15:29, 15 December, 2020
STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan will address a video message on December 16, he said on social media.
“Dear compatriots, tomorrow, on December 16, at 12:00, I will address a video message on the current situation, the expected developments and our vision on the future”, the Artsakh President said.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
15:46, 15 December, 2020
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has bestowed the posthumous Medal of Combat Service to a number of servicemen who were killed in action in the second Nagorno Karabakh war.
The decision was formalized by a presidential decree signed by President Sarkissian.
The posthumous honor was bestowed upon:
Major Aren Verdyan, medic, chief of service
Captain Levon Aslanyan, Platoon Commander
Senior Lieutenant Artush Taroyan, Platoon Commander
Master Sergeant Ruslan Israyelyan
Sergeant First Class Tigran Hovhannisyan
Private Karen Grigoryan
Private Gevorg Hovhannisyan
Sergeant First Class Hayk Khachatryan
Private Aren Ghukasyan
Private Edgar Sazbandyan
Private Armen Ispiryan
Private Garik Stepanyan
Private Arman Derdzyan
Sergeant First Class Arman Khachatryan
Private Aram Ghazaryan
Private Poghos Hakobyan
Private Eduard Martirosyan
Private Khachatur Khachatryan
Private Alen Navasardyan
Private Norayr Sargsyan
Private Armen Arakelyan
Private Rafik Gasparyan
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
16:42, 15 December, 2020
STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh warned citizens that the Azerbaijani intelligence agencies are again attempting to spread disinformation and that the photo of a purported document generated online under the headline “On Evacuating the residents of Artsakh” is a fake document spread by Azerbaijan.
“The Azerbaijani special services are again actively carrying out attempts to spread disinformation because the document’s content is fake. We urge our citizens to refrain from circulating such information online and from discussing military topics with strangers and follow only official news,” the Artsakh National Security Service said.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
15:14, 15 December, 2020
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. France will continue to provide humanitarian aid to Artsakh and its displaced residents caused by the recent war launched by Azerbaijan, the Office of Armenia’s High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs said in a statement.
High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs Zareh Sinanyan met with French Ambassador to Armenia Jonathan Lacôte to discuss the assistance provided by the French-Armenian community to Artsakh and the displaced families.
“During the meeting they touched upon the solidarity demonstrated by the French people to Artsakh and the Armenian people during the whole period of the war. The Ambassador reaffirmed that France will continue to provide humanitarian aid, and touched upon the further deepening of the bilateral relations”, the statement says.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
With the cease-fire, Armenia has finally disentangled itself—albeit violently and haphazardly—from a prolonged territorial conflict that it could never win.
These sentiments are amplified by a broad international consensus stretching from Washington to Moscow. To be sure, there is an undeniable kind of logic to the mainstream reading of the war. Azerbaijan successfully retook wide swathes of territory lost during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1988–1994, including the cultural landmark of Shusha and seven Azerbaijani districts. Armenia, by contrast, was forced to evacuate several occupied territories after over a month of heavy fighting.
However, this simplified rendition only tells part of the story. A closer look at the circumstances behind Azerbaijan’s offensive suggests that Baku’s victory may prove more costly in the long-run than Yerevan’s defeat.
There is a mounting body of evidence that the Azberbaijani war effort was planned, coordinated, and in large part executed by Turkey. Military aid from Ankara included, but was not limited to, Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones, special forces commandos, and Turkish-affiliated Syrian mercenaries. Turkish control over Azerbaijan’s armed forces is so deeply embedded that there are reports of Azerbaijani military officers being fired at Ankara’s behest after criticizing the extent of Turkish involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent participation at a victory parade in Baku evoked a striking portrait: the two leaders stood side by side, behind them a row of Turkish and Azerbaijani flags arrayed in equal numbers. Indeed, Turkish flags were just as ubiquitous on the streets of Baku as their Azerbaijani counterparts.
