Author: 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

The little-known conflict causing a ruckus in the Caucasus

Emil Lazarian
Dec 12 2023
12 Dec 2023|William Gourlay

In September, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a war that has been cold since the demise of the Soviet Union, rapidly heated back up. Azerbaijan, after a lightning military campaign that it described as an ‘anti-terrorist’ operation, reclaimed the mountainous province of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave within its borders that has been run by a breakaway Armenian administration since 1992.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hailed the ‘reintegration’ of the province into Azerbaijan, while pledging to protect the rights of its Armenian population. Unconvinced by these reassurances, more than 100,000 Armenians fled the region they know as Artsakh and crossed into Armenia proper. With winter setting in, a humanitarian crisis now looms on Europe’s southern perimeter.

Ethnic relations are often tense in the Caucasus region, with its complex demographics, contested histories and overlapping claims to ‘homelands’. This is particularly so in Nagorno-Karabakh, control of which, since the 1400s, has passed between Armenian, Turkic, Persian and Russian hands.

In the early 20th century, the newly independent Armenian and Azerbaijani republics tussled over the territory before the Soviet Union swallowed them both. Joseph Stalin set the scene for ongoing rancour by apportioning Nagorno-Karabakh to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, despite its overwhelming Armenian majority. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians took matters into their own hands, reportedly massacring Azerbaijanis at Khojaly in 1992 and expelling them from Shusha and Aghdam. Azerbaijan never forgot, or forgave.

The events of this year, along with a 2020 Azerbaijani campaign to recapture the region, are but the latest in a longer cycle of ethnic tit for tat. Azerbaijan’s comprehensive victory and its offer last month to hold peace talks with Armenia could be seen as an apparent resolution of an intercommunal conflict on the fringes of Europe that policymakers need no longer worry about. However, the conflict will still have significant geopolitical and diplomatic implications, both in the Caucasus and beyond.

In late 2022, Azerbaijan blockaded the Lachin corridor linking Nagorno-Karabagh to Armenia. The blockade broke the terms of the Russia-brokered 2020 peace deal that had brought some measure of calm to the region, and created rapidly deteriorating conditions for the province’s Armenian residents. Although the matter was discussed at the UN Security Council, it earned little international criticism. Despite a centuries-long presence, the Armenians were often deemed ‘separatist’ because the territory is recognised as part of Azerbaijan. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was one of few to speak out, condemning Baku’s decision to ‘create facts on the ground by military force’ despite its repeated assurances that it would not do so.

September’s escalating tensions and the departure of the Armenian population en masse apparently took EU diplomats by surprise. In a since-deleted post on X, the EU Commission stated that it would step up support to those ‘who have decided to flee Nagorno-Karabakh’, a tepid reference to what has amounted to ethnic cleansing.

A Turkish journalist similarly stated that Armenians went ‘of their own accord’, but there can be little doubt that they left fearing for their lives.

Baku makes bold statements about protecting multiculturalism, but its actions speak louder than words. A street in Nagorno-Karabakh’s largest city, Stepanakert, has been renamed after Enver Pasha, the architect of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Azerbaijan has also been accused of wilfully destroying Armenian cultural sites elsewhere, though Armenia has also been accused of using the same tactics.

The EU has since announced €5 million in humanitarian funding for peoples displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, while the director of USAID, Samantha Power, jetted into Yerevan, the Armenian capital, in a show of solidarity. Armenians on social media, however, said it was too little too late. They may have a point.

Azerbaijan’s skilful diplomacy and its importance as an energy supplier to Europe have muted Western responses to its increasingly combative positioning in recent years. In 2022, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed Azerbaijan as a ‘reliable, trustworthy partner’ after securing increased Azerbaijani gas supplies to Europe. She made no mention of its bellicose posturing, or of the lack of political freedoms for the Azerbaijanis themselves, who face many human rights violations, including attacks on the country’s independent media.

Despite the prospect of new peace talks, some Armenians fear that Azerbaijan’s designs are not limited to Nagorno-Karabakh. Certain Azerbaijani figures retain irredentist aspirations, speaking of ‘Western Azerbaijan’, meaning Armenia. There’s also chatter about establishing a so-called Zangezur corridor, which would link Azerbaijan and Turkey through Armenian territory.

Joint Azerbaijani–Turkish military manoeuvres in October did little to quell Armenian fears. Turkey is both Armenia’s historical enemy and Azerbaijan’s staunchest ally, and some analysts describe its posture as one of increasing militarism. It has certainly recently adopted a more assertive foreign policy, which has had repercussions across the Caucasus, eastern Mediterranean and Balkans.

