Category: 2022

Armenia claims Azerbaijani forces fired at miners near border

Talar Tumanian
Jerusalem Post
May 7 2022
By TZVI JOFFRE

 

Published: MAY 7, 2022 23:55

Updated: MAY 8, 2022


Armenia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Saturday that Azerbaijani troops fired at Armenian military positions and at the Sotk gold mine in eastern Armenia, injuring one miner.

The Armenian Defense Ministry stated that the shooting was “suppressed by countermeasures,” adding that the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border was “relatively stable” as of Saturday afternoon. The workers at the Sotk mine have all been evacuated.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry has denied the report, calling it “false and disinformation.”

Earlier in the week, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry claimed that Armenian forces fired at Azerbaijani forces in the village of Zeylik, around 30 kilometers from the city of Ganga and nearly 40 kilometers from the border, adding that “adequate response measures” were taken by Azerbaijani forces. The Armenian Defense Ministry called the claim “misinformation.”

A week before that incident, Azerbaijan’s State Border Service claimed that a “sabotage group” of the Armenian Armed Forces attempted to infiltrate into Azerbaijan and warned that it would take “more serious measures” if the incident was repeated.


In April, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Azerbaijani forces had repeatedly violated the ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Republic of Artsakh, a de facto republic internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. In 2020, the area where the republic is situated was recaptured by Azerbaijan.

In March, Azerbaijani forces crossed the line of contact near the village of Parukh in the Republic of Artsakh, entering the village of Khramort. A day later, an Azerbaijani Bayraktar TB2 drone carried out strikes against forces belonging to Artsakh, killing three Armenian soldiers.

The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement at the time saying that Azerbaijan had violated the ceasefire reached at the end of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war by crossing the line of contact, sparking outrage from Azerbaijani officials.


On April 6, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to hold peace talks to address tensions over the Nagorno-Karabakh area.

In 2020, a slightly more than month-long war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and nearby areas, ending with a new line of contact drawn and Russian peacekeepers deployed along the line. Sporadic clashes have been reported along the line since the war.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.



 

State of Mississippi recognizes Armenian Genocide

Ani Kharatian
Caucasian Knot
May 6 2022
Mississippi has become the last, the 50th US state to recognize the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that more than 20 countries, including Russia, have recognized the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. On April 24, 2021, US President Joe Biden recognized the Armenian Genocide. However, most other countries have not officially recognized the genocide.

The “Yerevan.today” has reported, referring to the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), that the authorities of Mississippi have recognized the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

The “Armeniatoday.news” has added that Tate Reeves, the Mississippi Governor, declared this April to be the Genocide Awareness Month.

Let us remind you that Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations. Disagreements exist between the countries over the resolution of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, in which Turkey supports Azerbaijan.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 6, 2022 at 10:20 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

See earlier reports:
Activists in Yerevan demand to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh, State New Jersey recognized Nagorno-Karabakh independence, Two US cities recognize Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence.

Source: Caucasian Knot

Several hundred women come out to Yerevan streets

Garnik Tadevosian
Caucasian Knot
May 8 2022
Several hundred women come out to Yerevan streets

A women’s march demanding resignation of the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, was held in central Yerevan.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that Armenia is hosting protests demanding Pashinyan’s resignation. On May 6, law enforcers violently dispersed an action held near Victory Bridge in Yerevan; the police reported 48 detainees. It also became known about the arrest of four people in connection with the incidents that broke out during protests. Today, the opposition staged a motor rally from Yerevan to Vanadzor, where a rally is planned demanding Pashinyan’s resignation.

The march of several hundred women began from France Square in Yerevan; the protesters intend to visit the Saint Sarkis Church and pray for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the “News-Armenia” Agency reports.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 7, 2022 at 01:32 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

See earlier reports:

Armenian IC announces arrest of four oppositionists, In Yerevan, a protester dies of cardiac arrest, National Security Service of Armenia warns opposition against storming parliament.

