Category: 2023

As Tamanna embarks on this new chapter of her life, her goals and ambitions become clearer to her. She is determined to pay forward the opportunities she has received and is committed to working towards the betterment of women in her community. This scholarship stands as a testament to her steadfast determination and remarkable resilience.

The world watches in suspense as the aftermath of the conflagration unleashed by Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel unfolds. This is the umpteenth outbreak of violence in the vicinity of the European Union. Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria, Israel and Gaza, Libya, the Sahel: a crescent of terrible conflicts borders the EU on its eastern and southern flanks. The triggers are of course different in each case. But in all of them an era of instability has played a role, with changes in the attitudes of large and medium powers seeming to encourage violent escalations. The entire arc of crisis, with the exception of Ukraine, shows the very limited ability of the EU to have an influence on this environment.

This period of volatility is one in which Russia has sought to forcibly reconfigure the world order, China has gained strength, the United States has reoriented itself to address the rise of Beijing, Iran has reaffirmed its antagonism to the West, and the Global South has mobilized against Western dominance in new ways. This geopolitical panorama influences the arc of instability.

Let’s start with the violence unleashed by Hamas’ attack on Israel. This is a criminal decision by its leaders, in which there are no ifs or buts. This does not mean that we should not analyse the context in which it has arisen, and which will have undoubtedly influenced its planning. This shows, on the one hand, Iran — a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah — fully aligned with the attitude of open defiance to the West, of an unleashed Russia, and an increasingly assertive China. Tehran’s position must also be read in light of the collapse of the perspective opened by the nuclear treaty sealed with the Obama Administration and torn up by the Trump Administration. On the other hand, Israel has not suffered any significant pressure to modify its abusive occupation policy.

Without doubt, the prospect of growing normalization of relations between Israel and Arab countries has also played a role, which Washington has promoted to improve Israel’s security but also as a tool to shore up its waning influence in the region. This is the context of vulnerability and a change of attitude in which Hamas’ decision was taken. At none of these levels has the EU (in favor of pursuing the path of a nuclear pact with Iran) had, nor does it have, an important role.

Of course, the war in Ukraine has taken center stage in this era of political uncertainty. It is the episode that embodies the frontal challenge to the global primacy of the West from Russia, which believed itself to be strong again after the dissolution of its empire and the turbulence of the nineties. The Russian offensive in Ukraine is one of the keys to reading what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh a few weeks ago. With Moscow completely occupied on that first front, Azerbaijan (backed by Turkey) has taken the initiative to forcefully resolve the conflict with Armenia, traditionally protected by the Kremlin. The political weakness and shift in the general balance of power undoubtedly incited action, opening a window of opportunity. The EU was almost irrelevant here.

Russia and Turkey are also key actors in Syria and Libya, albeit on opposite sides. Moscow has supported Bashar al-Assad in the first conflict and Marshal Khalifa Hafter in the second. Ankara is on the other side. In neither case has a war been unleashed like it was years ago, but there is still violence and bombings in Syria and a lot of unpredictability in Libya. In the first case, the Kremlin took advantage of the geopolitical absence of the US and the EU to intervene and determine the future of the conflict. In the second, there was indeed a Western intervention, but the disinterest of Washington — busy with other issues — and the limits of the EU have paved the way for the chaos into which Moscow and Ankara have inserted themselves.

The crises in the Sahel, like the others, has largely arisen from local problems. In this case, they stem from a lack of prosperity and democratic maturity. But, here too, the era of global instability has undoubtedly been a context that has encouraged turbulence. Russia, once again, has offered the prospect of support to rebellious and authoritarian sectors of those societies that have continued to harbor anti-colonial suspicions. They perceive Moscow, a power that seeks an imperial and colonial projection in its own environment, as the heir of the USSR, which supported various processes of decolonization in the last century. Here too, the EU — with France as the protagonist — has suffered a harsh reality check regarding its ability to influence and interact in the region.

Not even a superpower can control how certain crises develop. Nobody expects the EU to do it. But the outbreak of conflicts in Europe and its surroundings in this time of uncertainty, of changes in forces and attitudes, should make us think. The Union has had a reaction worthy of the circumstances in the case of Ukraine, achieved with good will and ingenuity, but it remains ill-prepared in structural terms to act in this new, white-hot context. The path to achieving this is not easy and does not guarantee being able to avoid or protect itself from certain crises. There are many questions, but the answer is almost always more common foreign and security policy.

