Gasoline prices on downward slide, says analyst

 10:09, 6 February 2024

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 6, ARMENPRESS. Global economic processes are behind the 40 dram drop in gasoline prices in Armenia, according to economist Aghasi Tavadyan.

Gas prices started dropping in the country since late January. As of February 6, the price of 1 liter of Regular gasoline was at 490 drams, while Premium was sold at 530.

Tavadyan told Armenpress he projects the prices to continue falling in the coming months.

According to him, three main factors are responsible for developing the gasoline price in the country: the dropping gas prices in the United States, the decline of oil prices in the global market and Russia lifting the ban on petroleum exports which was in force for a month in autumn 2023.

“Overall, these three factors, each by itself, contribute to the formation of the gasoline price in Armenia. In February last year gasoline was sold in Armenia at 380 and 400 drams. Then, until 4th of September, prices gradually increased and reached its peak some three months ago, when Regular and Premium were sold at 540 and 570 drams respectively. The latest hike, which happened on 4th of October, was actually driven by the depreciation of the dram, which, among others, was our market’s response to the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh. Gasoline prices in Armenia have always fluctuated,” he said, adding that prices are in line with global market trends.

“I think gasoline prices will continue to drop,” Tavadyan added.

Another factor contributing to the formation of the gasoline prices is the dram currency exchange rate, the expert said. However, this factor doesn’t play a role currently because the national currency rate hasn’t changed significantly in the recent period. The dram isn’t expected to appreciate soon, but if the national currency were to appreciate again and sell at 390 drams for $1 like it happened in the past, then the gas prices would be 5% lower than now, according to Tavadyan.

The economist said the geopolitical changes and new conflicts could stop the drop of gasoline prices in the global market, which would have a chain reaction in Armenia.

Fastex to Provide up to 5 Million $FTN to the “Olympionic” Sports Foundation

 11:22, 6 February 2024

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 6, ARMENPRESS. Today the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports of Armenia, “Olympionic” sports charitable foundation and Fastex have signed a memorandum of cooperation. The purpose of this cooperation is to promote the growth and development of sports in the Republic of Armenia, to improve the competitiveness and the living conditions of athletes, and to encourage the growth of victories recorded in the field of domestic sports.

According to the agreement, Fastex will be providing up to 5 million to support the athletes and coaches who won from the 1st to the 3rd places in the Olympic, Paralympic, Sword Olympic Games, sports included in the program of the Olympic Games, as well as international tournaments not included in the Olympic Games, such as sambo wrestling, international checkers, wushu and chess. The 5 million $FTNs have been segregated from the total supply and securely frozen on the blockchain until 2030. The 5 million $FTNs will be methodically unblocked in accordance with a predefined pattern, as detailed in the smart contracts. This strategy encourages a controlled and transparent allocation of funds to beneficiaries' digital wallets.

“The Government of Armenia pays a great attention to the sports these days, but like the whole world, the sports need additional funding and curation. It is a world-known practice to involve diverse sponsors who will solve issues that are not included in the scope of issues under the state’s care. We already have a preliminary agreement with Fastex and our negotiations are at a very practical stage. In the very near future, we will sign a memorandum, after which a tripartite agreement will be signed between RA MoESCS, "Fastex" and "Olympionic" foundation. Subsequently, we will have the opportunity to provide very quick and specific solutions to many problems," said Karen Giloyan, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia.

“We realize the importance of encouraging the development of domestic sports and by encouraging the victories of our athletes, we aim to further emphasize their achievements and awards for the development and history of sports of the Republic of Armenia," said Vigen Badalyan, co-founder of Fastex.

“Valuing the role and function of corporate social responsibility, Fastex has come up with an initiative to encourage the development of sports in Armenia, namely by co-financing a number of programs and projects. At the current stage, we are completing the negotiations and the preparations of relevant documents. The partnership will have a long-term and strategic nature, within which Fastex will finance various sports directions, encouraging both existing athletes and the training of the new generation," said Vakhtang Abrahamyan, the chief executive officer of Fastex.

