Author: Dabaghian Diana

Prime Minister Pashinian Stages Own Coup Against Armenia’s Military

Dabaghian Diana
Jamestown Foundation
March 11 2021

March 11, 2021 05:39 PM 

Armenia’s military top brass has demanded that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government resign “for having brought the country to disaster.” Blaming Pashinian for overall incompetence and the recent lost war, the generals have nevertheless stopped short of attempting a coup d’état (see EDM, February 25, 26). Nor have they indulged in acts of military disobedience to the government. While sharing the civilian opposition’s views and goals, the generals have refrained from joining the protest movement thus far.

Pashinian, however, has lost no time in staging a political and personnel “coup” of his own against the military’s high command.

On March 10, Pashinian unilaterally dismissed the Armed Forces’ chief of the General Staff, Colonel General Onik Gasparian, notwithstanding President Armen Sarkissian’s refusal to co-sign the dismissal decree. The president referred the matter to the constitutional court on the same day.

Also on March 10, Pashinian brought his former protégé, Lieutenant General Artak Davtian, back from retirement to nominate him as chief of the General Staff. Davtian can legally be installed subject to President Sarkissian’s consent. Sarkissian has promptly objected, however (Arminfo, March 11). Lieutenant General Stepan Galstian is, therefore, tasked to be acting chief of the General Staff by order of Defense Minister Vagarshak Harutiunan. The latter is a recent Pashinian appointee, at odds with the active-duty generals (see below).

The position of first deputy chief of staff is also vacant since Pashinian dismissed Gasparian’s first deputy, Lieutenant General Tiran Khachatrian, on February 24. President Sarkissian, a hesitant personality, co-signed Khachatrian’s ouster before vacillating back to decline Gasparian’s removal. Both Gasparian and Khachatrian are moving to contest their dismissal by Pashinian in the Administrative Court. Their defense holds that they legally hold the positions of chief and first deputy chief of the General Staff pending a court decision (News.am, March 10, 11).

In a public statement on the same day, Gasparian contested Pashinian’s dismissal order as „anti-constitutional, yet another proof that the government’s resignation and pre-term parliamentary elections are the only way to overcome this crisis.” In an accompanying collective statement, “The Armed Forces’ high command adheres to General Gasparian’s declaration and confirms his assessment of the situation in the country” (Arminfo, March 10).

Notwithstanding their resentment, however, the generals remain thus far compliant with the principle of civilian control. Pashinian, safe in this knowledge and counting on this, staged a meeting at the Ministry of Defense on March 10 to present his controversial personnel changes to the assembled General Staff. The videotape immediately released by Pashinian’s office showed the top brass compactly standing at attention in front of the prime minister and listening to his presentation of the personnel changes without murmur. He added some perfunctory compliments to the military and even to Gasparian, who was absent. This scene was a successful public relations move typical of Pashinian. The public was led to believe that Pashinian had subdued his most redoubtable critics and was back in control (Armenpress, March 10).

Pashinian’s capricious manner of governing has wrought havoc on the military and security services’ commands during his almost three years as prime minister. His latest choice for chief of the General Staff, Davtian (see above), had already served in this post from May 2018 to June 2020. Pashinian picked him for that position at that time because Davtian was only a one-star general with relatively little authority and beholden to his benefactor. Davtian, however, had to resign after hosting a party with more than 100 guests in violation of coronavirus restrictions (Aravot, June 8, 2020). Davtian then headed Armenia’s Committee on Military Industry for only four months, until Pashinian released him without public explanation (ARKA, November 16, 2020). On March 9, 2021, Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian appointed Davtian to a new position created for him as “senior officer for special assignments”; and one day later, Pashinian nominated Davtian as chief of the General Staff (see above).

