Wednesday,
Yerevan Mayor’s Office Blocked By Opposition Protesters
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - Opposition supporters block the main entrance to the Yerevan mayor's
office, .
Armenian opposition leaders and their supporters blocked the building of the
Yerevan mayor’s office on Wednesday as they continued their daily rallies
demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
The building’s four entrances remained blocked for more than an hour, preventing
municipal administration staff from leaving it. Riot police repeatedly warned
the protesters that the blockade is illegal but did not try to disperse them.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, the main speaker at the more than weeklong protests,
dismissed the warnings, saying Pashinian used the same tactic when he swept to
power in 2018. He accused the municipal administration of intimidating its
employees sympathizing with the Armenian opposition.
Saghatelian promised more such blockades after the crowd marched to the city’s
France Square, the scene of an opposition tent camp set up on May 1. Speaking at
a late-night rally held there, he said the opposition will disrupt the work of
central and local government bodies in a bid to create “diarchy” in the country.
Saghatelian said the organizers of the “civil disobedience” campaign also hope
to attract bigger crowds in the coming days. “We must increase the number of our
actions and their participants,” he told the crowd.
Earlier in day, the opposition organized several simultaneous processions of
cars that drove slowly through various parts of Yerevan to try to drum up
greater popular support for the campaign.
Pashinian, who is accused by Armenia’s leading opposition forces of planning to
make sweeping concessions to Azerbaijan, has rejected demands for his
resignation.
Armenian Airline Banned From Turkish Airspace
• Sargis Harutyunyan
• Tatevik Sargsian
Armenia - A FlyOne Armenia plane takes off from Yerevan's Zvartnots airport,
March 17, 2022.
Turkey has banned an Armenian airline from flying to and from Europe through its
airspace.
The private carrier, FlyOne Armenia, reported the ban earlier this week. It said
it has cancelled its regular flights to Paris and another French city, Lyon, as
a result.
The Turkish civil aviation authority gave no reason for the ban. It has yet to
respond to a request for comment filed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Stepan Payaslian, a senior official from the Armenian government’s Civil
Aviation Committee, said on Wednesday that FlyOne Armenia appealed to it for
help.
He said the committee could not directly contact the authorities in Ankara
because of the absence of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey. It
therefore forwarded the airline’s request to the Armenian ministries of foreign
affairs and infrastructures as well as the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO), added Payaslian.
“We have not yet received a reply,” Payaslian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The official said that the Turkish ban is “incomprehensible” given the fact that
FlyOne Armenia is still allowed to fly to Istanbul.
FlyOne Armenia and a private Turkish carrier launched Yerevan-Istanbul flights
in February following the start of Turkish-Armenian negotiations on normalizing
relations between the two neighboring states. Turkish officials touted that as a
major step towards the normalization.
Turkey had banned all Armenian aircraft from its airspace in September 2020
three weeks before the outbreak of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over
Nagorno-Karabakh. Although Armenia did not retaliate against the move, Turkish
planes reportedly stopped flying over Armenia during the six-week war.
FlyOne Armenia was set up last year by Armenian and Moldovan investors.
According to Armenian media reports, it is controlled by individuals linked to
Khachatur Sukiasian, a wealthy businessman and lawmaker representing Armenia’s
ruling Civil Contract party.
Sukiasian has been a vocal advocate of Armenia’s rapprochement with Turkey and
Azerbaijan.
Pashinian Touts Armenia’s ‘Balanced’ Foreign Policy
Netherlands - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks at Clingendael
Institute in The Hague, .
Armenia will continue to seek simultaneously good relations with Russia and the
West despite their intensifying standoff over Ukraine, Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian indicated during an official visit to the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Speaking at a Dutch think-tank, Clingendael Institute, Pashinian said Russia
remains Armenia’s “strategic ally.” He stressed at the same time that his
government is deepening ties with the European Union because “the EU is
Armenia’s main partner in the sphere of democratic reforms.”
“The world order is changing before our eyes, and nobody knows what it will look
like in the end,” Pashinian said, clearly alluding to the war in Ukraine. “For
countries like Armenia, these are the most dangerous times. This must be noted
and understood.”
“It is not easy for us to pursue a balanced [foreign] policy but we are doing
everything to succeed in that endeavor,” he added, according to the Armenpress
news agency.
