✓A Russian plane carrying 44 POWs has landed in Yerevan.
✓40,000 Artsakh inhabitants have returned to their homes.
✓New updated Russian MoD map omits Khtsaberd and Hin Tagher areas from zones under Armenian control.
✓Armenia’s former PM Karen Karapetyan calls Nikol Pashinyan to resign.
Source: Ruptly
The agreement chiselled out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region adds some valuable lessons to the international diplomacy playbook. Armenia’s political woes are a timely reminder of the perils of overplaying your hand militarily when your national institutions have been eroded by deep-rooted corruption and poor governance. Europe should take note and learn from the Armenian government’s mistakes.
There is no doubt that the outcome of the agreement brokered by Russia is a poor one for Armenia as it represents a defeat which its people are likely to remain resentful about for generations to come. However, there is also little question that the Armenian leadership must bear a great degree of responsibility for the nature of this outcome, which was far from inevitable.
Over the course of the past three decades, the Armenian government in Yerevan made several significant strategic and diplomatic mistakes which have led to this military defeat. As such, it is simplistic and unhelpful to blame the plight of the Armenian people on Azerbaijan.
The truth is that their government has played its hand poorly on their behalf. It is now incumbent upon the Armenian leadership to accept responsibility for the circumstances in which the country finds itself, and behaves in a way that will advance the long-term interests of its people.
Since the Armenian army seized the enclave at the end of the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s, the Armenian leadership has consistently failed to effectively leverage its position of strength to ensure long-term stability in the region. This has been most palpable in its conduct within the Minsk Group created by the OSCE, co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States.
The Armenian government grew complacent about the status of the occupied territories, underestimating the degree to which Azerbaijan expected sincere compromise. In a series of summits, including in Madrid in 2007 and again in Kazan, Russia, in 2011, it was stipulated that a number of occupied territories adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh would gradually be returned to Azerbaijan. Obstinacy prevailed however as the Armenian position radicalised, further entrenching the Azeris’ desire for revenge.
Eventually, as has been evident in recent years, the positions of both sides solidified and seemed devoted only to maintaining this precarious status quo. In Yerevan the concept of compromise eventually dissolved entirely. Any mention of concessions became synonymous with both the surrender of national identity and – given the stakes had been needlessly raised – the possibility of incurring an existential threat.
Radical rhetoric became the name of the game on both sides. It was naïve at best and dangerous at worst for Yerevan to expect that Baku would eventually back down. The Armenian side in particular was guilty of indulging in a romantic fantasy of invincibility, buoyed by its successes in the fighting between 1988 and 1994.
The leadership in Yerevan’s greatest and most damaging complacency however resided in its misplaced faith in Moscow. Granted, the two countries shared an old friendship, and are bound by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) defence pact of 2002, a military alliance of six former Soviet states. Moscow’s allegiance also appears to be on display in the shape of a military base in Gumri that stations 3,000 Russian troops.
However, the CSTO pact does not apply to the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The Armenian government proved willing to believe its own bravado in comfortably assuming that Russia would come to its aid when push came to shove. The short conflict of April 2016 should have been a wake-up call for Armenia. It provided ample evidence of both Azerbaijan’s technological superiority and Russia’s reluctance to back them to the hilt.
The Armenian leadership chronically overestimated its own strength and underestimated that of its adversary. Throughout this time, its political institutions were being gnawed away by corruption and poor governance. The leadership drummed up support for the Nagorno-Karabakh cause to distract attention from this fact, all the while propagandising the strength of its position to its population.
Henry Kissinger once remarked that the bargaining position of the victor always diminishes with time. Yerevan should have settled the long-term status of Nagorno-Karabakh from its position of strength. Instead, the Armenian leadership failed to push ahead with domestic reforms and overstretched its military. Armenia now finds itself in the worst of all possible scenarios.
The international community must now ensure that Azerbaijan lives up to its side of the agreement. Crucially, Armenian human rights must be upheld, and their cultural sites respected. But Yerevan must also be held to the highest of standards. The Armenian government has routinely failed its people. We must not allow Yerevan to exploit the sympathies of the wider world to the detriment of its population.
Franco Frattini is a former Foreign Minister of Italy (2002-2004 and 2008-2011) and European Commissioner (2004-2008).
YEREVAN, Armenia – Tens of thousands of opposition supporters marched across the Armenian capital Saturday to push for the resignation of the ex-Soviet nation’s prime minister over his handling of the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In six weeks of fierce fighting that ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal on Nov. 10, the Azerbaijani army reclaimed lands that Armenian forces have held for more than a quarter-century. Armenia’s opposition parties warned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan there would be civil disobedience across the country if he does not resign by noon on Tuesday.
RELATED: Click here for more coverage of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan
Pashinyan has refused to step down, defending the peace agreement as a painful but necessary move that prevented Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.