Nonetheless, Azerbaijan has likely overplayed its hand. Some European diplomats are rethinking how they deal with Baku. Armenia, for its part, is developing closer relations with France and, attempting to extract itself from Russia’s embrace, has sent its first aid package to Ukraine. Armenia is also inclined to enhance its relations with neighbouring Iran—a move that won’t be applauded by Israel, which counts Azerbaijan as an ally and, indeed, supplied much of the weaponry that made its campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh possible.

Control of Nagorno-Karabakh may be resolved for now, but regional dynamics in the Caucasus remain very much in flux.

William Gourlay teaches Middle East politics at Monash University and is the author of The Kurds in Erdogan’s Turkey. Image: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images.

In the Caucasus, the US priority is fossil fuels, not Armenians

Emil Lazarian
Dec 12 2023
Despite the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, U.S. officials remain upbeat about opportunities for new energy pipelines.
By Edward Hunt |

Officials in Washington are doubling down on their efforts to create a new energy corridor that runs through the Caucasus, a major transit route for trade and energy that connects Europe and Asia.

Focusing on Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries at odds over land and history, officials in Washington hope to link the two countries with energy pipelines, despite Azerbaijan’s recent incursion into Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing the territory in September.

“A transit corridor built with the involvement and consent of Armenia can be a tremendous boon to states across the region and to global markets,” State Department official James O’Brien told Congress in November.

For decades, U.S. officials have pursued geopolitical objectives in the Caucasus. Viewing the region as a strategically important area that connects Europe and Asia, they have sought to integrate the region with Europe while pulling it away from Iran and Russia, both of which maintain close ties to the region.

“The Caucasus is tremendously important as a crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East,” Senator James Risch (R-ID) said in a statement last year. “Trade agreements, energy deals, infrastructure, and investment all have the potential to better integrate the region within the transatlantic community.”

At the heart of U.S. planning is Azerbaijan. Given the country’s extensive energy resources, especially its oil and natural gas, U.S. officials have seen Azerbaijan as the key to creating a U.S.-led Caucasus that will help Europe transition away from its dependence on Russian energy.

“We have been hard at work, along with our European colleagues, over the course of the last decade, trying to help Europe slowly wean itself off of dependence on Russian gas and oil,” Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) explained at a hearing in September. “Part of that strategy has been to deliver more Azerbaijani gas and oil to Europe.”

Another reason for the U.S. focus on Azerbaijan is its location. With Russia to the north, the Caspian Sea to the east, and Iran to the south, U.S. officials have seen the country as “the epicenter of Eurasia energy policy,” as U.S. diplomats once described it. The United States has worked to position Azerbaijan as the starting point for an east-west energy corridor that benefits the West and deters a north-south corridor that would work to the advantage of Iran and Russia.

For the United States and its European allies, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline demonstrates the possibilities. Since 2006, the BTC pipeline has carried oil from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean Sea, where it has been shipped to global energy markets. The pipeline is controlled by a consortium of energy companies headed by BP, the British oil giant.

“We need that to keep functioning,” State Department official Yuri Kim told Congress in September.

From the U.S. perspective, another major geopolitical achievement has been the Southern Gas Corridor. The corridor, which combines three separate pipelines, runs from Azerbaijan all the way to Europe. Since its initial deliveries of natural gas to Europe in 2020, the corridor has been critically important to keeping Europe supplied with energy during the war in Ukraine.

“That Southern Gas Corridor is extremely important for ensuring that there is energy diversity for Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, potentially Albania, and definitely Italy, and possibly into the Western Balkans,” Kim said. “We cannot underestimate how important that is.”

As pipelines carry oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the West, U.S. officials have sought to reinforce the east-west corridor by creating additional pipelines that run through Armenia. Not only would a pipeline through Armenia add another route to the corridor, but it would pull Armenia away from Russia, which maintains a military presence in the country and provides Armenia with most of its energy.

For decades, one of the major challenges to U.S. plans has been the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. As long as Armenia and Azerbaijan have remained at odds over the region, U.S. officials have seen few options for integrating Armenia into a broader east-west energy corridor.

“If not for the frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2009, “the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline could have been routed through Armenia, reducing the distance and construction cost, and providing Armenia both an alternative source of gas as well as much-needed transit fees.”

In recent years, regional dynamics have rapidly shifted, however. As Azerbaijan grew flush with cash from its operations as an energy hub for the West, it began spending more money on weapons. With Israel and Turkey selling Azerbaijan increasingly sophisticated weapons, Azerbaijan built a large arsenal and acquired the upper hand over Armenia.

“Where other Western nations are reluctant to sell ground combat systems to the Azerbaijanis for fear of encouraging Azerbaijan to resort to war to regain [Nagorno-Karabakh] and the occupied territories, Israel is free to make substantial arms sales and benefits greatly from deals with its well-heeled client,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2009.