Armenia, which is a member of Russian-led military and trade blocs and hosts
Russian troops on its soil, has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine, let alone joining Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Pashinian and Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to strengthen political,
economic and security ties between their countries when they met outside Moscow
last month. Pashinian spoke of “common challenges” facing Armenia and Russia at
a separate meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Armenia Scraps COVID-19 Health Pass
Armenia -- Customers at a cafe in Yerevan, May 4, 2020.
Amid record-low coronavirus cases in Armenia, health authorities in Yerevan have
formally abolished a mandatory health pass for entry to cultural and leisure
venues which has been barely enforced in recent months.
The Armenian government introduced the measure on January 22 during an
Omicron-driven wave of coronavirus infections. Only those people who have been
vaccinated against COVID-19 or have had a recent negative test were supposedly
allowed to visit bars, restaurants, museums, theaters or other public venues.
The measure proved ineffectual, however, as most restaurants, bars and other
private entities stopped requiring visitors to produce evidence of their
vaccination or a negative test result one or two weeks after its introduction.
Very few of them were fined for their non-compliance.
Nevertheless, the country’s COVID-19 infection rate has steadily and
significantly declined in the last three months. The Armenian Ministry of Health
has reported an average of several cases a day this month, sharply down from a
record high of 4,500 cases registered on February 2.
The ministry announced on Wednesday that the health pass will no longer be in
force starting from Thursday because of the “relatively stable epidemiological
situation.”
The ministry earlier scrapped a mandatory testing requirement for travellers
entering Armenia.
The Armenian authorities have recorded more than 10,300 coronavirus-related
deaths since the start of the pandemic. Less than half of the country’s
population has been vaccinated against the disease.
Reprinted 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.
Category: 2022
Revolution in the South Caucasus
May 2 2022
by Emil Avdaliani
Overshadowed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the South Caucasus is witnessing huge developments which could potentially decrease tensions between Armenia on the one hand and Turkey and Azerbaijan on the other. The process might also critically affect Russia’s position in the region and may even give some momentum to the West’s ambivalent policy.
Historical rivals, Armenia and Azerbaijan, are edging closer to a comprehensive agreement on solving fundamental issues which have hampered rapprochement for at least three decades.
The process now revolves around major Azeris’ proposals for a peace deal, including the recognition of each other’s territorial integrity. This would require Armenian acceptance that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, the cause of wars in 1992-94 and in 2020. If signed, this would amount to a revolutionary change from the traditional Armenian position.
The Armenian leadership’s overall response was positive, though it will seek additional stipulations. Among these will be acceptance by Azerbaijan of a wide range of cultural rights for Armenians, perhaps including officially recognized autonomy. Though the Azeris are unlikely to agree to this, lesser demands on cultural rights are indeed possible.
This Armenian position builds on earlier, somewhat ambivalent statements and bilateral meetings with Azerbaijani leaders carefully indicating that the country might be willing to change its traditional policy. This amounts to a profound, though deeply painful realization by the Armenian leadership, that the balance of power has irrevocably shifted, and not in Armenia’s favor.
The alternative to a deal is a policy of open, long-term revanchism. But there are significant gains to be had from a deal. Establishing positive ties with Azerbaijan could end Armenia’s economic isolation and would likely feed similar positive developments in Turkey ties. After 30 years of hostility, an improvement with its large western neighbor would lead to the eventual re-establishment of diplomatic to the allure of improved economic ties. The pay-off could be significant — Armenian goods would have a better and shorter route to European markets, and vice versa.
The changes could pave the way for the region-wide changes. In the longer-term Armenia’s northward dependence on Russia would gradually be diluted. The east-west economic ties would be at least as powerful as those on its current north-south trade axis.
This would not mean an end to Russian influence and importance, but it would create a more even redistribution of power, whereby the Kremlin would lose its preponderant position. Turkey could become as influential as Russia – a notable shift from the era of exclusivity.
The geopolitics of the South Caucasus are shifting. There is greater competition for influence, with powers contesting if not for primacy, then for a more even distribution of influence. Turkey and to a lesser degree, Iran see the region as a natural historical hinterland. And historical legacies continue to shape the policies of these former imperial powers.
