Category: 2020

‘We should not forget who started this stage of war’: Armenian president points finger at Azerbaijan in exclusive RT interview

Emil Lazarian
RT – Russia Today
Oct 12 2020
‘We should not forget who started this stage of war’: Armenian president points finger at Azerbaijan in exclusive RT interview
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has insisted, in an exclusive interview with RT, that Azerbaijan initiated the latest round of clashes over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh, control of which is contested by Baku and Yerevan.

Sarkisian expressed hope that a Moscow-mediated ceasefire will hold despite ongoing problems on the ground. “We should not forget… who started this stage of war. It was the Azeri side, not the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he old RT’s Ilya Petrenko. 

Inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh seceded from Azerbaijan in 1991 and declared itself an independent republic after the 1994 armistice. The government in Baku maintains that the region is an “occupied territory” and demands its return. 

The conflict, semi-frozen for 26 years, erupted again on September 27, with both sides blaming the other for re-igniting the violence. Hundreds of people were killed before Moscow brokered a ceasefire that was scheduled to go into effect last Saturday.

The following day, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of shelling the city of Ganja, north of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing nine civilians and injuring 34. Baku also released drone footage of the destruction.

Sarkissian did not deny there were violations of the October 10 ceasefire from the Armenian side, saying they were provoked by Azerbaijan’s initial attacks – a claim that Baku denies. Sarkissian, however, insisted that it was not Armenia who shelled Ganja.

“I’ve clear information from my government, from (the) Ministry of Defense and (the) Foreign Ministry… that it’s definitely not Armenia that has shelled it,” Sarkissian told RT. He also noted that Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, was bombarded on Saturday just after the ceasefire went into effect. 

Fighting has also continued in Hadrut, on the southern side of Nagorno-Karabakh. A RT crew was caught in the shelling on Monday. 


Meanwhile, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev insisted that all talks on solving the crisis should be between Baku and Yerevan directly, without involvement from what he called the “puppet regime” in Nagorno-Karabakh, and that there can be no discussion on whether the “occupied territories” should be returned to Azerbaijan, only when the transition can take place.

In an interview with Moscow daily RBK, Aliyev also said that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan should thank Russian President Vladimir Putin for “saving” him from defeat.

“When Pashinyan gave us an ultimatum, when he offended the feelings of Azerbaijanis, he deserved to be punished for it. And we did so.” Aliyev said. “He should thank Putin for the fact that once again, Russia came to Armenia’s rescue.”

The full interview with the Armenian president will air on RT at 10:30 Moscow time (0730 GMT) on Tuesday.

https://www.rt.com/russia/503300-armenian-president-karabakh-interview/




‘I’m Jewish and Armenian. Israeli Weapons Are Killing My People’

David Nargizian
Ha’aretz, Israel
Oct 13 2020
Opinion

Amid the Nagorno-Karabakh war, an Armenian Jewish friend came over to my home in Yerevan. She is anguished. ‘Armenians are David,’ she says, and asks: Why is Israel arming a genocidal Goliath?

“I’m not Jewish or Armenian. I’m Jewish and Armenian,” Rachel said. 

It’s a heavy weight to carry, with the scars of history on both sides. But these days, in the midst of the war over Nagorno-Karabakh, being Jewish-Armenian is especially tough. 

I don’t normally write about Jewish affairs; it’s outside of my coverage area and expertise. But when a Jewish friend came over my home in Yerevan, asking me to write up her voice, I had to say yes. She was in anguish. For all that’s been said about the commercial and military dimensions of this fight, she wanted to add the moral and personal ones. 

Plus, it seemed so profoundly resonant of Jewish tradition and history: elevating a lone voice, a life caught up in the darkness of war. 

It’s a mark of the moment that my friend was afraid to write this story herself. She promised her family she’d stay anonymous – not for fear of her safety in Yerevan, but for her relatives’ safety in Israel. Israel is the largest supplier of weapons to Azerbaijan, and those weapons, including missile-laden drones, are now being used on Armenian-majority civilian areas in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Davos, Switzerland. January 24, 2018.Amos Ben Gershom / GPO

Those drones aren’t restricted to the “traditional” front lines but have brought the fighting deep into civilian territory, into the cities of Karabakh, contributing to an escalation that has now claimed civilian lives on both sides of the fight. The space occupied by the conflict is unprecedented, engulfing Azerbaijan’s second largest city of Ganja.  

