MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Friday said Armenia should comply with agreements reached with Azerbaijan after last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, despite the political upheaval in Armenia, with the army on Thursday demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan quit.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan marches through the streets of the capital Yerevan with his supporters after accusing the military of mounting an attempted coup.
Thousands rallied behind Pashinyan after the army’s written demand plunged the impoverished former Soviet republic of less than 3 million into a new political crisis in what he said was an attempted coup.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Alison Williams)
The Second Karabakh War, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, began on September 27, 2020, and ended on November 9, 2020, with a Russian-brokered and guaranteed agreement. The conflict claimed the lives of thousands of Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers. But after 44 days of fierce fighting, it concluded with Yerevan soundly defeated: Armenia lost territory occupied during the First Karabakh War in 1992–1994 as well as over 30 percent of prewar Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast—a region of Soviet Azerbaijan majority populated by ethnic Armenians. Today, the rump self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR or “Artsakh”)—still controlled by Armenians and not recognized by anyone—is fully surrounded by Azerbaijani troops and territory. The rump Karabakh “republic’s” perimeter is guarded by some 2,000 Russian “peacekeepers” who also control the so-called Lachin corridor, the only highway left open from Armenia proper to Karabakh through the city of Lachin. The future of the rump NKR and its Armenian population is unclear. Baku refuses to discuss any special administrative status for the territory, insisting Armenians born in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast or their descendants must disarm and apply for Azerbaijani citizenships to stay as a minority inside Azerbaijan. In turn, the NKR leadership has declared Russian an official language alongside Armenian to avoid use of Azerbaijani Turkish (Izvestia, February 17). Officials in Stepanakert (Khankendi in Azerbaijani) apparently hope this may tempt Moscow to keep its peacekeepers in Karabakh permanently and maybe eventually agree to annex the NKR outright.
After the 44-day war, Armenia has been in turmoil, with military and political leaders blaming each other for the disaster. Former Armenian president Serge Sarkissian—who was ousted from power in 2018 through mass street protests by the present Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinian—bitterly and publicly criticized the way the conflict was conducted. In particular, he accused Pashinian of failing to make good use of the Russian Iskander mobile theater ballistic missiles Armenia acquired in 2016, when Sarkissian was in charge. The embattled Pashinian replied that, in fact, the Iskanders were fired at Azerbaijani targets but turned out to be useless—“a weapon of the 1980s”—ether not exploding upon impact or “only with some 10 percent effect” (Interfax, February 23). This statement and its aftermath transformed the tense situation in Yerevan into a full-blown crisis. The deputy chief of the Armenian General Staff, Lieutenant General Tiran Khachatrian, told journalists, in between laughter, that Pashinian’s statement about the Iskander’s “10 percent effectiveness” was nonsense. In turn, the prime minister demanded that Armenia’s President Armen Sarkissian (now a largely ceremonial role) fire Khachatrian, which he did on February 24.
This termination prompted an open confrontation between Pashinian and the Armenian Armed Forces’ top command. The General Staff issued a statement denouncing Pashinian as utterly incompetent and a threat to the future of Armenia, demanding his ouster: “We endured the attempts to discredit the military, but enough is enough.” Pashinian accused the uniformed leadership of attempting a coup, called on his supporters to come out into the streets of the capital, and demanded the ouster of the chief of the General Staff, Colonel General Onik Gasparian—Armenia’s top military officer (Interfax, February 25).
On February 25, Pashinian joined a small demonstration of supporters in Yerevan. Opposition protesters, who announced they backed the military, in turn began blockading downtown city streets with dumpsters, while Armenian Su-30MS fighter jets overflew the capital in an apparent demonstration of force. President Sarkissian, who obediently fired General Khachatrian, has hesitated to underwrite the order to fire General Gasparian. Two former presidents, Robert Kocharian and Serge Sarkissian—both bitter political opponents of Pashinian and heroes of the First Karabakh War—released statements calling on Armenians to support the military against the sitting head of government (Interfax, February 25).