Furthermore, trade and transport patterns are also likely to change. The routes through Georgia will no longer serve as the only solution. For Turkey, options to reach the Caspian Sea will multiply, and possibly open the way to securing critical energy sources for its economy from gas producers around the sea.
These developments are not in any way a dagger aimed at Russia, but they should feel uncomfortable. Its position in the region is increasingly reliant on the military element, through garrisons in all the three South Caucasus countries. Distracted they may be by the so-far unsuccessful war in Ukraine, but President Putin and his aides still possess some tools to derail peace prospects.
But Russia may nonetheless reap what it has sowed in the South Caucasus. If it is no longer the security guarantor for Armenia (it did precious little to help in the 2020 war) and it is no longer the best outlet for trade, then why have Russian troops in Armenia at all? And why would Azerbaijan continue to accept Russian peacekeepers on its territory?
This is an unenviable situation for the Kremlin. It is waging a major war to secure the illusion of a “near abroad” beholden to its wishes, and while its back is turned, other borderland countries are thinking about how to ease its grip over their futures. If anything was needed to show the futility of Russia’s approach to its immediate neighborhood, the South Caucasus would be the prime example.
Emil Avdaliani is a professor at European University and the Director of Middle East Studies at Georgian think-tank, Geocase.
Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Armenian FM Ararat Mirzoyan at a Signing Ceremony for MoU Concerning Strategic Civil Nuclear Cooperation
May 2 2022
https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-armenian-foreign-minister-ararat-mirzoyan-at-a-signing-ceremony-for-a-memorandum-of-understanding-concerning-strategic-civil-nuclear-cooperation/
The Armenian Genocide: Not the Only Legacy of the Ottoman Empire
The Stream
May 2 2022
Robert Burns penned the line “man’s inhumanity to man” almost a quarter millennium ago. That phrase has been used a great deal since, by folks from George Orwell to Martin Luther King. Primarily it’s come to be associated with genocide. Back in 1975, in fact, the U.S. House passed a resolution for a National Day of Remembrance for Man’s Inhumanity to Man. This was intended to commemorate the 1 million or so Armenian victims of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
That failed in the Senate. A number of countries, however, adopted April 24 to remember them. And 44 years later, both chambers of our Congress went on record agreeing that what the Ottomans did to the Armenians was indeed genocide. So before April 24 is too far in 2022’s rear view mirror, let’s examine that century-old horror — as well as what it means today.
First, what exactly is “genocide,” a term thrown about quite often today? It is defined in the “1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” How? As “any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These acts include killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, intentionally inflicting harsh conditions, attempting to prevent births, and abducting children. During the First World War, (1914-1918) the Ottoman Empire used virtually all of these against Armenians. Why?
The Ottoman state was officially and majority Muslim. But it ruled vast Christian majority regions for centuries, until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That’s when nations like Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria regained their independence. The now more Muslim population in the rump empire blamed this on the remaining Christian minorities.
The Armenians were the largest such group. And most of them lived in eastern Anatolia, close by Russia. Even in the late 19th century, Sultan Abdul Hamid II had created special Kurdish military units that killed thousands of Armenians. Then the First World War broke out, with the Russian and Ottoman empires on opposite sides. Armenians were seen as “in league” with the Tsar. At the same time, Ottoman loyalties gave way to Turkish nationalism. The new Committee of Union and Progress took over and ran the Empire. It saw Armenians as an “existential threat.”
What must be done with such a threat? Radical Turkish nationalists decided the answer was “extermination.” And that’s what some of the Ottoman military tried to do in 1915 and 1916. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, or by forced marches through the Syrian desert. Another several hundred thousand were forcibly converted to Islam. Armenian property was seized. Churches were razed. The Armenian language and names were banned. Surviving Armenian women were married off to Muslim men. Armenian children were given to Turkish Muslim families. CUP leader Talaat Pasha orchestrated these policies. During the war Sultan Mehmet V was nothing but a figurehead.
When the war ended, the Ottoman state — which existed for several more years — did hold special tribunals to try the guilty officials. Many of them fled the Empire, including Talaat Pasha. A few years later, he was assassinated in Berlin by an Armenian hit squad, part of “Operation Nemesis.”
The Turkish Republic replaced the Ottoman Empire, but violence against Armenians continued. Eventually, Kurds replaced Armenians as the main enemy of the new Turkish state. (Kurds are the Middle East’s largest group of stateless people, whose desires for their own country threaten Turkey’s territorial integrity.)
