Armenian News... A Topalian...9 editorials
BBC Radio World Service
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Al-Jazeera, Qatar
Feb 9 2019
Armenia sends non-combat team to Syria at Russia's request
Team of 83 Armenians includes de-mining experts, medical personnel and security officers who will work in Aleppo.
Armenia has sent a team of experts to Syria on a Russia-backed mission to help clear mines and provide medical assistance, according to the Armenian defence ministry.
Artsrun Hovhannisyan, the ministry's spokesman, said on Saturday that the team of 83 includes de-mining experts, medical personnel and security officers.
He said the team will defuse mines and provide medical help to the residents of Aleppo in northern Syria, emphasising that they will stay outside areas of fighting.
Russia, which has conducted a military campaign to shore up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, will transport the Armenian team to Syria and provide logistical support, Hovhannisyan said.
Some Armenian politicians have criticised the move.
The Sasna Tsrer party warned in a statement that teaming up with Russia in Syria could hurt Armenia's interests and undermine its security.
The Syrian government forces regained control over all of Aleppo in December 2016 after a long, devastating campaign of siege and bombardment against rebels, who had held the eastern side of the city for more than four years.
Moscow's gratitude
Russia is Armenia's main ally and has a military base in the country.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday thanked his Armenian counterpart for deploying the mission.
"You were the first to respond to our call to provide assistance to the Syrian people," he said.
Before the war, Aleppo was home to 110,000 ethnic Armenians, one of the world's largest Armenian diasporas. About 22,000 have since moved to Armenia.
Arminfo, Armenia
Feb 8 2019
RA Deputy Defense Minister: The initiative to send Armenian mission to Syria belongs exclusively to Yerevan
Tatevik Shahunyan
The initiative to send the Armenian mission to Syria belongs exclusively to Yerevan. The Deputy Minister of Defense Gabriel Balayan assured about this in an interview with Radio Liberty.
"Russia provided only logistic assistance in this issue. The RA Consulate in Aleppo assisted in the deployment of the mission," the Deputy Minister said. Meanwhile, earlier, RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia and Russia are carrying out an important joint humanitarian mission, after which a decision was announced to send a mission to Syria.
Responding to the charges of the former head of the Armenian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee Armen Ashotyan that the mission was sent to Syria without signing the relevant international treaty regulating the activities and purpose of the mission, the terms of its stay in Syria, Balayan said: "The issue is regulated by the signed between Armenia and Syria interstate treaty of 2001 ". In response to the remark that, in the opinion of many experts, sending a mission to Syria will have a negative impact on Armenia's relations with the West and some Arab countries, the Deputy Minister stressed: "In making the decision, all the pros and cons were taken into account." At the same time, Balayan found it difficult to indicate the duration of the mission's stay in Syria: " The mission will remain in Syria for several months, then, depending on its effectiveness, a corresponding decision will be made."
On February 8, a group of Armenian specialists in humanitarian demining, medical personnel and ensuring the safety of the specialists themselves, in a total of 83 people, arrived in the city of Aleppo of the Syrian Arab Republic to provide humanitarian specialized assistance to the Syrian people. According to the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, the Armenian specialists will carry out humanitarian activities related to humanitarian demining, mine awareness of the population, the provision of medical assistance in Aleppo, exclusively outside the zone of combat operations. It should be noted that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at a meeting with his Armenian counterpart David Tonoyan in Moscow thanked the latter for the humanitarian assistance to Syria, stressing that it was Armenia that was the first to respond to the call to support peaceful citizens of the Arab Republic.
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 8 2019
Garo Paylan reacts to Armenian Genocide remarks by Erdogan’s spokesperson
Turkish-Armenian MP Garo Paylan, representing the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), took to Twitter to respond to remarks about the Armenia Genocide made by Turkish President Erdoghan’s spokesperson.
Turkey on Wednesday hit out at French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement that France would make April 24 a national day of commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.
"We condemn and reject attempts by Macron, who is afflicted by political problems in his own country, to try and save the day by turning historical events into a political matter," Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in a statement after the French leader's announcement on Tuesday.
In a tweet on Thursday Paylan questioned Ibrahim Kalin’s statement, saying: “If the Armenian Genocide is a lie, why the Turkish President has been sending condolence messages to the Armenian community five years in a row on every April 24”
“Turkey is yet to face and name the tragedy of the Armenian people displaced and slaughtered by the decision of the state. What happened should concern first the president and the Speaker of Turkish parliament. They should face and call the tragedy with a proper name as we have been waiting for justice for104 years,” Paylan wrote in a separate post.