Emboldened by its growing power and influence, Azerbaijan made its move. As fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late September 2020, Azerbaijan’s military forces took advantage of their advanced weaponry from Israel and Turkey to capture the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.

Before Azerbaijan’s military forces could seize control of Nagorno-Karabakh, however, Russia intervened, brokering a ceasefire and deploying about 2,000 peacekeepers to the region. Although various observers portrayed the outcome as a victory for Russia, the deal did not last long.

This past September, Azerbaijan moved to take the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh, armed by additional supplies of Israeli weapons. Following Azerbaijan’s incursion, more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled the territory for Armenia, where they remain today.

Now that Azerbaijan has taken control of Nagorno-Karabakh, U.S. officials are renewing their efforts to persuade Armenia and Azerbaijan to forge a peace deal that could be the basis for a new energy corridor.

“There is business to be done in this region,” State Department official James O’Brien told Congress in November.

At the Start Department, officials have been reviewing U.S.-funded plans for building the new energy corridor. As O’Brien noted, “the feasibility studies on this transit corridor [have] actually been done, funded by [the Agency for International Development (AID)], so we’re in the middle of seeing what kind of economic future there may be.”

Several obstacles stand in the way of U.S. plans. One possibility is that an increasingly emboldened Azerbaijan will invade Armenia and take the territory it wants for new pipelines. If Azerbaijan continues to acquire weapons from Turkey and Israel, it could take Armenian land by force, something that U.S. officials believe could happen.

“I think, from what I hear, the Armenians are concerned and feel threatened by that corridor and what it might imply for another grabbing of land by Azerbaijan,” Representative James Costa (D-CA) said at the hearing in November.

A related possibility is that Azerbaijan could work more closely with Russia. As Russia maintains military forces in Azerbaijan, it could facilitate a move by Azerbaijan to take Armenian land for a north-south energy corridor that benefits Russia.

Although Russia maintains a security pact with Armenia, relations have soured over Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, making it possible that Russia will side with Azerbaijan.

Another challenge is the Azerbaijani government. For years, critics have charged Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with leading a corrupt and repressive regime that has hoarded the country’s wealth while leaving the population to suffer.

In internal reports, U.S. diplomats have been highly critical of Aliyev. Not only have they compared him to mobsters, but they have suggested that the country “is run in a manner similar to the feudalism found in Europe during the Middle Ages.”

As critics have called on Washington to reconsider the U.S. relationship with Azerbaijan, some members of Congress have begun questioning U.S. strategy, particularly as it concerns the U.S. partnership with Aliyev.

The United States may have made “the wrong bet by moving more Azerbaijani resources into Europe,” Senator Murphy said in September. “This strategy of being dependent on a system and series of dictatorships… may not necessarily bear the strategic game that we think it does.”

Other members of Congress have questioned the State Department’s claims that a new energy corridor can bring peace to the region.

“I don’t see the peace process as going nearly as well as some of the description I’ve just heard,” Representative Costa said at the hearing in November. “It was ethnic cleansing that happened with the removal of these Armenians from their historic homeland in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Regardless, officials at the State Department remain confident in their plans. Pushing forward with efforts to forge a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, they remain hopeful that they can create a new energy corridor that runs through Armenia, even if means that the ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh will never be able to return to their homes.

“As we go from the medium to the longer term, there’s going to have to be some effort made to help integrate these folks into Armenian life,” AID official Alexander Sokolowski told Congress in November. “Many of them dream of going back to Nagorno-Karabakh, but for right now, they’re oriented towards making a life in Armenia.”

https://fpif.org/in-the-caucasus-the-u-s-priority-is-fossil-fuels-not-armenians/

COAF’s 20th Annual Holiday Gala Sets New Record with Over $10 Million Raised

Emil Lazarian
by Contributor

 

 

 

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Story, Latest, News, Top Stories

Jack and Zarig Youredjian with representatives of the COAF at the organization's 20th annual Holiday Gala


NEW YORK—The Children of Armenia Fund reached a historic milestone on December 9, raising over $10 million during its 20th Annual Holiday Gala, “Two Decades of Unwavering Commitment.” All proceeds from the benefit will be invested in advancing COAF’s comprehensive initiatives in rural Armenia encompassing crucial education, healthcare, psychosocial support, and economic development programs. Furthermore, funds will bolster COAF’s ongoing Project H.O.P.E. rapid response addressing the immediate and long-term needs of forcibly displaced families from Artsakh.

