Category: 2022

Will the Latest Clashes Upend Nagorno-Karabakh’s Path to Peace?

Babken Chilingarian
Aug 16 2022

The international community must re-engage to preserve the tenuous peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

by Mark Temnycky

Earlier this year, Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev met to discuss a framework to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The meeting was not well received in Armenia, and thousands of citizens gathered to protest their government’s recent negotiations with Azerbaijan. Despite the protests, the Armenian government continued to meet with its Azerbaijani counterparts.

Progress was made. In July, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Georgia to discuss the next courses of action in Nagorno-Karabakh. During the meeting, they debated a plan for withdrawing Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and discussed how to normalize relations.

Following this session, Armenian officials announced they would “withdraw all remaining military units from Nagorno-Karabakh by September.” Residents of the Lachin region were told “they need to leave their homes” before September and that the Karabakh government would provide vouchers worth up to $25,000 to households forced to relocate. It was also announced that Azerbaijani forces would retake control of the area, an item that was outlined in the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire agreement signed in November 2020.

But a recent skirmish has now derailed these events. Last week, one Azerbaijani soldier and two soldiers from the Karabakh army were killed. Over a dozen Karabakh soldiers were also injured in renewed fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. Shortly after the deadly encounter, the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments accused one another of violating the current ceasefire.

The international community was swift to comment on these events. The United States urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to “reduce tensions and avoid further escalation” in Nagorno-Karabakh. Similarly, representatives from the European Union called for an immediate de-escalation in the region. Finally, Turkey and Russia voiced their concerns over the renewed skirmish, with the latter vowing to “stabilize the situation.”

As the situation develops, it remains to be seen how these international actors will help resolve the conflict. Numerous ceasefire agreements have been violated, and thousands of Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers and citizens have been killed. The United States and European Union have sent millions of dollars in financial and humanitarian assistance, but this has not ended the conflict. Similarly, Turkey and Russia were instrumental in the 2020 ceasefire negotiations, but this agreement has constantly been violated. Russia even deployed peacekeepers to the region, but this has not alleviated tensions between Yerevan and Baku.

Now, an aura of uncertainty surrounds the conflict. While Armenian and Azerbaijani officials have continuously spoken with their counterparts from the United States, the EU, Turkey, and Russia about the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, talks have failed to resolve these tensions. Due to these failed negotiations, some experts have predicted that the “likelihood of renewed war in Nagorno-Karabakh is high” and that the “chances of yet another war seem more plausible than a peace treaty.”

Based on these concerns, the international community must re-engage in the Caucasus. One potential solution would be to introduce additional peacekeeping forces to the region. To date, the Russians have a few thousand soldiers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh. Recent reports, however, revealed that Karabakh residents have questioned the effectiveness of Russian peacekeepers in the region. If the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe sent a multi-national peacekeeping force to the region, it could help with the negotiation process and limit the risk of renewed skirmishes between Armenia and Azerbaijan. These countries have made progress in their renewed discussions, and a larger peacekeeping force could help see these recent agreements to their completion.

Second, the international community should encourage negotiations between Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders. The recent EU discussions made some progress. Both countries discussed a potential withdrawal of Armenian forces from the region. Another provision could see these countries establish new trade routes. Should this be implemented, it would lead to greater economic growth and create new opportunities for both countries.

Finally, Armenia and Azerbaijan should strive to build their relationships with the major powers in the region. Collaborating with Turkish and Russian mitigation forces could lead to the establishment of new socio-economic and political opportunities in the Caucasus. The “delineation of borders” would also allow for greater movement and travel within the region.

Overall, the ongoing discussions surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have been a long and challenging process. Resolving these tensions will not come overnight, but the international community must do everything it can to serve as an intermediary during these negotiation processes. Ensuring that Armenia and Azerbaijan fulfill the provisions outlined in the newly established peace plans will help ease tensions and could slowly lead to normalized relations. It will not be easy, and it will take time, but the international community must try. After all, a successful peace plan would save thousands of lives.

Mark Temnycky is an accredited freelance journalist covering Eastern Europe and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He can be found on Twitter @MTemnycky.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/will-latest-clashes-upend-nagorno-karabakhs-path-peace-204231



Blasts in Armenian Capital – Terrorism or Carelessness?

Ophelia Vardapetian
Ukraine – Aug 16 2022
By Anna Neplii.

 Published Aug. 16 at 12:37 pm

A powerful explosion occurred in a shopping center in the Armenian capital Yerevan just after noon on August 14. The Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that the blast hit the Surmalu shopping center. The explosion also started a fire in a three-story building of local warehouses, which later partially collapsed.

As of midday local Yerevan time on August 15, the blast had claimed at least six lives and hospitalized 61 people, of whom 24 have mild injuries.

According to the previous version and eyewitness accounts, two powerful explosions with a fire and the collapse of the building occurred in a warehouse containing pyrotechnics. However, according Hor Abrahamyan, an aide to the prosecutor-general, the cause has not yet been established.