November 30, 2020
Haypost issued stamp Honoring Diana Abcar
Haypost, the postal services of Armenia, announced the release of a postage stamp dedicated to Diana A. Apcar (1859-1937) as part of its annual “Armenian history” series. The postage stamp (30.0 x 40.0 mm) with the nominal value of 120 drams depicts the Honorary Consul of the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920) to Japan.
Born in Rangoon, Burma (present day Yangon, Myanmar) on 17 October 1859 to Armenian parents from New Julfa, Iran Diana Apcar was the youngest of seven children in the family. Apcar was raised in Calcutta and received her education in a local convent school. Diana Apcar became fluent in English, Armenian, and Hindi. He married Apcar Michael Apcar, a descendant of the prominent house of Apcar of New Julfa. In 1891, Diana and her husband moved to Japan, where she lived until her death on July 8, 1937. She was buried in the Foreigners Cemetery in Yokohama beside her husband and two sons. Her tombstone is engraved with the simple words befitting her life and faith. “Out of Earth‘s shadows unto Heaven’s Glorious Day. We Loved Her, but God Loved Her Best.”
On July 20, 1920, out of respect to her humanitarian efforts, Hamo Ohanjanian, then the Foreign Minister of the Republic, appointed Diana Apcar Honorary Consul to Japan. This made Diana Apcar the first Armenian woman diplomat and one the very first women to have ever been appointed in any diplomatic post in the twentieth century. After the fall of the First Republic of Armenia in the same year 1920, her post was abruptly terminated. However, for about two decades until her life she continued her humanitarian work helping survivors of the Armenian Genocide who had made it to the distant shores in the Far East find refuge in peaceful lands and start new life.
ANKARA (Reuters) – Construction work has started on a joint Turkish-Russian centre to monitor a ceasefire in the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Wednesday.
He said the centre, being built following the worst fighting in decades between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces, would be operating “very shortly”.
Azerbaijan and Armenia last month signed a Russia-brokered ceasefire for the enclave, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but mainly populated by ethnic Armenians.
Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the region under the deal, which froze Azeri gains in six weeks of fighting.
Turkey has no peacekeepers in the region but said it had finalised an agreement with Russia on setting up the joint centre to monitor the ceasefire.
“An agreement was reached. There is no written obstacle to the formation of our joint observation centre there. Now, its construction is under way. Our colleagues will begin working there very shortly,” Akar said.
Turkey backs Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and has criticised the co-chairs of the OSCE’s so-called Minsk Group for not resolving the long-running conflict in decades of mediation. The Minsk Group is led by the United States, France and Russia.
France, whose population includes from 400,000 to 600,000 people of Armenian origin, has said it wants international supervision of the ceasefire.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay; Editing by Daren Butler and Timothy Heritage)
Prodding her cows forward with a long stick, Asya Petrosyan drives the herd along the snow-covered Lachin corridor, the last road out of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.
With Azerbaijani forces preparing to take back this district on Tuesday, the 67-year-old is rushing to bring 30 animals more than 55 kilometres (35 miles) to the town of Goris across the border in Armenia.
“We used to live here but it is being returned to (the Azerbaijanis) so we are leaving,” says Petrosyan, wrapped in a fluorescent green down jacket against the cold.
“This is our life,” she says, trudging along the road while an accompanying Lada SUV carries goods and two calves too young to make the long journey.
Lachin is the last of three districts — after Aghdam and Kalbajar — that Armenia is surrendering to Azerbaijan under a Russian-brokered peace deal that ended weeks of heavy fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The agreement, signed on November 9, sees Armenia handing back seven districts that it seized around Karabakh when the separatist region broke away from Azerbaijan’s control during a war in the early 1990s.
Lachin runs from north to south along the eastern border of Armenia down to Iran and will be under Azerbaijani control except for a few areas bordering the corridor.
– Abandoned –
Travelling north from the town of Lachin (called Berdzor by the Armenians) the next village is Qarega, set on a mountainside overlooking a deep valley.
Here residents wasted no time in leaving. The few dozen houses scattered around the village have already been abandoned, partly destroyed or burnt down.
On Sunday, a thin plume of smoke was still escaping from a building with blackened walls.
Outside another partly burnt building, 56-year-old Seryozha Ordyan of Goris is busy retrieving black plastic water pipes while his son collects firewood.
The building’s owners and their two children — relatives of Ordyan — left everything behind a few days ago. The children are now in Goris while their parents went on to the Armenian capital Yerevan to look for housing.
“We are taking this wood to heat us and their children, and I’m also collecting this pipe. It is theirs; they might need it,” says Ordyan.
– ‘We’ll stay with the Russians’ –
Along the edge of a small road leading to the village, men use chainsaws to harvest snow-covered logs and load them into a dozen vans and large trucks.