The Gala was co-hosted by Araksya Karapetyan of Good Day L.A. on FOX 11 Los Angeles, COAF Head of Development Haig Boyadjian, and world-renowned auctioneer Gabriel Butu. The evening featured captivating musical performances by New York-based jazz singer Astghik Martirosyan, as well as musical talents from Armenia — 10-year-old Menua Melik-Haykazyan on piano and 13-year-old Davit Babayan on violin. A distinguished lineup of celebrities made special appearances, including award-winning actress and longtime COAF ambassador Andrea Martin. Also in attendance were celebrated artists Michael Aram and Tigran Tsitoghdzyan.

Representatives of COAF with co-chairs and honorary guests of their 20th annual Holiday Gala

This landmark event honored acclaimed actor Joe Manganiello with the prestigious Humanitarian Award for his support to the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and for using his platform to share the story of his family’s history, roots and Armenian culture.  Philanthropists and dedicated COAF supporters Tamar and John Akhoian of Los Angeles were recognized with the Save a Generation Award for their critical impact on advancing the organization’s work in rural communities.

Major Gala sponsors and donors include the Youredjian Family Charitable Foundation, COAF Founder and Chairman Garo Armen, the Afeyan Family Foundation, JHM Charitable Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Zarougian and Judith Saryan, the Ajemian Foundation, as well as several anonymous donors.

Over the last two decades, COAF has achieved incredible progress by prioritizing initiatives that promote economic and social stability, provide educational opportunities, and facilitate resources for career and economic advancement in overlooked rural regions. Touching the lives of over 100,000 people across 82 communities in Armenia and Artsakh, COAF’s success proves that building a stronger nation, starting with its villages, is not only an achievable goal but also well within reach.

The significance of the organization’s 20th-anniversary Gala goes beyond celebrating these impactful contributions to village communities; it signifies a continued commitment to the holistic development of Armenia’s rural families and children as well as a historic opportunity to unlock the potential for a better future. Given the current challenges facing Armenia, this year’s fundraiser will additionally support COAF’s Project H.O.P.E. rapid response efforts. This initiative is designed to assist families displaced from Artsakh through Housing, Opportunities in Education, Psychosocial and Health Support, and Empowerment through Capacity Building.

A scene from the COAF’S 20th Annual Holiday Gala

To learn more about COAF visit coaf.org and consider supporting their mission to advance the children of Armenia. 

The Children of Armenia Fund is a non-profit, non-governmental organization aimed at improving the quality of life in rural Armenia, with a particular focus on children and youth. COAF’s target development areas are education, healthcare, as well as social and economic development. COAF launched its programs in 2004, starting in one village and expanding to over 70 villages and communities across the country with an investment of more than $70 million, impacting well over 100,000 people across rural Armenia.

Lawmaker seeks to introduce exoneration options for draft evaders

Emil Lazarian

 12:58,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. A ruling party lawmaker has drafted legislation seeking to introduce several options for draft evaders to be exonerated and cleared of criminal charges in case of turning themselves in.  

Men who’ve evaded mandatory military service and are above the age limit (27) are prosecuted and face a 5-year prison sentence under the current regulations.

Under current law, draft evaders who are now above the age of 27 can’t serve in the military even if they wanted to and they certainly face criminal prosecution.  

MP Hayk Sargsyan from the ruling Civil Contract party has drafted a bill that would give draft dodgers the option to have their criminal charges dropped by either enlisting into the armed forces and serving a full 2-year term, or serving a 1-year term and paying 2,5 million drams, or serving for 6 months and paying 5 million drams, or serving 1 month and paying 10 million drams, or not serving at all and paying 15 million drams to the government.

According to Sargsyan, today there are over 10,000 fugitives on charges of draft evasion. Over 5,000 of them are above the age of 27.

Most of them are abroad and do not return to Armenia in order to avoid imprisonment. Sargsyan argues that if his bill isn’t adopted the draft evaders who are now abroad would wait until they are above the age of 37 to return to be cleared of the charges on the basis of statute of limitations.

Sargsyan said on Tuesday at a parliamentary debate that the legislation seeks to give those who haven’t served and are now wanted the opportunity to be useful to their country.

“I wouldn’t want us to ever declare amnesty for these people again,” he said, referring to a 2021 amnesty declared by the Armenian parliament which cleared of criminal charges over 1300 draft evaders. “But I also wouldn’t want to sentence five thousand citizens to five years in prison, because by doing so, not only wouldn’t our country benefit, but we’d spend a lot of money on finding, sentencing and detaining them,” Sargsyan said.

“That’s what this legislation is about, to give these people the chance to be useful to their country, instead of becoming a burden.”

Multiple men would repatriate to Armenia if the bill passes parliament, according to the MP.

Opposition MP: Pashinyan’s all opponents held in Baku prison

Emil Lazarian
Panorama, Armenia
Dec 11 2023

Arayik Harutyunyan was not forced to resign as Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) president before being replaced by Samvel Shahramanyan, Armenian opposition MP Artur Khachatryan insisted on Monday.
Harutyunyan and several other former Artsakh leaders were detained by Azerbaijan following its violent seizure of Artsakh in mid-September.

