Armenian
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Guests
Hosts
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the Armenian
News Network, Groong, Week in
Review. I’m Asbed Bedrossian and together with Hovik Manucharyan, this week
we’re going to talk about the following major topics:
●
Saakashvili Back in Georgia
●
Putin, Erdogan, in Sochi
●
OSCE Minsk Group in Artsakh?
●
Tonoyan,
Galstyan, in Jail
●
Hovik in Stepanakert
To talk about these issues, we have with us:
Benyamin Poghosyan, who is the Chairman of the Yerevan based think
tank Center for Political and Economic
Strategic Studies, He was deputy director of the Institute for National
Strategic Studies at the Ministry of Defense from 2010 to 2016 and the Vice
President for Research, at the National Defense Research University from 2016
to 2019.
And
Dr. Pietro Shakarian,
who is a Lecturer in History at the
American University of Armenia in Yerevan. His research focuses on the history
of Eastern Armenia and the Caucasus, especially Soviet Armenia during the era
of Nikita Khrushchev’s Thaw.
Topics This Week
Saakashvili
is Back in Georgia
After 8 years outside of Georgia, former
president Mikheil Saakashvili returned to Tbilisi
this past week, to mobilize his supporters to vote against the ruling party,
Georgian Dream, in the upcoming municipal elections, which are seen as a
prelude to the national elections.
Saakashvili was promptly arrested and jailed
according to prime minister Irakli Garibashvili, and president Salome Zourabichvili said that she will not pardon the former
president, who is accused of abuse of authority and sentenced to six years in
jail.
●
How does Saakashvili’s return and arrest figure
within the context of Georgia’s domestic politics?
●
Why do we pay so little attention to Georgia’s
internal politics?
●
Georgia’s internal politics seem as polarized as
Armenia’s. Are there parallels between them?
●
For
Armenia Saakashvili’s arrest is just a result of Georgia’s politics. How does
it matter to Armenia whether the Georgian Dream party, or the opposition United
National Movement party were to come to power?
Putin, Erdogan, in Sochi
This past week, presidents Putin and Erdogan
started to meet, to discuss a wide array of issues
between their countries. Increasingly it is clear that Armenia and Artsakh are
just one, maybe two of the horses in the foreign affairs horse-trading going on
within the spectrum of conflicts between Russia and Turkey, from Libya, to
Syria, to Ukraine, the Caucasus, Nagorno Karabakh, and to Afghanistan. That’s a
10,000 Km zone of… “partnerships” - as Dmitri Peskov,
the Kremlin spokesman, called it.
What were the major topics the presidents
discussed, and what are the potential outcomes of these discussions for us?
Much of the two leaders’ discussions are behind
closed doors. What do you think we’re not hearing about?
NOTES:
● Putin noted the successful cooperation between Russia and Turkey in Syria and Libya. Erdogan noted that the joint steps of Russia and Turkey in Syria are of great importance, adding that peace in the region depends on the relations between the two countries.
● Only Putin referred to the situation in the Artsakh conflict zone, exclusively mentioning the following. "The Russian-Turkish ceasefire control center on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is actively operating. "This cooperation is a serious guarantee that the parties will agree on further steps towards stability and reconciliation." None of the leaders used the name Nagorno Karabakh in their speech, nor specifically addressed the situation. The Turkish press had earlier reported that discussions would be held on the “Zangezur corridor”, but the Turkish side did not bring up the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
● According to Erdogan, the first unit of the Russian nuclear power plant in Turkey will open in 2022.
● Erdogan spoke about the military-industrial sphere, the S-400 deal, saying that there were steps that had already been taken and that there was no way back.
● Peskov said that the Crimean issue will not be discussed,
as it is not usually discussed, there is nothing to discuss with the Turkish
side in terms of Crimea. The Turkish side brought up the Crimean issue.
OSCE Minsk Group in Artsakh?
There’s recent news that the OSCE Minsk Group is
getting activated. Even Aliyev, despite mocking the organization in the past as
ineffective, has said
that he’s not against meeting Pashinyan if the OSCE Minsk Group organizes it.
There is discussion that the group is planning a visit to the region which may
also include a visit to Artsakh.
Aliyev has repeated ad nauseam that he has used
force to solve the Karabakh issue. Additionally, last week in his address to
the UN General Assembly, he asked member states to no longer
use the term “Karabakh” because he said no such legal region exists anymore.
