baku because of the blockade.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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