Consider this same set of facts from Yerevan’s vantage point. Armenian leadership agreed in principle that Nagorno-Karabakh is the legally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, but has long refused to take any meaningful steps to cede the enclave or any of the seven territories captured by Armenian forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Whether by intent or through inertia, the sum total of Armenian policy toward Nagorno-Karabakh was to keep it a frozen conflict. That, in essence, is precisely what the cease-fire agreement has achieved. Barring any drastic geopolitical shifts in the South Caucasus, Nagorno-Karabakh will remain an autonomous Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan’s de jure borders. The negotiated presence of Russian peacekeepers, far from a defeat for Armenia, will grant the people of Nagorno-Karabakh a kind of security that could have never been achieved by Armenian force of arms alone.
Yerevan bemoans its loss of the seven captured regions, but here, too, we must look at recent history. As aptly noted by the prominent Russian political scientist Andranik Migranyan, there was both a tacit and formal recognition among Armenia’s political class that they cannot hold on to the captured districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh forever. The goal has long been to trade these territories, sometimes called the “security belt,” in exchange for a robust autonomous status for Nagorno-Karabakh on the best possible terms. With the Russian peacekeeping mission already guaranteeing the internal autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh, there is no longer anything to bargain for. Thus, these seven territories are more of a liability than an asset; their possession by Armenia offers no strategic value but is merely a chronic source of Azerbaijani revanchism.
With the cease-fire, Armenia has finally disentangled itself—albeit violently and haphazardly—from a prolonged territorial conflict that it could never win. The fresh scars of war will fade in time and Yerevan, whether under Pashinyan or any other administration, can hopefully rededicate itself to the many domestic needs of the roughly three million people living within Armenia’s current borders. Baku, on the other hand, is poised to pay a steep price for “victory” as it navigates existential questions of statehood and sovereignty in the coming years.
Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.
QAMISHLI, Syria — Inside a dusty and dark workshop on the banks of the Jaghjagh river in northeast Syria, Misak Antranik Petros uses an ancient pottery wheel to throw different shapes from clay.
The 85-year-old Syrian potter of Armenian origin said his family has practised the craft for more than 450 years.
"The profession was passed down from one generation to another like an inheritance," he said. "Now, my son is taking it up."
His workshop is located inside an ancient mud-brick house near the city of Qamishli, administered by Kurdish authorities who control much of northeastern Syria.
It is cluttered with pots, tools and classically shaped vases, mostly covered in dust.
Petros and his two sons spend most of their time in the humid space, heated by an old wood-burning stove.
"I dont like to clean the clay off my hands because I like the texture," he told AFP from his workshop.
Petros was only a teenager when he had to take over for his sick father and become the main potter of the family.
He has since become a master of the craft, and is keen to pass his skills on.
"I am happy when I see the door of the workshop open and my son working inside," he said.
"This craft deserves to be preserved."
Syria's nine-year-long war has killed more than 387,000 people and displaced millions from their homes.
Petros and his family were largely spared with their home and workshop dodging damage.
Of Petros's two sons — Anto and Yerevan — the former is likely to follow in his footsteps as a professional potter, especially after receiving training from his father.
"His hands need to be balanced," Petros said of his son, like a trapeze artist "walking on a tight rope".
Sitting at the pottery wheel, Anto, 43, moulds a clay vase with expert hands while his father watches.
The young man said he is just as enthusiastic about the craft.
"I can't stop pottery for even two days because my hands miss it," Anto said.
"If God blesses me with a child, I will teach them this craft the way my father taught me."
Photos By DELIL SOULEIMAN
TEHRAN, Dec. 20 (MNA) – Iranian Parliament Speaker's Special Aide for International Affairs emphasized the need to expand cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Armenia.
Speaking in his meeting with Armenian representatives in the Parliament on Sunday, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian emphasized the diverse cooperation between the two countries.
According to a tweet by Amir-Abdollahian, in a meeting with intelligent and active representatives of Armenians in the North and South, Messrs. Begrian and Shaverdian praised the key role of former Iran’s IRGC Quds Force Commander Martyr Lt. Gen. Soleimani in the fight against terrorism.
While reviewing the developments in the region, “We said that Islamic Republic of Iran and Republic of Armenia are two good neighbors and have a lot in common."
