cease-fire violations by azeris

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

French MP urges to withdraw Turkey from NATO

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16:38, 25 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. French lawmaker Valérie Boyer urged to remove Turkey from NATO after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insulted President of France Emmanuel Macron.

“Erdogan again insulted the President of France. I ask to apply new strong measures, such as recalling our Ambassador, withdrawing Turkey from the NATO, ending all negotiations for joining the EU, imposing economic sanctions”, the French MP said.

France has recalled its Ambassador from Turkey for consultations following the incident that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that French President Emmanuel Macron needs “mental treatment”.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1032700.html?fbclid=IwAR0Ktzq7b-CQI4PHt5a_TX-5Dy6pqNTjQtllhgZuKmP_RP8lCTZJ8ykivaQ

 

[Yervant1]

The appeasing must end, erDOGan only understands force!

 

Armenpress.am

EU considers Erdogan’s remarks addressed to Macron unacceptable

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16:58, 25 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. The European Union considers unacceptable Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron where he said that the French President needs “mental treatment, EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said on Twitter.

“The statements of the Turkish President addressed to the French President are unacceptable. We call on Turkey to stop that dangerous confrontation chain”, Borrell said.

He also stated that the conclusions of the European Council contain a real proposal for restoring the relations with Turkey, however, added that the political will of the Turkish authorities is needed for this positive agenda.

“Otherwise, Turkey will be further isolated”, he said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1032703.html?fbclid=IwAR1v9kPyujIic9zDbpAFc1SNtxwQRcck4ZeklqnADpdDlIlzvOhLbw6HtSI

 

 

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Analysis shows video of Azeri soldier executing wounded Armenian serviceman is authentic - Ombudsman

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17:10, 25 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. The Human Rights Defender of Artsakh Artak Beglaryan has said that the analysis of the video that emerged October 24 showing the execution of a heavily wounded Armenian soldier of the Artsakh Defense Army by an Azerbaijani serviceman are authentic images.

“We recorded this case at the first phase of publication yesterday. Our analysis shows that it is a real video from the recent clashes, where an Azerbaijani soldier executes an Armenian heavily wounded soldier. So, international community keeps being blind, Azerbaijan continues war crimes,” he tweeted.

Editing by Stepan Kocharyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1032704.html?fbclid=IwAR1PJbogQyX6LpUudFmZrQ_MbtTIMCHaEW64-_n7T9dCh46WiBuovVyPtSk

[Yervant1]

We are waiting! We'll see if it's just talk or fact, how about talking to your buddy erDOGan!!!!!!!!

 

Armenpress.am

Trump promises to easily solve Nagorno Karabakh conflict: Updated

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22:14, 25 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. President of the US Donald Trump promised to easily solve Nagorno Karabakh conflict, ARMENPRESS reports, Trump said during a pre-election campaign in New Hampshire, October 25 rally.

''So now we have Armenia. Look at Armenia, they are incredible people, they are fighting like hell, and you know what we're going to get something done because you know the Armenians have had a tough go. In fact, when I was in yesterday Ohio, I went to various stops. In Ohio we had a tremendous group of Armenians with the flag and the whole thing, the spirit. And the problems that they have, and death and the fighting and everything else. That's going to be okay. I call it an easy one. Go and tell this to the people. Armenia. It's easy to solve if you know what to do'', Trump said.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1032727.html?fbclid=IwAR3EjMGA_iod4hYB2CZBB0SOeFvM43pOIsCNaDw9F-selLzJhJH-DQ3Ubag

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Nikol Pashinyan expects India to recognize independence of Nagorno Karabakh

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22:42, 25 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan gave an interview to Indian WION TV, answering the question what he expects from India and the international community in general for preventing Azerbaijani and Turkish aggression against Artsakh.

''I expect from New Delhi what I expect from other representatives of the international community – record that Turkey has organized the transportation of terrorists and mercenaries to Azerbaijan and that this war should not have started without Turkey's intervention, record that the terrorists groups of Azerbaijan and Turkey started the attack , record that the Armenian people in Nagorno Karabakh are under existential threat, under genocidal risk, and assess the principle of ‘'remedial secession'' acceptable for this case and recognize the independence of Nagorno Karabakh'', ARMENPRESS reports PM Pashinyan as saying.

To the question how long the war can continue and if the Armenian side is preparing for a long-lasting war, Nikol Pashinyan said that the people of Nagorno Karabakh should struggle for ensuring its security until the end. ''But I hope our diplomatic efforts will stop the war as soon as possible'', Pashinyan said.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1032731.html?fbclid=IwAR2U3ohcyM0zO7cJlkzGAkxC0ws7CZ9OuJw0LRJAoNTqhKi--fTpM-7gqeQ

[Yervant1]

CIVILNET.AM

25 October, 2020 02:07

By Michael Krikorian

If you can imagine a priest who was a badass, you’d get Father Varazdat, a priest who wears two uniforms.

Father Varazdat Najaryan stands - a rock solid 6-foot, two inches - in front of the Holy Savior Church in downtown Stepanakert dressed in his black priest robe and pulls it aside revealing his army fatigues. He’s heading today to the front lines of the war. He knows war well. He was in two of them as a member of Armenia’s Special Forces Unit.

But, these days he goes to the front in hopes of inspiring the spirituality of the men fighting the invading Azerbaijanis.

“First, we go to the front to inspire the soldiers, to strengthen and encourage their faith, to expel fear from them,” Najaryan says. “But what often happens is the opposite. They inspire us. We see their honor and courage and we are strengthened.”

On the morning of September 27, Najaryan was at home in Yerevan preparing for service at St. Anna Church when someone yelled out, “They are shooting at Armenia.”

That was the beginning of the Azerbaijani offensive to take Artsakh, the mountainous autonomous region also known as Nagorno Karabakh. Instantaneously, Father Varazdat felt the call of duty. “I knew I had to be here. The earth of Armenia was calling me.”

Soon he was at the church in Stepanakert and then to the front lines, a varying, ever changing battlefield, that has found him in many places and often transforming himself. “You go to the war as a priest, but once you are there, you turn into a soldier. A Kalashnikov is never far away from me.”

Still, having seen so much, he offers his take on war and compares the AK47 to faith. “Yes, you need a rifle, it helps, of course. It is a strong weapon. But, an even stronger weapon is spirituality. Confidence in good faith is an actual physical weapon. It gives you real physical strength. Not only in a spiritual, mental way, but in an actual muscular way. Your arms are stronger. Your legs are stronger. You are more focused. Your determination mounts.”

And, he says, if you’re fortunate to be surrounded by similar fighters – and Armenians are – it only increases your instincts to fight and survive and surmount the odds. “You are not only fighting for yourself; you are fighting for the 100 around you, behind you and to your sides.”

He talks about the “many miracles” the soldiers in Martouni, in Martakert have told him. When pressed, he tells of one tale.

“A soldier had a thick New Testament in his breast pocket in front of his heart. He was hit by a projectile and the Bible stopped it from hurting him.”

What book of the Bible, he is asked. Was it Luke? Matthew?

Father Varazdet Najaryan smiles and says “The next time I see him, I will find out.”

Also Read: U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo meets Armenia, Azerbaijan Foreign Ministers

Michael Krikorian is a writer from Los Angeles. He was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and for the Fresno Bee. He writes under the pseudonym "Jimmy Dolan" for the Mozza Tribune. His website is www.KrikorianWrites.com and his first novel is called "Southside".

https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/10/25/On-Karabakh-Frontline-Faith-Remains-Key-Weapon/403923

[Yervant1]

CIVILNET.AM

25 October, 2020 07:23

By Eric Hacopian

I have spent my adult life as a political professional and a secular leftist living in the United States, and the past four weeks have shattered many of my illusions about the world. What we need to understand, living in this moment, is not political language, but moral and prophetic language. What we need is a modern Sermon of the Mount and the Sermon of the Damned.