“It was the start of Yom Kippur when the war broke out,” Rachel said. “I didn’t know if I could face going to synagogue, because I knew Israel was providing weapons to Azerbaijan and they were killing people. It was chaos inside of me,” she said.  

“On Monday I got a phone call from a friend who works at Ben-Gurion Airport, checking on me,” she said. Her friend could see the air traffic reports for Israel’s southern airfield, Uvda. “He told me there were an unusual number of Azerbaijani cargo planes landing and taking off.”

As reported by Yossi Melman in Haaretz, four Azeri Ilyushin­­-76 freight planes landed and took off from Uvda in the space of week just before and after fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh broke out.

“I kept asking myself, how can Israel do this? How can they be selling the weapons for this to happen?” 

After years of living in Tel Aviv, part of it facilitating and leading tours for Birthright Israel, Rachel felt the deep moral parallels between Jews and Armenians and a sensitivity to their historical connections. There has been a Jewish community in Armenia for 2000 years. According to national mythology, the Bagratuni dynasty, kings who founded the revered early medieval Armenian city of Ani, were of Jewish origin. 

More recently, Jewish-Armenians like my friend live with the dual legacy of Holocaust and genocide; her great-grandparents narrowly survived the massacre of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. She moved to Yerevan just over a year ago to live and breathe their cultural legacy. 

One week after the war began Rachel called the local rabbi in Yerevan for support. “He told me to come to the sukkah [the temporary outside dwelling Jews build for the festival of Sukkot, or Tabernacles] to pray for peace. I sat there with my mask on to protect against COVID-19, next to a Lubavitcher rabbi, praying that Israeli bombs won’t fall on Armenian lives,” she said. “I thought, is this fiction or is it really happening?”

Living in Armenia, Rachel said, feels like living in Jerusalem. The depth of associations, the ubiquitous echoes of history. 

“I feel Israel has a moral debt to pay, a principle of common memory. Israel has not yet recognized the Armenian genocide. Maybe we think that six million people lost in the Shoah outweigh 1.5 million Armenians lost in 1915. But the end was the same, the impact was the same: the near-annihilation of a people.” 

While acknowledging the strategic value of Israel’s relationship with Azerbaijan and its backers in Turkey, she is inherently suspicious of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ambitions for regional dominance.

“Erdogan wants to finish off the Armenian people,” Rachel said. When Erdogan gave a speech earlier this year vowing to “fulfill the mission our grandfathers have carried out for centuries,” he invoked the Turkic conquests that stretched from Western China to the edge of the Mediterranean. In doing so, he triggered for Armenia and its diaspora a frisson of dread.

“The whole world is silent because it is afraid of Erdogan,” said Rachel. “He feels that everything that is Armenian rightfully belongs to them. They’ll take Karabakh, they’ll take Armenia, they’ll try to take assets in Jerusalem. Then the Armenians will be forgotten,” she lamented. 

“What has shocked me most is the silence of the Jewish Diaspora. Jews around the world who should be speaking up, not only the Israelis. The Armenians are David, defending themselves from Goliath,” she said.

Now that defense includes fending off Azerbaijan’s vast military and technological advantages. That arsenal, paid for by massive oil and gas wealth, is bearing fruit after decades of long-term investment by the Aliyev family. 

Consecutively President Ilham Aliyev and his father have held political power in Azerbaijan almost continuously since 1964, when Haidar Aliyev became deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani KGB, consolidating his rule in 1969 when he became leader of Soviet Azerbaijan.

Armenians can feel like upstarts in comparison, using their wits to defend themselves and their place in the region. 

What does she want from fellow Jews, and from Israelis? Respectively, “A little bit of solidarity and fewer arms sales,” she said. Resources and strategic heft may buy more influence for the Azerbaijani side of the conflict. But that doesn’t diminish the need to see and protect the humanity of the other.  

Rachel’s family members in Israel and Europe are telling her to leave Yerevan in case the fighting comes here. But she’s not interested in changing her place in this moment. 

As she describes it she’d rather bear witness to what is an existential struggle, doing what she can to ensure might does not make right in the rocky hinterland of the Caucasus.

