Category: 2020

Azerbaijan trying to justify its gross violation of trilateral statement – Armenian MFA Spox

Garo Vardanian
Public Radio of Armenia
Dec 16 2020

Azerbaijan is tying to justify its gross violations of the provisions of trilateral statement, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anna Naghdalyan said in comments to Aysor.am.

The statement comes after the representative of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, in his comment to the “Kommersant” newspaper, stated that “the Armenian armed forces must withdraw from Karabakh.”

“The Statement of November 9 clearly and unequivocally indicates the regions from which the Armenian armed forces have already been withdrawn,” Anna Naghdalyan said.

“It is obvious that the one-sided comments of the Azerbaijani side have an aim to justify its gross violations of the recent days on the Artsakh-Azerbaijani line of contact, which contradict the provisions of the above-mentioned statement,” she added.

Armenian monuments are at risk in Azerbaijan. L.A. artists make their own to keep memory alive

Garnik Tadevosian
Los Angeles Times
Dec 16 2020
By Carolina A. Miranda, Columnist 

Dec. 16, 2020


If you stand at the corner of Artsakh Avenue and East Broadway in Glendale you’ll catch a glimpse of a surreptitiously installed public monument.

It shows a woman’s face veiled by lace — a still from Sergei Parajanov’s 1969 film, “The Color of Pomegranates” — along with the phrase “ARTSAKH ENDURES.” Emanating from the piece is a soulful mix of Armenian songs.

To see (and hear) this unusual art piece, you’ll need a cellphone since “Monument to the Autonomous Republic of Artsakh” is totally virtual — visible only via an augmented reality app and visible only at that specific geographic point. It’s a poignant work: a reminder of a bloody conflict thousands of miles away in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan (known as Artsakh by Armenians), one that has left thousands dead and centuries of Armenian cultural legacy imperiled.

The monument is a collaboration among a group of Los Angeles artists and scholars. It emerges from a design by Kamee Abrahamian, with contributions by Nelli Sargsyan and Mashinka Firunts Hakopian. Sargsyan supplied the work’s haunting soundtrack: a medley that draws from songs about mountains and wind, a nod to Artsakh’s rugged landscape. Artist Nancy Baker Cahill, who has long used augmented reality as an artistic platform, was also involved, making the monument available for viewing on her 4th Wall app.


The work, says Hakopian, “imagines a future in which Artsakh is visible and a future in which Artsakh endures — even if it’s only virtually or in the memory of the diasporic peoples that have been displaced.”

It is one of many artistic responses to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh by artists of Armenian heritage.

Last month, the metal band System of a Down, which emerged from Glendale’s Armenian community, reunited to release the protest songs “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz,” its first new music in 15 years. She Loves Collective, a group of women artists that formed in 2017, has staged guerrilla performances related to themes of loss and trauma in Armenian culture. Filmmaker Nare Mkrtchyan, whose Oscar-shortlisted documentary short “The Other Side of Home” explored themes related to the Armenian genocide, traveled to the region shortly before Nagorno-Karabakh reverted to Azeri control.

“I felt the strong need to go and film and be able to capture history, to be able to touch it one last time,” she says via email.

Among the places she traveled was the historic Tsitsernavank monastery, an early Armenian site whose earliest constructions likely date to the 5th or 6th century. "[I] was there less than an hour before the territory turned to Azerbaijan,” she writes. “It is surreal to think that my Armenian prayer might be the last one in those walls.”

The conflict in Nagorno-Karbakh is a long and complex one. Situated in the Lesser Caucasus mountain range, the region has been ruled over the centuries by Persians and Russians, followed in the 20th century by the old Soviet Union. Historically, the area has been occupied largely by Christian Armenians, along with Muslim Turkic peoples and other ethnic groups. The roots of today’s conflict lie partly in the hands of the Soviets.
In the 1920s, the region’s population was majority Armenian, but the Soviets split off Nagorno-Karabakh and placed it within Azerbaijan’s political borders (part of a tactic, by Stalin, to weaken the national identities of smaller Soviet states). After the breakup of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, inhabitants of the region attempted to rejoin Armenia, a move that resulted in a bloody, years-long conflict. A Russian-brokered cease-fire in 1994 brought peace but left Nagorno-Karabakh in a tenuous, in-between state: an autonomous zone administered by Armenians that wasn’t officially part of Armenia but was technically considered Azerbaijan under international law. During that period, thousands of Azeris fled the region.