1- Blessed are the people of Artsakh, who in their resistance, are the true modern heirs of the Spanish Republic and the besieged civilians of Sarajevo.

2- Blessed are the 18 and 19 year old conscripts who have given their lives defending the graves of their ancestors and temples of their Gods.

3- Blessed are the old people and the children living in the basements of Stepanakert refusing the fate of their ancestors to be driven off their land.

4- Blessed are the women lighting candles and praying in churches every day for the safety of their loved one, who in their fate refuse to believe that evil will have the last word in history.

5- Blessed are the Armenian people who in their unity in the world have proven Dostoevsky correct, when he said, “Love in action is a harsh yet beautiful thing compared to love in dreams.”

6- Blessed are the school mothers who get together all day to weave camouflage meshes every day to protect their children from the evil drones.

7- Blessed are the middle school kids who get together every day to pack away boxes of food to be send to the volunteers at the front.

8- Blessed is the 60 year old security guard from our building who volunteered to go to the front to fight alongside his son.

9- Blessed are the brave journalist from around the world willing to give their lives to cover the aggression against Artsakh despite being targeted to be killed by the regime in Baku.

10- Blessed are the volunteers returning to Armenia from around the world to fight fascism in the mountains and valleys of Artsakh.

1- Damned are Human Rights organizations who refuse to condemn the beheading of Armenian soldiers and the execution of civilians in Artsakh.

2- Damned are the Western diplomats and their “both sides” statements. They are pathetic lackeys, half men, who in their moral blindness see equality between the demands of the oppressor and the rights of the oppressed.

3- Damned the Georgian states pro-fascist neutrality that allows the daily transport of death and jihadists through its air space while lying about it. They are truly the moral heirs of Stalin.

4- Damned are the Israeli arms dealers. A disgrace to their ancestors who long ago taught the world that God is a God of justice.

5- Damned the United Nations who chooses respecting borders established by Stalin over investigate war crimes being committed against civilians in Artsakh.

6- Damn the Western Press who in its selective objectivity serves the interests of genocidal oppressors.

7- Damned are the moral relativists who don’t believe evil exists in the world. It does; we have seen it for four straight weeks.

8- Damn Erdogan, the latest fascist leader barfed up by the last unreformed fascist state in Europe.

9- Damn the international left, that due to its idiotic identitarian politics refuses to speak up for the oppressed people of Artsakh who don’t necessarily check mark the traditional victim boxes people are used to defending.

10- Damn NATO, a front organization for western arms dealers whose second biggest member is the biggest state sponsor of terror in our times.

I end with a question for the western world. You have told us for years that Russia and Iran are evil rogues states and supporters of terrorism, but let me ask you this: why is it that they are the only ones not doing evil here? Why are the Iranians the only ones to condemn the beheading of Armenian soldiers when none of the “civilized” leaders of Western Europe have?

Also Read: On Karabakh Frontline, Faith Remains a Key Weapon

Eric Hacopian is a U.S. political analyst and a CIVILNET commentator.

https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/10/25/Sermons-About-the-Mount/403934

[Yervant1]

CIVILNET.AM

25 October, 2020 07:51

When American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier in Monaco in 1956 there was a lot of media covering the wedding. A quarter century later, at the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles in London there were throngs of press clamoring for photos. And in 2014, the media hullabaloo to get to the marriage of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in Italy reached a feverish pitch.

But, all those weddings – and likely every other wedding in history – can’t compare to the percentage of media present at the October 24, 2020 wedding of Mariam, 25, and Hovik, 25, in Shushi, Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh).

Accompanying the couple were two friends plus the priest. Surrounding them were 60 members of the press from at least nine countries. That works out to 92% of those in attendance were media, a record unlikely to be ever broken.

Sometime before war broke out on September 27, when Azerbaijani forces assaulted the Armenian autonomous region known as both Nagorno Karabakh and Artsakh, Hovik and Mariam, his high school sweetheart from Martuni, set October 24 as their wedding day.

When the bombs started falling, Mariam’s family fled to Yerevan, for safety, but she stayed behind in Stepanakert. Hovik was rushed to the front with his army unit.

Fighting was fierce and he lost many friends. As they lay dying, Hovik thought of his wedding and the Armenian tradition that a soldier should replace his fallen comrades with children of his own. He was determined not to delay his marriage. To top it off, it is considered bad luck to postpone a wedding.

So, the plans held. Hovik received permission from his military superiors to have a two-day leave to get married in Shushi at the St. Ghazanchetsots church on the anointed day. Then, on October 8, the church was severely damaged by Azerbaijani air attacks. The church was attacked twice.

But the wedding was bound and determined to happen. Hovik and Mariam had planned to keep it quiet. It would only be them and two friends - the best man and maid of honor. But, as Armenians are apt to do, somebody spilled the beans and word reached the press center in Stepanakert.

The word was out. A soldier got to leave the battlefield to marry his sweetheart in a bombed-out church. Talk about a fairytale wedding.

Also Read: On Karabakh Frontline, Faith Remains a Key Weapon

Michael Krikorian is a writer from Los Angeles. He was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and for the Fresno Bee. He writes under the pseudonym "Jimmy Dolan" for the Mozza Tribune. His website is www.KrikorianWrites.com and his first novel is called "Southside".

https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/10/25/In-a-Bombed-Out-Church-Karabakh-Soldier-Leaves-the-Battlefield-to-Marry-Sweetheart/403943

[Yervant1]

I stopped watching CNN long time ago, just like CBC here in Canada for their biased reporting. I wouldn't watch these two stations if my life depended on it! Where is the money!!!!!!! News for hire!!!!!

 

Asbarez.com

CNN’s Amanpour Used Baku’s Talking Points to Blame Armenia

October 25, 2020

http://asbarez.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screen-Shot-2020-10-24-at-1.03.51-PM.png

CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour interviews Armenia’s Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on Oct. 23

BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN

After the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington on Friday, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviewed Yerevan’s top diplomat, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan about the meeting with his U.S. counterpart, as well as the conflict.

Yet from the onset of the segment, it was obvious that the venerable journalist, who is CNN’s chief international anchor, was out to bait Mnatsakanyan and paint a picture of Azerbaijan’s military aggression against Artsakh as somehow being Armenia’s fault.

The segment, which aired on Amanpour’s eponymous program on CNN International, begins with footage of emergency crews and soldiers clearing the wreckage of a bombed building. We all have seen this footage, in its varying forms, as being the Azerbaijani city of Ganja, the site of what official Baku alleges was an Armenian attack directed at civilians. This same footage is also interspersed throughout the segment over Mnatsakanyan’s comments of the toll this aggression is taking on civilians.

Then Amanpour begins citing various United Nations resolutions adopted in 1993 and 2008—the very documents that Baku has been waving around to disregard the Karabakh conflict settlement efforts of the OSCE Minks Group co-chairs. She then cites Azerbaijan’s repeated claims of “occupied territories,” which have emboldened it to resolve the conflict through military force aided by Turkey and its military and jihadists fighters.

To convince viewers of her approach to this issue, Amanpour calls Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a “nationalist” and refers to his statement in August, 2019 in Stepanakert that “Artsakh is Armenia,” prodding Mnatsakanyan to address her allegation that Armenian nationalism is somehow behind Azerbaijan’s military aggression. At this point in the interview, Mnatsakanyan tells Amanpour that she is taking statements out of context, after which, of course, the interview was timed out and ended.

At the beginning and the end of the segment, Amanpour announced that an invitation was extended to Mnatsakanyan’s Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov who was unable to commit.

“Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan tells me ‘the civilians are dying’ and blames Azerbaijan – but is he pushing for unification with Armenia?” This is the tagline that Amanpour used to promote her interview with Mnatsakanyan on social media.

