Category: 2023

TEHRAN – Armenia has received an invitation from Iran to attend a meeting of the 3+3 format of the countries of the South Caucasus region, according to an Azerbaijani news outlet. 

Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Vahan Kostanyan has said that the Armenian government is considering the possibility of a meeting in the 3+3 format at the level of Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers in Tehran, APA reported. 

Kostanyan said Armenia was invited by Iran and he is currently discussing this issue with his Iranian counterparts. “An invitation at the ministerial level was received and sent to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia,” he said. 

Kostanyan added that the 3+3 format also includes the participation of representatives of Türkiye, Iran, and Russia.

Earlier, the Azerbaijani outlet had reported that a meeting at the level of foreign ministers will soon be held in Iran in the 3+3 format (Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Russia, Iran, Armenia, and Georgia) and Armenia also agreed to participate in the meeting.

Just two weeks after fleeing his home with barely more than the clothes on his back and the phone in his pocket, 23-year-old Ashot Gabriel is at a tech conference promoting one of the last things he has left: his startup.

He is one of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenian refugees who were forced out of Nagorno-Karabakh in late September when Azerbaijani forces retook control of the breakaway enclave. Alongside his two brothers – who evacuated in a single car with their parents and a grandparent on 28 September – Gabriel is now attempting to start a new life from temporary accommodation in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan. “We lost our property, but we also lost ourselves,” he says. “We have lost our previous lives. We are starting everything from scratch.”

His online marketing startup, Brothers in Business (BIB), was offered a last-minute stand at the DigiTech Expo, with organisers hoping that technology will help offer a solution for the country. As a landlocked nation lacking the natural resources of its historically hostile neighbours, Armenia’s nascent tech industry is seen as a way to achieve sovereignty and future stability in the long term, while also assisting with the humanitarian crisis in the short term.

The country was once a tech hub in the region – one of the world’s first computers was built in Armenia – but much of Armenia’s talent left following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. A new scene emerged when émigrés returned to the country after finding success in Silicon Valley, establishing the country’s internet network and providing a foundation for startups to emerge.

There are now an estimated 300 pre-seed-stage startups in Armenia, and around 100 seed-stage startups, in fields ranging from quantum computing to electric bikes. “We have this vision: Tech is the ultimate direction that will help Armenia to succeed,” says Narek Vardanyan, CEO of Prelaunch.com, whose company acts as a platform to help local startups establish themselves on the market.

“We are landlocked, we have no natural resources. All we have is talent. And our only way we can develop is technology,” he says. “We don’t have a backup plan. There is no Plan B. We are betting everything on technology.”

Armenia’s most successful startup so far is Picsart, an online photo editor that has grown to become the country’s only unicorn – a company with a valuation north of $1 billion. Picsart is among those offering their resources to help refugees, fast-tracking the launch of an educational program that will be offered for free to refugees and war veterans, training and reskilling them in everything from machine learning to graphic design. Hayk Sahakyan, a creative director at Picsart, says there has been a “huge number” of people interested so far, including children.

This idea of building up Armenia’s tech industry through education can be found through two privately funded initiatives that are providing free courses in STEM subjects to tens of thousands of young people throughout the country. The first is TUMO, which provides free supplemental education to 12-18 year olds in creative technologies, ranging from game development to music.

Since the first TUMO centre opened in Yerevan in 2011, dozens of centres have sprung up throughout Armenia and the rest of the world, including hubs in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles. One of its six core centres and three smaller “Box” centres had to be abandoned during the Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last month.

“External circumstances can literally kill us. But whenever anyone asks me whether Armenia has a future, it’s here,” says Zara Budaghyan, head of communications at TUMO. “Technology has the potential to provide a more stable economy, but also better lives. International support has been lacking. We need to rebuild by ourselves. We are broken. But this gives us something to believe in.”

The second educational initiative is a network of technology, science and engineering laboratories set up in rural communities, offering children from 10-18 free after school classes. Established by UATE – a business association that also runs the DigiTech Expo – several of the labs in Nagorno-Karabakh also had to be shut down in September.

UATE chief executive Sargis Karapetyan, who grew up in the region, says around 200 of his relatives were among the refugees. Karapetyan considered cancelling the DigiTech conference, saying there is still a deep distrust of Azerbaijan. There are fears that the annex was only part one. The next stage, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken believes could happen “within weeks”, could be an invasion to establish a land corridor between the two parts of Azerbaijan.