Despite the frantic efforts to clear out, there is some relief in the district.
In his office, Lachin district head Mushegh Alaverdyan says he has learned that Armenians living in some settlements will be allowed to stay.
“We have received official information that Berdzor, Aghavno and Sus will remain Armenian,” he says, referring to three towns along the roadside of the Lachin corridor.
“There will be no Azerbaijani authorities here. That is clear,” he insists, before adding more cautiously: “At this moment I cannot tell you what will happen over the next few hours.”
In the centre of town, at an intersection with the strategic road that goes to Karabakh’s main city Stepanakert, Russian peacekeepers are stationed with two light armoured vehicles.
Moscow has deployed some 2,000 soldiers between the two sides including at checkpoints along the five-kilometre-wide (three-mile-wide) Lachin corridor.
“We will stay here with the Russians… until the next bad news. My house is right next door; I’ll stay if I’m allowed,” the owner of a grocery store at the crossing says on condition of anonymity.
Asked about the possibility of Azerbaijanis using this road, the man says he is “not afraid of Azerbaijanis if they come”.
“In Russia I met a lot of them. People live on both sides of borders after wars, and things are fine.”
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Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian on Friday met with Secretary of State to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, who headed a delegation accompanying French humanitarian assistance sent to Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).
Welcoming the members of the delegation, Ayvazian thanked them for the visit to Armenia during this difficult times and for the solidarity shown to the Armenians of Artsakh.
During the meeting, the Armenian and French diplomats stressed the urgency of taking steps to address the humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, to provide conditions for the displaced Artsakh Armenians to return to their homes and to protect their rights. In that context, the Armenian FM thanked the French government and the people for standing with the Artsakh Armenians at this crucial moment.
Minister Ayvazian pointed to Turkey’s expansionist ambitions in the South Caucasus, describing them as a key factor in undermining regional security and stability.
In this context, both sides stressed the importance of removing foreign militants transferred to the region by Turkey in terms of international and regional security.
Ara Ayvazian and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne exchanged views on addressing the rights and interests of the Armenians of Artsakh within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship.
In this context, the Armenian foreign policy chief highlighted the recognition of the right of the Artsakh people to self-determination as a necessary condition for building a free, safe and dignified future in their historical homeland.
MOSCOW, November 28. /TASS/. The Russian and Armenian Foreign Ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Ara Ayvazyan, held talks by phone on Saturday focusing on Ayvazyan’s visit to Moscow on December 7 and the implementation of the November 9 statement on Nagorno-Karabakh.
“The sides discussed the implementation of the statement of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenian as of November 9, 2020 along with the coming working visit to Moscow by the Armenian foreign minister, scheduled for December 7,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Lavrov visited Yerevan with the Russian interdepartmental delegation on November 21. At a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Ayvazyan accepted the invitation to come to Moscow on a working visit in the near future.
On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. The Russian leader said the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides would maintain the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region.
“The fact is that the calls voiced by the opposition do not receive support from the broader Armenian society,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told Russian TASS news agency Wednesday.
Pashinyan admitted that there are internal political tensions in the country but that the calls for his resignation following the signing of the “end of war” statement have not been widely heard.
Armenian opposition parties have been organizing protests in the country’s capital Yerevan following the trilateral agreement signed by presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia that saw large parts of Karabakh territory transferred to Azerbaijan,
When asked about the possibility of early parliamentary elections, Pashinyan responded that the government and all political forces must focus on the restoration of the internal and external stability and security of the country.
Last week, Pashinyan presented a six-month government roadmap, which he says is meant to provide paths, methods and programs to overcome the current situation.
The prime minister told Tass News that only after the completion of the 15-point roadmap, he will make a decision on further steps.
“This does not mean that the government thinks everything is fine. We are all dissatisfied with the situation that has been created. But we must understand what alternatives we have. We must work so as not to worsen the situation, but to stabilize and improve it,” Pashinyan said.
Saeed Khatibzadeh said Zarif’s trip to Armenia is being studied and he is probable to visit his newly appointed Armenian counterpart and other senior Armenian officials in Yerevan, in the near future.
As he added, regional issues and the expansion of cooperation between the two countries would be discussed in Zarif’s visit to Armenia.
Yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that Iranian FM is scheduled to visit Moscow to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh and issues of mutual interests.
However, Khatibzadeh explained that it is not clear yet if Zarif’s trip to Armenia will follow up his trip to Moscow or not.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced on Thursday that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is to visit Moscow on November 25 to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh and issues of mutual interests.
The two top diplomats are also to discuss the latest developments in the Persian Gulf, the issues related to the JCPOA, Syria, Afghanistan, Zakharova said.
Economic issues and joint plans in energy, transportation, and expansion of cultural relations are on the agenda of the visit, she added.
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