Category: 2023

Key to having smart citizen in the field of education: Arayik Harutyunyan took part in "Smart Citizen" panel discussion

Kajoyan Gevork

 19:31,

YEREVAN, 17 OCTOBER, ARMENPRESS. Any artificial intelligence tool can make a person both smart and crazy.
Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Arayik Harutyunyan expressed such a point of view during the panel discussion under the title "Smart Citizen" organized within the framework of the "Silicon Mountains" conference.
“Artificial intelligence is another tool for solving various situations. Any such tool can make a person both smart and crazy. If previously a large amount of information was transmitted as a source, now we must teach how to use information sources correctly,” Harutyunyan said.
During the discussion of the topic “Smart Citizen,” Harutyunyan noted that a “digital” citizen and a “smart” citizen are different things. According to him, the secret of a “smart” citizen is in the development of the education sector.
Now the tools that enable a “smart” citizen to progress and develop the society have become digital. All the secrets of a “smart” citizen are in the education system,” Harutyunyan noted.
He recalled the introduction of new standards in the field of general education, which will finally be implemented for all grades from 2026.
 
Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Armenia Zhanna Andreasyan told Armenpress that the IT and HT sector are priority directions for the country. The minister noted that specific steps are being taken to develop this field in the educational system.
Since September of the current year, we have started the artificial intelligence course in schools. Work is being done to create laboratories in all schools," said the minister.

She reminded of the new state standard of general education, the introduction of which has begun in September on a phased basis.

According to Zhanna Andreasyan, the main part of the new standard is the improvement of technological education.

Jubilee evening dedicated to the 65th anniversary of Armenian Music (Choir) Society

Ani Basmajian

 18:27,

YEREVAN, 17 OCTOBER, ARMENPRESS. A jubilee evening dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Armenian Music (Choir) Society was held in the hall of the Komitas Chamber Music House.

Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia Daniel Danielyan attended the anniversary event.

Deputy Minister congratulated the Armenian Music (Choir) Society on the occasion of its jubilee.

"The fact that the music (choir) society has been operating in Armenia for 65 years is invaluable. This is a national treasure. The music company has also been uniting all representatives of the music industry and music lovers for many years,'' he said,expressing his deep gratitude to President of the Armenian Music Society David Ghazaryan for his invaluable contribution.

Davit Ghazaryan, for his part, expressed his gratitude for the high  appreciation and made a speech of welcome. The president of the Armenian Music (Choir) Society presented the activity of the society and its long history to the attendees.

 



Armenian, Iranian foreign ministers discuss regional developments, Armenian-Iranian bilateral agenda

Arsine Chaltikian

 19:58,

YEREVAN, 17 OCTOBER, ARMENPRESS.  On October 17, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan had a telephone conversation with Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the latter's initiative, the foreign ministry said in a readout.

During the telephone conversation, the issues of cooperation in the directions and formats discussed at the level of the heads of the two countries, as well as the work on promoting the Armenian-Iranian bilateral agenda were touched upon.

During the telephone conversation, the sides exchanged views on the current situation in the South Caucasus and the Middle East.




EU mission opened its last operating base in Yeghegnadzor

Yeghisabet Arthur

 20:08,

YEREVAN, 17 OCTOBER, ARMENPRESS.  The EU Mission in Armenia has opened an operational base in Yeghegnadzor.

''Today, EUMA opened its operating base in Yeghegnadzor. This was the last base to open as per the Mission's plan. HoM Markus Ritter together with the Deputy Mayor of Yeghegnadzor cut the ribbon of the new base which will focus primarily on border areas of the Ararat Province,'' The EU mission said in a statement on X.

State Department denies Blinken warned about risk of Azerbaijan attacking Armenia

Suren Karakhanian
Oct 17 2023
By Ani Avetisyan 

The US State Department has denied a Politico report citing US lawmakers that claimed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken told them that Azerbaijan might invade Armenia in the coming weeks. 

The target of the Azerbaijani attack, Blinken said, will be the southern Syunik region of Armenia, Politico reported. Blinken also said the US was seeking to hold Azerbaijan responsible and was not planning to “renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku”.

At the time of publication, the US State Department refused to give comments to Politico about the alleged conversation, saying only that it supports Armenia’s sovereignty. 

