Category: 2020

Syunik Governor resigns

Baghdasarian Karlen

Save

Share

 18:52,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Governor of Armenia’s Syunik Province Hunan Poghosyan has resigned on November 30, his assistant Armine Avagyan confirmed the news to Armenpress.

“Hunan Poghosyan has submitted a resignation letter, but at the moment he continues his duties until a respective decision by the government is made”, she said.

Hunan Poghosyan has been appointed Governor of Syunik in October 2018.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Armenian Deputy PM and ICRC representatives discuss issues relating to exchange of POWs

Hovik Karapetian

Save

Share

 19:22,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan received today head of the Delegation of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia Claire Meytraud on the occasion of the latter’s mission, as well as new head of the Delegation Thierry Ribo, the deputy PM’s Office told Armenpress.

The deputy PM thanked Claire Meytraud for the works done in Armenia and expressed hope that the comprehensive partnership with the ICRC Delegation under the leadership of Thierry Ribo will continue and will further expand.

The ICRC officials thanked the Armenian agencies for the support which enables to efficiently conduct the mission of the organization. They also introduced the process of the ICRC activities.

The sides discussed issues relating to the exchange process of prisoners of war, the search for missing in action and the bodies of the dead. Deputy PM Avinyan highlighted the ICRC support and mediation role, as well as the urgency of accelerating the aforementioned processes. He said the Armenian side fully follows the civilizational rules envisaged by the Geneva conventions and their additional protocols, and will continue to follow the spirit of the conventions.

Avinyan touched upon the cases of violations of international humanitarian law by Azerbaijan both during the war and after that. He expressed concerns also over the obstacles created by the Azerbaijani side in the works on return of captured persons, search for missing in action and the bodies of the dead.

He also presented the main principles and mechanisms proposed by the Armenian side on the exchange process of POWs.

The meeting sides also discussed the humanitarian situation in Artsakh and issues relating to the need assessment of the Artsakh residents.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Armenian minister, US Ambassador discuss possibility of new course in defense cooperation

Boris Nahapetian

Save

Share

 20:56,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Defense Vagharshak Harutyunyan received today US Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy, the defense ministry told Armenpress.

The US Ambassador congratulated Mr. Harutyunyan on appointment as the defense minister.

The defense minister briefed the US Ambassador on the implementation process of the agreements reached after the cessation of military operations in Nagorno Karabakh. As a priority, he highlighted the works on the return of prisoners of war, search for missing in action and the bodies of the dead, as well as the activities of the International Committee of Red Cross, the Russian defense ministry and the Russian peacekeeping mission in Artsakh.

The Armenian defense minister also stated that currently they are analyzing the military operations and assess the shortcomings which can lead to structural, decision-making procedure, strategy and legislative changes.

The opportunities of giving a new course to the Armenian-American cooperation in the defense field were discussed during the meeting. The sides agreed that as a result of additional discussions new cooperation areas and directions will be initiated based on the interests of the sides.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine 94.1% effective

Karapet Navasardian

Save

Share

 21:07,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. U.S.- based ”Moderna Therapeutics”, co-founded and chaired by Noubar Afeyan, has announced that its vaccine against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is 94.1% effective.

“We will continue to work on actions initiated by several regulating bodies in the world”, the company said in a statement.

The company also said that it will apply for US and European emergency regulatory approval of its coronavirus vaccine so that it can be recommended for widespread use.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Armenian PM’s wife meets with mothers of captured and missing servicemen

Emil Lazarian

Save

Share

 19:51,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Spouse of the Armenian prime minister, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of My Step charitable foundation, Anna Hakobyan, had a meeting on November 30 with the mothers of the Armenian servicemen who have been captured by Azerbaijan or have been declared missing during the recent war in Artsakh, the My Step foundation said on Facebook.

Anna Hakobyan expressed her support to the mothers of the servicemen. “Both I and my family share your feelings and pain. Everything is being done at the highest level to find a way out of the situation and return our sons to their families”, she said.

The mothers of captured and missing servicemen expressed their concerns over the situation.