To remind, speaking to the Armenian community at a dinner in Paris, Macron said: "France is, first and foremost, the country that knows how to look history in the face, which was among the first to denounce the killing of the Armenian people, which in 1915 named genocide for what it was, which in 2001 after a long struggle recognized it in law."
France "will in the next weeks make April 24 a national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide," he added.
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 8 2019
Ankara calls Macron ‘arrogant,’ ‘uninformed’
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Turkey’s foreign ministry issued a statement calling President Emmanuel Macron of France “arrogant” and “uninformed,” in response to the French leader’s announcement on Tuesday that April 24 will be designated as a national day of commemoration of the Armenian Genocide in France, Asbarez reports.
“There are no lessons to be learned by us from arrogant French politicians, devoid of basic knowledge of history, representing a country known to us by its atrocities,” said the Turkish foreign ministry announcement targeting Macron.
“We have explained to French officials, on several occasions at every level and notably to the French President, that the events of 1915 constitute a legitimate subject of legal, historical and academic debate,” added the announcement.
“Nevertheless, it is understood that the French President Macron seeks to fulfill his election promise in the hope of receiving the votes of French electorate of Armenian origin,” continued the announcement.
“It is regrettable that a politician, uninformed in Ottoman history, ignores the French and European jurisprudence and takes a one-sided position with regard to a historical issue of highly sensitive nature for Turks for the sake of his personal political gains,” asserted Turkey’s foreign ministry, which, once again, called for the formation of a historical commission to “shed light” on history.
In response to a question about whether Ankara reacted to Macron’s announcement, France’s foreign ministry said that official Paris has “had several opportunities to exchange views with the Turkish authorities on this issue. They have been informed of our positions just as we have been informed of theirs.”
“In establishing this day of commemoration, the President is fulfilling his well-known pledge to honor French citizens of Armenian descent,” explained the French foreign ministry.
Macron made the announcement on Tuesday evening during a gala banquet organized by the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations in France (CCAF), adding that plans were underway to declare April 24 a national day of commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.
He also clarified that prior to making the announcement he had contacted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to inform of him of his intentions.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin “strongly condemned” Macron’s statement about the Armenian Genocide, reported the Anadolu news agency.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan took to Twitter to express his gratitude to Macron. His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia also thanked Macron for the designation.
“I salute the statement of Emmanuel Macron. Powerful manifestation and act of solidarity, determination to protect human rights and prevent mass atrocities,” Pashinyan wrote on Twitter.
MediaMax, Armenia
Feb 8 2019
Armenia to introduce the position of chief commissioner for Diaspora
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has announced that the discussions on the government structure are completed.
Pashinyan on reducing the number of ministries: The aim isn’t to save money
“Armenia will have twelve ministries. Prime Minister’s staff will include a chief commissioner for Diaspora affairs, who is going to serve as the Prime Minister’s representative in contacts with the Diaspora and manage Armenia-Diaspora relations on behalf of the PM,” Pashinyan said in a Facebook post.
The changes to the government structure include the merge of Ministry of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure.
Transport and high technologies will be managed by different bodies after the foundation of a ministry of high technologies and military industry.
The Ministry of Agriculture will be included in the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments.
The ministries of culture and sport are supposed to form parts of the Ministry of Education and Science.
The new government structure first must be approved by the National Assembly of Armenia.
RFE/RL Report
Health Ministry Seeks Indoor Smoking Ban In Armenia
February 08, 2019
Marine Khachatrian
Armenia’s Ministry of Health has called for a blanket ban on smoking in cafes, restaurants and all other indoor public places in the country.
A relevant bill drafted by the ministry was sent to the Armenian government for discussion and approval earlier this week.
Health Minister Arsen Torosian is actively promoting the initiative on his Twitter page. “The time has come!!!” Torosian wrote on Wednesday. “Choice must be made now!!! Move to healthier world or stay in sick world?”
“From now on I won’t visit any restaurant or cafe in Armenia that allows indoor smoking until our new tobacco control law is adopted,” he tweeted in English on
Thursday. “I will also promote all restaurants that voluntarily prohibit smoking NOW!”
Torosian attached to that tweet a selfie with Environment Minister Erik Grigorian. The two men were pictured in a rare smoke-free restaurant in Yerevan.
Armenia is a nation of heavy smokers with few restrictions on tobacco sales and use. According to Ministry of Health estimates, 55 percent of Armenian men are regular smokers. Medics blame this for a high incidence of lung cancer among them.