Congressman Frank Pallone appeared to confirm the reports in a tweet, saying that “Aliyev is moving forward with his objective to take Southern Armenia”, and that he urged Blinken to impose sanctions against Azerbaijan. 

Two days after the report, the Armenian state news agency, Armenpress, got comments from the State Department, denying the information in the article, calling it “inaccurate”.

“The reporting in this article is inaccurate and in no way reflects what Secretary Blinken said to lawmakers,” the department said, adding that the United States “ strongly supports” Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The State Department did not specify which parts of Politico’s reports were not true.  

“Four people told me that  Secretary Blinken had an October 3 call with a group of lawmakers, and two of those four said that Blinken said the State was tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan would invade in the coming weeks”, Eric Bazail-Eimil, a journalist from Politico insisted on Twitter. 

The fears of a new escalation have grown in Armenia since Azerbaijan’s attack on Nagorno-Karabakh in late September, with many in the country fearing that Baku might want to take the “Zangezur corridor” — a road connecting Azerbaijan to its enclave of Nakhchivan — by force. Armenian ambassador to the European Union, Tigran Balayan, had stated earlier in October that Azerbaijan will attack Armenia in the coming weeks if the West does not take “sharp” steps, calling for sanctions against Baku.

The Western countries have made it clear that  sanctions against Azerbaijan are not on the table. The EU officials have repeatedly warned that the escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh would harm  EU-Azerbaijan relations, yet refrained from threatening Baku with sanctions or review of the gas deal with it.  At the same time, a number of Western officials stated that Baku had broken its promise of not using force in Karabakh, when it attacked the region on September 19.

https://www.bne.eu/state-department-denies-blinken-warned-about-risk-of-azerbaijan-attacking-armenia-297012/?source=armenia

Speedy takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh and generational memory of genocide pose existential threat to Armenia

Rose Khoyetsian
The Irish Times
Oct 17 2023
Frank Shouldice
Tue Oct 17 2023 – 06:00

The riot squad appears to have taken up residence on Republic Square. Dressed in khaki blue, they occupy the steps of government buildings 24 hours a day, their metal shields resting upright like cello cases, batons at the ready. Things may have calmed down a little in the Armenian capital but tensions are running high. The protests could easily restart.

As helmeted riot police lined up like a praetorian guard, some were seen to lower their heads when berated by a middle-aged woman. She suggested quite forcibly that they should be ashamed of themselves, questioning why they defend buildings when the government inside those buildings had turned its back on their own people.

She was referring to the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who belong to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, known historically as Artsakh. This little-reported but long-running dispute came to a stunning conclusion when a two-day military offensive by Azeri forces last month overran local defences.

[ Nagorno-Karabakh: more than 53,000 flee to Armenia as exodus continues from region ]

The speed of such abject capitulation meant that these remote, rural highlands have been virtually emptied out, its panic-filled civilians loading up cars to the rooftops and chugging across the mountains into Armenia.

President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan has resolved to return some 5,000 Azeris displaced from the region during war. He also assures that any ethnic Armenians who stay will be treated fairly as Azeri citizens. The urgency of the exodus, however, belies any trust in that promise and the vast majority of evacuees do not expect to return.

Only UN observers and the International Red Cross have been allowed in to witness the aftermath. Silent footage, images devoid of human life, are surreal. Family possessions lie strewn everywhere in a mad rush to get away. The UN estimates that only a couple of hundred people remain and a humanitarian effort is under way to reach those unable or unwilling to leave; the old, the infirm and the stubborn.

Of course the conflict has deep roots. Although overwhelmingly Armenian in tradition, religion and culture, the region was parcelled into Azerbaijan in 1923. The Soviet Union brought both states under one roof but the dispute reignited when Artsakh voted to secede from Azerbaijan before the USSR collapsed.

[ Azerbaijan claims it does not want mass Armenian exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh ]

Six years of fighting ended in 1994 with Armenian victory but a shorter war in 2020 went decisively in Baku’s favour. Russia, a traditional overseer in the Caucuses, stationed 2,000 peacekeeping troops there but Aliev tightened Baku’s grip on the breakaway republic last December by cutting off supplies of food, fuel and medicine.

Despite severe hardship, the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh refused to yield. Baku, fuelled by wealth from its vast oil and gas reserves – and possibly encouraged by Russia’s diversion into Ukraine – duly carried out a lightning strike. That a 35-year conflict should end in less than a week has left Yerevan reeling.