The old conflicts came roaring back in September, when fighting began anew — but this time with the Azeris better armed courtesy of Turkish support and a strong petroleum economy. Another Russian-brokered cease-fire in early November put a halt to the shooting. It also put Nagorno-Karabakh, along with several provinces around it, back in Azeri hands. It is now Armenians who flee.

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Left behind are centuries of Armenian cultural heritage: the graceful Dadivank monastery, which dates to the 12th century; the fan-roofed Gtichavank monastery, from the 13th century, once an important pilgrimage site; and the archeological site of Tigranakert, which dates to the Hellenestic era and is, in the words of Hamlet Petrosyan, an Armenian archeologist who has led research expeditions to the area, “the best-preserved city of the Hellenistic and Armenian civilizations.”

This is critical because, as art historian Christina Maranci wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month, Azerbaijan has “well-documented policies of destroying the Armenian cultural heritage found in their territories.”

An extensive investigative report by scholars Simon Maghakyan and Sarah Pickman published by the arts website Hyperallergic last year recorded the systematic destruction of 89 medieval Armenian churches and 5,840 of the elaborate cross-stones known as khachkars in the province of Nakhichevan between 1997 and 2006. This included the razing of the vast medieval necropolis at Djulfa, near the Iranian border, which once contained thousands of 16th century Armenian headstones.

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Late last year, when Maghakyan presented his findings in Pasadena, he told The Times: “If I do not tell this story, who will?”

Azeri officials deny charges of iconoclasm. Last year, Nasimi Aghayev, consul general of Azerbaijan to the Western United States, told The Times that the destruction of Djulfa were “a figment of Armenia’s imagination.” And a statement issued by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Culture last month stated that all monuments, “irrespective of its origin,” will be preserved.

But copious photography and satellite imagery of Nakhichevan tell another story. Not to mention the fact that Azeri officials are in the habit of regularly describing Armenian churches as “Caucasian Albanian,” a specious classification that serves as a way of writing Armenians out of the region’s history.

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The U.S. foreign policy apparatus, in the meantime, is checked out on the subject. The State Department has not issued any statements regarding Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh. (Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is too busy delivering Republican stump speeches in Georgia — the U.S. state, not the Caucasus nation.)

UNESCO issued a statement late last month reminding both nations that they are signatories to the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and cited a U.N. Security Council Resolution from 2017 on the “unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, looting and smuggling of cultural property.” As part of its efforts, the agency promised to carry out a field mission to draw up an inventory of heritage in the area.

How effective that will be remains to be seen. In 2000, UNESCO ordered an end to the destruction at Djulfa. It was futile. By 2006, the cemetery had been smashed to pieces, with ancient grave markers dumped into the Araxes River, according to a report by Pickman in Archaeology magazine.


To draw awareness to the issue, artists of Armenian descent in Los Angeles are busy making work.

Members of She Loves Collective staged two performances this fall that dealt with themes raised by the war: struggle, displacement, erasure.

“We are all sucked into this immense pain that we all feel and we are seeking ways of _expression_,” says Adrineh Baghdassarian, a multimedia artist who is a co-founder of the collective. “We are all seeking ways of connecting to our heritage. Can I fly to Armenia? Can I help someone collect funds? What is it that I can do? Well, what is that we do best? It’s this.”

For its first performance, on Oct. 11, the group staged a procession through downtown L.A. that began at the Broad museum and moved to City Hall, where participants chanted, “The Rifles Our Ancestors Didn’t Have” (the title of the work). The artists wore striking white caftans emblazoned with an image of a rifle, a design that evoked the female Armenian freedom fighters of the early 20th century.

