Sept 6 2023

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Sept 6 2023

Russia expressed concern on Wednesday about plans for a US-Armenian military exercise in Armenia next week, saying it would be watching closely.

The Armenian defense ministry said the purpose of the Sept. 11-20 “Eagle Partner 2023” exercise was to prepare its forces to take part in international peacekeeping missions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the exercise required alertness on Russia’s part, and Moscow would be monitoring it.

A US military spokesperson said 85 US soldiers and 175 Armenians would take part. He said the Americans – including members of the Kansas National Guard which has a 20-year-old training partnership with Armenia – would be armed with rifles and would not be using heavy weaponry.

The Kremlin also said on Wednesday that the Wagner Group did not exist from a legal point of view, after being asked to comment on a British decision to designate the group as a terrorist organization.

Britain’s interior minister described Wagner as “violent and destructive” and said it acted as a “military tool of Vladimir Putin’s Russia overseas.”

The UK Parliament’s influential Foreign Affairs Committee recommended in July that Wagner be outlawed. The committee said British authorities had “underplayed and underestimated” the threat posed by the mercenary group.

The committee said Wagner’s future was uncertain after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived armed mutiny against Russia’s top military leaders in June. The lawmakers said Britain should take advantage of the confused situation to “disrupt” Wagner.

https://english.aawsat.com/world/4529981-russia-concerned-about-us-military-exercise-armenia

Sept 6 2023

Armenia will host joint drills with US forces next week, officials in Yerevan said Wednesday, the latest sign of the ex-Soviet republic’s drift from its traditional ally Russia.

The announcement came a day after Moscow dismissed criticism from Armenia that Russian peacekeepers were failing to maintain order over the only route linking Armenia to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

First Post

Sept 6 2023

Armenia will host joint drills with US peacekeeping forces next week, officials in Yerevan said Wednesday, the latest sign of the ex-Soviet republic’s drift away from traditional ally Russia.

The report came a day after Russia dismissed Yerevan’s criticism of Russian peacekeepers over their failure to maintain order at the Lachin corridor, the sole road linking Armenia to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The exercise, Eagle Partner 2023, will be held on 11-20 September in Armenia’s Zar training centre “to increase the level of interoperability” between Armenian and US forces participating in international peacekeeping missions, Armenia’s defence ministry said in a statement.

“The exercise involves stabilisation tasks between conflicting parties during peacekeeping mission.”

The manoeuvres will be held amid a spat between Yerevan and Moscow over the role of the 2,000-strong Russian peacekeeping contingent that has patrolled the Lachin corridor since a 2020 Russian-brokered ceasefire ended a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that Moscow was either “unable or unwilling” to control the Lachin corridor which Yerevan says is under Azerbaijani blockade that has stopped food from getting to Armenian-populated towns.

Marking a major foreign policy shift, Pashinyan has also said that Yerevan’s longstanding reliance on Russia to guarantee the country’s security was a “strategic mistake.”

His wife was on Wednesday in Kyiv to attend a meeting of first ladies and gentlemen and deliver humanitarian aid for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has a permanent military base in Armenia which is part of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation.

Russia on Tuesday rejected the criticism, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that “Russia continues to fulfil its role as a guarantor of security… Russia is not going anywhere and is not going to go anywhere.”

Tensions between Baku and Yerevan have escalated sharply in recent months, as both sides accuse the other of cross-border attacks.

The two sides have been unable to reach a lasting peace settlement despite mediation efforts by the European Union, United States and Russia.

https://www.firstpost.com/world/us-forces-to-hold-joint-drills-with-former-soviet-republic-armenia-13086302.html

Sept 6 2023

Armenia will host joint drills with U.S. forces next week, officials in Yerevan said Wednesday, the latest sign of the ex-Soviet republic’s drift from its traditional ally Russia.

The announcement came a day after Moscow dismissed criticism from Armenia that Russian peacekeepers were failing to maintain order over the only route linking Armenia to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

The Armenian defense ministry said the Eagle Partner 2023 drills aim to “increase the level of interoperability” between Armenian and U.S. forces in international peacekeeping missions.