Throughout the past couple of decades Amanpour has gained a reputation for being an expert in global affairs due to her “cutting edge” reporting from international conflict zones and “hard-hitting” interviews with global leaders, like the late Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Yet on Friday she was not interviewing a world leader under whose reign hundreds of thousands were sent to their deaths. Although, since clearly she was following the Azerbaijani script, perhaps she thought Mnatsakanyan was the second coming of Gaddafi.

For three decades now, the international press has covered Artsakh as an oversimplified territorial conflict, at the center of which are “ethnic Armenians” who are living in “what is Azerbaijan.” A journalist of Amanpour’s caliber should have at least done her research, if not shown an iota of “objectivity.” But when, all along, her approach was to blame Armenia and prop up Azerbaijan, none of the facts on the ground matter.

I am not going to delve deeply into another interview Amanpour conducted Friday with Ivo Daalder, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO. Daalder warned that “there’s a possibility of an escalation of this conflict that could lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and Turkey.” In that segment, Amanpour, again using footage from the Azerbaijani defense ministry, paints Armenia as a “servant” to its Russian “master.”

Incidentally, this is not the first time that Amanpour has ignored Armenians in her coverage of global affairs.

In 2008, CNN premiered a documentary called “Scream Bloody Murder” anchored by Amanpour. There she offers a gripping look at genocide throughout history and those who witnessed and warned a deaf world about such atrocities. However, she neglected to mention the Armenian Genocide as the first such event.

After thousands of Armenians demonstrated in front of the CNN building in Los Angeles this month demanding that the cable news channel provide fair coverage of the current military aggression by Azerbaijan, the channel’s leaders were baffled by the protesters and their demands. Of course they would be if they have entrusted their “fair” coverage to their chief international anchor.

http://asbarez.com/197934/cnns-amanpour-used-bakus-talking-points-to-blame-armenia/?fbclid=IwAR0Y6_SmrV8shk5VXkO2vvyaF1-B-sXPnl57HcalyNWYlyQlwNEagSbx7e4

 

[Yervant1]

Austrian Rotax suspends supplies of engines used in Turkish Bayraktar drones

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16:23, 26 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The Austrian Rotax company has suspended the supplies of engines that are used on the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 combat drones, STANDARD reported citing the Rotax spokesperson.

“The Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles are used for targeted killings not only in the fight against the PKK and its ally Syrian militants, but also in the Karabakh conflict,” STANDARD reported.

According to STANDARD, till now Rotax didn’t feel responsible for the use of its engines because these devices are originally produced for light and ultralight aircraft and were sold to buyers also through international agencies. Turkey was supplied with these engines through Italy.

Rotax says this move is in pursuance to its parent company Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) decision, which earlier suspended supplies over the matter.

Major protests took place both in Canada and Austria when it became known that technology produced in Canada and Austria is being used in the Turkish drones that are currently used by Azerbaijan to bomb Armenians in Artsakh.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

[Yervant1]

Turkey and Azerbaijan’s disregard for ceasefire will be serious blow to Trump ahead of election

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15:08, 26 October, 2020

STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh expects that the Armenia-Azerbaijan foreign ministerial meeting scheduled for October 29 in Geneva will create the chance for restarting the political process, Artsakh presidential advisor for foreign affairs Davit Babayan told ARMENPRESS.

Babayan stressed that although the issue of recognition of Artsakh’s independence isn’t an easily solvable one, one thing is for sure – Artsakh will never part of Azerbaijan.

Babayan said he is hopeful that the October 26 ceasefire will be maintained longer than the previous ones. “We see that all [OSCE MG] co-chairing countries are involved in this work, certainly Russia’s role is underscored. The tension, the military actions could lead to large scale regional clashes, which would transform into a global confrontation, that’s why everyone has contributed efforts to stop the war and resume the political process,” Babayan said.

He attached importance to the fact that the United States made mediation efforts in the process of establishing the third ceasefire, and President Donald Trump made special emphasis about the resolution.

According to Babayan, Turkey and Azerbaijan’s disregard to Trump’s statement would be a serious blow to the US President ahead of the presidential election.

Speaking about the moods of the people in Artsakh, Babayan said there is no panic or fear, and that the people are used to such situation. “There is disappointment because the world is not active, at the same time there is excitement from the behavior of our army, our people and our friendly countries,” he said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

[Yervant1]

Calling is not enough! Canada should do better than this!

Canada calls on external parties to stay out of NK conflict

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11:26, 26 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Canada has once again called on external parties to stay out of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and the creation of ceasefire verification mechanisms.

Canadian FM François-Philippe Champagne said that he spoke to Armenian FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and also mentioned that the US facilitated talks will lead to a new ceasefire in NK.

“We continue to call on external parties to stay out of the conflict & the creation of verification mechanisms by OSCE Minsk Co-Chairs,” he tweeted.

The Azerbaijani military violated the new humanitarian ceasefire agreement just 45 minutes into the deal and launched artillery attacks at Artsakh’s military positions in the north-eastern direction, the Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said on October 26.

“Grossly violating the ceasefire agreement reached in the USA, starting from 8.45 a.m. today Azerbaijani armed forces opened artillery fire at the positions of Artsakh’s Defense Army in north-eastern direction,” Stepanyan said in a statement.

Another Azeri violation took place at 09:10. Azerbaijani forces fired 5 artillery shells at the Artsakh positions in the south-eastern direction.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

 

[Yervant1]

Spokesperson: Fire intensity in Karabakh has sharply increased

October 26, 2020 - 19:05 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The intensity of fire along the border of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has sharply increased after 5:00pm Monday, October 26, Armenian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan said on Facebook.

"The enemy is using cannon-launched and rocket artillery, including tanks, in the direction of the Defense Army positions," Stepanyan said.

Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed earlier that a humanitarian ceasefire reached on October 10 and October 17 will take effect in the morning of October 26, according to a statement released by the Governments of the United States, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on Sunday.

Azerbaijan, however, has violated the ceasefire, shelling both Armenian positions and the town of Martuni in Karabakh. One civilian was killed and two others were wounded in Avetaranots village as a result of Azerbaijani missile attacks on Monday.

Azerbaijan, with help from Turkey and Syrian and Libyan mercenaries deployed by Ankara, started a war against Karabakh (Artsakh) in the morning of September 27. The Armenian side has reported deaths and injuries both among the civilian population and the military. Foreign and local journalists too have been injured in Azeri shelling of towns and villages.

[Yervant1]

Karabakh shoots down one more Harop drone

October 26, 2020 - 18:50 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Defense Army destroyed another Israeli reconnaissance and combat drone IAI Harop of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces on Monday, October 26, Karabakh Records reports.

The Karabakh troops have shot down several Harop UAVs since the beginning of Azerbaijan's aggression on September 27. Furthermore, at least two of the Israeli-made drones have crashed on Iranian soil.

Earlier, the Armenian forces have also shot down a dozen Turkish Bayraktar drones, at least three of which have crashed in Karabakh.

Azerbaijan, with help from Turkey and Syrian and Libyan mercenaries deployed by Ankara, started a war against Karabakh (Artsakh) in the morning of September 27. The Armenian side has reported deaths and injuries both among the civilian population and the military. Foreign and local journalists too have been injured in Azeri shelling of towns and villages.

[Yervant1]

Russian airstrikes kill 56 Turkish-backed rebels in Syria

October 26, 2020 - 17:20 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - At least 56 rebel fighters were killed and 100 more injured in airstrikes by Russian warplanes on a military training camp in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The camp is located in Idlib province, close to the Turkish border and belonged to Faylaq al-Sham, an alliance of Sunni Islamist rebels aligned with Turkey, the war monitor said, according to Deutsche Welle.

Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, brokered a fragile truce alongside Turkey in March aimed at curbing the Damascus-led military offensive against the country's last remaining rebel stronghold in Idlib. The fighting has displaced nearly a million people.

The March truce has largely held, apart from intermittent airstrikes and bombardment in the area. A U.S. drone strike on Thursday killed five civilians and 17 jihadi fighters according to the Observatory.

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, have driven rebels in a pocket of territory near the border with Turkey.

Ankara sent thousands of Turkish troops into the region this year in an effort to halt the Syrian military and stem the flow of refugees into Turkey.

Syria has seen more than nine years of conflict between government and rebel fighters since the 2011 protests against President Bashar Assad.

[Yervant1]

Formula 1 racer Verstappen donates to Armenia's insurance fund for soldiers

October 26, 2020 - 14:42 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Renowned Formula 1 racer Max Verstappen from The Netherlands has made a donation to Armenia's Insurance Foundation for Servicemen, the Foundation said on Facebook.

Verstappen came in the 3rd place in the Portuguese GP on Sunday, October 26. To celebrate his victory he donated $100 to the foundation and left a note on the website: "I couldn’t enjoy today’s victory without making a donation to the fund of Armenian soldiers’ insurance, who sacrifice their lives for their homeland every single day!"

Azerbaijan, with help from Turkey and Syrian and Libyan mercenaries deployed by Ankara, started a war against Karabakh (Artsakh) in the morning of September 27. The Armenian side has reported deaths and injuries both among the civilian population and the military. Foreign and local journalists too have been injured in Azeri shelling of towns and villages.

Donations can be made to Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, which has launched a fundraising campaign to support humanitarian efforts in Karabakh.

[Yervant1]

"Keep heart": Mel Gibson says he is praying for Armenians

October 26, 2020 - 13:45 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Hollywood actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson has expressed solidarity with the Armenian people, amid Azerbaijan's aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), saying that he praying for the Armenians.

"I am very saddened to hear of the recent conflict in Artsakh and Armenia. I have many friends in the U.S., and they've all told me of your flight, your loss of life. I've always had a great deal of respect for the Armenian people, a people of great resilience, of great heart, and the grace to deal with great hardship, as history has shown," Gibson said.

"As a nation and people, I know that you know who God is, and that there is absolutely no limit to his capability. I pray for you in this time of trouble, and pray that he helps you, and I also pray that a peaceful solution can be reached, and that the great powers of the world will step in, recognize your situation and help you achieve that peace. Stay strong, keep heart, and God bless you."

Azerbaijan, with help from Turkey and Syrian and Libyan mercenaries deployed by Ankara, started a war against Karabakh (Artsakh) in the morning of September 27. The Armenian side has reported deaths and injuries both among the civilian population and the military. Foreign and local journalists too have been injured in Azeri shelling of towns and villages.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Yervant1

[Yervant1]

The author forgets to add Israel to the names of countries that are profiting from this war! Israel supplies over 60% of azeri weapons.

Jerusalem Post

Oct 26 2020

Turkey, Iran, Russia benefit from Azerbaijan, Armenia conflict - analysis

Today the three countries, along with China, help determine more regional and global affairs as the US has retreated from dealing with foreign conflicts and what many see as “endless wars.”

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN OCTOBER 26, 2020 15:00

A month of fighting has taken place between Armenia and Azerbaijan, leaving cities smoldering, thousands of civilians forced to flee and thousands of soldiers killed and wounded, while regional countries benefit from the suffering.

The war against Armenia was fueled by Turkey which supplied drones, sent Syrian extremist mercenaries and encouraged Baku to attack Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh in September. A month later, Azerbaijan has been slowly pushing back Armenian fighters in a grinding war.

On October 25, US President Donald Trump congratulated Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on a ceasefire agreement. It was brokered after US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun had met with his Armenian and Azerbaijan counterparts. It is not clear if the latest agreement will hold or if it is only temporary and for humanitarian reasons.

Turkey continues to push for more fighting. Turkish media, which is entirely pro-government and does not permit criticism of Ankara’s leadership, has daily, splashy headlines encouraging people to cheer the war.

Anadolu News Agency, for instance, has a section of the homepage where one can experience the “frontline” along with numerous stories about how Armenia has committed “war crimes” and has violated a “ceasefire” and then stories about Ankara offering military support to Azerbaijan. Turkish media makes it clear that the war against Armenia is a Turkish war, all about making Ankara dominate the region and sell its drones abroad.

Turkish media makes the government’s role in the conflict clear through reports that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is operating in Armenia, a totally invented story with no evidence – which is part of how Ankara’s media repeatedly invents stories of “PKK terrorists” operating in areas Turkey wants to invade.

Turkey has claimed the “PKK” operates from Sinjar in Iraq and Syria, even though there have been no “terrorist” attacks on Turkey from these areas. In 2018 Ankara claimed it had to invade and ethnically cleanse Afrin in Syria, expelling Kurds and minorities, and destroying churches and Yazidi graveyards, to fight “PKK terrorists.” It created the same rhetoric to justify war against Armenia.

IRAN AND Russia have also benefited from the fighting by being made to appear as responsible countries pushing for a ceasefire. While Turkey pushes tensions, these two countries claim they want the fighting to end but that they also want international law observed. Azerbaijan claims that Nagorno-Karabakh is its territory based on international law. While that same law would not justify war to attack the area, Azerbaijan receives support from Moscow and Tehran on this point. They want mediation, whereas Ankara wants conflict.

Overall, the three countries already worked to partition Syria into spheres of influence and Russia and Turkey have also likewise partitioned Libya, which means the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is not a conflict between these regional powers, but one in which they manage the conflict together and benefit economically because both sides buy their arms to continue fighting.

The fighting so far has destroyed a massive amount of Armenian material. Drones have been key to revolutionizing Azerbaijan’s war effort. Baku has used precision strikes to make tanks and artillery appear obsolete. They have also used drones to hunt down Armenia's air defense systems. More than 100 Armenian T-72 tanks have been destroyed according to videos, and dozens of other vehicles have been destroyed.

Armenia also claims hundreds of Azerbaijan vehicles and drones have been downed. It is impossible to confirm the Armenian claims because there are few videos as evidence. Baku puts out videos almost daily of drones striking vehicles. It is believed that about 1,000 Armenian soldiers have been killed in fighting.

Most of the fighting is done within the areas around Nagorno-Karabakh, especially near the Iranian border. This means that Armenia and Azerbaijan are not directly at war but that Baku is technically only fight the Artsakh Armenian republic in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan was careful not to expand the war into the rest of Armenia.

However, Armenian rockets have fallen on Azerbaijan cities, leading to claims of war crimes. Similarly an execution video of two Armenians being killed has led to complains of Azerbaijan war crimes. Both sides have shelled civilian towns and cities. Turkey has sent extremists from Syria to fight Armenians, part of Ankara’s pro-Islamist zeal that exports extremists to fight against minorities and terrorize Christians. This appears to have led the US embassy in Baku to warn about terrorism.

AZERBAIJAN IS making steady progress on its frontlines. Russia helped broker a ceasefire on October 10 that was immediately violated. Moscow has tried mediation since the fighting in July and had hosted meetings in September. Azerbaijan has ruled out concessions, sensing it has the upper hand. Russia and the US had urged a ceasefire since September 28 but the US refused to play much of a role.

Armenian protests worldwide have tried to pressure France, Canada, the US and others to stop the conflict and stop arms sales to Turkey. Many countries, like Germany, appear to prefer the arms sales over mediating conflicts like this one. This has enabled the conflict to continue.

Iran has been concerned about destabilization on its border, sending troops and armored vehicles and saying that the conflict could spill over if everyone is not careful. Although Russia appeared like it might push a second ceasefire mediation on October 21, it was left to the US to help broker the new ceasefire on October 25.

