Author: Jhanna Virabian

The European Union and its member states can “do more” to help Armenia and send “a clear signal”, said French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who also announced on Tuesday that France would be delivering “military equipment”.

“I have made an official written request to the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, […] to include Armenia in the scope of beneficiaries of the European Peace Facility [EPF]”, announced Colonna on Tuesday evening at a joint press conference with her Armenian counterpart in Yerevan.

The EPF is the EU’s off-budget financial instrument to replace member states’ arms donations provided to Ukraine and partner countries.

As for Armenia, the French minister also asked Borrell “to increase the number of staff in the European Observation Mission and to strengthen its mandate so that this mission is even more useful than it is”.

“But we [Europeans] can do more”, the minister added.

Colonna indicated that France’s “effort” was also “European”, hoping that “the European Union and its member states will now send out a clear signal” in support of Armenia.

A signal aimed at “all those who would be tempted to challenge the territorial integrity of Armenia. Any such action would be met with strong reactions. Let there be no doubt about that”, she added. “We [Europeans] must affirm this together”.

“I also hope that we can count on the support of other friends, partners and allies. And in saying that, I am, of course, thinking of the United States of America”, Colonna added.

After the meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers in Kyiv on Monday, the head of French diplomacy said she had noted a shift in favour of Armenia on the part of certain European partners. “I think I can say that the tragic events that have just unfolded in Nagorno-Karabakh are leading a certain number of our partners to change their vision”.

She hoped this would “bring them closer to our points of view and to the unity that is necessary among Europeans”, with the objective remaining a “political solution and a fair and lasting peace agreement”.

From a bilateral Franco-Armenian perspective, the Minister also announced that “France has given its agreement to the conclusion of future contracts forged with Armenia, which will enable the delivery of military equipment to Armenia so that it can ensure its defence”.

When asked whether this was an arms sale or a non-returnable shipment, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to Euractiv’s requests at the time of publication of this article.

These announcements and the visit by the head of French diplomacy come in the wake of Azerbaijan’s military operation against the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in the displacement of “more than 100,000 Armenian refugees” to Armenia. “The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh […] is a flagrant violation of international law”, the French minister reiterated, assuring Armenia of France’s “constant support”.

This support “will continue and will be shown again if necessary”.

The response, in addition to humanitarian support, is also “political”, said the minister, according to whom France “has been more active than others and for longer” alongside Armenia.

Colonna said France is working on “a draft [UN Security Council] resolution to guarantee a permanent international presence in Nagorno-Karabakh”.

The minister’s visit was also “a way of demonstrating France’s extreme vigilance against any attempt to threaten or consider undermining Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”, she concluded.

(Davide Basso | Euractiv.fr)

LONDON — At least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 were injured in an explosion on Monday night at a makeshift gas station being used by ethnic Armenian refugees as thousands sought to flee the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to local authorities, as senior U.S. officials visited Armenia to signal concern over the humanitarian crisis affecting the region’s civilians.

Dozens of people are in a critical condition with severe burns and in urgent need of evacuation from the enclave where medical assistance was already minimal, the health ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh’s unrecognised ethnic Armenia government, the Republic of Artsakh, said in a statement. It said many people were still missing following the blast.

The explosion and fire ripped through the fuel store on Monday night as hundreds of refugees were lining up for gas for their vehicles to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, according to local officials.

Thousands of ethnic Armenians have been leaving the enclave following a successful military offensive last week by Azerbaijan that defeated the local Armenian authorities and restored Azerbaijan’s rule over the region.

Over 13,500 people have crossed from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia since Sunday, according to a statement from Armenia’s government. It’s feared the enclave’s entire population — estimated at 120,000 — may seek to flee in the coming days.

Armenia’s prime minister on Monday said what was happening was the “ethnic cleansing” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population.

Long traffic jams of people seeking to leave were visible snaking miles along the only road out of Nagorno-Karabakh to a checkpoint in the “Lachin Corridor” that links the enclave to Armenia.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been at the center of a decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Internationally recognised as Azerbaijan’s territory, the two countries fought a bloody war over the enclave amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which Armenia backed local ethnic Armenian separatists, who succeeded in establishing control over most of the region. Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians were driven from the region during that war.

Azerbaijan reopened the conflict in 2020, launching a full-scale war that decisively defeated Armenia and forced it to largely abandon its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia helped broker a truce and dispatched a peacekeeping force there that remains deployed. Last week, Azerbaijan launched a new offensive that swiftly forced the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian’s leadership to surrender.

Since then thousands of ethnic Armenians have been preparing to leave the enclave, which has been under Azerbaijani blockade for nine months, unwilling to live under Azerbaijan’s rule and fearing they will face persecution.

Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, have expressed concern for Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population and warned Azerbaijan it bears responsibility for their rights and security.

The Biden administration has dispatched Samantha Power, currently administrator of USAID and senior another State Department official to Armenia to express U.S. support for the country amid the crisis.