The Investigative Committee has opened criminal proceedings under two articles: 1) violation of fire safety rules or requirements, which caused the death of a person or other serious consequences due to carelessness; 2) violation of rules or requirements for storage, accounting, transportation, delivery or use of flammable or combustible materials, which caused the death of a person or other serious consequences due to negligence.

The Minister of Emergency Situations of Armenia, Armen Pambukhchyan, ruled out a terrorist attack at the Surmalu shopping center.

“Judging by the video of the moment of the explosion, there is no question of a terrorist act.  Because at the very beginning there was a fire, then clouds of smoke fell, after which it exploded,” Pambukhchyan told reporters.

However, on the same day, the operation of the capital’s subway was halted because of a bomb threat.  This was reported by Tatev Khachatryan, the press secretary of the metro.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that it had also received information that explosives had been planted at all the most important military and civilian facilities, in all shopping centers, and in other locations, including  the National Assembly and in the church of Sur Grigor Lusavorich.

However, terrorism is not being completely ruled out in the August 14 attack. After all, the blasts could have been planned by the Russian government. In so doing, Russia could start “intimidating Europe” with terrorist attacks.

Before the start of the full-scale war on Ukraine, the Kremlin often used terrorist attacks to manipulate the international political arena in order to achieve its interests. Since the start of the war, it can be seen that the number of terrorist attacks has decreased. This can probably be connected with the fact that the Russian government is not interested in this. However, due to failures on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia could once again resort to such blackmail.

Vladimir Putin began his career by allegedly organizing terrorist attacks on the territory of his own country so as to increase his ratings in the elections. Terrorist attacks like those at Nord-Ost and killings in Beslan were used to accuse the Chechens of terrorist activities. Numerous journalistic investigations have found that in such cases the trail leads to the main intelligence agency and Federal Security Service, aka FSB.

Moscow has since then repeatedly told its Western partners that they would not be able to cope with terrorism without Russia. Evidence of the presence of Russia’s main intelligence agency have also been found in many murders and terrorist attacks.

It is also interesting that on July 15, 2022, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, visited Yerevan. This is the first visit by a head of the CIA to Armenia. Burns international and regional security and the fight against terrorism with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Political scientist Tigran Grigoryan told Radio Azatutyun on July 15 that, according to his information, there are American and Russian security experts in Yerevan, whose main topic of discussion is Ukraine.

“Based on scanty information, it can be assumed that Yerevan or Armenia was simply chosen as a place for some secret negotiations with Russia, since, according to my information, Russian and American experts also arrived in Yerevan a few days ago for this purpose. Therefore, I can assume that the visit by Burns can also be in this context,” Grigoryan said.

In response to the question why, in his opinion, Armenia was chosen, Grigoryan replied: “Because Armenia is to some extent a neutral country, despite the fact that it is an ally of Russia, it took a neutral position regarding the Ukrainian war, it has good relations with both the USA and with Russia, and for both countries this is an acceptable place, as I believe, for such meetings.”

https://www.kyivpost.com/europe/blasts-in-armenian-capital-terrorism-or-carelessness.html

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 08/16/2022

Emil Lazarian 
                                        Tuesday, 


Leaving Aghavno, Returning To Zabux: Hopes And Fears As Armenia Hands Over 
Village To Azerbaijan
 14:10 GMT
        • By RFE/RL's Armenian Service
RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service

Azerbaijanis fled Zabux during the first war in the 1990s, when it came under 
control of Armenian forces along with the rest of the surrounding Lachin 
district and was renamed Aghavno.

AGHAVNO/ZABUX, Azerbaijan -- Posters and children's drawings are peeled off 
walls and packed away. Books and other objects are boxed.

All the school material is to be shipped out from the village in a strategic 
strip of land adjacent to breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh. That deemed not worth 
salvaging is burned.

Under terms of a cease-fire deal that ended the short war in and around 
Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 between Azerbaijani soldiers and ethnic Armenian 
forces, Armenians are due to hand control of the village they call Aghavno, but 
Azerbaijanis name Zabux, over to Azerbaijani forces.

The village is located along the Lachin corridor, a strip of land that connects 
what Azerbaijanis call simply Karabakh to Armenia and which is now under control 
of Russian troops deployed to the region in the wake of the conflict two years 
ago.

Now, Azerbaijan has built a new roadway -- just south of the old one -- that 
will allow them to retake control of ethnic Armenian villages within the strip.


The lack of such an alternative road in 2020 delayed the transfer of Lachin. And 
with the new road now largely in place, the transfer is expected to go ahead 
although there has been no official announcement from Baku.

However, people living in the region have been urged to vacate their homes 
before August 25 by the de facto local ethnic Armenian authorities, although 
Baku has not issued any calls for them to leave.

Ethnic Azeris fled villages in the Lachin region in 1992, when ethnic Armenian 
fighters occupied it. Even 30 years later, some still hope to return to their 
homes. But many ethnic Armenians in the village they call Aghavno are defiant, 
some saying they will remain until forced out.

"We are thinking of taking the children out, but we adults will stay until the 
last day, until the last hour, we will see how they will carry out the purchase 
and sale, or whatever else you call it," Anush Arakelian recently told RFE/RL's 
Armenian Service.

WATCH: Thirty years after being displaced amid conflict from their native 
village, some Azerbaijanis still dream of returning to Zabux.


Displaced Azerbaijanis Dream Of Returning To Their Native Village

The town's current fate is linked to the conflict in 2020, when more than 6,500 
people were killed in 44 days of fighting. It ended with a Russian-brokered deal 
under which Armenian forces withdrew from swathes of territory they had occupied 
since 1992-93.

Moscow has sent some 2,000 troops to the region, deployed to the areas of 
breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh still held by ethnic Armenians after their forces 
withdrew.

Part of that force was deployed along the Lachin corridor. Once the new road 
opens, that force is supposed to move there too, ostensibly to guard it.

The terms of the cease-fire stipulated that a plan to build a new road to 
replace the current corridor be presented within three years, bypassing Lachin 
city, Zabux, and Sus, as they are called by the Azerbaijanis.

However, Azerbaijan is far ahead of that schedule, announcing on August 11 that 
it had completed its estimated 20-kilometer stretch of a 32-kilometer road.


There is some question over when the road will be officially opened, as Armenia 
has just started construction on its several-kilometer section of the new road, 
it was reported on August 11.

Whatever the date, Mariam Hakobain told RFE/RL that she will stay to the very 
last day, when the Russian troops leave. "We as a nation stood up and committed 
suicide," she said, adding that only nine families wanted to stay elsewhere in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.

"We are crushed," Hakobian said.

Anush Arakelian, an Armenian-language and literature teacher, says it's become a 
virtual ghost town with what activity there is, largely cars driving in and 
shipping out personal effects.

Lida Smbatian can't imagine abandoning her home, especially the strawberries, 
vegetables, and flowers she has tended in her garden since moving there in 1994. 
"All my joy was in my strawberries, in my strawberry field, in the grapes. See, 
the tomatoes are ripe now," she lamented in comments to RFE/RL's Armenian 
Service.

To help them find new homes, the Armenian government has promised each family 10 
million drams (around $24,700), a sum many say won't buy much in Armenia. That 
financial aid is supposed to come in the form of a voucher.

Ethnic Armenians in the region, however, have said they've been told they will 
only get that voucher if they leave their homes as is. That is, with no visible 
damage, as happened in late 2020 when several homes were damaged by their 
homeowners before being vacated in the Kalbacar district ahead of a deadline 
dictated by the Russian-brokered cease-fire.

Footage has emerged showing what appears to be an ethnic Armenian in Aghavno 
setting alight his own house, a video that has gone viral on YouTube. A series 
of fires have also been reported along the road in Lachin in recent days. 
Although it is unclear what caused the blazes, Azerbaijanis have been quick to 
blame fleeing Armenians for them.

While the deadline has stirred dread among the ethnic Armenians living there, it 
has rekindled hope for the ethnic Azerbaijanis who were displaced 30 years ago, 
some now hoping to return to Zabux. "We escaped under dire circumstances. We 
couldn't find a car. We got into one car, then another. Without clothes. 
Everything was left to the Armenians," said Sitara Mammadova, now 90 years old. 
"We couldn't take anything. We came here and somehow coped," explained 
Mammadova, who now lives in a former boarding house outside Baku, adding that 
she still hopes to return to Zabux.


Aghavno/Zabux

The conflict over the region erupted in the late 1980s in the waning days of the 
Soviet Union. All-out war ended in 1994, with more than 30,000 people killed and 
more than 1 million people displaced, mainly ethnic Azeris.

At the end of the fighting in 1994, ethnic Armenian forces were in full control 
or partial control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts. In the 2020 
fighting, Baku took back the seven districts as well as part of the Karabakh 
territory.

Isaq Mamishov is another displaced Azerbaijani yearning to return. "There are 
some [Azerbaijanis] who lost their entire family [in the 1990s conflict]," he 
told RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service in July.

"How can their children live side by side with Armenians again? Yes, it is true 
that we are a peace-loving nation.... And if our president gives an order, our 
nation will go for it. Even if it's hard, we will accept that, because we all 
love our president. We will follow what he says. But it won't work," Mamishov 
added pessimistically.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, whose popularity was boosted by the 2020 
conflict to levels he has rarely enjoyed during his nearly two decades of 
authoritarian rule, has suggested those remaining in villages in Lachin were 
"war criminals."

"We hear news coming from there that someone says they will stay and will not 
leave. It is their business, but they are war criminals. They should not test 
our patience. Let them leave by their own will, we don't care where they go," 
Aliyev was quoted as saying by Azerbaijani media on August 12.

Azerbaijanis fled Zabux during the first war in the 1990s, when it came under 
control of Armenian forces along with the rest of the surrounding Lachin 
district. Renamed Aghavno it was rebuilt with financial backing from Armenian 
diaspora organizations and populated by Armenians, some from Armenia and others 
from Armenian communities in Syria and Lebanon.

As the handover looms, tensions have been building on the two countries' shared 
border since May 2021, when Armenia protested what it described as an incursion 
by Azerbaijani troops into its territory. Azerbaijan has insisted that its 
soldiers were deployed in areas where the border has yet to be demarcated.