They will be held on Sept. 11-20 in Armenia’s Zar training center.

The Kremlin responded saying the announcement “raises concerns” and vowed to “thoroughly analyze” the exercises.

Russia and Armenia are at odds over a 2,000-strong Russian peacekeeping contingent responsible for the Lachin corridor, which connects Armenia to the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

They have been deployed there since 2020 when Russia brokered a ceasefire to end a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the mountainous territory.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recently said Moscow was either “unable or unwilling” to control the corridor.

His government says Azerbaijan has closed the road and blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh spurring a humanitarian crisis in Armenian-populated towns.

Marking a major foreign policy shift, Pashinyan also said that Yerevan’s longstanding reliance on Russia as its security guarantor was a “strategic mistake.”

His wife was on Wednesday in Kyiv to attend a meeting of first ladies and gentlemen and deliver humanitarian aid for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has a permanent military base in Armenia which is part of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization.

The Kremlin said this week that Russia was fulfilling its obligations to Armenia, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying Russia “is not going anywhere.”

Tensions between Baku and Yerevan have escalated sharply in recent months, as both sides accuse the other of cross-border attacks.

The two sides have been unable to reach a lasting peace settlement despite mediation efforts by the European Union, United States and Russia.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/09/06/armenia-us-forces-to-hold-joint-drills-amid-moscow-tensions-a82377

Sept 6 2023

Published: 06th September 2023

“People are standing in queues for hours to get minimal food rations. People are fainting in the bread queues”… these were the words of a local journalist from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in one of her recorded voice messages sent to the BBC last week.

In June 2023, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused Azerbaijan of “ethnic cleansing” with its continued blockade of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Azerbaijan’s blockade of the only road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh has created a shortage of food, water, medicine and other essential items in the region which has 1,20,000 inhabitants.

Baku’s installation of an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor and its ongoing blockade are “actions that once again substantiate our fear that Azerbaijan is conducting a policy of ethnic cleansing”, PM Pashinian said in Parliament in June.

For almost two years, the focus of the entire world and its leaders has been on the Russia-Ukraine war. Almost at the same time, another country on the same continent took advantage of the situation to ethnically cleanse a community. 

Azerbaijan however has claimed that it had created conditions for the safe and efficient transit of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh through the Lachin checkpoint.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked region, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but most of it is governed by the unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) since the first Nagorno-Karabakh War.

The region has been at the centre of a decades-long conflict between the two countries which have fought two wars for control of the region — in the 1990s and in 2020 — that have claimed thousands of lives from both sides.

The conflict started after the fall of the Soviet Union in the ’90s when both Muslim-majority Azerbaijan and Christian-majority Armenia wanted Nagorno-Karabakh whose population largely comprises ethnic-majority Armenians to be part of both republics. 

The second Nagorno-Karabakh war started in 2020 after Azerbaijan launched an offensive that recaptured territory around Karabakh. Some 3,000 Azerbaijani soldiers and 4,000 Armenian soldiers were killed in six weeks of fighting.

A Russian-mediated ceasefire agreement in 2020 saw Armenia cede swathes of territories it had controlled for some three decades to Azerbaijan. As per the deal, Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey and its military, would hold on to areas of Nagorno-Karabakh that it had taken during the conflict. 

Moscow also deployed peacekeepers to the Lachin corridor to ensure free passage between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Recently, Azerbaijan has been using this corridor to control and starve the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to death. 

Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo recently quoted an observation of the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court of Justice: “The 1,20,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are now entirely encircled by Azerbaijan, completely cut off from the access to the outside world.”

“They are effectively under siege,” he said.

CNN reported that shortages of food, fuel, and medicines caused by the months-long blockade have taken an increasing toll on the region’s population. 

Gegham Stepanyan, the ombudsman of the NKR, on August 15 confirmed that officials reported the first death from malnutrition in the region.

Is it a genocide?

In a conservative sense, we describe genocide as the slaughtering of people belonging to a particular community. But according to the UN Genocide Convention, “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

And genocide is exactly what has been happening in Nagorno-Karabakh as found in investigations by the International Court of Justice.

