Oct 19 2023

Defence Blog

Oct 19 2023

Azerbaijan has captured Russian-made advanced electronic warfare (EW) systems in the Karabakh region.

Azerbaijani forces have seized the modern Russian-made Repellent-1 electronic warfare system and the Pole-21M jamming system from Armenia-backed disbanded Karabakh forces.

The Repellent-1 EW system, known for its advanced capabilities, was a primary “gift.” This system is designed to detect and jam enemy electronic communication and radar signals.

The Pole-21M jamming system, another piece of high-tech equipment, is now in Azerbaijani hands. This system is designed to disrupt enemy communications, with a particular focus on radio and satellite signals.

The capture of these electronic warfare systems is a significant achievement for Azerbaijani forces. The Repellent-1 EW system and the Pole-21M jamming system are state-of-the-art tools, often used to disrupt enemy communication and radar systems. Their primary objective was countering Turkish-made Bayractar TB-2 drones.

Nagorno-Karabakh was at the center of a longstanding territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which led to two wars over the mountainous region predominantly inhabited by Armenians. However, a recent, swift military campaign allowed Azerbaijan to achieve an absolute victory and regain full control over the entire region.

https://defence-blog.com/azerbaijan-captures-russian-made-electronic-warfare-systems-in-karabakh/

Oct 22 2023

FITCHBURG — Fitchburg and Lancaster recently hosted an international group from Armenia, as part of the Open World grant program which focuses on advancing women’s leadership at the local government level.

Five young women working in city and town government spent a week in Washington, DC, and then a week in the Cambridge and Boston area, where they were hosted by the Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA).

“We wanted our delegates, most of whom work in small communities in Armenia, to experience town and small city government,” explains CYSCA President Roxanne Etmekjian. “We thought Lancaster and Fitchburg, where our organization has members, would be a great way for these extraordinary women officials a chance to see more of Massachusetts.”

The visit began at Lancaster Town Hall with Rep. Natalie Higgins, Rep. Meg Kilcoyne, and Town Select Board member Alix Turner, whose first question to the delegation was “what is your biggest challenge as an elected official?”

Meri Harutyunyan, Deputy Head of Development and Investment, Programs Department for Yerevan Municipality said, “If we met in September, and you asked what our challenges were, we would say climate change, gender roles, needs of youth.”

But everyone said their answer changed after September. That is when 100,000 Armenians living in Artsakh were forced to evacuate after a 10 month blockade, and then violence from the Azeri army. Armenians have been living in Artsakh (known as “Nagorno Karabagh” since 1918) for thousands of years.

“Now, we have lots of Armenians from Artsakh,” said Harutyunyan. “Armenia has had a painful page, of territorial loss, and loss of soldiers.” This is the second war that has devastated the country; two years earlier, Azerbaijan soldiers invaded the border, and took the town of Shushi.

“Many people were forcefully displaced. The government tried to help them to buy a house. But the prices on houses started going up. And students traveling to Yerevan to study – they could not afford a place.”

“Right now, everyone is working on a volunteer basis to provide shelter and food,” said Shushanik Danielyan, member of Yeghegis City Council. “The government started the process to give a one-time stipend to get settled, and then for six months.”

In Armenia, many women are in government, but out of 12 ministries in the country, only two are led by women. “But the majority of deputy ministers are women,” added Harutyunyan, Deputy Head of Development and Investment Programs Department for Yerevan Municipality.

In Armenia, there is passive voter registration. “Everyone automatically is registered when they turn 18.” But the turnout is still low – 28% for a recent city council election.

Political parties dominate the scene – and in 2016 the country passed a law requiring 30% of all candidates (in a political party on the ballot) would be women. However, there are “many pressures on women” not to serve when elected. “Women get elected but then party pressure, family pressure, so women drop out. And when a woman drops out, a man moves up,” said Shushanik Danielyan, a member of the Yeghegis City Council.

Arusyak Avetisyan, who was the youngest attendee and had recently been elected as a member of the Vardenis Local Council said, “There are a few times when my opinion was not heard at council meetings.” She started a Facebook page, and said “members are pretty active following me on Facebook.” After one meeting, “the leader said, “come talk at the meeting, don’t post on Facebook.”

Younger members of the delegation reported that older government candidates would ask them to post on Facebook “because people know us.”

