Monday,
Provincial Governor Resigns
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia -- The newly appointed governor of Syunik, Hunan Poghosyan, addresses a
rally in the province, October 19, 2018.
Hunan Poghosian, the governor of Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province,
tendered his resignation on Monday.
An aide to Poghosian, Armine Avagian, gave no reason for the move.
Avagian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that Poghosian will continue to perform
his duties until the Armenian government appoints a new governor of the
mountainous region bordering Iran and Azerbaijan.
Poghosian’s resignation was announced as the Armenian side essentially completed
its withdrawal from districts around Nagorno-Karabakh in line with a
Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the Karabakh war on November 10.
Syunik borders three of those districts: Lachin, Kubatli and Zangelan. Some
Syunik border sections became new Armenian-Azerbaijani frontlines as Azerbaijani
troops reached and advanced through those districts in October. They shelled
several Syunik villages, killing and wounding several local residents.
Poghosian signaled his intention to resign in a statement issued on November 16.
“But at the moment our priority is to strengthen our borders and make them
impregnable,” he said.
Poghosian, 56, is a retired police general who was appointed as Syunik governor
in October 2018 six months after the “Velvet Revolution” that brought Nikol
Pashinian to power. He served as first deputy chief of the Armenian police until
the Pashinian-led mass protests that toppled the country’s former government.
Armenian President Appeals To Putin
• Naira Bulghadarian
Belarus - Presidents Armen Sarkissian (L) of Armenia and Vladimir Putin of
Russia attend the opening ceremony of the European Games in Minsk, June 20, 2019.
President Armen Sarkissian asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on
Monday to help free Armenian soldiers and civilians remaining in Azerbaijani
captivity after the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
A ceasefire agreement brokered by Putin on November 9 calls for the exchange of
all Armenian and Azerbaijani prisoners of war (POWs) and civilian captives. The
process has still not begun and it remains unclear clear when the warring sides
will start implementing this provision.
Armenia’s human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, accused Baku last week of
“artificially dragging out” the release of POWs as well as the search for the
bodies of Armenian soldiers killed in action.
The Armenian presidential press office said Sarkissian has sent a letter to
Putin saying that many in Armenia are very concerned about the fate of the POWs
and civilian captives and that Putin can help to speed up their release.
Sarkissian sent the letter during what his office described as a private visit
to Moscow. The largely ceremonial head of state met over the weekend with
leaders of the Armenian community in Russia to discuss the aftermath of the war.
The Armenian military has not yet publicized the number of its soldiers who were
taken prisoner during the war. The number of Azerbaijani POWs also remains
unknown.
Yerevan-based human rights lawyers have identified about 50 Armenian POWs and
detainees in lawsuits asking the European Court of Human Rights to order Baku to
provide information about their health and prison conditions.
Hundreds of other Armenian and Karabakh soldiers remain unaccounted for.
Relatives of some of these servicemen met in Stepanakert on Monday with Ara
Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, and General Rustam Muradov, the commander
of Russian peacekeeping forces deployed to Karabakh in line with the truce
accord.
“Every effort is now made at the highest state level to establish the
whereabouts of all our missing compatriots as soon as possible,” Harutiunian
said at the meeting. In his words, more than 600 corpses have already been
recovered from former Karabakh battlefields.
Former Armenian Presidents Hit Back At Pashinian
Armenia -- Former Presidents Levon Ter-Petrosian (L) and Robert Kocharian.
Former Presidents Levon Ter-Petrosian and Robert Kocharian accused Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian on Monday of blatantly lying about their offers to
negotiate with Russia and try to stop the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian hit out at them in a series of Facebook posts that defended his
handling of the war which resulted in sweeping territorial gains made by
Azerbaijan.
Amid continuing opposition calls for his resignation, the embattled premier
claimed on Sunday that Ter-Petrosian, Kocharian and another former president,
Serzh Sarkisian, objected on October 19 to key terms of a ceasefire agreement
which Moscow thought would stop the hostilities.
In another statement posted on Monday morning, he questioned the sincerity and
seriousness of Kocharian’s and Ter-Petrosian’s stated readiness to fly to
Moscow, as Armenia’s “special envoys,” for urgent talks with Russian leaders.
Pashinian said they wanted him to arrange a meeting with Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin or Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He said he suggested that they
talk instead to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and try to organize
unofficial “courtesy meetings” with Putin, Lavrov or other senior Russian
officials.
Pashinian added that the two ex-presidents did not travel to Moscow even after
he helped Kocharian secure a court order allowing the latter to leave Armenia.
Kocharian has been standing trial on coup charges rejected by him as politically
motivated.
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian greets supporters during his trial,
Yerevan, February 25, 2020.
Victor Soghomonian, the head of Kocharian’s office, swiftly denied Pashinian’s
claims. “Lies and distortions are inseparable from Nikol,” he said.
Ter-Petrosian issued an even more scathing denial through his spokesman, Arman
Musinian.