MA/FNA13990930000973
As a result of search operations carried out in the Azerbajani-controlled areas today, six conscripts, who fought heroically in obscurity for more than 70 days have returned home due to the efforts of the Artsakh Emergency Situations Service, the Russian peacekeeping mission in Artsakh and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Artsakh’s President Arayik Harutyunyan informs.
He expressed gratitude to the Russian President Vladimir Putin, thanks to whose direct efforts, intensive work continues to find the missing, and, of course, to return the bodies of the dead.
“I express my special gratitude to Rustam Muradov, the commander of the Russian peacekeeping mission in Artsakh, Arthur Baghdasaryan and Temur Arzumanyan, who accompanied the rescuers to the location and the entire staff of the State Emergency Service of Artsakh, whose heroic work I will have an opportunity to refer to,” Harutyunyan said.
Below are the names of the six soldiers:
Ayvazyan Arsen Karen
Sahakyan Davit Gegham
Nikolay Seyran Stepanyan
Arthur Garik Harutyunyan
Armaghanyan Arman Arshak
Ruslan Sargis Tumanyan
OCALA, Florida — In articles in The New Yorker and The Atlantic magazines, two renowned foreign affairs commentators have outlined President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda. Both writers — Robin Wright and Tom McTague, respectively — agree: Biden plans to assert and revitalize U.S. leadership in many global areas of concern.
Even though, as Wright put it in her Nov. 11 New Yorker article, “there is an undercurrent of relief in many parts of the world that American leadership is back,” conflicts in which U.S. forces are not directly engaged provide case studies for the challenges that lie ahead for globalist-minded American foreign policy practitioners.
The conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, controlled until recently by Armenia, is just one crisis that requires American attention. In the recent conflict, the United States was unable to influence the outcome or control its allies, signs that the supposed “relief” at the return of U.S. leadership may be temporary.
Periodic fights sparked into all-out war in late September 2020, and Azerbaijan won. Its military killed a reported 2,317 Armenian soldiers and its forces seized new territory by maneuvering to cut off the Lachin Corridor, Armenia’s main line of communication to the disputed region.
At first glance, this conflict may have appeared to be localized. But, in fact, the recent conflict was a global challenge to America’s supposedly impending revitalized leadership.
Turkey, a NATO member; Israel, a U.S. stalwart; and Russia, a regular competitor, all converged in Nagorno-Karabakh and showed how strained U.S. influence has become.
Contrary to previous U.S. government warnings, as the Associated Press reported it, that Turkish-trained Syrian mercenaries sent from Libya to the fight could “degrade security and generate backlash from the Libyan public” when they are deployed, the military of Azerbaijan received and utilized Syrian mercenaries. These mercenaries were equipped for, and transported to, the conflict by Turkey.
Furthermore, oil wealth from Caspian Sea-based pipelines enabled Azerbaijan to purchase Israeli-manufactured drones, which were used with devastating effect. One Armenian combatant noted the futility of continuing the conflict, exclaiming that the war is “rifles against drones.” Azerbaijan’s use of drones was so effective that the government of Azerbaijan provided daily video of successful (and deadly) bomb strikes. These bombings ultimately crippled Armenia’s war effort.
Russia brokered a tenuous cease-fire agreement, which became effective on Nov. 10. The agreement was unique because it was the global community’s fourth attempt at a cease-fire and it did not include the United States as a signatory. Russian peacekeepers are now deployed to the Armenian-Azerbaijan border to prevent any further escalations.
Russia reestablished its dominance in the region and earned itself a space in any future negotiations as a peace mediator. In contrast, the United States failed to end hostilities by treaty and failed to rein in two allies that were contributing to the bloodshed.
For the U.S. president-elect, this tragic episode demonstrates that recommitting to global leadership will not be easy. A globalist and inclusive foreign policy agenda is good, if your country is relevant. Right now, in Nagorno-Karabakh, the United States is irrelevant.
The incoming administration’s foreign policy team must create and implement a strategy for a U.S. leadership presence in conflict zones like Nagorno-Karabakh. If not, the United States will continue to lose influence to Russia and it may continue to see some allies act against U.S. interests.
Brian Harper, an Ashland University graduate originally from Cleveland, is a military veteran with deployment experience who now works in Florida.