It is believed that half of the people in Armenian-controlled Nagorna-Karabakh have fled fighting. Some 75,000 have fled in some areas, according to reports. Azerbaijanis are being encouraged to return to areas that they claim. The US has expressed concern about shelling of the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Nagorno-Karabakh. The US refused to name Azerbaijan as the culprit, although Armenians said Azerbaijan shelled the site.

After Baku’s gains, it is unclear if the country will stop the conflict at this stage. It has achieved gains, but likely wants to show it has “liberated” more to justify the conflict. Turkey, having exported Syrian extremists, many of them known for ethnic-cleansing of Kurds and brutal attacks on minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, will want to keep the Syrians in Azerbaijan so it can have a permanent occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. This is Ankara’s model in Cyprus, Libya, Syria and Iraq. There will likely be an expanding Turkish presence now in Azerbaijan, and Turkey will try to prod Azerbaijan into more conflicts.

US global leadership suffered another loss in the conflict as Washington showed that for a month it could achieve little and didn’t bother sending high level diplomats. This is part of the Trump strategy of “America first” and not dealing with what he calls “faraway places.” This is a major departure from the rules-based international order envisioned in the 1990s when the US was a global hegemon.

Today Turkey, Iran, Russia and China help determine more regional and global affairs as the US has retreated from dealing with foreign conflicts and what many see as “endless wars.” This has led to unprecedented levels of new conflicts, many of them fueled by countries like Turkey that prod others to use a “might makes right” approach to foreign policy.

The war in Armenia and Azerbaijan is part of that. Frozen since the 1990s, Baku claims that the international community failed to help it get back territories. It tried various processes, such as the “Madrid Principles” and “Minsk Group” talks.

Since the international community and its various discussions have tended to fail to end conflicts like the one in Syria, many countries see the Iranian, Russian, China and Turkish approach as more appropriate than waiting for the EU, NATO, UN or US to do anything. The people of Ganja and Stepanakert, under shelling during the recent war, have paid the price.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/turkey-iran-russia-benefit-from-azerbaijan-armenia-conflict-analysis-646951?fbclid=IwAR2oyABXARXefG4dMoTUVIjYggi6-Wy5uP_OZ7FDds_4lhFoi8risExTEhk

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Yervant1

[Yervant1]

UN and it's subsidiaries are a joke, politicians are all corrupt! Where is the money?

The Art Newspaper

Oct 26 2020

Armenian monuments in line of fire in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Unesco accused of turning a blind eye to destruction of heritage sites, as bitter skirmish between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the disputed territory drags on

DORIAN BATYCKA

26th October 2020 11:53 BST


Armenia has accused Azerbaijan military of shelling the Ghazanchetsots Holy Saviour Cathedral in Shushi, one of the largest Armenian churches in the world Photo: Celestino Arce/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Heritage and archaeological sites are under renewed threat as fighting resumes between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The most recent flare-up comes after a ceasefire appears to have been violated within hours after it was brokered by US authorities yesterday. Two previous ceasefires brokered by Russia also failed to hold.

Since the beginning of the latest dispute on 27 September, hundreds of people have died, and thousands have been displaced in what has been described as the fiercest conflict between the two countries in more than 25 years.

Nagorno-Karabakh, known as the Republic of Artsakh, lies within the borders of Azerbaijan, but contains an Armenian ethnic majority and has been under the control of Armenian troops since 1994. The area is home to numerous monuments of religious and civil importance, memorials and various forms of art, including the remnants of ancient settlements, some of which have now come under attack.

On 8 October, a spokesman for the Armenian defence ministry said on social media that the Ghazanchetsots Holy Saviour Cathedral in Shushi, one of the largest Armenian churches in the world, was shelled by Azerbaijan. He posted pictures of broken pews, a large hole in the ceiling and rubble scattered across the 19th-century building. Azerbaijan quickly denied bombing the cathedral. A defence ministry spokesperson said that, “the information about the damage to the church in Shushi has nothing to do with the activities of the Azerbaijani army.” Azerbaijani forces “do not target historic, cultural and especially religious buildings and monuments”, he added.

Meanwhile, according to a 3 October report by the archaeologist Hamlet Petrosyan, the 2,000-year-old Hellenistic Armenian city of Tigranakert was also struck by Azerbaijani artillery. “The best-preserved city of the Hellenistic and Armenian civilisations” of the Caucasus “is in the area of intensive war activity,” Petrosyan’s team said in a statement, noting that it had been “shelled several times”. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan have released information about the site.

Museums support the military

In Azerbaijan, museums have publicly supported the war effort. On 7 October the National Art Museum and the National Carpet Museum, both in the capital of Baku, announced they would be making a donation to the Azerbaijani armed forces. “The glorious sons and daughters of the homeland gathering all their strength on the front line and at the rear are ready to fight against the enemy on the battlefield for the liberation of the occupied lands of Azerbaijan and the restoration of the territorial integrity of the country, as is our civic duty,” the National Art Museum of Azerbaijan said in a press statement announcing its donation of 3,000 manat ($1,800).

According to Simon Maghakyan, an Armenian political scientist now based in Denver, Colorado, Azerbaijan has been deliberately shelling sacred sites to wipe out evidence of an Armenian Christian past and thus any territorial claims. Azerbaijan denies the charge.

"All 4,000 cultural heritage sites of Nagorno-Karabakh are in danger of severe damage" SIMON MAGHAKYAN, ARMENIAN POLITICAL SCIENTIST

Last year, in the online publication Hyperallergic, Maghakyan detailed Azerbaijan’s destruction of Armenian heritage in Nakhichevan, another formerly contested territory, including 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars (intricate cross stones) and 22,000 tombstones.

Now, Maghakyan says, “it is fair to say that all 4,000 cultural heritage sites of Nagorno-Karabakh are in danger of severe damage”, including the historic town of Amaras and its fifth-century Mausoleum of Saint Grigoris; and the 13th-century monastery at Dadivank, which was established as a chapel in the first century.

On 9 October, Armenia’s minister of culture, Arayik Harutyunyan, appealed to Unesco to condemn the bombing of Ghazanchetsots Cathedral. “The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime. Targeting cultural heritage sites, especially in war situations, is strictly prohibited by a number of international conventions, including the Unesco Hague Convention. Unfortunately, when Azerbaijan erased the entire Armenian cultural heritage of Nakhichevan between 1997 and 2006, it didn’t receive appropriate condemnation from Unesco. That silence resulted in the erasure of 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars and 22,000 tombstones.”

He added: “We call upon Unesco and all other relevant organisations to urgently and unequivocally condemn Azerbaijan’s continuous aggression and targeting of cultural heritage sites and other cultural and civilian infrastructures. We are convinced that the timely actions by Unesco and other world-leading organisations will stop the further destruction of cultural monuments and civilian infrastructures in Artsakh.”

View from a broken window of a building near the Shushi cathedral, Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, after Azerbaijan shelling that destroyed part of roof in a double attack on October 11, 2020 (Photo by Celestino Arce/NurPhoto)

The same day, Unesco posted a statement on its website condemning the recent violence on both sides, stating: “Unesco expresses its grave concern with the continuing escalation of violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, which is causing rising civilian casualties and inflicting damage on civilian infrastructure, including on schools, cultural and religious sites, and also affecting the safety of journalists.”

Maghakyan accuses Unesco of turning a blind eye to the destruction, saying it has been “complicitly silent toward Azerbaijan’s acts of cultural genocide.” He believes Unesco has been slow to react for two reasons: Azerbaijan’s financial contributions to the cash-strapped institution (Azerbaijan donated $5m to Unesco after the US pulled its funding in 2013), and its links to two former directors general, Koichiro Matsuura and Irina Bokova.