Lara Setrakian is the CEO of News Deeply, published in collaboration with The New Humanitarian. She spent five years as a foreign correspondent covering the Middle East for ABC News and Bloomberg Television. Twitter: @lara 

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-i-m-jewish-and-armenian-israeli-weapons-are-killing-my-people-1.9229817

We have been observing an overwhelming continuation of attacks – Armenian FM tells the BBC

Karapet Navasardian
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 13 2020
<img width=”770″ height=”450″ src=””https://en.armradio.am/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/16025864163945.jpeg” class=”attachment-full size-full wp-post-image” alt=”” loading=”lazy” srcset=”https://en.armradio.am/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/16025864163945.jpeg 770w, 300w, 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px” data-pagespeed-url-hash=”3513042740″/>

Azerbaijanis have been continuously attacking the settlements and the defense positions of Artsakh, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with BBC Newshour.

He said Stepanakert and other settlements have been under continuous attack all the way until very late night of Saturday evening and continuing into Sunday morning.

Below is the full text of the interview:

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: I am in Moscow on a preplanned visit for talks with our Russian colleagues on many issues of our bilateral agenda. But, of course it is overwhelmed by one particular question, one big crisis that we have before us: this escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh; this outright aggression against our people, our compatriots in Nagorno-Karabakh. We have achieved a very important statement to establish ceasefire, now to de-escalate: the first step to do that for humanitarian purposes and further to consolidate the ceasefire so that we go back to normal peaceful resolution of the process. 

BBC: But there was a ceasefire declared on Saturday and it looks as though it is deeply fragile now. 

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Yes, it remains very fragile and it remains very concerning to us because what we have been observing is this overwhelming continuation of the attacks and the attacks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlements and positions; defense positions. And we are still hopeful that we can bring this back to normal, to what we have agreed – to the ceasefire so that we can resume normal work. First of all we have to do some very important humanitarian action as we have agreed on Saturday. 

BBC: Let me ask you about the breaking of the ceasefire. Officials on the Azeri side say that seven people were killed and dozens injured when an Armenian missile strike hit a residential block in Ganja. Is that true? 

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Well, look the Nagorno-Karabakh defense forces are doing everything to defend themselves, because since Saturday morning, and this is what I am absolutely outraged about, Azeris have been continuously attacking the settlements and the defense positions. Stepanakert and other settlements have been under continuous attack all the way until very late night of Saturday evening and continuing into Sunday morning. And still we have this fragility on the ground. Stepanakert is totally brought to a very difficult situation. So many destructions. So many casualties. So many people who are displaced. The infrastructure, the energy supply and everything is brought to such a condition that people are in a very difficult situation. The same is about the other cities and towns. 

BBC: Let me ask you about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. The self-declared government of this enclave last week asked for it to be recognized internationally. Does Armenia back that? 

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Well, of course, Armenia backs everything that supports the existential physical security of our compatriots in Nagorno-Karabakh. We have been very careful and very patient not to undermine the peaceful settlement. But what we have been observing over these past two weeks is the choice of the military option for the resolution, the choice of imposing solutions by military aggression from Azerbaijan supported by Turkey. 

BBC: Why don’t you either annex the territory or recognize its independence? Those are the options that are open to you.

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Exactly, that we have to be responsible. We do not want to deny the chance for the peaceful resolution. 

BBC: But if your Prime Minister says that Karabakh is Armenia it’s quite clear you don’t want to recognize its independence.

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan:  Don’t take it out of context. The Prime Minister of Armenia has been very consistent about the compromise solution, that there is no other way but to achieve a compromise solution that is acceptable to the people of Armenia, people of Nagorno-Karabakh, and people of Azerbaijan. There can only be a compromise. When this statement from the Prime Minister is taken out of context- you have what you have. Because the Prime Minister was saying that Armenia is investing a lot of effort in its own reform, in its own development, and it cannot be indifferent to its compatriots in Nagorno-Karabakh. And in this context Armenia will be supporting, as the only guarantor of their security, will be supporting our compatriots in Nagorno-Karabakh. In the context of the conflict he was talking strictly, directly, and consistently about the compromise. 

BBC: How confident are you that this ceasefire, such as it is currently, is going to hold in any way?

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Look, I think this has been also a very good part of our conversation here in Moscow, and we will continue also talking with the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group- France and the United States, who are part of this mediation effort. Russia is doing a great job, France and the US are working together. Now, we shouldn’t deny any chance for this ceasefire to hold. We have to carry on with the verification mechanism, which helps us to bring back ceasefire, to bring back peace, so that we go back to the peaceful settlement. We are not losing hope, we will continue working very hard on this

Russian-brokered ceasefire in Azeri-Armenian war collapses

Ani Kharatian
WSWS – World Socialist Web Site
Oct 13 2020
 
 
 
 
Alex Lantier
 
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to broker a truce in the two-week-old war between Azerbaijan and Armenia collapsed over the weekend. Fighting erupted between the two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus five minutes after the agreement reached by Azeri and Armenian diplomats in Moscow was to go into effect, at noon on Saturday. Bombings of civilian targets on both sides, and bloodshed along the front and in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region all continue to mount.
 
