Author: Boris Nahapetian

Just two weeks after fleeing his home with barely more than the clothes on his back and the phone in his pocket, 23-year-old Ashot Gabriel is at a tech conference promoting one of the last things he has left: his startup.

He is one of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenian refugees who were forced out of Nagorno-Karabakh in late September when Azerbaijani forces retook control of the breakaway enclave. Alongside his two brothers – who evacuated in a single car with their parents and a grandparent on 28 September – Gabriel is now attempting to start a new life from temporary accommodation in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan. “We lost our property, but we also lost ourselves,” he says. “We have lost our previous lives. We are starting everything from scratch.”

His online marketing startup, Brothers in Business (BIB), was offered a last-minute stand at the DigiTech Expo, with organisers hoping that technology will help offer a solution for the country. As a landlocked nation lacking the natural resources of its historically hostile neighbours, Armenia’s nascent tech industry is seen as a way to achieve sovereignty and future stability in the long term, while also assisting with the humanitarian crisis in the short term.

The country was once a tech hub in the region – one of the world’s first computers was built in Armenia – but much of Armenia’s talent left following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. A new scene emerged when émigrés returned to the country after finding success in Silicon Valley, establishing the country’s internet network and providing a foundation for startups to emerge.

There are now an estimated 300 pre-seed-stage startups in Armenia, and around 100 seed-stage startups, in fields ranging from quantum computing to electric bikes. “We have this vision: Tech is the ultimate direction that will help Armenia to succeed,” says Narek Vardanyan, CEO of Prelaunch.com, whose company acts as a platform to help local startups establish themselves on the market.

“We are landlocked, we have no natural resources. All we have is talent. And our only way we can develop is technology,” he says. “We don’t have a backup plan. There is no Plan B. We are betting everything on technology.”

Armenia’s most successful startup so far is Picsart, an online photo editor that has grown to become the country’s only unicorn – a company with a valuation north of $1 billion. Picsart is among those offering their resources to help refugees, fast-tracking the launch of an educational program that will be offered for free to refugees and war veterans, training and reskilling them in everything from machine learning to graphic design. Hayk Sahakyan, a creative director at Picsart, says there has been a “huge number” of people interested so far, including children.

This idea of building up Armenia’s tech industry through education can be found through two privately funded initiatives that are providing free courses in STEM subjects to tens of thousands of young people throughout the country. The first is TUMO, which provides free supplemental education to 12-18 year olds in creative technologies, ranging from game development to music.

Since the first TUMO centre opened in Yerevan in 2011, dozens of centres have sprung up throughout Armenia and the rest of the world, including hubs in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles. One of its six core centres and three smaller “Box” centres had to be abandoned during the Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last month.

“External circumstances can literally kill us. But whenever anyone asks me whether Armenia has a future, it’s here,” says Zara Budaghyan, head of communications at TUMO. “Technology has the potential to provide a more stable economy, but also better lives. International support has been lacking. We need to rebuild by ourselves. We are broken. But this gives us something to believe in.”

The second educational initiative is a network of technology, science and engineering laboratories set up in rural communities, offering children from 10-18 free after school classes. Established by UATE – a business association that also runs the DigiTech Expo – several of the labs in Nagorno-Karabakh also had to be shut down in September.

UATE chief executive Sargis Karapetyan, who grew up in the region, says around 200 of his relatives were among the refugees. Karapetyan considered cancelling the DigiTech conference, saying there is still a deep distrust of Azerbaijan. There are fears that the annex was only part one. The next stage, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken believes could happen “within weeks”, could be an invasion to establish a land corridor between the two parts of Azerbaijan.

When asked what prompted the decision to persevere with the tech conference despite personal tragedy and the threat of further chaos, Karapetyan replies: "Technology will save the world.”

As Tamanna embarks on this new chapter of her life, her goals and ambitions become clearer to her. She is determined to pay forward the opportunities she has received and is committed to working towards the betterment of women in her community. This scholarship stands as a testament to her steadfast determination and remarkable resilience.

France has agreed to deliver military equipment to Armenia, according to an announcement made by Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Tuesday.

“France has given its agreement to the conclusion of future contracts with Armenia which will allow the delivery of military equipment to Armenia so that it can ensure its defense,” Colonna told reporters in a joint news conference with Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan after talks that she said touched upon security and defense.

Colonna traveled to Armenia to assess the country’s urgent needs amid an influx of refugees from Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s counterterrorism operation.

The Caucasus neighbors have been locked in a deadly dispute over the enclave – internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but occupied by Armenia for over three decades – since the 1980s and fought two wars over the territory.

In 2020, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages and settlements from Armenian occupation during 44 days of clashes. The war ended with a Russia-brokered peace agreement.

Last month, Azerbaijan carried out an anti-terror operation to clear the territory to establish constitutional order in the region.

Illegal Armenian armed forces in Karabakh surrendered after the 24-hour operation.

Azerbaijan, having established full sovereignty in the region, has called on the Armenian population to become part of Azerbaijani society and vowed to protect their rights.

https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/france-to-send-military-equipment-to-armenia

A humanitarian crisis in the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is exposing both the weakness of Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and the failure of the Biden administration to deliver on promises to defend Armenians from the risk of another genocide.

Generally ignored by the rest of the world, Nagorno-Karabakh is a sliver of land in the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian seas. Its people have been tormented for 35 years by on-and-off fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Until recently, both countries claimed sovereignty over the territory, but recently Pashinyan unilaterally gave up Armenia’s claim to the home of some 120,000 ethnic Armenians, a move that is seen as treasonous by most of his constituents.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev has grabbed the upper hand in this conflict by imposing a blockade on the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The blockade has choked off supplies of food, medicine, and fuel to Armenians in the region.