“You have to educate the women to run,” one commented, “But you also have to educate the men.”

The Delegation visited seniors at the Senior Center, took a tour of downtown Fitchburg, and were impressed by the professional studios at FATV. Apart from Yerevan, there is no community television in smaller towns.

At City Hall, they met with Mayor DiNatale, City Councilor Amy Green, Fitchburg City Councilor Claire Freda, Fitchburg, and FATV’s George Mirijanian over a lunch from Espresso’s (the first time the Armenian delegation had tried U.S. pizza). Mirijanian presented the delegation with a copy of “Around the World In Fitchburg” which has a chapter on the Armenian emigrants to Fitchburg.

Councilor Amy Green asked whether women were oppressed in Armenia. Hartyunyan explained, “the main challenge we face is gender discrimination.” However, all agreed that in Armenia the biggest threat is security – Azerbaijani troops are stationed on the borders.

Mayor DiNatale asked about their visit with members of Congress in Washington, DC. Lilit Hajatyan, member of Artik Local Council said, “When we were having meetings in DC, they were talking about Israel and Ukraine, and I said, ‘Why do you only speak about those countries – in Artsakh it’s genocide too, they are killing children.

They said, “we are not talking loudly about that, but we are working on it. They are asking Azerbaijan not to do that, but they are also sending money to buy arms.”

Shushanik Danielyan explained, “we have churches that have been there [in Artsakh] for thousands of years, and they are destroying them. They are eliminating national treasures – songs, and carpets and the arts.”

Lilit added, “They are trying to persuade the world that Lake Sevan is in Azerbaijan, and they are lying and the world is listening.”

As many delegates come from rural areas (70% of Armenians live outside of Yerevan), everyone enjoyed their visit to Hollis Hills Farm at the end of the day. Owner Jim Lattanzi spoke to the group about how the Farm is a tourist destination, with weekend music events, a partnership with Fitchburg Library for a  warm-weather reading program, restaurant and food items for sale, as well as apple and fruit picking.

“Everything is farm to table in Armenia,” said Lilit Antonyan, political assistant in the US Embassy in Armenia. “These are all great ideas!”

The day concluded with the group enjoying a visit with the goats and cows and Lattanzi observed, “What a pleasure to host this Armenian women’s delegation at our family farm. To share our experiences as farmers, share our business model and discuss opportunities we have pursued as we provide good food for our community was exciting. No matter the language barrier, food brings people together and we enjoyed our time with them.”

Sally Cragin serves as a City Councilor-At-Large in Fitchburg. 

https://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/2023/10/22/armenian-women-politicians-visit-for-cultural-exchange/

Reuters

Oct 22 2023

DUBAI/MOSCOW, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Foreign ministers from Iran, Turkey, Russia and Georgia will meet their counterparts from Azerbaijan and Armenia in Tehran on Monday and discuss progress towards a peace agreement between the two South Caucasus neighbours, Iranian state media said.

IRNA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying the six countries wanted to talk about regional issues "without the interference of non-regional and Western countries".

That was an implicit reference to the United States and the European Union, whose involvement in the search for a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan has particularly annoyed Moscow.

Russia's Interfax news agency said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would travel to Tehran for the meeting. Russia regards itself as the security guarantor between Azerbaijan and Armenia but the demands and distractions of its war in Ukraine have led to a weakening of its influence.

Azerbaijan last month staged a lightning offensive to regain control of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh where ethnic Armenians had enjoyed de facto independence since breaking away in the 1990s.

More than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians have since fled, and Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of carrying out ethnic cleansing. Baku denies that, saying people were free to stay and be integrated into Azerbaijan.

The two countries have fought two wars in the past three decades and have so far failed to reach a peace deal despite long-running efforts by the United States, EU and Russia.

MEDYA News

Oct 22 2023

Signs of torture and mutilation on the remains of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) who were killed during Azerbaijan’s attack in September were reported by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia Anahit Manasyan on Thursday. Manasyan noted that her preliminary report on the ill-treatment and torture in question was used by lawyers representing Armenia in a hearing at the International Court of Justice last week.

The report outlined findings of torture and mutilations on numerous bodies transported from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, including civilians, women and children. This evidence highlights the brutal acts alleged to have been committed during the conflict.