The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports and the "Olympionic" sports charitable foundation have committed to make all efforts to achieve the goals defined in the memorandum.




Yerevan authorities plan to open animal shelter for stray dogs

 09:34, 7 February 2024

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 7, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan City Hall plans to open an animal shelter for stray dogs.

The facility will be designed for permanent care of up to 300 dogs.

Harutyun Arakelyan, the director of Yerevan City Hall’s Animal Care Center, an organization tasked with vaccinating and sterilizing and then releasing stray dogs back to the streets, told Armenpress that the animals will be vaccinated, treated, sterilized and permanently cared for by veterinarians at the new shelter.

The stray dogs will not be caged in the facility, Arakelyan said. The animals will instead freely move within the shelter.

The shelter is planned to be opened in 2024.

Furthermore, the Animal Care Center of the city will then focus on the adoption process. Arakelyan said that there are numerous problems concerning the issue of stray dogs because there are no clear laws on the matter. “We’ve had many meetings with lawmakers, now there is a bill aimed at preventing irresponsible treatment of animals envisaging, among others, fines for those who would violate the regulations, and this will overall regulate the area,” he said, noting that some dog owners irresponsibly abandon their dogs in the streets after few months of ownership.

After the first permanent shelter is opened, authorities plan to open such facilities in other districts.

Over 3,400 stray dogs were sterilized and vaccinated against rabies in 2023 by the Animal Care Center, which now runs a clinic.

PM Pashinyan chairs discussion on the master plan of the "Academic City”

 20:08,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, a consultation was held, during which the master plan of the Academic City was presented.

The meeting was attended by members of the Board of Trustees of the "Academic City" Foundation, Tobias Keyl, Deputy Director of the gmp International GmbH Architects and Engineers company, which is developing the master plan of the Academic City, and heads of concerned departments, the PM's Office said in a readout.

Tobias Keyl presented details about the design and research works of the "Academic City" project, discussions with stakeholders and noted that as a result, the vision of the "Academic City" was reaffirmed. He noted that the main concept will be ready by the second half of this year and emphasized that related processes can already be launched.

The participants of the meeting discussed in detail issues related to engineering infrastructure, road network, landscape. Recommendations and observations related to the topic were presented.

Based on the result of the discussion, the Prime Minister gave specific instructions to the officials regarding the creation of the infrastructure of the "Academic City" and a number of other issues.

AW: Making art in wartime Lebanon

This article is the second in a four-part series, exclusively for the Armenian Weekly, on the making of Encounters and Convergences: A Book of Ideas and Art by Seta B. Dadoyan. 

PART TWO. Chapter III. Wartime art and aesthetic

In the spring of 1981, in addition to the ongoing fighting between militant factions, a large Israeli offensive on the southern, central and other parts of Lebanon, the Palestinian camps and the southern suburbs of the capital crippled life. In 1982, there was a massive invasion by land, air and sea. For months, artillery, warplanes and battleships bombarded the land. After the withdrawal of Israel, battles involving the local warring factions and the Syrian army, which had entered Lebanon in 1976, intensified. 

By the end of 1983, in the eighth year of the war, after the withdrawal of Israel and the departure of Yasser Arafat from Tripoli with the al-Fatah organization, street and factional fighting and shelling continued with greater violence. Most of Beirut, especially the western part where we lived, was partly destroyed. But life went on everywhere despite barricades, rubbish-mountains, sandbag-hills, destroyed buildings, shattered glass, burned cars, all sorts of partisan and militia and party flags, logos, posters of warlords, political graffiti and religious and iconic figures. When shelling intensified, we sought shelters and sometimes spent days in dark corners and under stairs. With forced intermissions, schools, universities, banks and shops remained open, lectures and conferences were organized, friends visited, and we even had dinner parties, birthdays, weddings and surely many funerals. 

