Category: 2022

The Armenian public has not yet heard the Council of Europe’s resolutions condemning Azerbaijan on the 44-day war in 2020, Armen Gevorgyan, an MP from the opposition Armenia bloc said.

His remarks came at a meeting with Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić in the parliament.

Here is Armen Gevorgyan’s statement in full:

“Madam Secretary General:

Welcome to Armenia. It’s rather unfortunate that you don’t have a separate meeting with the representatives of the parliamentary opposition. It is becoming a bad tradition when representatives of the Council of Europe avoid direct dialogue and engagement with the mainstream political opposition in Armenia. Nevertheless, I would like to focus your attention on a number of important issues.

The domestic socio-political life in Armenia has reached its boiling point, because a great injustice is being enforced against the people of Nagorno Karabakh. I believe in the course of your meetings with the Armenian officials you have often heard about a certain “agenda of peace” for the region. Let me reiterate, that no one in Armenia wants another war. But there is a much greater number of people who do not accept that after thirty years of free and independent state-building the people of Nagorno Karabakh can live as part of Azerbaijan. The people of Nagorno Karabakh are against that too. We are greatly concerned that, for example, in contrast to the European Parliament, we observe the Council of Europe’s determination to put a sign of equality between Armenia and Azerbaijan, aspiring to be “less annoying” for Azerbaijan and Turkey with critical resolutions and assessments of their policies. By the way, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that by avoiding direct dialogue with mainstream opposition forces both in Armenia and Azerbaijan you, in essence, indirectly put another sign of equality between these two countries in terms of their democratic credentials.

The Armenian public has so far not seen any relevant resolutions about Azerbaijan’s launching of the unprovoked and unjustified war against Armenians in 2020. The Council of Europe has failed to adopt sanctions following the acts of aggression by Azerbaijan against the territorial integrity of Armenia since May 2021. Azerbaijan continues to ignore the calls of the international community to free all prisoners of war and other detainees, and still carries out its racist and xenophobic policies and propaganda against Armenians. I presume, this will also be testified by the International Court of Justice in the relevant proceedings currently underway. All these are major points of concern, essentially questioning whether we at all can agree with Azerbaijan on anything.

You may well ask: what can the Council of Europe do to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict fairly? I am convinced that first and foremost our Organisation must begin by objective assessments of the situation, which I believe will be a good deterrence against Azerbaijan’s aggressive aspirations, but also will protect the quality of democratic governance in the Council of Europe Member States. This will also contribute to any future dialogue for peace in the region.

Our Organisation must be fair and consistent in supporting the protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms, and first and foremost in terms of upholding the right of peoples to self-determination.

Madam Secretary General:

At the same time, we are deeply concerned that the Council of Europe has been disregarding the clear backsliding from norms and traditions of democracy in our country. The restrictions of the freedom of speech and freedom of the media, the growing dependence of the judiciary and the investigative bodies on the executive branch, the illegal persecutions of opposition figures have become “new normal” of the so-called democratic traditions in Armenia. The disputable quality of the elections to the local self-governance bodies held in the past few months is impossible to disregard even by the international organisations.

Over the past two months this long list of such unacceptable phenomena has been supplemented by violations of the rights of citizens to peaceful protests, as well as by the use of brutal and disproportionate force by the police against protesters. On June 3 the police used stun grenades to disperse the multi-thousand opposition rally, without due warning and without necessity, and as a result many policemen and protesters were seriously wounded and taken to hospitals. Currently 31 opposition figures are arrested on various illegal grounds and with obvious political motivations.

I would like to remind everyone here that in the Spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly a resolution on genuine democracy has been adopted, which stated, I quote, that “democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority”.

In conclusion, I would like to add that we do not intend to make the Council of Europe a space for gladiator fights against either Armenian authorities or Azerbaijan. But we neither intend to put up with the facts that our Organisation is being transformed into a platform of legitimising the consequences of the 44-day war; into a platform clearly promoting the interests of the Turkic coalition led by Turkey and Azerbaijan at the expense of the Armenian people; or a space silently observing anti-democratic processes in our country.”

After the 44-day war and the trilateral statement signed on 9 November, the Armenian and Turkish authorities are trying to create mechanisms for the normalization of relations, particularly in the “3+3” format involving the South Caucasus countries (except Georgia), as well as Russia, Turkey and Iran, and in the bilateral format with the participation of special representatives of Turkey and Armenia.