Anna Hakobyan promised to convey their concerns to the respective structures.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Armenpress: Earthquake near Georgian town of Dmanisi felt in Armenia’s Lori province

Hunanian Jack

Earthquake near Georgian town of Dmanisi felt in Armenia’s Lori province

Save

Share

 21:23,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. On November 30, at 19:09 local time, the Seismic Protection Survey Seismological Network of the Armenian ministry of emergency situations detected an earthquake at the northern latitude 41.310 and eastern longitude 43.980 geographic coordinates (Georgia, 19km south-west from the town of Dmanisi) with 2.9 magnitude and 10km depth, the ministry told Armenpress.         

The tremor measured magnitude 4 points at the epicenter area.

The earthquake was also felt in Metsavan and Dzoramut villages of Armenia’s Lori province with magnitude 2-3 points.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

No, Kosovo Is Not a Precedent for Nagorno-Karabakh

Babken Chilingarian
The National Interest
Nov 29 2020

Time and time again, all sides have stated that Kosovo was a one-time thing and not a formal legal precedent. Invoking it in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrates an unwillingness to recognize this reality.

by Ayaz Rzayev
When major Western powers supported Kosovo’s independence bid, they unequivocally warned that Kosovo was sui generis—a one-time deal, a special case under international law that cannot be used under any circumstances as a precedent for other situations. However, in retrospect, it did not stop separatists from appealing to the Kosovo case whenever it seemed opportune to them. As British historian Timothy Garton Ash succinctly put it at the time: “Kosovo is unique, and there will be more Kosovos.” This was first demonstrated in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and then in Crimea in 2014. After the Crimean referendum, Russian president Vladimir Putin argued that the Kosovo case which “our western colleagues created with their own hands in a very similar situation” was an appropriate precedent for Crimea.

The Crimea case has shed light on just how detrimental introducing exemptions to already established norms of international law can be. Separatists became convinced that the West’s stance on separatism is largely an issue of framing, regardless of how many times the Western officials have stated otherwise. So, they believe that they can succeed in lobbying their case in the West if only they can construct an attractive enough narrative that will appeal to the Western audience. During the Catalan Referendum of independence in 2017, for example, the Catalonian government’s strategy was to compel the European community to intervene in Spain by trying to convince them that, just like in Kosovo, there was no other viable solution except to secede in the face of the “authoritarian nature” of the Spanish government. 

Similar tactics have been employed by the Armenian government in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh as well. The Kosovo case was warmly welcomed by the Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, the success of which they hoped to emulate. They also supported the annexation of Crimea, arguing that it was yet “another manifestation of realization of the right of people to self-determination.” Moreover, during the UN voting in March 2014, Armenia voted down the UN General Assembly resolution supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and declaring the annexation of Crimea illegal. At the time, Garen Nazarian, Armenia’s ambassador to the UN, framed Armenia’s decision to vote against the resolution as promoting “decolonization and self-determination.”

The Armenian advocacy groups in the West love to argue that based on the Kosovo case, the United States should urgently recognize Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence. And this is despite the fact that at the time the U.S. State Department explicitly warned that Kosovo was not a precedent and should not be seen as a precedent for any other place out there in the world and that it “certainly isn’t a precedent for Nagorno-Karabakh.” Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan himself has repeatedly argued in recent months that the international community should recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state based on the principle of remedial secession. The problem is not just that the doctrine of remedial secession—which claims that secession can be accepted as the last resort for ending oppression—is a myth, does not have a strong theoretical foundation in international law, and overall has no relevance whatsoever to the “frozen conflicts” in the post-Soviet region. It also presents a false dilemma of having to choose between a well-integrated society and external self-determination while completely ignoring a much more effective third approach to the conflict resolution—an internal self-determination, which not only allows for both intergroup cooperation and sufficient autonomy to co-exist, but also is the only viable way to ensure sustained peace in the region.
While international law incorporates the concept of self-determination, it does not entail a right to secession. It is generally accepted that the right of self-determination may not be used to disaggregate the territory of a sovereign state outside the decolonization paradigm. Except in those cases of decolonization, international law is in favor of realizing the right to self-determination through internal means, which entails a right to self-rule without complete political separation. Territorial integrity of states against secession is guaranteed under international law and for good reason. If every separatist group, often driven by dangerous forms of nationalism, pursued external self-determination, it would completely destabilize the current liberal international order.