The smoking rate among Armenian women is much lower: 3 percent. But in Yerevan an estimated 10 percent of women aged between 30 and 40 are tobacco addicts.
Armenian authorities have already attempted to curb smoking in the past. A law that came into force in 2005 banned tobacco in hospitals, cultural and educational institutions and public buses.
Additional restrictions introduced a year later required other entities, including bars and restaurants, to allow smoking only in special secluded areas. But with no legal sanctions put in place against their violation, those
measures proved largely ineffectual.
In January 2018, the Ministry of Health put forward a bill that would heavily fine people smoking in indoor public places. The then Armenian government did not send the bill to the parliament before being brought down by ass protests in May.
Torosian, who was appointed as health minister in May, is behind the ministry’s latest attempt to ban indoor smoking. It is not yet clear when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet will discuss the measure.
Aleksandr Bazarchian, the director of the government-funded National Institute of Healthcare, welcomed the bill. He said it would help to create “an environment where non-smokers don’t become smokers” and encourage tobacco addicts to kick the habit.
Arusik Mkrtchian, a Yerevan-based DJ and civic activist, also hailed it, dismissing concerns already voiced by some smokers. “There is no such thing as a right to smoke [in indoor public places,]” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “There is a right to health enshrined in the constitution."
But Hrach Davidian, who owns a popular night club in downtown Yerevan, objected to the proposed ban, saying that the government should seek to restrict smoking more gradually. He claimed that the ban would force many of his customers to smoke outdoors late at night and thus disturb residents of nearby buildings.
Arminfo, Armenia
Feb 8 2019
Prosecutor: An unprecedented growth in burglaries was registered in Yerevan in 2018
Alina Hovhannisyan
By the end of 2018, 11344 cases of crime were registered in Yerevan, which is 9.9% more than a year ago. The increase is due to growth in the number of crimes of moderate severity, grave and especially grave ones.
According to the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Armenia, Yerevan Prosecutor Gevorg Baghdasaryan said this. According to him, an unprecedented growth in the capital was recorded in burglaries, which grew by 81.6% to 801 cases. In parallel with this, there is a tendency of y-o-y reduction in the number of their disclosures: according to the results of 2018, only 9.5% of the total number of cases of apartment theft in Yerevan were disclosed.
He noted that during the reporting year there was damage of 1.981.242.023 drams, of which 623.820.833 drams were restored. The main part of the reimbursed funds related to criminal cases in the points of technical inspection.
In 2018, 12 murder cases were registered in Yerevan, compared to 11 a year earlier. The rate of disclosure of these killings was 85.7%, against 80% a year earlier.
The number of crimes related to deliberate damage to health decreased by 19.8%, amounting to 368 cases, including 86 cases of intentional grave injury (against 89 in 2017) and 25 cases of robbery (against 28 in 2017).
In 2018, 111 corruption cases with abuse of official authority were registered (against 54 in 2017), 113 in bribes (against 99 in 2017). This growth is due to the active fight against corruption. As G. Baghdasaryan noted, in 2018, 563 cases were registered in Yerevan (against 335 in 2017) for moderate injuries and severe injuries as a result of traffic rules violations. According to him fatal cases with violation of traffic rules increased by 15.5%.
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 9 2019
Armenian NGO calls for dismantling a monument to Azerbaijani hero in Georgia
Georgian-based Armenian NGO has issued a statement regarding the recent developments around the statue of Karabakh war hero Michael Avagyan. A group of Georgian citizens of Azerbaijani origin held on Friday protest outside the building of Georgian parliament on Friday demanding to remove the statue of Karabakh war hero Michael Avagyan that was unveiled in Bugashen village of Georgia’s Armenian-populated Samtskhe-Javakheti region.
“The unveiling of the statue to Mikhail Avagyan in his native Bughashen village sparked an anger among members of the Azerbaijani community of Georgia and MPs of Azerbaijani origin. If the erection of a statue dedicated to memory of the man who was born in the same village may cause an outrage, we demand dismantling of the monument to Jalil Safarov in Lezhbadon village of Marneuli region, who actively participated in the Karabakh war and killed numerous Armenians, including civilians, for which was named an Azerbaijani hero,” the part of the statement reads.
The authors of the statement also condemn disinformation of the Azerbaijani sources claiming Avagyan had been a participant of the Abkhazian war, pointing he worked in Abkhazia in 1990 as a police officer and couldn’t have participated in the war that started in only 1992.
