Month: December 2023

Dec 6 2023

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Dec 6 2023

• Mahua Venkatesh

India is eyeing to develop a few infrastructure projects in Armenia with a view to boosting connectivity and seamless transfer of goods through Iran and then to the Black Sea region and finally to Europe. India and Iran which have pressed the pedal on boosting connectivity have evinced interest in including Armenia in supporting the Chabahar port project along with the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

“India and Iran are closely cooperating as part of the North-South international transport corridor initiative, which connects the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea, towards Russia and Europe. We are ready to work with Armenia to understand how the country can benefit from the opportunities of this corridor,” Nilakshi Saha Sinha, Ambassador of India to Armenia said.

Sinha added that certain Indian companies are looking to participate in the infrastructure projects.

According to Mehr News Agency, the Armenian government suggested in 2021 that Indian companies use Chabahar for cargo shipments to not only Armenia but also neighboring Georgia, Russia, and even Europe.

The 7,200 km long INSTC is expected to boost trade between India and the Gulf and Central Asian countries.

India and Iran are also set to look at inking a Preferential Trade Agreement.

In August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Iranian President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in South Africa to discuss matters of bilateral and regional importance including connectivity and trade.

Raisi underlined the need to take India-Iran ties to a “new level” especially with a focus on economic and commercial engagements.

Until 2018 – when the US sanctions kicked in, Iran was one of the primary oil suppliers for India. “For New Delhi, letting go of Iranian crude supplies was a difficult transition as it moved to other suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and as far as Nigeria and Angola to spread its energy import risk,” Observer Research Foundation said.

Meanwhile India and Armenia are recharting their bilateral ties. The two have also signed a memorandum of understanding during the Global Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Summit held as part of G20 Digital Economy Working Group meeting held in Pune earlier. The MoU is intended to increase exchange of successful digital solutions for digital transformation.

“We have very long historical ties. I call this civilizational partnership… Some day we will turn this into a strategic partnership and I think that day is close. We share common interests and we have no contradictions. This must be institutionalised in a long-term cooperation between the two countries,” Armenian envoy in India Youri Babakhanian said earlier at a seminar organised by India Central Asia Foundation.

https://www.indianarrative.com/economy-news/are-india-and-iran-set-to-rope-in-armenia-in-giant-north-south-transport-corridor-153797.html

Dec 6 2023

12/06/2023 Armenia (International Christian Concern) — It has been more than two months since Azerbaijan seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023. The military take-over followed nine months of brutal blockade on more than 100,000 ethnic Armenian Christians in the enclave. After the Azerbaijani take-over, the Armenian population fled to neighboring Armenia.  

The stories emerging from the refugees in Armenia paint a harrowing picture of the traumatic events they witnessed in late September of this year. As Azerbaijani armed forces advanced, reports surfaced of snipers targeting civilians hunkered down in bomb shelters in the city. Additionally, there are disturbing accounts of captured Armenian soldiers facing massacres, while several individuals are reported still missing and unaccounted for during the conflict. 

In the aftermath of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, the presence of profound trauma has become painfully evident as men, women, and children grapple with the devastating impact of the conflict.  

For women and children, the trauma extends beyond the immediate impact of the war. Suffering for nine months with such limited supplies, the chaos of fleeing Artsakh to Armenia in just 10 days, and the uncertainty of the future have left emotional wounds. Among this group, there are also new widows grappling with the pain of loss, unsure of the fate of their husbands and sons, who are either missing or confirmed dead in the conflict.  

The men, particularly those aged 18 and above, who served and fought in the army bear a unique burden of trauma. Their collective sense of brokenness and defeat is palpable after losing the war, their homes and farms, and the very national project of Artsakh itself. 

Amid the chaos and tragedy, personal stories of resilience and shattered faith are also emerging. Their collective sense of Christian identity – as the world’s first Christian nation – is evident. In the face of displacement from Artsakh, their primary plea to the outside world is a heartfelt request to defend not only their land but also the Christian faith of their people.  

https://www.persecution.org/2023/12/06/armenians-navigate-the-horrors-of-the-2023-artsakh-war/

SIGHT Magazine

Dec 6 2023

Rothman’s company, Xana Capital Group, made a secret deal in 2021 with the Armenian Christian patriarchate to lease a swath of the Armenian Quarter, including part of the Armenian Theological Seminary and several family homes. When the deal became public, the local community rebelled, a priest who oversees the church’s real estate was defrocked and Patriarch Nourhan Manougian’s leadership came under question.

