Wednesday,
Aliyev Insists On ‘Corridor’ Through Armenia
• Gevorg Stamboltsian
Russia - Azeri President Ilham Aliyev looks on during a visit of CIS heads of
state to the Peterhof Palace in Saint Petersburg, December 26, 2023.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday reiterated Baku’s renewed
demands for Armenia to open an extraterritorial corridor to Azerbaijan’s
Nakhichevan exclave.
“Otherwise, Armenia will remain at a dead end forever,” he said in televised
remarks. “If the route I mentioned is not opened, then we do not intend to open
the border with Armenia anywhere else. So they will get more harm than good from
that.”
"People and goods should pass from Azerbaijan to Azerbaijan without any checks,"
added Aliyev.
He pointed to a clause in the 2020 ceasefire agreement that commits Armenia to
opening rail and road links between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan
through Syunik, the sole Armenian province bordering Iran.
The Armenian government has said all along that Azerbaijani passengers and cargo
cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls. It insists on conventional
transport links between the two South Caucasus states.
Iran also strongly opposes the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Aliyev.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reaffirmed Tehran’s stance when he met with a
visiting Azerbaijani official in October.
Aliyev’s top foreign policy adviser, Hikmet Hajiyev, said later in October that
the corridor “has lost its attractiveness for us” and that Baku is now planning
to “do this with Iran instead.” But he clearly backtracked on that statement in
a newspaper interview published last week.
Baku renewed its demands for the corridor following what Azerbaijani and
Armenian officials described as progress made towards the signing of a bilateral
peace treaty. Earlier on Wednesday, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan
spoke of “regression” in the latest Azerbaijani proposals on the treaty sent to
Yerevan last month. Mirzoyan indicated that Baku is reluctant to explicitly
recognize Armenia’s borders through the peace deal.
Aliyev also rejected Yerevan’s insistence on international “guarantors” of the
two sides’ compliance with such a deal. “We don’t need guarantors,” he told
Azerbaijani television.
More Noncombat Deaths In Armenian Army's Ranks
• Shoghik Galstian
Armenia - Soldiers march at an Armenian military base, December 24, 2022.
Two Armenian soldiers were found shot dead on Tuesday in separate noncombat
incidents that sparked more calls for Defense Minister Suren Papikian’s
resignation.
Both incidents occurred at Armenian army posts in eastern Gegharkunik region
bordering Azerbaijan.
Military investigators said one of the soldiers, Karen Karapetian, was shot and
killed by a comrade early in the morning. The latter was arrested hours later.
As of Wednesday evening, the Investigative Committee made no statements about
the alleged shooter’s motives. Nor did the law-enforcement body say anything
about the reason for what it described as suicide committed by the other victim,
Mikael Danielian, later in the morning.
The chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, Lieutenant-General Eduard
Asrian, rushed to the headquarters of an army corps deployed in Gegharkunik
hours after the shootings.
“Everything must be done to exclude similar cases in the future,” Asrian told
its top officers.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in turn gave such instructions to Papikian and
the army’s top brass when he visited the Defense Ministry in Yerevan on
Wednesday morning.
Pashinian pledged to successfully tackle noncombat deaths of military personnel
after he came to power in 2018. However, the problem has remained just as
chronic since then.
January 2023 saw one of the deadliest noncombat incidents ever registered in the
Armenian army ranks. Fifteen conscripts serving in Gegharkunik were found dead
at their military barracks destroyed by a major fire. Papikian, who is a leading
member of Pashinian’s party, faced calls for resignation from their relatives,
opposition figures and human rights activists in the wake of the tragedy.
Andranik Kocharian, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on defense
and security, dismissed such calls reignited by the latest deaths.
“You immediately want sensational sackings,” an irritated Kocharian told
journalists. “That’s wrong. If we followed that path no official would retain
his post.”
Tigran Abrahamian, an opposition lawmaker, said the latest incidents raised more
questions about “defense reforms” promised by Pashinian’s administration
following the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
“The authorities must admit that they are not carrying reforms in that area or
that the reforms have failed,” Abrahamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“No matter how much you reform the army, no matter how successful those reforms
are, there will always be crimes and accidents in the army,” countered Armen
Khachatrian, another pro-government parliamentarian. “They should just be
reduced to a minimum.”
Khachatrian claimed that the number of noncombat deaths has steadily fallen in
recent years. Official figures tell a different story, however.
In particular, only 20 of 75 Armenian servicemen who died in 2023 were killed as
a result of ceasefire violations on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The
Armenian military reported 50 noncombat deaths in 2022.