The South Caucasus region is a geographic landmass plagued with perpetual conflicts throughout history. With one of the oldest cultures on Earth, Armenia has historically been sandwiched between various conflicting empires.

Armenia faces a humanitarian and cultural catastrophe, which has drawn the ire of the international community at Azerbaijan’s actions. France has taken a stand the most and is currently preparing a defense cooperation agreement with Armenia and building a new consulate in Syunik province. With Paris growing their relationship with Yerevan, it could lead to a domino effect of drawing Washington into the fold—something that is needed to stop the new potential conflicts and ethnic cleansing that could take place if new wars were to commence.

During the commencement of the United Nations General Assembly, Azerbaijan, to much dismay, conducted a military offensive in Karabakh between September 19th and 20th to destroy the remaining Armenian militias in the region. The Azerbaijani military, supplemented by renewed weapons shipments from Turkey and Israel, quickly capitulated the Artsakh Defense Forces. In the ensuing chaos, over 100,000 Armenians fled the region. In less than a week, most Armenians in Karabakh fled for fear of their safety.

Though Azerbaijan claims it was not ethnic cleansing and had no intentions of it, statements made by the European Union and the United States told a different story, with calls for sanctions and reviewing the Western partnership with Baku.

During the 2020 war and 2022 border invasion of Armenia, Azerbaijan committed many war crimes, such as beheadings of Armenian civilians and sexual assaults of female Armenian POWs—a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions.

War crimes were purposely uploaded to telegram channels, as the autocrat of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, rewards such actions. Ramil Safarov was pardoned and named a national hero to much international condemnation for hacking an Armenian officer to death in his sleep with an axe in Hungary.

Fearing they could suffer the same fate of previous appalling actions of the Azerbaijani military and the lack of enforcement or care by Russian peacekeepers, the Armenian community hastily fled—leaving a refugee crisis to much of the world’s dismay and lack of diplomacy.

The lack of response by the international community to Azerbaijan’s sudden military operation raised the eyes of the bureaucratic practices when dealing with autocrats. The European Union is an example of this as the ongoing gas deal with Aliyev to digress from Putin saw the bloc trade one tyrant with numerous human rights abuses for another.

While most of the West has stayed silent, France has become the country that has stepped up the most to Armenia’s aid. Paris has grown its relationship with Yerevan, one of the few countries to condemn and warn of Baku’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 war.

Russia, which has enacted information warfare against France in their former colonies, has also used similar hybrid warfare methods against Armenia—as Yerevan’s and Moscow’s relationship has drifted over the past several years. With a historical relation with the plight of Armenians stemming back to the rescues during the Armenian Genocide at Musa Dagh, France also sees an opportunity to reciprocate help for them against Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The French foreign minister and senate recently approved a military aid package and plan to create a consulate in Syunik as Azerbaijan and Turkey have stepped up warlike rhetoric against the Armenian province over the ‘Zangezur Corridor.’ France and Lithuania were also the most vocal in condemning Azerbaijan’s military aggression, as Baku promised “integration,” but used fear and intimidation against the Karabakh Armenians.

France’s drift to Armenia is opportunistic for both nations. Armenia is currently searching for a path of Western integration after multiple false promises and failures by Russia. At the same time, France looks to be the first NATO member to have an actual presence in a region that has been under the forceful eye of the Kremlin for hundreds of years.

Armenia made submissions to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday. requesting provisional measures against Azerbaijan for what Armenia calls “ethnic cleansing” in the ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia requested that Azerbaijan refrain from any actions which might breach Azerbaijan’s obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Armenia also requested Azerbaijan refrain from any actions aimed at “displacing the remaining ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, or preventing the save and expeditious return to their homes of persons displaced in the course of the recent military attack.”

In addition, Armenia requested Azerbaijan withdraw its military personnel from Nagorno-Karabakh and refrain from altering or destroying any monument commemorating the 1915 Armenian genocide, or any other Armenian cultural artifact. Armenia also included a request for Azerbaijan to restore the supply of electricity and gas to the region.