A loaded truck leaves Aghavno on August 10.

Sporadic clashes have taken place in the last year, the latest coming on August 
3. De facto ethnic Armenian military leaders said drone attacks carried out by 
Azerbaijani forces killed two of their troops and wounded another 19.

Russia accused Baku of violating the shaky truce, while the United States and 
the European Union urged an "immediate" cessation of hostilities.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its military mission to the region has faced 
even greater challenges than before, with criticism coming from both sides. In 
an apparent bid to improve its image, the Russian mission's head invited several 
local activists and politicians for a rare meeting on August 4 to discuss the 
recent incidents, the International Crisis Group noted.

Despite the uptick in tensions, back in her village, Smbatian expresses hope 
that her garden -- and its harvest -- can be a token of friendship to its new 
occupants. Vegetables from the garden should be ripe for picking sometime in the 
fall, and the home will likely be occupied by Azerbaijanis, Smbatian explained.

"I don't know who will eat it or whether they will be cursing or blessing us."

Written by Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by RFE/RL's Armenian and 
Azerbaijani services



Armenia Declares Two Days Of Mourning For Market Blast Victims


Armenia - Rescue workers continue to remove the rubble at the site of a major 
explosion and fire in the Surmalu shopping center in Yerevan. .


Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has signed a decree declaring two days 
of national mourning on August 17-18 for the victims of a massive fire at a 
Yerevan market caused by a powerful explosion at a fireworks warehouse last 
Sunday.

Armenian authorities said at least 16 people, including a child and a pregnant 
woman, were killed in the explosion at the Surmalu shopping center, with another 
three persons still being unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening.

A total of 61 people were injured in the incident in which officials see no 
evidence of terrorism.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations said earlier on August 16 that the fire at 
the sprawling market just off the capital’s center had been contained, but 
rescuers continued to look for survivors or victims under the rubble of a 
partially collapsed three-story warehouse building that authorities say is shaky.

Earlier, it was reported that investigators are looking into a possible breach 
of fire-safety regulations, which the market’s manager denied in a brief 
telephone interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service today.

The Investigative Committee said that interrogations of survivors and 
eyewitnesses were underway, but said there were no suspects or accused at the 
moment as part of the criminal probe launched in connection with the incident.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visited the scene of the 
search-and-rescue operations on Monday, but made no public statements 
immediately.

A number of Pashinian’s political allies, however, have advocated a ban on the 
sale of fireworks in Armenia in the aftermath of the tragedy.



Russian, Armenian Defense Chiefs Discuss Moscow’s Peacekeeping Mission In 
Karabakh


Armenian and Russian defense ministers, Suren Papikian and Sergei Shoigu (file 
photo).


Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian discussed with his Russian counterpart 
Sergei Shoigu the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and the activities of Russian 
peacekeepers in the region as they held talks on the sidelines of a Moscow 
conference on Tuesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry quoted Shoigu as saying during his meeting with 
Papikian that “we have things to discuss, there are traditional issues related 
to our military-technical and military cooperation.”

“And, of course, it is issues related to the activities of our peacekeeping 
contingent, which performs tasks in Nagorno-Karabakh. We continue to believe 
just as you do that the main stabilizing factor is the ceasefire along the 
entire line of contact,” the Russian defense minister said.

Shoigu also reportedly thanked his Armenian counterpart for attending the 
opening of the International Army Games and the Army-2022 International 
Military-Technical Forum, as well as for participating in the Moscow Conference 
on International Security.

Papikian, as quoted by Russia’s Defense Ministry, noted, for his part, “the high 
level of bilateral Armenian-Russian allied cooperation” that he said was 
evidenced by his second meeting with Shoigu since the beginning of this year.

“This meeting is very important for us. We highly appreciate the achieved level 
of Armenian-Russian cooperation, as well as the role of the Russian presence in 
the South Caucasus,” the Armenian defense minister said.

During an August 4 weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian criticized the Russian peacekeeping operation in 
Nagorno-Karabakh following the most serious fighting along the line of contact 
that left two Armenian and one Azerbaijani soldiers dead.

Pashinian urged Russia to do more to prevent further ceasefire violations, 
charging that Baku has been stepping up such violations despite the presence of 
Russian peacekeeping troops in the region.

The Armenian prime minister held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir 
Putin several days later. The readout of the call released by Pashinian’s office 
did not specifically mention the issue of peacekeepers as being discussed by the 
two leaders. It only said that “issues related to the situation around 
Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as ensuring security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani 
border were discussed.”

During a news briefing in Moscow on August 11, Ivan Nechayev, a spokesperson for 
the Russian Foreign Ministry, rejected what he described as “separate criticism” 
of Russia’s peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, stressing that “Russian 
peacekeepers continue to be engaged in active work, taking necessary efforts for 
stabilization on the ground.”

Moscow has deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh since November 
2020 after brokering a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan that put an end 
to a deadly six-week war over the region.