“The concept was looking peaceful, looking strong, looking powerful,” Baghdassarian says.

The collective followed this with a similar procession along the banks of the Los Angeles River that ended with the group dropping rose petals into the water while images from Artsakh were projected onto a bridge nearby.

The action functioned as “a healing,” says Nelly Ackhen Sarkissian, an installation and performance artist who is also a co-founder of She Loves.

It also incorporated iconic sites of the Los Angeles landscape. Southern California, after all, is home to the largest population of Armenians outside the former republics of the former Soviet Union. It is also home to one of the first monuments to the Armenian genocide built outside of Armenia: the Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument in Montebello, completed in 1965.

The L.A. River performance employed as backdrop the concrete architecture of the river, as well as the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance — a way of connecting the Armenian story to to the American story.

“The focus point is always to have a strong L.A. backdrop,” Sarkissian says. “It’s not just important to say that we’re Armenians from L.A., but that we are engaging with our fellow Angelenos and Angelenas.”

The group is currently at work on another performance that it plans to stage in Malibu, possibly in January if the COVID surge eases, at the site of a house claimed by one of the recent fires.

“It’s a universal thing,” Baghdassarian says. “Whether you lose it in a war or you lose your home in a fire or you lose your ancestral land.

“Where does home begin and where does home end?” she adds. “How is a person willing to burn his own home down if he cannot go down to his home ever again?”

Hrag Vartanian is an arts journalist of Armenian descent who is editor in chief of Hyperallergic, which has doggedly chronicled some of the cultural issues at stake in the region. He is also part of an informal group of international scholars and cultural workers trying to compile information on historic sites in the region in anticipation of any destruction.

Vartanian, who has spent time in Nagorno-Karabakh, says that Armenian history is embedded in the landscape there. “Those buildings tell our history in an intimate way. … The history is written on the walls. Families are buried there.”

He notes that Armenian artists making work in response to the region’s tragedies is nothing new.

In the poignant painting “The Artist and His Mother,” created between 1926 and 1942 and held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., artist Arshile Gorky depicts himself as a young boy with his mother, who died of malnutrition after being displaced by the 1915 Armenian genocide, in which Ottoman Turkish forces systematically killed 1.5 million Armenians.

“It’s not the first time Armenians have been threatened,” Vartanian says. “They have been threatened by Mongols and different invaders.”

“This is how Armenian culture has evolved,” he adds. “We take these stories and we take these instances and we build something new.”

Cultural sites may be at risk in the Caucasus. New ones arise in L.A.


BBC: Nagorno-Karabakh: Dozens of Armenian soldiers ‘captured in raid’

Hagop Kamalian
BBC News
Dec 16 2020
Nagorno-Karabakh: Dozens of Armenian soldiers 'captured in raid'

Armenians have protested after reports that as many as 100 soldiers were seized by Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.

They were captured weeks after a war in which at least 5,000 servicemen died and Azerbaijan made territorial gains.

Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is under Armenian control.

The recent conflict was brought to an end by a Russian-mediated peace deal, but clashes have broken out again.

As part of the agreement, Armenia handed three areas over to Azerbaijan and the flare-up took pace in one of them, a southern area of Karabakh.

The exact number of captured soldiers is unclear but reports range from 60 to as many as 160, seized as part of an Azerbaijani "anti-terror" operation. Several videos posted online appeared to show captured soldiers.

On Tuesday night, Karabakh's defence ministry said contact had been lost with a number of military posts. The defence ministry in Azerbaijan has refused to discuss the matter with the BBC.

Anger spread as videos emerged on social media in Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman Artak Beglaryan said it was highly likely that captive Armenian soldiers were featured in the footage. He put the number missing at around 60.

Protests took place in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, and in Karabakh itself.

Families of the missing men blocked a main road demanding to know more details and protesters marched on the defence ministry in Yerevan.