Then there is sometimes also the dark reality of occupation hiding behind the glitzy façade of self-determination. As it was the case with Crimea, occupiers try to portray their claim as democratic and strive to link their claim to liberal values in one way or another. When Armenian nationalists launched the Miatsum (Unification) movement in 1988, the ultimate goal was to annex Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. However, to get around international disapproval of irredentism and win over liberals, the occupation was later rebranded as a fight for self-determination. 

Moreover, separatists often seek to gather international sympathy for their cause by attempting to present a moral case for separatism. The main problem with ethnically based right to secede however is that it is very hard sometimes to separate secessionist logic from the mentality that advocates for ethnonational purity and ethnic cleansing. By denying a chance for a more pluralistic and inclusive notion of the nation to exist, the secessionist worldview can be very regressive by its nature, and as such epitomize the very ills of ethnic nationalism that the postwar liberal order has sought to do away with. Upholding the principle of territorial integrity also makes good sense, given that there are already too many failed states in the world that undermine the stability of their surrounding regions and increase the possibility of wars and human suffering.

The Armenian government also likes to argue that Nagorno-Karabakh achieved independence “through a popular democratic referendum.” In practice, such a referendum is nothing more than an opinion poll. Under international law, a unilateral declaration of independence based on a referendum is no more legitimate than a unilateral secession without a popular vote. Following Kosovo’s independence bid in 2008, Belgrade made a strategic mistake by asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on the legality of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, rather than asking the ICJ to rule on the legality of Kosovo seceding from Serbia. If the ICJ decided that the act of secession had violated international law, major European powers would have found themselves in an extremely awkward position of having to defend an act that had been unequivocally declared illegal under international law. Alternatively, had the ICJ ruled that Kosovo’s secession had not violated international law, it would have opened the floodgates for numerous other acts of secession. In the end, Serbia’s error allowed the Court to avoid addressing the key issue of secession—whether there is a right to secede—and instead take the narrowest approach possible by stating that, in general, there is no prohibition in international law against declaration of independence as a mere statement, unless it is explicitly banned by the Security Council. In essence, a declaration of independence is a free speech issue. Like in Crimea, just because someone can say that they are independent does not make it a legally-binding reality. 
However, it goes further than this. Accepting the claim to external self-determination predominantly advanced by the ethnic Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh, which cannot alone represent the Nagorno-Karabakh population as a whole, risks legitimizing the ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh. The atrocities against Azerbaijanis are still denied by the Armenian side because it does not align with the victimization narrative that has been carefully constructed over the years to legitimize violence against Azerbaijanis as resistance. Just like the Armenians, the ethnically cleansed Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh and, in fact, all citizens of Azerbaijan have a right of self-determination, as well, which incorporates, among other things, the right to vote on the future of their country and not to have their country torn apart.
The Armenian government also loves to argue that Azerbaijan does not recognize the legitimate grievances of the Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is blatantly false. If it were true, then, throughout the negotiation process, Azerbaijan would not have advocated for both the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh to be the interested parties of the conflict and repeatedly declared that it is ready to offer the region the highest possible autonomy existing in the world in order to allow the Armenian community to exercise their political and cultural rights to the fullest extent. If the sole reason of insisting that what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh was occupation by an aggressor state is just a complicated plot to ignore local grievances, then Azerbaijan—even now when negotiations obviously failed and Azerbaijan is winning the war that it wanted to avoid for a long time at all cost and under no obligation to do so—would not offer the region the cultural autonomy and introducing observers and peacekeepers to the region to rebuild the trust.
The fact of the matter is that the ceasefire of 1994 left Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia. Despite Armenia claiming otherwise, the fact of occupation has been confirmed numerous times by various impartial international bodies. In 2015, the European Court of Human Rights reaffirmed that Armenia’s military and political support to Nagorno-Karabakh amounts to “effective control” of the region. The Court pointed out the obvious fact, still vehemently rejected by Armenia, that “it is hardly conceivable that Nagorno-Karabakh—an entity with a population of less than 150,000 ethnic Armenians—was able, without the substantial military support of Armenia, to set up a defense force in early 1992 that, against the country of Azerbaijan with approximately seven million people, not only established control of the former NKAO but also, before the end of 1993, conquered the whole or major parts of seven surrounding Azerbaijani districts.” The concept of effective control lies at the heart of the notion of occupation. It is a conditio sine qua non of belligerent occupation. 
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/no-kosovo-not-precedent-nagorno-karabakh-173478