The Kremlin had invited delegations from the Azeri and Armenian foreign ministries on October 9 to Moscow, declaring: “The President of Russia is issuing a call to halt the fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh on humanitarian grounds in order to exchange dead bodies and prisoners.” French President Emmanuel Macron, who has aggressively backed Armenia, also called for a cease-fire.
 
 
Armenian officials went to the talks, reversing their stated position that they would only attend talks if a cease-fire was first agreed to. Shortly before talks began in Moscow, however, officials in both Azerbaijan and its main regional backer, Turkey, said they would make no compromises.
 
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin bluntly predicted that the Moscow talks would be a failure. “If they’re calling only for a ceasefire, if they’re working only towards a ceasefire, it will be nothing more than a repeat of what went on for the last 30 years or so,” he said. Restating the Turkish government’s position that Armenia illegally occupies the Karabakh, Kalin added: “It is almost certain to fail if it doesn’t also involve a detailed plan to end the occupation.”
 
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev gave a televised address to the nation insisting he would make no concessions to Armenia. Aliyev said, “Azerbaijan’s use of force had changed the facts on the ground” and that has “proved there was a military solution to the dispute,” Reuters reported. He added that these negotiations were Armenia’s “last chance” to peacefully resolve the conflict.
 
Aliyev added that Azeri forces had taken the communities of Hadrut, Chayli, Yukhari Guzlak, Gorazilli, Gishlag, Garajalli, Afandilar, Suleymanli and Sur in the Karabakh, calling it a “historic victory.” He reported that Armenian-held Fuzuli province in Azerbaijan had also been surrounded, and that Azeri forces had left a small escape route through which Armenians were leaving.
 
After a ceasefire was briefly announced for noon on Saturday, fighting soon re-erupted on both sides. Armenian officials charged Azeri troops with launching an assault at 12:05 p.m., while Azeri officials charged Armenia with bombing civilian targets. Fighting intensified on Sunday, with AFP reporting artillery fire targeting the Azeri city of Barda and the Armenian-held city of Stepanakert in the Nagorno-Karabakh. An Armenian missile also hit Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, Ganja, killing nine people and wounding 34.
 
On Monday, Azeri and Armenian forces traded accusations of ceasefire violations, while both claimed to respect it, with Azeri forces accused of shelling the conflict zone and “large-scale hostilities” near Hadrut, and Armenian forces accused of shelling front-line areas of Azerbaijan.
 
Moscow and Tehran both fruitlessly called upon Azerbaijan and Armenia to abide by the cease-fire. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said: “Iran calls on the two parties to exercise more self-restraint, condemns the missile attacks on the vital infrastructure, the residential areas of cities, and the killing of civilians.” Khatibzadeh also said Iran could offer to host talks to achieve a “permanent and sustainable peace and solution.”
 
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We expect that the decisions that have been adopted will be rigorously observed by both parties,” adding that he hoped that the “all-night vigil” during which the cease-fire agreement was reached would “not be in vain.”
 
It appears, however, that both Azerbaijan and Armenia have shrugged off the cease-fire and are set to escalate a conflict that is indissolubly bound up with the disastrous consequences of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
 
In 1921, in the early years of Soviet Russia, Nagorno-Karabakh was a majority-Armenian region surrounded by Azeri areas. It was granted autonomous status within Azerbaijan. In the lead-up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, however, armed conflict erupted amid the rise of ethnic nationalism and separatism in the Soviet bureaucracy. Azeri and Armenian forces fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh, which also declared its independence, leading to a 1988-94 war that saw 30,000 dead and over 1 million displaced.
 
Over the last three decades, the conflict has periodically re-erupted, defying all attempts to negotiate a lasting settlement, and underscoring the reactionary and unviable nature of the nation-state system. Ethnic-Turkic Azeri forces sought to retake the Karabakh, which Armenian forces have controlled since 1994. This conflict is now exacerbated by all the ethnic and military tensions provoked by three decades of US-led imperialist wars in the region since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
 
The Caucasus—nestled between the Caspian Sea, Central Asia and China to the east; Iran and Turkey to the south; the Black Sea and Europe to the west; and Russia to the north—is now the focal point of explosive geostrategic tensions. These point to the very real danger that multiple wars and conflicts in the region could coalesce and escalate into a global war between the great powers.
 