  • Human cost of two nations fighting for 'Motherland'
  • Azeri soldiers charged with war crimes
  • Nagorno-Karabakh conflict flares despite ceasefire]
  • Nagorno-Karabakh conflict killed 5,000 soldiers

The Azerbaijan operation began at the end of last week. Armenia accused Azerbaijan of breaking the November peace deal by attacking the two villages called Hin Tagher (Kohne Taglar in Azerbaijani) and Khtsaberd (Calakkala).

Azerbaijan says the two villages fall under its control under the terms of the peace deal and that it launched the offensive to tackle Armenian servicemen who had refused to leave the area after the truce.

Four Azerbaijani soldiers were killed at the weekend, the first casualties since the war came to an end on 10 November.

Although 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have been deployed between the two sides, Armenian reports said they were not covering the area where clashes had taken place.

When Russia's defence ministry published a map extending its peacekeepers' deployment to cover the area, Azerbaijan objected.

Since the war ended in November, Armenia has handed over three areas lost in the war to Azerbaijan under a peace deal.

The two sides also began exchanging prisoners of war this week, with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan promising that 44 servicemen would return home.

In a separate development, Azerbaijan said it had charged two of its soldiers with mutilating the bodies of Armenian soldiers during the war.




https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55329493



Azeris ‘capture dozens’ of Armenian troops despite Nagorno-Karabakh truce

George Mamian
The Irish Times
Dec 16 2020
   

Daniel McLaughlin

Azerbaijani forces have been accused of capturing dozens of Armenian fighters in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, putting further strain on a Russian-monitored ceasefire and stoking more anger towards Armenia’s government.

Embattled Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan said members of Russia’s 2,000-strong peacekeeping force were also surrounded by Azeri troops on Wednesday, describing it as “somewhat of a crisis situation”; the defence ministry in Moscow denied this, according to Russian news agencies.

Azerbaijan and Armenia blame each other for skirmishes that have shaken a Moscow-brokered peace deal which came into effect on November 10th, after six weeks of fighting claimed more than 5,500 lives in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.

The accord returned much of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts to Azerbaijan, more than 25 years after the region was seized by its ethnic Armenian majority. Tension is still high, however, amid disputes over who controls certain areas and efforts to secure positions.

Armenia’s defence ministry reported losing contact with troops near the villages of Khtsaberd and Hin Tagher on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday Arayik Harutyunyan, the head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist administration, confirmed that “a few dozen of our servicemen” had been captured in that area.

“According to our information, Russian peacekeepers are also surrounded,” Mr Pashinyan said later to Radio Free Europe.

There was no immediate comment on the incident from Azerbaijan, which with strong Turkish support and high-tech drones bought from Ankara dominated the recent fighting and rebuffed several Russian and western calls to halt hostilities.

Several Armenian soldiers were reportedly wounded last weekend in skirmishes around Khtsaberd and Hin Tagher, which Azerbaijan described as part of an operation to root out fighters who had killed Azeri troops in recent weeks.

Mr Harutyunyan accused Azerbaijan of showing “disrespect” to Russia as the broker of the ceasefire agreement and provider of peacekeeping troops.

“With the military-political leadership of Armenia we are working with the Russian side to jointly prevent provocations by the Azeri side. The defence army [of Nagorno-Karabakh] is fulfilling its duties to the best of its ability,” he added.

Energy-rich Azerbaijan’s victory sparked a political crisis in Armenia, where Mr Pashinyan has faced street protests, calls to resign and an alleged assassination plot that was foiled by the security services.

Protesters blocked at least two major roads on Wednesday morning and gathered outside the Armenian defence ministry to demand news of the captured soldiers. In the evening, opposition politicians led a larger rally in the centre of the capital, Yerevan, to call for Mr Pashinyan’s resignation and snap elections.

“I consider myself to be the main person responsible, but not the main person who is guilty” for recent events, said Mr Pashinyan, who accuses his allegedly corrupt political enemies of exploiting the crisis for their own ends.

“It’s not a question of whether or not the prime minister leaves, but of who decides who will be prime minister,” he added. “The people should decide.”