Pashinian appointed the respected Gasparian as chief of the General Staff in June 2020 in the run-up to the war and promoted him from two-star to three-star general during the war. Pashinian overlooked Gasparian’s pre-war advice to do everything possible to avoid war or at least postpone it. Once the war started, Pashinian disregarded Gasparian’s recommendations (from the fourth day of the war onward) to avoid defeat by stopping the hostilities or to fire Iskander missiles in desperation. Gasparian deemed the armistice terms not as Pashinian’s “treason” (which most opposition parties pin on the prime minister) but as a lesser evil: the utter destruction of Armenia’s forces (Aravot, November 17, 2020).

Retaliating to the General Staff’s demand for Pashinian to resign, the latter dismissed Gasparian on February 25, nominated Davtian as replacement on March 10, and temporarily designated Galstian as acting chief of the General Staff on the same day (see above), Galstian being the fourth holder of this post during Pashinian’s prime-ministership thus far. He might become chief of staff instead of Davtian, given President Sarkissian’s resistance to Davtian’s nomination.

Pashinian appointed Lieutenant General (ret.) Vagharshak Harutiunian (see above) as senior military advisor to the prime minister in August 2020 (one month before the war’s start) and as defense minister on November 20, 2020 (ten days after the armistice). Harutiunian is alien in many ways to the General Staff’s personnel and therefore a potential lever on it for Pashinian. A Soviet-schooled officer, born in 1956 and a graduate of two naval academies before serving in the Ground Forces, Harutiunian represented Armenia in the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Joint (Collective) Forces from 1992 to 1999, receiving his first and second star during that tenure without any known battlefield exploits. Harutiunian served as defense minister of Armenia for less than one year (1999–2000), falling politically out of favor with then-president Robert Kocharian, who stripped Harutiunian of his military rank. Harutiunian was out of the military until 2019, when he had his military rank restored in the context of Pashinian’s vendetta against Kocharian. Following the 44-day war, Harutiunian is liaising on a regular basis with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, to plan a rebuilding of Armenia’s Armed Forces (see EDM, March 1).

Pashinian has also appointed and dismissed the heads of the National Security Service with dizzying frequency. The Service has had five chiefs one after the other during his premiership (May 2018 to date), including three consecutive chiefs during the 44-day war (September 27–November 19, 2020); the third of these, Armen Abazian, is the current incumbent.

Armenia’s current constitution makes it possible for Pashinian to play these personnel games. The constitution, amended in 2015, shifted major powers from the president to the prime minister’s office, tailor-made for then-president Serge Sarkissian to become prime minister when his second presidential term expired in 2018. Pashinian led his “velvet revolution” in 2018 to prevent Sarkissian’s move and has inherited those constitutional powers as prime minister. Under these provisions, Pashinian initiates the appointment and dismissal of key defense and security officials, requiring pro forma the state president’s co-signature. The cautious President Armen Sarkissian has acted compliantly thus far, but Pashinian’s mismanagement of the war has prompted the head of state to call for the prime minister’s resignation and seems to have changed their relationship fundamentally.


Armenia’s president still has few days to apply to CC – Bar Chamber president

Dabaghian Diana
Aysor, Armenia
March 6 2021

The president of the republic has right to apply to the Constitutional Court regarding the Chief of the Staff by March 9, president of Armenian Bar Chamber Ara Zohrabyan said outside MOD building today.

“The president of the republic must either apply to the Constitutional Court or sign the decree and agree with the prime minister,” Zohrabyan said.

“The president admitted that there is a problem, and the issue is very deep as high-ranking officers joined the Chief of the General Staff. The president still has days to apply to the CC. If he does not do it, it means he pushes the issues to be settled in streets, not in constitutional way,” Zohrabyan stated.

Post-war report: Pashinyan misfired with insult of Russian missiles

Dabaghian Diana
EurasiaNet.org
Feb 26 2021
Joshua Kucera Feb 26, 2021
An Iskander missile in Russia in 2018. (Russian Defense Ministry)

Some intemperate remarks about Russian weaponry from Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan led the country to the precipice of a military coup this week, and the political crisis loomed large over the entire post-war recovery.