But Ankara has always refused to call what its predecessor did “genocide.” Indeed, “Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge any systemic wrongdoing on the part of the Ottoman Empire in destroying the majority of its Armenian subjects has intensified. This owes much to the ruling AKP’s [AK Party] ideological commitment to neo-Ottomanism.” In addition, “inside Turkey, the AKP’s denialism about the Armenian genocide contributes to an atmosphere of intolerance to Christians.” (For both quotes, see “Backgrounder: The Armenian Genocide,” Middle East Forum.)
Now it is Christians who are most at risk in the former domains of the Ottoman Empire. A century ago, Christians made up 20% of the region’s population. Now? At most, 5%. Five of the 10 worst countries persecuting Christians are Muslim-majority ones. In others, either regional governments (Nigeria’s Muslim north) or non-state groups (ISIS, al-Shabab, Boko Haram, etc.) oppress Christians. Some have tried to label the latter activities as “genocide.” But mostly Western governments have only been willing to admit that the situation is “coming close” to it. Why? Being “pro-Christian” is anathema to Western secular elites.
Turkey comes in at #25 on that persecution hit list, with a Christian population under 1%. But the government of President Recep Erdoğan has been accused of still actively helping ISIS. Yet at other times the Turks have attacked that group. Why the policy schizophrenia? There are four major reasons. Distrust of Kurdish nationalism is such that any enemy of theirs (ISIS) is seen as worth supporting. Resentment of the AKP’s 2007 “Ergenekon” purge of the military, which now fears political retribution should policies go awry. Also, Turkey’s military leadership is profoundly conservative, unwilling to risk actual battle losses. Finally, there is a lingering Ottoman reluctance to help Arabs, still seen by many as inferior former subjects.
In any event, modern Turkey is not doing anything remotely as horrible as what the Ottomans did to Armenians. Yes, critics keep using the term “neo-Ottoman” to refer to Turkey. But perhaps they don’t actually know what that term means. While Erdoğan often talks a good Islamic game, he has moved increasingly toward Turkish nationalism. To him, “the new world order is nothing but an arena of great power competition, between a resurgent Russia, the United States, China, and a frail Europe.” Erdoğan “wants to add Turkey to that mix as an economic and military power.”
This ideology is not neo-Ottoman. But it does hope to make Turkey the dominant Middle Eastern power. And what’s the alternative? Saudi Arabia or Iran. The former, while our ally, is a fundamentalist Sunni state ruled as a royal preserve by an extended family — one detested in much of the Muslim world. The latter is an eschatological Shi`i theocracy which is working towards nuclear weapons, and spoiling for a war with Israel. All things considered, the Turks are the best option to help lead the Middle East, and larger Islamic world, into modernity.
And there is more to the Ottoman legacy than just the horrific treatment of Armenians. As I point out in my book The COIN of the Islamic Realm: Insurgencies & the Ottoman Empire, 1416-1916, the Ottomans battled many Muslim insurgencies over the centuries. Many resemble, and are predecessors to, modern terrorist groups. These included fundamentalist Sunnis, Shi`i sects, and even apocalyptic Mahdis.
Perhaps we can learn something about dealing with such threats from the Ottoman experience. For all its faults, the Empire was a member of the community of nations and preserved order over against chaos in its Middle Eastern domains — at least until it went off the rails in the early 20th century. So by all means, let’s acknowledge the Ottoman slaughter of Armenians, and hope that the Turks will as well, some day. But at the same time, we should not let that blind us to all else that the Ottomans did. Nor insist that today’s Turks are guilty of that ancestral sin.
Timothy Furnish holds a Ph.D. in Islamic, World and African history from Ohio State University and a M.A. in Theology from Concordia Seminary. He is a former U.S. Army Arabic linguist and, later, civilian consultant to U.S. Special Operations Command. He’s the author of books on the Middle East and Middle-earth, a history professor and sometime media opiner (as, for example, on Fox News Channel’s War Stories: Fighting ISIS).
NATO political consultations with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
May 3 2022
- English
- French
Last week,the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Mr. Javier Colomina, travelled to the South Caucasus, visiting Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. He held political consultations with the President and Prime Minister of Armenia, the Prime Minister of Georgia and the President of Azerbaijan, as well as other senior Government officials.
In Georgia he also took part in a session of the Parliament’s Security and Defence Committee and met with representatives of the civil society. The discussions focused on regional security issues and the prospects for further political dialogue and practical cooperation with these important partner countries, especially in the context of Russia’s unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine and of the final preparations for the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid, at the end of June. This was his second official trip to the South Caucasus, since his appointment in September 2021.
Thousands of protesters in Armenia demand Prime Minister Pashinyan’s resignation
May 3 2022
Thousands march demanding PM’s resignation in Yerevan. Screenshot from livestream by Zabby.
As people across the world took the streets to mark International Worker’s Day on May 1, in Armenia’s capital Yerevan thousands of citizens organized an anti-government rally demanding the incumbent Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, resign.
The protests were triggered by potential government concessions over Karabakh — a long-disputed territory over which Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a 44-day war in 2020. According to local media, some 200 protesters were detained on May 2, as demonstrations continued and police resorted to violence to disperse the crowds. By some accounts, over 10,000 people attended the rally. According to Civilnet.am, an Armenian news outlet, “demonstrators, who have dubbed themselves the Resistance Movement, also announced Monday they would be setting up tents at France Square, a major intersection in central Yerevan, for an indefinite sit-in. In addition, they called on employees to strike and university students not to attend classes.”
The anti-government protests began in April when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hinted at making concessions regarding the final status of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, after attending a meeting on April 6 in Brussels with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, facilitated by President of the European Council Charles Michel. During the meeting, the two leaders pledged to explore a “possible peace treaty,” to finally resolve the conflict.
Days after his visit to Brussels, Pashinyan said in his speech at the national parliament that the “international community was calling Armenia to lower the bars of the status of the disputed region.”
In response, the Nagorno-Karabakh Parliament adopted a resolution that said, “no government has a right to lower the negotiating bar for a status acceptable to Artsakth [Nagorno-Karabakh] and the internationally rebounded right to self-determination under the pretext of peace.”
Meanwhile, Parliament Vice-Speaker and opposition leader Ishkhan Sagatelyan said: “Any political status of Karabakh within Azerbaijan is unacceptable to us.” Sagatelyan also said, “a large scale campaign of civil disobedience to begin on Monday [May 2].”
Also, in early April, the de facto foreign minister of Karabakh, Davit Babayan said, “any attempt to incorporate Artsakh into Azerbaijan would lead to bloodshed and the destruction of Artsakh.” Babayan also told the Armenian Service of Radio Liberty that Prime Minister’s statements caused a “wave of discontent in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The protests had been brewing prior to Pashinyan’s trip to Brussels. According to OC Media, an independent outlet that covers the caucuses, “over ten thousand protesters rallied in Yerevan, led by Armenia’s parliamentary opposition parties. They called on the Pashinyan government to resign and not to make any concessions to Azerbaijan.”
Critics accused him of being willing to accept Baku’s assertion of control over Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan defended himself, saying the recent negotiations with Azerbaijan in no way mean surrendering Karabakh. In a special session of parliament, Pashinyan said, “we are saying that the people of Karabakh must not leave Karabakh, the people of Karabakh must live in Karabakh, the people of Karabakh must have rights, freedoms, and a status.”
On April 21, Pashinyan traveled to Moscow where he met with President Putin. The two leaders “reached an agreement on a number of important issues, including the security of Nagorno-Karabakh, the unblocking of regional infrastructure and demarcation of Armenia and Azerbaijan’s borders,” reported OC Media.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been under the control of its ethnic Armenian population as a self-declared state since a war fought in the early 1990s, which ended with a 1994 ceasefire and Armenian military victory. In the aftermath of the first war, a new, internationally unrecognized, de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was established. Seven adjacent regions were occupied by Armenian forces. As a result of that war, “more than a million people had been forced from their homes: Azerbaijanis fled Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the adjacent territories, while Armenians left homes in Azerbaijan,” according to the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that works to prevent wars and shape policies.
Following the second Karabakh war in 2020, Azerbaijan regained control over much of the previously occupied seven regions. Azerbaijan also captured one-third of Karabakh itself as a result of the second war.