To remind, the statue is of a native to the region – Mikhael Avagyan, who died during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s, was solemnly opened on January 20 in his native village. The ceremony was attended by the Armenian Ambassador Ruben Sadoyan, the head of the district administration, the local government as well as members of the Georgian parliaments of Armenian origin. This has caused outrage on social media and a strong reaction from Azerbaijan, that even summoned the Georgian Ambassador in Baku.
ReliefWeb
Feb 8 2019
Old Conflict, New Armenia: The View from Baku
Report from International Crisis Group
The April 2018 “velvet revolution” in Armenia has brought new meetings and helped improve the dynamics of the three-decade-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Much more needs to happen to reach peace, but Azerbaijan’s old scepticism is giving way to cautious hope in diplomacy.
A series of direct contacts between Azerbaijan and Armenia have brought hope to the two countries’ decades-long impasse over Nagorno-Karabakh, a conflict that began as the Soviet Union collapsed. But while these meetings, on the heels of a change in power in the Armenian capital, bring new dynamism, much has to be done before true progress is possible.
The Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan, last met in person on 22 January 2019 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, their third meeting since the latter came to power in Yerevan last April. Their January discussion, held without mediators, came just six days after the two countries’ foreign ministers met in Paris, where they agreed to take concrete measures to prepare their populations for peace.
Thus far, these meetings’ most significant outcome is a September agreement to build a ceasefire control mechanism and a communications channel between state representatives. These two measures have calmed the Line of Contact, leading to the fewest combat casualties there since 2013. Along with Armenia’s political transformation, the reduced fighting has yielded optimism about the prospect of more meaningful talks to come.
Baku appears to believe that the peace process can now move forward even without the help of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, created in 1992 to help resolve the conflict. In December, Aliyev gave the clearest signal to this effect, saying “2019 can be a breakthrough year”. His statement received little global attention but reverberated at home. But just what breakthroughs may be possible remains uncertain.
Expectations Great and Small
For the government, the hopes of progress represent a break with the recent past. Clashes erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh in April 2016, marking a low point in relations between the two governments. Both before and after the exchange of fire, ruling elites in Azerbaijan felt that Pashinyan’s predecessor, former President and Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, was negotiating in bad faith. Today, they seem to regard their Armenian interlocutors with newfound respect.
The government has matched its rhetoric with actions, making important personnel changes that seem to be laying the groundwork for direct talks with Armenia.
Specifically, high-profile appointments in state agencies overseeing displaced persons show that Baku is taking that basket of issues more seriously. In April, Baku named a new chairman of its State Committee for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, Rovshan Rzayev, an outspoken advocate for meeting the needs of the displaced in education and housing. In December, it designated a capable career diplomat, Tural Ganjaliyev, as chairman of the Community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan – a government institution representing Azerbaijanis displaced from the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Previously, the Azerbaijani leadership had not considered the Community a priority. Civil society leaders had criticised the Community for its poor public relations, at home and abroad, which allowed the voices of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to dominate the discourse.
The move to strengthen the Community may also be a reaction to Pashinyan’s demand that Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh – who run the de facto authority in the territory – be officially represented in negotiations.
By putting a senior official in charge of the body, Azerbaijan is channelling the statement of the 1992 OSCE Council of Ministers meetingthat Karabakh Azerbaijanis are “interested parties” in the conflict just as Karabakh Armenians are. If Armenia demands the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh authorities’ participation in negotiations, it appears, Azerbaijan will counter by insisting that Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijanis also have a seat at the table. But crucially, these actions imply expectations that the table will, in fact, exist.
Much of the shift in sentiment is rooted in the change in leadership in Yerevan. Azerbaijani officials see good omens in the new Armenian government’s stated desire to introduce structural economic reforms and raise living standards. To boost its economy, they believe, Armenia would need to participate in regional economic projects. This is impossible as long as conflict persists. Not only is open trade with Azerbaijan precluded, but Turkey, which is central to the energy and transport networks that fuel the region, closed its borders with Armenia in 1993, after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution demanding the withdrawal of local Armenian forces from the Kelbajar district and other recently occupied areas of Azerbaijan. Baku refers to this state of affairs as the “self-isolation” of Armenia, and believes that the new government in Yerevan wants to end it.
The Azerbaijani authorities hope that economic pragmatism will make Armenia amenable to considering Baku’s plan for a comprehensive peace agreement – a step-by-step approach they call the “six D formula”: de-occupation, de-militarisation, demining, deployment, dialogue and development.