In 2017, the Guardian revealed that Bokova’s husband, Kalin Mitrev, accepted a consulting fee of at least €425,000 ($500,000) linked to a public relations company that funnelled an estimated $3bn into various influential groups and individuals to promote the Azerbaijani government on the international stage. Bokova could not be reached for comment, but in 2017 Mitrev told the Guardian that the payments were for legitimate business consultancy. He denied all knowledge of the conduit used to execute them or the original source of the funds.

Meanwhile, Matsuura served as a trustee on the state-supported Baku International Multiculturalism Centre and was awarded a diplomatic service medal from the country in July this year. Matsuura could not be reached for comment.

Unesco declined to comment on these allegations, referring us to its statement condemning the violence.

In 2019, the Unesco World Heritage Committee meeting took place in Baku. At the meeting, Unesco’s assistant director general for culture, Ernesto Ottone Ramirez asked both sides to allow Unesco investigators into Nagorno-Karabakh. The request, however, went unmet.

Following the recent escalation of hostilities, a group of prominent intellectuals and scholars including Noam Chomsky, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Tariq Ali, Viken Berberian, Judith Herman and the philosophers Cornel West and Seyla Benhabib published an open letter in the Los Angeles Review of Books on 16 October calling for a ceasefire “to end the bloodshed and human and cultural carnage” in Nagorno-Karabakh. “We remind you that the site of the bombing includes archaeological sites such as the ancient Armenian city of Tigranakert,” they wrote.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/amp/news/monuments-in-line-of-fire-in-nagorno-karabakh-conflict?fbclid=IwAR1U4gONSrnmJP3EdcE4Z8IF7qODkjoMGP3iPpa-KNjYRf_5J4POJmFjjIw

 

[Yervant1]

MIDDLE EAST

Russia knocking Turkish drones from Armenian skies

Moscow has unleashed its 'Belladonna' drone killer system in Armenia to counter Azerbaijan's use of Turkish-made Bayraktar armed drones

By STEPHEN BRYEN

OCTOBER 26, 2020

 

The electronic warfare system is known as “Belladonna”, a poisonous plant that gets its name from Renaissance women who used its extract for tinctures to dilate the pupils of their eyes, ostensibly to make them more attractive.

While Belladonna translates to “beautiful woman” in English, in Russian it has a second meaning: it is the name of a Russian electronic jamming system now credited with knocking out at least nine Turkish Bayraktar armed drones used by Azerbaijan to target Armenia.

If true – and no one has denied it – the system is now operating around the sensitive Russian military base at Gyumri in Armenia, far from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area.

In Russian, Belladonna is known as “Krasukha.” The Krasukha jamming system was rushed to Armenia to counter the successful use of both armed drones such as the Bayraktar and suicide drones like the Israel-made loitering munition known as Harop.

The Turks have heavily advertised the success of Bayraktar in three theaters – Syria, Libya and now in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkey and Azerbaijan have released numerous “kill videos” of the drone blowing up tanks, armored vehicles and trucks – and killing many soldiers in the process.

Bayraktar is a fairly conventional armed drone that is navigated to the target area using GPS. The drone’s Wescam MX-15D multispectral camera system is made in Canada while its BRP-Rotax engine that generates about 100 horse-power is produced in Austria.

Canada has halted the sale of the Wescam camera system to Turkey because of its use on Bayraktar drones in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. But Canada has been silent about Rotax engine exports, although the Austrian company is owned by Canada’s Bombardier Recreational Products.

No doubt there are other Bayraktar parts that are made in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

The Krasukha is a broadband multifunctional jamming station manufactured by KRET (“Concern Radio Electronic Technologies”), part of the Rostec Group. Since 2014, the company has been under US sanctions for its activities in Ukraine and in Crimea.

KRET consists of more than 70 member companies in electronics spread out across Russia while KRET itself acts as a manufacturing group holding company with about 50,000 employees.

Krakushka was designed primarily to protect areas in and around Russia’s military bases where its powerful transmitter can blank out airborne radars. The Russians, however, have also found Krakuska useful in counteracting armed drones.

Krakushka was used successfully in defending the Hmeymim Air Base in Syria that was attacked by armed, if not primitive, swarming drones. An earlier strike by such drones had caused significant damage at the base, destroying some aircraft, and alarmed Russia’s military about a significant vulnerability at Hmeymim.

So much so, in fact, that Russia’s defense ministry brought back some of the drones that crashed and complained bitterly about the spread of drone technology in the Middle East.

The Russians might also have complained about China, which supplied the engines, the cameras and the GPS receivers and radios in the drones that were home-built by ISIS and others. But, of course, they did not want to stir trouble with their Beijing ally. For the record, the Russians said the swarming drones caused no damage.

The Russian press claims that at least nine Bayraktar drones were shot down on or about October 19. Some photos of the drones that crashed have been released by Armenia and have appeared in the Russian press, principally at Avia.pro.

The photos show smashed up Bayraktar drones, but no sign they were hit by ground fire. According to the press reports, the Krakushka jamming system caused the crashes.

The version of Krakushka being used in Armenia is the latest model Krakushka-4. The system is truck-mounted, but is used primarily to defend Russian bases. So far as is known, it is not being used by Armenian forces, nor is it being deployed in the Nagorno-Karabakh area.

Krakushka jams communications in the same way it blanks out radars; it does not, however, control the jammed drones. It would appear that the Bayraktar drone does not have a “return to home” capability if it loses contact with its base station and if GPS signals are jammed. Most drones with the capability to return to their home systems rely on GPS to do so.

The Russians have made clear that the Turkish drones were shot down in the airspace around the Gyumri military base, which in Armenia is near the Turkish border and about 487 kilometers from the nearest major Azerbaijani base at Ganja.

The reported communications range of the Turkish drones is 150 kilometers, so the Azerbaijanis and the Turks would have had to move their launch point elsewhere to be within operational range unless the communications range is greater than reported.

But the more profound question is why would the Azerbaijanis and the Turks fly armed drones near Russian bases, risking Russia’s entrance into the conflict. Gyumri serves as home to the 102nd Russian military base controlled by Russia’s Southern Military District.

Were the drones sent on a one-way mission to fly over the area to put the Russians on notice? It is interesting that in the photos of the crashed drones there is no sign of any air-to-ground missiles such as the MAM-L smart micro munition built by Turkey’s Rokestan.

Neither Azerbaijan nor Turkey has made any statement about having nine of their drones knocked out in or around Gyumri. The Russian government likewise has not made an official statement on the downed drones.

[Yervant1]

Foreign Affairs

Oct 26 2020

No Compromise in Sight for Armenia and Azerbaijan A Century-Long Search for an Impossible Victory in Nagorno-Karabakh

By Thomas de WaalOctober 26, 2020

For a century, conflict has flared over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave nestled within the borders of Azerbaijan. In the 1990s, Armenians believed they had won a military victory over Azerbaijan when they took over the disputed region and many surrounding Azerbaijani areas. In late September, Azerbaijan set out to prove them wrong, launching a new military offensive that has taken many of those territories back and given thousands of displaced Azerbaijanis hope of returning to the lands they still consider home. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that close to 5,000 people have already died—including dozens of civilians. And in reversing one injustice, Azerbaijan is bloodily creating a new one: the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are under attack and may soon be encircled, facing potentially devastating humanitarian consequences.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh remains one of the most tragic and persistent disputes in Europe. It is one of the last pieces of unfinished business from the end of World War I, still fought by the zero-sum rules of the last century: Armenia and Azerbaijan seek to pummel each other into capitulation. The devilish intractability of this conflict stems from two factors: a century-old security dilemma, in which each side has sought to achieve a sense of safety and control at the expense of the other, thereby undermining the security of both; and a democratic deficit, a total absence of societal trust and real dialogue, that makes compromise between the two sides almost impossible. The current toothless European security order cannot restrain them, nor have recent talks orchestrated by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The main prospects for curbing the fighting lie in the logistical limitations of the rugged terrain of Nagorno-Karabakh and the willingness and capacity of two great powers—Russia and now, after a century’s absence, Turkey—to facilitate a peace deal.

ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS

The last outsiders to “resolve” the Karabakh conflict were the Russian Bolsheviks. Exactly 100 years ago, in 1920, the Bolsheviks’ 11th Army pushed invading Turkish forces out of the Caucasus, crushed the two newly independent republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and took over the disputed highland region.

Armenians mostly populated Karabakh and had for much of the region’s history, but Karabakh also had an Azerbaijani town, Shusha, and sat entirely within the territory of Azerbaijan. Neither the Armenians nor the Azerbaijanis could afford to live without Karabakh, a region of great significance for each nation. Left to their own devices, both sides would resort to ethnic cleansing to hold onto it. In 1920, the Armenians were especially loath to contemplate losing Karabakh after they had lost their entire western Armenian homeland to Ottoman Turkey in genocidal violence five years before.

Neither the Armenians nor the Azerbaijanis had much say in the settlement of the dispute. In July 1921, the Bolsheviks’ “Caucasus Bureau,” under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, decreed that a newly devised region called Nagorno (“mountainous”) -Karabakh would be formed inside Soviet Azerbaijan. The enclave would have relative autonomy and an overwhelmingly Armenian population.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh remains one of the most persistent disputes in Europe.

Historians have debated Stalin’s decision endlessly over the years. Some claim that it was a deliberate effort to “divide and rule.” Others, including the historian Arsene Saparov, disagree, arguing that Soviet thinking was far more short-term and economically minded: the Bolsheviks imagined that Azerbaijan would not be viable if it contained an island of territory controlled by its neighbor, Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh also had no good road connection to Armenia, so allocating it to Azerbaijan made good commercial sense. In any case, as pious Marxists, the Bolsheviks may have genuinely believed that within a generation both Armenians and Azerbaijanis would shed their national identities and become good socialists.

Under Soviet rule, the arrangement mostly worked, and the two communities generally lived peacefully side by side, if more in parallel than together, for six and a half decades. Sergei Shugarian, a former Armenian Communist Party official, told me that Armenian and Azerbaijani elites got along fine, as did the workers: “Down below they lived in friendship, there were no problems at all.” But tensions persisted in the middle, especially among intellectuals, who kept the flames of nationalism alight, still nurturing national aspirations that could be fulfilled only at the expense of the other.

Throughout the Soviet era, Armenian leaders in Nagorno-Karabakh complained to Moscow that Azerbaijan suppressed their community’s educational and cultural rights. During the early glasnost period, in 1988, they called for the region to join Soviet Armenia. Karabakh’s allocation to Azerbaijan in 1921 was a Stalinist injustice, the Armenians insisted. They won the backing of many leading Russian liberals—including, for a time, the Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov.

An ethnic Armenian soldier in a trench along the front line of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, October 2020

Stringer / Reuters

The 1921 decision did indeed lack legitimacy, as did all the Bolshevik fiats of that period. But for Moscow to reallocate Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia in 1988 would hardly constitute the triumph of justice. Such a move would merely have created a new kind of illegitimacy that penalized Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijanis who lived in and around the enclave. The most obvious solution would have been to grant the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh real and meaningful autonomy within an integral Azerbaijan. But the authoritarian political culture of the Soviet Union militated against such a conclusion. Soviet Armenian and Azerbaijani officials did not talk to one other so much as they appealed to the Kremlin and demanded that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev rule in their favor.

Gorbachev eventually decided to leave Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan but to entrust its administration to a special committee from Moscow. The ruling pleased neither side. By then, violence had already broken out between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis, beginning with horrific pogroms against Armenians in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated at the end of 1991, the two sides staked out diametrically opposite positions. The Armenians declared Nagorno-Karabakh an independent state, while the Azerbaijani parliament in Baku formally abolished the territory’s autonomy altogether. But Azerbaijan held a legal trump card: as internal Soviet borders became international borders, Nagorno-Karabakh was now considered part of Azerbaijan—whatever the opinion of the majority of its residents.

THE MIRAGE OF TOTAL VICTORY

The stage was set for a violent reckoning. In 1991, the two nations slid into a war that in many ways felt like 1920 all over again. With only a weak and equivocating Russia attempting to restrain both sides—while also providing military assistance to both—the conflict became a quest for total victory. In 1994, after much bloodshed, the Armenians eventually prevailed, taking control not just of Nagorno-Karabakh itself but also of seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories, displacing half a million Azerbaijani civilians in the process.

The fighting stopped in 1994, but the rhetorical and political war continued. Maximalist positions on each side—now defended in fierce social media battles—have taken over the discourse: each side essentially envisions Nagorno-Karabakh as a monoethnic region without the other community.

Over the years, many Armenians hubristically began to refer to the Azerbaijani regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh that they had captured between 1992 and 1994 as “liberated territories.” Empty towns and villages were given Armenian names and repopulated by thousands of settlers. In 2017, the de facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh renamed the enclave the “Republic of Artsakh,” using a medieval Armenian name that seemed to further deny the former Azerbaijani minority population any claim to belonging in the region.

In return, Azerbaijani officials continued to use Azeri names—such as Khankendi for Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital, Stepanakert—for towns that had a majority Armenian population of up to 90 percent in Soviet times and to promise their coming “liberation.” The message was that Baku wanted these Karabakhi towns back, but not the Armenians who lived in them. (Azerbaijani forces recently seized the Armenian-populated town of Hadrut along with a handful of other villages in Nagorno-Karabakh, and all their inhabitants have fled.) Although Azerbaijani officials still talk—mainly to foreign audiences—about offering “high autonomy” to Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku has never in 30 years drafted any proposal clarifying what this status would look like in practice.

A woman outside the wreckage of her house in Ganja, Azerbaijan, October 2020

Umit Bektas / Reuters

The two sides became so entrenched in their positions that a finely spun diplomatic solution found no takers. Back in 2006, French, Russian, and U.S. mediators drafted a plan to thread the needle of the conflict, finesse the sovereignty dispute, and restore the rights of as many Armenians and Azerbaijanis as possible. But their Basic Principles document has never gotten serious traction among the region’s elites or its broader societies.

In his study of the clash of the Russian and Ottoman Empires in the First World War, the historian Michael Reynolds concluded, “The quest for absolute security is the road to ruin. Security can be no more absolute than the future can be knowable. . . . The potential threat by its nature is omnipresent and impossible to vanquish. To chase it means to provoke reactions, setting off chains of events beyond one’s control.”

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in both its old and new iterations offers a lesson in the impossibility of an ultimate victory. A victim quickly becomes a perpetrator and vice versa. In the current fighting, the pendulum has now swung strongly in favor of Azerbaijan on the battlefield. The Azerbaijani public has rallied behind its leaders as its armed forces score military successes and recover lost territory. Heavy casualties have so far not blunted enthusiasm for the offensive.

Yet the Azerbaijanis should heed their own experience of 1994, when the Armenians believed they had achieved “absolute security.” If they face the prospect of losing their much-loved territory of Karabakh, the Armenians may resort to desperate measures and continue the war by other means, perhaps even attacking Azerbaijani targets outside the region.

RESOLUTION FROM THE OUTSIDE

The conflict comes at an especially bad international moment—which may be why Azerbaijan chose this time to act. The United States has been largely disengaged for years, despite its formal leading role in the mediation process sponsored by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Russia’s strategy of equivocation and balancing has been exposed: if Moscow openly supports its military ally, Armenia, it will instantly lose its other valued partner, Azerbaijan.