Interim measure in the case of Armenia v. Azerbaijan with regard to alleged captives to remain in force – ECHR

Emil Lazarian
Public Radio of Armenia
Dec 16 2020

The Interim measure in the case of Armenia v. Azerbaijan with regard to alleged captives will remain in force, the European Court of Human Rights said.

On 29 September 2020, acting on a request for a general interim measure lodged by Armenia against Azerbaijan, the European Court of Human Rights decided to apply Rule 39 of the Rules of Court in regard to the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. Taking the view that the situation gave rise to a risk of serious violations of the Convention, the Court called upon both Azerbaijan and Armenia to refrain from taking any measures, in particular military action, which might entail breaches of the Convention rights of the civilian population, including putting their life and health at
risk, and to comply with their obligations under the Convention, notably in respect of Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment).

By a statement of 4 November 2020, the Court pointed out that, while the above decision specifically mentioned the rights of civilians, it also called on the States to comply with their obligations under the Convention. It clarified that the latter _expression_ included also the Convention rights of those who were captured during the conflict and those whose rights might otherwise be violated.

The Court has also received numerous requests under Rule 39 concerning alleged captives. The requests received so far concern 148 individuals. They have been lodged by the Government of either Armenia or Azerbaijan or by relatives of the captives. In all these cases, the Court has invited the respondent Government to provide information on the individuals concerned, in particular whether they have been captured, under what conditions they are being held, including any medical examinations or treatment they have undergone, and whether, in view of the exchange of prisoners of war and other detainees envisaged in the ceasefire agreement signed on 9 November 2020, any measures to repatriate the captives have been taken or planned. Simultaneously, the Court has either suspended the examination under Rule 39 when the respondent Government have provided adequate information on their captives or applied Rule 39 when the Government have not given sufficient information or have not given any information at all.

On 3 December 2020 the Government of Azerbaijan asked the Court to suspend the proceedings on interim measures until the applicants show that they have addressed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They argued that the issues raised fell entirely under international
humanitarian law and that some applicants had failed to properly substantiate their Rule 39 requests and their claim that there was a real danger of irreparable harm to the captives. They further requested the Court to lift the interim measure indicated on 29 September 2020 in respect
of Azerbaijan. In this regard, they referred to the above ceasefire agreement of 9 November 2020. In response, the Government of Armenia asked the Court to reject the requests

On 15 December 2020 the Court (sitting as a Chamber of seven judges) examined the requests made by the Azerbaijani Government. It noted that a very large number of Rule 39 requests, predominantly directed against Azerbaijan, continue to arrive at the Court, containing allegations that individuals have been captured and, in some cases, severely ill-treated. The Azerbaijani Government have frequently failed to provide the information requested by the Court. Moreover, the possibility to address the ICRC does not preclude applicants from seizing the Court, claiming violations of the Convention and requesting the application of Rule 39. In these circumstances, the Court did not find any basis for discontinuing or suspending the examination of requests under Rule 39 in reasonably substantiated cases concerning alleged captives.

The Court further noted that the mutual exchange of captives had started on 14 December 2020. It welcomed this development. For the time being, however, it found that the general interim measure of 29 September 2020, as interpreted on 4 November 2020 and addressed to both Armenia and
Azerbaijan, should remain in force, as a reminder to both parties of their obligations under the Convention. It therefore rejected the Azerbaijani Government’s request to lift that measure.

Accordingly, the Court reaffirmed the above-mentioned general interim measure and decided to continue to examine Rule 39 requests concerning alleged individual captives, to apply Rule 39 when the circumstances merit such action and to request specific information from the respondent
Government on the alleged captives. It reminded both parties of their obligation to abide by all interim measures issued pursuant to Rule 39. The Court will keep these procedures under review.

Prisoner exchange process continues between Armenia, Azerbaijan, says Russian diplomat

Vatche Chakhmakhchian
TASS, Russia
Dec 16 2020
On Monday, 12 people returned to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku on a Russian military plane, while Azerbaijan sent 44 people back

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. The prisoner exchange process continues between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Wednesday.


"The prisoner exchange process continues," she said in response to a question.

