Baku and Saakashvili Respond to Pashinyan’s European Parliament Address

Baku and Saakashvili Respond to Pashinyan’s European Parliament Address

by | Oct 18, 2023 | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Caspian Post, Nagorno Karabakh

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan © Official photo 2023

On 17 October, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He was the first Armenian leader to do so. From the region, only then Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had done so in 2010. The invitation stemmed from last month’s blitzkrieg operation in Karabakh.

With Armenia now faced with 100,000 refugees from Karabakh, the European Union was quick to promise humanitarian assistance and the distribution of up to €2.6 billion in economic assistance announced in July 2021. The European Parliament also adopted a resolution condemning Azerbaijan.

 

Pashinyan’s invitation also came as he increasingly seeks to escape Moscow’s orbit. “Armenia is ready to be closer to the European Union, as much as the European Union considers it possible,” he said in his address.

 

Accusing Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) of inaction, he also effectively accused Moscow of collusion in opposition protests held last month in Yerevan.

 

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Azerbaijan Invites Armenia for Talks in Georgia While Yerevan Remains Non-Committal

Azerbaijan Invites Armenia for Talks in Georgia While Yerevan Remains Non-Committal

by | Oct 11, 2023 | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Caspian Post, Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev meets with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili in Tbilisi  © Official Photo

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev paid an unexpected visit to Tbilisi on Sunday to meet with his counterpart, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. During their meeting, the two leaders discussed existing cooperation in energy, transport, and logistics, including the construction of a new deep-sea port in Anaklia and regional transportation projects such as the Middle Corridor route connecting China to Europe via Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili also said that Garibashvili would pay a working visit to Azerbaijan.

Speaking at an open-air press conference, the two leaders stressed the importance of regional peace and security, underlining how such projects could build a better and prosperous future for all countries involved. In a surprise invitation, however, Aliyev made specific reference to the one country in the region that remains excluded and in semi-isolation. “If Armenia agrees, the heads of our relevant institutions can immediately come to Georgia for both bilateral and trilateral meetings,” he stated.

 

The suggestion followed Aliyev cancelling a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the European Political Community summit in Granada, Spain, on 5 October. The reason given was Macron’s presence amid an ever-continuing war of words between Baku and Paris, as well as Macron and Scholz’s rejection of Turkish President Erdogan’s participation.

 

“Azerbaijan does not need such a format,” APA reported a ‘special source’ as saying, spelling out that any format involving Paris is unacceptable to Baku. It might also indicate frustration with the Michel-facilitated trilateral Brussels platform, though another meeting will take place at the end of the month. “Baku does not see the need to discuss the problems of the region with countries far from the region. Baku believes that these issues can be discussed and resolved in a regional framework.”

 

[…] 

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The importance of reciprocity and interdependence in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations

The importance of reciprocity and interdependence in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations

by | Oct 10, 2023 | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Commonspace, Russia, Turkey

Yerevan Train Station, Armenia © Onnik James Krikorian 2011

On this, the third anniversary of the 44-day Karabakh War, it remains unclear whether attempts to normalise relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan are close to collapse or nearing their conclusion. In just 24 hours of fighting in late September, the situation changed literally overnight. Depending on your point of view, in the wake of the decree to dissolve the de facto Karabakh Armenian administration, there is either now no urgency to sign a peace agreement, or there is arguably no longer any reason for further delay.

Even the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement appears inconsequential given the exodus of tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians from Karabakh, raising many questions about the utility of the Lachin Corridor and the presence of the Russian peacekeeping contingent. This week’s news that Azerbaijan could now connect to its exclave of Nakhchivan via a rail connection through Iran also makes the prospect of doing so via Armenia either redundant, or at least less pressing.

 

Though such a link remains the subject of talks – whether through the trilateral working group established by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia in May 2021, or in negotiations facilitated by European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels ongoing since late the same year, this development is both encouraging and disappointing. On the one hand, it had been an obstacle to progress in talks. On the other, this interdependency could have contributed to the durability of any negotiated peace.