Sanctions on Azerbaijan Should Go Beyond Military and Aid Embargo

Tatoyan Vazgen
The National Interest
Nov 29 2020

It is time for Congress to act, acknowledge the illegality of any further aid to Azerbaijan and ensure individuals responsible for war crimes are held to account.

by Michael Rubin

STEPANAKERT, NAGORNO-KARABAKH—Armenians are angry at the U.S. State Department. On March 26, 2020, Deputy Secretary Stephen Biegun granted Azerbaijan its annual waiver to Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act of 1992. In effect, Biegun certified that Azerbaijan both remained committed to diplomacy to resolve its dispute with Armenia and would assist to counter terrorism. Absent such certification, the United States would be unable to provide aid and military assistance to Azerbaijan.

Either there was a massive intelligence failure or diplomats lied. Azerbaijanis surprised Armenians when they launched a massive, multi-pronged assault on Nagorno-Karabakh in the early morning hours of September 27, a sleepy Sunday with Armenians at home or in church. Missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and airstrikes targeted military bases, key infrastructure, and civilian targets near-simultaneously across Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory which Josef Stalin had awarded to Azerbaijan at the beginning of his rule but which sought union with Armenia as the Soviet Union began to crumble and declared its independence as the Soviet Union dissolved. Over subsequent years, ethnic violence grew. Azeris launched pogroms against the Armenian Christian population in Sumgait and Baku while Armenian forces reportedly killed villagers at Khujaly. Ultimately, Armenians broke Azerbaijan’s siege of Nagorno-Karabakh and occupied Azerbaijani districts separating Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia proper. The self-declared but unrecognized Republic of Artsakh has since ruled the territories.

In 1992, Azerbaijan and Armenia committed themselves to resolve the dispute diplomatically through the Minsk Group, an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe body co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States. Diplomats say the parties agreed to a basic land-for-peace deal which neutral peacekeepers likely from Scandinavia would guarantee.

While fighting flared on occasion over the decades along the lines-of-control, the most recent war was an order of magnitude greater than anything seen in decades. Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh (where I have traveled using my own general travel funding and without the sponsorship of any Armenian, Azeri, or other organization) liken it to “Pearl Harbor.” In hindsight, they are right.

The Azerbaijan-Turkey surprise attack came after an escalating series of joint military exercise which the State Department and U.S. intelligence community seemingly ignored. Between July 29 and August 10, 2020, for example, the two armies carried out the so-called TurAz Eagle 2020 exercises involving ground and air assaults with live fire. Turkish F-16s used in the exercise remained in Azerbaijan and subsequently participated in the September 27 attack. The two armies also conducted “war games“ in May. That same month, Azerbaijan deployed a Turkish-manufactured multiple launch rocket system near the Nagorno-Karabakh border. On February 25, 2020, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Ilham Aliyev, the presidents of Turkey and Azerbaijan respectively, inked an agreement to provide greater Turkish weaponry to Azerbaijan. In short, Turkey and Azerbaijan appear to have decided months before their surprise attack to dispense with the Minsk process.

Azerbaijan’s abandonment of diplomacy would be reason enough for the White House and State Department to end its waiver of Section 907, but Aliyev has also violated counter-terror commitments by utilizing Syrian mercenaries who apparently have Al Qaeda or Islamic State links in the fight. Armenian officials confirm to me the capture of Syrian mercenaries. International journalists have also confirmed the participation of the Syrians. Simply put, any continued waiver for Azerbaijan flies in the face of the law and insults Congress.

Now that the guns have fallen silent, however, the incoming Biden administration should impose Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on those responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes in the conflict. Azerbaijan is an absolute dictatorship, ranked below both Cuba and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in political freedom. The decision to deceive the United States and resort to a military surprise attack rests with both Aliyev and his wife (and vice president) Mehriban. Indeed, the Dutch Parliament has already approved sanctions on the pair for this reason.

