Author: Jalatian Sonya

In the snow-capped mountains of Davos, Switzerland, the world’s economic and political elite gathered for the annual World Economic Forum. Among them was the Armenian President, Vahagn Khachaturyan. In a series of pivotal discussions with international figures, Khachaturyan underscored Armenia’s commitment to fostering bilateral and multilateral relations, addressing pressing issues, and advocating for peace and democracy within the regional context.

President Khachaturyan and his Argentine counterpart, President Javier Milei, held discussions revolving around mutual interests. The focus was on strengthening the bilateral relationship between their respective nations through various programs and initiatives. The leaders emphasized the importance of deepening the friendly ties that have bound Armenia and Argentina together. The conversation highlighted the potential of their countries’ cooperation in areas such as economic reform and cultural exchange.

Engaging in a conversation with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, President Khachaturyan outlined the recent developments in the South Caucasus. He articulated Armenia’s robust commitment to achieving stable and enduring peace in the volatile region. Guterres expressed a shared sentiment, vocalizing his optimism for a swift resolution to regional issues. The UN Secretary General underscored the significance of stability and development for the South Caucasus, reflecting the global community’s shared concern for the region.

On another front, Khachaturyan engaged in discourse with John Kerry, the former US Secretary of State and current US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. The leaders delved into regional security challenges and explored the potential for cooperation. Above and beyond the geopolitical lens, the discussion also touched upon the crucial importance of upholding democratic values and fortifying democratic institutions. This encounter served as a testament to Armenia’s active engagement in international dialogue and its pursuit of democratic principles.

These encounters at the World Economic Forum encapsulate Armenia’s proactive stance in international discourse, its pursuit of harmonious relations, and an unwavering commitment to peace, security, and democracy within the regional context. It is an exhibit of the country’s openness to dialogue, willingness to address shared challenges, and its determination to build a more stable and peaceful future for the South Caucasus.

https://bnnbreaking.com/politics/armenian-president-asserts-commitment-to-peace-and-democracy-at-world-economic-forum/

In a tragic turn of events, a senior lieutenant of the Armenian military, named Mikael S. Danielyan, was found dead from a gunshot wound at a combat position of a Ministry of Defense unit. The incident, which unfolded around 11:30 on January 9, has left the nation in a state of shock and mourning.

An immediate investigation has been initiated by the authorities to ascertain the intricate details surrounding the shooting. The probe aims to clarify whether the shooting was accidental, self-inflicted, or a result of other causes. The investigation’s progress will be crucial in shedding light on the circumstances that led to the untimely death of Senior Lieutenant Danielyan.

The Ministry of Defense has expressed profound sorrow at the loss of one of their servicemen. The ministry extended its condolences and offered support to the bereaved family and friends of Danielyan. The loss of a serviceman under such circumstances has left the military community in Armenia in profound grief.

In a similar incident, another on-duty serviceman of the Armenian Armed Forces, Senior Lieutenant Karen A. Karapetyan, was found shot dead at his designated outpost. An enlisted serviceman was arrested on suspicion of killing Senior Lieutenant Karapetyan, adding another layer of mystery and concern over the safety of military personnel in their combat positions.

On September 30th, 2023 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than 100,000 people have now fled to Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a population of around 120,000 before the Baku government of Azerbaijan launched the successful lightning offensive on the region, according to Sky News. A total of 21,043 vehicles have crossed the Hakari bridge, which links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Nazeli Baghdasaryan, the press secretary to Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, reported by The Guardian News. The region’s separatist ethnic Armenian government claimed on Thursday that “it would dissolve itself by the end of the year after a three-decade bid for independence,” The Guardian News reported. 

Pashinyan claims the large-scale migration amounts to “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing,” according to Sky News. Armenia’s ambassador-at-large, Edmon Marukyan, also criticized and claimed that these people were “ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland, from their homes where their parents, where their ancestors were living, and these people were totally cleansed from this territory,” the BBC reported. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan expressed the desire to integrate the ethnic Armenians in the region as “equal citizens” and dismissed allegations of ethnic cleansing raised by Armenia, BBC reported. Furthermore, Azerbaijan argued that the departure of the region’s residents is “their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation,” Sky News reported. Marukyan dismissed Azerbaijan’s assurances and claims as “a lie,” according to the BBC. 