Strangely, there are very few traces of this mass influx on the Armenian side. A makeshift refugee tent billows emptily outside the border village of Kornidzor. Adults and children gather in the reception area of Hotel Goris, a mountain retreat, their heavily laden cars parked outside like tired mules. Otherwise, this entire community has dispersed like the wind, as though vanished into thin air. Ask where they’ve gone and people will shrug. Those without the shelter of relatives or friends will soon resurface, like a tracksuited man doubling up as parking attendant on a busy Yerevan street. Humbly extending an open palm he explained his need for spare coins in one word: “Artsakh”.

For a gradually dwindling number of protesters, this calamity has reawoken other deeply felt fears. It is 105 years since the Ottoman Empire carried out genocide here, wiping out an estimated 1.5 million Armenians. The synchronicity has not been lost locally that the very week ethnic Armenians were again forced to flee their homeland, Aliev welcomed his staunch ally, Turkish president Tayip Erdogan. Such is the Ottoman imprint on the Armenian psyche that older protesters refer to the military takeover not as advancing Azeri soldiers but as invading Turks.

[ Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh victory highlights limits of Russia’s power ]

They feel angry that Moscow has let them down again. The protesters are also ready to turn up the heat on their own prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who they say has abandoned the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

They angrily question why thousands of lives were sacrificed on both sides because it now looks like Nagorno-Karabakh has simply been given away. They wonder what their wealthy and emboldened neighbours will want next, especially if Baku is supported by Ankara. And if they must come to terms with the idea that Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh is no longer Armenian, what, they ask, is to become of Armenia itself?

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2023/10/17/speedy-takeover-of-nagorno-karabakh-and-generational-memory-of-genocide-pose-existential-threat-to-armenia/

Support for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians

Emil Lazarian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Australia
Senator the Hon Penny Wong
Oct 17 2023
  • Joint media release with:
  • The Hon Pat Conroy MP, Minister for International Development and the Pacific

The Australian Government will provide $500,000 to the United Nation’s refugee agency, UNHCR to alleviate the suffering of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians who fled the region following Azerbaijan’s recent military escalation.

Australia is deeply concerned by the humanitarian situation and the welfare of the more than 100,000 people from Nagorno-Karabakh now in Armenia. Australia’s contribution will be delivered by the UNHCR to help provide shelter and supplies to refugees and host communities.

On 11 October 2023, Australia joined the Joint Statement on the Situation in Nagorno-Karabakh at the 54th Session of the Human Rights Council, supporting the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians.

Australia has been clear that we expect Azerbaijan should guarantee the rights and security of the inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh, including those who may wish to return from Armenia.

Australia supports mediation efforts to secure a just and lasting peace. A peace agreement would recognise the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both Armenia and Azerbaijan and uphold the rights and security of Armenians who have remained in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as those who may wish to return in the future.

The Australian Government continues to monitor the situation closely.

“Australia remains deeply concerned by the unfolding humanitarian situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan and the welfare of its inhabitants who may have left for Armenia.”

“Australia is providing $500,000 in humanitarian aid to assist Nagorno-Karabakh residents who left for Armenia after Azerbaijan’s military escalation in September, which will be used to help provide shelter and supplies to refugees and host communities.”

“Australia opposes any military escalation in the region, and we continue to call on Armenia and Azerbaijan to negotiate a just and lasting peace.”

“It was deeply distressing to see the thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians displaced by conflict.

“This contribution of $500,000 to UNHCR will ensure humanitarian support and supplies go where they are most needed.”

  • Minister's office: (02) 6277 7500
  • DFAT Media Liaison: (02) 6261 1555
https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/media-release/support-nagorno-karabakh-armenians

CPP’s Armenian community horrified by mass exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, following Azerbaijani military attack

Andranik Taslakhchian
Oct 17 2023


  •  

  • BY GREGORY KARP OCTOBER 17, 2023

By Monday, Oct. 2, nearly all of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population abandoned their home after Azerbaijani forces attacked and ordered the region’s militants to disarm, according to the Armenian government.   

Now, feelings of shock and disbelief pour over Cal Poly Pomona’s Armenian Students Association as students ask for the university to acknowledge the conflict in a statement of condemnation toward Azerbaijan.  