On Monday, 12 people returned to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku on a Russian military plane, while Azerbaijan sent 44 people back. Russian peacekeepers did a lot of preparatory work with both parties to make the exchange happen.

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict over the disputed territory, primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them.

On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. The Russian leader said that Azerbaijan and Armenia would maintain the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region. In accordance with the statement, the parties need to carry out an "all-for-all" prisoner exchange.


Foreign Minister on why Armenia didn’t recognize the Republic of Artsakh

Garnik Tadevosian
Public Radio of Armenia
Dec 16 2020

The right of peoples to self-determination is the cornerstone of peace negotiations, Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Aivazian said in an interview with le Monde.

“Armenia did not recognize the independence of Artsakh just to give an opportunity to reach a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through negotiations,” he said.

“Some people are mistaken today, thinking that the issue of Artsakh’s status has been removed from the agenda by the use of military force,” Minister Aivazian added.

In this regard, he said the Minsk Group Co-Chairs have reaffirmed that the issue of Artsakh’s status will continue to be on the agenda of the talks.

“In case of disagreement of Azerbaijan on the issue, Armenia will consider recognizing the Artsakh Republic,” the Foreign Minister said.


Video showing Armenian servicemen being freed from siege authentic, Defense Ministry says

Adrine Hakobian
Public Radio of Armenia
Dec 16 2020

Armenia’s Ministry of Defense has confirmed the authenticity of the video circulating on the web, showing a group of Armenian servicemen being taken out of blockade from the area of Hin Tagher-Khtsaberd villages in the Hadrut region.

“The video is real,” the Defense Ministry said.

It added that the operation was carried out thanks to the active steps of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, with the direct mediation of commander, Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov.

Artsakh’s Defense Ministry said this morning contact had been lost with the personnel of several military positions located in the direction of Hin Tagher and Khtsaberd villages in the vicinity of Hadrut.

https://en.armradio.am/2020/12/16/video-showing-armenian-servicemen-being-freed-from-siege-authentic-defense-ministry-says/


Nagorno-Karabakh: Fleeing conflict, facing the unknown

Arpi Talalian
Relief Web
Dec 16 2020

The IFRC is working alongside both Armenian Red Cross Society and Azerbaijan Red Crescent Society, in coordination with International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement partners, to support people affected by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

By Jessica Timings, IFRC

On the outskirts of a small town, a kindergarten that usually resonates with the joyful sound of children is eerily silent. Just three children play quietly in the dusty yard out front. Washing hangs above a rainbow-coloured fence, the fading artwork of small children decorates on the walls inside.

This kindergarten had been closed because of COVID-19, but in the last few weeks its doors have opened to a new group of people in urgent need.

At its peak, around 80 people – mostly women, children and the elderly – were living, sleeping and eating here. The people arrived in waves from areas affected by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict which escalated significantly on 27 September 2020.

One family of eight, a mother, her five daughters and two grandchildren, have been staying in a shared room for the past few days. They left their home almost as soon as the conflict escalated, recalling the walls of their home shaking from shelling close by.

“Our children were afraid,” describes the mother. “One of the boys could not speak for two days. That is when we knew it was not safe.”

The kindergarten has basic washing and cooking utilities, shared by all who stay here. It is unclear how long people will need to stay, and resources generously provided by community members are running low. Food and other essential items are provided by Armenian Red Cross Society, local authorities and other agencies.

Armenian Red Cross Society volunteers also provide psychosocial support to children staying in shelters, and to the wounded in hospitals and their loved ones.

“The humanitarian needs of affected people are diverse, from social and health to psychological issues”, Armenian Red Cross Society Secretary General Anna Yeghiazaryan says. “The Armenian Red Cross Society, which operates throughout Armenia as a neutral, independent organization, is committed to doing everything it can to respond to these needs.”

“As winter arrives, the needs of these people will multiply. We are working to ensure continued access to basic services and necessities, including heated accommodation, electricity, water, and support to host families.”