When asked what prompted the decision to persevere with the tech conference despite personal tragedy and the threat of further chaos, Karapetyan replies: "Technology will save the world.”

Only a small inner door in the grand entrance to the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem was open on Friday.

The larger cast-iron gateway that normally welcomes tourists and pilgrims towards the Cathedral of St James remained shut since October 7, when the Holy Land was thrown into turmoil after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack in Israel’s south.

Authorities and the military went into high alert, Palestinians and Israelis restricted their movement and foreign tourists were told by their governments to avoid the region.

Some visitors have stayed, such as Margaret Chevian, a former librarian from Rhode Island, who came to the Armenian Patriarchate for three months to help it organise its sprawling collection of books.

A portrait in the palace of Jerusalem's Armenian Patriarch. Photo: Thomas Helm / The National

“Should I stay or should I go?” Ms Chevian asks.

"My family and friends back in the US are saying 'come home', because it’s not safe here.

“My friends here in the Old City of Jerusalem are telling me to stay, 'Jerusalem is the safest place to be'.

“So far, I've opted to stay and I do feel safe.”

One group staying steadfast is the clergy. It cannot abandon one of the most important religious institutions for Armenians. The community has had a presence in Jerusalem since the seventh century AD.

“Jerusalem is one of the main centres of the Armenian church,” says George Hintlian, a historian and long-time pillar of the Armenian community in the Holy Land.

The Patriarch is in charge of Armenian communities in the Middle East.

“In places like Lebanon, Syria and Jerusalem, you have to spend most of your time dealing with local politics – adjusting to changing situations,” he says.

The Armenians know they must do the same in the weeks, possibly months of conflict ahead.

On Tuesday, in a small, early-morning ceremony in which Irish coffee was distributed generously, they welcomed two new bishops, vital reinforcements for the struggling community.

They will help bolster the spiritual vitality of the institution. But they also need to boost numbers in a more secular sense.

The remit of one of the new bishops includes managing the community's vast property portfolio, both inside the Old City and out.

It has been targeted by illegal Israeli settlers in recent years. The Armenians are currently battling the most dangerous and complex threat yet. Settlers are trying to obtain the community’s only car park and surrounding land. Corruption among some of the clergy paved the way for the attempt.

Armenians say without the car park, their community will die. Residents will lose their mobility and pupils at the school will have nowhere to be dropped off. All for a paltry hotel lease deal that would leave the already wealthy community with very meagre financial gains, if any.

War in the Holy Land only makes their struggle harder.

Fortunately, Mr Hintlian thinks highly of the bishop with this important job.

“The Israeli context, to put it conservatively, is very dynamic – you have to take new policies into your daily life,” he says.

But with reinforcements and a community that is committed to its survival, Mr Hintlian still manages to be optimistic.

“There has never been a period in our presence when we did not have to manage crises,” he says.

“Vigilance is now part of our spiritual duties.”

https://www.thenationalnews.com/weekend/2023/10/20/armenians-in-the-holy-land-welcome-vital-reinforcements-in-troubled-times/

The conflict has been happening for a long time, but the major trigger for a starter was the end of the Russian Revolution and the fall of the URSS. Nagorno-Karabakh is the victim of this whole situation, a territory where most of the population is Armenian, but it has a different country that controls it, Azerbaijan.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region with a lot of history. The area carries a meaning in its name, “The dark garden” and it settled many battles throughout the historical events of humanity. The place was part of the Armenian Kingdom in ancient times, but the territorial control has changed over the years, going through Arabic and Persian domination. And lastly, in 1813, the Russian Empire.

However, the Armenian and Azerbaijani conflict started way after that, with the Russian Revolution and the fall of the czarism. Nevertheless, with Russia (URSS) in control of the political decisions, it was established that Nagorno-Karabakh would have an autonomous government, but it would be still integrated with Azerbaijan. 

After the URSS collapse, the Armenians got a huge advantage in the conflict, and after 30,000 deaths the Russian government held a ceasefire in 1994. With the majority of the population being Armenian, they self-proclaimed a republic but without national recognition.