The need for Magnitsky sanctions is also crucial because both during the war and in its aftermath, Azeri forces and Syrian mercenaries have videoed themselves torturing and subsequently executing prisoners, both military and civilian. At the very least, the United States and Europe must demand Azerbaijan identify its personnel and militias who appear on the videos and to hand them over to international authorities for war crimes prosecutions. Any Azeri or Turkish official under whom they served should also face prosecution if they gave the order to conduct atrocities or if they failed to stop such actions.

Eight years ago, I testified before Congress on the South Caucasus. At the time, I considered Azerbaijan a better ally to the United States than Armenia, but today the reality is the opposite because of two factors: First, in 2018, Armenia underwent a democratic revolution. Today, it is a democracy while Azerbaijan has slid further into dictatorship. Second, Azerbaijan’s use of Syrian mercenaries shows it has become a terror sponsor rather than counter-terror partner.

Now that the guns in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan have fallen silent, it is easy to ignore Nagorno-Karabakh and move on. This would be a mistake. Not only is the integrity of U.S. and multilateral diplomacy at stake, but so is the credibility of U.S. law. To do nothing would both affirm the idea that might makes right and reward the aggressors. Inaction would guarantee Turkey and Azerbaijan would continue to use Islamist mercenaries in a way that could inflame ethnic tension and promote religious warfare. It is time for Congress to act, acknowledge the illegality of any further aid to Azerbaijan and ensure individuals responsible for war crimes are held to account.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/sanctions-azerbaijan-should-go-beyond-military-and-aid-embargo-173499?fbclid=IwAR1HxdSu136RZppIHspwk3a7Lw1sytJpUo-Jiejd3BGIoJGoqyOIXkaCzIo










Nagorno-Karabakh refugees see little chance of returning home after peace deal

Emma Jilavian
Politico
Nov 30 2020

Fear and mistrust prevent many from returning after a Russian-negotiated agreement changed the map.

By Andrew Connelly

4:05 am 

YEREVAN, Armenia — Two weeks after a Moscow-brokered peace agreement changed the map of the South Caucasus, fear and mistrust stalk the communities displaced by the redrawn borders.

In the early hours of November 10, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced a cease-fire deal had been signed with Azerbaijan and Russia to end the fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh, which has killed thousands of troops and dozens of civilians.

The punishing terms of the agreement saw Armenia cede areas in and around Nagorno-Karabakh — an enclave internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but controlled by Armenians since the 1990s — to Baku, including the strategic city of Shusha, known to Armenians as Shushi.

The war, which began in late September, displaced a large part of the enclave’s population; Nagorno-Karabakh authorities estimated 90,000 of 150,000 inhabitants fled. Many made their way to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, sheltering in hotels, schools and apartments of private citizens. The government is struggling to find accommodation for the rest.

Some have returned. On Sunday, local officials claimed that as many as 25,000 residents had gone back home since hostilities ended.

Among the returnees was Arega Pogosyan, 64, who had fled her hometown of Martuni in eastern Nagorno-Karabakh a month ago.

Martuni has been devastated, having been bombarded throughout the six-week war. Broken glass and twisted metal line the road to Pogosyan’s house; just across the street stands the town’s cultural center, its windows blown out and walls spattered with shrapnel. But that didn’t deter Pogosyan.

“I have a daughter and six grandchildren,” she said, “and they are all back now too. We don’t have electricity or gas but we have candles and wood. We’ll survive. This is my home and it’s better to starve to death here than move.”

But not everyone shares her confidence.

In the outskirts of Yerevan, Onnik Davidian wandered around a drafty government-run shelter for displaced people. Until the fighting erupted, the 62-year-old operated a movie projector in his village’s social club, screening old Soviet and Bollywood films.

“Now,” he said, “it’s a place where we hold wakes for the dead.”

Davidian’s village of Vardadzor lies in the province of Martakert, which will remain under ethnic Armenian control, although several nearby settlements were handed to Azerbaijan on November 20. He was gloomy about the prospects of returning.

“What do we have left? We feel we are surrounded now. I know it was either death or give them the land, but Pashinyan should still resign, that’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Pashinyan has resisted repeated calls for his resignation since signing the peace deal, with unrest exploding in Yerevan shortly after his announcement. Subsequent days saw a series of high-profile resignations, including the foreign and defense ministers.