 

True, interdependence failed to prevent full-scale war in the early 1990s, and could lead to manipulation by any stronger party, yet it would at least create mutual incentives for cooperation while potentially deterring conflict in the future. The idea was to create a win-win situation where Azerbaijan would not only connect to Nakhchivan but Armenia could potentially join the Middle Corridor transportation link from China to Europe via Central Asia and the South Caucasus, ending its semi-isolation and exclusion from regional energy and transportation projects.

 

[…] 

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Hopes Dashed for Armenia-Azerbaijan Meeting in Granada

Hopes Dashed for Armenia-Azerbaijan Meeting in Granada

by | Oct 9, 2023 | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Balcani Caucaso, European Union, Nagorno Karabakh

Granada, Spain  © Official Photo

Following Azerbaijan’s 19 September military offensive that led to the dissolution of the breakaway but unrecognised mainly ethnic Armenian-inhabited entity of Nagorno Karabakh, there had been hopes Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would meet again at the European Political Community summit in Granada, Spain. However, on the eve of the 5 October talks, Aliyev pulled out, citing the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron in the multilateral meeting that also included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel.

Whether the meeting would take place was anyway in doubt. Although Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan and Azerbaijani Presidential Assistant Hikmet Hajiyev met with the advisors to Macron, Michel, and Scholz on 26 September in Brussels, the European Council only spoke of a ‘possible meeting’ in Granada. Likely swaying Baku at the last minute was the visit to Armenia by French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna two days beforehand. Not only was she again critical of Azerbaijan but Colonna also announced that France would be ready to supply weapons, albeit of a defensive nature, to Armenia.

 

Colonna also said that France would seek to introduce a new resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling for an international mission in Karabakh now the region had come totally under Baku’s control and the exodus of almost all of its post-1994 population. Baku was also irked by the rejection by France and Germany to have President Erdogan of Turkiye join them in Granada as a counterbalance to France, which Azerbaijan considers pro-Armenian.

 

Both Aliyev and Erdogan did not attend the EPC summit with the latter excusing himself because he ‘had a cold.’ Their absence was enough to cast doubts the the EU-facilitated process and hinted that it might now be close to collapse. Russia has been increasingly concerned by what it sees as western interference in the region with the aim of driving it out. Similarly, several steps seen by Moscow as anti-Russian by Pashinyan, including ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, has further infuriated the Russian President.

 

[…] 

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Nagorno Karabakh, dissolution and new challenges ahead

Nagorno Karabakh, dissolution and new challenges ahead

by | Oct 5, 2023 | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Balcani Caucaso, Nagorno Karabakh

Refugee from Nagorno Karabakh in Armenia © Onnik James Krikorian 1994

Last week, on 28 September, Samvel Shahramanyan, the de facto head of the self-declared and unrecognised Nagorno Karabakh Republic, signed a decree on the dissolution of the separatist entity. Inhabited mainly by ethnic Armenians but situated within Azerbaijan, what remains of the former Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) will cease to exist by the end of the year.

Baku had assured local ethnic Armenians that those who chose to remain would have their rights and security protected but, after three decades of conflict and as many wars, few believed them. In fact, following renewed fighting in late September, most of the population left.

 

The population had been put at 120,000 but, by the time the last few residents trickled out, the number of Karabakh’s residents arriving in Armenia stood much lower at 100,617. Marco Succi, Rapid Deployment Team Manager with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told media that only a few hundred people remain – mainly the infirm and the elderly.

 

Armenia says that the exodus of the Karabakh Armenians amounts to ethnic cleansing, claims that Azerbaijan strongly denies. The head of UNHCR in Yerevan, Kavita Belani, also confirmed that “there were no recorded incidents or cases of mistreatment against the people on the move”.

 

[…] 

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