Russian servicemen, in particular, control a five-kilometer-wide strip of land 
known as the Lachin corridor linking Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia that is to 
change its route in the weeks to come when Azerbaijan is expected to take 
control of several villages along the current road.



Yerevan Market Director Denies Breach Of Fire-Safety Regulations

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Rescue workers sift through the rubble searching for possible 
survivors and recovering bodies at the site of a Yerevan shopping center where a 
fireworks warehouse exploded on August 14, triggering a massive fire.


The director of a Yerevan market where an apparent fireworks warehouse explosion 
last Sunday killed more than a dozen people has denied any breach of fire-safety 
regulations.

A fire inspection body, however, insisted after the incident at Surmalu, a 
sprawling shopping center just off downtown Yerevan where at least 16 people 
were killed and 61 injured in a massive fire triggered by the blast, that two 
dozen violations identified during an inspection conducted in the spring of 2021 
had not been eliminated by the market’s administration.

Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service briefly on the phone on Tuesday, Irina 
Madatova, the manager of Surmalu, asserted that they did eliminate the 
violations. She did not elaborate.

The fire inspection body said it gave Surmalu until the end of last year to 
comply with city planning norms and fire-safety rules at an area of ​more than 
3,000 square meters. After that, no new inspection was carried out, it added.

Vardan Tadevosian, a spokesperson for Armenia’s Investigative Committee, said 
that about two dozen people, most of them survivors of the fire, have been 
questioned so far. He did not say why no one from the managers of Surmalu or the 
owner of the market have been interrogated. According to the official, there are 
still no suspects or accused in the criminal investigation launched after the 
explosion.

Vardan Tadevosian

“Most of the interrogated are tenants who themselves suffered in this incident. 
The identities of owners of pavilions operating in the territory of the shopping 
center are being clarified,” Tadevosian said.

Investigators together with experts are also examining the scene of the 
explosion and fire, he added.

“I don’t think that investigators can report information so quickly about what 
caused the explosions, as search and rescue work is still ongoing on the scene,” 
the spokesman for the Investigation Committee said.

While it is still unclear what exactly caused fireworks at Surmalu’s warehouse 
to detonate, Armenia’s Minister of Emergency Situations Armen Pambukhchian told 
reporters on Monday that authorities “practically ruled out” terrorism as a 
cause of the incident.

“Watching the footage of the explosion, we almost rule out such a theory [that a 
bomb had been planted], because first there was smoke, then fire covering some 
small area, then came an explosion,” he said. “Quite a large amount of explosive 
materials was stored there.”

Razmik Zakharian, an 86-year-old businessman and former politician who owns 
Surmalu, was not available for contact immediately.


Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

Armenian Women in Wine are Shaking Up a Once Male-Dominated Industry

Parkev Tvankchian
WINE ENTHUSIAST
Aug 16 2022
BY ANI DUZDABANYAN

In the last 15 years, many Armenian female wine professionals have returned home after years abroad in Europe and the United States. Once a male-dominated industry, women now fill various roles in more than 100 Armenian wineries across five regions.

Part of this growth is due to increased educational opportunities.

Since the 1930s, the Armenian National Agrarian University has trained wine specialists, but women were largely underrepresented. In its class of 2000, for instance, just 20% of graduates were women.

In 2014, EVN Wine Academy launched courses to engage female students. It offered night classes for the enology and wine business program to address a need for professional development.

Taught in English, the program became more attractive to women who could work during the day and dive into a new vocation at night.

Mariam Saghatelyan, a graduate and now a teacher at EVN, says the program especially resonates with women because one of its founders is a female winemaker.

EVN’s enology and wine business program is a joint effort with Germany’s Hochschule Geisenheim University, where students can continue their education. The fruits of their labor are visible.

Anush Gharibyan O’Connor, a sommelier and winemaker, points to the participants at 2022’s GiniFest Armenian Wine & Spirits Festival in Los Angeles. Of the 40 wineries represented, four were owned by women, three employed women winemakers and half of the participants were husband-and-wife operations.

“Now I see so many women working in the vineyards, managing harvest, doing physical and manual winemaking, bottling, selling and promoting wine,” says Gharibyan O’Connor.

Here, a few of the female wine professionals in all corners of the industry.

Zara Kechechyan, Winemaker, Tufenkian Heritage Hotels

Formerly a social psychologist, Kechechyan embarked on a wine career in 2014. After she earned degrees from the Agrarian University, EVN Wine Academy and Hochschule Geisenheim, Kechechyan worked at wineries in Spain and Argentina. She then spent five years at Karas Wines, one of Armenia’s largest wineries.

In 2022, she joined Tufenkian, a hotel/winery in the village of Areni, more than 3,000 feet above sea level. There, she cultivates native grapes like Tosot and Voskehat. She’s passionate about biodynamic farming, which she compares to “homeopathic” medicine.

“Winemaking for me has this captivating and unique point of being the combination of science, art, sensual experience, creativity, planning and organization,” says Kechechyan.

IMAGE COURTESY OF VICTORIA ASLANIAN

Victoria Aslanian, CEO/President, ArmAs Estate

Born in Armenia, Aslanian moved to Los Angeles in 1990. In 2009, she returned home to help her father manage ArmAs, the 450-acre winery estate and boutique hotel that he established in 2007. It’s located in the Aragatsotn province, approximately 30 minutes from Yerevan, the Armenian capital.