Azerbaijan, meanwhile, erupted in celebration. Baku has since said that Armenians wishing to live under its rule would become Azerbaijani citizens and be granted rights and protections.

Azerbaijanis know the pain of displacement: During the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were driven from their homes by Armenian forces in and around the contested territory. Many of them now hope to return to the areas that Azerbaijan has retaken.

Yet many Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians believe they would not be safe under Azerbaijan’s rule, and have little hope of returning. Some even set their homes on fire before Wednesday’s handover of Kelbajar, the penultimate region to be ceded to Azerbaijan.

“They say there has been looting. Do we even have a house to go back to?” asked Hrant Yardumyan, 62, a pensioner from Lachin — the last region to be transferred to Azerbaijan on December 1.

  

“I don’t trust anyone,” he added. “Not Azerbaijan, not Russia, not Armenia. Lachin isn’t safe anymore, the enemy is next door.”

Olesya Vartanyan, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said that with continuing uncertainty around matters like law and order, property rights and the political status of Nagorno-Karabakh, many will be reluctant to go back.

“If an Armenian or an Azerbaijani crosses into each other’s territory, what will happen to that person? Which body will prosecute them? It’s naïve to think that life will remain the same, but the difference is how local people will view the change — as one of humiliation and living under constant threat, or one of safety and confidence,” she said.

Some are certain they cannot return.

Ani Hayrapetyan, 27, fled the town she knows as Shushi with her daughter and extended family while the male relatives stayed behind to defend their hometown.

“My husband called me twice to say goodbye,” she said. The couple, who ran a children’s entertainment business, were eventually reunited but now their city is firmly under Azerbaijani control, leaving its 4,000 former residents exiled.

Hayrapetyan and her family are sheltering in a relative’s apartment in Yerevan and have felt welcome in the city, although a recent incident while enrolling her daughter at a school has made her wonder if the mood toward the newly displaced could darken.

“As we were leaving, the psychologist came up to us yelling: ‘If you have one drop of patriotic blood in your body, go back to Karabakh. Our soldiers died for you,’” she recounted.

She added: “I’m trying to stay positive but many others are in torment and mental health is a taboo subject here. But it’s time to let go of the emotion and start the hard work. We can’t wait for help to come to us, we have to do it ourselves.”

Last week, the European Commission pledged €3 million in emergency aid to civilians caught up in the conflict and Russia said it would be sending construction materials and medical equipment. But to date, the humanitarian response in Armenia has largely been a grassroots operation — with ordinary citizens opening their doors to refugees and fundraising for essential supplies.

Zabelle Berberian, 64, used to welcome tourists from around the world in her hilltop hotel in Yerevan but now accommodates more than 40 refugees from across Nagorno-Karabakh free of charge with financial support from the U.S.-based Armenian diaspora. In the street outside the hotel, a fluttering black banner — a ubiquitous sight across the country — marks the home of a fallen soldier.

For the past month, Berberian has listened to guests recounting the loss of their loved ones. In the nation of 3 million, almost everyone knows someone who died; the death toll on the Armenian side stands at nearly 2,500. (Azerbaijan has not disclosed its losses.) The figure is certain to rise as bodies continue to be salvaged from the battlefield.

On an iPad, Berberian pulled up a photo taken weeks ago of a group of more than 20 young men from her hometown standing in formation. “They were volunteer soldiers. All of them except two or three died. Killed in the same drone strike,” she said.

Many of the women at Berberian’s hotel are from the de-facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, which will remain under Armenian control but lies in the shadow of the captured mountaintop city of Shusha/Shushi, 5 kilometers away.

The new proximity to Azerbaijan is unnerving for many, despite the presence of some 2,000 Russian troops who will patrol the line of contact for at least the next five years.

Rozanna Arestamyan, 45, is unconvinced the Russians can protect them. “I stopped believing in anyone and I’m losing the desire to go back,” she said. “We need Armenians there to defend us, not Russians.”

“It’s impossible for us to live together, we’ve been enemies throughout history,” said another woman from Stepanakert who didn’t give her name. “Yes, the Russians are there but Azerbaijanis are in Shushi and they can fire at us whenever they want. We won’t be going back.”