Though the ceasefire announcement has meant that some have returned to their homes, more are afraid to go back. The family of eight is among those who feel they cannot yet return, but do not know where they can go from here.

Many children are unable to attend school, though some have been able to attend schools near their temporary places of shelter.

“I am in my last year of school, I want to finish. I am planning to continue my education at university next year, but I don’t know whether I will be able to get back to school,” shares one of the young women staying at the kindergarten.

“We want people to know we are here, we exist, we are not forgotten.”

Primary country
  • Armenia
Source
  • International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies
Format
  • News and Press Release
Themes
  • Health
  • Shelter and Non-Food Items
  • Water Sanitation Hygiene
Disaster type
  • Epidemic
Language
  • English

Israel Needs a Caucasus Strategy

Hovsep Chakrian
The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
Dec 16 2020
By Dmitri ShufutinskyDecember 16, 2020

2020 Artsakh ceasefire map, image via Wikipedia


BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,849, December 16, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel must maintain its deep historic relationship with Azerbaijan, but the Jewish people also have common bonds with Armenians. Jerusalem must seek a larger role in the region to broker peace and prevent Iran and Turkey from gaining a foothold in the area.

The recent clashes over the disputed Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh region in the southern Caucasus are threatening to start a new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Like many territorial disputes in Africa and the Middle East, this one began with colonial border-drawing and broken promises by the Soviet Empire, the product of Josef Stalin’s divide-and-conquer tactics. This has helped make Armenia dependent on Russia for military support, and some of Russia’s largest military bases are in that country.

Iran supports Yerevan as well (to a lesser extent) for three main reasons: concern over Azeri separatism at home, Iran’s sizeable Armenian community, and Turkish influence in the Caucasus. Meanwhile, Turkey is seeking to increase its own clout in Baku against its historic Armenian enemy while at the same time placing Sunni jihadists on the borders of its Russian and Iranian “frenemies.”

All of this bodes ill for Israel and presents the Jewish State with a difficult challenge. The Jews have shared experiences with the Armenians, but Israel’s relationship with Baku is important for Jerusalem’s regional security. There must, therefore, be a revamped and renewed Caucasus strategy for Israel going into the rest of the 21st century.

The Jewish and Armenian peoples have many commonalities. Both suffered genocidal assault in the 20th century because of their ethnicities and faiths. In 1915, at the height of WWI, Armenian Christians, along with their Assyrian and Greek coreligionists, were massacred in an act of genocide by the Muslim Ottoman Empire. During WWII, the Jews were victims of genocide inflicted by Nazi Germany. Berlin had a close historical relationship with Ankara, and was even inspired in part by the Ottoman-inflicted genocide to begin the Holocaust.

In addition to their common history of genocide and persecution, Jews and Armenians have also shared many of the same trades for the same reason: they were often restricted to trading or merchant-related jobs due to discrimination in European or Muslim-majority societies.

After long struggles, both peoples finally regained sovereignty over their indigenous homelands, and the conflict over Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh is somewhat reminiscent of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians in the West Bank. According to international law, Armenia and Israel are occupying land reserved for Arab Palestinians and ethnic Azeris, respectively. But the lands in question were historically the core of both the Jewish and Armenian civilizations prior to ethnic cleansing campaigns, settlement by foreigners, and divide-and-conquer tactics by colonial powers. Negotiations have resulted in dead ends many times, and violent conflict over both disputed areas is a regular occurrence.

Sadly, history has barred the two nations from what should be a natural alliance. Armenia is cut off from most of the region and is dependent for trade and economic survival on Russia and Iran, two countries that are hardly friends of Israel. Similarly, due to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the “alliance of the periphery,” Israel has had a historic alliance with Turkey—Yerevan’s arch-nemesis—and refused to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Yerevan’s relations with Iran and Jerusalem’s with Turkey have generated an atmosphere of mistrust between the two capitals. Armenia has consistently voted in favor of the Palestinians at the UN, and many Armenians in Arab countries have supported “resistance” against Israel even though Israel is home to an Armenian population.