Government Admits Failure Of New Ferry Link To Russia
• Robert Zargarian
Georgia -- A view of the port of Batumi.
Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian has acknowledged that the Armenian government’s
$1.2 million project to revive a Black Sea ferry service as an alternative trade
route between Russia and Armenia has been a failure.
The bulk of Armenia’s commerce with Russia, its number one trading partner, is
carried out through the sole Russian-Georgian border crossing at Upper Lars. A
mountainous road passing through Upper Lars is periodically closed due to
blizzards and landslides, causing Armenian companies serious losses. It has also
become increasingly congested in recent years.
The Armenian Ministry of Economy hired a foreign sea freight company last year
to operate a new ferry link between the Georgian Black Sea port of Batumi and
Russia’s Novorossiisk that was supposed to be an alternative to Upper Lars. The
company, C&M International, launched it in the summer after being paid 500
million drams ($1.2 million) by the ministry.
“The ferry operated for several months but … did not generate sufficient
interest from exporters and importers,” Kerobian told reporters this week. “We
did not see export and import companies use the ferry in a way that could
convince us and our partners to continue the project.”
RUSSIA - A general view of the Novorossiysk Fuel Oil Terminal (NMT) in the Black
Sea port of Novorossiisk, May 30, 2018.
The minister contradicted his own remarks on the issue made less than three
months ago. “The project is working as we see strong interest from [trading]
companies,” he said at the time.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, multiple cargo company executives in
Yerevan said a key reason for the failure of the Batumi-Novorossiisk service is
that it involved a typical cargo ship, rather than a real ferry. This means that
commercial trucks were unable to board the ship and proceed to the Russian port
or vice versa by sea and instead had to load their cargo onto it.
Russian-Armenian trade has skyrocketed since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of
Ukraine. Armenian entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the Western sanctions
against Moscow by re-exporting Western-manufactured goods to Russia. Armenian
exports to Russia rose by 63 percent, to $2.9 billion, in January-October 2023,
generating half of the South Caucasus nation’s overall export revenue.
Kerobian said that his government now wants to “diversify” Armenia’s export
operations. But he did not specify just how and when it will try to achieve that
objective.
Yerevan Sees ‘Regression’ In Azeri Peace Proposals
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - Foreign Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan of Armenia and George Gerapetritis
of Greece shake hands at a news conference, Yerevan, .
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan indicated on Wednesday that Azerbaijan is
reluctant to explicitly recognize Armenia’s borders through a bilateral peace
treaty discussed by the two sides.
Echoing remarks by another Armenian official, Mirzoyan spoke of “some
regression” in Baku’s most recent proposals regarding the treaty presented to
Yerevan.
“We submitted the latest Armenian proposals [to Baku] n January 4,” he told a
joint news conference with his visiting Greek counterpart George Gerapetritis.
“Yes, I would say that in terms of the content, we see some regress in the
Azerbaijani proposals on some articles of the text and some progress in several
other directions.”
Mirzoyan did not disclose those issues. He only stressed in this regard that
mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity must be the key element
of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord.
“This is the issue where utmost clarity is needed and the final peace treaty
must ensure this clarity,” he said. “Also, while the process of delimitation and
demarcation of the two countries’ border may take long, we must see in the peace
treaty a clear basis upon which the delimitation process must take place.”
“I want to emphasize that territorial integrity and inviolability of borders and
border delimitation are the two issues on which Armenia cannot allow any
ambiguity,” added Mirzoyan.
Senior Azerbaijani officials said last month that the two sides should sign the
treaty before agreeing on the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Armenian analysts and opposition figures suggested that Baku wants to leave the
door open for territorial claims to Armenia.
In October, Azerbaijani President Aliyev again accused Armenia of occupying
“eight Azerbaijani villages.” Aliyev referred to several small enclaves inside
Armenia which were controlled by Azerbaijan in Soviet times and occupied by the
Armenian army in the early 1990s. For its part, the Azerbaijani side seized at
the time a bigger Armenian enclave.
Armenia has proposed that the two South Caucasus states use late Soviet-era
military maps as a basis for the border delimitation. The idea is backed by the
European Union but rejected by the Azerbaijani side.
Aliyev twice withdrew from EU-mediated talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
in October. His foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, similarly cancelled a
November 20 meeting with Mirzoyan that was due to be hosted by U.S. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken. Bayramov offered late last month to meet with Mirzoyan on
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border without third-party mediation.
Mirzoyan on Wednesday declined to clarify whether he is ready for such a
meeting. He said only that Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations have always been
“direct” in essence.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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