Wednesday,
Gyumri Mayor Rules Out Resignation
• Satenik Kaghzvantsian
Armenia - Gyumri Mayor Vardges Samsonian chairs a session of the city council,
.
The mayor of Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri made clear on Wednesday
that he will not resign following the collapse of his bloc’s coalition
arrangement with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party.
“It’s the residents of our city that gave us the mandate and only they can take
it away,” Vardges Samsonian told reporters.
Civil Contract unexpectedly announced on December 6 the end of the power-sharing
deal struck two years ago following a municipal election in which a bloc linked
to the city’s longtime former mayor, Samvel Balasanian, garnered most votes but
fell short of a majority in the local council. Civil Contract finished second in
what was a serious setback for Pashinian.
Gyumri’s new municipal council appointed Samsonian, who is affiliated with the
Balasanian Bloc, as mayor and two Civil Contract figures as deputy mayors. More
than three dozen other members of Pashinian’s party were also given posts in the
municipal administration. All those officials have stepped down since December 6.
The ruling party has blamed its exit from the local coalition on “shadowy
governance” on the part of the Balasanian Bloc. But it has still not elaborated
on the claims which the Gyumri mayor’s political team denied in a carefully
worded statement issued earlier this week.
Civil Contract members attacked their former coalition partner on Wednesday
during a tense session of the 33-member local council. But they again announced
no plans to try oust Samsonian through a vote of no confidence.
Pashinian’s party controls only 11 council seats, compared with 14 seats held by
the Balasanian Bloc. The eight other councilors represent three opposition
groups. Two of those groups have explicitly ruled out any cooperation with Civil
Contract.
They tried unsuccessfully on Wednesday to force a debate on the discord between
the Balasanian Bloc and Armenia’s ruling party. The latter opposed such a
discussion.
Despite not facing an imminent no-confidence vote, Samsonian will have trouble
pushing key decisions, notably the local budget, through the Gyumri council. So
far the mayor has signaled no plans to try to regain a majority there by teaming
up with local oppositionists.
EU’s Michel Vows Continued Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Efforts
• Heghine Buniatian
• Rikard Jozwiak
Belgium - EU Council President Charles Michel is interviewed by RFE/RL,
Brussels, December 12, 2023.
The European Union’s top official, Charles Michel, has said that the EU keeps
“working very hard” to help Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate a comprehensive
peace agreement.
“We are determined on the EU side to work with the partners and with them to
ensure that as soon as possible a peace treaty will be signed between both
sides,” Michel told RFE/RL in an interview.
In that regard, the president of the EU’s decision-making Council was encouraged
by last week’s Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement to exchange prisoners reached as a
result of direct negotiations.
“I would like to say that if it was possible for Armenia and Azerbaijan to make
some joint announcements a few days ago, this is partially because we help
them,” he said. “We encourage them. We suggested some options and some ideas to
bring them closer to each other on the topics that have been announced. And we
are still working on additional steps to encourage a peace treaty, a
normalization agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
Michel was scheduled to host Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in October for further talks on the treaty.
However, Aliyev cancelled the talks. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun
Bayramov likewise withdrew from a meeting with his Armenian counterpart slated
for November 20 in Washington.
Michel declined to comment on Baku’s moves. “We are still working on a meeting
that could take place in Brussels,” he said without giving potential dates.
Michel would also not say whether the EU or other world powers are ready to act
as guarantors of Yerevan’s and Baku’s compliance with the would-be peace treaty.
Nor did he clarify whether the treaty will likely make any reference to the
rights and security of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population that fled to
Armenia following Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive.
He pointedly declined to use the word “Karabakh,” referring instead to “this
part of Azerbaijan” until recently populated by an ethnic minority.
“We think that they [Karabakh Armenians] should have the right to return or at
least to be able to visit this part of Azerbaijan and their security and rights
must be guaranteed and there are international standards in terms of protection
of the minorities that must be respected in line with the constitution of
Azerbaijan, which should be a framework to guarantee those protections of
minorities,” he said.
Brussels is therefore trying to “convince the Azerbaijani authorities to
demonstrate that … they want to protect the minorities and to guarantee that the
international standards are respected,” added Michel.
Even before their mass exodus triggered by the Azerbaijani offensive, Karabakh’s
leaders and ordinary residents made clear that they will not live under
Azerbaijani rule. Only a few dozen Karabakh Armenians are believed to remain in
the territory recaptured by Baku. More than 100,000 others fled their homes
later in September.