Very recently, when I decided to organize my artwork, I noticed that in the eight years from the early 1980s to late 1987, I made over 40 drawings, seven of which are portraits, while the rest are simply “wartime-drawings.” 

Rabindranath Tagore in remembrance of VV, 1985. Charcoal, 15×22 cm

Just as life was wartime-life, art in turn could only be wartime-art. It traced a trajectory that took its beginning in the immediate realities of the war, and by the force of its convergence in the present moment, gave the work its truth-content and aesthetic legitimacy. Under the circumstances, I could not understand salon, studio and decorative artworks, nor the assumed “freedom” of art. I often wrote in the papers but was not lauded for my critique. The human condition in wartime and massive suffering were central to my thinking, and inevitably, the human figure became dominant in my work. For right or wrong reasons, wars were fought by people and affected all people in every possible respect. While somehow life went on, many suffered, many died, many survived, yet everywhere all waited for deliverance, and the vigil continued.  

The shelter, Beirut, 1980. Ink, 46.5×34.5 cm

Next to one’s home, the “shelter”, al-malja (refuge, a more expressive word in Arabic) was symbolic of an absurd yet heroic wait [“The wait”]. The shelters, mostly makeshift places, were dark microcosms where people came together in terror, often with genuine sympathy and hope. Some died even in shelters. The existential weight of the term would only allow sharp black lines in ink [“The shelter”]. Death was a central fact of wartime life. Of all those who fought and died, some were true idealists and heroes with dreams of a just society. They were the comrades of the sufferers [“The comrade”]. 

The comrade, Beirut,1980. Pencil, 47×40.5 cm

At times of “relative calm”, or hudū’ nisbī, as they were sarcastically referred to, life would return with force. We even took the children to places like Italy and Greece. As I look back, I am surprised at the number and frequency of social activities. The windows of the living room were covered with metal shields for security. We had frequent visitors who climbed a hundred stairs to the fifth floor with a dripping candle or a flickering flashlight. We sat for hours discussing everything, joking about the most serious issues, eating and drinking. When the shelling intensified or a gun battle raged on the street, our friends would simply stay longer. Six sketches sum up these times: “Worlds of silence,” “The cleaning lady,” “Portrait of S.,” “Gothic,” “The friend” and “The visit”. Frequent and often sudden shelling (qaṣf) was another wartime reality. It could happen anytime and cause massive panic. Amid loud car horns and ambulance sirens, people ran in all directions looking for shelter. I made a sketch about these terrifying episodes of “blind shelling” or qașf ‘ashwā’ī, as they were called. 

Qasf (bombardment), Beirut, 1981. Pencil, 48.5×30 cm

Following the first and partial Israeli invasion in 1981, thousands of Palestinians moved from the camps in south Lebanon and the southern suburbs into the central-western parts of Beirut. They occupied schools, vacant or partly completed houses, apartments and entire buildings. At the time, the construction of our building on al-Farābī street, al-Zarif, was barely completed, and most of the apartments were vacant. About 300 Palestinians moved in, with their weapons and ammunition, even small-size artillery. For the next few years, we lived in surreal conditions with no electricity and running water in an extremely crowded and noisy building with 10 flights and no working elevator. During bombardments, dozens of terrified people would run into the lower floors, or to a partially completed building on the opposite side of the street, or simply crowd the stairs. They would stay for long periods, occasionally coming out for fresh air. Two of the sketches from these times are featured in the book.   

By 1983, events took unexpected turns. After a wave of assassinations of prominent activists and the disappearance of the intellectual elite, it was clear that ideology was at an impasse and that regional regimes were involved in a power game, which continues, getting even more complicated and corrupt. There were few bright spots in the arts and literature, but there was no margin for ideology. Three sketches reflect these times: “Departure,” “Dialectics” and “Ideology in crisis.”  

