Wednesday,
Moscow, Baku ‘Discussing Return Of Karabakh Armenians’
Ethnic Armenian flee Karabakh for Armenia sitting in a truck at the Lachin
checkpoint controlled by Russian peackeepers and Azeri border guards, September
26, 2023.
Russia said on Wednesday that it is discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility
of the safe return of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population displaced by
last September’s Azerbaijani military offensive.
Azerbaijan launched the offensive despite a Russian-brokered ceasefire that
stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Armenia has denounced Russian peacekeepers for their failure to prevent or stop
the September 19-20 assault that restored Baku’s full control over Karabakh and
forced the region’s practically entire population to flee to Armenia. President
Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have rejected the criticism.
“Moscow and Baku are discussing prospects for the return of the Armenian
population to Karabakh,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman, told a news briefing in Moscow.
Zakharova gave no details of those discussions. She stressed the importance of
“ensuring the rights and security” of Karabakh Armenians willing to return to
their homeland. Earlier this week, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail
Galuzin similarly called for “creating conditions” for their repatriation.
“We are ready to provide necessary support to that process, including through
Russian peacekeeping troops whose presence is of great importance,” Galuzin told
the official TASS news agency.
A board displaying a Russian state flag and an image of President Vladimir Putin
in Stepanakert following an Azeri military operation conducted and the mass
exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, October 2, 2023.
Even before their exodus, Karabakh’s leaders and ordinary residents made clear
that they would not live under Azerbaijani rule. None of the more than 100,000
Karabakh refugees are known to have expressed a desire to return home in the
current circumstances.
Last month, Karabakh’s main political factions exiled in Armenia set up a
political committee to campaign for their “collective repatriation.” The
committee is headed by Vartan Oskanian, a former Armenian foreign minister
Oskanian said earlier this month that Armenia should seek “international
guarantees” for the repatriation and raise the matter during peace talks with
Azerbaijan. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly indicated, however,
that the Karabakh issue is closed for his administration.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s special envoy on the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict, Igor Khovayev, met with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov
in Baku. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry did not mention the possible
repatriation of the Karabakh Armenians in its readout of the meeting.
The ministry cited Bayramov as blaming Armenia for Tuesday’s fighting on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border which left four Armenian soldiers dead. He accused
Yerevan of undermining the negotiation process.
Pashinian charged on Tuesday that the ceasefire violation shows that Baku lacks
the political will to negotiate a peace treaty with Yerevan and is intent on
heightening tensions along the border.
Armenia Shakes Up Military Top Brass
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - General Kamo Kochunts (left), acting army chief of staff, greets
Defense Minister Suren Papikian, Yerevan, June 28, 2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has dismissed the first deputy chief of the
Armenian army’s General Staff, Lieutenant-General Kamo Kochunts, and appointed
nine other senior officers to the top brass.
Kochunts was replaced by Colonel Artur Yeroyan through a presidential decree
initiated by Pashinian and made public late on Tuesday. Yeroyan, 46, has headed
the Armenia’s main military academy until now.
Two other deputy army chiefs of staff were named on Wednesday. The other
appointed officials include the new heads of three General Staff divisions.
No official explanations were given for these appointments. Gagik Melkonian, a
pro-government lawmaker and retired army general, said they are part of ongoing
defense reforms announced by the Armenian government.
“There will be more changes in the General Staff as it’s clear that we are
buying new military hardware and are going to change our previous mode of
governance,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Melkonian denied any connection between Kochunts’s sacking and the latest
Azerbaijani ceasefire violation that left four Armenian soldiers dead early on
Tuesday. He said that the 61-year-old veteran of the first Armenian-Azerbaijani
war, who had also fought in Afghanistan in Soviet army ranks, was replaced
because of his age.
The Yerevan newspaper Hraparak, which predicted Kochunts’s dismissal earlier
this month, claimed on Wednesday that the General Staff chief,
Lieutenant-General Eduard Asrian, could also lose his job soon.
Asrian’s predecessor, Artak Davtian, and six other generals were sacked in
February 2022 one year after the top brass issued a statement accusing
Pashinian’s government of incompetence and misrule and demanding its
resignation. Asrian was among the signatories of the statement welcomed by the
Armenian opposition but condemned by Pashinian as a coup attempt.
Pashinian promised a major reform of the military shortly after Armenia’s defeat
in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He has replaced three defense ministers since
then. The current minister, Suren Papikian, is a leading member of his Civil
Contract party.
Opposition groups blame Pashinian for the outcome of the six-week war that left
at least 3,800 Armenian soldiers dead. They also say that his administration is
doing little to rebuild the armed forces.
Armenian Economy Minister Resigns After Arrests
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian attends the Armenian goverment's
question-and-answer session in parliament.
Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian announced his resignation on Wednesday two weeks
after one of his deputies and several other subordinates were arrested on
corruption charges strongly denied by him.
Kerobian indicated that he has disagreed with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on
numerous occasions during his more than three-year tenure.
“When I took up the post of minister on November 20, 2020 there was a high
probability that I will keep it for a few days or months as regime change [in
Armenia] was very likely,” he wrote on Facebook. “During this period, due to
many disagreements, I wanted to leave this job many times but I subordinated
myself to maximize the value of my service to my country.”
Kerobian shed no light on those disagreements. Nor did he mention the arrests of
several senior officials from the Ministry of Economy carried out in two
criminal investigations jointly conducted by Armenia’s Investigative Committee
and National Security Service (NSS). The officials were moved to house arrest or
freed in the following days.
One of them allegedly helped other individuals receive 238 million drams
($590,000) in state agribusiness funding from 20222-2023 in violation of rules
set by the ministry. Neither this nor the others officials was charged with
bribery or embezzlement, a fact emphasized by Kerobian during cabinet meeting
chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian last week.
The minister told Pashinian that investigators have “paralyzed the work of the
entire state system” because many government officials are now not sure that
“their honest work will not be punished in the end.”
The ministry grants investigated by the law-enforcement authorities were
allocated from a state fund that helps private entrepreneurs set up intensive
fruit orchards. The Armenian government has provided about 100 billion drams
($248 million) in such funding since 2018. Kerobian defended his ministry’s
handling of the scheme which the government extended by two more years on
February 8.
Kerobian announced his resignation as the Investigative Committee said in a
statement that it is continuing to investigate the alleged abuse of the scheme
and may identify and indict “dozens of other individuals possibly involved” in
them.
Kerobian ruled out his resignation in the immediate aftermath of the arrests. He
told state television afterwards that he will take responsibility if the
investigators prove their accusations.
Armenia - Ashot Hovanesian inaugurates his Synergy International Systems
company's branch in Vanadzor, March 11, 2022.
The other criminal case stems from a procurement tender that was organized by
the Ministry of Economy and invalidated by a court last summer. Ministry
officials are accused of illegally disqualifying an information technology
company, Harmonia, to make sure that the tender is won by another, larger firm,
Synergy International Systems.
The investigators also arrested on January 31 Synergy’s founder Ashot Hovanesian
and two current and former employees. The latter were set free on Monday.
Hovanesian’s lawyers on Tuesday condemned his continuing detention as “illegal
and discriminatory.”
Hovanesian’s arrest earlier drew strong condemnation from Armenia’s Union of
Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE). It said that “unfounded” detentions of
“business representatives and other prominent persons” are turning Armenia into
a “risky country” for local and foreign tech entrepreneurs.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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