During their third club meeting of the semester, ASA members created signs, flyers and posters Sept. 26 to help spread awareness about the loss of Artsakh’s Armenian population. Students dipped the palms of their hands in red, blue and orange splotches of paint and pressed them against posters, replicating Armenia’s national flag.  

The multicolored handprints were then paired with messages, such as, “Genocide Denied, Is Genocide Repeated,” “Artsakh: War, Is & Will Remain Armenian,” and “Justice for Artsakh.”   

The ASA followed up their last club meeting with a student protest, held during U–Hour Tuesday, Oct, 10 in front of the University Library. During the one-hour protest, more than a hundred individuals passed by the demonstrating students on their way to their next destination — receiving pamphlets with a QR code for the Armenian National Committee of America that lists how to contact local legislators, in order to send emergency aid to Artsakh.    

“I’d love to see Cal Poly Pomona make a statement of condemnation for the ethnic cleansing that has been going on in Artsakh,” said computer science student and ASA member Sarkis Gafafyan. “They released a statement during the 44-day war, and I believe a statement is appropriate now for students to be aware of the situation.” 

Gafafyan is one of 80 students in the ASA, a community of Cal Poly Pomona students who host various social, cultural and educational events to promote student appreciation of Armenian culture. 

Azeri forces entered Nagorno-Karabakh Sept. 19 for a military offensive against outnumbered Armenian forces, forcing Armenian withdrawal within 24 hours.  

Following the offensive, a fuel depot explosion shook the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh Monday, Sept. 25, wounding more than 200 people in the blast. The explosion occurred as ethnic Armenians rushed to leave the region, lining up at the depot to refuel their cars and escape the military offensive.  

An estimated 100,514 of the region’s 120,000 population have crossed into Armenia by bus, completing a weeklong exodus of ethnic Armenians into the Republic of Armenia.  

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan condemned the exodus as an act of ethnic cleansing and separating people from their homeland. The prime minister is tasked to provide the displaced population with housing, medical care and jobs amid financial and logistical issues in Armenia.  

“Many people don’t even know what is going on, many people don’t even know that the country of Armenia exists, despite it having a rich history and being one of the oldest countries on the planet,” said architecture student and ASA member Hagop Kevorkian. “Armenians want to live in peace and just not have to succumb to external forces that hate us beyond belief, for no other reason than the fact that we’re Armenian.” 

Following Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict in 2020, Cal Poly Pomona’s ASI Board of Directors approved a senate resolution drafted by the ASA, prompting university administration to release a statement in support of Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.   

In light of Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh, the 1915-1920 Armenian  

Genocide is a haunting reminder for CPP’s Armenian community to never forget their history.    

 CPP finance Professor and ASA Advisor Roman Gulagian reveals a photo of his grandfather, a genocide survivor who walked from the modern city of Kayseri to Aleppo in a 400-mile march, at 10-years-old. 

“It’s something that we can’t forget, people that have their ancestors as genocide survivors,” said Gulagian. “It’s super special to us, because we have a connection with it, and we don’t want it to happen again.” 

 The mass exodus of Artsakh’s ethnic Armenians from their ancestral lands, is a migration paved in historic violence from Azerbaijan, leaving Armenians to pick up the pieces. 

“I don’t think that Azerbaijan has learned that Armenia has survived thousands of years of history,” said Gafafyan. “You can take land from us, you can take our homes and cattle away, but you’ll never be able to take our knowledge away you’ll never take our culture.”  

To donate to Artsakh’s refugees, visit the Armenia fund. 

https://thepolypost.com/news/2023/10/17/cpps-armenian-community-horrified-by-mass-exodus-of-nagorno-karabakh-enclave-following-azerbaijani-military-attack/

The Next Surge of Conflict in the South Caucasus Is Still Preventable

Hovsep Chakrian
Oct 17 2023

The tragic exodus of the Armenian population from the Nagorno Karabakh region has closed a chapter in the long saga of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The disappearance of this self-proclaimed republic provides the opportunity to bring these bitter hostilities to an end; it takes, nevertheless, plenty of wishful political thinking to believe that a peace treaty could be swiftly negotiated. Mutual animosity is a profound, but not necessarily insurmountable obstacle. The greater problem is that it is hard to expect from Azerbaijan, ruled by the hereditary autocratic regime of President Ilham Aliyev, a magnanimity in victory. Pushing the defeated adversary further yet and maximizing the damage is much more in the nature of this regime, rendering the prevention of a new spasm of armed conflict an urgent task for all stakeholders in peace in the South Caucasus.