Dialectics, Beirut, 1981. Pencil, 29.5×21 cm

In wartime Beirut, the room, the house and the place where one felt safe took on a special significance and a role of sorts. During prolonged periods of shelling and life in a confined space, I did not even think of doing any figure drawing. While sitting with the family, doing housework, reading or writing at my desk with a manual typewriter, the “view” was the row of yellow buildings typical of old Beirut on the other side of the block. Except for one apartment, they were deserted and looked haunted with some laundry still hanging on the balconies. I drew the building, where an elderly lady, who seemed to be forgotten in the apartment, constantly moved between the balcony and the rooms [“Window 1”]. I made three more “views” of the other old buildings, all demolished. One building, now gone too, on the right corner in “Window 2,” was over two centuries old. It had been one of the most luxurious residences of Beirut in the early 19th century under the Ottomans. When the view from the window was exhausted, I turned to the houseplants, but not to the human figure, yet. There had been too many losses, catastrophes and deaths within a short period. During the three years, from 1983 to 1985, I made only seven sketches, four “windows” and three “rooms.”  These were my “landscapes.”

Window 2, Beirut, 1982. 41.5×25 cm

PART TWO. Chapter III. Thoughts and exits in chaos 

In 1985, even though there was no improvement in the circumstances and the prospects for any solution were bleak, I seemed to have come to terms with my situatedness and made an enigmatic sketch [“Situatedness”]. The central figure on the foreground looks like a medieval monk. He stands too close to the viewer, and his head and feet are outside the frame. In his right hand he holds large old keys on a metal ring. The room is a messy art studio, a backstage room with drapes hanging from a higher level. There are empty boards and canvases against the wall, some ropes and a ladder with uneven sides leaning against the higher level from where the drapes hang. The door with a stain-ring around an old-fashioned nob is part open. With his back to the door, the monk-figure may have just walked in or expects others in the room. Soon, I made another enigmatic yet simpler sketch, “The stride.”

Situatedness, Beirut, 1985. Pencil, 36.5×25.5 cm

Meditation was a healing exercise in wartime, and I made a self-portrait of sorts [“The pause”]. In 2015, 30 years later, I made a variation on this drawing in color, for the cover of my book, The Armenian Condition in Hindsight and Foresight. During the war, the street where one lived was a microcosm where things happened and concerned the people who lived there. I made three sketches of al-Farābī, where we moved in 1981. It was previously known as the “Armenian quarter,” ḥayy al-arman, but almost everyone had migrated. After all night shelling, the streets were eerie scenes of debris and broken glass. We walked or drove through the rubble to school with the children, went to work, did the shopping, met with neighbors on the street and hoped the night would be calmer than the previous one. Four sketches are about this strange routine.  

The human condition in wartime and massive suffering were central to my thinking, and inevitably, the human figure became dominant in my work. For right or wrong reasons, wars were fought by people and affected all people in every possible respect. While somehow life went on, many suffered, many died, many survived, yet everywhere all waited for deliverance, and the vigil continued.  

Between 1981 and 1986, I was doing research at the Armenian library of Haigazian College/University while teaching part-time philosophy of religion and some Armenian studies courses. Despite, and perhaps because of, extremely difficult conditions on every level of daily life, and like many, I found my salvation in hard work. In 1986 I was invited to teach at the Civilization Sequence Program of the American University of Beirut (AUB). Wartime AUB was a peculiar place. There were normally unacceptable but now “legitimate” practices and norms in the way the students, faculty, administration, staff and people from warring parties carried out their duties and interacted. The walls, the classroom boards, the halls, the corridors and the entire beautiful campus on the Mediterranean became billboards for political slogans, comments, threats and caricatures. Professors and staff could be supported or threatened at gunpoint by students, colleagues or other staff, depending on who heard them or was watching. But again, somehow, life on campus too went on, and exams and quizzes were generally held on time, despite threats from students for high marks. Top administrators were assassinated on premises, the historic Assembly Hall was shelled, and the famous clock tower of AUB was bombed and collapsed in 1991. As far as I was concerned, teaching was a salvation, and I absolutely loved teaching cultural studies and art and had very high student evaluations. But I also suffered inner intrigues and a culture of rivalry and slander. 