Power on Tuesday visited the checkpoint at Armenia’s border with Nagorno-Karabakh where refugees have been arriving, and called for international monitors and aid groups to be given access to the enclave and for Azerbaijan to facilitate the evacuation of injured civilians from there.

“It is absolutely critical that independent monitors as well as humanitarian organisations get access to the people in Nagorno-Karabakh who still have dire needs,” Power told journalists at the checkpoint. “There are still tens of thousands of Ethnic Armenians there living in very vulnerable conditions,” announcing the U.S. would provide $11.5 million in humanitarian assistance that would include everything from food to psychiatric support.

Power, who has been a high-profile campaigner for human rights, said she was in Armenia to also hear testimonies from people fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh and that she would be reporting back to the Biden Administration as it considers how to respond to the crisis.

Power and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, Yuri Kim met with Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday. Power delivered a letter from President Joe Biden in which he expressed condolences for the loss of life in Nagorno-Karabakh and promised help on addressing humanitarian needs.

“I have asked Samantha Power, a key member of my cabinet, to personally convey to you the strong support of the United States and my Administration for Armenia’s pursuit of a dignified and durable regional peace that maintains your sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and democracy,” the letter read.

Pashinyan told Power the international community and Armenia had failed to prevent the “ethnic cleansing” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians.

“Unfortunately, at the moment the process of the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh is continuing, it is happening right now. It’s a very tragic fact. We tried to inform the international community that this ethnic cleansing would happen, but, unfortunately, we did not manage to prevent it,” Pashinyan told Power and Yuri Kim, the State Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, according to the prime minister’s press service.

Armenia and Azerbaijan were due to hold talks mediated by the European Union in Brussels on Tuesday, the first talks between the sides since Azerbaijan’s retook Nagorno-Karabakh.

Monday’s blast at the fuel station added a horrific complication to the exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh, with local authorities pleading for people to hold off leaving as the traffic-choking the roads out was preventing the evacuation of the severely injured.

Helicopters from Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, were reported to have flown to Nagorno-Karabakh to help evacuate some of the worst injured. A long line of ambulances was also filmed by Russian media crossing into the enclave.

The enclave’s Armenian health authorities said the hospitals in the enclave, already short of medicine and other equipment, were not equipped for the disaster.

Russia’s peacekeeping contingent said it was also providing medical assistance and showed videos of its soldiers evacuating some of the injured.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says fears of ‘ethnic cleansing’ will lead to mass exodus after defeat last week at the hands of Azerbaijan’s forces.

Hundreds of ethnic Armenians have started fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time since Azerbaijan launched an offensive to seize control of the breakaway territory.

According to the Armenian government, by Sunday evening 377 “forcefully displaced persons” had crossed from Azerbaijan to Armenia.

Armenia said it is prepared to take them in after Azerbaijan’s military victory last week in a conflict dating to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Sunday that he expected about 120,000 civilians in the region in the South Caucasus to leave for Armenia because they do not want to live in part of Azerbaijan and fear “the danger of ethnic cleansing”.

“The likelihood is increasing that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will see expulsion from their homeland as the only way out,” he said.

Armenia “will lovingly welcome our brothers and sisters from Nagorno-Karabakh”, Pashinyan added, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

The Armenian leader also alluded to a schism with Moscow, saying the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) was “insufficient” to protect the country.

The CSTO members pledge to defend one another from outside attack. But, bogged down in its own war in Ukraine, Russia has refused to come to Armenia’s assistance.

The fate of the ethnic Armenian population, which makes up the majority of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population, has raised concerns in Moscow, Washington and Brussels.

Separatist fighters from Nagorno-Karabakh – a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but previously governed by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh – were forced to declare a ceasefire on Wednesday after a decisive 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared victory over the enclave on Thursday, saying it was fully under Baku’s control and the idea of an independent Nagorno-Karabakh was finally confined to history.

He promised to guarantee the rights and security of Armenians living in the region, but years of hate speech and violence between the rivals have left deep scars. Azerbaijan, which is mainly Muslim, has said the Armenians, who are Christian, can leave if they want.

Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh to Armenians, lies in an area that, over the centuries, has come under the sway of Persians, Turks, Russians, Ottomans and the Soviets. It was claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917.

Azerbaijan has said it will guarantee rights and integrate the region, but the Armenians have said they fear repression.

“Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan – 99.9 percent prefer to leave our historic lands,” said David Babayan, an adviser to the Karabakh leadership. “The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people.”

Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan’s president, told Al Jazeera that civilians in the region have been asked for a “direct dialogue” about their future, “including political integration [and] socioeconomic issues”.

“Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan – 99.9 percent prefer to leave our historic lands,” said David Babayan, an adviser to the Karabakh leadership. “The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people.”

Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan’s president, told Al Jazeera that civilians in the region have been asked for a “direct dialogue” about their future, “including political integration [and] socioeconomic issues”.

“Given the scale of humanitarian needs, we are increasing our presence there with specialised personnel in health, forensics, protection, and weapons contamination,” the ICRC said in a statement.