With a degree in art history from University of California, Berkeley, Aslanian says she had to learn everything about wine after she returned home.

“There literally isn’t a single job in the winery that I haven’t done at one point myself, especially the first couple of years,” says Aslanian. “I did not leave the winery. I’ve washed every tank. I’ve made whatever was necessary, from A to Z, so that I could properly manage it.”

Today, Aslanian runs the estate and also designs the labels for ArmAs wines using medieval Armenian writing techniques called bird letters.

Mariam Saghatelyan, Cofounder/Educator, In Vino

Upon her return from the U.S., Saghatelyan cofounded the country’s first wine bar, In Vino, in Yerevan in 2012.

Saghatelyan faced skepticism from wine distributors and friends who worried that the concept would never work, as wine wasn’t overwhelmingly popular in the country. However, In Vino became one of the driving forces to re-establish Armenia’s wine culture. Starting with only 600 bottles, the bar currently carries 1,000 wines from around the world.

In Vino offers educational events and winery tours to bring winemakers and customers closer. Saghatelyan’s goal? To change local minds concerning the country’s 6,000-year-old industry.

“We do have wines from the Old and New World—Chile, Argentina, South Africa, California and Lebanon as well, and of course, Italy and France,” says Saghatelyan. “People in Armenia used to think that wine comes only from France. Now they understand more that wine is from all over the world.”

One of EVN Wine Academy’s first graduates, Saghatelyan has returned to teach wine business classes for the past three years.

IMAGE COURTESY OF LOPEZ ACHEM CONSULTING

Silva Atoyan, Wine Consulting, Lopez Achem Consulting 

Atoyan obtained a master’s degree in agri-ecology and sustainable agriculture. In 2015, she entered into the EVN Academy, first as a student and later as a program manager.

In 2019, she enrolled for the summer semester at Hochschule Geisenheim, where she took courses in wine tasting, wine sensory evaluation and international wine profiles. She was also a judge at Germany’s 2019 Best of Riesling contest.

When Atoyan returned to Armenia, she worked as a winemaker and export manager at Rikars Wine, a boutique natural wine producer.

IN ARMENIA, MAKING ORANGE WINE IS PERSONAL

Recently, she joined Lopez Achem Consulting as a project manager, where she offers consulting services for the wine sector. One of her missions is to help businesses position themselves in the international market.

“Our aim is to involve people from different parts of the world to come and invest in Armenia and, more specifically, in the Armenian wine business,” says Atoyan. “Wine is a multi-functional and multi-spectral notion which covers everything from farm to shelf. How many fields can be financed when one investor comes and invests in Armenian wine business?”

Anush Gharibyan O’Connor, Wine Ambassador

Gharibyan O’Connor earned a degree in winemaking from Agrarian University, followed by a MBA from the University of Dallas. She’s worked as a winemaker, sommelier and now a wine ambassador who splits her time between the U.S. and Armenia.

For the last seven years, she’s championed the Armenian wine industry’s renaissance through her podcast, Armenia Proud – A Toast to Armenia.

In 2018, she cofounded the GiniFest Armenian Wine & Spirits Festival. Starting with 10 wineries from Paso Robles, Argentina and Armenia, the 2022 festival now pours bottles from 40 wineries that draws more than 1,000 attendees. GiniFest not only promotes Armenian wine, but helped reintroduced it to the Armenian community abroad.

“Because of the festival, the export of Armenian wine has tripled in the United States,” says Gharibyan O’Connor. “The number of wine producers grew since they could see the impact, the feedback and excitement here in the U.S. All the people who come to GiniFest are devoted Armenian wine consumers.”

GiniFest plans to host an international wine festival in November that represents producers from Greece, Israel, Bulgaria and other regions that are often underrepresented in the U.S.


Iranians missing in Armenia blast found healthy in Georgia

Kanayan Tamar
IRNA – Iran
Aug 16 2022

In a statement issued on Monday night, the embassy said that the six Iranian citizens were thought to be missing after the fire and blast took place in a shopping center in Yerevan.

But the embassy has been informed by those Iranian nationals that they were safe and sound and that they had not been able to contact their families because they had been on the way to Georgia and had no access to the Internet.

Iran’s embassy announced after the blast that all Iranian citizens in Armenia were fine, but the status of six Iranians was unknown.

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Perspectives | In Armenia-Turkey normalization, where is civil society?

Emil Karabekian
Aug 16 2022
Philip Gamaghelyan , Pınar Sayan Aug 16, 2022

Since 2021, Turkey and Armenia have been engaged in direct talks, in yet another attempt to restore the diplomatic relations that have been severed for nearly three decades.

Unlike previous efforts, which saw official diplomacy accompanied by civil society exchanges and third-party mediation in a multi-track approach, the current talks are taking place for the most part solely between official Ankara and Yerevan.