With Azerbaijan as with Armenia, Jews have historically faced little antisemitism compared to the wider Middle East and the former Soviet Union. Israel has a large Azeri-Jewish population. Although Azerbaijan is a Shiite Muslim dictatorship, it is very secular and quite independent of Turkish foreign policy decisions despite their “brotherly ties.” It buys vast quantities of sophisticated weapons from Israel, which in turn receives most of its oil from the Caspian Sea nation.

Azerbaijan, like Israel, views Iran as a geostrategic rival, and reportedly has agreed to allow Israel to use its territory to carry out intelligence operations and even airstrikes against the Islamic Republic. Baku is concerned about Tehran’s expansionist plans, mistreatment of its Azeri minority, support for Armenia, and historical occupation of Azeri land. All of these are perfect reasons for a tight relationship between Baku and Jerusalem—so much so that the dictator of Azerbaijan often goes out of his way to praise the role of the country’s Jewish community in Azeri history. While Azerbaijan also votes in favor of the Palestinians in the UN, it does so more to maintain ties with other Muslim countries that might feel uncomfortable with its alliance with Israel than out of any sense of solidarity with Ramallah or Gaza City.

Changing realities in the region necessitate a new Israeli strategy for maintaining ties with Azerbaijan while expanding them with Armenia. It is important for Jerusalem to adopt a more balanced policy in the region, one that cultivates a deeper friendship with Armenia while not abandoning its Baku ally.

Turkey, it is safe to say, has gone from a friend to perhaps Israel’s most dangerously sophisticated geopolitical rival. It openly supports Hamas, crushes Israel’s Kurdish allies, and seeks to Islamize Azerbaijan by sending Syrian jihadists to fight Armenia on its behalf. Ankara has also encroached upon Israel’s economic gas interests in the Mediterranean. It is high time that Jerusalem abandon its apprehension about offending Ankara and recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Doing so could bring the recently appointed Armenian ambassador back to Tel Aviv, who was recalled due to Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan during the recent round of violence. A distancing of the Ankara-Jerusalem relationship could also lead to a reciprocal draw-down in ties between Yerevan and Tehran.

Israel must also make the moral decision of whether or not to end arms sales to Baku. Now that it has peace with Bahrain and the UAE, it is not nearly as dependent on Azeri oil as it historically has been. Therefore, there is less significant danger of a reciprocal move should Israel halt arms sales, even if such a halt is limited only to rounds of conflict.

The other option is to sell weapons of equal quality and quantity to Armenia in order to create balance, deterrence, and a likelihood of ceasefire. If both countries have equally sophisticated weapons, it is less likely they would be willing to risk a devastating war that could end with no clear winner. If Israel ends up with better relations with both countries, it could play the role of peacemaker between the two sides in such a way that would mitigate or outright block Turkish and Iranian influence in the region. It could also empower Western allies, such as France and the US, in the region at the expense of Russia.

Jerusalem must not make excuses to abandon morals for strategy; nor must it be so unwise as to do the moral thing at the expense of its own security. It is possible to take a middle ground that would empower the influence of the Jewish State. Having good relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan necessitates a more even-handed policy to the region.

Either Israel should suspend arms sales to Azerbaijan or it should supply them to Armenia as well to level the playing field. This would probably bring violence to an end and give peace talks a chance. At the same time, Israel must recognize the current Turkish threat and bring about closer relations with the Armenian people, with whom the Jews share many tragic experiences.

After all, Israel’s current Mediterranean allies of Cyprus and Greece were once much closer to the Palestinians and Arab countries, partly due to Israel’s close ties with their enemy, Turkey. The situation is drastically different today. If Jerusalem is to counter Ankara, it needs as many allies as it can get. And if Israel is to be a light unto the nations, it must set the gold standard when it comes to recognizing and remembering genocide.

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Dmitri Shufutinsky is a graduate of Arcadia University’s Masters program in International Peace & Conflict Resolution. He currently lives as a Lone Soldier in Kibbutz Erez, Israel, serving in the Givati Brigade under the Garin Tzabar program.