On Nov. 10, 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia. Among several points of the agreement, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a presence of 1,960 Russian peacekeeping forces in those parts of Karabakh “not recaptured by Azerbaijan and a narrow corridor connecting with Armenia across the Azerbaijani district of Lachin.” There are 27 Russian peacekeeping posts inside Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, the demonstrators vowed not to leave the area until Prime Minister Pashinyan and his cabinet resigned.
https://globalvoices.org/2022/05/03/thousands-of-protesters-in-armenia-demand-prime-minister-pashinyans-resignation/
Armenia… Protesters Demand PM Resignation over Karabakh
May 3 2022
About 5,000 people demonstrated in the Armenian capital Yerevan to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accused by the opposition of wanting to give away all of Karabakh to Azerbaijan after he told lawmakers last month that the “international community calls on Armenia to scale down demands on Karabakh”.
“We are launching a popular protest movement to force Pashinyan to resign,” Parliament Vice Speaker and opposition leader Ishkhan Saghatelyan told AFP ahead of the rally.
He added, “He is a traitor, he lied to the people,” accusing Pashinyan of “wanting to give away Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.”
He continued, “He does not have a popular mandate to do so.”
“The protests will not stop until Pashinyan resigns,” he warned.
Armenia detains hundreds of anti-govt protesters as opposition calls for PM to resign
May 3 2022
Police officers restrain a protester during an anti-government demonstration in Yerevan on May 3, 2022. © Photolure via Reuters
Police in Armenia on Tuesday detained more than 200 anti-government protesters as opposition parties up pressure on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his handling of a territorial dispute with Azerbaijan.
Protests erupted in Yerevan on Sunday with the opposition demanding Pashinyan’s resignation accusing him of plotting to cede to Baku all the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Demonstrations continued Monday and there were chaotic scenes on Tuesday in central Yerevan where police detained dozens of people as groups of protesters blocked traffic on all main streets.
The country’s interior ministry said in a statement that “206 demonstrators were detained” in Yerevan and several provincial cities.
These are the worst protests since elections last September, highlighting continued bitterness over Pashinyan’s leadership during a war in 2020.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decades-long dispute over Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated region.
The enclave was at the centre of a six-week war in 2020 that claimed more than 6,500 lives before it ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Opposition leader and parliament vice speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan said: “Pashinyan is a traitor and permanent street protests, which are mounting, will force him to resign.”
He announced a protest rally for Tuesday evening in Yerevan’s central Square of France where thousands rallied against Pashinyan on Sunday and Monday.
One of the protesters, 57-year-old blacksmith Sergei Hovhannisyan, said: “Nikol must go, he will go, because he is a symbol of defeat and Armenia has no future with such a leader.
“He is ready to give away Karabakh for which we have shed our blood,” he told AFP.
Opposition parties accuse Pashinyan of plans to give away all of Karabakh to Azerbaijan after he told lawmakers last month that the “international community calls on Armenia to scale down demands on Karabakh”.
Under the Moscow-brokered deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades and Russia deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers to oversee the truce.
The pact was seen in Armenia as a national humiliation and sparked weeks of anti-government protests, leading Pashinyan to call snap parliamentary polls which his party, Civil Contract, won last September.
Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflicts claimed around 30,000 lives.
(AFP)
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220503-armenia-detains-hundreds-of-anti-govt-protesters-as-opposition-calls-for-pm-to-resign
What is left for Turkiye to be in the western camp? The Armenian tragedy and the last fig leaf
May 3 2022
Ahmed Asmar
The US – and most of the western governments – stance on the issue of the Armenian tragedy of 1915 was the last in a series of western positions that harmed their relations with Turkiye. Over the past decades, despite being a sincere and indispensable ally – as many western leaders occasionally said – Turkiye has received many setbacks from the western camp which shook their alliance and endangered the country’s national security. A situation that eventually and logically put forward the question for the Turkish decision-makers and international relations experts, as well: “What is left for Turkiye to be in the western camp?”
Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, Turkiye was not hesitant to join the western camp, comprised of the United States and most of the west Europe countries. In that period, Turkiye felt threatened by the Soviet Union, which sought to have control over the Turkish Straits which connect the Black Sea with the Mediterranean, an essential waterway route for Russian exports, as well as claims to cede Turkish lands to the Soviet Union.