In response, Azerbaijan asked the court to reject Armenia’s requests.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan within the ICJ dates back to at least 2021, when Armenia first requested provisional measures against Azerbaijan for alleged violations of CERD. Armenia’s most recent victory in the ICJ was an order in February 2023 which concluded that Azerbaijan needed to ensure “unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor.” The Lachin corridor is the only land route from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh and, according to the February order, is currently under the control of a Russian peacekeeping forces.

Armenia first requested ICJ action in Thursday’s matter in September, roughly 10 days after Azerbaijan launched a military operation in Nagorno-Karabak. Azerbaijan launched an attack on Nagorno-Karabak in mid-September, shortly after Armenia’s National Assembly considered ratifying the Rome Statute. Azerbaijan attacked the capital of Nagorno-Karabak under the pretext of an “anti-terrorist” operation on September 19. On September 20, Azerbaijan imposed a ceasefire. Nagorno-Karabak is internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan, but it is also home to an Armenian-aligned state known as Artsakh.

The European Parliament condemned Azerbaijan’s actions in Nargono-Karabakh in a resolution last week, calling abuses by Azerbaijani military forces “a gross violation of international law.” The US State Department also called upon Azerbaijan to end hostilities in September.

ARMENIA’S AMBASSADOR TO Ireland and the UK has decried the United Nations monitoring mission that was sent to Nagorno-Karabakh earlier this month as being a “circus” and said it has come too late. 

At the beginning of Ocotber, the UN sent a fact-finding mission to Nagorno-Karabakh to assess claims of ethnic cleansing following Azerbaijan’s nine month blockade and subsequent offensive on the area – which has resulted in a huge refugee crisis as thousands fled the disputed territory.

Speaking to The Journal, Ambassador Varuzhan Nersesyan, warned that the situation with Azerbaijan is at risk of deteriorating further and urged the international community to guarantee the rights of ethnic Armenians to return to the region. 

In September, Azerbaijan seized back the mostly Armenian-populated  breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive.

This came after the Azerbaijani government imposed a nine month long blockade of the only land corridor linking the region with Armenia – denying basic food and supplies to the region’s approximately 120,000 people.

Since then, almost all of the 120,000-strong ethnic Armenian population has fled, resulting in a massive humanitarian crisis. 

Nagorno-Karabakh has a complex history – After six years of separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia, turning about a million of its Azerbaijani residents into refugees.

After a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back back parts of the region in the South Caucasus Mountains, along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had captured earlier.

Earlier this month, the European Parliament accused Azerbaijan of carrying out ethnic cleansing against the Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, and urged the bloc to impose sanctions on Baku.

The European Parliament approved a resolution saying it “considers that the current situation amounts to ethnic cleansing and strongly condemns threats and violence committed by Azerbaijani troops.”

But while Armenia’s ambassador to Ireland, Varuzhan Nersesyan, said he is grateful for the European Union and United Nations support, he said the international response so far has been “soft”.

Nersesyan said that the failure of the international community to impose sanctions or other measures on Azerbaijan to force it to re-open the corridor before the exodus of ethnic Armenians from the region resulted in ethnic cleansing.

Likewise, Nersesyan said the United Nations fact-finding mission that arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh at the beginning of October – and stayed for one day – was too late. 

A UN spokesperson said that the mission to assess humanitarian needs “did not come across any reports… of violence against civilians” following the latest ceasefire.

Nersesyan said the mission was “senseless” and added that he did not accept it.

He pointed out that Armenia had repeatedly called for a UN fact-finding mission which was continuously blocked by Azerbaijan.

“Now when the people have gone and nobody’s left Azerbaijan allows the UN mission to go there. Well, I think it’s a circus.

“It’s a circus because that mission doesn’t have any mission if the people aren’t there.

I mean, what are they going to monitor? The empty houses? The empty shops?

“People were starved with hunger for 10 months. I really do not accept this mission, it is a senseless mission to send the United Nations once the people have left,” Nersesyan said.

Nerseyan said the priority of Armenia and the international community needs to now be guaranteeing refugees the right to return to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan has promised to respect minority rights, but Armenia does not believe this will be the case.

On this, US officials have called for a longer-term force to monitor the situation for the sake of residents who wish to return.

For now though, Armenia is working to provide food and shelter for the over 100,000 refugees who have fled, with Nersesyan describing it as an “immense challenge”.

