Wednesday,
Baku Suggests Peace Deal Without Border Delimitation
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - A view of an area in Armenia's Syunik province where Armenian and
Azerbaijani troops are locked in a border standoff, May 14, 2021. (Photo by the
Armenian Human Rights Defender's Office)
Armenia and Azerbaijan should sign a peace treaty before delimiting their long
border, a senior Azerbaijani official said on Tuesday.
The Reuters news agency quoted Hikmet Hajiyev, a top foreign policy adviser to
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, as telling reporters in London that Baku
believes "the border delimitation issue should be kept separate from peace
treaty discussions."
The issue has been one of the main sticking points in Armenian-Azerbaijani talks
on the treaty. Armenia has said until now that it wants the peace deal to
contain a concrete mechanism for the border delimitation.
Yerevan insists on using late Soviet-era military maps as a basis in that
process. Baku rejects the idea backed by the European Union.
Speaking to the BBC on Tuesday, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan
Kostanian insisted that the two South Caucasus countries must have a “clear
border” reflecting a 1991 declaration signed by newly independent ex-Soviet
republics.
Kostanian suggested in July that Baku is reluctant to formally recognize
Armenia’s existing borders because it wants to leave the door open for future
territorial claims.
“They key question is whether the parties will manage to agree on the
delimitation principles and the issue of maps before signing the peace treaty,”
Tigran Grigorian, a political analyst, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on
Wednesday. “There seems to be no such agreement yet.”
Azerbaijan Signals Conditions For U.S.-Mediated Talks With Armenia
AZERBAIJAN -- Hikmet Hajiyev, the head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department
of Azerbaijan's Presidential Administration, gives a press briefing in Baku,
February 26, 2021
Azerbaijani has indicated that it will not hold fresh peace talks with Armenia
hosted by the United States unless Washington reconsiders what Baku sees as a
“one-sided approach” to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been scheduled to host the Armenian
and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Washington on November 20 for further
negotiations on a peace treaty between the two South Caucasus nations. Baku
cancelled the meeting in protest against statements made by James O’Brien, the
U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia.
Speaking during a congressional hearing in Washington on November 15, O’Brien
condemned Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh
and warned Baku against attacking Armenia to open a land corridor to its
Nakhichevan exclave.
“We’ve made clear that nothing will be normal with Azerbaijan after the events
of September 19 until we see progress on the peace track,” he said, adding that
Washington has cancelled “high-level visits” by Azerbaijani officials and
suspended military and other aid to Azerbaijan.
O’Brien visited Baku earlier this month in a bid to convince the Azerbaijani
leadership to reschedule the cancelled meeting. He announced no agreement to
that effect after the trip.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s top foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev,
complained about Washington’s “one-sided and lopsided approach” when he spoke to
a small group of Western journalists in London on Tuesday.
“We do expect that there could be some different attitudes ... demonstrated by
the United States executive branch of government,” Newsweek.com quoted him as
saying. “Once it's done and we don't have any problems, [we can] continue our
discussions on the Washington platform and with regard to peace discussions.”
Hajiyev hinted that Baku expects U.S. President Joe Biden to waive Section 907
of the 1992 Freedom Support Act passed in 1992 that bans U.S. assistance to
Azerbaijan. Like his predecessors, Biden did so in 2021 and 2022.
“Azerbaijan doesn't need any foreign aid or support … But here the psychological
aspect and political aspect is very important, because it was unfair treatment
of Azerbaijan,” said Hajiyev.
Aliyev also withdrew from talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
which the European Union had planned to host in October. The EU too has been
accused by Baku or pro-Armenian bias.
Armenian leaders have suggested that Aliyev is simply dragging his feet on the
peace treaty in hopes of clinching more concessions from Yerevan
“Azerbaijan may state that it is interested in finalizing the peace treaty with
Armenia, but unfortunately words are not enough: we need to concentrate on
deeds,” Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian told the BBC in an interview
published on Tuesday.
“The fact is that Azerbaijan is reluctant to finalize the treaty based on
principles endorsed by the international community,” he said.
Pashinian Hits Back At Putin
• Shoghik Galstian
• Astghik Bedevian
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, April 19, 2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
latest statement blaming him for Azerbaijan’s September military offensive in
Nagorno-Karabakh and the resulting exodus of the region’s ethnic Armenian
population.
Putin again claimed last week that Russian peacekeepers could not have thwarted
the offensive because Pashinian had downgraded their mandate by recognizing
Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh during Western-mediated talks with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held in October 2022 and May 2023.
“It’s not we who abandoned Karabakh. It’s Armenia that recognized Karabakh as a
part of Azerbaijan,” he told a year-end news conference in Moscow.
Pashinian hit back at Putin in an interview with Armenian Public Television
aired late on Tuesday. He said that the Russian leader himself recognized
Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan shortly after brokering a ceasefire agreement
that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
“Those statements were public and are still available on social media, if I’m
not mistaken,” said Pashinian.
He went on to deplore Russia’s “zero reaction” to Azerbaijan’s subsequent
attacks on Armenian border areas and military aid requested by Yerevan. He noted
that one of the Azerbaijani military operations launched in the run-up to
Armenia’s June 2021 general elections coincided with Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov’s visit to the region.
Nagorno-Karabakh - A general view of Stepanakert, 10 October 2023.
“There was a high probability that the Armenian government would react
differently [to that assault,] as a result of which the elections would not have
taken place in Armenia, which would have essentially meant the dissolution of
the Republic of Armenia. We realized that there is an attempt to dissolve
Armenia,” Pashinian alleged, implicitly pointing the finger at Moscow.