In a February 23 interview with local television, Pashinyan said that the Iskander missiles in Armenia’s armory – the most sophisticated weapons it possesses – were effectively duds. The Iskanders launched during the war, he said, “didn’t explode, or maybe 10 percent of them exploded.” The interviewer pressed him, asking if that was really true, and Pashinyan cryptically responded “I don’t know. … maybe they were weapons from the ‘80s.”

All of that was in response to an interview the week before of Pashinyan’s predecessor, Serzh Sargsyan, whom he ousted in the 2018 Velvet Revolution. The ex-president criticized Pashinyan for not using the Iskander missiles until the war was virtually lost; the interviewer was asking Pashinyan to respond to that statement.

Also, as it happens, Sargsyan was notorious for arguing following the last big conflict with Azerbaijan, 2016’s April War, that the Armenian armed forces were fighting with “weapons from the ‘80s.” Sargsyan was heavily criticized for the statement and Pashinyan, in January 2020, pointed to several new Russian weapons acquisitions and bragged that “the shameful chapter of weapons from the ‘80s is over.”

The Iskander is not from the ‘80s. It is Russia’s most advanced ballistic system, and when Armenia acquired it in 2016 it was seen as a gamechanger in its arms race with Azerbaijan. It gave Armenia, for the first time, the ability to strike Baku and the strategic oil and gas infrastructure there. Armenia is the only state other than Russia to own it.

In Russia – where arms exports are a serious business, and Russian weaponry a matter of state prestige – Pashinyan’s insult was a bigger misfire than even the Armenian Iskanders allegedly were.

The deputy head of the State Duma defense committee, Viktor Zavarzin, said that Pashinyan’s statement was an “absolute lie” and said that he was only trying to deflect blame from his own failures. The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, in a story headlined “Don’t mock our Iskanders, Mr. Pashinyan,” interviewed a senior Russian missile engineer.

“If he claims that the Russian Iskanders were ineffective, Pashinyan needs to watch his mouth,” the engineer, Vladimir Kovalev, told the newspaper. “To make such serious claims against the rocket complex and then publicly admit that he ‘doesn’t know’ the issue – it’s unworthy and even dishonorable for the prime minister of Armenia. And his claim about ‘weapons from the 80s’ is a sign of the ignorance of a dilettante. What kind of ‘weapons from the 80s’ can we be talking about if the Russian army only finished equipping itself with Iskanders at the end of 2019? And Armenia even got some of these complexes before we did, as allies.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense even denied that the Iskanders were used at all during the war, though there is plenty of evidence that they were.

American military analyst Rob Lee, who has closely followed the conflict, said there was some merit to the criticism of Armenia’s use of the Iskanders. “The big question is why they didn’t use it earlier in the conflict,” he told Eurasianet. One obvious potential target: the bases of the Turkish Bayraktar drones which the Azerbaijani forces used to such success. “Waiting to use it on Shusha was a last-ditch effort, but it was a waste to use such a long-range system on a close target. So I think that’s why Pashinyan tried to deflect by saying they weren’t effective, to deflect blame for why he didn’t use them properly.”

In any case, it was an extraordinary own goal, given the deep dependence on Russia in which Armenia now finds itself. “Such a public stab in the back of Russia, when Armenia’s security completely depends on Russia, is baffling,” wrote analyst Hrant Mikaelian. The deputy chief of staff of the armed forces mocked Pashinyan in his own interview, was fired for it the same day, and that firing became the immediate justification for the armed forces to issue their extraordinary call for Pashinyan to step down.

Ironically, given their role in the current crisis, Armenia originally seems to have acquired the Iskanders as a Russian concession during another period of political turmoil. News about the deal first leaked during the 2016 Electric Yerevan protests, now seen as a sort of precursor to Pashinyan’s Velvet Revolution two years later.

