Armenian
News Network / Groong
Guests
Hosts
Introduction
Hello,
and welcome to the Armenian News Network, Groong,
Week in Review. This show was recorded on Monday, July 11, 2022.
Here are the major topics we’ll touch on today:
● Developments in Regional Geopolitics
● Watch your Internets
To talk about
these issues, we have with us:
Hrant Mikaelian, a political scientist and multidisciplinary
researcher in social sciences based in Yerevan. He is also a senior researcher
at the Caucasus Institute.
and
Benyamin Poghosyan, who is the Chairman of the Yerevan based think
tank Center for Political and Economic
Strategic Studies,
Hello and welcome
gentlemen!
Topics This Week
Developments in the Regional Geopolitics
The last two
weeks were busy in terms of regional geopolitical news, starting from Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations, to negotiations with
Ankara, and as well as increased diplomatic activity from Iran.
Azerbaijan
Over the past two
weeks relations with Azerbaijan continued to be strained amidst vague news of
developments here and there.
First, there were
reports by Izvestia, a Russian newspaper, reported that with Russian support Armenia and Azerbaijan had reached agreement
on the road connecting Azerbaijan proper with Nakhijevan.
Mher Grigoryan, Armenia’s
Deputy Prime Minister said that they were “able to bring the positions of
Yerevan and Baku closer on many issues, including border customs control”,
without providing much detail. On July 7, the Azerbaijani foreign minister
however said that there is no progress in peace talks with
Armenia & rejected Pashinyan’s offer of “mirrored
withdrawal” of forces from the border regions.
Meanwhile, there
were reports of shootings in the village of Khachik earlier in the week and the village of Yelpin later in the week, both on the Western border of Armenia.
The Armenian side mostly downplayed and manipulated the news related to
incidents. Acknowledgment of the shootings happened only after media reports on
the issue, while local government officials such as the mayor of Yelpin downplayed the incident saying that the Yelpin village is not observable to the enemy and claimed that the Azeri bullet
pierced a civilian car by accident.
● What do we know about the nature of the
agreements between Armenia and Azerbaijan?
● What is the Azerbaijani experts’ reaction to
this news?
● Do we know what Baku wants that Armenia is not giving?
Turkey
Last week,
Armenia and Turkey announced “progress” in their normalization talks,
conspicuously in lockstep with the Azerbaijan announcement. Specifically, the
two country representatives announced that they will work on allowing citizens
of third countries to cross the Armenian-Turkish border. They also announced an agreement to begin direct cargo flights.
To top off the
“fanfare”, today on Monday July 11 Erdogan and Pashinyan had a telephone
conversation, congratulating each other on Kurban
Bayram and the upcoming Vardevar holiday which is
almost 2 weeks away. The tweet by Pashinyan reiterated that the sides intend to
expedite the implementation of agreements reached so far.
Just a note, 24
hours prior to this announcement, Erdogan (who loves symbolism) had tweeted a
picture of the Holy Apostles Church in Kars which had been converted into a
mosque, wishing his followers a “happy Friday”.:
● This is being emphasized by both governments at
a high level (notwithstanding Erdogan’s tweet), but is it really a
breakthrough? How significant is this development?
○ What does “third countries” mean in relation to
Azerbaijan?
○ How about migrants from Syria for instance? We
know that many European countries struggle with migrants from Syria. Could we
also have a similar problem?
At the same time
as talking up the so-called “achievements” reached with Pashinyan, Turkey’s
foreign ministry also criticized the Armenian opposition, calling them “extremist groups on the streets of
Armenia” who act as an obstacle to the normalization process. The word
“extremist” has also been used by the ruling Civil Contract to describe the
Armenian opposition. Some would call this meddling in the internal affairs of
Armenia!
● To whom are these kinds of statements directed?
Is it the Armenian opposition? International organizations? Western
governments?
Iran
In
the past month we’ve seen Iran’s diplomacy step up.