Years passed with cold conflicts, but the conflict resurfaced in 2020 when Azerbaijan took complete advantage of the war and wanted to dominate the territory, which made this battle extended until nowadays.

During 2020, the pandemic year, a new outcome happened for this warfare. With Azerbaijan’s advantage, there were 44 bloody days of conflict, leaving 6,500 deaths and an Azerbaijani victory.

 On September 19th, 2022, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive to put into practice what they classified as “anti-terrorism measures”, causing 400 deaths on both sides (Armenian and Azerbaijani). Still, in 2022, Azerbaijan began a new military project, called Lachine Corridor, a 5km area. This plan would be a way to supervise the communication of the Armenian Authority to its people. The Armenian citizens who live in Nagorno-Karabakh assert that the corridor is a way to receive medicine, food, and fuel, however, the Azerbaijani Administration denies this statement and affirms that the rival nation uses it for gunrunning.

Finally, on September 28th, Samvel Shahramanian the Artsakh leader of the self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, announced that from the 1st of 2024, all state institutions would cease to exist, meaning that the Armenian authority would be none in that region. Also, according to the leader’s words, the decision to dissolve the state was based on the “priority of ensuring the physical security and vital interests of the people.”

After so many attacks and the conceded defeat to Azerbaijan, more than 120,000 ethnic Armenians gathered what they could and fled. Azerbaijan claims that the population could stay as long as they accepted new conditions, however, the Nagorno-Karabakh representative said that “ethnic cleansing” could occur if they remained despite following the orders of the new government.

Turkey, Russia, and Israel are some of the countries that were slightly involved in this war. 

Azerbaijan has two allies: Turkey and Israel, who already had made their supportive thoughts public. The Israeli and Azerbaijani presidents met up, so Israel could show their support to the country and sell armament to them. However, Turkey has a bloody history with the Armenian people, through the story of humanity it is estimated that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Armenians have died in Turkey’s hands since 1915. Furthermore, Azerbaijan received military help from Turkey in 2020, with military drones and missiles; The president of each nation met up to show support since the Turkish leader congratulated the Azerbaijani president.

Armenia has an alliance with Russia, something that has weakened in recent times due to Armenia’s rapprochement with the USA, which did not please the Russian president, but also due to the Ukraine-Russia war. However, Russia has not stopped sending weapons or military peacekeeping forces to contain a war.

https://www.hercampus.com/school/casper-libero/ethical-cleaning-in-armenia-what-is-happening-since-the-azerbaijan-invasion/

ON the day Azerbaijan’s military sliced through the defences of an ethnic Armenian redoubt on Sept 19, American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division had just finished a training mission in nearby Armenia, a long-time ally of Russia that has been trying to reduce its nearly total dependence on Moscow for its security.

The Americans unfurled a banner made up of the flags of the United States and Armenia, posed for photographs – and then left the country.

At the same time, nearly 2,000 Russian “peacekeepers” were dealing with the mayhem unleashed by their earlier failure to keep the peace in the contested area, Nagorno-Karabakh, recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan.

The timing of the US soldiers’ rapid exit at the end of their training work – carried out under the intimidating name Eagle Partner but involving only 85 soldiers – had been scheduled for months.

Yet, coinciding as it did with the host country’s greatest moment of need, it highlighted an inescapable reality for Armenia: While it might want to reduce its reliance on an untrustworthy Russian ally that, preoccupied by the war in Ukraine, did nothing to prevent September’s debacle, the West offers no plausible alternative.

Later, the defeated ethnic Armenian government of Nagorno-Karabakh formally dissolved itself and told residents they had no choice but to leave or to live under Azerbaijani rule, acknowledging a new reality enabled by Russian passivity and unhindered by Washington.

The Biden administration rushed out two senior officials to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to offer comfort to Armenia’s embattled prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan. But it has so far resisted placing sanctions on Azerbaijan for a military assault that the State Department previously said it would not countenance.

"This is not an era of war". The catchphrase by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Russian President Vlamidir Putin might have been in connection with the Russia-Ukraine war, but it also applies to the several other conflicts raging in several other parts of the world. The latest wars between Israel and Gaza, and Russia and Ukraine have captured the public glare in a way that other conflicts — like that in Yemen or Sudan — haven't.