This issue is historically and geopolitically complicated. It does not only involve the Armenian and Azerbaijan governments, as the conflicts between the two governments involve the Soviet Union and Turkey as well. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze the causes and the problems of regional tensions to improve the situation, as the issue is not unidimensional but multi-dimensional. In the end, civilians suffer from such conflicts, like the incidents which have caused migrations of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. Therefore, such issues should be resolved from the core of the problem.

Modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan became part of the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Nagorno-Karabakh was controlled by Azerbaijan but had a majority ethnic-Armenian population, according to the BBC. When both countries gained independence from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, Azerbaijan sought to suppress the separatist movement in Nagorno-Kabakh, as the region wanted to become part of Armenia. This led to ethnic clashes and eventually to a full-scale war. There was another clash in 1992, but Russia intervened, and a ceasefire was agreed upon in 1994. Although Nagorno-Karabakh remained part of Azerbaijan, it had a separatist “government” run by ethnic Armenians and backed by the Armenian government. The region is still volatile, and Azerbaijan won back much of the territory. By the time both sides agreed to sign a Russian-brokered peace deal in November 2020, Azerbaijan had recaptured all the land Nagorno-Karabakh held by Armenia since 1994, the BBC reported. Azerbaijan is supported by Turkey while Russia supports Armenia. 

The Guardian News claims that “the departure of more than 80% of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population raises questions about Azerbaijan’s plans for the enclave that was internationally recognized as part of its territory”. However, this is not a simple issue that only requires examining the Azerbaijan government and its actions. The issue necessitates understanding the broad geopolitical scope to determine the roots of problems. If not, incidents like the recent migration will constantly repeat and threaten the human rights of civilians. 

Small wonder that staunch supporters of Israel are now calling for paths to a sustainable ceasefire.

As Israel comes under growing international pressure to change its tactics and agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, its leaders have made clear they aren’t interested. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the shift would hand a victory to terrorism, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “proud” to have blocked the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, seen by allies as the prerequisite for any sustainable peace.

Two examples from recent history – from Northern Ireland and Azerbaijan – warn that these could be catastrophic miscalculations for the state of Israel.

Ben Wallace, the U.K. secretary of state for defense until August, made the Irish comparison in an article published this month in the Daily Telegraph, a solidly pro-Israel U.K. newspaper. The Troubles, as more than three decades of sectarian bloodshed over Northern Ireland’s status are known, escalated dramatically, he recalled, after the British government tried to end them through a draconian combination of military force and a suspension of legal due process, called internment.

Internment involved the jailing without trial of thousands of people suspected of having connections to the Irish Republican Army. That in turn prompted the 1972 tragedy of Bloody Sunday, when British paratroopers shot 26 Catholics with live bullets at an anti-internment protest in the town of Derry, killing 14 of them. The result was a huge increase in membership for the Provisional IRA – a more radical splinter group of the Irish Republican Army – from a few dozens to about 1,000, funded by a boom in the group’s funding by sympathizers in the U.S. and elsewhere.

“Northern Ireland internment taught us that a disproportionate response by the state can serve as a terrorist organization’s best recruiting sergeant,’’ Wallace wrote. Two decades of intensified terrorist attacks followed Bloody Sunday, with the IRA expanding its bombing campaign to the U.K. mainland. Nothing worked to halt the violence until the U.K. government did what it said it never would and publicly opened negotiations in 1994 with the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein.

The price of peace was a power-sharing deal together with expanded self-government for Northern Ireland, plus the right to an eventual referendum on the region’s status, among other concessions made on both sides. The consequences for the U.K. were greater still because the deal forced it later to grant similar rights of self-government and potential secession to Scotland and Wales.

For sure, Northern Ireland is a different and in many ways much simpler case than the one Israel faces, not least because the Palestinian question plays a role far beyond Israel’s borders. The bloodshed in Gaza risks spurring recruitment not just for Hamas, but for Islamist terrorist organizations across the Middle East and beyond.