“This is land that belongs to the Armenian community for centuries,” Levon Kalaydjian, a Jerusalem-born Armenian, told Religion News Service. “This does not belong to the patriarchate, nor is it for him, the Patriarch, to do whatever he wants to do with it.”

Armenians have had a presence in Jerusalem since the fourth century, when Armenia became the first sovereign state to convert to Christianity. Some of Jerusalem’s Armenians trace their heritage to pilgrims who came to the holy city nearly that long ago, while others arrived from the former Ottoman Empire, fleeing the Armenian genocide in 1915 and 1916.

Today the smallest of the four divisions of Jerusalem’s Old City, the Armenian Quarter is considered separate from the larger Christian Quarter, where Palestinian Christians speak Arabic and worship in Greek Orthodox or Catholic churches.

The 2,000 or so Armenians, who speak a unique Jerusalem dialect of Armenian and belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, are represented by the Armenian Patriarchate and the monastic order of the Brotherhood of St James, which acts as a mini-welfare state: Most Armenians live in church-owned property and work in a church or monastery. 

In Jerusalem’s tense cultural politics, the Armenians are widely considered the most peaceful demographic in the Old City, maintaining good relations with both Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians. That unique status has been complicated by the fact that they are sitting on one of the Holy Land’s most valuable pieces of real estate. 

“The piece of land we’re talking about is one of the most important in the city, if not in the country and the world,” said Setrag Balian, one of the founders of the current protest movement. “Striking as it might sound, it is a fact.”

The Armenian Quarter occupies the highest point in the Old City and lies along the main path from the Jaffa Gate to the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter. It is also situated on one of the few vehicle-accessible roads in the Old City. The Cow’s Garden is one of the few undeveloped spaces inside the walls.

“The Armenian community used to feed off of that land, and Armenian pilgrims used to come camp there and put up their tents and caravans,” Balian said. “Other than the cultural and historic fact that this is the Armenian Quarter, it had economic importance; our life depended on that land.

“And today, even as parking, it depends on it. In modern times, in municipalities all over the world, one of the biggest problems is the matter of parking, so this should also not be underestimated,” he added. 

It’s not the first time someone has tried to wrest control of land from the Armenian community. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman minister of war who was an architect of the Armenian Genocide, once eyed the Cow’s Garden for a summer home, while Jerusalem’s five-time mayor, Teddy Kollek, also pressed for previous patriarchs to allow construction on the land, along with numerous other potential investors. 

None was successful until the deal with Xana, signed in 2021.

The 49-year lease deal will allow Xana to build a luxury hotel complex over not only the Cow’s Garden but the Patriarch’s private garden and the seminary’s main hall, where nearly all of the community’s celebrations are held, some 1.6 hectares in all. The deal also gives Xana the unilateral power to renew the lease for another half century after the initial term is up, for a total of 98 years.

The return for the patriarchate is a lump-sum payment of $US2 million and a yearly rent of just $US300,000 – less than previous offers and a paltry sum for one of the world’s most valuable properties, leading to accusations of bribery and corruption in the agreement. 

Exacerbating the community’s concerns is the developer’s profile. Though Rothman, who also goes by Rubinstein, has been involved in tourism in Israel for decades, little is known about his company, which is based in Dubai, making inquiries about its history and holdings difficult. 

The deal also came at a time when both Christians and Muslims in the Old City and east Jerusalem are under pressure by Jewish settler groups, attempting to take control of properties for the explicit aim of ‘Judaising’ the city.

Patriarch Manougian has claimed that the patriarchate’s real-estate manager, Baret Yeretsian, misinformed him about the deal, and he has defrocked and exiled him. Yeretsian had to be removed from the Old City under police protection in May, due to the community protests outside of the patriarchate.

In October, the Patriarch cancelled the deal, saying it was illegal because it had not been approved by the Synod of the Brotherhood of St James, but only after more than two years of internal pressure from the Armenian community.

Since the cancellation, the patriarchate has put out a statement stressing the danger to the Armenian character of the quarter, and the Patriarch has at times joined the protesters in the Cow’s Garden. 

“Better late than never,” Kalaydjian said.