My two decades of teaching at AUB yielded two drawings, a group portrait of six of my colleagues “Colleagues” and “The banyan tree of AUB – A portrait.” The whole experience, from 1986 to 2005, teaching at the Civilization Sequence Program and the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (philosophy of technology and art history) was unique and rewarding, despite the mentality of some faculty and AUB wartime diplomacy. 

From 1987 to 1991, I worked for the complicated and exclusive degree of Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy, a degree higher than the Ph.D., granted in the German and Russian systems. I traveled to Yerevan for sources; these were otherwise “exits.” For four years, the courses, yearly exams, papers, sources and manuscripts from the Matenadaran and the final work kept me occupied. At the time, Beirut International Airport was closed, and all air travel was via the sea or other capitals. I flew to Yerevan from Damascus and Aleppo airports, sometimes traveling under bullets and shelling on the roads. I made four sketches at the start of my four-year work toward my degree: “Armenia rock island,” “The exit,” “The flight” and “The moment.” The defense of my dissertation was on September 20, 1991, a day before the declaration of the independence of the Third Republic. This was also the year the war ended in Lebanon. The degree, the promotion and total dedication to teaching and scholarship put my life on a different path for the next decades. Except for the 10 portraits made between 1985 and 2005, for the next 35 years from the fall of 1987, all art was put aside.

The banyan tree of AUB, Beirut, 1991. Pencil, 31.5×21.5 cm

The extraordinary case of Armenian Cilicia was always a challenge for me. My father’s family, and over half the refugees in the Arab world, are originally Cilicians. From its rise in 1080 to the demise of the Kingdom in 1375, through the next five centuries to its complete devastation and evacuation by Turkey by the early 1920s, Armenian Cilicia between the Christian and Muslim worlds has been a poorly understood phenomenon. A deeper knowledge of the Armenian experience in the Islamic world is a prerequisite. Other cases too, such as the Fāțimid Armenians in 11th and 12th centuries, the Armenians in Bilād al-Shām (Greater Syria) and many others await thorough research. On the 1700th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity by the Armenian state, I was asked by Catholicos Aram I to prepare two studies about the history and the intellectual culture of Cilicia. This was an opportunity and opened new horizons. I dedicated several studies to various aspects of the history and intellectual culture of Cilicia, its artistic legacy and the institution of the Catholicosate. Later, I also edited and co-authored two volumes and several studies on Cilicia and related subjects. 

My dissertation on the Islamic sources of Erznkats‘i, published in 1991, for the Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy opened a novel discipline of Islamic-Armenian interactive history in regional context. Identifying the patterns of interaction and defining the historicity of 14 centuries of the Armenian historical experience in worlds of Islam became career defining interests. I found myself on the path of hard-core scholarship. Hopefully, my six books in this discipline are a beginning. A truly contemporary and critical discipline of Islamic-Armenian studies is yet to break its way through the Herculean pillars between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, of mainstream Armenian studies, into the open ocean of Near Eastern and interfaith studies. My work so far is a statement by the force of the material it makes available and the theses it expounds.

Dr. Seta B. Dadoyan (née Satenik Barsoumian) is a prominent Armenian scholar and painter and a Doctor of Philosophical Sciences in Philosophy. In addition to her research and publications on Western Armenian culture, her novel and extensive research focuses on the medieval and modern Armenian political, cultural and intellectual experiences in their interactive aspects within the Near Eastern world. She is considered a trailblazer and leading specialist in a novel discipline of Islamic-Armenian interactive history, initiated by her and to which she has dedicated six of her 12 volumes and many groundbreaking studies. She was professor of cultural studies, philosophy and art history at the American University of Beirut. After moving to the United States in 2005, she was visiting professor of Armenian and Near Eastern Studies at Columbia University, St. Nersess Seminary, the University of Chicago and the State University of Yerevan. For her exceptional scholarly contributions to Armenian studies and intellectual culture, in September 2021 the Society of Armenian Studies honored her with the “Lifetime Achievement Award.” In September 2015, she was granted the “St. Mesrop Mashtots‘” Medal, and in January 1999, the highest “Medal and Diploma of David Invictus/Anhaght” of the Philosophical Academy of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. She has authored 11 and co-authored and edited two volumes, as well as published over 60 scholarly papers in academic journals.