Armenia was the first foreign country to receive Iskander missiles, which Moscow has long been promoting as one of its wonder weapon. Armenian sources have indicated the Iskander was used in the Karabakh clashes last autumn, but the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement denying that assertion: “all the Iskander 9K720-E missiles supplied to Armenia are safely in storage.” According to the Russian defense ministry, “The Iskander 9K720-E was successfully used in Syria against international terrorists and is internationally acclaimed as the best in its class of weapons. Apparently, Pashinian was misled by someone” (Interfax, February 25). Of course, this official defense ministry renunciation is itself ambiguous: Armenia may, indeed, have received the simplified, export version of the missile, or Iskander-E (9K720-E), which has a range of 280 kilometers compared to the 500 kilometers (or more) of the regular Iskander-M supplied to the Russian Armed Forces. But why would the Russian military have used in Syria this specifically inferior 9K720-E Iskander, as the defense ministry statement seemed to say?
Moscow has hyped the capabilities of the Iskander-M, the Iskander-K cruise missile version as well as the hypersonic Kinzhal, believed to simply be an airborne iteration of the same Iskander aero-ballistic (capable of maneuvering within the atmosphere) missile. The Kinzhal has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers due to it being launched, midair, at a height of some 10 kilometers. These weapons systems, though produced to this day, were initially designed in the 1980s. Their accuracy is lagging, the time required to program and insert a flight path takes time (sometimes days), and they are not designed to hit mobile targets. The Iskander as well as other Russian non-strategic missiles can be truly effective only with a nuclear warhead—apparently the way it is intended to primarily be used in any peer-to-peer conflict. The use of several conventional Iskanders in the Second Karabakh War would hardly have changed the overall outcome.
Pashinian has announced a reform of the Armenian Armed Forces “in close cooperation with Russia” and phoned President Vladimir Putin to seek support in his standoff with his own uniformed command. The Armenian military brass, in turn, are reportedly in touch with their Russian counterparts. Moscow never liked or trusted Pashinian but seems hesitant to take sides in the face of a possible coup and lasting destabilization of an important ally. On February 25, Putin reportedly simply called for both sides to stay calm (Militarynews.ru, February 25) .
MOSCOW—Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has announced that his nation’s military had attempted a coup on Thursday, the latest development in a country still recovering from last year’s lost war with Azerbaijan.
Now, politicians and political analysts are speaking of Russia’s hand in the attempted coup, pointing to President Vladimir Putin’s strained relationship with Pashinyan. On Tuesday, Pushinyan had insulted Moscow by complaining about Russian missiles, an indirect criticism of the Kremlin’s strategy of waiting to intervene until Armenia was weakened in the conflict, despite its official status as a military ally.
“They didn’t explode, or maybe 10 percent of them exploded,” Pashinyan said of the missiles Tuesday. The military generals—already angry over Pashinyan’s firing of military generals in an effort to modernize the force—objected, setting off the conflict.
According to political analyst Artur Paronyan, Russia’s General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov had made a call to his Armenian counterpart, General Onik Gasparyan, earlier in the day. “Moscow clearly signaled to General Gasparyan to get rid of our prime minister,” Paronyan told The Daily Beast.
Led by Gasparyan, dozens of generals signed a statement calling for Pashinyan’s removal over his alleged inability “to make adequate decisions in this crisis.” It marked the first direct intervention by the military in Armenia’s domestic politics since 2008, when 10 demonstrators were killed after the military clamped down on a protest in Yerevan’s Freedom Square.
Armenia has healed from that tragedy, and has since changed course. Over the past decade, the country has developed a vibrant civil society, confronting some of its most acute social issues. But the threat of a war with Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has been in the air for decades. Generations grew up preparing for the next war, and in September, the fighting began. It went on for six weeks, and Armenia was turned upside down.
After the war, thousands of bitter protesters crowded Yerevan’s center, blaming the government for the defeat and demanding Pashinyan’s resignation. A Russian-brokered ceasefire saved Armenia from defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh, but it also left Armenia desperately dependent on Russia for security.
The opposition called for Pashinyan’s ouster, and was joined by the army on Wednesday. Many men in crowds of protesters wore military uniforms and said they would not leave Freedom Square until Pashinyan was gone. On Thursday, Gasparyan published his statement formally calling for the prime minister’s resignation and criticizing him for “discrediting” the military.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Pashinyan’s key rival, former Minister of Defense Vazgen Manukyan, claimed he had powerful support from the Armenian military. “We blame Pashinyan for the total diplomatic failure in peace negotiations with Baku and for our defeat in the war against Azerbaijan’s aggression.” He added that he was “in touch with all the commanders,” and that he knows that “some operations [led by Pashinyan] were more than dubious.”
“Everything that my army managed to win from 1992 to 1993, he lost. We plan to put Pashinyan on trial and investigate why we have lost territories and 5,000 lives,” he said. Manukyan also stressed his support for peaceful demonstrations only, as a civil war would devastate an already vulnerable Armenia.
Many of Manukyan’s supporters are openly championing Russian support for the coup. “The war showed us that neither the United States nor France were here to save us. Moscow negotiated peace for us. Even now, Russian peacekeepers are on guard in the conflict zone,” a pro-Manukyan analyst, Stepan Danielyan, told The Daily Beast.
Armenian leaders have had a hard time earning the trust of a disillusioned public. The public demanded justice for years after the massacre in Freedom Square, blaming the president at the time, Robert Kocharyan, for ordering the shootings. A velvet revolution swept Nikol Pashinyan, once a political prisoner, to power in 2018. The same year, a court ordered former President Kocharyan arrested on charges related to the shooting incident.
“Putin considers Pashinyan a traitor and an enemy who failed in his promises many times,” Sergei Markov, a Kremlin analyst, told The Daily Beast.
Markov explained how the conflict between Putin and Pashinyan goes beyond the missile insults. According to media reports, Putin had unsuccessfully lobbied for the release of his friend, former president Kocharyan, after his 2019 arrest.
“Putin called Kocharyan on his birthday a few months ago to demonstrate what he thought of that arrest,” says Markov. “Now the Kremlin would like to see [Pashinyan] drink the entire glass of shame so everybody would see what happens to an American puppet.”
Correction: Former Armenian Minister of Defense Vazgen Manukyan told The Daily Beast that he had powerful support from the Armenian military in his conflict with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, a key political rival. A previous version of this report inaccurately stated that Manukyan said he had support from Russia’s military, due to a reporting error.
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Stockholm on Europe In 60 Seconds:
Is there a military coup ongoing in Armenia?
Well, it isn’t a military coup as of yet, but it’s not far from it either. This is the turmoil that is resulting from the war with Azerbaijan, which Armenia took a large death loss. What happened was that the head of the armed forces asked for the prime minister to resign. That was not quite a coup, but not very far from it. Now, the prime minister sacked the head of the armed forces, there’s considerable uncertainty. Watch the space.
What’s happening in Georgia?
Well, turmoil in Georgia is very much a result of the Salvador authoritarian instincts that is there in the ruling Georgia Dream coalition or party that is led by the oligarch Ivanishvili. Then there has been an escalation of confrontation and this led to the verdict by a court against the leader of the opposition. The prime minister resigned over the question of whether he should be arrested. A new hard-line prime minister was put in place and the leader of opposition has been arrested. There’s a reason to be very concerned with where Georgia is heading
Government-military standoff in Yerevan continues after alleged ‘coup attempt’
Daniel McLaughlin
Thousands of Armenians and Georgians have taken to the streets of their capitals to demand that their governments step down and call snap elections, as political turmoil gripped the neighbouring states in the strategic Caucasus region.
Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan continued to be at loggerheads with the country’s military general staff on Friday, a day after he accused them of attempting a coup by telling him to resign over a dispute with two high-ranking officers.
The most senior officer involved, general staff chief Onik Gasparyan, refused to leave his post on Mr Pashinyan’s order and joined other top brass in denouncing the government, which has been under huge pressure since Armenian forces ceded much of the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Azerbaijan in fighting last autumn.
“You think the army will easily agree that Pashinyan illegally removes their head? No. The army will rebel. I call on the army to rebel. The army shouldn’t carry out illegal orders,” opposition leader Vazgen Manukyan told protesters in Yerevan on Friday.
“The people must take to the streets and express their will to avoid a bloodbath and crisis,” he declared. “Either we get rid of them [the government], or we lose Armenia. ”
Allies
Another prominent opposition figure, Artur Vanetsyan, said he and his allies would meet Mr Pashinyan only “to discuss the question of his resignation. A meeting to discuss any other issue is pointless.”
Mr Pashinyan, who took power in 2018 after peaceful pro-reform protests, accuses some officers of trying to evade scrutiny over the Nagorno-Karabakh defeat and of doing the bidding of a political old guard long tainted by corruption scandals.
Armenian president Armen Sarkissian has pledged to seek a negotiated solution to the crisis, and held talks with leaders of the ruling and opposition parties, as well as with Col-Gen Gasparyan.
“France hopes that dialogue can be established in this country by relying on the legitimacy of the president and the prime minister,” said French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. “The elements of Armenian democracy must hold out.”
Restraint
US state department spokesman Ned Price urged all sides to show “restraint and to avoid any escalatory or violent actions. We remind all parties of the bedrock democratic principle that states’ armed forces should not intervene in domestic politics.”
In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, thousands marched on Friday for political change and the release of opposition leader Nika Melia, who police arrested at his party’s headquarters on Tuesday for refusing to pay an increased bail fee over charges dating back to a 2019 demonstration.
The government insists the authorities are simply upholding the rule of law, but Mr Melia’s United National Movement and other opposition parties accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party of using increasingly autocratic measures and of rigging last autumn’s parliamentary elections.
Ever since its disastrous military defeat at the hands of Azerbaijan last year, Armenia has suffered from a wave of political unrest, with rallies and protests continuing sporadically. The principal demand of the protestors has been the resignation of the incumbent Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, whose agreement to a ceasefire favourable to Azerbaijan following his country’s defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh was viewed as a national betrayal.
However, the most serious declaration of opposition to the Prime Minister came on Thursday, when the general staff of the armed forces, Onik Gasparyan, joined in the calls for Pashinyan to resign. Gasparyan was prompted by Pashinyan’s dismissal of his deputy, who had publicly ridiculed the Prime Minister’s claim that his country’s military had been failed by faulty Russian missiles. Moscow, too, weighed into the dispute with the deputy chairman of the Duma defence committee attacking Pashinyan for ‘trying to absolve himself of the blame for the failings in the Karabakh war’.
General Gasparyan’s stated demands — which have been co-signed by other senior military officers — are considered a coup by the Prime Minister, who held a rally of his own to counter the protests by opposition factions. Pashinyan has demanded that the military return to its duties and not attempt to interfere in politics.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia has been entirely dependent on Russian support
While the Prime Minister has warned the protestors that those breaking the law will be arrested, if a concerted effort is made to remove Pashinyan from power it is not abundantly clear how he would attempt to retain his position. In the immediate aftermath of the Russian-brokered ceasefire with Azerbaijan, the country’s parliament building was seized and the president of the national assembly hospitalised by furious civilians. Law enforcement was either powerless to stop them or disinterested in trying. It is reasonable to conclude that any military-supported takeover of government would encounter even less resistance. Pashinyan and his government are not popular.
Although the Armenian government still enjoys the support of its own party loyalists, the administration has taken more of the blame for the country’s defeat than the military. The armed forces have the support of the parliamentary opposition, who have declared that Pashinyan’s dismissal of Khachartyan and threats to force out Gasparyan are attempts ‘aimed at decapitating the army’. The Prime Minister does not have the backing of his president, Armen Sarksyan, who in November described Pashinyan’s resignation as ‘inevitable’, and refused to sign Pashinyan’s order dismissing Gasparyan from his post.