Small wonder then that such staunch supporters of Israel as France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. are now calling for Netanyahu to change tactics and look for paths to a sustainable cease-fire. As if to underscore the counterproductive nature of Israel’s scorched-earth tactics, the Israel Defense Forces recently acknowledged mistakenly killing three of the hostages they were sent into Gaza to rescue, even though they were waving improvised white flags of surrender.

The example of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should be still more sobering for Israelis considering the road that Netanyahu and his government are taking. More than 30 years ago, I stood with an Armenian general at the top of a plateau as he pointed toward Mount Ararat in Turkey and territories beyond as far as Syria, which had once belonged to the Kingdom of Armenia but were now controlled by Muslim enemies. He called his predominantly Christian nation “the Israel of the Caucasus,” surrounded by sometimes genocidal hostility and obliged to rely on arms for its survival.

That was 1992. War was raging in Nagorno-Karabakh, a part of neighboring Azerbaijan that for centuries had been populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. They were now contesting Azeri control as the collapse of the Soviet Union gave sudden meaning to the USSR’s once notional internal borders. Karabakh’s Armenians wanted either to be independent or annexed, and by 1994 they had won a crushing military victory, backed by Armenia and its security guarantor, Russia. The future seemed secure, even without a political settlement to accompany the cease-fire that Armenia had forced on its defeated rival.

The U.S. and some in Armenia, including then President Levon Ter-Petrossian, worried this wasn’t sustainable. They argued for negotiating a long-term deal with Baku while Yerevan held most of the cards. The idea was that Armenians, including in Karabakh, should recognize Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the enclave, in exchange for Baku accepting international peacekeepers, a land bridge from Karabakh to Armenia, and strong political autonomy for the enclave.

Ter-Petrossian’s proposals for compromise contributed to losing his job. He drew the ire of nationalists, including a hawkish diaspora, for whom the history of Armenian expulsion and genocide – committed by Ottoman Turkey in 1915 – required relentless vigilance and force, to ensure it could never happen again. Besides, why negotiate when Armenia had comprehensively won and enjoyed the support of regional hegemon Russia?

The answer to that question became apparent this summer. Azerbaijan’s oil and gas fields had slowly transformed the balance of forces over the years, allowing it to build and equip a military far in excess of anything Armenia could afford. Russia, meanwhile, became disenchanted with Yerevan, just as a resurgent Turkey grew willing to throw its weight behind Turkic Azerbaijan, disregarding objections from Moscow or Washington. Azerbaijan struck back in 2020, recovering many of its losses. And this year, with Moscow busy invading Ukraine, a further offensive took just a day to force Karabakh’s total surrender.

Ethnic Armenians fled, fearful of the coming Azeri revenge, and by now few if any remain in their ancestral homes. This tragic turn of events came about because Armenia fell victim to the “illusion of absolute security,” according to Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus specialist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Times change, alliances change, and the military balance changes,’’ he said. And by the time that happens, it’s too late for diplomacy.

Getting to a settlement with Azerbaijan that was acceptable to both sides would have been difficult, even when Yerevan held the advantage. It took painful compromises for the U.K. to cut a deal with the former IRA commanders running Sinn Fein in 1998. And the hurdles to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine would be even bigger. Years of failed peace talks, rocket attacks and Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities have combined to harden views on both sides, including against the very concept of a two-state solution. Yet Israel, too, may not always be in a position of military dominance, enjoying the full backing of a superpower. Palestinians and Israelis have reason to despair of each other, but neither rage nor despair is a policy. After three-quarters of a century, nobody has come up with an alternative to the creation of two separate states that offers even the possibility of peaceful coexistence.

The much-derided two-state idea proposes not a utopian Shangri-la of cohabitation, but a divorce aimed at cutting short the fundamentally genocidal dreams of extremists. The terms of that divorce would need to guarantee the security of each state against the other, taking Gaza’s administration and policing out of the hands of both Hamas and Israel. That would not be easy, but the attempt couldn’t be worse than anything Netanyahu’s effort to crush not just Hamas, but Palestinian rights and hopes, can produce.