Armenia develops 2023-2033 Diaspora Partnership Strategy ahead of 2nd global summit

 10:25,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. The Office of the High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs has developed the 2023-2033 Armenia-Diaspora Partnership Strategy, High Commissioner Zareh Sinanyan told Armenpress.

He said the strategy is based on a vision of a “state-centered, pro-state” Diaspora. The document has been put into circulation.

“We expect to work with the Diaspora based on principles of respect, based on the objective of further deepening the ideology of statehood-building and state-centeredness. Today, this is very weak in the Diaspora. Understandably, the Diaspora was formed in conditions of absence of statehood,” Sinanyan explained, adding that while Armenians living in Armenia have the sense of nationhood and statehood-building, Diaspora Armenians don’t necessarily have that notion. “The work we want to do with the Diaspora must be exclusively centered on the state. Not because we are egoists or focused on ourselves, but because we see the state as the guarantee of perpetuity of not only the Armenians of Armenia, but of the Armenian nation and the Diaspora. Without a strong state there can be nothing. If the Diaspora was able to exist in the Middle East for many years, then the Diaspora that was formed in the past fifty years cannot exist for long without an anchor, and that anchor is the state,” Sinanyan said.

The High Commissioner said they have already received numerous recommendations and offers regarding the strategy and they are amending the document. Sinanyan’s office is working with the Diaspora regarding the strategy. He said that the strategy’s inception was in 2022 during the First Global Diaspora Summit in Armenia. “We are trying to realistically involve many representatives from the Diaspora,” Sinanyan said.

The 2nd Global Diaspora Summit is planned for mid-September 2024 in Armenia.

The 2023-2033 Armenia-Diaspora Partnership Strategy will be forwarded to the Cabinet for discussions in the coming months.

The agenda of the 2nd summit is currently under development, but it will feature security, economic and cultural issues.

Armenian President congratulates Governor-General of Australia on national day

 11:50,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 26, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturyan has congratulated Governor-General of Australia David Hurley on the country’s national day.

“I am convinced that the friendly relations between Armenia and Australia based on mutual respect and trust, and the mutually beneficial cooperation will further deepen and expand for the benefit of our peoples’ welfare,” President Khachaturyan said in a letter to Governor-General Hurley. I wish you robust health and success, and eternal peace and prosperity to the friendly people of Australia.”

Lionel Messi wins ‘The Best FIFA’ men’s player of year award, beating out Mbappe, Haaland

 09:55, 16 January 2024

YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Lionel Messi has been crowned The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2023, retaining the title he won in 2022.

The Argentina superstar has been bestowed with the honour once again following another qualifying period where he dazzled football fans across the globe. Messi was recognised for his achievements at The Best FIFA Football Awards™ ceremony in London, having come out on top in the voting ahead of finalists Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe, FIFA said in a press release.

Messi topped an incredibly closely-contested poll which was voted for by national team coaches and captains as well as expert journalists and supporters across the globe.

With the 2022 World Cup winner and Norway international Haaland locked together on 48 scoring points, they were separated by the number of first-choice nominations which Messi received in votes from national team captains, as per the Rules of Allocation (article 12). France striker Mbappe finished third with 35 points.

Nicolas Anelka visits forcibly displaced children of Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenia

 12:26,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Nicolas Anelka, the French professional football manager and retired player has visited the Sport and Culture Center in the Armenian city of Abovyan to meet with forcibly displaced children of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Anelka, who arrived in Armenia for a project on opening a football academy, gifted presents to the children.