The fate of Nagorno Karabakh was predetermined by the outcome of the 44-day long air-land battle in autumn 2020, in which the Armenian forward defense positions were breached, leading to the capture of Shusha, a key stronghold in the rugged theater of operations, by the Azeri forces. In that triumph, Aliyev showed strategic patience and accepted the Russian offer of a ceasefire. Much in the same way he calculated the right moment for starting the offensive operation, he assumed a total victory was inevitable in a matter of a few years, lessening the need to push forward with the military conquest of the whole enclave. The timeframe for the Russian peacekeeping operation was set on five years, but Russia’s aggression against Ukraine made it possible for Azerbaijan to force the closure of the postponed final act of geopolitical drama two years beforehand.

It is futile to look for a direct connection between the wars in Ukraine and in the South Caucasus, but the start of the former, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, altered the political context of the latter. The escalation of violent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the start of the 1990s was one of the peripheral ruptures caused by the generally peaceful breakdown of the Soviet Union, and the determination of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh to secede from Azerbaijan was perceived by many international observers (who at that time did not qualify as stakeholders) as a case of national self-determination. Russia, which in the early 1990s managed to negotiate and enforce ceasefires in chaotic hostilities in Moldova and Georgia, was seen as a natural external manager for this conflict, and the ceasefire was indeed agreed upon in May 1994, though no peacekeeping force was deployed. Moscow had few doubts selling arms to both parties of the smoldering conflict, but Azerbaijan was able to diversify its military modernization by importing high-tech arms systems from Turkey and Israel. Twenty years later, not only did Russia’s role become dubious due to its grab of Ukrainian lands, but also the occupation by Armenian forces of vast territory in Azerbaijan beyond Nagorno Karabakh was then perceived as crude aggression.

Yerevan remained blind to these changes, and also underestimated the shift in Moscow’s attitude following the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” in Armenia. For President Vladimir Putin, who positions himself as a champion of the counter-revolution cause, every step Armenia took in upholding democratic institutions became a personal challenge warranting punishment. In Baku, on the contrary, both the changed context of the old but never solidly “frozen” conflict and Russia’s altered stance were assessed carefully, so the opportunity to deliver a decisive blow for breaking the seemingly immovable deadlock around Nagorno Karabakh was identified and exploited to the maximum. International mediators, who maintained that a military solution to this entrenched conflict was impossible, were proven wrong.

Moscow was also surprised by the collapse of the habitual and exploitable structure of irreconcilable conflict, and it appears probable that Russia’s assessments of the balance of forces in the General Staff were influenced by Armenian confidence in its impregnable defensive positions. What the Russian military and policy planners had underestimated most of all, prior to the surprise Azerbaijani offensive (that they are still having trouble digesting), was the strength of the security cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as the readiness of the Turkish leadership for proactive engagement with the South Caucasus. The Kremlin presumed that its initiative in terminating the active phase of hostilities in November 2020 and the deployment of the Russian peacekeeping force would restore its dominant role in the region, only to be proven wrong once again. The failure of Russian peacekeepers to deliver humanitarian aid to Nagorno Karabakh during the nine month-long blockade since the start of 2023 proved the irrelevance of this operation, and Baku is now in a perfect position to prompt its discontinuation.

Turkey’s role in the South Caucasus has gained new prominence since the start of the war in Ukraine, as Moscow is compelled to go to great lengths in order to uphold its strategic partnership with Ankara. Turkey has played the balancing act very skillfully, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan assumed that his key role in negotiating the “grain deal” in July 2022 would lead to his ascension to the role of mediator. Putin’s decision to cancel that deal in July 2023 was seen in Ankara as a bargaining tool, and it was only at the meeting in Sochi on September 4th that Erdogan discovered that the agreement was beyond rescue. Two weeks later, Azerbaijan delivered the final blow to the rump Nagorno Karabakh, and while Aliyev made his own calculations in terms of timing, conspiracy is typically the prevalent pattern of thinking in the Kremlin, thus making a retribution by Erdoğan likely for Putin’s uncompromising stance.