“It’s yet to be revealed how the change of power took place in Artsakh,” the MP from the opposition Hayastan faction told reporters.

Khachatryan recalled that Shahramanyan and the Artsakh parliament majority were members of Harutyunyan’s Free Homeland Party.

“Are the [Armenian] authorities saying that they refused to intervene to stop the massacre in Artsakh because they disapproved Arayik Harutyunyan’s resignation? Are they trying to use it to justify their inaction?” the deputy asked.

“Arayik Harutyunyan’s imprisonment in Baku is also conditioned by the fact that he knows and can tell much more than the incumbent authorities would like to hear. It’s also about the other presidents. All political opponents of [PM Nikol] Pashinyan are being held in prison in Azerbaijan. This is probably the result of some kind of agreement between the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaderships," Khachatryan charged.

Armenia, Azerbaijan agree to prisoner exchange, work toward peace treaty

Emil Lazarian
UPI
Dec 8 2023
By Darryl Coote

Dec. 8 (UPI) — Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to exchange prisoners as they recommit to normalizing relations with intentions of reaching a peace treaty, their two governments said.

The announcement comes months after Azerbaijan violently seized the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenia in a resumption of fighting that threatened to restart the deadly war of 2020.

A joint statement Thursday from the Office of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia and the Office of President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan states that following talks between the Caucasian nations, they have agreed to take "tangible" confidence-building steps, including the exchange of prisoners.

The countries said that "driven by the values of humanism and as a gesture of goodwill" Azerbaijan will release 32 Armenian military servicemen and Armenia will release two Azerbaijani soldiers.

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"The Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan share the view that there is a historical chance to achieve a long-awaited peace in the region," the statement said.

"[The] two countries reconfirm their intention to normalize relations and to reach the peace treaty on the basis of respect for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity."

In another gesture of goodwill, Armenia said it will also support Azerbaijan's bid to host the 29th Session of the Conference of Parties, better known as the COP29 United Nations climate change conference, by withdrawing its own candidacy.

And in turn, Azerbaijan said it will support the Armenia's candidacy for Eastern European Group COP Bureau membership.

The development was welcomed by the United States, which commended Aliyev and Pashinyan in for their efforts "to lay the groundwork for a more peaceful and prosperous future for the people of the south Caucasus," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Charles Michel, the European Union's top diplomat, said he was "delighted" to welcome the "major breakthrough" in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations.

"Establishing and deepening bilateral dialogue between sides has been a key objective of the [EU]-led Brussels process: today's progress is a key step," he said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"I now encourage the leaders to finalize the [Armenia-Azerbaijan] peace deal ASAP."

EU Chief Michel Hails ‘Major Breakthrough’ In Armenia-Azerbaijan Relations

Emil Lazarian
BARRON'S
Dec 8 2023
  • FROM AFP NEWS

EU chief Charles Michel on Thursday hailed a "major breakthrough" in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan after the arch-foe Caucasus neighbours agreed to exchange prisoners of war and work towards normalising ties.

"Delighted to welcome a major breakthrough" in relations, Michel wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Welcome in particular release of detainees and unprecedented opening in political dialogue."

Armenia ponders risks and rewards as sanctions loom on Russian diamonds

Emil Lazarian
eurasianet
Dec 8 2023
Arshaluis Mgdesyan Dec 8, 2023

The EU appears set on including prohibitions on the sale of Russian diamonds in its upcoming 12th package of sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. 

The move, aimed at exerting pressure on Russia's economy and depriving it of financial resources to wage its war, is certain to have an effect on Armenia's important and growing diamond-cutting industry. 

Whether that effect is negative or positive will depend on how the EU will manage the difficult task of tracing cut diamonds to their rough origins in Russia's mines. 

Helpful or harmful?

The proposed sanctions, adopted by the European Commission and awaiting approval from the EU's 27 member states, will apply to diamonds of Russian origin that are cut in third countries, according to the AFP, which viewed a copy of the document.

Starting January 1, the ban would apply to "non-industrial natural and synthetic diamonds as well as diamond jewellery" while the import ban on Russian diamonds cut or polished in third countries would be phased in between March and September, AFP said.

The bans will affect Armenia's diamond-cutting industry, which gets a large proportion of its raw gems from Russia. They are purchased by the Armenian state company Hay-Almast, which was established in 2021 chiefly to enable bulk procurements from Russia's Alrosa, which is one of the world's largest suppliers of rough diamonds. 

"The whole idea behind creating Hay-Almast was to consolidate domestic demand and procurement of Russian rough diamonds, as Alrosa doesn't do small orders," said Hay-Almast director Tigran Khachatryan. 

