Friday, December 8, 2023
Armenian Official Hopes For U.S. Pressure On Baku
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Sargis Khandanian of the ruling Civil Contract party attends a session
of the National Assembly, Yerevan.
A senior Armenian lawmaker expressed hope on Friday that the United States will
press Azerbaijan to agree to fresh U.S.-mediated peace talks with Armenia.
“We hope that our U.S. partners will make sufficient efforts and maybe also put
pressure on Azerbaijan so that negotiations continue in Washington,” said Sargis
Khandanian, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign
relations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to host talks between the
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Washington on November 20.
However, the Azerbaijani side cancelled them in protest against what it called
pro-Armenian statements made by James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant secretary of
state for Europe and Eurasia.
O’Brien visited Baku and met with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and
Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov earlier this week. He said he told them that
Blinken still “looks forward to hosting” the top Armenian and Azerbaijani
diplomats soon. It is not yet clear whether he reached with them any agreements
to that effect.
In what may have been a related development, a U.S. special envoy for the
Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks, Louis Bono, met with Foreign Minister Ararat
Mirzoyan in Yerevan on Thursday. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said Mirzoyan
reaffirmed his readiness to meet with Bayramov in the U.S. capital.
His meeting with Bono coincided with the announcement of an Armenian-Azerbaijani
agreement to exchange prisoners and take other confidence-building measures. The
United States and the European Union were quick to welcome the deal. They said
they hope that it will facilitate an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty sought by
them.
Khandanian cautioned, however, that implications of the prisoner swap, agreed as
a result of direct contacts between Baku and Yerevan, should not be
overestimated. The two sides have only solved a “humanitarian issue” and it
remains be seen whether they can make similar progress on other fronts, he said.
In recent weeks, Baku has repeatedly accused the Western powers of pro-Armenian
bias and proposed direct negotiations with Yerevan.
Armenian Government Issues Jobs Data On Karabakh Refugees
Armenia - Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh ride in a truck upon their arrival at
the border village of Kornidzor, September 27, 2023.
Over 5,350 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have found jobs in Armenia but
thousands of others remain unemployed more than two months after fleeing their
homeland following an Azerbaijani military offensive, a senior Armenian official
said on Friday.
News agencies quoted Ruben Sargsian, a deputy minister of labor and social
affairs, as saying that about one thousand of them have been hired by Armenian
schools, colleges and other educational institutions. More than 1,800 others now
work for local entities involved in services, manufacturing and construction,
Sargsian told a news conference. He said nothing about the occupations of other
officially employed Karabakh refugees.
More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians making up Karabakh’s virtually entire
remaining population fled to Armenia in late September as Baku regained full
control of the region after two days of fighting that left hundreds of soldiers
from both sides dead. Most of them have since struggled to find new housing and
sources of income. In Sargsian’s words, 3,737 refugees had the official status
of an unemployed person as of December 4.
Armenia - Ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh walk along the road from
Nagorno-Karabakh to Kornidzor in Syunik region, September 26, 2023.
According to Karabakh’s exiled leadership now based in Yerevan, some 6,000
Karabakh Armenians have left for other countries, mainly for Russia, for these
reasons. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on November 23 that their
out-migration from Armenia has essentially stopped not least because of various
aid programs implemented by his government.
“I have repeatedly said that our policy on our sisters and brothers forcibly
displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh is as follows: if they are objectively unable or
unwilling to return to Nagorno-Karabakh we will do everything to have them stay
in Armenia,” he said.
However, many refugees complain that Armenian ministries, law-enforcement
agencies and local government bodies are rejecting their job applications on the
grounds that they do not have Armenian citizenship or are not registered in
permanent places of residence in the country.
Pashinian and other government officials declared in October that the refugees
are not Armenian citizens despite the fact that virtually all of them hold
Armenian passports. Some legal experts disputed those claims.
Armenia - Newly arrived refugees from Nagorno Karabakh register at a government
aid center in Kornidzor, September 26, 2023.
“I don't know anyone in my circle who has landed a job in the [Armenian] public
sector,” Armen Petrosian, a former martial arts coach who worked at the Karabakh
ministry of education and sports until the exodus, told the Hraparak newspaper
on Friday.
Petrosian said that he applied for corresponding jobs at the Yerevan mayor’s
office or sporting schools administered by it but was told that the municipal
administration is “not an employment center.” He accused the Armenian government
of “doing everything” to reduce the number of the Karabakh refugees. Many of
them blame Pashinian for the restoration of Azerbaijani control over their
homeland and its depopulation.
Earlier this week, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinian told municipal officials to be
“a bit more active” in helping Karabakh Armenians find jobs. But it is not clear
whether he encouraged them to hire refugees.
West, Russia Hail Armenian-Azeri Prisoner Exchange
Two flags of Armenia and Azerbaijan fluttering in the wind.
The United States, the European Union and Russia have praised Armenia and
Azerbaijan for agreeing to swap prisoners held by them and to take other
confidence-building measures.
Under the agreement announced late on Thursday, Azerbaijan will free 32 Armenian
prisoners of war in exchange for Armenia’s release of two Azerbaijani soldiers
and support for Baku’s bid to host the COP29 climate summit next year.
“This commitment represents an important confidence building measure as the
sides work to finalize a peace agreement and normalize relations,” Matthew
Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, said shortly after the announcement.
EU Council President Charles Michel was also quick to welcome the deal, calling
it a “major breakthrough in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations.”
“I now encourage the leaders to finalize the Armenia-Azerbaijani peace deal [as
soon as possible,] tweeted Michel.
The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its “satisfaction” with the prisoner
exchange the following morning.
“This contributes to mutual strengthening of trust and opens up new
opportunities for furthering the Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization process in
line with the comprehensive trilateral agreements reached by the leaders of
Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020-2022,” said Maria Zakharova, the ministry
spokeswoman.
Zakharova specifically hailed Yerevan’s stated support for the holding of the
COP29 in Baku. She said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special climate
envoy has “held contacts with Baku and Yerevan aimed at reaching a common
understanding” on the UN climate summit.
The chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations, Sargis
Khandanian, stressed, meanwhile, the deal is the result of direct negotiations
held by Baku and Yerevan. He gave no details of those talks.
Khandanian also said the release of the prisoners is “a matter of hours or
days.” The Azerbaijani government publicized overnight the list of the 32
captives that will be repatriated by it. Most of them were taken prisoner in
Nagorno-Karabakh in December 2022 just weeks after a Russian-brokered ceasefire
stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
According to Yerevan-based human rights groups, Baku held at least 55 Armenian
captives as of Thursday. They included 41 POWs, six civilians and eight current
and former leaders of Karabakh arrested following Azerbaijan’s September
military offensive in Karabakh. The Karabakh leaders are not covered by the
latest deal.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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