The controversy has been compared to a 2005 scandal in the Old City, when the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem was dismissed after signing a deal to give over Christian properties in the city to the far-right Jewish settler group, Ateret Cohanim, which some saw as a concession to Israeli designs on non-Jewish sectors of Jerusalem. Yeretsian pointed out that Rothman is a secular Jew, whose investment partner is a Palestinian Greek Orthodox Christian.

But on 5th November armed settler activists appeared with dogs and bulldozers demanding that construction begin on Rothman’s hotel. Balian accused Rothman and his partner of  “cheap intimidation tactics” using “settler groups that don’t even come from Jerusalem, or the Old City.”

The strategy didn’t work.

“We’re a 1,700-year-old presence at least in the Old City. We are not ready to give up just at the presence of armed people or bulldozers,” Balian said.

As important are the internal politics of the Armenian community. He questioned the dismissal of Yeretsian, saying defrocking him only forfeited the patriarchate’s ability to punish him. Before the deal had been formally cancelled, Balian said he rejected calls pushing for the resignation of the patriarch, as it would only set a precedent in which the patriarch can walk away from his responsibilities to the community.

Instead he believes the patriarchate, with its power and influence over the lives of Jerusalem Armenians, needs to bring in lay managers and integrate the community into its decision-making process, at least on mundane matters.

“We’re not saying that the community should decide on everything,” said Balian, “because you need that structure, you need that institution. It’s a religious institution, and we all belong to it. But let’s work together as a united front.”

In a divided Jerusalem, Balian said, what’s most important for his community is to stick together, no matter who is trying to encroach on their land.

“For us, it doesn’t even matter if it’s settlers or not, or if it’s Jews or Muslims or others. Our goal is to keep that land Armenian,” Balian said. 

https://www.sightmagazine.com.au/features/33543-jerusalem-armenian-christians-battle-developer-to-keep-control-of-their-corner-the-city

Dec 5 2023

As widely reported, France has recently agreed to sell an advanced air defence system, the Thales GM 200, to Armenia. In addition, the two countries have signed a memorandum of understanding according to which France will sell Armenia the Mistral short-range air defence system sometime in the future. Armenia, however, is already covered by a joint air-defence system with Russia. This was agreed between the two countries in 2015, and in 2016 the Armenian parliament ratified the agreement.

One might reasonably question why a NATO member is selling advanced technology to a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Russia’s operational control over Armenia’s air defences makes it certain that the Russian military will scrutinize this technology and perhaps even appropriate it.

These relations raise the likelihood that the system will be inspected and reverse-engineered by Armenia’s (and Russia’s) ally Iran, which has already significantly penetrated Armenia’s military-industrial complex. Iran has also exported drones and drone-manufacturing capability to Russia for use against Ukraine.

One finds oneself asking, in colloquial terms: “What could France be thinking?” In fact, French diplomatic history sheds light on the situation, which has little to do with Armenia and everything to do with France’s centuries-long diplomatic conflicts and competition with Turkey on the one hand and, on the other hand, Britain.

 

French–British Diplomatic Rivalry over the Centuries

France’s historical geopolitical rivalry with Britain is an underestimated driver of its actions in the South Caucasus. Intense rivalries across multiple continents marked the opposition between the French and British Empires. Despite both countries today being NATO allies, Parisian diplomacy remains imbued with a sense of deep-rooted competition with London.

In North America, the French and Indian War (1754–1763) was part of the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict involving most of the European powers. In India, the 1757 Battle of Plassey meant the victory of the British East India Company over the French allies of a local hereditary ruler, paving the way for British dominance in the Indian subcontinent. The 1759 Battle of Quebec marked the end of New France and the ascendance of British rule in North America. In Southeast Asia, both powers sought to expand their influence through trade and territorial control: the British established strongholds in places like Singapore and Malaysia, while the French focused on Indochina.

The “Fashoda syndrome” compels France to oppose Britain geopolitically in regions wherever it detects the latter’s influence, regardless of the actual value of such regions to France’s direct interests. This is named after the Fashoda Incident, a late nineteenth-century military face-off between the two in Africa that turned into a major diplomatic defeat and national humiliation for France. The Fashoda syndrome continues to affect French foreign policy, influencing its actions in regions where it perceives the British to have significant interests.

France’s involvement in Armenia is, in addition to its other motives, also a manifestation of the Fashoda syndrome. France—unable to overshadow what it perceives to be Britain’s strong economic and political influence in the South Caucasus (through BP’s involvement in Azerbaijani energy development such as the offshore Shah Deniz natural-gas field)—seeks to establish a presence in neighbouring Armenia. Official Yerevan, by contrast, wishes to believe that France’s intentions in Armenia are driven by genuine concerns rather than by strategic rivalry with Britain.