Khachatryan told Eurasianet that EU sanctions would definitely have an impact on Armenia's diamond-cutting industry, but he found it difficult to speculate how.

At first glance it's hard to imagine that impact being anything other than harmful, since, according to Khachatryan, Hay-Almast buys 30-40 percent of its rough diamonds from Russia (the rest coming from various other countries, including in Africa).

Armenia's diamond-cutting industry has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, attracting major foreign investors like India's KGK Diamonds. And with that growth has come a growing need for Russian raw diamonds. 

Armenia's total export of cut diamonds in 2022 totalled $418 million according to Armenian Customs Service statistics. That's four times the number for 2021. Growth has continued this year, though not quite at the same pace: $240 million of cut diamonds were sold in the first six months of 2023. (Cut diamonds ranked third among Armenia's exports for that period, coming in behind gold at $281 million and re-exported cars at $311 million.)

But some are pinning hopes on the prospect that Armenian diamonds of Russian origin will not be identified as such. 

"The new EU sanctions could have various kinds of effects on the Armenian diamond industry," a source in the Armenian government told Eurasianet on condition of anonymity. 

"The whole issue is how strictly the movements of Russian rough diamonds around the world will be monitored and how it will be determined whether a diamond cut in Armenia or some other country is of Russian origin or not."

In this context, the export/re-export supply chain will be a factor. Most Armenian cut diamonds of Russian origin are first sold to the United Arab Emirates and then find their way around the world from there.  

Banking on re-exports

Armenia has already seen economic growth from booming re-exports over the last two years.

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine early last year, Armenia's trade with Russia has grown severalfold thanks precisely to re-exports of goods like cars and household items that Western producers had supplied directly to Russia before the war. 

Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan recently acknowledged the central role played by re-export in the overall structure of Armenia-Russia trade. He said that while exports to Russia were up 215 percent for the first half of 2023 compared to the same period last year, re-export accounted for 187 percentage points of this growth while exports of Armenian products accounted for just 28 percentage points. 

Sanctions enforcement difficulties

As the AFP noted, the origin of diamonds can easily be obscured by mixing them with stones from other sources. And they change weight and appearance as they are cut and polished. 

This, coupled with the gems' small size, means it will be exceedingly difficult to enforce sanctions against their circulation. 

In the absence of a sophisticated tracking system, a diamond that is mined in Russia, cut and polished in Armenia, and exported to the UAE will be hard to trace to its origin, experts say.

So if, as seems likely, enforcement is weak, it's possible to imagine a boon for the Armenian diamond-cutting industry. As other markets close to Russian rough diamonds, more of them could enter Armenia, whose exports of cut diamonds would consequently go up. 

One could imagine this developing into a scheme resembling the one under which India purchases Russian oil, refines it, and then sells the resulting fuels onward to Europe.  

"Purely theoretically, we could see a growth in supplies of Russian rough diamonds to Armenia for processing and sale to other countries. But we must be careful, as this could be seen as another attempt by Armenia to help Russia evade sanctions," economist Armen Ktoyan said in an interview with Eurasianet. 

Ktoyan further noted that, while the diamond processing industry is showing impressive growth, Armenian businesses are not seeing much of the profit. 

"Most of the profit goes to international companies involved in moving and selling this product on global markets. So one should think long and hard before betting on growth in the inflow of Russian rough diamonds and making new investments in this sphere," he said. 

Mitigating risks

Meanwhile some in Armenia are focused on the risks posed by the sanctions and see a need to diversify the country's rough diamond importers. Doing so would protect the diamond-cutting industry from a rapid decline should there at some point be a total (and enforceable) ban on Russian rough diamonds. 

The industry already experienced a sharp drop in raw materials in the mid-2000s. At that time production and exports took a dive both because of stronger global competition and because of a strengthening of the Armenian currency, the dram, against the dollar and euro, which drove up the cost of exports

Tigran Khachatryan, the director of the state raw diamond procurement company, says Hay-Almast has been talking for several months now with a potential new supplier. 

He refused to say who it is but expressed optimism that a deal will be reached. 

"We are halfway there in our talks with the new supplier. We hope to have a result soon," he said. 

Arshaluis Mgdesyan is a journalist based in Yerevan.

Soviet Mainframes To Silicon Mountains: Armenia As A Tech Powerhouse

Emil Lazarian
Forbes
Dec 8 2023
Craig S. Smith

Armenia shot from relative obscurity to global prominence recently over tensions with neighboring Azerbaijan. But there is another reason to pay attention to this rugged, mountainous country: it’s fast evolving tech sector.

