YEREVAN, Armenia — Since Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to office in 2018 on the heels of a democratic revolution in which he played a central role, his administration has faced numerous security and political crises. The protracted conflict in the formerly Armenian-controlled breakaway republic of Artsakh, also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh, burst into a full-blown war in September 2020.
The Azerbaijani government led by President Ilham Aliyev, who has been in power for 20 years after taking the reins from his father, Heydar Aliyev, seized the entire Artsakh republic in September 2023, forcibly displacing more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from their ancestral homeland. Pashinyan and the European Parliament have labeled the act ethnic cleansing.
While Azerbaijan’s government has said that it wanted to return land to Azerbaijani citizens who were displaced during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war, from 1988 to 1994, many Armenians see the September 2023 ethnic cleansing as the latest in a long series of violence committed by ethnic Turks against their community. The most-traumatic expulsion was the Armenian genocide of 1915.
In this tense geopolitical arena, the Armenian government is seeking to help the refugees from the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh region as well as to rebuild its military, avoid more conflict with Azerbaijan and shore up allies in the West while maintaining relations with Russia. PassBlue spoke to Armenia’s deputy foreign minister, Vahan Kostanyan, in his office here in the Armenian capital of Yerevan in November about the delicate balancing act, the role of the United Nations in helping to walk such a tightrope and the successes and challenges of Pashinyan’s foreign policy. Armenia is a landlocked country of approximately three million people, located in the South Caucasus region. — JOE PENNEY
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.
PassBlue: How is the Armenian government working with international partners to ensure the welfare of refugees who have fled from Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh? What support is Armenia receiving and is it enough?
Kostanyan: After the Azerbaijan invasion of Sept. 19, 2023, the flow of forcibly displaced people is more than 100,000. Now the government is trying to take care of them and to provide all necessary social security assistance. What we’re doing is trying to solve the short-term issues, starting from accommodation, going to access to education, food, etc.
In the six months since the invasion, according to the decisions made, more than 100 billion drams are allocated, which is equivalent to about $250 million. But this is only to address short-term issues. Starting from the first day, we have been closely cooperating with our international partners, UN agencies and different countries. With UNHCR [UN High Commissioner for Refugees], we made a joint humanitarian appeal to allocate some money; according to the UNHCR estimations, for the first six months, at least $97 million will be needed. Some of our partners have allocated money — United States, European Union, different EU member states. Some sent humanitarian aid to Armenia through different pipelines, through UN approval, ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], but there was also small, direct budgetary support.
What we are asking currently from our international partners is to provide direct budgetary support. Because in a couple of months, we will be dealing with much bigger issues — understanding that there is no conducive environment now for people to exercise their right of return [to Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh]. We need to understand how we’re going to accommodate people and provide long-term shelter. So big housing projects should be implemented, projects to increase opportunities in our labor market, to do some additional competence trainings.
We are ready to be transparent with our colleagues to show and report how the money is spent. Because till now, all the financial support that is provided to people from Nagorno-Karabakh, it’s done not with cash but with money transfer through online banking, with cards, to track how the money went from the government to the people, to be transparent and accountable for all possible donors. There are working groups set up in the government, and two deputy prime ministers are in charge of different components: one for realization of the projects we have and the other for donor coordination. We’re working closely with UNHCR on this matter.
PassBlue: Are you taking actions in the UN Security Council? Are you working with other UN bodies besides the refugee agency to address Armenia’s response to the Nagorno-Karabakh expulsion? I’m also thinking of the Oct. 5 statement about the UN resident coordinator based in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, visiting and the disappointment that you expressed with the visit. Did you receive feedback on it?
Kostanyan: We received some feedback, and this statement was deleted [from the UN website focusing on Azerbaijan]. Later, there was a visit by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to Armenia, to Azerbaijan and to Nagorno-Karabakh. We still closely follow the situation regarding the issue of the rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Unfortunately, the Security Council was unable to adequately react to the Nagorno-Karabakh ethnic cleansing, and now we have a fact that it happened. Some of the Security Council members are having some discussions on a possible resolution.
PassBlue: What other steps can Armenia take in the UN system to help you manage the response to the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis?
Kostanyan: The UN Secretariat and UN agencies have quite big portfolios and toolboxes that can be helpful to address both short-term and long-term issues with people from Nagorno-Karabakh [NK]. Besides issues related to people of NK, the UN is a key development partner for Armenia, when it comes to implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Armenia is planning to submit its voluntary national review on the SDGs. We are one of the champions because not many states are already submitting the third one. UN is a partner for us in the fight against corruption.
The UN Human Rights Council has big importance for us. We believe that some of the issues are very relevant and they should be discussed at the Council. We were a member from 2020 to 2022. Now we’re going to run for another term in the Council in the upcoming year, because we believe this is an important platform for us and in general for tackling human rights issues. We believe that we have quite a good record on human rights protection, democracy and rule of law, which makes us a credible candidate.
PassBlue: There have been conflicting reports regarding the potential for more tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Prime Minister Pashinyan has recently said that a peace deal is “realistic.” Can you speak a bit about the strains and prospects for peace?
Kostanyan: When we say a peace deal is realistic, we are reaffirming our political commitment to sign a document on the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan. But to have it signed, we need reciprocate actions and signals from the Azerbaijani side. The principles which should be the basis to finalize this treaty are fully indicated in the Granada statement, which was endorsed by foreign leaders: not only Prime Minister Pashinyan but also the president of European Council, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. When it comes to the possibility of tension, we’re living in a region and in a neighborhood where it’s always high, especially having a bad record of assurances from our neighbors that they are not going to use force.