Russia is nominally Armenia’s ally and responsible for peacekeeping in Nagorno-Karabakh but has allowed Azerbaijan to carry out this aggression. The Biden administration so far has done nothing for the besieged Armenians.

Ethnic Armenians have lived in Nagorno-Karabakh (or Artsakh in Armenian) for millennia. It was recognized as part of Armenia in 1920 by the League of Nations—the precursor of the United Nations—only to be transferred to Azerbaijan on the orders of Joseph Stalin a year later, in 1921, after the independent Armenian Republic was occupied by the Red Army.

The most recent war ended on November 9, 2020, with Armenia’s defeat. Azerbaijan used Turkish special forces and Syrian jihadist mercenaries to force Pashinyan to sign a ceasefire on highly unfavorable terms.

Armenia’s parliament appointed Pashinyan, a former newspaper editor, as prime minister in June 2018 after he led a protest movement in the streets of Yerevan and promised to crack down on corruption and pursue stronger ties with the West. Instead, he has allowed corruption to fester, cuddled up with Russia’s Putin regime and let Aliyev call the shots in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia’s military has been left to languish without adequate funding, equipment, or leadership.

Washington shares some of the blame. The U.S., France, and Russia were co-chairs of the Minsk Group, part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. After Azerbaijan thwarted the process by attacking Nagorno- Karabakh, Russia sent in troops with the ostensible assignment of “peacekeeping.”

Last November, two years after signing the ceasefire, Pashinyan handed control of the Lachin corridor to the Russians. When he followed up by giving up claims to sovereignty in the territory, Russia had a convenient excuse for allowing Aliyev to put up his blockade.

Now the Pashinyan government is blaming the West—rather than Armenia’s duplicitous and treacherous ally, Russia—for not doing enough to save Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Some prominent members of the Armenian diaspora and ethnic Armenian lobbying groups have joined the chorus, turning this situation into a public relations problem for the Biden administration. Having promised, in a statement issued on the Armenian Remembrance Day of April 24, 2021, to prevent a second Armenian genocide, Biden is now being put on the spot.

Pashinyan’s unwillingness to protect Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should come as no surprise to Washington. In July 2019, barely a year after he came to power, officials at the U.S. embassy in Armenia confided to me that he was uninterested in any serious reform and had no plans to embrace the West.

The State Department’s 2022 Armenia Country Report found that no corruption cases against current and former high-ranking government officials had resulted in convictions. A survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in March found Pashinyan’s popularity rating at home approaching single digits.

Meanwhile, Pashinyan has pursued a cozy relationship with Russia, as displayed by his trip to Moscow to attend the May 9 victory parade, Armenia’s membership in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, and Armenia’s role as a major conduit for goods bypassing Russia sanctions.

Pashinyan also has managed to exasperate one of Armenia’s major allies, France. In an apparent frustration with Pashinyan’s defeatist approach to Nagorno-Karabakh, President Macron recently responded to a question raised by a French lawmaker by promising to take a tougher stand than that of Pashinyan in defending Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. “I am the only one who has a clear position and message on the issue of Artsakh,” Macron declared.

The only thing working for Armenia and the people of Nagorno-Karabakh is that Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev may be running out of time. He knows he is unlikely to receive much more help from Russia if Putin is toppled because of his botched invasion of Ukraine. As a result, Aliyev has switched from the “caviar diplomacy” of negotiations to “barbwire diplomacy” of effectively creating a concentration camp for Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The international community is beginning to take note of this strategy. A high-level UN panel of experts recently urged Azerbaijan to lift the Lachin corridor blockade. A former International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, issued a report this month describing the blockade as genocide. In a statement delivered before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress on June 21, former U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback said Washington “cannot allow another Armenian Christian genocide or crimes against humanity to unfold in Nagorno-Karabakh. Let us take our stand now like our American forefathers who stood with the persecuted Armenians during their holocaust.”

U.S. State Department officials realize that peace with Aliyev is not possible on honorable and humane terms, though they do not publicly acknowledge that. Forcing Armenia to give away Nagorno-Karabakh and sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan has been Russia’s plan. Russia needs peace in the South Caucasus on its own terms as soon as possible, and certain elements of the U.S. bureaucracy are willing to let that happen. The result would be an even stronger alliance among Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, and Iran.

To avert a catastrophe, the Biden administration should join France in the United Nations Security Council in calling for UN-mandated peacekeepers to be sent to Nagorno-Karabakh immediately. If Russia blocks such a resolution, the U.S. should consider bilateral action, perhaps in collaboration with France and Greece, Armenia’s historic partner.

Washington can also help boost pro-Western political parties in Armenia. The largest of them, the National Democratic Alliance, or NDA, had a high-level visit to Washington in April. The NDA leader received a warm welcome from several congressional offices and through their lobbyist, The Livingston Group, helped organize the Congressional hearing on Nagorno-Karabakh on June 21. The administration can do much more to build stronger ties with the NDA and signal that it will not tolerate police brutality against the party’s members as they are about to embark on a nationwide protest movement against Pashinyan.

To make a meaningful pivot toward the West, Armenia needs genuine pro-Western leadership. Pashinyan has neither the intention nor the capacity to make such a move and to undertake much needed reforms, including in national security and defense. Pashinyan has managed to alienate almost everyone. He has to go.

Dr. David A. Grigorian is a Senior Fellow at Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is a 27-year veteran of the IMF and the World Bank, where he spent much of his career working on the Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asia, and was the editor-in-chief of “Corruption in Armenia” report. 

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