It has emerged as a tech powerhouse with the presence of global players and a vibrant startup ecosystem. And while the country remains politically close to Russia and Iran as a counterbalance to hostile neighbors on the west (Turkey) and the east (Azerbaijan), it’s private sector remains firmly fixed on the West, particularly the United States with its near million-strong Armenian diaspora.

“We consider ourselves a network nation,” said Rem Darbinyan, founder of a startup called Viral Mango, which matches brands to influencers around the world. “We have generations of Armenians living overseas.”

In October, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen was in the vibrant capital Yereven to speak at the country’s Silicon Mountains conference and open a new Adobe building. Across town, dozens of startups displayed their innovations at the annual Digitec expo. Already, the small, landlocked country has produced one unicorn (Picsart) with more on the way.

With the snowcapped summit of distant Mount Ararat – the Armenian national symbol that rises across the border in Turkey – visible on clear days, Yerevan is filled with sophisticated restaurants crowded with tables of young tech entrepreneurs drinking apricot brandy and eating platters of stuffed grape leaves as they discuss the latest innovations.

Various indexes show Armenia as the emerging tech powerhouse of the Southern Caucasus region, a legacy of its role as one of the Soviet Union’s top technology centers – the USSR’s first general-purpose computers were developed there in the early 1960s

That history faltered during the breakup of the Union and the subsequent war with Azerbaijan to define Armenia’s national borders – a conflict that continues to reverberate today. But, Armenia recovered and has drawn on the success of its diaspora in the United States to become one of the strongest economies in the region.

People like Noubar Afeyan, co-founder of biotechnology powerhouse Moderna, Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and Avie Tevanian, former CTO of Apple and creator of the macOS operating system, have all remained connected to the country.

Following its independence in 1991, Armenia began developing as a behind-the-scenes builder of software for Western companies, many founded by Armenians. But gradually, it has climbed the value chain to produce products of its own.

That trend only accelerated with the outbreak of Russia’s war with Ukraine which drove companies from both countries to relocate to Yerevan. The subsequent influx of capital drove up the Armenian dram against the dollar, hurting the competitiveness of the country’s outsource industry. Meanwhile, a small venture capital industry coalesced to fund tech development and today startups can raise as much as $1 million domestically before turning to VCs abroad.

Consequently, the country’s economy is booming – with projected 7 percent growth this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, making it the fastest growing economy in the region.

Many places in the world have developed technology hubs and startup ecosystems, but for Armenia it’s a matter of survival.

“The future of Armenian economic development in science-based, high-margin products,” the country’s minister of high-tech industry, Robert Khachatryan, told Forbes. He explained that because the country is landlocked, logistics costs mean it cannot export physical goods at competitive prices.

The tech industry is now the country’s the fastest-growing sector, expanding by more than 30 percent in 2023, surpassing resource extraction and agriculture as the primary drivers of the economy. And it is drawing foreign investment. Besides Adobe, many of the world’s most powerful technology firms have set up shop there, including Microsoft, Google, IBM and Cisco.

Artificial intelligence, of course, is the hot technology on offer. Picsart, a photo and video editing platform launched in 2011, has a team of data scientists building the company’s own generative AI foundation model. Krisp, a more recent startup, uses artificial intelligence to change the accents of Filipino and Indian English speakers in real time into plain midwestern U.S. pronunciation – a product it markets to call centers serving North America.

At the DigiTec expo, dozens of startups displayed their AI wares, from Viral Mango with a platform that matches influencers to brands, to Orders.co whose AI software, at the touch of a button, creates interactive menus for restaurants who want to integrate with food delivery services.

Armenia was late getting on the AI bandwagon but is catching up fast. While the country’s university system was strong on math, there were few machine-learning faculty available to guide students in 2016, when machine learning was already sweeping computer-science departments in the west. Hrant Khachatrian, a young researcher, and four friends rented an apartment in the capital and huddled around a single GPU to start exploring on their own.

The community and number GPUs grew into one of Armenia’s first AI labs: YerevaNN. By 2019 YerevaNN was publishing papers in top AI conferences, including Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR).

Universities began catching up, establishing graduate programs in AI. Today, Khachatrian is working with Yerevan State University to fold YerevaNN into a new AI lab being set up by the university, finally giving students there a place to conduct research.

The AI research community in Armenia has grown to over 600 people. However, a lack of compute resources threatens its competitiveness. GPUs are hard to come by and expensive when they are available.

That’s where the private sector comes in. Venture capital and Western connections among the country’s entrepreneurs are helping startups build products despite the hardware constraints.

"We now have venture funds in Armenia,” said Narek Vardanyan, CEO of Prelaunch.com, a validation platform creators can use to gauge market demand for their products before developing them. “Previously, Armenian companies had to go to Silicon Valley, for early-stage funding, we can raise $2 million to $3 million with Armenian funds."