The forceful elimination of the Nagorno Karabakh autonomy by Azerbaijan was definitely a setback for Russia, but one proposition Moscow is certain about is that the conflict in the South Caucasus is far from over. Many international stakeholders tend to assume that the removal of the long-festering core of the conflict opens opportunities for a peace process, but the Russian leadership believes that its ability to keep Armenia anchored to its security structures, ensured by the continuation of Russia’s military presence on its territory, depends on the unfolding of a new phase of the old conflict. The focal point has shifted to the Zangezur region, where Armenia borders Iran.

The geopolitical issue with this region is that it separates the main territory of Azerbaijan from the Nakhichevan enclave, which has a small (just 17 kilometers long) but crucially important border with Turkey. Baku has long cherished the vision of a transport corridor to this province and managed to insert a point on its implementation into the ceasefire agreement of November 2020. Yerevan had to accept this proposal, hoping that it would ensure survival of the curtailed autonomy for Nagorno Karabakh (which no longer exists), but never agreed on the condition of “extraterritoriality”, which implies ceding control over this as of now hypothetic transport route. Azerbaijan and Turkey could now join efforts to pressure Armenia in the hopes of maximizing gains from its military defeat and political isolation.

A large-scale military offensive by Azerbaijan might seem too ambitious, not least because it would constitute – unlike the establishment of full control over Nagorno Karabakh – an act of aggression and a violation of Armenia’s territorial integrity. Azerbaijan, nevertheless, is not only advancing a discourse on its “historic rights” to Zangezur and the “voluntarist character” of old Soviet borders. It has also executed several incursions into Armenian territory in the course of hostilities, while Armenia has been very cautious not to put any pressure on Nakhichevan, which is a “home ground” for the Aliyev political clan.

Preventing this transformation of conflict from an externally supported secession to an inter-state war over territory is a difficult and urgent task, and Yerevan cannot count on support from Moscow in working on it. Russia will be interested primarily in ensuring its control over the as of now hypothetic “extraterritorial corridor” across the Zangezur region by deploying a grouping of military and border guard forces. In case of a large-scale offensive by Azerbaijan, the Russian 102nd military base in Gyimri would probably remain “neutral”, so that in the post-conflict phase, it would be conveniently positioned to provide “peacekeepers”.

Rushing forward with the new military operation may seem out of Aliyev’s character, as he had carefully prepared every previous strike and waited patiently for the right moment. The stalemate in the trenches of Russo-Ukrainian war does not quite fit into the risk-opportunity calculations, but a possible Ukrainian breakthrough toward Tokmak, for instance, may be recognized as a useful opening. Erdoğan is also attentively monitoring the flow of combat operations, particularly on the maritime Black Sea theater, and will evaluate the response in Moscow to the international conference on promoting peace plans for Ukraine, scheduled to take place in Istanbul in late October 2023.

A new impact that may resonate in the South Caucasus is the war in the Gaza Strip caused by the massive attack by the Hamas terrorists on Israel. This escalation focuses international attention to such extraordinary degree, that Baku may assume its invasion to be barely noticed. Such calculations may be underpinned by the fact that the exodus of Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh has not produced a lasting impression on Western policymaking nor on public opinion. Dissuasion – if applied convincingly and consistently by a broad coalition of external actors (including even Iran) – can work for deterring this escalation. Conflict prevention is a political endeavor that the European Union is supposed to be good at, and its closer engagement with the fledgling democracy in Armenia combined with its cultivation of energy ties with Azerbaijan might make a difference in keeping the geopolitical rivalries in check.

https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/editoriaux-de-lifri/next-surge-conflict-south-caucasus-still-preventable

Secretary General meets Prime Minister of Armenia

Paul Hambardsumian
Council of Europe
Oct 17 2023

Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić has met with the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. The meeting focused on the developments in the region and the contribution of the Council of Europe, including in light of the recent visit by the Secretary General’s Special Representative on Migration and Refugees to Armenia.

The Secretary General reiterated how all those living in the Council of Europe geographical space are entitled to the full enjoyment of all human rights and freedoms as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Moreover, she highlighted the relevance of confidence-building measures (CBMs) for dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan with participation of NGOs, civil society, journalists and youth.

https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/secretary-general-meets-prime-minister-of-armenia