“President Ter-Petrosian finds it meaningless to comment on the
nation-destroying scourge’s mental torments,” Musinian wrote on his Facebook
page. “Let him blurt out whatever he wants. There is no way he can make excuses.”
“The Armenian people will never forgive him,” Musinian added, alluding to the
outcome of the six-week war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on November
10.
The ceasefire agreement locked in the Azerbaijani territorial gains and led to
Armenian withdrawal from three more districts around Karabakh.
Levon Zurabian, Ter-Petrosian’s right-hand man, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
on November 20 that Pashinian did not give the ex-president a “mandate” to
negotiate in Moscow a better peace deal in October.
Armenia - Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian at his election campaign
headquarters in Yerevan, 2Apr2017.
Echoing statements by other opposition leaders, Zurabian also blamed Pashinian
for the military defeat. “This primarily resulted from the fact that Nikol
Pashinian has an insatiable and morbid vanity and is absolutely ignorant about
international relations, geopolitics and military affairs,” he charged.
Ter-Petrosian and Kocharian reportedly met October 20 for the first time in over
two decades. They were joined by Sarkisian and two former Karabakh presidents.
The meeting was noteworthy given the long history of mutual antagonism between
Ter-Petrosian on one side and Kocharian and Sarkisian on the other.
Ter-Petrosian, who had served as Armenia’s first president from 1991-1998, ran
in a disputed 2008 presidential election in an unsuccessful bid to prevent the
handover of power from Kocharian to Sarkisian.
Pashinian played a major role in Ter-Petrosian’s 2008 opposition movement and
spent nearly two years in prison as a result. He subsequently fell out with the
ex-president and set up his own party.
Pashinian Confirms Rejecting Earlier Karabakh Truce Agreement
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Bursts of explosions are seen during fighting between
Armenian and Azerbaijan's forces near Shushi (Susa) outside Stepanakert,
November 5, 2020
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has confirmed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
assertion that he could have stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh three weeks
before the Armenian-Armenian ceasefire brokered by Moscow on November 9.
In November 17 televised remarks, Putin said that the Armenian side would have
suffered fewer territorial losses and, in particular, retained control of the
strategic Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) had Pashinian agreed to Azerbaijan’s
terms of a ceasefire on October 20.
Shushi was captured by Azerbaijani forces two or three days before the
subsequent truce agreement halted the war on November 10. Azerbaijan agreed to
stop its military operations in return for an Armenian pledge to withdraw from
three districts around Karabakh.
Baku regained control over four other districts, which had been occupied by
Karabakh Armenian forces in the early 1990s, during the latest war. Its troops
also captured Karabakh’s southern Hadrut district.
Speaking to the Rossiya-24 TV channel, Putin said: “On October 19–20, I had a
series of telephone conversations with [Azerbaijani] President Aliyev and Prime
Minister Pashinian. At that time, the armed forces of Azerbaijan regained
control over an insignificant part of Nagorno-Karabakh, namely, its southern
section.
“On the whole, I managed to convince President Aliyev that it was possible to
end hostilities, but the return of [Azerbaijani] refugees, including to Shusha,
was a mandatory condition on his part. Unexpectedly for me, the position of our
Armenian partners was that they perceived this as something unacceptable.”
“At that point, the prime minister told me that his country could not agree to
this, and that it will keep fighting,” added Putin.
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Azerbaijani soldiers patrol at a checkpoint on a road
outside the town of Shushi (Susa), November 26, 2020.
Pashinian essentially confirmed this on Sunday evening. In a lengthy Facebook
post, he insisted that Yerevan’s acceptance of the earlier deal negotiated by
Putin and the resulting return of refugees to Shushi would have also restored
Azerbaijani control of the town overlooking the Karabakh capital Stepanakert.
“The problem was that in that case more than 90 percent of Shushi’s population
would be Azerbaijanis who would control the road to Stepanakert … Thus the
agreement did not materialize,” he wrote.
Pashinian claimed that Putin found his arguments “logical.” Putin’s November 17
comments suggest the opposite.
“Prime Minister Pashinian told me openly that he viewed [the return of
Azerbaijanis to Shushi] as a threat to the interests of Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Russian president told Rossiya-24. “I do not quite
understand the essence of this hypothetical threat. I mean, it was about the
return of civilians to their homes, while the Armenian side was to have retained
control over this section of Nagorno-Karabakh, including Shusha.”
Pashinian sought to justify his rejection of the October 20 ceasefire terms as
he continued to defend his handling of the six-week war strongly condemned by
the Armenian opposition and a growing number of other domestic critics. They
hold him responsible for Azerbaijan’s military victory and demand the Armenian
government’s resignation and the conduct of snap parliamentary elections.
The critics have seized upon Putin’s revelation and portrayed it as further
proof of Pashinian’s incompetence and disastrous decision-making. They say that
the prime minister would have not only kept more territory under Armenian
control but also saved the lives of hundreds and possibly thousands of Armenian
soldiers had he agreed to the proposed ceasefire on October 20.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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