 
Not least among these is the US war drive threatening China, as Beijing develops its “Belt and Road” global infrastructure plan. In an October 1 Harvard University briefing titled “US Should Keep an Eye on Rising Chinese Investment in the South Caucasus,” analyst Daniel Shapiro wrote that China’s presence in the region “can impact U.S. energy security and other important interests.” He added that for Chinese firms, the region is an “excellent logistical hub for expansion to Caucasus, EU and Central Asian markets.”
 
Shapiro charged that China’s activities in the region “threaten several US vital interests,” including maintaining “a balance of power in Europe and Asia [compatible] with a continuing US leadership role” and ensuring the “stability of major global systems” including oil and financial markets.
 
US officials have not made major statements on the current Karabakh war, as chaos erupts in the US political system over President Donald Trump’s threat not to respect the outcome of next month’s presidential election. However, they have given a substantial $100 million in military aid to Azerbaijan, which made major weapons purchases from Israel and Turkey, at least partially reversing the military balance with Armenia, according to certain analyses. Armenia has for its part relied on Russian and French support.
 
Reports that Syrian Islamist “rebel” militias and Turkish security firms are sending fighters to Azerbaijan, on the borders of both Russia and Iran, further inflame these tensions. Tehran and Moscow, which have backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime against these militias in the decade-long NATO war in Syria, fear these fighters could spread Turkish-nationalist or Islamist demands in Azeri-majority regions of Iran or Muslim regions of the North Caucasus in Russia.
 
French imperialism’s support for Armenia is part of its broader conflict with the Turkish government, which has backed militias opposed to France’s proxies in the Libyan civil war triggered by the 2011 NATO war in that country. This escalated in recent years into a conflict over oil resources not only in Libya, but also in undersea oil deposits in the Mediterranean, where Turkey, Greece and Cyprus have made rival claims. In this, France has aggressively backed Greece, which recently purchased billions of euros in French fighter jets and military supplies to prepare for war with Turkey.
 
This conflict again flared yesterday, when Turkey announced that it would send the oil drilling vessel Oruç Reis to explore for oil in waters also claimed by Greece. The Foreign Ministry of Greece, whose vessels repeatedly came close to firing on Turkish ships this summer, called this a “new serious escalation.”
 
The entire region is a tinderbox, with multiple conflicts each threatening to erupt into a general conflagration, underscoring the urgent necessity to unify the working class across national lines in an international anti-war movement against capitalism and imperialism.
  
 

BBC: ‘It felt like the ceiling was falling on us’

Emil Lazarian
BBC News, UK
Oct 22 2020
Nagorno-Karabakh: Civilians and churches under fire

Half the population of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh have been displaced by fighting.

On both sides of the conflict, Armenian and Azeri civilians have been killed.

Within hours of a temporary truce agreed in Moscow, fresh shelling was reported by both Armenian and Azerbaijani forces.

This is not a religious war, but many Armenians are sheltering in churches and fear they may be shelled.

Filmed by Gabriel Chaim

Watch video at

Russia rejects bid to include Turkey in Nagorno-Karabakh mediation

Emil Lazarian
The National< UAE
Oct 12 2020

Ankara has sent Syrian mercenaries to bolster Azerbaijan in breakaway Caucasus region

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday said no changes were envisaged to the format for peace talks over Nagorno-Karabakh, after Azerbaijan proposed that its ally Turkey should be involved.

Mr Lavrov was in Moscow after talks with Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan.

Mr Mnatsakanyan said effective peace talks over Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely ethnic Armenian-populated enclave within Azerbaijan, would only be possible after a full ceasefire between Azeri and ethnic-Armenian forces.

Russia on Monday urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to immediately start observing a ceasefire agreed to over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region as intense fighting between the two Caucasus rivals cast doubt over the accord.

After 11 hours of talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Moscow, the two sides agreed on Saturday to a humanitarian truce.

But repeated clashes have made the truce deal seem shaky, with both sides on Monday accusing the other of repeated violations.

“We expect that the decisions that have been adopted will be rigorously observed by both parties,” Mr Lavrov said.

He said the truce, the immediate aim of which was to exchange prisoners and bodies, had to be implemented and work was under way to ensure a means of verification was in place.