So what changed? Where is civil society now? Is this single-track process viable? And how can non-state actors, both domestic and international, support this process and make sure that it reflects the interests of Armenian and Turkish societies and not only power players?

A first attempt at normalization was halted in 1993 by the escalation of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a Turkey ally. Another attempt was made in the late 2000s, an effort supported by the United States and Europe that became known as “football diplomacy”: Turkish President Abdullah Gül visited Yerevan to watch a football match in 2008, and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan followed suit at a 2009 match in Bursa.

Those negotiations ultimately collapsed under pressure from Azerbaijan, which objected to Turkey-Armenia normalization while there was little progress in resolving its own conflict with Armenia.

Now, following Azerbaijan’s decisive victory in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, Baku has retracted its objections to Turkey-Armenia normalization. But now there is a new obstacle.

The normalization attempts of the 1990s, and especially the 2000s, took place in the era when liberal democracy appeared to have triumphed and within the context of what is known as a liberal peace approach. That approach, which links conflict resolution with democratization and respect for human rights norms, relies heavily on the institutionalization of civil society and its robust engagement in the peace process.

NGOs and other networks led academic, cultural, media, and dialogue initiatives that helped build trust and supported the official normalization process. These activities served as a means of checking the “pulse” of Armenian and Turkish societies, allowing for an assessment of which official steps would be accepted by the broader public and which would not.

In those years, Armenian genocide commemorations were held in Turkey; the number of books and articles published on the topic was increasing. Turkish tourists, academics, and journalists were regular fixtures in Yerevan’s streets and hallways. And crucially, NGO efforts persisted even when official contacts were suspended, helping to create a continuity of contact between the two societies.

Today, however, genocide commemorations are restricted in Turkey, mutual visits are not as common as before – even following the easing of pandemic travel restrictions and reopening of direct flights between Yerevan and Istanbul – and the number of joint NGO initiatives is very small.

In the absence of civil society or grassroots support, the official talks run the risk of stumbling over public resistance by societies who may see the process as illegitimate. Moreover, should the talks collapse as they did in the past, there would no longer be the safety net that civil society has provided in the past, enabling dialogue to continue moving forward.

Why isn’t the current process being accompanied by visible civil society engagement? Where is the institutional infrastructure built through decades of collaboration?  

We surveyed peace activists and peacebuilders in Armenia and Turkey in 2021 and 2022, conducting 24 in-depth interviews and four focus group discussions, to try to answer these questions.

One reason we found: mistrust between Armenian and Turkish NGOs due to Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War. Another was the securitization of the negotiation process, where the national security interests far outweigh considerations of human security and the needs of the populations.

Another commonly mentioned factor was democratic backsliding and the shrinking of civil space. This would seem to not apply as much to Armenia, which has generally been rising in international democracy indices in recent years. But there, just as in Turkey, NGO involvement in peacebuilding also has been shrinking significantly. Even during the more authoritarian Kocharyan and Sargsyan eras, NGO peacebuilding activities were far more widespread than they are today.

The key factor appears not to be the level of democratization of any particular country, but the global slide away from liberal democracy, the dominant framework within which previous Armenia-Turkey negotiations were conceived and implemented.

The peace processes pursued from the late 1990s to the mid-2010s were supported by the U.S. or the EU in the context of EU-integration aspirations by both Armenia and Turkey. The vision and strategies of local and international NGOs had been based on liberal democratic ideology and norms including the respect for universal human rights, economic interdependence, transitional justice, strengthening participation in international organizations, and similar issues.

With all their faults, these approaches had clear conceptual roots and relied on well-established financial streams, educational institutions, international organizations, and other liberal democratic structures. In that context, institutional civil society had been widely accepted as a normal part of a functional – even if semi-authoritarian – state.

The global crisis of liberal democracy and its impact on these countries has contributed to anxieties about safety – and perhaps even more importantly a loss of vision and direction – for some of the institutional peacebuilding actors.

This is the case not only in increasingly authoritarian Turkey with shrinking civil space, but also in Armenia, which has seen the rise of narratives denouncing peacebuilding as harmful to Armenia and serving a foreign agenda.

In the face of these developments, and Turkey’s military support for Azerbaijan, our research found that NGOs previously engaged in peacebuilding in Armenia have largely sought to distance themselves from the normalization process until a time when the liberal democratic vision in the wider region, or at least in Turkey, might again prevail.

The diminished role of the NGO sector, however, does not need to be the end of peacebuilding. Informal transnational networks have long served as viable alternatives.

Since the 2020 war we have seen the emergence of new online informal networks in the Armenia and Azerbaijan context – most prominent among these being the Caucasus Talks, Bright Garden Voices, and Caucasus Crossroads initiatives – and they look poised to enter the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation process as well.

Our research found that, far from giving up, many non-institutional actors see the current crisis as an opportunity to rethink their own goals and methods, to redefine peacebuilding, and adapt to new modes of work in non-democratic environments. In a context like this, democratization – an important goal in itself – should be pursued separately from peacebuilding. The international donor community should diversify its support to include more flexible and creative networks – informal academic networks, feminist and environmentalist collectives, online groups of anti-war activists, and diaspora dialogue projects – not only bureaucratic NGOs.