Armenia National Olympic Committee President Gagik Tsarukyan accompanied Anelka during the visit to Abovyan.

In a statement, Tsarukyan said Anelka had expressed desire to meet the children of Nagorno-Karabakh and gift them presents.

The Sport and Culture Center in Abovyan has been providing shelter to the NK children since September 2023.

[see video]

Azerbaijan revives demand for corridor through Armenia

eurasianet
Jan 17 2024
Ani Avetisyan Jan 17, 2024

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's latest remarks about border delimitation/demarcation and transit links "totally unacceptable" and a "blow" to the peace process. 

"I promise a financial reward to anyone who finds the term 'Zangezur corridor' in the November 9 agreement," Pashinyan told a group of MPs on January 13. 

It was an ironic reference to the Azerbaijani side's contention, reiterated recently by Aliyev, that the provision on opening transit links in the Russian-brokered peace accord that ended the 2020 Second Karabakh War stipulates a seamless corridor through Armenia connecting mainland Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan exclave, without Armenian border or customs checks. 

That idea is referred to in Azerbaijan as the "Zangezur corridor" and Baku has pushed for it with varying degrees of intensity since the 2020 ceasefire. Early last year it seemed to back down on the demand in the context of the peace talks. 

In early October, shortly after Azerbaijan's lightning offensive to seize the whole of Nagorno-Karabakh, the corridor project seemed to be off the table after ground was broken on an alternate route through Iran.  (Tehran, like Armenia, is vociferously opposed to the Zangezur corridor idea.)

The issue, which has long inspired Armenian fears of an Azerbaijani invasion, is now back on the agenda, as Aliyev said in a January 10 interview that if the corridor was not opened, "Armenia will remain in an eternal deadlock. … If the route I mentioned is not opened, we will not open our border with Armenia anywhere else. So they will do themselves more harm than good."

In October last year, the Armenian prime minister introduced an initiative called "Crossroads of Peace" aimed at regional cooperation. That proposal includes linkages between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan with Armenian border and customs checks. Azerbaijan has dismissed it out of hand as "PR." (According to the 9 November 2020 agreement that ended the Second Karabakh War, the route linking mainland Azerbaijan Nakhchivan is to be monitored by Russian border troops.)

Exclaves and villages

Elsewhere in his January 10 interview, Aliyev demanded the return of enclaves and border villages that have been under Armenian control since the First Karabakh War three decades ago. 

Pashinyan seemed to back the idea of an exchange of enclaves, with a "mutually agreed map" as part of the process, but said that if Azerbaijan demanded the return of eight villages, Armenia would "raise the issue of 32." 

That was a reference to several bits of former Soviet Armenian territory that have similarly been controlled by Azerbaijan since the first war, as well as to the territory inside Armenia, estimated to total about 215 square kilometers, that Azerbaijani troops have occupied following several incursions between May 2021 and September 2022. 

Armenia and several Western states have demanded the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from Armenian lands. But Baku has refused, citing the lack of demarcation of the borders as justification. 

And Aliyev said explicitly he had no intention of withdrawing them in his January 10 remarks. "We are not taking a step back because that border must be defined. However, our location, which is currently disputed by Armenia, does not include any settlement."

The delimitation and demarcation of state borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the opening of transport links, remain the most contested issues between the two countries following Azerbaijan's takeover of Karabakh in September. The border commission working on the delimitation and demarcation issues held its latest meeting late last year and the next one, according to Aliyev, is to be held this month, with the question of the border villages in the Gazakh region of Azerbaijan being on the agenda.

Although the principles of a peace deal were said to be agreed upon in November, the sides seem to have dismissed each other's draft proposals for the peace agreement. 

Additionally, the sides disagree on who should mediate the talks. Yerevan opposes Moscow's mediation, while Baku has turned down EU or US-initiated talks in recent months. 

In December, the two countries managed to issue a joint statement and agree on a prisoner exchange, but they do not have a clear plan to continue the bilateral talks.