Mr Lavrov said he believed the “all-night vigil” that clinched the ceasefire would “not be in vain” and that the issue could be resolved soon.

Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces on Monday accused each other of launching attacks in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, in the heaviest fighting over the enclave for more than 25 years.

Analysts have long warned that Nagorno-Karabakh was the most combustible of the conflicts left over from the fall of the Soviet Union, with Azerbaijan vowing to regain control of the territory and Armenians insisting they would never cede ground.

Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians, said its forces repelled Azeri army attacks overnight.

Armenian Defence Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan said Azerbaijan was “intensively shelling the southern front”.

Armenia said that “the adversary suffered great losses of manpower and military equipment” but provided no details.

The Azerbaijan Defence Ministry claimed: “Armenian armed forces, which did not comply with the humanitarian truce, repeatedly tried to attack the positions of the Azerbaijan army.”

The ceasefire was already badly frayed on Sunday, when Azerbaijan said it launched air strikes against an Armenian regiment.

Armenia denied the claim.

The talks were the first diplomatic contact between the two former Soviet republics since fighting over the mountain enclave broke out on September 27.

About 500 people have been reported killed since.

The conflict has raised fears of a wider war drawing in Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia.

Turkey has sent in Syrian mercenaries to fight alongside Azerbaijan, as it did for the Government of National Accord in Libya to widespread condemnation from the international community.

The renewed fighting is the worst since a 1994 ceasefire ended a war over Nagorno-Karabakh, which killed at least 30,000.

It has also raised concerns about the security of pipelines in Azerbaijan that carry Azeri natural gas and oil to Europe.


Iran fears spillover from Nagorno-Karabakh

Chakrian Hovsep
Deutsche Welle, Germany
Oct 12 2020

Iran has offered to mediate in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But Iran is by no means an uninvolved third party in the conflict — especially as far as Azerbaijan is concerned.

Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has made it clear that should the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh spread to Iranian soil, his country would react. Fazli made the remark after a missile from the combat zone hit a village in the border region in the northwest of Iran last week. The governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia had been told to keep closer control over the fighting, Fazli said, adding that if the situation did not improve, “we will take appropriate measures if necessary.”

At the same time, Iran’s government has offered to mediate in the conflict. “We call on both sides to exercise restraint, to end the conflict immediately and to resume negotiations,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Said Chatibsadeh.

Above all, Tehran wants to prevent the conflict from spilling over into Iranian society. Iran is home to both an Armenian and an Azerbaijani minority. The Armenian minority with its about 100,000 people is significantly smaller than that of the so-called “Azeri Turks,” the Iranian citizens with Azerbaijani roots, who number about 15 million — in a country of 82 million inhabitants. This means there are more of them than there are people living in Azerbaijan, which has about 10.3 million inhabitants.

Fighting over the region Nagorno-Karabakh erupted once more in late September

The Azeris are one of the most influential ethnic groups in Iran. They control large parts of the Tehran bazaar, the country’s most important marketplace. Even Iran’s spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, is of Azerbaijani descent on his father’s side. Four of his deputies published a statement a few days ago stating that there is “no doubt” the embattled region of Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan. President Hassan Rouhani has told Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian that Armenia must try to end the conflict.

Such statements reflect the internal balance of power in Iran. Unlike the Armenians, who are not very conspicuous, many Azeris openly back their “Muslim brothers” in Azerbaijan. Last week, they organized several large rallies in cities in western Iran. “Death to Armenia” was one of the slogans at the protests, which were broken up by security forces, according to Iranian media.

Read more: Nagorno-Karabakh’s record growth in ruins amid conflict and pandemic

The oil and gas from Azerbaijan are interesting to the EU as well

Iran and Azerbaijan have had a long historical association. Parts of today’s Azerbaijan belonged to the Persian Empire until the 19th century. In 1828, the Persian Empire ceded the region around Baku to Russia. In 1991, Azerbaijan became independent in the course of the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Ever since, Tehran has kept an eye on Baku’s influence on the Azeri minority in Iran. It has often expressed concern that Azerbaijan wants to break up Iran with US support to annex the Iranian provinces of western and eastern Azerbaijan. The Iranian government is also worried about the close cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States, and with Israel. Both the latter countries consider Azerbaijan a key country in the South Caucasus, both from a military and economic point of view.