Those protests erupted in response to a price hike by Armenia’s Russian-owned electricity company, and had taken on an anti-Russian flavor. Russia, in an attempt to prop up the government then in power, offered Yerevan a number of concessions to tamp down public anger, among which may have been the Iskanders. The organizers of the protests at least saw it that way: One of them called the acquisition of the missiles “a credit to the people” of Armenia. It’s the kind of language Pashinyan himself would like.

Fists of love and hate

Amid the crisis Pashinyan got support, of a sort, from an unlikely source: Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev. Following the military officers’ call on Pashinyan to step down, Aliyev warned against “revanchist thoughts” from Yerevan and said that Azerbaijan had a “ready fist” lest they emerge again. It’s not clear exactly what he was referring to, but the opposition parties that have aligned against Pashinyan have been regularly criticizing the ceasefire agreement currently in place, and have suggested that they would try to amend it in Armenia’s favor.

Pashinyan also seemed to still have the backing of the Kremlin, at least officially, in spite of the perceived insult to the Iskanders. President Vladimir Putin spoke with Pashinyan by phone late on February 25 and, in the Kremlin’s telling, expressed his support for “resolving the conflict within the framework of the law.” And Pashinyan has all the legal levers to stay in power as long as he wants.

Meanwhile, Russian support for Armenia’s post-war recovery is continuing apace. Earlier in the week, Armenia’s defense minister said that the Russian military base in Armenia is set to expand and to deploy some of its soldiers closer to the border with Azerbaijan. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Defense Minister Vagarshak Harutyunyan was asked about the possibility of setting up a second Russian base in the country, and he said there was no need but that “it’s more accurate to talk about the possibility of relocating some formations from the Russian base (taking into account its expansion) toward eastern Armenia, and the corresponding work on this issue is already being done.”

The base, in Gyumri near the border with Turkey, currently hosts about 5,000 Russian troops, both land and air forces. Harutyunyan didn’t elaborate on the nature of the expansion or where the soldiers might be relocated. He did add that his ministry was carrying out unspecified “defense reforms” and that Russian specialists were aiding in the process.

This statement also got a separate angry reaction from Aliyev.

“Several days ago I heard that now its allies want to rebuild the Armenian army, modernize it,” Aliyev said on February 25, without explicitly mentioning Russia. “Why? Against whom? The war is over. If someone wants to live with revanchist ideas, he will see this fist, it is ready, and let them try our patience.” (Revanchism and fists are at the front of his mind these days, it seems.)

He went on: “Such a fascist state should not have an army. We will never allow any kind of danger to us or for our citizens, who will return to their liberated lands, to feel any sort of risk. Immediately after the July clashes […] Armenia was daily supplied with several planeloads of free weapons. Did Armenia buy these ‘Iskanders’ for money? No, they got them free.”

To unpack that a bit: The planeloads of weapons refers to another recent episode for which Aliyev strongly criticized Russia, when reports emerged last summer about large-scale Russian weapons supplies to Armenia. And details of the arms transactions between Armenia and Russia are never made public, but it appears that the Iskanders were acquired under a Russian loan to Armenia and likely at preferential prices, as Russia sells its allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization weapons at cost.

In any case, it was quite a broadside by Aliyev, who has (subtly) been criticizing Russian cooperation with the Armenian de facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh, but not Russia’s support for Armenia itself to nearly this extent. It remains to be seen if he thinks that Azerbaijan also doesn’t need an army now that the war is over.

All quiet on the eastern front

Speaking of intimidated citizens, Armenians living in regions that are in newly close contact with Azerbaijani military positions have been reporting gunfire and other threatening behavior from their new neighbors. While this was the big story in the region last week, it’s worth noting that there have been no similar reports over the past week. Whether that’s because the Azerbaijanis changed their behavior (Russian peacekeepers were reportedly trying to tamp it down) or because the Armenian authorities succeeded in their efforts to suppress news from the region, is not clear. But the Ministry of Defense has been regularly reporting “no border incidents” and Armenia’s ombudsman, who has been one of the most prominent voices calling attention to the situation, has been silent on it.