Source: Caucasian Knot

Analysts exclude change of Armenia’s political course in case of coup

Khondkarian Raffi
Caucasian Knot
May 8 2022
Analysts exclude change of Armenia’s political course in case of coup
Armenia follows integration processes with Russia; and in case of revolution, new authorities will have to follow the same policy. However, the likelihood of a change of power in the country is minimal, since the Armenian opposition is fragmented and has no alternatives to the figure of the Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, analysts have noted.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that since April 25, the Armenian opposition has been holding protests demanding Pashinyan’s resignation after he had agreed to “lower the bar” on the Karabakh issue. He also stated that he could have avoided casualties in the 2020 autumn war if he had surrendered territories.

The probability of change of power in Armenia is almost zero, but if the opposition still manages to come to power, it will have no fundamental differences with the approach of the Pashinyan team to Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, Akop Badalyan, an observer, believes.

“The West is even more involved in Southern Caucasus’ processes … It has also become difficult for the pro-Russian Pashinyan, who is trying to benefit from the West-Russia contradictions,” Saro Saroyan, a political analyst, has pointed out.

Russia and Azerbaijan are putting pressure on Armenia; and the pro-Russian opposition will not be able to go against Russia and Vladimir Putin, Armen Vardanyan, a political analyst, has noted.

He has added that Armenia doesn’t refuse to sign a peace treaty, but puts forward some counter conditions and protracts the process until the special operation in Ukraine is over.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 7, 2022 at 09:04 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

See earlier reports:
Several hundred women come out to Yerevan streets, Armenian IC announces arrest of four oppositionists, Forty-eight protesters detained in Yerevan.

Author: Tigran Petrosyan Source: CK correspondent

Turkey’s weightlifters displace Armenia at top of Junior World Championships medals table

Aram Torosian
May 8 2022
  • By Brian Oliver

    •  

  •  Sunday, 8 May 2022

Armenia led the medals table at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Junior World Championships in Heraklion in Crete – but only for a few hours as Turkey claimed a second title of the week.

Garik Karapetyan made a six-from-six 170-200-370 to win the men’s 96 kilograms for Armenia for a second straight year, improving his winning total from 2021 by 15kg.

That was too good for last year’s 89kg champion Tudor Bratu, from Moldova, who failed with his second clean and jerk but made his five other lifts to finish with 163-201-364.

Karapetyan, who will be 19 next month, has never finished out of the first two in his five international appearances since 2019.

That result put Armenia ahead of Indonesia in the medals table, but they are back in second place after Turkey won the women’s 81kg to go top with two days to go, having won two golds, three silvers and one bronze on total.

The numbers were not high, and would not have won gold two categories lower at 71kg, but Dilara Narin’s 99-131-230 was enough to take the title.

That was a career-best total for the 20-year-old, who was youth world champion at 76kg in 2019 and holds the youth world record, at 130kg, in the clean and jerk.

She was also the Youth Olympic Games gold medallist at 63kg in 2018, and has competed at four different weights.

The Mexican Emmy Gonzalez took silver on her international debut with 100-127-227.

Egyptian teenagers took bronze in both events, Yasser Usama with 157-202-359 in the 96kg and Fatma Ahmed on 99-122-221 in the 81kg.

Restored 16th-century Armenian church reopens in Diyarbakir

Emil Lazarian
Public Radio of Armenia
May 8 2022

16th-century St. Giragos Armenian church in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakir (historic Tigranakert) province heavily damaged in 2015 officially reopened on Saturday after restoration.

The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Sahak Mashalyan, president over the first Sunday mass at the church today.

The Patriarch called the opening of the church a lifeline for Diyarbakır’s Christian population, which has been on the decline.

Resistance movement heads to Gyumri with car march

Karakhanian Suren
NEWS.am
Armenia – May 8 2022
09:50, 08.05.2022

The resistance movement will hold a car march to Gyumri today.

The march will start from Ashtarak highway, and the opposition will hold a rally in the city of Gyumri at 1 p.m..

No rally is planned in Yerevan today. Artsakh people will present a cultural program on the France Square. The opposition will hold a large rally at France Square at 5 p.m. tomorrow.

Earlier, NEWS.am reported that since 2 May peaceful protests have been held in Yerevan, with streets being closed every day. Since 2 May, rallies have been held on France Square in Yerevan.