The indirect Russian and Turkish participation in a war in its immediate neighborhood is another thing bothering Tehran. Turkey supports Azerbaijan and Russia is on Armenia’s side. Tehran maintains complex and fragile relationships with both Ankara and Moscow. In Syria, Iran and Russia side with the Assad regime while Turkey supports Assad’s opponents. But Iran and Turkey are linked by a more or less strong animosity toward Israel. Both rejected Israel’s recent normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. They also both side with the Emirate of Qatar, which is facing a Saudi-led boycott.

Watch video 02:18

Economic aspects also play an important role in Tehran’s relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan has close ties to Turkey in the commodities sector in particular. In 2005, a more than 1,700-kilometer-long (1056-mile-long) pipeline between Baku and the Turkish port of Ceyhan started operations. Even before the imposition of sanctions, the pipeline competed with Iranian oil exports. And as they decline, Tehran is forced to look on and watch how the pipeline has consolidated Turkish-Azerbaijani trade relations as well as those two states’ ties with Europe: the oil from Baku is shipped from Turkey to European consumer states. These dynamics mean that even if US sanctions are lifted at some point, Iran will have a hard time getting a foothold once more.


Estonian Armenians rally for peace in Nagrono Karabakh

Chmshkian Vicken
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 12 2020
The Estonian Armenian community organized a march for peace in Nagorno-Karabakh. The procession began at the Estonian Congregation of St Gregory of the Armenian Apostolic Church and ended at Freedom Square, Delfi reports.
The purpose of the march was to call for re-establishment of peace in the region and for an end to terrorism and war crimes against Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Armenians are fighting for their right to live in their historic land, exercising their right to self-determination. The march also aims to call on humanity to speak up and act,” one of the participants said.
https://en.armradio.am/2020/10/13/estonian-armenians-rally-for-peace-in-nagrono-karabakh/

CivilNet: Statement of the Harvard Club of Armenia about the Azeri and Turkish aggression against Artsakh and Armenia

Kalashian Nyrie
CIVILNET.AM

18:16

We are the members of the Harvard Club of Armenia actively involved in all aspects of life in the Republic of Armenia, in a wider Harvard alumni community, as well as internationally.

With this letter we want to bring to the attention of the Harvard community the recent war of Azerbaijan against the Armenians of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

On 27 September, Armenians in Artsakh / Nagorno Karabagh, woke up to a large-scale military aggression launched by Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan did not join the UN SG Guterres 2020 March call for global cease-fire in light of Covid-19 and subsequently, the UN resolution adopted in June. Instead it launched a relatively small-scale military attack on Tavush, a North-Eastern region of Armenia in July that was neutralized by Armenian defense forces within a week. However, the current military aggression is full-fledged and long-planned.

Since Azerbaijan started exploiting oil and gas pipelines in mid-2000s, it started investing significant percentage of their profits in armed forces, aiming to strengthen them and achieve military solution of Nagorno Karabagh conflict. Along with frequent violations of cease-fire, it intensified militaristic maximalist propaganda, achieving the level of violent hate speech against Armenians.

Turkey has been providing political support to Azerbaijan based on the slogan “one nation in two states”, promoted officially by the leadership of both countries. This time Turkey is providing direct military support to Azerbaijan – there is evidence of Turkish-owned F-16 fighter planes, Turkish military in Azerbaijan, as well as thousands of jihadist terrorist mercenaries recruited by Turkey from Syria and trapped in Azerbaijan with promise of financial awards.

Azerbaijan is using Israeli drones, Belarussian and Russian ballistic missiles, cluster munitions and other heavy artillery, many prohibited in line with international humanitarian and customary law since they indiscriminately attack civilian population and infrastructure and cause human suffering. There are already dozens of casualties and hundreds of wounded amongst civilians, several hundred killed and much more wounded military. Civilian areas, Stepanakert – the capital of Artsakh, many towns and other residential areas have been under constant bombardment. Women, children and elderly are in bombshells, kindergartens, schools and churches are shelled. And it is not only Artsakh – Armenian region Vardenis has been under fire since last week, and drones were destroyed by Armenian Air Defense not far from Yerevan, Armenian capital.

The population of Artsakh is 140,000 and that of Armenia – 2.9mln, while the population of Azerbaijan is 10mln and that of Turkey – 83 mln supported by thousands of jihadists. Therefore, it did not make sense for Armenians to start this war as the Turkish-Azeri propaganda states. Neither the continuation of hostilities is in the interests of Armenians in Artsakh. However, Aliyev regime keeps adding new conditions to the calls of ceasefire coming from all corners of the world, most importantly OSCE Minsk group co-chair countries (France, Russia and US) and their presidents.