In spite of all the action in Yerevan and in the media, the situation in the conflict zone itself appeared fairly quiet, perhaps in part because of the heavy snow that blanketed the region.

Azerbaijan did continue to roll out plans for reconstruction. It reported that the road it is building to Shusha will be open to the public starting in August, because demining work has to take place before that happens. That is just a temporary road anyway, and a bigger one will be built by two Turkish companies.

Aliyev also expanded on plans to build airports in the retaken territories, and they are ambitious. An international airport is being built in Fizuli, a “first-order priority.” The runway will be able to handle “all types of planes, including the heaviest and bulkiest,” Aliyev said, and construction should be completed this year, depending on how the demining goes. The airport should enter full use in fall 2021, he said.

Two other airports are being constructed in the Lachin and Zangilan regions, and the latter will be a “logistical center” tied to the new corridor that is supposed to lead from that region, across southern Armenia and into Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan. 

(Evangeline McGlynn)

 

This report was updated on February 26. 

Joshua Kucera is the Turkey/Caucasus editor at Eurasianet, and author of The Bug Pit.

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Nikol Pashinyan’s dismissal ‘just a matter of time’, analyst says

Dabaghian Diana
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 26 2021

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s dismissal is “just a matter of time” in the wake of the military’s top brass demanding his and his cabinet’s resignation, according to Tigran Abrahamyan, the head of the Henaket Analytical Center.

“Regardless of how the authorities will react or what measures they will take following the statement of the General Staff of the Armenian army, Nikol Pashinyan’s dismissal is just a matter of time,” he wrote on Facebook, adding his removal from office is in everyone’s best interests.

“The authorities cannot resolve any problem through pressures or arrests. The army has already expressed its position; it’s a fixed fact with no escape from the existing realities.

“Even if they arrest all the servicemen, the attitude of the armed forces will not change. Thus, any distrust in the political authorities by a key pillar of our statehood will lead to inevitable processes,” Abrahamyan said. 

Ombudsman denounces Azerbaijan’s efforts to politicize issue of Armenian POWs’ return

Dabaghian Diana
Public Radio of Armenia
Feb 27 2021
 

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Tatoyan condemned Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s statement calling Armenian prisoners “terrorists”.

“We carried out an anti-terror operation, as a result of which more than 60 terrorists were arrested. They are now referred to as prisoners of war. We believe this is a misrepresentation of the issue, because 20 days after the end of the war there can be no POWs. We returned all the prisoners of war before they [Armenia, ed.] had returned our prisoners to us. And those persons are not POWs, they are terrorists and saboteurs,” Aliyev said.

“The ombudsman of Armenia once again resolutely states that all Armenian servicemen and civilians held in Azerbaijan have the status of prisoners of war. All the servicemen were in Artsakh to fulfill their constitutional duties; they performed military service in Artsakh as prescribed by law.

“Credible evidence collected by the Human Rights Defender’s Office confirms that the number of captured persons is actually higher than confirmed by the Azerbaijani authorities. It refers also to the period preceding the return of a group of 44 prisoners.

“The human rights defender has registered numerous cases when, despite the cases documented by videos and other evidence, the Azerbaijani authorities denied the capture of those persons or delayed the confirmation process.

“Initiating criminal proceedings against the Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan, arresting them and calling them “terrorists” or “saboteurs” are flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in general,” the ombudsman said, citing the Third Geneva Convention of 1949.

He underlined that in the post-war period, human rights or humanitarian issues, including the release of POWs, must be resolved immediately after the cessation of hostilities and must be kept away from the political processes.