Addressing the European Parliament in October this year, the Armenian premier
accused Moscow of using the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict to try to topple him.
A Russian government source responded by accusing him of helping the West “turn
Armenia into another Ukraine.”
The Azerbaijani takeover of Karabakh added to unprecedented tensions between
Moscow and Yerevan. Pashinian and other senior Armenian officials have since
boycotted meetings of their counterparts from other ex-Soviet states making up
Russian-led organizations. They have sought instead closer relations with the
United States and the European Union. The Russian Foreign Ministry has
repeatedly accused Pashinian of systematically “destroying” Russian-Armenian
relations.
Armenia - Opposition supporters demonstrate in Yerevan, June 14, 2022.
Armenia’s leading opposition groups also hold Pashinian responsible for the fall
of Karabakh, saying that he precipitated it with his decision to recognize
Azerbaijani sovereignty over the territory. They staged street protests in
Yerevan and tried unsuccessfully to topple him last year after he pledged to
“lower the bar” on Karabakh’s status acceptable to Armenia.
Pashinian on Tuesday again blamed Armenia’s former governments for the
restoration of Azerbaijani control over Karabakh. And he gave more indications
that the Karabakh issue is closed for his administration.
“As I said, I am the prime minister of Armenia and must advance Armenia’s
national interests,” he told the government-controlled TV channel.
Artur Khachatrian, an opposition parliamentarian, countered on Wednesday that
Pashinian had made diametrically opposite statements on Karabakh before the 2020
war.
“When was he lying: yesterday or in June 2020? Yesterday or in Stepanakert’s
Renaissance Square where he said [in 2019] that ‘Artsakh is Armenia, period,’
that Armenia is the guarantor of Artsakh’s security and that Artsakh will never
be part of Azerbaijan?” Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Iran Reaffirms Opposition To Outside Powers In South Caucasus
Russia - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi attends a meeting with Russian
President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, December 7, 2023.
“Extra-regional countries” must not be allowed to intervene in disputes in the
South Caucasus, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian in a phone call late on Wednesday.
“Care must be taken that the Caucasus region does not become a field of
competition for extra-regional countries and that its issues are handled by the
countries of the region and without the interference of outsiders,” Raisi was
quoted by his office as saying.
Raisi thus reaffirmed Iran’s strong opposition to Western presence in the
region, which is shared by Russia. He described it as “harmful for regional
peace and stability” during an October 23 meeting with Armenia’s visiting
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan.
Mirzoyan travelled to Tehran to attend a multilateral meeting with his
Azerbaijani, Iranian, Russian and Turkish counterparts held there within the
framework of the so-called “Consultative Regional Platform 3+3” launched in
December 2021 in Moscow. Georgia continues to boycott the platform, citing
continuing Russian occupation of its breakaway regions.
Amid its deepening rift with Moscow, Pashinian’s government is now pinning hopes
on Western efforts to broker an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal. Russian
officials claim that the main aim of those efforts is to drive Russia out of the
South Caucasus, rather than bring peace to the region.
Yerevan is also seeking to deepen Armenia’s ties with the United States and the
European Union. In September, it hosted a joint U.S.-Armenian military exercise
criticized by Moscow and Tehran.
According to the official Armenian readout of Pashinian’s call with Raisi, the
two leaders discussed Armenian-Iranian relations and the implementation of
bilateral economic agreements. Raisi’s office said in this regard that he
“expressed satisfaction with the process of developing relations and
implementing agreements between the two countries.”
Russian Soldier Who Fled To Armenia Found In Custody In Russia
• Naira Bulghadarian
A photo of Dmitri Setrakov, a Russian soldier who fled to Armenia before being
arrested there and sent back to Russia.
A Russian conscript soldier who reportedly deserted his army unit fighting in
Ukraine has been arrested in Armenia and sent back to Russia.
The 39-year-old Dmitry Setrakov was mobilized, along with hundreds of thousands
of other Russian men, late last year and sent to the frontline in Ukraine’s
southern Zaporyzhzhia region mostly occupied by Russian forces following their
February 2022 invasion of the country. Setrakov fled a military hospital there
in April this year, according to the Russian human rights group Idite Lesom that
helped him take refuge in Armenia in late November.
The group revealed recently that Russian military police arrested and
transferred Setrakov to a Russian military base in the northwestern Armenian
city of Gyumri in early December. It said on Tuesday that he is currently in
police custody in Russia.
“They got him out of Gyumri, he is not there anymore,” said Idite Lesom
spokesman Ivan Chuviliaev.
Both Idite Lesom and an Armenian human rights group, the Helsinki Citizens’
Assembly (HCA), earlier condemned Setrakov’s detention in Armenia as illegal.
The HCA leader, Artur Sakunts, appealed to Armenian prosecutors to clarify how
Russian officers were able to arrest the man on Armenian territory. Sakunts also
demanded that they prevent his extradition to Russia.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General said on Wednesday that Russian
law-enforcement authorities had not asked it to track down, detain and extradite
Setrakov. It claimed to have “no information” about his detention in Armenia. It
thus remained unclear how the fugitive soldier was flown back to his country
where he is now facing up to ten years in prison on desertion charges.
An HCA spokeswoman, Ani Chatinian, decried the prosecutors’ statement and
accused the law-enforcement agency of inaction.
“In essence, Dmitry Setrakov was illegally transported to the Russian
Federation, and Armenia signed the [guilty] verdict which will be given to him
in Russia,” Chatinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Setrakov is the first Russian soldier known to have fled to Armenia and been
arrested there after refusing to take part in fighting in Ukraine.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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