Their foreign minister has visited Turkey, Syria, Azerbaijan, and more meetings
are planned in bilateral or trilateral format. Iran’s national security chief,
Ali Shamkhani visited Yerevan for high level meetings last week. Multiple
statements were made about Iran’s formerly stated redline
about violating Armenia’s territorial integrity, referring to the Syunik
region.
Let’s
put this in context of meetings between Aliyev and Iran’s president Raisi, as well as Aliyev and Putin, in Ashgabad,
Turkmenistan, where the Caspian littoral states held a summit.
● Why did Shamkhani loudly reiterate Iran’s solid
stance on Armenia’s territorial integrity? Who was his intended audience, and
why now?
● How is Iran securing its national interests in
the north at present, in the post 44-day war reality? Last year there was news
of deployment of forces and military exercises in the north. Was that
deployment temporary?
Statements
were also made about Iran and Armenia’s cooperation in the context of the
North-South transport corridor, which extends through Iran’s southern port,
Chabahar, to India. But this week India’s ambassador Kishan
Dan Dewal said
that Armenia has not made proposals to develop the project.
● It seems like there are clear signals from Iran
and India to move forward with the Persian Gulf - Black Sea corridor, so what
is Armenia waiting for, what’s the hangup?
Over
the past couple of weeks, both Pashinyan, as well as Mirzoyan
in Greece have been warning that Azerbaijan could initiate hostilities and war
at any moment.
● If we put these statements with those of Iran,
could we deduce that Azerbaijan has been signaling a further invasion of
Armenian sovereign territory?
Curbs on
Press & Internet
On
July 4th outgoing prosecutor general Arthur Davtyan proposed to the government to enable legislation to
regulate content on the internet. He claimed the Armenian language websites
were being used for hate speech, drug trade and other illegal activities and
undesirable content. He also said that unlike a few countries (including
Russia) which he mentioned, Armenia has no legislation to combat undesired or
harmful content.
While
Davtyan said this is only an unsolicited proposal,
needless to say this raised furor within the news and media, as well as the
information security communities, because it amounts to censorship. The
proposal has been dubbed “Armkomnadzor”, a pun on the
name of the Russian, Roskomnadzor, which has a
reputation for heavy-handed censorship.
So this proposal comes on the heels of Pashinyan’s
meeting with Putin, when the two committed to cooperating in the sphere of
international information security, specially those
that “commit illegal and
harmful actions, interfere in the internal affairs of states and undermine
their sovereignty,”
●
Does Arthur Davtyan’s
proposal actually feed into Pashinyan’s
commitment in this agreement with Putin?
●
Does the prosecutor’s office have real
world problems dealing with harmful material online in Armenia? Are they
information related, or information security related?
●
Davtyan has only 2
months left in his term. Why choose to do this now?
●
Who would decide what is “illicit”, or
“undesirable” or “harmful” content on the internet in Armenia?
●
Who or what is the real target for such a
proposed legislation?
During the week, western watchdog NGO
Freedom House tweeted at Pashinyan to hold open and transparent
press conferences with the media. They said that the Armenian authorities
should support independent media and civil society through active dialogue with
them.
●
This was obviously a slap at Pashinyan’s fake press conference which got boycotted by
over 50 news and media outlets. But is it also a slap at Davtyan’s
proposal?
●
Davtyan refers to
Russia, as well as western European countries that have content regulation
legislation. Is there a happy medium here for Armenia, or is this simply bad
news?
Topics from the Panelists
1. Hovik
- Hraparak, Media Center Initiative, Fact Checking,
Reputation
2. Hrant - Tsarukyan, Shangri La, and Jesus Christ
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.
Thanks
to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe to our
channel on YouTube, Like
our pages and follow us on social media. On behalf of everyone in this episode,
we wish you a good week, thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
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Keywords
Benyamin
Poghosyan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, South Caucasus, Turkey, Russia,
Communication channels, Corridors, Borders, Peace Negotiations, 5-year plan,
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JCPOA, United States, Iran, Iranian Gas, LNG, Pipelines, EU, European Union,