More niceties, zero progress in third round of Turkey-Armenia peace talks by Amberin Zaman

Emil Karabekian
May 5 2022
Turkey and Armenia’s third round of rapprochement talks have produced little of substance as Armenians protested by in the thousands and called for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign.
People wave Armenian and Republic of Artsakh flags as they protest outside of the Turkish Consulate on the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in a demonstration organized by the Armenian Youth Federation of the Western United States on April 24, 2022, in Beverly Hills, California. – RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images


by 
Amberin Zaman


Turkish and Armenian negotiators met in Vienna Tuesday for a third round of talks aimed at establishing diplomatic ties and reopening the long-sealed land border between the two countries as thousands of Armenians demonstrated against the effort and called for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to step down.

The talks that began in January, more than a year and a half after Azerbaijan defeated Armenia with Turkey’s help in a bloody 44-day war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, have yet to yield any substantial results. Turkey is resisting Armenian demands for confidence-building measures such as allowing diplomatic passport holders from both sides to use the land border for future meetings that would be held either in Armenia or in Turkey.

The lack of movement was reflected in official statements put out by Yerevan and Ankara.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the envoys had “a sincere and productive exchange of concrete views and discussed possible steps that can be undertaken for tangible progress in this direction.” The Armenian side issued an identical statement saying that the envoys had “reiterated their agreement to continue the process without preconditions.” Diplomatic sources briefing Al-Monitor confirmed no progress had been made, but said that the meetings will continue.

The outcome prompted a flurry of mockery on social media, with photos of Turkish negotiator Serdar Kilic, 64, and his Armenian counterpart Ruben Rubinyan, 32, as they would look in their “39th meeting.”

Turkey is thought be holding back in order to allow Azerbaijan to press its advantage to extract further concessions from Armenia before signing a final peace treaty. They include getting Armenia to shelve all and any claims over Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory.

The war in Ukraine has bolstered confidence in Baku and Ankara alike, with Turkey’s geostrategic value and Azerbaijan’s vast energy resources back in the spotlight.

Armenia seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a previous war in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed along with seven adjacent regions. In the latest war in the fall of 2020, it lost four of those regions along with a third of Nagorno-Karabakh. It ceded the remaining three regions as part of a truce brokered by the Kremlin in November that year. The war marked the biggest humiliation the nation of 2.9 million has suffered since formally declaring independence in 1991.

Turkey has long signaled that an Armenian withdrawal from the occupied territories would be enough for the two countries to normalize relations. By backing Azerbaijan’s quest for more, Ankara may be missing its best opportunity in decades to make peace with its neighbor and to help heal the wounds of the Armenian Genocide. It will also forfeit the chance to balance relations with Azerbaijan’s strongman Ilham Aliyev. His deep pockets and long arms in the Turkish economy and media allow him to manipulate Turkish nationalist sentiment — at times against Turkey’s own interests, as when he torpedoed an earlier effort at Turkish-Armenian reconciliation in 2009.

Pashinyan is seeking to build on the shelved “Zurich protocols,” which assured mutual respect of existing borders. Similarly, he has said that Turkish recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not a precondition for peace. At the same time, he has agreed to set up a commission with Azerbaijan to help demarcate their common borders.

“Turkey should not leave Pashinyan in the lurch and vindicate the opposition’s claims that he is being used,” said Alin Ozinian, a Yerevan-based Turkish-Armenian analyst.

Azerbaijan’s other key demand, which is thought to be backed by Turkey, is for it to be granted access via Armenia’s sovereign territory to Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani enclave bordering Turkey. But it wants an exclusive customs regime, which Yerevan argues would be in breach of its sovereignty.

Pashinyan has hinted at flexibility over Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh as it’s known in Armenian. In a bold speech to parliament on April 13, Pashinyan noted that he was under pressure from the international community and suggested that Armenia’s options were limited and no matter how bitter a pill, the country’s leaders needed to prioritize peace in the interest of its future generations. Pashinyan’s words triggered a maelstrom among his nationalist opponents, who accuse him of selling the country out.