The top court found the occurrence of several elements of Genocide as per the UN Genocide Convention including “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.” 

They reached the conclusion that the rights of ethnic Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region are affected by the blockade of the Lachin Corridor which was put in force in December 2022.

In his report, Ocampo said, “As has happened in previous cases, Genocide, in particular, when committed by starvation, is neglected.”

Lachin corridor, the only road connecting the Armenian-majority Nagorno Karabakh to the outside world, has been blockaded by Azerbaijan since December 2022 for “environmental reasons.”

The corridor is important for the supply of goods like food and medicines to the breakaway region in Azerbaijan. 

In February this year, the International Criminal Court of Justice ordered the Azerbaijan government to lift the blockade and allow free passage of goods and services through the corridor. 

The top UN court said, “Baku (Azerbaijan) must take all measures at its disposal to ensure the unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions,”.

However, the Azerbaijan government responded to the order by establishing a checkpoint and blocking humanitarian aid carried by various human rights bodies including the Red Cross. 

Who is responsible?

When it is established that the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are facing genocide, the next question is who is responsible? One of the most obvious reasons pointed out by multiple political analysts and lawyers like Ocampo is the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, the supreme commander of these security forces in Azerbaijan.

It was under his command the Lachin Corridor was blockaded by the security border personnel of the country. 

Aliyev, who accepted the Russian peacemakers after the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020 and agreed to keep the Lachin corridor open for free passage of goods and services, went back on the agreement the moment Russia invaded Ukraine.

According to Ocampo, “Instead of negotiating the autonomy of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, he systematically took steps through a series of decisions to eliminate the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

For starters, Aliyev allowed a civilian group to block the Lachin Corridor, which he was supposed to keep open, according to the pact after 2020.

Second, following the order from the International Court of Justice to lift the blockade, he put checkpoints in place on the border with Armenia, stopping humanitarian aid from getting to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Following global criticism of the blockade, in one of his interviews with Euronews, Azerbaijan President Aliyev justified his move, saying the blockade was to avoid the alleged smuggling of arms, gasoline and other illegal substances from Armenia as well as the alleged illegal excavation of natural resources in the region.

He further said that the checkpoint was established to implement the International Court of Justice’s decision.

“Actually the International Court of Justice actually addressed its message to us to communicate with civil society activists and not to disrupt any kind of movement. And we did it. And as soon as we established a border checkpoint on our border with Armenia, which is our legitimate right…We communicated through my representative here in Shusha (a city in the disputed region) with NGOs’ representatives for them (civil society groups) to stop, and they stopped. They left. So now, freedom of movement is not blocked.” 

The President also said that his motive is to put an end to separatism. Besides, he claims that “he is not organizing ethnic cleansing.”

https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2023/sep/06/death-by-starvation-residents-of-disputednagorno-karabakh-region-facegenocide-2612253.html

Sept 6 2023

The U.S. will hold military exercises with Armenia this month in a widely unexpected move that has prompted Russia—a long-time backer of Armenia and fellow member of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)—to express its “concern.”

The “Eagle Partner 2023” drill, while expected to be only a small exercise, appears to be the latest step in a long-term process of Armenian moving away from Moscow’s influence because of the Kremlin’s inability to resolve the ongoing Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the September 11-20 Eagle Partner 2023 exercise is designed to prepare its forces for participation in international peacekeeping missions. The focus, it said, will be “stabilization operations between conflicting parties during peacekeeping tasks.”

A U.S. military spokesperson told Reuters that 85 American soldiers and 175 Armenians would be involved in the drill. The U.S. troops taking part are members of the Kansas National Guard, which has been training with Armenian forces for 20 years. The spokesperson also said no heavy weaponry will be involved in the drill.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the news “causes concern, especially in the current situation. Therefore, we will deeply analyze this news and monitor the situation.”

Russia has traditionally held sway in the South Caucasus region, where the Soviet Union’s borders once encompassed the now independent states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Moscow still has a military base in Armenia, and the country is part of the Kremlin-led CSTO military alliance.