“Those 100,000 people arrived in Armenia in miserable conditions. Hungry, malnourished, starving. In desperate need of medications, children simply just looking for food, for chocolate, because they have been deprived for months of proper food and nutrition. This is a tragedy,” Nersesyan said.

The wounds of the Nagorno-Karabakh ethnic cleansing are still very fresh. 

“The trauma that people have is very fresh and it needs to be addressed,” he said.

The ambassador said the Irish government was “very helpful” when Ireland was a non-permanent member on the United Nations Security Council.

“We have seen continuously Ireland’s support in this from humanitarian purposes. We appreciate Ireland’s very targeted approach,” he said, noting that Ireland called for the opening of the land corridor while a non-permanent member on the United Nations Security Council.

Further deterioration 

While Armenia and Azerbaijan have now taken the issue to the International Court of Justice, Nersesyan warned that a further escalation is plausible given that Azerbaijan has refused to recognise Armenia’s territorial integrity. 

“We know that Azerbaijan has openly expressed territorial claims towards the Republic of Armenia and there is a risk of Azerbaijan having this type of temptation to attack Armenia again, this time, the Republic of Armenia, under all kinds of pretexts that Azerbaijan has been inventing meticulously throughout the past few years,” Nersesyan said.

“So the risk of escalation is high. And the international community should play, in these circumstances, a preventive or pre-emptive role with messages and more concrete steps to force Azerbaijan to forget about any kind of aggression against Armenia.”

Additional reporting from Press Association and AFP.

https://www.thejournal.ie/nagorno-karabakh-ireland-armenian-ambassador-6194599-Oct2023/

FOREIGN RELATIONS

He also said State isn’t planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned a small group of lawmakers last week that his department is tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan could soon invade Armenia, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The call indicates the depth of concern in the administration about Azerbaijan’s operations against a breakaway region in the west of the country and the possibility of the conflict spreading.

Scheduled to be held from November 10 to 12, the event will take place at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex, with Armenia working to get the venue ready in time.

Popular Armenian film director Hrach Keshishyan has been given the responsibility of the Opening Ceremony for the International Sambo Federation (FIAS) flagship event.

To create a buzz among public, advertisements of the event have featured regularly on Armenian television since the beginning of October.

"This year Yerevan is hosting the World Sambo Championships, it is a great honor (sic) and responsibility for us," said Mikayel Hayrapetyan, President of the Sambo Federation of Armenia.

"The main Sports and Concert Complex of the country will gather not only the best sambo wrestlers from all over the world, but also numerous Olympic champions of Armenia in various sports.

"Honored sambo veterans and titled sambo wrestlers who have finished their sports careers will also honor this sporting event."

Athletes from more than 70 countries are expected to participate in the competition.

Armenia was given hosting rights by FIAS after Egypt withdrew its interest due to "changed circumstances.

An international business forum on the sidelines is also being planned for November 11.

"Meetings on such platforms allow to increase trust between people, build stable relations between business elites of different states, and of course, partnership relations between the business community and national federations, which will undoubtedly benefit the whole world sambo."

Post-Soviet countries Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought several conflicts over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in recent decades, but the last, in 2020, ended with Azerbaijani forces finally overrunning the disputed territory and pushing out its Armenian population. Now, reports Politico, it is anticipated that Azerbaijan will invade Armenia itself to create a land corridor to one of its own ethnic enclaves there.

Azerbaijiani President Ilham Aliyev has previously called on Armenia to open a "corridor" along its southern border, linking mainland Azerbaijan to an exclave that borders Turkey and Iran. Aliyev has threatened to solve the issue "by force."

In an Oct. 3 phone call, lawmakers pressed Blinken on possible measures against Aliyev in response to his country's invasion of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September, the people said, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive call.

Blinken responded that the State Department was looking at avenues to hold Azerbaijan accountable and isn't planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku. He added that State saw a possibility that Azerbaijan would invade southern Armenia in the coming weeks.

Below, a post from Azerbaijan's president outlining his plan for Armenia: slavery.

Britain better get used to hosting Eurovision contests won by countries that can't be expected to run the event next year.

https://boingboing.net/2023/10/14/azerbaijan-may-invade-armenia-soon-lawmakers-told.html