Armenian
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Topic This Week: The War in
Artsakh
The war ends. What are the
terms of the deal?
Hello, and welcome to the
Armenian News Network, Groong, Week in Review for Sunday November
15, 2020. In this episode we continue to discuss various topics around the War
in Artsakh. We’ll be talking to our guests about the following major topics:
●
The war ends. What are the terms of the deal?
●
Pax Russiana
●
The extent of Turkey’s presence in Azerbaijan
●
Jubilation in Baku
To talk about these issues, we have with us:
Asbed Kotchikian, a senior lecturer of political science
and international relations at Bentley University in Massachusetts where he
teaches courses on the Middle East and former Soviet space.
Emil
Sanamyan, a senior research fellow at
USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies specializing in politics in the Caucasus,
with a special focus on Azerbaijan;
And
Artyom
Tonoyan is a research associate at
the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, with
specialties in religion and politics and nationalism in the South Caucasus, and
Russia.
This episode was recorded on
Saturday, November 15.
36 hours after we recorded last week’s podcast, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia signed a joint statement to end the war.
Under the terms of the Russian-brokered deal, by
December Armenian forces are to withdraw from three districts - Karvajar, Lachin and Agdam, - while Azerbaijan will keep the territory in
Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas captured during the conflict.
Let’s talk about some of the points of the
signed statement.
Putin’s nuanced political navigation throughout the Artsakh war may be paying off. Russia appears to have outmaneuvered Turkey as the sole non-warring signatory in the ceasefire document and says it will be the only power to send peacekeeping troops to the region, although Turkey and Azerbaijan are now arguing this point.
At least for now Russia has expanded its presence in Armenia, and now also in Azerbaijan. What’s their end game?
What are the underlying “interests” that are driving
the Turkey-Azerbaijan alliance right now?
No doubt that Ilham Aliyev is the biggest
personal winner from the outcome of this war. By liberating the regions around
Nagorno-Karabakh and imposing harsh conditions on Armenia, he managed to not
only deliver on his decades long promise but also probably consolidated his
dynastic rule for the foreseeable future.
Any thoughts about how this victory would impact
Azerbaijan’s political orientation and future relations with Russia, Turkey and
Iran?
That concludes our program
for This week’s Groong Week in Review.
We hope it has helped you understand some of the current issues. We look
forward to your feedback, and even your suggestions for issues to cover in
greater depth. Contact us on our website, at groong.org,
or on our Facebook Page “ANN - Groong”,
or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News
Network”.
Special thanks to Laura
Osborn for providing the music for our podcast. I’m Hovik Manucharyan, and on
behalf of everyone in this episode, I wish you a good week. Thank you for
listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
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Armenia, Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey
Additional: Russia, Iran, Ceasefire, Aliyev, Pashinyan