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    Categories: 2024

RFE/RL Armenian Service – 01/17/2024

                                        Wednesday, 


Yerevan Urged To Resume Russian-Mediated Talks With Baku


RUSSIA - People walk on a bridge in the Zaryadye park with a Kremlin's tower and 
Russian Foreign Ministry building in the background, Moscow, October 25, 2021.


Russia urged Armenia on Wednesday to agree to resume Russian-mediated 
negotiations with Azerbaijan based on earlier understandings reached by the 
leaders of the three countries.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin and 
the Armenian ambassador in Moscow, Vagharshak Harutiunian, discussed the 
normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations “in detail” during a meeting 
requested by Harutiunian.

“The Russian side emphasized the urgent need for an early resumption of 
trilateral work in this area based on a set of agreements between the leaders of 
Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the ministry said in a short statement. It gave 
no other details.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry and embassy in Russia did not immediately comment on 
the meeting.

Late last year, Moscow repeatedly offered to host high-level 
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks as it sought to sideline the West and regain 
the initiative in the negotiation process. In early December, the Russian 
Foreign Ministry rebuked the Armenian leadership for ignoring these offers. It 
warned that Yerevan’s current preference of Western mediation may spell more 
trouble for the Armenian people.

The warning came amid unprecedented tensions between Moscow and Yerevan which 
rose further after Russian peacekeepers’ failure to prevent or stop Azerbaijan’s 
September 19-20 military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. The 2,000 or so 
peacekeepers remain deployed in Karabakh in accordance with a Russian-brokered 
ceasefire that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.

Citing the Azerbaijani offensive, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on January 
13 that Baku and Moscow effectively scrapped the truce accord. He also accused 
Azerbaijan’s leadership of undermining prospects for an Armenian-Azerbaijani 
peace treaty with statements amounting to territorial claims to Armenia.

Pashinian hoped, at least until now, to sign such a treaty as a result of peace 
talks mediated by the United States and the European Union.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev twice cancelled meetings with Pashinian which 
the EU planned to host in October. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov 
similarly withdrew from a meeting with his Armenian counterpart scheduled for 
November 20 in Washington. Baku accused the Western powers of pro-Armenian bias. 
It now wants to negotiate with Yerevan without third-party mediation.




Armenian PM Still Hopeful About Peace With Azerbaijan

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is about to answer a question from an 
opposition lawmaker in parliament, Yerevan, January 17, 2023.


Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed hope on Wednesday that Azerbaijan is 
committed to making peace with Armenia, responding to fresh opposition claims 
that his far-reaching concessions to Baku have only created more security 
threats to his country.

He came under a barrage of criticism from opposition lawmakers during the 
Armenian government’s question-and-answer session in the National Assembly. They 
pointed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s latest statements which 
Pashinian construed on January 13 as territorial claims to Armenia and a “very 
serious blow to the peace process.”

“You keep speaking about giving away while Aliyev speaks about taking,” Agnesa 
Khamoyan, a parliament deputy from the main opposition Hayastan alliance, told 
Pashinian. “You speak about handing over so-called enclaves, roads, Azerbaijani 
criminals, and look at what Aliyev says in response to that. So I wonder … where 
that process of concessions will end.”

Armenia - Opposition deputy Agnesa Khamoyan attends a session of parliament, 
Yerevan, January 17, 2023.

“I hope that the purpose of the statements coming from Baku is not to 
deliberately bring the peace process to a deadlock,” replied Pashinian. He 
admitted, though, that Armenia and Azerbaijan are now “talking different 
diplomatic languages.”

Another Hayastan deputy, Artur Khachatrian, pointed out that Baku did not 
recognize Armenia’s borders even after securing Pashinian’s recognition of 
Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh and recapturing the region as a 
result of last September’s military offensive. Khachatrian singled out its 
renewed demands for an extraterritorial corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its 
Nakhichevan exclave through a strategic Armenian region.

Pashinian reaffirmed Yerevan’s rejection of those demands. He also said that his 
administration will first and foremost counter the security threats emanating 
from Azerbaijani with “international legitimacy relating to Armenia’s borders, 
territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

Tensions on the parliament floor rose after Levon Kocharian, a son of Hayastan’s 
top leader and former Armenian President Robert Kocharian, decried Pashinian’s 
“pathetic” response to Aliyev.

Armenia - Levon Kocharian (right) attends a parliament session, November 15, 
2023.
“Why are you so scared? Don’t you see that false peace is a failed agenda?” 
Kocharian Jr. asked, sparking angry cries from some of the pro-government 
lawmakers attending the session.

“I want to remind you that you are not at a school party and must behave 
properly in the National Assembly,” Pashinian shot back.

Answering a question from another parliamentarian, he said: “If, for example, 
Azerbaijan moves away from the peace agenda, it does not mean that we should 
also abandon it.”

Pashinian drew strong condemnation from the Armenian opposition after declaring 
last May that Armenia recognizes Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan. Opposition 
leaders say that this policy change paved the way for Azerbaijan’s September 
19-20 military offensive that forced Karabakh’s practically entire population to 
flee to Armenia. Pashinian’s political allies deny this.




Armenian Opposition Scoffs At Pashinian’s New Offer To Baku

        • Shoghik Galstian

Armenia - Oppositon deputy Artur Khachatrian speaks during a parliament session 
in Yerevan.


An Armenian opposition leader brushed aside on Wednesday Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian’s calls for an arms control treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, 
saying that Baku will not even discuss the idea.

Pashinian voiced the proposal on January 13 just as he accused Azerbaijan of 
effectively laying claim to Armenian territory and dealing a “serious blow to 
the peace process.” He referred to the latest statements made by Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev and his top aides.

Aliyev last week renewed his demands for Armenia to open an extraterritorial 
corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. Also, he again demanded Armenian 
withdrawal from “eight Azerbaijani villages” and dismissed Yerevan’s insistence 
on using the most recent Soviet maps to delimit the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Pashinian also complained that Aliyev has rejected a mutual withdrawal of 
Armenian and Azerbaijani troops from the border and other confidence-building 
measures proposed by him earlier.

“I can make another proposal: let’s sign a treaty on arms control so that 
Armenia and Azerbaijan reach concrete agreements on weapons and are able to 
verify the implementation of that agreement,” he told members of his Civil 
Contract party.

Artur Khachatrian, a senior member of the main opposition Hayastan alliance, 
scoffed at Pashinian’s remarks, saying that the premier simply wants to make 
Armenians believe that his conciliatory policy on the conflict with Azerbaijan 
has not been an utter failure.

“Azerbaijan has never accepted any proposal made by Pashinian,” Khachatrian told 
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “It’s illogical to assume that he will agree to 
formally limit his arsenal of weapons.”

“Just a few months ago, he bought $1.2 billion worth of new weapons from 
Israel,” he said. “Will Aliyev now agree to let the defeated Pashinian tell him 
how many tanks, drones, warplanes or assault rifles he should have? That’s a 
joke. Who is Pashinian mocking?”

Pro-government lawmakers pointedly declined to comment on Pashinian’s latest 
offer to Aliyev. Baku has still not reacted to it.

Aliyev has repeatedly stated that Azerbaijan’s will continue its military 
buildup despite its victory in the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku was due to 
spend a total of $3.5 billion on defense and national security last year. By 
comparison, Armenia’s 2023 defense spending was projected at $1.25 billion.

Aliyev’s latest statements were construed by Armenian opposition politicians and 
analysts as a further sign that he plans to ratchet up military pressure on 
Yerevan. Some of them suggested that Azerbaijan is gearing up for another 
military offensive against Armenia.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS