13:36,
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Fitch Ratings has revised the Outlook on the City of Yerevan’s Long-Term Foreign- and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) to Positive from Stable and affirmed the IDRs at ‘B+’.
The next scheduled review date for Fitch’s rating on Yerevan City is 09 June 2023.
The European Union is today launching the EU civilian mission in Armenia (EU Mission in Armenia / EUMA) under its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
The EUMA is a neutral and non-executive mission, which will have a two-year mandate, and was formally established by the European Council decision on 23 January 2023.
The Mission will be deployed on the Armenian side of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and will contribute to stability in the border areas of Armenia, build confidence and human security in conflict affected areas, and ensure an environment conducive to the normalisation efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan supported by the EU.
The total – exclusively civilian – staff of the EUMA will be approximately one hundred persons, including around fifty unarmed observers.
The Operational Headquarters of the mission will be in Yeghegnadzor, in Armenia’s Vayots Dzor province. EEAS Managing Director of Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC) Stefano Tomat will serve as the Civilian Operation Commander, while Markus Ritter will serve as the Head of Mission.
EUMA was preceded by an EU Monitoring Capacity in Armenia (EUMCAP). The latter had deployed EU observers from the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia from 20 October until 19 December 2022.
Find out more
Press release
https://euneighbourseast.eu/news/latest-news/armenia-eu-launches-civilian-mission-to-contribute-to-stability-in-border-areas/
10:50, 23 February 2023
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian military held joint command staff trainings under the leadership of Major-general Edward Asryan, the Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Minister of Defense.
The training was titled “The work of the military command bodies of the Armed Forces in the preparatory phase of defense operations” and was held February 20-22, the ministry of defense said in a press release.
A tactical field march was held with the purpose of adjusting objectives of the troops in tactical directions and make decisions, as well as the main issues of integration of active forces and equipment.
The order of battle, sequence of actions, actions of officials were checked. The skills of the command staff were perfected.
16:18,
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. The 2022 Firefighter of the Year ceremony will take place on Thursday at the Central Military Club in the capital. The event is being held for the 28th consecutive year. It will be attended by President Rumen Radev, who will present the special collective award to the team of the Interior Ministry’s Directorate General of Fire Safety and Population Protection, said the presidential press service.
For their high professionalism, self-sacrifice and fulfilled duty in saving human lives after the devastating earthquake in the Republic of Turkiye, Rumen Radev will present a presidential badge of honour to the the Bulgarian teams from Interior Ministry’s Directorate General of Fire Safety and Population Protection, Sofia Municipality, 16th Transport Vrazhdebna Air Base, the Military Medical Academy, the Bulgarian Red Cross and the National Association of Volunteers in the Republic of Bulgaria. Each of the participants in the rescue operations will receive a certificate of honour.
For their part, the leaderships of the Ministry of the Interior and the Directorate General of Fire Safety and Population Protection will award the firefighters for their achievements themselves in the past year. During the ceremony, a comprehensive winner and winners for the main areas of activity, including firefighting and rescue activity, fire control and preventive activity, will be announced.
Last year, the Firefighter of the Year award went to Commissioner Darin Dimitrov, director of the Dobrich Regional Directorate of Fire Safety and Population Protection. He was one of the people who led the operation to evacuate nine sailors from the Vera Su ship stranded near the waters of Kamen Bryag.
11:50,
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan held a meeting with EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar.
Grigoryan and Klaar discussed the course of implementation of the agreements reached within the framework of the Brussels format of the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations, Grigoryan’s office said in a read-out.
Views were exchanged around issues concerning the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.
17:15,
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 20, ARMENPRESS. On February 20, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Paruyr Hovhannisyan received the delegation headed by Stefano Tomat, the Civilian Operations Commander of the European External Action Service of the EU.
The meeting was held prior to the launch of the new EU monitoring mission in Armenia.
Welcoming the delegation, the Deputy Minister once again highly appreciated the decision on deploying a long-term EU Civilian Mission in Armenia, expressing the readiness of the Armenian side to provide maximum support for the smooth launch and further operation of the Mission, the foreign ministry said in a read-out.
In a follow-up to the activity of the previous EU short-term Mission, both sides highlighted the importance of the deployment of the Mission in terms of human security on the ground, as well as the establishment of stability on the eastern border of Armenia and in the region.
Armenian and Turkish flags flying in Ankara on Wednesday. Photo: Armenpress.am
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan visited Ankara on Wednesday to meet his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. The visit came just over a week after Armenia sent humanitarian aid to Turkey via land borders that had been closed for thirty years.
Mirzoyan arrived in Ankara on Wednesday morning, along with deputy minister Vahan Kostanyan, and Armenia’s special envoy for the normalisation of relations with Turkey, Ruben Rubinyan.
‘I consider it symbolic that on Saturday, the Armenian-Turkish border, which has been closed for thirty years, was opened for Armenian lorries loaded with humanitarian aid heading to Adiyaman’, Mirzoyan stated during a joint press briefing following the meeting.
Mirzoyan also announced that the two countries had agreed to jointly repair the Ani bridge and ‘take care of the relevant infrastructure ahead of the full opening of the border’.
Following the meeting, Armenia’s Foreign Minister visited the city of Adıyaman, which was devastated by last Monday’s earthquake, and met with a team of Armenian rescuers working in the area.
Last week’s announcement that Armenia would provide Turkey with aid following the disaster was met with surprise from some.
Diplomatic relations between the two countries have long been hostile, as Turkey denies that a genocide of Armenians took place under the Ottoman Empire. Relations were formally halted in 1993 during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and have continued to be tense in recent years, particularly in light of Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2021.
The two governments previously held negotiations aimed at normalising relations in 2008. Negotiations broke down after Armenia refused to link the talks with the peace process with Azerbaijan, or to allow Turkey a role in their discussions with Baku.
Following Wednesday’s meeting, Çavuşoğlu thanked Armenia for its support in the wake of last week’s earthquake. He recalled that Turkey supported Armenia after the 1988 Spitak earthquake, and Armenia had sent aid to Turkey after the earthquake in İzmit in 1999.
Çavuşoğlu added that they had discussed the normalisation of relations between Turkey and Armenia, and believed that the countries’ humanitarian cooperation would ‘support’ the process. The minister noted that they had also discussed the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Armenia sent a team of rescuers to earthquake-stricken areas of Turkey and Syria on 6 February, and has since sent a second round of humanitarian aid.
For the first time since 1993, the two countries’ land border has been opened for lorries carrying humanitarian aid.
Turkey’s special envoy for the normalisation of relations with Armenia, Serdar Kiliç, tweeted that he would ‘always remember’ Armenia’s provision of aid to Turkey.
‘We all […] put our ethnicities, nationalities and religions aside and decided to [display] the highest level of humanity and human to human solidarity’, he added, in response to his Armenian counterpart’s tweet about Armenian rescue work in Adıyaman.
Mirzoyan’s visit is the second in two years. In spring 2022, the Armenian Foreign Minister took part in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, meeting there with Çavuşoğlu. Earlier this year, Mirzoyan stated that he had received an invitation for this year’s forum and would ‘most likely’ take part in it.
The special representative of the EU in the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, called Mirzoyan’s visit ‘historic’, expressing hopes that it was a ‘harbinger of developments’ in the countries’ bilateral relations.
The current phase of normalisation began after the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, when Armenia and Turkey appointed special envoys to carry out negotiations. In early 2023, Turkey lifted a ban on cargo flights between the two countries and the countries agreed to open their land border for citizens of third countries.
Yerevan’s officially stated position is that normalisation with Turkey should be ‘unconditional’, implying that issues relating to Nagorno-Karabakh or recognition of the Armenian genocide would not be a part of the discussion.
However, Turkey has suggested that normalisation of relations was contingent on the normalisation of Yerevan’s relations with Baku, and has pushed for Armenia to sign a peace treaty offered by Azerbaijan.
https://oc-media.org/armenias-foreign-minister-makes-historic-visit-to-turkey/
A soldier on the frontline
A soldier of the Armenian Armed Forces was injured Tuesday when Azerbaijani forces opened fire on Armenian positions.
According to Armenia’s Defense Ministry, at around 6:06 p.m. local time, Azerbaijani soldiers began firing on Armenian military positions in the Norabek village in the Gegharkunik Province.
The soldier is in stable condition and his injuries are not life threatening, the defense ministry said, adding that an investigation was underway to pinpoint the circumstances of the incident.
21:53,
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan again suspended the operation of the only gas pipeline from Armenia to Artsakh, ARMENPRESS reports the information headquarters of Artsakh informs.
“In the near future, the gas stations will be provided with a very limited volume of gas, after which their work will also stop. With this kind of behavior, Azerbaijan, by turning on and immediately off the gas supply from Armenia to Artsakh in the cold weather and at night, aims to create problems and emergencies. Please be vigilant and follow safety rules,” the statement said.
As the blockade of the truncated Nagorno-Karabakh region by Azerbaijani nationalists continues, Armenia is growing impatient with Russia’s seeming inactivity.
Food, fuel, and medicines for the large Armenian community in the area are running low, while images have been emerging of Russian troops, deployed as peacekeepers, standing yards from the blockades but taking no action. The mood is fast souring, making the current crisis in Armenia-Russia relations the worst in recent decades.
Allied from the 1990s, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Russia and Armenia have entered a turbulent period. Reasons vary from immediate issues to deeper, geopolitical differences, yet one inescapable conclusion is that Russia is no longer able to provide for its security dependencies and that its influence in the South Caucasus is in decline.
The Kremlin has on numerous occasions turned down Armenia’s requests for help through the framework of the six-member Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Armenia but not Azerbaijan. The problem for Armenia is that wider strategic imperatives drive Russia to seek improved ties with Azerbaijan, which is a critical transit route for Russia’s ambitious projects to connect to Iran. Azerbaijan has also chosen its friends wisely — Turkey’s ally, which has, as a result of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, established itself as a major power in the South Caucasus. It is therefore sheltered from Russian adventurism.
To this changed geopolitical landscape should be added a recent spate of signals showing Armenia’s growing disillusionment about Russia. In January, the country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan argued that “Russia’s military presence in Armenia not only does not guarantee Armenia’s security but, on the contrary, creates threats to Armenia’s security.” He also argued that the Russian peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh are “becoming silent witnesses” to the unfolding tragedy. Earlier Yerevan even canceled CSTO drills in Armenia, and Pashinyan refused to sign a joint declaration with CSTO member states in Yerevan, presumably for failing to address the country’s worsening geopolitical situation.
This has provided an opening for Iran. Politicians in Yerevan increasingly seek diversification of foreign affairs and military ties. Unhappy with Azerbaijan’s ambitions to attain greater regional influence and of attempts to coerce Armenia into allowing the operation of the so-called Zangezur corridor through the Syunik province (thus connecting the main Azeri lands with its Nakhchivan exclave), Iran sees a meeting of self-interest and opportunity. The opening in 2022 of the Iranian consulate in a strategically located south-eastern city of Kapan, which is located on the only major road between the two countries, indicated the Islamic Republic’s growing displeasure with the changed balance of power in the South Caucasus – especially growing Turkish influence.
Armenia has meanwhile been trying to patch up things with Turkey. In February, Armenian rescuers were sent to Turkey to help Ankara battle the devastating effects of the recent earthquake. This follows continuous hints and practical moves by both sides signaling that a long-closed border could soon open and bilateral trade grow, something underlined on February 15 when the two foreign ministers met in Ankara.
Armenia is also developing ties with the European Union (EU) which announced on January 23 it would be deploying a mission of some 100 observers to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. The mission would in itself be a significant upgrade from a much weaker, 40-member mission sent to Armenia following a significant escalation in September 2022 when Azerbaijan bombed several cities deep in Armenia, and far from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia is also working on diversifying military contacts. Almost entirely dependent on the Kremlin for its security, it has apparently struggled to import modern Russian weaponry. Pashinyan said in September that Armenia lacked arms and that the country’s allies had failed time and again to supply ordered weaponry. This pushes Armenia to seek alternatives; several military contracts signed with India underline the trend.
Tensions in Armenia-Russia relations will likely continue to grow and there are indications that there is a bigger malaise hampering Russia’s influence — the latter’s war against Ukraine. The aggression reverberates throughout the South Caucasus, where countries constantly test Russian weakness. Armenia is no exception. A preoccupied Kremlin provides Armenia with room for maneuver, which in other times would have been unthinkable. As the war in Ukraine will likely continue for a long time, so will Armenia’s willingness to question the foundation of its alliance with a weakened Russia.
Those weaknesses have become palpable in the way Moscow-led multilateral groupings have operated since the war in Ukraine began. The first is CSTO. Although many ordinary Armenians see the organization’s passivity as a deliberate Russian instrument of sabotage, there are indications that the problem with the grouping might be much more profound. CSTO’s feeble response to fighting on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border in September 2022 was much like its inactivity on the South Caucasus front. Moreover, since the all-out war in Ukraine began, CSTO member states have been passive, bordering on hostile, to the Kremlin’s campaign. This begs the question of CSTO’s purpose if it won’t help the smaller members and the smaller members won’t help Russia.
It must be acknowledged that it would be a long and difficult process for Armenia to free itself from Russian influence. The country’s economic and security ties are linked to its giant neighbor to the north, whether it likes that or not. A near-70% growth in bilateral trade was registered in 2022.
And while Russia is distracted, it is not asleep. It will try to regain momentum. For instance, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov argued on February 9 that Moscow is working on a trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Nevertheless, a trend is undeniable. A multipolar era has begun in the South Caucasus where growing competition from other actors limits Russia’s old claim to be the dominant power in the region. When the EU unveiled details of its new mission to Armenia, the Kremlin was reduced to blustering that the bloc was stirring up geopolitical confrontation in the region. It was a far cry from the old days.
Emil Avdaliani is a professor at European University and the Director of Middle East Studies at the Georgian think-tank, Geocase.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
https://cepa.org/article/armenia-russias-disgruntled-ally/