Armenian, Azeri Prisoners Exchanged
• Artak Khulian
Azerbaijan - Azerbaijani officers escort Armenian POWs to the Armenian border,
.
Armenia and Azerbaijan exchanged over three dozen prisoners on Wednesday one
week after reaching an agreement to that effect welcomed by the international
community.
In line with that agreement, Azerbaijan freed 32 Armenian soldiers and civilians
in exchange for Armenia’s release of two Azerbaijani servicemen. The swap took
place at the border between the two countries.
As part of the deal, Yerevan also dropped its objections to Baku’s bid to host
the COP29 climate summit next year. The United Nations officially announced
Azerbaijan as the summit host on Monday.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian posted the list of the freed Armenians on his
Facebook page. He said that they will undergo medical examinations before
reuniting with their families.
Most of them were taken prisoner in Nagorno-Karabakh in December 2020 just weeks
after a Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the last Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Also repatriated was Gagik Voskanian, an Armenian army reservist who was
mobilized a few weeks before straying into Azerbaijani territory in August this
year in unclear circumstances. An Azerbaijani court convicted Voskanian of
“terrorism” just hours before the announcement of the prisoner swap.
“Up until the last minute we were not sure [about Voskanian’s release] because
we feared that the Azerbaijanis could do something at the last minute,” his
mother, Ashkhen Avetisian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “So it really was a
surprise, a big surprise.”
According to Yerevan-based human rights activists, 23 Armenians remain in
Azerbaijani captivity after the latest swap. They include eight current and
former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh arrested following Azerbaijan’s September
military offensive in the region.
The Azerbaijani soldiers set free by Yerevan were detained in April after
crossing into Armenia’s Syunik province from Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave.
One of them, Huseyn Akhundov, was charged with murdering a Syunik resident the
day before his detention. Armenia’s Court of Appeals sentenced him to life
imprisonment last week.
The 56-year-old murder victim, Hayrapet Meliksetian worked as a security guard
at a waste disposal facility of Armenia’s largest mining company. Meliksetian ‘s
daughter has reportedly condemned Pashinian for agreeing to Akhundov’s release.
The United States, the European Union and Russia were quick to welcome the
Armenian-Azerbaijani deal on the prisoner swap. EU Council President Charles
Michel called it a “major breakthrough in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations.”
Yerevan Urges Baku To Resume Western-Mediated Talks
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (right) meets his Estonian
counterpart Margus Tsahkna, Yerevan, .
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Wednesday urged Azerbaijan to agree to
restart peace talks with Armenia mediated by the United States and the European
Union.
“I think that Azerbaijan should return to the negotiation table in the format of
meetings. We have already said that most of the job has been done, and now we
need to meet and agree on the final wording of key issues,” he said, referring
to a peace treaty discussed by Baku and Yerevan.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev twice cancelled talks with Armenian Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian which the European Union planned to host in October.
The peace accord was due to be their main focus.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov similarly withdrew from a November
20 meeting with Mirzoyan that was due to take place in Washington. Baku accused
the Western powers of pro-Armenian bias and proposed direct negotiations with
Yerevan.
Bayramov reiterated that offer on Monday when he spoke during a meeting in
Brussels of the foreign ministers of EU member states and several former Soviet
republics. He did not hold talks with Mirzoyan on the sidelines of the meeting.
Mirzoyan indicated on Wednesday that Yerevan still prefers Western mediation of
the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process.
“Our negotiations in the last two or three years have been bilateral and
facilitated by international actors. We believe that we should carry on like
this,” he told a joint news conference with Estonia’s visiting Foreign Minister
Margus Tsahkna.
“Like I said, most of the job has been done, and if we return and continue with
the same mechanisms we will succeed in quickly achieving results. The missing
component … that would complete the whole process and bring it to a logical end
is the political will of Azerbaijan’s leadership which may and may not be
demonstrated,” added Mirzoyan.
Baku cancelled the Washington meeting in protest against what it called
pro-Armenian statements made by James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant secretary of
state for Europe and Eurasia. O’Brien met with Aliyev and Bayramov in Baku last
week. He said he told them that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “looks
forward to hosting foreign ministers Bayramov and Mirzoyan in Washington soon.”
No agreement on the talks has been announced so far.
Armenian officials suggested earlier this year that Aliyev is reluctant to sign
the kind of peace deal that would preclude Azerbaijani territorial claims to
Armenia. The Azerbaijani leader claimed late last month that Yerevan itself is
“artificially dragging out the process.”
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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