In November 2020, a Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, ending the six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh. However, post-war tensions remained, with sporadic border clashes throughout 2021. On 12 December 2022, the Azerbaijani government allegedly orchestrated a blockade of the Republic of Artsakh by deploying citizens claiming to be eco-activists to obstruct the Lachin corridor, a vital humanitarian link between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and the outside world, using environmental protests as a pretext. This blockade significantly impeded access to essential supplies for the residents of the region, notably in Stepanakert, the former de facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. The situation further escalated in September 2023 when Azerbaijan launched a swift offensive, leading to the dissolution of the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. This offensive triggered a mass exodus of local ethnic Armenians, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the region.

Manasyan, along with the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović, visited the Kotayk province on Wednesday and met with displaced Nagorno-Karabakh residents temporarily housed there. They spoke with around 105 forcibly displaced individuals, including 40 children.

“Private interviews were held with forcibly displaced persons. They presented the deprivations they suffered and the problems caused by the forced displacement to the Defender and the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe”, a statement from the office of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender revealed.

Following the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azeri media showcased Azerbaijan’s president İlham Aliyev trampling on the Artsakh flag in Stepanakert on 16 October.

https://medyanews.net/torture-signs-on-bodies-of-nagorno-karabakh-armenians-human-rights-defender-of-armenia/

Oct 22 2023

By Eurasianet - Oct 21, 2023, 2:00 PM CDT

The 35-year-old Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict could finally be coming to an end after last month's lightning offensive by Azerbaijan to retake Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent exodus of the region's Armenian population and dissolution of its de facto government. 

The fate of the Karabakh Armenians had long been the main sticking point in the peace talks underway since 2021. Now that that issue has been resolved, however crudely, and the sides have vowed to recognize one another's territorial integrity, it might seem that a conclusion could be at hand. 

But things aren't that simple. Apart from the actual content of a peace deal – chiefly border delimitation/demarcation and the opening of transit links – the sides are at odds over who should mediate.

Up to this point there have been two separate tracks of negotiations, one mediated by Russia and the other by the European Union with U.S. help.

Now, after Azerbaijan's takeover of Karabakh, Armenia is more dissatisfied than ever with its nominal strategic partner Russia and is increasingly positive on the West. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has been expressing distaste with Western mediation and calling for a regional solution to the conflict, one that could involve Russia, Turkey and Iran, or, perhaps, just Georgia. 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had been due to meet in the presence of European mediators on the sidelines of the European Political Community Summit in Granada, Spain, on October 5.  

But Aliyev backed out. The presence of France, an ally of Armenia that has offered to sell it defensive weapons, and the exclusion of Azerbaijan's strategic partner Turkey were the reasons, his advisor later explained. 

Pashinyan went anyway, and talked Armenia-Azerbaijan peace with President Charles Michel of the European Council, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. 

Those four released a joint statement afterwards expressing commitment to the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan, and the two countries' mutual respect for one another's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The statement also emphasized the importance of "strict adherence to the principle of non-use of force and threat of use of force." Concerns persist in Armenia that Azerbaijan could invade in order to force the establishment of a transit corridor, and the EU wants assurances from Baku that it won't do so.

A few days later, Armenia decided to skip a meeting of leaders and foreign ministers of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members in Bishkek. Aliyev criticized the move, as supposedly a separate meeting was to be held between Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian foreign ministers on the sidelines of the event. 

"We perceive the mediation of the Russian Federation with gratitude because Russia is our neighbor and ally, as well as Armenia's ally. This country is located in our region, unlike those who are thousands of kilometers away. Naturally, the history of relations between our countries presupposes the mediation of the Russian side," Aliyev said while receiving security council heads of CIS state members. 

"Now, this invites the question: does Armenia want peace? I think not, because if it had wanted peace, it would not have missed this opportunity. The Armenian prime minister flies six hours to Granada and participates in an incomprehensible meeting there, where Azerbaijan is discussed without actually being present, but he cannot fly for two to three hours to Bishkek. He has other important things to do," Aliyev added.

After Aliyev met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek on October 13, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed a similar view. "Baku has a very constructive position on this [signing a peace treaty], while Yerevan has not quite decided yet," he said.

The rift between Armenia and Russia further widened when Pashinyan told the European Parliament on October 17 that Russia was trying to topple him. 

"When the 100,000 Armenians were fleeing from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, our security allies not only failed to help us, but were publicly calling for a change of government, overthrowing the democratic government in Armenia," he said.