Inevitable is perhaps the right word, since Pashinyan’s government has never been completely stable. Having come to power in the so-called ‘velvet revolution’ of 2018, the Prime Minister incurred the ire of Moscow early on, having ousted a set of prominent Kremlin allies and hinting at closer ties to the West. It is a matter of geopolitical curiosity that a region as small as South Caucasus has historically had (and retains) such strategic importance; doubly interesting is the fact that the three countries of the region have chosen drastically different foreign policy paths, the only common element being the high level of dependence each has on its international partner of choice.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has bolstered ties with Turkey (a country with which it shares cultural and ethnic ties), while Georgia continues to stumble and stagger on the long road to EU and Nato membership. Armenia, however, has been entirely dependent on Russian support, and the Kremlin’s negotiation of the recent peace has only reinforced this. Armenia’s minister of defence even discussed the possibility of a relocation and expansion of the Russian military base in northern Armenia.
The notion that Pashinyan’s replacement by a more overtly pro-Russian leader would be pleasing to the Kremlin is perhaps best demonstrated by Moscow’s uncharacteristically muted response to the unrest in the capital Yerevan. Past disturbances in Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia have resulted in Russian calls for calm and ostensible professions of hope that democratic processes be respected — by contrast, Armenia’s current crisis has led only to the decidedly ambivalent Kremlin response that ‘this is purely an internal affair for Armenia’.
Whether Pashinyan survives the crisis, is removed forcibly or via elections, Armenia’s future as a Russian client state is effectively guaranteed and Moscow’s strategic foothold in the South Caucasus secured. Pashinyan’s 2018 idea to deepen ties with Europe and the wider West, therefore, is not likely to be one that resurfaces in Armenian politics any time soon.
Armen Sargsyan earlier held meetings with the country’s political forces and different branches of power to discuss ways of resolving the internal political crisis in the country
YEREVAN, February 26. /TASS/. Armenia’s President Armen Sargsyan on Friday met with the chief of the armed forces’ General Staff, Onik Gasparyan, who on Thursday said the Nikol Pashinyan-led Cabinet of Ministers must resign, the press service of the presidential administration said.
“President Armen Sargsyan visited the General Staff of the Armed Forces for a meeting with its chief Onik Gasparyan,” the news release runs.
Earlier, Sargsyan held meetings with the country’s political forces and different branches of power to discuss ways of resolving the internal political crisis in the country.
The General Staff of Armenia’s Armed Forces on February 25 came out with a statement demanding the resignation of the prime minister and his Cabinet on behalf of the military. The statement was signed by the chief of the General Staff, Onik Gasparyan, his deputies and heads of departments and corps. Pashinyan qualified the demand as a coup attempt and declared a decision to dismiss the chief of the General Staff. The president, who according to the Constitution appoints and dismisses the chief of the General Staff at the prime minister’s initiative, has not signed the dismissal order yet. Against this background demonstrations by Pashinyan’s opponents and supporters began in the capital Yerevan.
Opposition demonstrators rally to pressure Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign in the center of Yerevan, Armenia. Feb. 25, 2021. – Copyright Hrant Khachatryan/PAN Photo
Flanked by thousands of his supporters, the Armenian Prime Minister on Thursday marched through the streets of Yerevan in a bid to rally people behind him after claiming the army had attempted a coup.
While Nikol Pashinyan’s advocates came out in Republic Square in the heart of the Armenian capital, throngs of opposition protesters also convened in the city, bringing traffic to a halt and chanting “Nikol, resign!”
Euronews looks at what’s behind the swell of unrest in Armenia.
Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan (centre front left carrying a megaphone) walks with his supporters in the centre of Yerevan, Armenia. Feb. 25, 2021.Hrant Khachatryan/PAN Photo via AP
The catalyst for the recent unrest in Armenia is last year’s bloody conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno Karabakh region, which saw thousands killed on both sides.
Swathes of territory in and around the mountainous region were ceded to Azerbaijan when the two sides signed a November 10 Russian-brokered peace deal and Pashinyan has faced protests ever since.