But Moscow-Armenia relations have been deteriorating because of the ongoing Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but whose 120,000 people are mostly ethnic Armenians. It is governed by the self-declared Republic of Artsakh.

The most recent clash over the territory concluded with an Azerbaijani victory in 2020, and Russian peacekeepers were then deployed to uphold the agreement that ended the fighting. It was the second large-scale conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh since the two nations became independent in the 1990s.

But Moscow’s forces have proved unable to prevent resurgent tensions and keep open a key road—known as the Lachin Corridor—linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani forces blocked the road last December despite the presence of Russian troops. The route remains closed, leading to significant food shortages in the enclave.

The tensions over the corridor reportedly prompted the removal this week of the head of Russia’s peacekeeping force, Colonel General Alexander Lentsov. He is the second commander to have been removed in 2023, having replaced his predecessor, Major General Andrei Volkov, in April.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this past weekend it had been a mistake for his country to become so dependent on Russian protection. “Armenia’s security architecture was 99.999 percent linked to Russia, including when it came to the procurement of arms and ammunition,” Pashinyan told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

“But today we see that Russia itself is in need of weapons, arms and ammunition [for the Ukraine war] and in this situation it’s understandable that even if it wishes so, the Russian Federation cannot meet Armenia’s security needs,” he continued. “This example should demonstrate to us that dependence on just one partner in security matters is a strategic mistake.”

The Kremlin hit back, with Peskov telling reporters that Russia “is an absolutely integral part of this region” and “plays a consistent, very important role in stabilizing the situation in this region…and we will continue to play this role.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Pashinyan’s comments were “public rhetoric verging on rudeness.”

Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted “the United States’ concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh” in a call to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev.

“He reiterated our call to reopen the Lachin Corridor to humanitarian, commercial, and passenger traffic, while recognizing the importance of additional routes from Azerbaijan,” a State Department readout said.

Pashinyan’s measures undermining ties with Russia have gone beyond the rhetorical. Last year, Armenia refused to allow scheduled CSTO exercises on its territory and then said it would not send troops to take part in alliance drills in Belarus.

Also last year, Pashinyan humiliated Russian President Vladimir Putin and other CSTO leaders by refusing to sign a joint alliance declaration at the conclusion of a summit in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. The prime minister said the document did not offer a “clear political assessment” condemning Azerbaijani incursions into Armenian territory.

Recent weapons purchases from France further indicate Yerevan’s nascent Western pivot. Armenia has traditionally relied on Russia almost exclusively for its military acquisitions. But its defeat by Azerbaijan’s technologically superior force in 2020 pointed to the country’s need to update its arsenals.

Another notable signal of Pashinyan’s intentions came in the form of Armenia’s proposal to ratify the Rome Statute, the foundational document of the International Criminal Court. The court issued an arrest warrant for Putin earlier this year in connection with charges of forced mass deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the plan as “absolutely unacceptable” and warned of “extremely negative” consequences for bilateral relations.

In a further apparent rebuke of Russian conduct in Ukraine, Pashinyan’s wife—Anna Hakobyan—will reportedly attend an aid summit in Kyiv being organized by Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-voices-concern-ally-joint-military-drills-us-armenia-csto-azerbaijan-1825002

Sept 6 2023

Sept 6 (Reuters) – Armenia said on Wednesday it would host a joint army exercise with the United States next week, at a time of rising military tension with neighbouring Azerbaijan and open friction in its relationship with Russia.

The Armenian Defence Ministry said the purpose of the Sept. 11-20 “Eagle Partner 2023” exercise was to prepare its forces to take part in international peacekeeping missions.

A U.S. military spokesperson said 85 U.S. soldiers and 175 Armenians would take part. He said the Americans – including members of the Kansas National Guard, which has a 20-year-old training partnership with Armenia – would be armed with rifles and would not be using heavy weaponry.

The move comes at a time of intense Armenian frustration with its ally Moscow. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has accused Russia, distracted by its war with Ukraine, of failing to protect Armenia against what he called continuing aggression from Azerbaijan.

Olesya Vartanyan, senior South Caucasus analyst at non-profit conflict prevention organisation Crisis Group, said Armenia was sending a signal to Moscow that “your distraction and the fact that you are so inactive plays towards our enemy”, meaning Azerbaijan.

