Tuesday,
Belarus Leader Says Armenia’s Discontent With CSTO ‘Justified’
• Heghine Buniatian
Belarus - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko visits a military-industrial
complex facility in the Minsk Region, June 13, 2023.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday urged the Russian-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to address serious security
concerns of Armenia and other CSTO member states.
Armenian leaders have repeatedly accused Russia and other ex-Soviet states
making up the alliance of not fulfilling their obligation to defend Armenia
against Azerbaijani attacks. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian threatened last
month to pull his country out of the alliance “if we conclude that the CSTO has
left Armenia.”
Lukashenko said the CSTO is “very often” rightly criticized by its member states
as he addressed the foreign ministers of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan who gathered in Minsk for a regular session.
“For instance, Kyrgyzstan has been asking us to help settle the border conflict
with Tajikistan,” he said. “Very justified complaints -- and there is sometimes
no question about that -- are presented to us by Armenia.”
“I won’t comment on whether or not these complaints are justified,” he went on
after a pause. “But I will say that problems do exist and they are very serious
problems. Unless we address these problems, we will always rebuke each other,
express dissatisfaction with the overall functioning of the organization.”
“Therefore, no matter how we twist or turn, we need to also dive into problems
facing CSTO members Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan,” Lukashenko added,
warning that failure to do so could deepen what he called Western interference
in conflicts in the former Soviet Union.
The remarks contrasted with Lukashenko’s earlier statements on Armenia’s
conflict with Azerbaijan. As recently as last October, the long-serving
strongman bluntly opposed any CSTO intervention in the conflict. Azerbaijan is
not an adversary of Belarus and its President Ilham Aliyev is “totally our guy,”
he said, sparking a fresh war of words between Yerevan and Minsk.
Lukashenko, who has a warm personal rapport with Aliyev, had repeatedly raised
eyebrows in Armenia in the past with his pro-Azerbaijani statements and arms
supplies to Baku.
Armenian Defense Chief Again Visits France
France - French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu (right) meets Armenian
Defense Minister Suren Papikian, Paris, .
Armenia’s Defense Minister Suren Papikian met with his French counterpart
Sebastien Lecornu in Paris on Tuesday for further talks on closer military ties
between their countries.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said the two men discussed “the current state of
implementation of understandings” reached by them during Papikian’s previous
trip to France that took place last September. Security in the South Caucasus
was also on the agenda of the talks, the ministry said without giving details.
France’s Armed Forces Ministry did not immediately issue a statement on the
talks.
Papikian’s September trip to Paris came in the wake of large-scale fighting on
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. He met with Lecornu the day after French
President Emmanuel Macron received Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. Macron blamed
Azerbaijan for the hostilities and said Azerbaijani forces must “return to their
initial positions.”
A delegation of French defense officials visited Armenia in October, holding
separate talks with Papikian, Armenian army chief Eduard Asrian and
High-Technology Minister Robert Khachatrian. The Defense Ministry in Yerevan
likewise said at the time that they discussed the implementation of Papikian’s
and Lecornu’s “understandings.”
No details of those agreements have been made public so far. It remains unclear
whether France, which is regularly accused by Azerbaijan of making pro-Armenian
statements, is ready to provide any military assistance to Armenia.
“We certainly support the peace talks that have started with Azerbaijan, but
France must help Armenia to defend and protect itself!” Christian Cambon, the
chairman of the French Senate’s committee on defense and foreign affairs,
tweeted after meeting with Papikian on Monday.
The Armenian minister attended the opening ceremony of the Paris Airshow earlier
on Monday.
Pashinian Again Defends Handling Of Karabakh War
• Ruzanna Stepanian
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Bursts of explosions are seen from Stepanakert during
fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces near Shushi (Susa), November 5,
2020
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Tuesday again defended his handling of the
2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, effectively shifting blame for its outcome onto
Armenia’s top military brass.
Pashinian admitted that he could have stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh three
weeks before the Armenian-Armenian ceasefire brokered by Russia on November 9,
2020. He claimed that he rejected an earlier truce accord because it was even
less favorable for the Armenian side.
Pashinian made the comments as he publicly testified before an ad hoc commission
of the Armenian parliament amid continuing statements by opposition politicians
and other critics holding him primarily responsible for Azerbaijan’s victory in
the six-week war that left at least 3,800 Armenian soldiers dead.
The commission, boycotted by opposition lawmakers, was set up last year with the
stated aim of examining the causes of Armenia’s defeat, assessing the Armenian
government’s and military’s actions and looking into what had been done for
national defense before the hostilities. It has since questioned dozens of
current and former government officials as well as military officers. All of
them except Pashinian testified behind the closed doors.
In a joint statement released on Monday, the two opposition alliances
represented in the National Assembly described Pashinian’s upcoming testimony as
a political “show” which they said is aimed at whitewashing his wartime
incompetence and disastrous decision making.