This week’s unrest centres around a “reckoning on Armenia’s perceived failings in that conflict and who is responsible,” associate fellow on the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, Laurence Broers, told Euronews.
Nagorno-Karabakh: Why has there been a flare-up of violence between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces?
The importance of the Nagorno Karabakh region to Armenia and Azerbaijan should not be underestimated.
“This is an issue of identity for both sides,” Dr Kevork Oskanian, Honorary Research Fellow at Birmingham University, who specialises in Eurasian politics, told Euronews.
“Nagorno-Karabakh is central to the identity of both Armenians and Azerbaijanis — it is very hard to compromise when it’s about such a deep-held part of your identity.”
Oskanian observes there are “two camps now ranged against each other” in Armenia.
“The opposition camp, Pashinyan, basically taking his supporters into the streets, and the army in between,” he said.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan: Since taking office, Pashinyan has faltered, making a series of mistakes and missteps, observed Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center think tank in Yerevan.
The leader of the “My Step” was massively popular two years ago, winning the elections in 2018 with a landslide result of over 70%, but recent polls have shown this score has dramatically slumped to around 45%.
Anti-government sentiment has surged since the November conflict, with Pashinyan’s critics criticising him for “losing the war”, according to Oskanian, and “as the losing side, he has to resign”.
The opposition: There have been ongoing opposition protests since a November 9 ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh, spearheaded by a group of 17 opposition parties, all but one of which are not in parliament,
“They mostly represent the old regime – the people who were in power before 2018 – and are more nationalist,” said Oskanian. “And, they have, of course, been demanding the resignation of Pashinyan since November.”
He went on that there has been a “to and fro” between these groups and government on whether to hold snap preterm parliamentary elections, with the opposition wanting the prime minister to resign before they go ahead.
The opposition has been fractured in terms of whether it wants the new elections or not and Pashinyan remains “less unpopular than any other figure”, according to Broers.
The army: “There’s a lot of frustration in the top brass of the general staff of the army,” he added.
They are “pushing back” and have taken a “clear stance” in a statement they sent out calling for Pashinyan to resign.
“That is quite an extraordinary thing to happen,” Broers added.
The trigger for recent events was comments made by Pashinyan about the alleged ineffectiveness of the Iskander missile system.
“He made comments in the local media that they hadn’t ignited on impact, or only a very small percentage of them had done so. So, kind of putting the blame on the army and on its procurement strategies,” Broers explained.
This came in the wake of the terrible trauma, human losses, from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, into an “already with a quite dysfunctional political context”, he added, mixed in with a country and government grappling with the COVID pandemic.
The military’s top brass released a statement saying “the prime minister and the government are no longer able to make reasonable decisions”, according to Armenpress, the country’s state news agency.
“For a long time, the Armenian armed forces were patiently tolerating the ‘attacks’ by the incumbent government aimed at defaming the armed forces, but everything has its limits,” the officials were cited as saying.
Pashinyan retaliated by sacking the head of the army’s General Staff, Onik Gasparyan, further angering the military elite.
He accused top military officers of attempting a coup, at this point rallying his supporters to gather at the march telling them: “The army is not a political institution and attempts to involve it in political processes are unacceptable.”
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accuses military chiefs of ‘attempted coup’
Broers and Oskanian were both in agreement that the move didn’t amount to a military coup. “Technically, it’s not (a coup) because you don’t have tanks on the streets. There’s no resistance by the army to take over. I think this is more a case of insubordination,” the latter said.
But the move did mark an “unprecedented intervention” in the political arena, Giragosian said.
For the experts, the only routes out of the crisis is a dialogue on elections, which is the outcome that most Armenians want, according to recent polls.
“Elections are, I think, inevitable at this point,” said Oskanian. “I don’t think the question is whether there will be elections but when there will be elections.”
Broers also called for a formal, authoritative enquiry into the recent conflict, saying it “needs to be understood and learned from, not leveraged”.
He urged people to think about the “silent majority of Armenian citizens who actually don’t want this polarisation and actually want a competent government, an accountable government, and their voices are completely lost in this very polarised, fiery rhetoric”.
Broers said he “worries about them and their concerns” amid the “very polarised context in terms of government and opposition”.
Armenia’s president, who holds a ceremonial role, is today mediating talks between the government, and members of the opposition, which Oskanian hopes “something might actually come out of”.
Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan finds himself in trouble as military leaders call for his resignation. He, in turn, claims they are trying to oust him in a coup.
| Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 26.02.2021
It has been three months since Armenia’s defeat to Azerbaijan in the conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and the country remains politically unstable today. Now, high-ranking military figures such as, Onik Gasparyan, chief of the armed forces general staff, are calling for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation.
Pashinyan says the military is attempting to stage a coup. Meanwhile, thousands of Armenians have taken to the streets of the capital Yerevan, with western states calling on the country’s military leaders to practice restraint.
In a recent interview, Pashinyan said Armenia had used very few Russian-built short-range Iskander missiles against Azerbaijan because the weapons had “failed” or proven unreliable. Armenia’s deputy chief of armed forces staff denied the claim. Russia’s Defense Ministry, too, questioned the prime minister’s claim, saying that no Iskander missiles had been deployed at all.
Pashinyan subsequently fired the deputy armed forces general. That prompted Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Onik Gasparyan and 40 other high-ranking military figures to call for the prime minister’s resignation. In response, Pashinyan called on President Armen Vardani Sargsyan to sack Gasparyan. The president is currently in talks with all parties. Details on the state of negotiations have not yet emerged.
Armenian political analyst Ruben Megrabjan tells DW he shares Pashinyan’s interpretation of events, agreeing that the “military is attempting a coup.” He says “parts of the military leadership interfered in the country’s political process, violating the constitution.”
| Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 26.02.2021
Pashinyan is holding onto power, yet he finds himself in an increasingly precarious situation. The prime minister has faced criticism since signing a November 2020 ceasefire that involved ceding large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh enclave — supported by Armenia but, nevertheless, not internationally recognized — to Azerbaijan. Thousands of Armenian soldiers died in the fighting and the country’s opposition consequently urged Pashinyan to resign. Now, such calls are getting louder once more. Opposition protests have been staged in the capital and with tents linings the streets of Yerevan, the situation remains tense.
The US and EU have called on Armenian military leaders to practice restraint. Moscow, which is regarded as a protector in Armenia, has peacekeepers stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh, yet has kept out of the dispute. Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly spoke to Prime Minister Pashinyan by phone, though he has not publicly commented on the affair.
Snap elections could provide a path out of the deadlock. Yet Prime Minister Pashinyan’s chances of winning are slim. His approval ratings have fallen from over 80% after the country’s peaceful revolution in 2018, to just about 30% presently.
This article has been translated from German by Benjamin Restle
A member of the Halo Trust team places a danger sign in front of an unexploded rocket in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, on Oct. 14, 2020. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images)
By Jack Losh Feb. 26, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. GMT+2
KAGHARTSI, Nagorno-Karabakh — After last year’s war, 79-year-old Mila Babayan expected to come home without much fuss and resume her quiet life.
Then she looked in her garden. She found 32 unexploded shells from one of the cluster bombs that rights groups and other war monitors say were used in the fighting across Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave at the heart of a decades-long feud between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“One of them had hit a beehive,” she said. “And there was a hole where my garlic grew.”
Babayan’s garden is no isolated case. Thousands of unexploded munitions — cluster bombs, mortar rounds, rockets, shells and other weapons — now dot the region in streets, backyards and homes, said experts in ordnance removal.
While fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh lasted just 44 days, its repercussions will persist for decades.
“It’s shocking to come back, having spent three years clearing land mines here, and see the whole region littered with these items yet again,” said Nick Smart, regional director for the Halo Trust, a Britain-based organization that removes explosive remnants of war.
Russian peacekeepers, deployed under the Moscow-brokered cease-fire, and Nagorno-Karabakh’s rescue services also are involved in ordnance disposal in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is largely under pro-Armenian control but within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan.
Why Nagorno-Karabakh has pitted Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades
Authorities in Armenia and Azerbaijan deny using cluster munitions — which can eject hundreds of smaller “bomblets,” or submunitions, over a wide area. The two countries also reject witness reports of military strikes against civilian areas.
A representative from Armenia’s foreign affairs ministry told Human Rights Watch that Armenia does not have cluster munitions in its arsenal. Azerbaijan, which is widely believed to have such weapons, denied that their forces used them in Nagorno-Karabakh.
But reports by groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch describe use of cluster munitions and other weapons on both sides in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Mila Babayan, pictured by her beehives and vegetable patch in Kaghartsi, Nagorno-Karabakh. (Jack Losh)
Neither country has signed up to the treaty that prohibits the use of cluster bombs. Amnesty estimates that between 5 and 20 percent of the bomblets can fail to explode, allowing them to kill or maim civilians long after a conflict has ended.
Babayan, an ethnic Armenian, scoured her single-story home for more explosives, but found none.
“Still,” she added, “I must be careful.”
Amnesty International said Armenia has Russian-manufactured 9N235 submunitions and Azerbaijan’s arsenal appears to include the Israeli-made M095. Distinctive for their pink ribbons, which stabilize and arm the device in the air, the M095 bombs are particularly attractive to children.
On a cloudy morning in December, a Halo team arrived at Babayan’s home in Kaghartsi, about 16 miles east of the regional capital, Stepanakert.
First they surveyed the site, walking cautiously around the vegetable patch. They counted an initial 10 M095 submunitions strewn among soft clods of earth. Five others lay around a single beehive. More were scattered through a surrounding orchard.
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One deminer began planting red-tipped markers into the ground to show the location of each bomb, while another scanned for more with a metal detector. Two others team members shoveled earth into sandbags to stack around the bombs.
Babyan — wearing a floral dress, woolen cardigan and headscarf — ambled with ease over slippery mud to watch.
“Grandma, we’re going to sort this out so you can garden again,” said one team member. “We’re filing these sandbags so your beehives and home won’t be damaged by the explosion.”
As she walked farther up the garden, another sapper called after her: “Grandma, look where you’re walking!”
A member of a survey team from the Halo Trust mine-clearing organization passes by unexploded items at a storage area near Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, on Nov. 23, 2020. (Sergei Grits/AP)
Babayan suggested they take a break. “Let’s have a cup of tea,” she said.
“No, no,” replied one team member. “Thank you.”
“But I’ve already set the table! Everything is ready. You haven’t drunk a single cup.”
“Okay,” he grinned. “We’ll drink it all. Don’t worry.”
Babayan dashed inside to put the kettle on.
Besides the fighting, the rhythms of daily life had changed little since she was born in 1941 in Nagorno-Karabakh. “I love this land,” she said. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
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A peace agreement in November returned to Azerbaijan some areas lost in warfare in the early 1990s. Babayan’s son-in-law, a father of three, was among that war’s 20,000 to 30,000 fatalities.
Mila Babayan, center, and her niece with deminers from the Halo Trust team in Kaghartsi, Nagorno-Karabakh. (Jack Losh)
Her grandchildren fought on the Armenian side in last year’s war. She waited out the conflict with relatives in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, and returned after the cease-fire.
“Look around you,” she said, gesturing at farmhouses, fields and fruit trees. “Does this look like a military target?”
Outside, the deminers finished stacking the sandbags, then laid a detonation cord that connected to TNT placed by the bombs.
Babayan headed to her basement. After a 15-minute wait, the call came — “Fire!”
A single, powerful blast echoed through the hills.
The team regrouped. Babayan appeared relieved — she could finally treat her guests to lunch.
Jars of pickled beans and peppers were opened, served along with bowls of stewed eggplant and toasted flatbreads smeared thick with honey.
“Eat, eat,” she insisted. “Take as much as you like.”
Thousands more bombs lay in the surrounding land. But, for Babayan, a good harvest could be reaped.
After Nagorno-Karabakh war, a bomb-filled garden points to wider perils – The Washington Post