Donors often express concern about the difficulty of establishing robust accountability and sustainability mechanisms when funding non-institutional actors. Indeed, some of these organizations are bound to fail or prove ineffective – but then, so can better-established peacebuilding NGOs.

Rethinking mechanisms of accountability and measures of effectiveness, and factoring in a probability of failure into an otherwise promising endeavor of investing in informal peace networks that remain active even in face of extreme adversity, would be a small price to pay for the prospect of sustaining this peace process. Support for such networks is particularly important in countries like Turkey and Russia where NGO activities are restricted.

Networks complementing traditional peacebuilding NGOs can help sustain peacebuilding efforts in the short-term and pave the way for the emergence of genuine local, regional, and global peace movements in the long-term.

Dr. Philip Gamaghelyan is assistant professor at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. He is also a conflict resolution scholar-practitioner, the co-founder and board member of the Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation, and the managing editor of Caucasus Edition: Journal of Conflict Transformation. 

Dr. Pınar Sayan is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Beykoz University and Scholar at Istanbul Political Research Institute. Previously, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge; Turkey director of Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation; and co-editor of Caucasus Edition. 

The research that resulted in this paper has been funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-in-armenia-turkey-normalization-where-is-civil-society




UPDATED: Yerevan market explosion: Death toll climbs to 15

Emil Lazarian

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 07:50,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, ARMENPRESS. The death toll in the Yerevan Surmalu market blast reached 15, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said.

Search and rescue operations still continue.

9 of the 15 victims are yet to be identified.

Of the 60 people who sought medical treatment 12 continue being treated at various hospitals while the others were discharged.

171 firefighter-rescuers, search and rescue teams from Shirak and Tavush, teams from the Russian-Armenian Humanitarian Response Center, volunteers from the VOMA survival-training organization, more than 100 volunteers from the Red Cross are involved in the efforts.

Yerevan City Hall dispatched multiple tractors, trucks and water tanks, as well as other special equipment.

The firefighting efforts are personally coordinated by Minister of Emergency Situations Armen Pambukhchyan.

18 people are presumed missing the explosion. Those unaccounted for include a citizen of Russia and a citizen of Iran.

UPDATES:

08:51 – Death toll reaches 16 




Armenpress: Yerevan blast death toll rises to 10, another 23 are missing

Arsine Chaltikian

Yerevan blast death toll rises to 10, another 23 are missing

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 01:16,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, ARMENPRESS. As a result of the explosion in Yerevan's "Surmalu" shopping center, the number of victims has reached 10, ARMENPRESS reports spokesperson of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Hayk Kostanyan said.

"Rescuers have just pulled out two more bodies from the ruins," Kostanyan said, noting that the number of victims has reached 8.

Search and rescue operations are going on.

23 persons are believed to be missing, 6 of which are citizens of Iran and one is citizen of Russia.

Turkish press: Death toll from Armenia blast rises to 16

Emil Lazarian
Saadet Firdevs Apan   |16.08.2022


ANKARA

The death toll from Sunday’s explosion at a market in the Armenian capital Yerevan rose to 16, local media reported on Tuesday.

Thirteen of 16 victims, who were killed in the Surmalu market explosion, are identified, Armenpress news agency quoted Hayk Kostanyan, spokesperson for the Emergency Situations Ministry, as saying.

Kostanyan said that those identified include a pregnant woman and a child. “Now the number of those missing is 10,” he added.

The blast in an explosives warehouse at the Surmalu shopping center caused a fire and led to the collapse of the three-story building.

Meanwhile, all subway stations in the capital Yerevan were closed after a bomb threat was received at 10.05 a.m. local time on Tuesday, the National Center for Crisis Management said.

Bomb disposal teams from the Ministry of Emergencies were dispatched to the stations.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar

Turkish press: Azerbaijani army finds minefield in eastern Lachin region

Lena Karagyozian
Burak Dag   |16.08.2022


BAKU, Azerbaijan

The Azerbaijani army on Monday discovered a minefield in the eastern Lachin region, the country’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

The army’s engineering units detected over 900 anti-personnel mines while conducting terrain reconnaissance in the “northwestern direction of the Saribaba high ground,” a ministry statement said.

It said that the mines, laid by "illegal Armenian armed detachments," were “neutralized” by a specialized team.

“All the mines detected in this direction were produced in Armenia after the Patriotic War, in 2021,” the statement said.

After an Azerbaijani soldier was killed as a result of the provocation carried out by the illegal Armenian forces in Karabakh on Aug. 3, the Azerbaijani army carried out a retaliatory measure called "revenge.”

"As a result of the 'revenge' retaliatory measure carried out by Azerbaijani Army Units, the Girkhgiz peak, as well as Saribaba along the Karabakh ridge of the Lesser Caucasus and a number of other important heights, were taken under control,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry had said on Aug. 4.

Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh (Upper Karabakh), a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

During the conflict in fall 2020, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and nearly 300 settlements and villages that had been occupied by Armenia for nearly three decades.

A Russian-brokered deal in November 2020 brought an end to the conflict.