These initiatives cause serious concern and criticism on the part of the Armenian public, which sees it as a threat of strengthening Ankara’s position at the expense of Armenian interests.

Talking to Armenian News-NEWS.am, Russian Turkologist Vladimir Avatkov said Turkey is trying to build relations with Armenia from scratch but is linking this with the formation of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations.

There are a number of problems to be faced.

These are issues of borders, corridor and territories. Regarding the corridor, it is clear that Turkey wants to have another passageway to Azerbaijan. Ankara wants to connect faster with Middle and Central Asia through the Caspian Sea and get as close as possible to China, expanding the function of the two-string not only at the level of Russia-West, but also at the level of West-China.

Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan

There are problems in the region in terms of trade by land, with the transportation of goods by rail from Baku through Georgia to Turkey due to Russia’s complicated relationship with Georgia.

Armenia, becoming the point through which the conjunction passes, will be able to gain added value and increase its own prosperity from the movement of goods through its territory.

The only chance to overcome the conflict zone is to look for infrastructure projects that will be mutually beneficial and at the same time will connect Armenia and Azerbaijan in a way that neither side can damage the process, because it will not be profitable. The corridor is one of the possible infrastructure projects that can do that.

It is important that under the agreement, Russia will be the guarantor of the corridor’s safety. That is, it is beneficial not only from Turkey’s point of view, which many fear, but also from Russia’s point of view. Moscow will be interested in this corridor. In addition, it will be unambiguously beneficial from the standpoint of the sides themselves: communications will begin to emerge, and only through it will it be possible to overcome the conflict. If there is no such communication, the next generations are unlikely to be able to create this communication at all, given the negativization of each other in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The possible normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey is certainly not a risk, but an opportunity to develop and strengthen communication in the region.

The role of the West

The West has always sought to extend its influence in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. But Russia shows that it ensures its own security and plans to be a guarantor of security for neighboring spaces. This can be done in different ways: through “soft power” as well as through hard power. Russia is a world power and is responsible for security both in neighboring regions and in world politics.

Russia cannot be excluded. No matter how much the West tries to exclude Russia, it excludes itself from world politics, because Russia, China, Turkey and the Arab countries together form the future world order.

For what reason should the West be positive about the problems in the South Caucasus? No reason at all. For what reason should they be impartial? They will not be. For what reason should they be interested in peace? They will not be interested in peace. The countries in the region and Russia are really interested in peace in the South Caucasus, because the South Caucasus is in direct contact with the North Caucasus. Russia implements the foreign political ideology of peace and security in the world politics. And this is fundamentally important for us in the South Caucasus. Therefore, Moscow is a guarantor and an interested party in the realization of this very peace in the current difficult processes.

Syrian formula

Russia and Turkey have historically clashed in the Caucasus, but today they are trying to implement a formula similar to the Syrian formula. There is nothing wrong with that, because in the South Caucasus, of the external players in the world, Russia, as well as Iran and Turkey, are interested because they are neighbors. Being at one table, they can solve a lot of issues together. The same applies to Georgia, which is not yet part of the “3+3” format. But this would move a lot of issues from the dead point, because Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan live in the region and, respectively, it is necessary to find points of contact. In this case, Moscow is only helping to find these points of contact.

Rally of the Resistance Movement is held in France Square in Yerevan.

Earlier Ishkhan Saghatelyan, the coordinator of the Resistance Movement, vice-speaker of the Armenian Parliament from the opposition, representative of the Supreme Body of ARF Dashnaktsutyun announced that during today’s rally they will present their vision of Armenia’s future.

The main goal of the Resistance Movement is to build a strong Armenia, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, vice-speaker of the Armenian parliament, one of the leaders of the opposition said, at a rally in Yerevan.

He believes that Nikol Pashinyan’s governance is a major obstacle to achieving this goal, and his removal is a priority task at this stage.

At the same time, the politician noted that the mission of the movement will not end with Pashinyan’s departure.

“After Nikol Pashinyan’s departure, the ideas and goals voiced by our movement will become the main functions of the state. The next power should be able to resist and overcome the challenges facing the state. I am sure we will be able to do it together,” he said.

Saghatelyan said that the opposition movement is in the process of transformation. Special commissions and structures have been set up. The main task for the nearest period will be joint discussion of the ways and mechanisms to achieve the goals.

Concluding his speech, Saghatelyan proposed to go to the traditional procession through the city center, after which to return to the square and present plans for the near future.