While the surprise and unprecedented offensive by Palestinian militant group Hamas killed over 1,400 people in Israel, retaliatory fire by Tel Aviv has led to deaths of 2,329 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Meanwhile, the total number of soldiers killed or wounded since the Russia-Ukraine war that began 20 months ago is nearing 500,000, as per an NYT report.

While the death toll in both the wars has been staggering, here is a look at other conflicts across the world that have been equally deadly:

Intense fighting that erupted between the Sudanese armed forces and a paramilitary group — Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — on April 15 continues unabated as the war is in its sixth month. The conflict has left over 5,000 civilians dead, more than 12,000 injured, and over 5.7 million people displaced, according to Amnesty International.

Capital city Khartoum has been the worst affected in the power struggle between soldiers loyal to Sudanese army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, paramilitary RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

While the UN has called it the "world's worst, most complex and cruel" humanitarian crisis, the West and other global powers have paid scant attention to the crisis unfolding in Sudan. There have also been reports of sexual violence against women, targeted attacks on hospitals and churches, and extensive looting.

Even though there have been several ceasefires due to intervention by the US and Saudi Arabia, there have been no concrete agreements between the two warring sides. The war brings with it heavy security and economic ramifications for the region as Sudan, the third-largest country in Africa, is home to the mineral-rich Nile River basin and is located close to the Middle East.

Even though the eight-year-long war in Yemen between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition that supports Yemen's government has subsided to a large extent in 2023, thanks to the recent peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there still continues to be sporadic violence.

According to the United Nations, the conflict in Yemen has led to over 377,000 deaths, with most of them due to hunger and lack of healthcare. More than 11,000 children have been killed or wounded as a direct result of the fighting, BBC reported. Around 4.5 million people, one-seventh of the population, have been displaced.

The civil war in Yemen dates back to 2014 when the Yemen government led by Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was facing its worst economic crisis. At this time, the Houthis, a group of Shiite rebels, took advantage of the situation and seized control of Yemen's capital Sana'a, demanding a new government. The next year, the Houthis took control of the presidential palace, forcing Hadi to flee.

Alarmed by the prospect of Iran-backed Houthis taking control of the whole of Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations began air strikes to oust the rebels, triggering one of the deadliest and longest conflicts. The Saudi coalition got logistical and intelligence support from the US, UK and France.

The air strikes by Saudi Arabia and UAE have led to 19,000 civilian deaths, according to a report in Council on Foreign Relations. The Houthis have retaliated with a spate of drone attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Hopes of an end to the long-drawn conflict got a boost after Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a deal mediated by China to restore diplomatic relations. Since then, Houthis have held talks with Saudi Arabia to end the conflict but a recent drone attack by the Shiite group against forces of the Saudi-led coalition has put the pot boiling again.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is one of the world's longest-running conflicts. Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies in the South Caucasus region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, has been at the centre of a bloody war between Azerbaijan and Armenia for 35 years.

The first war over Nagorno-Karabakh took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region began following the breakdown of the Soviet Union. In 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh's legislature passed a resolution declaring its resolve to join Armenia despite its official location within Azerbaijan. The first war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region saw around 30,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Earlier this year, Azerbaijan launched a military incursion into the region that eventually saw it retaking Nagorno-Karabakh. The territory surrendered to Azerbaijan as forces in Karabakh agreed to be disarmed and disbanded. It prompted more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh to flee to Armenia.

A view of armored vehicles and other types of weapons that are captured during the Karabakh war in Baku, Azerbaijan (Getty)

While the war in Syria, which started as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, has waned in the last few years, the northwestern Idlib region continues to see shelling and civilian casualties. Fighting has also erupted in northeastern Syria between Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Arab-led Deir-ez-Zor Military Council (DMC).

The 12-year war in Syria between rebel groups and Assad's forces, with the backing of Iran and Russia, has left half a million people dead and devastated cities.

The height of the conflict saw radical Islamist groups, including the Islamic State, seize large swathes of the country. However, the Islamic State fizzled out and lost almost all the territory following sustained counter offensives by pro-Syrian forces and US-led coalition of Western allies.

https://news.abplive.com/news/world/israel-gaza-hamas-palestine-war-ongoing-armed-conflicts-russia-ukraine-yemen-syria-sudan-nagorno-karabakh-1637234