Russian state media the following day quoted a "high-ranking" Russian official as calling Pashinyan's statement "provocative" and suggesting Armenia could suffer the same fate as Ukraine, which Russia has waged full-scale war against for the past 18 months. 

"We see that there's an attempt to turn Armenia into a Ukraine number three. If we consider that Moldova is Ukraine number two, Pashinyan is going by leaps and bounds down the path of [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelensky," the unnamed official said.

Exclaves complicate border talks

When Armenia and Azerbaijan finally begin delimiting their common border, one of the more difficult issues is likely to be that of exclaves – the tiny islands of each country's territory that are surrounded entirely by the other's.

During the First Karabakh War in the 1990s all of these villages, most of which are actually far from Karabakh, were abandoned and taken over by the surrounding power. There are three Azerbaijani exclaves in Armenia and one Armenian exclave in Azerbaijan. There are also several bits of territory contiguous with contiguous with each country that the other sliced off during the first war.

After Pashinyan signed the statement affirming Azerbaijan's territorial integrity in Granada, Aliyev told European Council President Charles Michel by phone on October 7 that eight villages of Azerbaijan were "still under Armenian occupation, and stressed the importance of liberating these villages from occupation."  

Asked by Armenian Public TV about this claim in an interview on October 10, Pashinyan did not comment directly but said that Azerbaijan has likewise been occupying several Armenian villages since the 1990s.

"We proposed a solution to that issue back in 2021 and said let's decide what the delimitation map is, and pull back the troops simultaneously from the border line according to that map. These are very important nuances," he said.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry in response said that Baku does not occupy any Armenian villages and suggested that Pashinyan was making that claim in order to justify Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani villages. 

(In June Pashinyan appeared to acknowledge the validity of Azerbaijan's claims on at least one village currently controlled by Armenia.)

Another issue that will need to be addressed in the border talks is the presence of Azerbaijani troops deep inside what's generally regarded as Armenian territory. 

Azerbaijan has made several incursions into Armenia since the 2020 war and currently holds an estimated 215 square kilometers of its land.

By Heydar Isayev via Eurasianet.org

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Armenia-Azerbaijan-Peace-Talks-Reach-Critical-Crossroads.html

The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

Oct 22 2023

In line with its vision to guide students to become successful, Queen’s International Business Campus successfully held the scholarship awarding ceremony for students seeking a career as medical professionals following the MBBS/MD program in Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia. The prestigious event was recently held at BMICH with the participation of special invitees from Yerevan State Medical University and a large gathering of students and parents.

Over one hundred students have been selected to follow six year MBBS/ MD program out of over 2000 applicants who faced an entrance examination. At QIB Campus (www.qibcampus.com) pathway to become an internationally recognized doctor, what is required as basic qualification is two credits and one simple pass in G.C.E. A Level’s biology stream.

According to the MBBS/MD program in Yerevan State Medical University Armenia in Eastern Europe ,after completion of five years degree program and one year internship that follows , one can work as a recognized doctor in Armenia for a monthly salary of over 2500 USD-3000 USD. Also the MBBS/MD graduate after exams can work in other countries including USA, UK, Canda ,Australia and Sri Lanka.

QIB Campus has a proud history of over 20 years , supporting students to obtain university degrees overseas in addition to having its own courses awarding diplomas in many disciplines. Located in Godagama , Homagama .  QIB campus hold free English classes for students who are following university degree program. Students can follow 1st and 2nd year studies at QIB campus or Singapore,  move to UK or Canada or Australia for the completion of their degree program. QIB campus has so far supported nearly 3000 students to obtain foreign university degrees and succeed their lives.

QIB Campus’s pathway to become a doctor through Yerevan State medical university in Armenia can be introduced as one of the most cost effective and easy means of achieving your target. As A level results were delaying , A/L results pending students are also encouraged to  apply for 2023 intake . Closing date for applications has been extended to  30th October 2023 and departure will be on 15th November 2023.

For further information
contact 0777855855 or 0729855855.

https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231022/education/qib-campus-awards-scholarships-to-follow-medical-degree-in-eastern-europe-armenia-536417.html

Oct 22 2023

https://www.rfi.fr/en/podcasts/international-report/20231022-as-azerbaijan-and-turkey-join-forces-fears-of-conflict-with-armenia-grow