“The protest movement, which started in Armenia after Pashinyan’s April 13 speech, proves one thing,” observed Armenian commentator Benyamin Poghosyan in a recent briefing. “The majority of the politically active part of the Armenian society does not and will not accept any solution that will make Nagorno-Karabakh part of Azerbaijan under any circumstances or guarantees. Any efforts by international actors, be it Russia, the EU, or the US, to convince the Armenian government to agree to such a solution will inevitably trigger political destabilization in Armenia,” he added.

Poghosyan told Al-Monitor separately, “President Aliyev, with his demands to sign a peace treaty with Armenia within months which recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan is only making the situation worse and is only bringing closer the possible formation of a more hard-line government here.”

“Turk” and “traitor” are among the slogans being chanted by the thousands of demonstrators who continue to gather in central Yerevan. Robert Kocharyan, a former president and hard-liner from Nagorno-Karabakh with close ties to the Kremlin, has taken part in the protests along with his children. To many he is emblematic of the institutional corruption and mismanagement that contributed to Armenia’s defeat.

“The demonstrators want a return to the old regime but they have yet to present any plan of their own describing how Armenia will win back lost territories or stop Turkish aggression,” Ozinian said. Like many, she does not believe that Pashinyan is under imminent threat.

The government appears to think so, too. As demonstrators clashed with police back home, Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan was in Washington, where he signed a memorandum of understanding on nuclear cooperation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 2 and thanked the United States for its “support for Armenia-Turkey normalization.”

Meanwhile, Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan met with Azerbaijan’s top presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev in Brussels for a second time to discuss a proposed peace deal, adding to protesters’ fury.

“In a critical moment like this for Armenia, when there is public pressure on the street calling for this government to resign, the idea that senior government figures are going off not only out of the country but to foreign countries that did not support us shows us where their marching orders come from and where their loyalties lie,” said Alison Tahmizian Meuse, an Armenian-American lecturer at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan. The foreign trips show “they are not interested in hearing what we have to say and only want to preserve themselves and their rule.”

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/05/more-niceties-zero-progress-third-round-turkey-armenia-peace-talks

Protests in Armenia continue – what will happen next?

Emil Lazarian

May 5 2022


  • JAMnews
  • Yerevan

Anti-government protests in Armenia

The parliamentary opposition of Armenia continues a series of protests in the capital and regions demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The reason for the start of an active street struggle of the opposition was the Prime Minister’s statement that the international community expects Armenia to “lower the bar on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh“. The opposition says that this means agreeing to the status of NK within Azerbaijan, and consequently, to the expulsion of all local Armenians.

After this statement, Nikol Pashinyan made assurances that he did not intend to agree on anything and would not sign any document without the consent of the society, “behind the backs of the Karabakh Armenians”. The leadership of the unrecognized republic confirmed the words of the Armenian prime minister, but the movement of the opposition to remove Pashinyan from the post of prime minister continues.

The protests are gaining momentum, sometimes involving more than tens of thousands of people, but so far the opposition movement is not gaining a critical number of supporters. Experts attribute this to the fact that behind both parliamentary factions, which call on the people to take to the streets, are politicians from the former government. These are ex-presidents of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, who are considered by society as politicians with a pro-Russian orientation.

  • “Opposition’s struggle enters a decisive stage” – peaceful protests in Yerevan continue
  • “Peace agenda is not an agenda of defeat” – position of Armenian authorities on status of NK
  • Armenian villagers living near the Azerbaijani border demand a security zone

On May 4, opposition deputies, who have not been participating in parliamentary sessions for a long time and took to the streets demanding the resignation of the prime minister, returned to their jobs. The National Assembly hosted the traditional “Government Hour”, during which deputies asked questions to the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet.

The oppositionists came to demand the resignation of Pashinyan personally. They read out a text with accusations, claiming, in particular, that the prime minister:

  • failed to protect Armenian interests in the negotiations on the Karabakh conflict,
  • led to the country to war, and then lost in it,
  • could have prevented the war and avoided thousands of victims, but did not,
  • promised to return the prisoners from Azerbaijan within one or two months, but failed to do so and they remain in Azerbaijan to this day.

