Monday,
Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Deal No Panacea, Insists Baku
Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov attends a joint news
conference with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna in Baku, April 27,
2023.
An Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty would not end all disputes between the two
South Caucasus states, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said over
the weekend.
“It cannot be said that the peace treaty will ensure a 100 percent solution to
all issues but it can lay the groundwork for the development of relations
between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” Bayramov told Azerbaijani state television.
He did not say which issues will remain unresolved if Baku and Yerevan succeed
in negotiating such a treaty.
One of the remaining sticking points in their discussions is how to delimit and
demarcate the long Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Yerevan has insisted until now
on including in the peace accord a clear delimitation mechanism that would
commit Baku to recognizing Armenia’s international borders.
The Azerbaijani side has been reluctant to do that. It is also against using
late Soviet-era maps for the delimitation process, an idea advanced by Armenia
and backed by the European Union.
Hikmet Hajiyev, a top foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev, said last week that Baku believes "the border delimitation issue should
be kept separate from peace treaty discussions." Alen Simonian, the Armenian
parliament speaker and a leading member of the ruling Civil Contract party, said
that Yerevan does not object to this in principle.
Armenian opposition leaders expressed serious concern over such an arrangement,
saying that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government is ready to make more
concessions to Azerbaijan without securing anything in return.
Pashinian and other Armenian officials themselves suggested this summer that
Aliyev wants to leave the door open for future territorial claims to Armenia.
Some Armenian analysts believe this is the reason why Aliyev keeps delaying
further negotiations mediated by the United States and the European Union.
The Azerbaijani leader said earlier this month that the peace treaty would not
be enough to preclude another Armenian-Azerbaijani war. He demanded concrete
safeguards against Armenian “revanchism.”
Pashinian Allies Lash Out At Karabakh Leader
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Samvel Shahramanian addresses protesters outside the Karabakh mission
in Yerevan, October 20, 2023.
Armenia’s ruling party lashed out at Nagorno-Karabakh’s exiled president at the
weekend after it emerged that he declared null and void his September 28 decree
liquidating the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
Samvel Shahramanian’s decree came just over a week after Azerbaijan’s military
offensive that forced Karabakh’s small army to lay down weapons and restored
Azerbaijani control over the region. Shahramanian said afterwards that he had to
sign the decree in order to stop the hostilities and enable the Karabakh
Armenians to safely flee to Armenia.
Shahramanian’s adviser Vladimir Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service Friday
that the Karabakh leader invalidated the controversial decree on October 19 and
that that all senior Karabakh officials will keep performing their duties after
January 1 without getting paid.
Shahramanian met with those officials later on Friday. He was reported to tell
them that “there is no document in the legal framework of the Republic of
Artsakh that mandates the dissolution of state institutions.”
Armenia’s political leadership reacted furiously to the development through
senior lawmakers representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract
party.
“Who is Samvel Shahramanian to sign a decree in Yerevan?” one of them, Artur
Hovannisian, wrote on Facebook. “There is only one government in Armenia. Any
attempt to challenge this will be seen as anti-state activity, outlawed and
prompt the toughest measures from the state.”
Armenia - Deputies from the ruling Civil Contract party talk on the parliament
floor, Yerevan, March 1, 2023.
Hovannisian went on to accuse Karabakh’s Yerevan-based leadership of “trying to
involve Armenia in a new military provocation.”
“Those who signed Karabakh’s capitulation must be aware that any document signed
in Yerevan regarding Karabakh has no legal force,” warned another pro-government
lawmaker, Lilit Minasian.
Gevorg Papoyan, a deputy chairman of Pashinian’s party, labeled Shahramanian as
a “forcibly displaced person” who is no different from the more than 100,000
other Karabakh Armenians who took refuge in Armenia following Azerbaijan’s
recapture of the region.
Armenian opposition representatives as well as some Karabakh figures rejected
the harsh criticism and warnings voiced by Pashinian’s political team. Artak
Beglarian, Karabakh’s former human rights ombudsman, dismissed the Armenian
authorities’ implicit claims that Azerbaijan could use continued activities of
Karabakh bodies as a pretext to attack Armenia as well.
“If you do not allow Artsakh’s state institutions and officials to represent the
rights and interests of their people on various issues while you yourselves are
not going to do it in terms of collective rights, then who should deal with
those issues?” he wrote.
Armenia - Samvel Shahramanian meets other Karabakh officials in Yerevan,
December 22, 2023.
Beglarian also clarified that contrary to what Grigorian said, Shahramanian did
not specifically sign the October 19 decree to scrap his September 28 decision.
He suggested that the Karabakh leader simply made clear that he had no legal
authority to disband the unrecognized republic and its government bodies.
The Shahramanian aide resigned shortly after his interview with RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service. He gave no clear reason for the decision, saying only that his
comments “do not reflect any official position at this point.”