Since that time, Turkiye defined itself as a western ally and stood with the western camp in the face of the Eastern Soviet camp. Turkiye made great contributions to the western camp, starting from the Korean War 1950 –1953, then joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1952 and allowing for military and intelligence bases to be stationed across the Turkish territories to tackle any Soviet threat.
Despite the many contributions by Turkiye to the western camp during the post-WW2 period – acknowledged by many of the US and European leaders – yet, Turkiye was not met with the gratitude that equals its contributions and role for the success of the western camp. During the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, there were many setbacks from the western world towards Turkiye.
The Cyprus issue was an example of the western position against Turkiye. The US, and many of the European governments, sided the Greek narrative in the Cyprus case and imposed sanctions on Turkiye, including a military embargo, following its military operation in 1974 in Cyprus to protect the Turkish Cypriots from the crackdown of the Greek Cypriot terrorist groups that systematically sought to force the Turkish Cypriots to leave their lands. However, Turkiye remained a sincere ally to the western camp and stayed bound to its commitments under the alliance.
In another disregard for Turkiye’s security threats, the US denied the importation of defence capabilities to Turkiye, which was in dire need of these capabilities in the course of its fight against the terrorist PKK group, a group responsible for the killing of tens of thousands of Turkish people in the past four decades.
A US-made AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter on July 16, 2020 [SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images]
In 1996, the US blocked the sale of the US-made Cobra attack helicopters to Turkiye; in 2012, the US also rejected a request from Turkiye to purchase armed Predator drones. Furthermore, the US rejected the provision to Turkiye of an air defence system following which it then moved to Russia to purchase its state-of-art S-400 air defence system and was eventually removed by the US from the joint production program of the US F-35 jet fighter.
Moreover, the US administration, including France, failed to understand Turkiye’s security concerns in northern Syria, where the former Donald Trump administration threatened to crush the Turkish economy if it continued its military operations in northern Syria.
The US did not stop at this point. Two groups considered by Turkiye as terrorist groups – the YPG/YPJ group and the FETO entity – are not considered by the US as terrorist groups. Instead, the US provides its support and backing to them. The US provided the YPG/YPJ groups – the Syrian branch of the PKK – with hundreds of millions of dollars in arms, despite Turkiye’s warning against such support, and the US is still hosting Fetullah Gulen – head of the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO) – a terrorist entity accused of being the mastermind of the 2016 defeated coup in Turkiye.
Consecutive US presidents were cautious to avoid the use of the word “genocide” to describe what happened to the Armenian community living in eastern Anatolia under the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which witnessed the horrors of the First World War. In that period, the Armenian people, the Muslims and the Kurds of the Ottoman Empire, suffered the hardships and tragedy of that war, and hundreds of thousands were killed from all these groups of people.
The Armenian communities abroad insisted on denying the tragedies that happened to others and lobbied for their own narrative of genocide, in order to let the governments adopt their narrative. Previous US administrations, under their strategic ties with Turkiye, resisted the attempts by the Armenian pressure groups, along with attempts by pro-Armenian Congressmen, to recognise what happened to the Armenians as genocide.
In October 2019, the US Congress passed a resolution on the “Armenian Genocide”, making the recognition of it as part of the policy of the United States. Moreover, President Joe Biden, at an event to remember the Armenian tragedy on 24 April, 2021, referred to the Armenian tragedy as “genocide” in a statement released by the White House and, recently, on 24 April, 2022 at the same event, President Biden also issued a statement commemorating the 107th anniversary of the start of the “Armenian Genocide.”
Biden’s statement was met with harsh criticism from the Turkish leadership, with Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying the US leader’s statement was “based on lies and false information”. “Mr. Biden should first learn and know very well the history of Armenians. We cannot forgive this attempt aiming to challenge Turkiye, despite lacking such knowledge,” President Erdogan said in a televised address, commenting on Biden’s statement.
All in all, the US adoption of the Armenian narrative, and the ignorance of the Turkish call to examine the events based on historical truths, can be considered as the last fig leaf in the strategic relations between them. Turkiye can no longer describe its relations with the US as “strategic partner” and, therefore, it shall seek strengthening strategic partnerships with other powers in the world, including Russia and China, based on a policy of diversification and openness towards partners in different parts of the world, not only in the West.