“The statement of the Azerbaijani president that 20 days after the end of the war there can be no prisoners of war, thus calling the prisoners “saboteurs” or “terrorists” is absolutely unacceptable. It is inadmissible to interpret the November 9 tripartite statement as if it applies only to the situation before the signing of the statement,” Tatoyan said, stating the statement “didn’t put an end to the ongoing armed conflict”.

In addition, he said, the Azeri leader’s statements directly contradicts the intentions of the parties that signed the November 9 statement and the implementation of its clauses.

“In particular, pursuant to Clause 8 of the statement, the Republic of Armenia has already handed over to Azerbaijan two persons who were convicted for committing crimes in Artsakh, including murder of civilians. Following the same principle, Azerbaijan handed over to Armenia Armenians formally convicted in that country.

“Armenia and Azerbaijan also exchanged captives after the November 9 tripartite statement. Thus, this statement must be applied to all situations both before and after November 9 as long as there is an objective need for the protection of human rights and the humanitarian processes in the aftermath of hostilities,” the ombudsman noted.

Also, he said the urgency of the repatriation of Armenian prisoners should be considered in the context of the policy of Armenophobia in Azerbaijan, which has been repeatedly confirmed by the reports published by him on the basis of objective evidence.

“Therefore, it is absolutely reprehensible that the issue of the release and return of the Armenian POWs in Baku is clearly politicized, while the legal processes are distorted and abused.

“All this grossly violates the humanitarian processes and international human rights. Therefore, they must be released without any preconditions and returned safely to Armenia.

“I call the attention of the international community, particularly international organizations mandated to protect human rights, to the statement of Azerbaijan’s president to rule out any violations of the humanitarian processes and to ensure their strict compliance with international human rights law,” Tatoyan said. 

Court Reverses Newsom’s Rejection of Sassounian Parole

Dabaghian Diana

February 25,  2021



Hampig Sassounian

The Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday reversed a decision by Governor Gavin Newson who rejected the parole eligibility and application of Hampig Sassounian, court documents obtained by Asbarez show.

Despite a recommendation in December 2019 by the Board of Parole in favor of Sassounian’s suitability, Newsom, last May, rejected that decision and denied his parole, saying in a lengthy decision that while he acknowledged the steps Sassounian had taken over decades to rehabilitate himself, he did not believe Sassounian to be fit for release.

“I commend Mr. Sassounian for his rehabilitative efforts in prison, but I find they are outweighed by negative factors that show he remains unsuitable for parole at this time,” said Newsom in his letter obtained by Asbarez at the time. “I believe that Mr. Sassounian has not yet demonstrated that he has developed and sustained the necessary insight and skills for a sufficiently long period.”

Saying Newsom’s decision was “arbitrary and procedurally flawed,” LA County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan on Wednesday granted Sassounian’s attorney’s motion to reverse the governor’s decision ruling that Newsom “used an improper standard” when “considering both the ‘import’ of his offense and the notoriety of his victim.”

Ryan also said it did not find evidence to support Newsom’s decision that Sassounian “posed an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.”

With its ruling on Wednesday, the court vacated Newsom’s decision to reject Sassounian’s parole and reinstated the California Parole Board’s decision to grant Sassounian parole.

“The wheels of justice sometimes move slowly, but this is the right time for this decision. I applaud the team of lawyers and activists working on this case for decades,” California State Senator Anthony Portantino told Asbarez on Thursday.

“This is an important case not just for his family but for California. We have done many things in justice reform on behalf of teenagers and it’s nice to see that it has benefitted Hampig,” added Portantino. “The community can sleep peacefully and joyfully tonight.”

“Wednesday’s decision by the court is a welcome change in the status for Hampig Sassounian, whose eligibility for parole was unjustly rejected last year by the governor,” attorney Levon Kirakosian told Asbarez on Thursday “The Armenian community has waited with bated breath for this moment and I am confident that Hampig’s release will be imminent.”