Even before those comments, Pashinian’s allies said that Karabakh government
bodies should be dissolved. Parliament speaker Alen Simonian claimed on November
16 that they would pose a “direct threat to Armenia’s security.”
In its December 10 statement, the Karabakh legislature balked at attempts to
“finally close the Artsakh issue” while signaling its desire to discuss them
with Pashinian’s government.
Pashinian Ends Boycott Of Ex-Soviet Summits
• Shoghik Galstian
Russia - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian arrives in St. Petersburg,
.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian flew to Saint Petersburg on Monday to meet with
the leaders of Russia and other ex-Soviet states after boycotting their previous
summits amid Yerevan’s rising tensions with Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted later in the day a meeting of the
leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member states. He is due to chair
on Tuesday a separate summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a
larger and looser grouping of ex-Soviet republics.
Pashinian skipped EEU and CIS gatherings held in Kyrgyzstan in early October. He
went on to boycott a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit held
in Belarus’s capital Minsk in late November.
Other Armenian officials have also boycotted high-level CSTO meetings held in
recent months. One of them, parliament speaker Alen Simonian, has not ruled out
the possibility of Armenia’s exit from Russian-led military alliance accused by
Yerevan of not honoring its security commitments. Pashinian’s government has
said, though, that it is not yet considering such an option.
Kyrgyzstan - The leaders of Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) countries pose for a group photo at a summit in Bishkek, October 13, 2023.
Speaking during a December 14 news conference, Putin suggested that Armenia is
not planning to quit the CSTO and attributed Yerevan’s boycott of the
organization to internal “processes” taking place in the South Caucasus country.
And he again blamed Pashinian’s government for the recent Azerbaijani takeover
of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exodus of its ethnic Armenian population. Pashinian
hit back at Putin a few days later.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated on Monday that the two leaders will
meet on the sidelines of the Saint Petersburg summits. The Armenian government
did not comment on Pashinian’s decision to attend them.
Simonian said on December 15 that Armenia should not leave the EEU or the CIS.
He pointed to its economic dependence on Russia and described the CIS as a
“platform for cooperation that benefits our country.”
Armen Baghdasarian, a veteran political analyst, believes that Yerevan’s current
foreign policy is contradictory and not realistic even if Pashinian has reason
to be unhappy with Russia and other ex-Soviet allies.
“You can’t be part of one bloc for economic reasons but see solutions to your
security problems in another security system,” Baghdasarian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service. “That’s not possible. You can’t simultaneously sit on two
chairs.”
“Armenia has previously made such attempts and their results were disastrous,”
he said.
Yerevan Decries ‘Attempts To Politicize’ Russian-Led Trade Bloc
Russia - President Vladimir Putin greets Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
during an EEU summit, St. Petersburg, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian spoke out against what he called attempts to use
the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) for “geopolitical” purposes when he addressed
a summit of the leaders of the Russian-led trade bloc in Saint Petersburg on
Monday.
Citing its founding treaty signed by Russia, Armenia and three other ex-Soviet
states in 2013, Pashinian said that the EEU must not have a “political and
especially geopolitical agenda.”
“We continue to regard [the EEU] as such and to develop partnership within the
framework of our economic cooperation in this context, seeking to thwart all
attempts to politicize Eurasian integration,” he said. “The EEU and its economic
principles must not correlate with political ambitions.”
“The basic freedoms of trade and integration cannot and must not be limited due
to political considerations. This would definitely lead to an erosion of the
fundamental principles of the union,” he added during the summit hosted by
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Pashinian did not elaborate on his trade-related concerns voiced amid
unprecedented tensions between his government and Moscow that have deepened
further since beginning of September. The two sides have repeated traded
accusations, raising questions about the future of Armenia’s traditionally close
relationship with Russia. In the meantime, Yerevan has sought closer ties with
the United States and the European Union.
Citing food safety concerns, a Russian government agency blocked last month the
import of many food products from Armenia for more than a week. The
Rosselkhoznadzor agricultural watchdog alleged a sharp increase in the presence
of “harmful quarantined organisms” in them.
Observers believe that Moscow thus underlined its strong economic leverage
against Armenia to warn Pashinian against further reorienting the country
towards the West.
Russia has long been the main export market for Armenian agricultural products,
prepared foodstuffs and alcoholic drinks. Their exports totaled roughly $960
million in January-October 2023.
Armenia’s overall trade with Russia has skyrocketed since the Russian invasion
of Ukraine and the resulting barrage of Western sanctions against Moscow.
Armenian entrepreneurs have taken advantage of those sanctions, re-exporting
various goods manufactured in Western countries to Russia. This is the main
reason why Armenian exports to Russia tripled in 2022 and nearly doubled to $2.6
billion in January-September 2023
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.