Opposition leaders have said, among other things, that the Armenian side would
have lost less territory and suffered fewer casualties had Pashinian agreed to
Azerbaijan’s terms of a ceasefire communicated through Moscow on October 19-20,
2020.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made similar claims on November 17, 2020 one
week after the ceasefire brokered by him stopped the hostilities. Putin said
that under the October 20 deal proposed by him and accepted by Baku, the
Armenian side would have retained control over the strategic Karabakh town of
Shushi (Shusha) in return for agreeing to the return of Azerbaijanis who had
lived there.
Pashinian again claimed on Tuesday that the return of the Azerbaijani refugees
would have restored Azerbaijani control of Shushi because “they were supposed to
have a separate road connecting Shushi to Azerbaijan.”
“This means without exaggeration that it was about handing over Shushi to
Azerbaijan,” he told the panel comprising only members of his Civil Contract
party.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian testifies before a parliament
commission, .
Pashinian further declared that the October 2020 deal rejected by him also
called for an extraterritorial corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its
Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s Syunik province.
Putin did not mention such a provision in his November 2020 interview with the
Rossiya-24 TV channel.
“Prime Minister Pashinian told me openly that he viewed [the return of
Azerbaijanis to Shushi] as a threat to the interests of Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh,” he said at the time. “I do not quite understand the essence
of this hypothetical threat. I mean, it was about the return of civilians to
their homes, while the Armenian side was to have retained control over this
section of Nagorno-Karabakh, including Shusha.”
Shushi was captured by Azerbaijani forces three days before the subsequent truce
agreement halted the war. Azerbaijan agreed to stop its military operations in
return for an Armenian pledge to withdraw from three districts around Karabakh.
Baku regained control over four other districts, which had been occupied by
Karabakh Armenian forces in the early 1990s, during the 2020 war.
Pashinian appeared to blame the Armenian army’s General Staff for the fall of
Shushi, saying that it falsely denied reports about Azerbaijani troops closing
in on the Karabakh town overlooking Stepanakert. He said he was taken aback when
the then General Staff chief, Onik Gasparian, informed him on November 7, 2020
that it was captured by Azerbaijani forces.
“This was tough news for me because in all my conversations, instructions,
orders, consultations, I had said that Shushi should be kept and I had received
assurances that it will be kept,” he said.
Gasparian appeared before the parliamentary commission last month. His long
testimony has not been publicized.
The army top brass led by Gasparian accused Pashinian of incompetence and
demanded his government’s resignation in a February 2021 statement. Pashinian
rejected the demand as a coup attempt before sacking the general.
U.S.-Armenian Joint Venture ‘Undeterred’ By Azeri Gunfire
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - The site of a metallurgical plant constructed in Yeraskh, June 15,
2023.
Representatives of a U.S.-Armenian joint venture said on Tuesday that it will
continue to build a metallurgical plant in an Armenian border village despite
systematic gunfire from nearby Azerbaijani army positions.
The construction site in Yeraskh, a village 55 kilometers south of Yerevan, has
come under cross-border fire on a virtually daily basis for the past week amid
heightened tensions at various sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Two
Indian nationals working there were seriously wounded on June 14.
The U.S. State Department expressed serious concern over the “gunfire from the
direction of Azerbaijan” targeting the “U.S.-affiliated company.” And several
dozen foreign diplomats, including the Yerevan-based ambassadors of France,
Germany and China, made a point of visiting Yeraskh on June 15. Nevertheless,
Azerbaijani troops stationed less than one kilometer from the under-construction
plant continued to shoot at it in the following days, according to local
residents.
In a show of defiance, the joint venture set up by an Armenian investor and GTB
Steel, a company registered in Sri Lanka and reportedly owned by a U.S. citizen,
hoisted Armenian and U.S. flags at the construction site on Tuesday. Its chief
executive, Tiran Hakobian, said it is thus making clear that “we will not go
anywhere from here and will continue the plant’s construction.”
“We will carry on with the works regardless of whether or not they will shoot at
us,” Hakobian told reporters. “At some point, they [the Azerbaijanis] will
understand that we will not leave and will not play by those rules of the game.”
According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, Azerbaijani forces again opened fire
at the Yeraskh site late in afternoon, hours after the flag hoisting ceremony.
Baku denied that.
The investors have pledged to invest $70 million in the project and create as
many as 1,000 jobs in the rural community.
The Azerbaijani government protested against the project one week before the
outbreak of the daily gunfire. It claimed that building the industrial facility
without its permission is a violation of international environmental norms.
Yerevan brushed aside that claim. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said last week
that Baku’s “false concerns” are a smokescreen for impeding economic growth and
foreign investment in Armenia.
Armenia’s largest gold mine also located on the border with Azerbaijan was
likewise targeted by systematic Azerbaijani gunfire this spring. The Russian
owner of the Sotk gold mine announced earlier this month that it has no choice
but to end open-pit mining operations there and put many of its 700 workers on
unpaid leave.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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