Despite the small scale of the exercise, Russia said it would be watching closely. It has a military base in Armenia and sees itself as the pre-eminent power in the South Caucasus region, which until 1991 was part of the Soviet Union.

“Of course, such news causes concern, especially in the current situation. Therefore, we will deeply analyse this news and monitor the situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia maintains a peacekeeping force in the region to uphold an agreement that ended a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, the second they have fought since the Soviet collapse.

The frustration between Russia and Armenia is mutual, with Moscow this week accusing Pashinyan of “public rhetoric bordering on rudeness”.

Vartanyan said that while Armenia and Azerbaijan are closer to a possible peace agreement than they have been for years, there is also a serious risk of a major new escalation between them.

Tensions are running high because of a nine-month Azerbaijani blockade of the highway linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave that is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated by around 120,000 ethnic Armenians.

Azerbaijan has justified its action by saying Armenia was using the road to supply weapons to Karabakh, which Armenia denies. The squeeze has led to shortages of fuel, medicine and food, including rationing of bread.

Vartanyan said footage on social media in recent days was showing increasing Azerbaijani military movements near the front line between the two countries. “It doesn’t look good at all,” she said.

Sept 6 2023

Turkey host Armenia at the Yeni Eskisehir Stadyumu on Friday (September 8) in the 2024 European Championship qualifiers.

Armenia, meanwhile, suffered defeat in their first qualification clash but have bounced back from that. They beat Latvia 2-1 last time out, Nair Tiknizyan and substitute Tigran Barseghyan scored either side of a Styopa Mkrtchyan second-half own goal.

The visitors are second in the points table with six points from three games.

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• There have been three meetings between the two teams. Turkey have won all three matchups, including a 2-1 comeback win in their last clash.
• Armenia are without a clean sheet in three games in the fixture.
• Both sides have scored seven goals in the qualifiers so far, the most in Group D.
• Armenia are without a clean sheet in 11 games across competitions since June last year.
• Turkey are 41st in the FIFA rankings, 59 places above Armenia.

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Turkey are on a run of back-to-back wins and have now won five of their last six games across competitions. They have lost just one of their last seven games at home.

Armenia, meanwhile, have also won their last two games after going winless in nine. They have, however, struggled on the road recently and could see defeat.

Prediction: Turkey 2-1 Armenia

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Tip 1 – Result: Turkey

Tip 2 – Goals – Over/under 2.5 – Over 2.5 goals (Nine of Armenia’s last 10 games have produced more than 2.5 goals.)

Tip 3 – Both teams to score: Yes (Both teams have scored in six of Turkey’s last eight games.)

https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/turkey-vs-armenia-prediction-betting-tips-september-8-2023

Sept 6 2023

September 5, 2023 – MLS NEXT Pro (MLS NEXT Pro) – Real Monarchs News Release

HERRIMAN, Utah Real Monarchs midfielder Darón Iskenderian has been selected by Head Coach Rafayel Nazaryan to represent Armenia’s U-21 National Team as they begin preparations for the qualifying round of UEFA European Championships in 2025.

Iskenderian was brought in midway through the MLS NEXT Pro campaign and has played in 12 matches, starting 11 of them, immediately bringing a creative spark to the Real Monarchs attack, recording two goals and an assist.

The Armenian U-21 team will begin training camp on Monday, September 4 and will play two matches as they look to qualify for Euro 2025. The two matches will be played in Armenia at Abovyan Sports Complex against Albania on Friday, September 8 and Montenegro on Tuesday, September 12.

Real Monarchs have three more matches remaining in MLS NEXT Pro as they attempt to climb above the playoff line. The team will travel to Colorado Rapids 2 on September 10 before hosting the final home match of the season against Tacoma Defiance on September 15. Meanwhile, Decision Day for MLS NEXT Pro falls on September 24th when Real Monarchs take on Portland Timbers 2 at Providence Park.

https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/darxf3n-iskenderian-called-up-to-armenia-u-21-national-team/n-6010625#google_vignette