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Introduction
Hello,
and welcome to the Armenian News Network, Groong,
Week in Review. This episode was recorded on Monday, August 2nd, 2021. This
Week we’re going to talk about the following major topics:
● Continued Instability along Armenia-Azerbaijan
Borders
● National Assembly Commission on the 44-day war
● First session of the 8th sitting of the parliament
To talk about these
issues, we have with us:
Asbed Kotchikian, who is an Associate Professor of political
science and international relations at the American University of Armenia.
And
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 in
2010-2016 and the Vice President for Research, at the National Defense Research
University from 2016 to 2019.
Topics This Week
Continued Instability
along Armenia-Azerbaijan Borders
Last week there was
continued instability and open fighting all around Armenia’s border with
Azerbaijan. The most violent incident happened in Gegharkunik (near Verin Shorja), where the Armenian
side had 3 deaths and several wounded. The week continued with news of
shootings in Syunik and on the border with Nakhijevan
(Yeraskh).
Armenia MOD Response
After the deaths in
Gegharkunik, the Armenian MOD announced (triggered by fighting) that there are
yet unannounced upcoming negotiations with Russia, conducted by the Minister of
Defense in Moscow.
Why is it that only
after this fatal incident the ministry felt the need to disclose the
negotiations in Moscow? What are the negotiations about? And why is the MOD
involved and not the MFA for instance?
Sensitive topic, but
we have to ask. Pictures
published of our position where two of our martyred soldiers served, showed
very poor conditions. 9 months after the war, is the army really doing all it
can, to protect the border and our soldiers?
Pashinyan’s Response
On Monday, the day
when we had 3 deaths, Pashinyan was silent. However, the following day at a
sitting of the Armenian Government, Pashinyan announced that Armenia was not
conducting any negotiations based on the logic of “corridors”, highlighting
that Armenia and Azerbaijan should have customs control over roads that pass
through each of their territories.
The issue of use of
the term “corridor” thus, seems not to be only semantic and Azerbaijan by using
it implies that it wants some form of sovereignty over the transport links.
France, out of the 3 OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, seems to have been the most
vocal in its support of Armenia against the use of “corridor” terminology. On
July 23, in an interview with Azatutyun, Jonathan Lacote, French ambassador to Armenia, also mentioned
that “corridor” is not a desired terminology due to the negative history
associated with this term, specifically referring to the “Polish Corridor”
which was set up by Allies after victory in World War I thus separating the
bulk of Germany from East Prussia.
How should we view
about the term “corridor”? Azerbaijan seems to be sticking to its guns (quite
literally) on this issue to the point of using its military to exert more
pressure on Armenia. Is what we have in the Nov 9 statement a “corridor” or
not?
Is the term
“corridor” the only point of contention in signing of a “demarcation and
delimitation” agreement which Pashinyan has promised to do and what Armenian
opposition has decried as a very dangerous move? And do you have anything else
to add to what Benyamin said?
In the same speech on
Tuesday, Pashinyan also said that Armenia is interested in international
monitoring forces to be stationed all over Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan to
prevent future violence. Pashinyan said that Armenia would prefer CSTO troops,
but if that is not possible, then Armenia would be willing to invite other
international organizations, such as OSCE.
Putin’s spokesperson,
Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on the issue. Meanwhile, Leonid Kalashnikov, head of Duma’s Committee
on CIS Affairs, characterized Pashinyan’s call as
“political” indicating that such matters are normally resolved behind closed
doors and Pashinyan’s public statement is indicative
of the issue being politicized.
What does this say
about Armenia’s ability to stay independent/sovereign? Can Armenia skip over
Russia’s head to invite the OSCE to monitor its border with Azerbaijan without
having an explicit approval from Russia or even Azerbaijan? Why do you think
Pashinyan hurried to talk about this possibility publicly, is it political and
if so to whom is the message directed and what is the message exactly anyway?
New Normal?
Nikol Pashinyan’s signing of
the November 9 ceasefire statement was justified by the fact that we’d now at
least have a period of peace. In fact, ushering in a period of peace and
prosperity was one of Pashinyan’s major campaign
promises in the June parliamentary elections. Yet, we are witnessing a
seemingly constant instability around all bordering regions with Azerbaijan,
where in some instances the Azerbaijanis have seemingly leisurely walked in and
captured Armenian territory and in other cases we’ve seen deaths, wounded, and
more threats from Azerbaijan.
Benyamin: In one of your many
interviews to media over the past few weeks, you talked about “gray zones”,
which can be defined
as “the space in between peace and war in which state and non-state actors
engage in competition” and you cautioned about the threat of many parts of
Armenia having this category for the near and mid-term. Can you talk a little
more about this?
How can Armenia,
despite signing the Nov 9 statement, avoid a long-term state of instability on
its borders which would affect Armenia’s chances of development.
Amidst all the
continued conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the Nov 9 statement,
there’s little news or statements from public officials in Turkey on
developments. We are of course seeing a strong drive to cement its new status
in the South Caucasus with the declaration in Shushi and also
news of closer military cooperation with Azerbaijan and Pakistan in the
Caucasus, but nothing specific about the border conflagrations between Armenia
and Azerbaijan.
What is the role of
Turkey in the post war developments in Armenia? What are their short and
mid-term goals in the region?
National Assembly
Commission on 44-Day War
This past week,
likely incoming speaker of the parliament Alen Simonyan
announced that Civil Contract intends to initiate a fact-finding commission.
Most likely this
commission will be held under the auspices of the Parliament’s Standing
Committee on Defense and Security.
Simonyan noted that they want to include both
parliamentary, as well as extra-parliamentary parties that didn’t clear the
threshold.
The Opposition has
voiced concern that the party that lost the war cannot investigate itself, and has demanded to chair the commission.
Benyamin: You are one of the
co-authors of ArmeniaCommission.org, which is essentially a call to the Armenian government to establish a
fact-finding commission to investigate the causes and the results of the war in
Artsakh in 2020, in order to learn from the mistakes made over the long and
short term.
Only 3 days ago we
also talked about this topic with the lead author of that initiative, Simon Saradzhyan
and co-authors Arthur Martirosyan and Tevan Poghosyan, for a podcast we just published on our Youtube
channel and wherever people get their podcasts.
What are your
thoughts about Alen Simonyan’s proposals?
● What challenges does it face?
● What should we watch for as signs of success, or
failure, of Simonyan’s initiative?
Wrap-up
That
concludes our program for This Week in
Review episode. We hope it has helped your understanding of some of the
issues from the previous week. We look forward to your feedback, and 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. 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.
Keywords
Benyamin Poghosyan, Asbed Kotchikian,
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Nikol Pashinyan, Ilham
Aliyev, Putin, Artsakh, Karabakh, Nagorno Karabakh, Borders, Border
Instability, War, Commission on War, War Commission, Parliament, National
Assembly, Border Demarcation, Border Delineation, Peace Negotiations, Turkey,
Erdogan, Syunik, Gegharkunik, Nakhijevan,
Nakhichevan, Corridor, Communication, Transportation, Army