A man who worked for the town’s local council joined in: “We would prefer Russians not to be there, but we trust them more than any of the European countries that did nothing for us other than talk. It’s a lesser evil.”

At Yerevan’s southern bus station on a gray Thursday morning, Aghavnik Balasaryan, 34, waited for a bus to return to Stepanakert with her three young children and a pile of plastic bags containing clothes. In the early days of the fighting, before evacuating, she worked as nurse in the local children’s hospital. She bit her lip at the memories.

“We saw terrible things. Soldiers came with injuries that I can’t forget,” she said. “Thank God our house is okay, but I pity the ones whose homes were crushed. Some are going back and some will stay, but many will leave for Armenia or Russia.”

The family spent most of the war in Echmiadzin, a city near Yerevan, accommodated in a primary school with more than 100 other refugees.  

“They treated us very well, but it was near the airport and my youngest daughter panicked every time a plane passed overhead,” she recounted.

Her son was less timid. “He wants to be a soldier, like his father. We bought him a toy tank.”

“I want to get a gun!” the son shouted.

“Oh yes, you want to get a gun and kill the Turks?” Balasaryan asked, using a derogatory term many Armenians use for Azerbaijanis. (Turkey and Azerbaijan share many historical, cultural and linguistic ties, and Ankara has supported Baku in the fight over Nagorno-Karabakh.)

“I want to get a gun and kill the Turks!” the three-year-old boy cried.

A fleet of buses pulled up and dozens of families began piling in. A child poked a Nagorno-Karabakh flag out of the window. Balasaryan picked up a clutch of bags and smiled sadly.

“Before the war we felt free. Now we will find out if we still are.”




Armenia’s PM provides details on non-implemented visit of ex-presidents Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan to Moscow

Antranik Varosian
Aysor, Armenia
Nov 30 2020

On October 20, the second and third presidents of Artsakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan, proposed to arrange a meeting of the current and former leaders of Armenia and Artsakh, which would be an _expression_ of national unity during the days of the, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on Facebook on Monday, adding that after some discussion, he agreed.

“We agreed that when they signal that the retired presidents of Armenia are ready, I will arrange the meeting. Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan said at our next meeting that a nuance was added to the idea: Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan want to go to Moscow, have high-level meetings there, and our meeting will be organized after their return and will become a kind of information combination, an event of more informed discussion of the situation,” Pashinyan wrote, adding that he was not against the idea.

“I would even provide the state plane, let them leave, have meetings, return. The retired presidents of Artsakh, however, raised another issue after my consent. They said that it is necessary for me to mediate with RF President Vladimir Putin for him to receive L. Ter-Petrosyan and R. Kocharyan as special envoys.

I responded as follows: I am in constant contact with the President of Russia. There are days I talk to him on the phone five or six times. Now if he asks me, what do you have to say that you cannot tell me directly and you want to say it through special envoys, what should I answer?

The same question arose also in the case of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, when the retired presidents of Artsakh said that our Foreign Minister also mediate to Lavrov that he receive our special envoys. Our Foreign Minister is in constant contact with the RF Foreign Minister; their meeting is scheduled in Moscow. If Lavrov asks our Foreign Minister the same question, what should he answer?

I offered another option: To quickly arrange Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan’s ceremonial visit to Moscow as retired presidents, where they will be the guest of retired RF President Dmitry Medvedev, who is also the deputy chairman of the RF SC Security Council, and within the framework of the visit try to arrange courteous meetings with the RF President, Foreign Minister, and other high-ranking officials.

Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan left, promising to discuss this option with Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan. It turned out that the latter are not much interested in option I suggested. Bako Sahakyan, unexpected for me, stated that Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan have an agreement to meet with Sergey Lavrov.

In that case, what do they want from me? If they have an arrangement, let them go to Moscow, meet. It turned out that the issue is R. Kocharyan’s passport, which is in court. I said let them submit a petition to the court, I will ask that the prosecution does not to object to the return of the passport. That’s what happened; the court returned Kocharyan’s passport, but Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan did not head for Moscow,” Pashinyan wrote.

It was reported that Kocharyan was to head to Moscow for negotiations but tested positive for coronavirus.