The community is also focused on building human capital with private initiatives such as Armath (a contraction of Armenia and Math), sponsored by the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE), which runs engineering labs across Armenia for students as young as 10.

At a village school in the countryside north of Yerevan, bright-eyed middle-school students gather in a classroom to demonstrate their projects – one, a shoebox-sized ‘smart home,’ with a keypad lock, smoke detector and automated lighting cobbled together with sensors, LED lights and bits of wire. Along a windowsill, a row of potted plants are fed by a student-built automatic irrigation system. The students, meanwhile, work at monitors attached to pocket-sized Rasberry Pi computers.

“In Armath, everything is open source and it’s all project-based learning," explained Arevik Hovhannisyan, a teacher. "The goal is to have the kids understand the basics of engineering, and maybe decide to become an engineer."

Armath works as a public-private partnership – companies sponsor the labs, which are then donated to schools where local government pays for their operation. So far, UATE has established more than 650 labs across Armenia and exported the model to several other countries.

In the far north of the country, sandwiched between steep mountain slopes, students at another program gather in the evening for folk dances and to show off their projects. This is Real School, another UATE initiative, a four-year vocational program for high schoolers, giving them hands on experience building technology solutions.

Back in the capital, kids 12 to 18 can attend TUMO, an extracurricular bootcamp where they learn to program and build software. The interior feels more like a well-funded tech company than a school, with custom-designed workstations on wheels and a carpeted, amphitheater-style meeting place. “We show them that everything can be created by them on their own,” said Zara Budaghyan, a TUMO graduate herself.

Another initiative, AI Generation, hopes to embed machine-learning education in high schools across the country. Initially funded by Moderna cofounder Noubar Afeyan, AI Generation already has hundreds of students enrolled in high schools in 16 cities hoping to develop artificial intelligence researchers and engineers.

“We want to show Armenian tech ecosystem on the map of like world market,” said Sargis Karapetyan, a tech entrepreneur and UATE’s interim CEO, adding that the country needs more outside capital. “Another target are people who are looking to open branches in Armenia, to expand and find good talent.”

Craig S. Smith is a former correspondent and executive at The New York Times. He is host of the podcast Eye on A.I. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/craigsmith/2023/12/08/soviet-mainframes-to-silicon-mountains-armenia-as-a-tech-powerhouse/?sh=7082ce4734aa

Azerbaijan eyes up COP29 climate talks with Armenian agreement, Russian backing

Emil Lazarian
Dec 8 2023
Azerbaijan needs approval from the UN eastern Europe regional group in order for it's bid to be successful.

Azerbaijan is tipped to host next year's UN climate summit, after striking a late deal with longtime adversary Armenia over its bid.

Diplomatic sources told Reuters the Azeri bid looked set to win support from other nations, though the issue is still being negotiated at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

The decision over who will take over from current COP28 host, the United Arab Emirates, has been in an unprecedented geopolitical deadlock, after Russia said it would veto any European Union country's bid to host. The EU has sanctioned Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Azerbaijan confirmed late on Thursday it had struck a deal with Armenia that allows Baku to bid to host the COP29 talks without the threat of an Armenian veto.

The choice of a COP host needs support from all countries in the UN eastern Europe regional group.

"We received particular support from most of the countries [in the eastern European group]. Russia has also supported our bid," Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada said on Friday.

A representative for Russia's delegation at COP28 declined to comment. Russia's Energy Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Armenia agreed to back Azerbaijan's COP hosting bid in exchange for membership of the eastern European group's COP bureau.

The two Caucasian countries have been in conflict for decades, most notably over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but largely populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians. The region had been controlled by its ethnic Armenian majority until it was recaptured by Azerbaijan in September.

Diplomatic sources at COP28 told Reuters other eastern European countries are expected to back Baku's bid to host – even though Moldova had also made a bid and Serbia was mulling one.

Diplomats are racing to find a deal before COP28's scheduled end on 12 December.

The deadlock over the host has left next year's COP29 summit host with little time to prepare for the massive gathering – which can bring its host nation diplomatic prestige, as well as heavy scrutiny over its own record in fighting climate change.

Azerbaijan is an oil and gas producer and a member of OPEC+.

The United Arab Emirates has faced criticism for appointing Sultan al-Jaber, the head of its state-run oil company ADNOC, as president of this year's COP28 summit.

Some delegates at COP28 have raised concerns about holding the world's climate negotiations in an oil producer for a second year running.

"I do understand these concerns," Hajizada said.

"Despite the fact that Azerbaijan is rich in oil and gas, Azerbaijan's strategic goals are the diversification of energy, resources, especially applied to wind and solar energy," he said. 

(Reuters)