Azerbaijan with the support of Turkey have started the war and Armenians are defending themselves. If Azerbaijan and Turkey put their weapons down first, the war will stop, and there will be peace. If Armenia and Artsakh put their weapons down first, there will be a new Armenian Genocide.

Artsakh that has been historically Armenian, was given to the Soviet Azerbaijan by Stalin and has declared independence still in 1988 entitled for it in line with both Soviet Constitution and international law. It has established its government and parliament through democratic elections but has since been under permanent existential threat. As it was in case of Kosovo and East Timor, Artsakh should be entitled the right for self-determination through the principle of remedial recognition by the international community.

Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression have become possible inter alia due to wrongful legal and historical narrative promoted by Azerbaijan and largely adopted by many stakeholders, including some countries and international organizations, directly or indirectly benefiting or being influenced by Azerbaijani oil-fueled propaganda and direct bribing.

It is therefore time for us to rethink this approach and make a recourse to the jus cogens principles of public international law, such as self-determination, prohibition of use of force, etc. The people of Artsakh, currently fighting at the frontline of international terrorism, have earned their right to determine their political, economic and legal system, their faith and the faith of future generations by blood. It is now time to recognize this right and thereby stop future violence and yet another humanitarian disaster.

We call on all our colleagues, faculty, alumni, current students and all other member of Harvard community to demonstrate leadership, actively break the wall of ignorance and silence.  We call the entire Harvard community to take strong stand against Turkey’s deployment of international terrorism, grave human rights violations and Turkey’s military expansionism.  International community shall join our call and force immediate removal of Jihadist Militants from Azerbaijan.

We plea to Harvard community in USA to condemn the Azeri-Turkish attempt of military solution to this conflict and call upon their congress representatives for bipartisan support of Resolution for Armenia (H.Res 452), Resolution for Artsakh (H.Res 190) and Resolution for Denouncing Azeri & Turkish Aggression on Artsakh (H.Res 1165).

We ask the entire world to follow suit with Government of Canada and Condemn and Stop supply of military equipment and weapons to Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Armenia and the International Community are currently doing everything possible to protect civilians in Artsakh and provide aid for relief from consequences of humanitarian disaster.  Anyone who wants to contribute to international relief efforts please visit All Armenia Fund at www.himnadram.org

CivilNet: Day 15: A Diary from Stepanakert

Alex Nanijanian
CIVILNET.AM

19:40

By Lika Zakaryan

It already looks like Groundhog Day.

Stepanakert was not bombed, at least that is how it seems so far, since i’m still in the bunker.. The drones flew, fell, but I did not hear talk of victims. The weather was great today, but it was scary to go outside. Sometimes, it feels like I will never be able to go out into the street.

I woke up at midnight because I couldn’t sleep all night from yesterday’s heavy bombing. We can already distinguish the sounds – when it’s a Smertch, when it’s a drone, when it’s cluster bombs, and when ours hit the drone. It is very sad that we can all distinguish this. But what can we do? This is our reality today.

I learned that yesterday in Hadrut city, an Azerbaijani sabotage group entered  people’s house, killed a mother and her son, who, by the way, is a person with disabilities… I can’t find words to express what I think about this … I was in Hadrut a few days ago, filming people in the shelters. There was a boy with disabilities, very cute, he wouldn’t stop hugging everyone, and everyone was angry with him because of this. I talked with his mother, a very nice woman. There is a video of her talking. Now I think, maybe this is all about them? .. Just thinking about it  can make you crazy. I don’t dare ask my friends from Hadrut. 

I keep track of days only when I am going to write the day’s post. We rarely look at the clock. It seems that for half a century I have not gone to the office, have not cooked vegetarian pizza, have not eaten Nutella on a  crepe, and have not seen children in the city.

Today a friend suggested saving all this as an archive, like Anne Frank’s diary. We decided to do so and call it a diary. It helps to dispel the fear, thanks to a friend for the idea. In a few years, we’ll watch and read, tell the children and grandchildren.

I miss my everyday life when my relatives were near. When my friends were near.. My friends in Yerevan invite me to go and rest there a little. To be honest, I would gladly put my head on their lap and cry for hours. But we do not allow such luxuries. I will wait to cry and laugh together in our beloved city. 

Photo: Levon Arshakyan