“Hampig’s family and the entire Armenian community applaud and appreciate the court’s ruling,” added Kirakosian, who for the past four decades has worked on or closely with Sassounian’s legal team.

“As an organization which expressed its disappointment last year to the governor for his decision to overturn the unanimous votes of two separate Parole Boards to grant parole to Hampig Sassounian on humanitarian grounds, we are gratified that the court has issued its favorable ruling today in which it overturned the Governor’s unfounded decision. We are confident that justice has finally been served, and we are grateful that the court agreed,” said Nora Hovsepian, Esq., the chair of the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region.

Russia reports over 11,700 COVID-19 cases in past day

Dabaghian Diana

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YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 11,749 in the past day reaching 4,200,902, TASS reports citing the anti-coronavirus crisis center.

For a second day in the row fewer than 12,000 daily coronavirus cases were recorded.

In relative terms, the growth rate stood at 0.3%.

US, Iran edging back to negotiating table

Dabaghian Diana 
Asia Times
[Things are moving quickly with both sides making efforts to look like
they're not giving concessions]
By MK Bhadrakumar
       
The frozen lake of US-Iran confrontation is generating a pinging
sound. The cracking of the ice is yet to produce that loud booming
thunderclap. But these are early days.
It was only last Thursday that the US and the three European states
who are party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (2015 Iran
nuclear deal) – Germany, France and the UK, or the “E3” – lobbed a
joint statement across the court to Tehran, whereby US President Joe
Biden’s administration announced its willingness to return to
diplomacy with Iran.
It was an opening move, where the Biden administration merely
reiterated its position that it will return to the JCPOA if Tehran
returns to strict compliance with it. The E3 and the US seek to
strengthen the JCPOA to address broader security concerns related to
Iran. But certain other moves went along with it on the same day:
    Washington expressed its acceptance of an invitation from the
European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the
so-called P5+1 countries – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and
the United States – with Iran for an informal “diplomatic
conversation” to chart a way forward;
    The Biden administration rescinded the Donald Trump
administration’s decision in September 2020 to invoke “snapback
sanctions” worldwide at the United Nations – a provision under
Security Council Resolution 2231 – that was earlier rejected by the
other 14 members of the council; and
    The Biden administration also informed Iran’s UN Mission in New
York that it had removed Trump’s travel restrictions on its diplomats
in New York, which allows them now to move anywhere within a 25-mile
(40-kilometer) radius of the UN headquarters. Some Iranian officials
also may be allowed to travel to the UN.
A conversation between US and Iranian diplomats in an informal setting
certainly serves a purpose insofar as it is a follow-up on an idea
floated by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during an interview
with CNN on February 1 that the EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell
could assume the role of coordinator and create a mechanism to
choreograph the steps to be taken simultaneously by both the Iranian
and US sides to achieve JCPOA reinstatement.
Informal meeting
By Saturday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the
country’s chief nuclear negotiator, was on record saying that Tehran
too was considering the proposition from Brussels and would “respond
to this proposal [on an informal meeting] in the future.”
Now, it is easy to see that the retraction on the “snapback sanctions”
and the removal of restrictions on Iranian diplomats are necessary
prerequisites of a US-Iranian engagement.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Biden said at the virtual Munich Security
Conference that the US is driven to “re-engage in negotiations” to
revive the JCPOA. He added a positive note: “We need transparency and
communication to minimize the rise of strategic misunderstanding or
mistakes.”
On Sunday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said
the US has started talks with Iran over the return of at least five
American hostages Tehran is holding. “We have begun to communicate
with the Iranians on this issue,” Sullivan said.
Also on Sunday, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, met with officials in Tehran to try to maintain his
inspectors’ ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear program. After the
talks, a joint statement was issued, which suggests that “a temporary
bilateral technical understanding” has been reached for a three-month
period to continue necessary verification and monitoring activities.
But the deal also calls for less access for IAEA inspectors and no