We still have continued occupation of our sovereign territory from September 2022, and the forces are located close to each other. That’s why we are suggesting to organize a mirror withdrawal of forces from the border line, which is indicated in the Alma-Ata protocols of 1991. So if we see a willingness to withdraw the forces, if we wish to accept the principles of the Granada statement, this can give hope that finalizing a peace deal is possible.
Another important component for stability and long-lasting peace in our region is the opening of communications. For this purpose, we introduced our vision. Prime Minister Pashinyan introduced in October to the European Parliament the Crossroad of Peace project, where the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the states where the roads are passing through should be fully respected. We also indicated our willingness to reconstruct and to relaunch a railway connection with our neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan. Not only the railway but also electricity, energy supplies. We have the ambition to become a transit hub. We believe that considering our geography, we can become a real crossroads between north and south and east and west.
If Nakhchivan [an autonomous exclave of Azerbaijan near Armenia’s southwestern border] is connected to the main part of Azerbaijan through the territory of Iran, we will not oppose this project. We believe that the Crossroad of Peace plan and this transit connection are not mutually exclusive. Because we believe that, especially considering the logistical problems, the developing logistical map in wider Eurasia and beyond and the tendencies of international trade, it can easily provide enough flow for mutually beneficial connections.
PassBlue: What kind of security guarantee would the transit link between the main part of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan exclave require — to restore the railway or to provide economic links, which both seem to be in everybody’s interest as long as security is guaranteed?
Kostanyan: We need to have clarity and no room for misinterpretation. Because previously, we also heard Azerbaijan saying, “We are not claiming and asking for any extra territorial corridor.” But during the negotiations that we had, starting from 2021, even if they are not saying, “We are demanding an extra-territorial corridor from you,” the modalities they were suggesting and asking for were giving an extraterritorial sense and they were not ready to reciprocate, which is one of the principles that we believe should be in opening communications. On our side, we are ready to simplify procedures when it comes to customs, to passport control, because we believe that it will attract more international trade through our territory. In general, the whole world is using innovation and the technologies of today to simplify procedures, and we’re ready to do so.
PassBlue: Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev recently said that eight villages are “occupied by Armenia.” What is he referring to?
Kostanyan: If we agree on the border line, this issue can be solved simply. If our troops stand according to a border line when they will get their four villages, we’ll get our four villages. For our four, the legal background is quite questionable whether they are Armenian or are Azerbaijani, according to the USSR [former Soviet Union] procedures and whole legislation. This is an issue which should be discussed during the delimitation process. We also have an Armenian enclave, Artsvashen; in a same way, we believe that we should get our enclave that is under Azerbaijani control. But we believe this is an issue for not only us but also the Azerbaijani side. On the one hand, they acknowledge that this issue should be discussed within the delimitation commission. On the other hand, they are publicly raising some territorial claims, which are aggressive, to say the least. But for these first four villages — which are not enclaves but adjustments to the border — a couple of times the Armenian side formally, on paper, suggested organizing the near withdrawal of forces from the border. If Azerbaijan had agreed, that issue would have been solved a year ago, two years ago.
PassBlue: Pashinyan met with Macron in Paris on Nov. 10 and Armenia signed a deal with France to buy Mistral surface-to-air defensive missiles. The Armenian chief of defense staff met with the American European Command deputy. The Armenian government favors the Granada process, but Azerbaijani President Aliyev didn’t even attend the meeting in Granada. So there seems to be a divide between this pro-West opening that Armenia is promoting.
Kostanyan: I would say we are diversifying our relations because we are considering the realities and experience that we have faced during the last few years. When it comes to our military capabilities, we don’t have any intention to attack any of our neighbors. We’re not going to challenge or violate their territorial integrity. But we believe that we have our right to increase our defensive capabilities.
PassBlue: The diversification of relationships with other countries has sparked a negative reaction from Armenia’s traditional security partner, Russia. How can Armenia diversify while keeping the existing security partnership?
Kostanyan: We publicly shared that the security architecture and the security philosophy that we had didn’t work. When our sovereign territory was attacked, the traditional partners and the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization military alliance in Eurasia] were silent. They didn’t even come up with a political statement that our sovereign territory was attacked. In the same way, Russian peacekeepers, who had a duty clearly put on paper to protect the people of Nagorno-Karabakh from existential threat, acted as an observer when ethnic cleansing happened.
PassBlue: Iran, your neighbor to the south, has made statements about the need to respect Armenian territorial integrity. Iran suggested that this was a red line and that it could help Armenia defend itself if attacked. How does your government view the statements? More generally, what are your relations with Iran like?
Kostanyan: With Iran, we have a bilateral agenda that’s mainly economic. We are cooperating with our Iranian partners. This is very objective, as we need to cooperate with our neighbors with whom at least we have open borders, because two of our four borders are closed. [Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Türkiye] We also value the political statements coming from Iran on inviolability of the borders in the region and, in particular, of Armenia. On the other hand, as I mentioned, we are not interested in any escalation in the region, and we are committed to solving all the issues through political and diplomatic means.
https://www.passblue.com/2023/11/26/armenia-says-peace-is-realistic-with-azerbaijan-but-awaits-the-right-signals/