In his response, Pashinyan traditionally spoke about the “legacy” he received from the previous government, in particular, from ex-president Serzh Sargsyan. He still managed to promise a loud exposure, but the opposition did not wait for him and left the meeting room.

Later, the opposition explained their departure by the fact that they did not want to listen to “another batch of lies from the prime minister”.

Nagorno-Karabakh issue and the signing of a peace treaty. Despite the war in Ukraine and the attention of world centers being diverted to it, certain processes are still ongoing

According to political scientist Suren Surenyants, the protests are well organized but lack political content.

“We don’t hear from the activists of the platform what they think, what ideas they have about solving the internal and external problems facing Armenia”, the political scientist told JAMnews.

He believes that the protests may lead to a deepening of the domestic political crisis, but they “do not yet have a revolutionary potential” – and the reason is the lack of alternative political content, as well as public consolidation:

“If the opposition can say an alternative political word, present a new political context, it can succeed, because people are extremely disappointed with the authorities. But if we listen to the same primitive slogans that have been voiced up to this point, then there will be no great social consolidation, the movement will not lead to a revolution. Another thing is that the government’s resources may run out”.

The political scientist does not exclude the possibility of the influence of external forces on the protest movement, but he is sure that without the consolidation of society around the opposition, this will not play a role and will not lead to success.

As for the role of Russia in the movement launched by the opposition, the expert does not believe that in the current situation, the Kremlin will make special efforts to change the government in Armenia:

“Russia is deeply convinced that the main political forces of Armenia do not question the Armenian-Russian strategic partnership. Therefore, whether it is the government of Pashinyan, Kocharyan or any other, this partnership will not be questioned. I do not think that Russia in this situation would make special efforts to bring about a change of power”.

Armenian opposition demands the prime minister’s resignation and continues a series of indefinite street protests aimed at ‘waking up’ Armenian society

According to political scientist Benyamin Poghosyan, the people who took to the streets have only one message:

“Most of the politically active society does not intend to agree to the signing of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan, in which Nagorno-Karabakh will be fixed as part of Azerbaijan – with any status.

If the danger of signing such an agreement goes from theory to reality, the number of people involved in protests will increase significantly. This will seriously destabilize the internal political situation in Armenia and may lead to a change of power”.

However, the political scientist does not predict “tectonic internal political changes” in the near future. According to him, the negotiations are a lengthy process, and it is unlikely that a peace agreement will be signed before the end of the year. Moreover, Russia, according to him, is also not interested in this scenario:

“The Russian Federation is in no way interested in signing a peace agreement if it fixes Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, as it believes that this will open the way for the withdrawal of Russian troops from NK in November 2025 [the Russian peacekeeping contingent has been deployed in NK since November 2020 for a period of 5 years – JAMnews]. And the Russians want one thing – to stay in Artsakh as long as possible”.

According to the expert, elements of political struggle are obvious in the actions of the opposition, but not all protesters are members of one or another political team:

“I don’t think that all those who are protesting now just want a second or third president [Kocharyan is the second president of Armenia, Sargsyan is the third] or people associated with them. There are a significant number of people who send a signal to both the Armenian authorities and foreign partners that any scenario in which Artsakh will be part of Azerbaijan is unacceptable for them”.

Armenia continues to discuss the future of the OSCE Minsk Group. Armenian expert comments on the possible fate of the format which has been mediating the Karabakh conflict settlement for 30 years

The processes taking place in Armenia may be connected with “different circles of the Russian elite”, political observer Hakob Badalyan believes. He says that relations within the elite are quite complicated due to the events in Ukraine and tough sanctions imposed on Russia:

“Even before the start of the active stage of the struggle in Armenia, I warned that the complex relationships and competitive motives within the Russian elite would also affect the internal political life of Armenia. What is happening on the street today is one of the manifestations of this process”.

The expert believes that the return of the former authorities is unacceptable for society. He says that people have good reasons for this, which are connected not only with the past, but also with the behavior of the former authorities after the change of power:

“Even after a difficult war, military defeat, human and territorial losses, the public did not consider such a political situation, the possibility of changing the status quo, seeing that this change would be taken advantage of by forces representing the former ruling system”.