more snap inspections. That is to say, Iran is sticking to its stance
that unless the US lifts its sanctions, it will soon abandon the
Additional Protocol of the JCPOA, but is only partially curbing the
inspectors’ activity at this point.
Broadly, both the US and Iran are slowly but steadily edging back to
the negotiating table. Both want the other party to go first, and
neither would allow perceptions of weakness to form or that they’re
acting under pressure. It’s a delicate tango where both are also
compromising while appearing to do otherwise.
Newspapers on Sunday carried sensational reports quoting a
national-security source that the US is considering sanctions relief
for Iran as a first step toward reviving the 2015 nuclear deal. If so,
Washington is about to make the first move on the expectation that
Tehran would reciprocate with some significant compromises.
A difficult path for Biden
“Sanctions relief is definitely coming, not today or tomorrow but it
is coming,” the UK’s Sunday Times quoted its source.
But the catch is that Iran can return to the JCPOA by ceasing to
enrich uranium over the limit set by the deal, exporting most of its
stockpile, and warehousing banned centrifuges, whereas the Biden
administration has a far more difficult path to traverse by way of
untangling scores of Trump-era financial, economic, trade, targeted
personal and business sanctions and lift those that violate the JCPOA.
One possibility is that the Biden administration may move in this
direction after the “diplomatic conversation” that the EU
foreign-policy chief is facilitating. In Tehran’s estimation, the
lifting of US sanctions is now a foregone conclusion, only a matter of
time. There is much optimism that the White House will not allow any
interference by the United States’ regional allies.
A commentary published by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency
(IRNA) draws satisfaction that President Biden “gave a cold shoulder”
to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has not forgotten the
latter’s defiant behavior toward then president Barack Obama by
attending a congressional hearing in Washington without being invited
by the administration and criticizing the administration’s
negotiations with Iran.
It had “angered the then vice-President Joe Biden, who shouted that no
authority in Israel has the right to humiliate the US president.
Netanyahu has been advised to avoid direct confrontation with the
Biden administration.”
Again, there is talk that the White House intends to release a
redacted version of the Central Intelligence Agency report on the
brutal killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the consulate in
Istanbul in 2018. If the report holds that the Saudi crown prince is
culpable for the murder, it will rock US-Saudi relations.
Biden has made his aversion toward the Crown Prince Mohammad bin
Salman known by letting it be known that he will only interact with
King Salman.
Clearly, there is a profound sense of unease in Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates over the Biden administration’s decision to
engage with Iran. Conceivably, Tehran senses that a historic moment is
at hand marking the end of the United States’ decades-old strategy to
encircle Iran with an alliance of the Gulf Arab states and Israel.
As the situation around Iran begins to transform through the coming
weeks and months, West Asian politics and the regional security
scenario will change beyond recognition. The Western powers are for
the first time talking about the imperative need of reconciliation
between and among the regional states of the Persian Gulf instead of
fueling the regional rifts and capitalizing on them.
In their statement of February 18, the US and E3 “expressed their
joint determination to work toward de-escalating tensions in the Gulf
region.” By force of circumstances, the Western powers are
appropriating an idea that Russia and China have been expounding all
along.

Karabakh to not hold elections of local self-government elections until March 1, 2022 due to martial law

Dabaghian Diana
News.am, Armenia
Feb 17 2021
20:01, 17.02.2021

President of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Arayik Harutyunyan today signed a decree stating that elections of local self-government bodies won’t be held in the communities of the country until March 1, 2022 due to martial law.

The decree states that the term of powers of the existing local self-government bodies shall be extended until the first session of the newly elected local self-government bodies, and in case of early termination of the powers of head of community or member of council of elders, acting head of community and members shall be appointed to those positions, in rural communities — upon the decision of the head of administration of the relevant district, in the municipal community of Stepanakert — upon submission by the state body in the field of territorial administration, and in other municipal communities — upon submission by the head of administration of the relevant district, upon the decision of the government.