So we know that Aliyev is keen
on modifying the mandate of the Minsk Group, and remove the issue of
self-determination from it.
To what do we attribute this evolution in the
negotiation process? Has Aliyev received signals from Pashinyan or the OSCE MG
co-chairs, that the issue of self-determination is negotiable?
Sergey Lavrov recently made a statement on OSCE
Minsk Group activity as well. In an interview to Tass,
Lavrov mentioned nothing about the status of Artsakh, nor de-occupation of
Hadrut or Lachin. Instead, he mentioned the need to
return prisoners within the same sentence as the need for Armenia to provide
mine maps. Lavrov further went on to state that the
"... main goal currently
is to build a calm, peaceful and stable life, encourage the Armenian and
Azerbaijani communities to reach the mutual trust that the region lacked for
decades and make sure that issues related to the return of refugees and other
everyday issues are resolved,"
What is Lavrov communicating? Which communities
is he talking about and what’s the scope of the point on return of refugees?
Does Lavrov mean only to Shushi or other areas of Artsakh, or outside of
Artsakh?
Tonoyan,
Galstyan, in Jail
On Thursday, The National Security Service announced
that former defense minister David Tonoyan along with
two other individuals had been arrested, charged with embezzlement related to
purchases of faulty weapons to the tune of almost $5 million.
Others who have been named in this developing
case are Davit Galstyan, who owns many companies that have sold weapons to the
Armenian military over the years; Stepan Galstyan, a deputy chief of the
General Staff; and according to the NSS there will be more arrests.
This story has been around for a year, and we’ve
read about Davit Galstyan for even longer. Has new evidence come up to prompt
these arrests? Is there a timing angle to this? Is there a political angle to
this? Is there serious corruption underlying these dealings, or are they
politically motivated?
The details of the case:
●
Pashinian appointed Tonoyan as
defense minister after coming to power in 2018. Ararat Mirzoyan hailed him as a
“real professional” and “person of integrity” who will quickly modernize the
army.
●
Tonoyan
was sacked 2 weeks after the 44-day war ended with Pashinyan’s
complete capitulation. Senior Civil Contract members have tried to pin the loss
on Tonoyan.
●
When chief of the General Staff, Colonel-General
Onik Gasparian, said that
four days after the outbreak of the war he warned Armenia’s political
leadership to urgently halt the war with Azerbaijan and end the hostilities. Pashinian subsequently denied Gasparian’s
claim, but Tonoyan not only confirmed the warning
issued by the army top brass but also said that it was agreed upon with him.
●
There have been competing arms deals mediated by
pro-Pashinyan MP and chair of the defense and national security parliamentary
subcommittee, Andranik Kocharyan, which were stopped
by Onik Gasparyan or Tonoyan.
Hovik in Stepanakert
Hovik Manucharyan reports about his visit to
Artsakh and his experience there.
As always, we’re
leaving many topics on the table with no time to discuss. Let me mention just a
couple:
●
Pashinyan’s
cabinet approved the 2022 draft budget
●
Iran is holding military exercises along its
border with Azerbaijan. They are not happy with Baku, and they’re not mincing
words in saying so!
●
Freedom House has complained about Pashinyan’s government’s Degradation of Democratic norms.
●
The Council of Europe has complained of the
inadequacy of Pashinyan’s anti-corruption measures.
○
And of course, the Armenian government has hit
back that they disagree with these complaints.
●
Parliament has stalled on creating the
Commission to investigate the 44-day war’s outcome.
●
The handing over of the Zangezur
Mining Complex from a former ruling class to the new ruling class
●
And of course, we still don’t know what
“rapprochement” the Armenian government wants to talk, with Turkey.
Wrap-up
That was our Week in Review
show, and we hope it helped you catch up with some of the issues in and around
Armenia from this past week. As always, we invite your feedback and your
suggestions. You can find us on most social media and podcast platforms, or our
website Groong.org.
On behalf of everyone in this
episode, we wish you a good week. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channels, Like our pages and follow us on social media. Thanks for
listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
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Keywords
Benyamin Poghosyan, Pietro Shakarian,
Armenia, Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Mikheil
Saakashvili, David Tonoyan, Davit Galstyan, Stepan
Galstyan, Andranik Kocharyan, South Caucasus, Turkey,
Russia, OSCE, Minsk Group, Peace Negotiations, Military reform, Press Freedoms,
Politics, Military Procurement, JCPOA, United States, Iran, Freedom House,
Council of Europe,