Amid the official optimism, some independent Azerbaijani experts have expressed doubts to Crisis Group researchers. They dismiss the recent spate of contacts as just one more round in two decades of on-and-off negotiations. As they see it, the discussions have failed to move beyond basic principles since 2007 – and there is no reason to think that they will now. They argue that the April 2016 clashes, which actually achieved some territorial gains for Baku, raised popular hopes in a military solution to the standoff.
Sceptics of the official optimism also argue that Armenia does not see its economic “self-isolation” through the same lens as do Azerbaijani authorities. Armenia has expressed readiness to open its borders with Turkey, but without pre-conditions tied to conflict resolution in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia’s economy, although limited by isolation, has not been destroyed by it, in part thanks to Russian support. This suggests that economic benefit alone may not be sufficient incentive for the Armenian side to compromise on its core concerns in Nagorno-Karabakh. As for the “six D formula”, authorities in Yerevan have never discussed such grand ideas.
Past attempts to find a solution sound a cautionary note.
Most recently, the Lavrov plan-proposed by the Russian foreign minister to the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides in 2015 (and again after the 2016 April escalation as a peace proposal) – postulated the return of some lands to Azerbaijani control, return of Azerbaijani IDPs to their homes, and a peacekeeping mission to Nagorno-Karabakh. It would have left the status of Nagorno-Karabakh unresolved for the time being. In Azerbaijan, the plan was criticised by both independent experts and government officials as “minimalist” and “defeatist” because it would have recovered only five of seven Armenian-controlled territories for Azerbaijan and would bring Russian peacekeepers to the conflict zone. Armenia also strongly opposed the Lavrov plan, because it provided no clarity on the future legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh. These positions underline the maximalist goals both sides retain for any negotiation, and bode ill for slow, step-by-step processes.
These challenges aside, Crisis Group research suggests that the dramatic changes in Armenia in 2018 and the Azerbaijani authorities’ positive spin have led to growing openness among the Azerbaijani public to a diplomatic solution. This feeling is particularly pronounced among IDPs, the people most affected as the conflict continues. But while public support may make it easier for Baku to come to the table, high public expectations combined with a history of maximalist positions can also constrain government options, particularly if negotiations prove arduous.
Hope or Fallacy
The Azerbaijani authorities should take care to manage public expectations of a process that, no matter what the parties’ intentions, lengthy and incremental. The key will be to reach intermediate understandings with the Armenian side that the government can present as tangible progress without exaggerating these achievements.
Already, local media in Azerbaijan misinterpreted the 16 January commitments of Elmar Mammadyarov and his Armenian counterpart to “prepare the population for peace”. That wording does not mean that the parties have already reached an agreement. The misperception stems in part from the fact that the U.S., French and Russian presidents used similar language at a summit in 2011, which seemed on the verge of a peace deal before talks failed. By recycling this formulation, Baku and Yerevan sent the message that peace once again was close at hand. As Rauf Mirgadirov, a well-known expert, said, “if the sides have not agreed to some elements of a peace agreement, then there is nothing to tell people. Ultimately, you are not preparing the population for anything’”. Should the great expectations – especially among IDPs – be dashed, the damage to public faith in diplomacy might be long-lasting.
In fact, the Azerbaijani leadership has not said how it plans to prepare the population for peace.Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijanis have expressed the view that such preparation should include contact between Karabakh Azerbaijanis and Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. But the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians have long rejected the notion of “intercommunity dialogues”.
The fact is that preparation of the public for peace implies preparation of the public for long negotiations and the potential for compromise. This includes both public debate and more transparency about what is happening at the negotiating table. More engagement of Azerbaijani and Armenian civil society groups alongside official negotiations could also be valuable to underscore the simple proposition that peace is possible with the other side, preferable to a military solution, and should involve some gains for Armenia as well. Moreover, given the likely long-time frame for talks, a symbolic, humanitarian gesture such as an exchange of detainees could help keep the momentum going. As one Azerbaijani official told Crisis Group: “Notwithstanding the population’s decreased trust in diplomatic negotiations, if they see a tangible result, even a minimal one, it could dramatically change their thinking about possibility of resolution via talks”.
Azerbaijan has begun taking necessary steps forward, such as the personnel changes noted above and the marked adjustments to government rhetoric. These tactical shifts, however, sidestep the elephant in the room: both parties must understand – and make sure the respective populations understand – that to succeed, a peace process will be painful and protracted and must at least begin as open-ended.
This commentary is co-published with Italy’s Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale, which first published it here on 6 February 2019.
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