 

French–Turkish Diplomatic Rivalry over the Centuries

From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire and France were dominant forces in the Mediterranean. Initially, they formed alliances against common adversaries but, as France’s colonial ambitions expanded over time, these began to conflict with Ottoman interests in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The weakening of the Ottoman empire throughout the nineteenth century led to increased French colonization of North Africa, for example: Algeria, starting in 1830; Tunisia, in 1881; and Morocco, in 1912. France sought to assert its cultural and political dominance in these areas, diminishing any residual Ottoman influence as well as clashing frequently with the local populations.

In 1916, the Sykes–Picot Agreement divided much of the Ottoman-held Middle East between Britain and France. Paris gained control over large parts of the Levant, including the territories of present-day Lebanon and Syria.

In more recent years, the geopolitical landscape has shifted, as Turkey has sought to reassert influence in regions that were once part of the Ottoman Empire. France, meanwhile, continues to maintain significant political and economic interests in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Its moves in Armenia—besides ceding to pressure from its influential domestic Armenian lobby—reflect its longstanding and multifaceted hostility to Turkey.

Layered over the historical basis for the contradiction between French and Turkish interests in North Africa and in the Eastern Mediterranean, there is today a new economic element. That is the mutual opposition of their respective energy-development strategies. Each country has its favored national industrial “champions” as well as patron-client relations with different local elites in the regions. Via Armenia, France has simply devised a way to add the South Caucasus to its portfolio of anti-Turkish dossiers. It is using military sales rather than energy investment.

 

France and Armenia Today

France’s deepening security ties with Armenia diverge significantly from the policies of NATO and the EU, particularly considering Armenia’s entrenched security relationships with Russia and Iran. The idea that Armenia might leave the Russian sphere of interest has recently gained some currency. However, Armenia is a founding member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

Despite Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s absence from the November 2023 CSTO summit, and despite his critiques of the organization’s inaction about Armenia’s previous requests for assistance, Yerevan has not initiated any legal process to exit the CSTO. Indeed, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan told journalists on November 9 that Armenia is not even discussing the legal process of leaving the CSTO.

If Yerevan really would wish to “Westernize” its security dependence, then it would have to end its security relationships with Russia and Iran; otherwise, all that is involved here is public relations. Indeed Armenia’s relations with Russia have been cemented over three decades and are hardly limited to its membership of CSTO. These relations include Yerevan’s economic dependence on Moscow through its membership in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union bloc as well as Russian state companies’ dominance in the Armenian economy as a whole, notably in the transport sector (one of them owns the state railroad company), the energy sector (owning the gas-distribution system and managing the Metsamor nuclear power-plant), and the banking sector.

Some Western observers have suggested that Armenia could reverse its military and security orientation and join NATO and the EU. This view ignores not only the Russian dominance of Armenia’s economy mentioned above, but also the Russian military base at Gyumri with 3,000 Russian soldiers, as well as another air base with a squadron of attack helicopters at Erebuni Airport five miles from central Yerevan. It likewise ignores the fact that the Border Guard Service of the Russian FSB has responsibility for nearly all of Armenia’s international borders.

Moreover, the bilateral agreement on stationing Russian troops in Armenia runs until 2044 and, by its terms, neither party has authority to renounce it unilaterally. Consequently, the idea of Armenia Westernizing its security dependence, even if at some level Pashinyan may wish to do this, is a non-starter.

 

Conclusion

France’s recent military sales to Armenia, besides playing politically to its influential Armenian diaspora, are less about promoting South Caucasus stability than about competing with and provoking its long-standing diplomatic rivals Turkey and Britain. With a foothold in Armenia, France can also thwart any budding Armenia–Azerbaijan rapprochement. This is in the line of a traditional French diplomatic tactic that the veteran French international-affairs observer Pierre Hassner once explained to me: when France observes other countries seeking mutual cooperation between themselves, it looks for ways to introduce obstacles to that cooperation; by exploiting and widening the rifts between the two parties, France is then able to draw closer to one of the them while alienating it from the other.

 

Robert M. Cutler was for many years a senior researcher at the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Carleton University, and is a past fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

The views expressed in this article belong to the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.