Turkey, a player that had not intervened in the region in exactly 100 years, has again weighed in: Ankara may have initiated the new conflict by giving direct military assistance to Azerbaijan—and in so doing, raising old, existential fears among the Armenians. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s aid to Baku may be guided more by domestic politics and solidarity with a Turkic nation than a genuine strategic interest in the Caucasus, but his supply of lethal military drones to Azerbaijan has thus far been the decisive factor in the war.

If the Azerbaijani advance is slowed by winter or highland geography, the conflict could turn into a slow war of attrition around Nagorno-Karabakh itself, where Armenian forces are still dug in. If Azerbaijani forces succeed in encircling Nagorno-Karabakh, cutting its supply lines to Armenia, a humanitarian catastrophe could ensue.

If there is deadlock, the traditional great powers could also try to sort it out, with Russia and Turkey resuming the roles they played in the Caucasus in the nineteenth century, when the Russian tsar and the Ottoman sultan fought a series of wars around the Black Sea. Erdogan and Putin spoke by phone on October 14, leading observers to wonder whether the leaders might be bargaining over such an agreement, which would be shaped more by their own agendas than by those of the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis.

Civilians shelter in a basement in Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh, October 2020

Stringer / Reuters

Multilateral diplomacy drawing in actors outside the immediate vicinity has not borne much fruit for Nagorno-Karabakh. At the zenith of European multilateralism, in 1992, the OSCE founded the Minsk Group—consisting of Belarus, France, Russia, Turkey, the United States, and several western European nations, along with Armenia and Azerbaijan—to resolve the conflict. But the process achieved little and did not even begin to tackle the democratic deficit at the heart of the conflict by engaging civil society, talking to marginalized communities, or tackling the toxic hate speech that fuels the conflict. Russia eventually assumed the leading role in determining the region’s fate, much as it did the century before.

A deal brokered by Russia and Turkey would most likely disadvantage the Armenians by magnifying Turkish influence in the region, but Azerbaijan could lose out as well. A pact of this kind might allow Russian peacekeepers into the area, something Azerbaijan has consistently opposed. It would also increase the leverage of Erdogan’s Turkey, which is increasingly driven by a Sunni Muslim religious agenda, in predominately secular and Shiite Azerbaijan.

The only countries that can prevent a war without end or a latter-day Russian-Turkish great-power deal—while reaching a fair settlement—are Armenia and Azerbaijan themselves. But doing that would require them to conclude that resolving their conflict is more in their common interest than persisting with military force or allowing others to resolve it for them. The current bitterness and bloodshed sadly suggest that such a decision is not close at hand. Even if this round of fighting ends in Azerbaijan’s favor, Armenians will not give up. The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh will likely remain unresolved for another generation to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/armenia/2020-10-26/no-compromise-sight-armenia-and-azerbaijan

[Yervant1]

Public Radio of Armenia

Oct 26 2020

Armenian President: Turkey risks setting the whole Caucasus ablaze

Leaders of civilized nations, regardless of their religious or ethnic identities, must act unequivocally to stop aggressors and establish long-lasting peace . We need peace, and it can only be reached through negotiation and talks, Armenian president Armen Sarkissian wrote in a article published by The National.

The full text of the article is provided below:

On September 30, I drafted a special letter to several world leaders to describe to them the situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, a contested region of the Caucasus inhabited predominately by ethnic Armenians. It has been attacked aggressively by Azerbaijan, with the full support of Turkey. I could hardly anticipate the scope of the aggression and the lack of humanity in the behaviour of their forces. Then and even now, the reality on the ground that my fellow Armenians are experiencing is more than alarming, and risks igniting further escalation and insecurity in the region and even beyond.

Months and even years before the military aggression by Azerbaijan on September 27, the Azerbaijani leadership was using very harsh, militaristic rhetoric and overtly voicing, at the highest levels of government, its intentions to resolve the conflict through a fully fledged war. Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia have been facing similar attempts for more than 25 years since a ceasefire was established after the first Karabakh war in 1994. Ever since then, the rhetoric and the destructive behaviour of Azerbaijan has never faded.

Nagorno-Karabakh – or Artsakh, as we call it in Armenia – has always been populated overwhelmingly by Armenians. It has never been a voluntary part of independent Azerbaijan. In 1921, Nagorno-Karabakh was given as a gift by Russia under Josef Stalin to Soviet Azerbaijan, which was not an independent state, but a part of the Soviet Union.

Following decades of continued discrimination, in 1987 and 1988 the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh began to raise their voices to re-join with Armenia. They conducted peaceful demonstrations and signed petitions. At the same time, ethnically motivated persecutions against Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijan mounted. There were pogroms and ethnic cleansing campaigns in a number of Azerbaijani cities.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh declared their independence earlier than Azerbaijan. In fact, Azerbaijan declared its own independence from the Soviet Union in a separate process, without Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite this and other facts that, in Armenia’s view, make Azerbaijan’s claims baseless in the context of the international law, the government in Baku seeks has, for about 30 years, sought to oppress with military means the right of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (or the Republic of Artsakh) to live in their homeland. It pursues a policy of forcibly capturing lands, cleansing them of their native inhabitants and heritage and ignoring the basic, fundamental rights.

After 30 years of rejecting any attempts at a peaceful solution, Azerbaijan, supported militarily and politically by Turkey, is once again attacking Armenia’s cherished homeland. Azerbaijan’s position is, in a sense, a continuation of the policies that Armenians have faced ever since the Ottoman Empire tried to perpetrate the genocide of Armenians almost 105 years ago. At that time, about 1.5 million ethnic Armenians perished, or were exiled and persecuted.

The Azerbaijani side today includes not only Turkish generals, officers and military experts, but also Turkish F-16 fighter jets and the infamous “Bayraktar” drones. Every day, these death machines and are involved in bombing Nagorno-Karabakh and even Armenia. Lethal and even prohibited weapons, such as cluster munition, have been deployed for more than three weeks against a huge number of Armenian civilians and civil infrastructure. The latter includes hospitals, houses and even kindergartens.

If you add to this the involvement of Syrian mercenaries, jihadists and radical fanatics who are now on Armenian soil killing my people, the full picture is clear. Mercenaries from international terrorist organisations fighting in the Middle East — in particular, Jabhat Al Nusra, Firqat Hamza and the Sultan Murad Division – are actively entering the fray. Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh are dealing with international terrorism.

Hence, we in Armenia remain very concerned and alert for those developments on the ground. We are also concerned by the hesitant stance of the international community, which needs to react immediately. It needs to apply pressure to Turkey to withdraw from our region with its weapons, mercenaries and cynicism. It needs to apply pressure to Azerbaijan to respect two ceasefires agreed on October 10 and 17. The war by Turkey and Azerbaijan against my nation risks creating another Syria in the Caucasus, with the potential to fuel a greater fire in the entire region and beyond.

Turkey does not hesitate to export Islamist militants and other terrorists into Azerbaijan. But, as usual, it needs an excuse for doing so. One of its excuses has been that Azerbaijanis are its ethnic kin. The reality is that that line of thinking simply doesn’t work in the new world, because by that logic Turkey’s ethnic kinship extends all the way into Central Asia, Mongolia, northern China and elsewhere. Is Ankara ready to interfere with any problem that its ethnic brothers may face there?

Perhaps the answer is yes – in which case, it is no wonder that modern Turkey has problematic relations virtually 360 degrees in every direction. It has had problems with Egypt. It is now involved in Libya. It speaks about the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, but in the meantime has crossed over its border with Iraq. It violates the territorial integrity of Syria. It is trying to be very present in Lebanon and in parts of the Gulf. It also has big issues in the Eastern Mediterranean. And now, it is in the Caucasus. All of this is unacceptable.

Leaders of civilised nations, regardless of their religious or ethnic identities, must act unequivocally to stop aggressors and establish long-lasting peace. We need peace, and it can only be reached through negotiation and talks. But this is what the Azerbaijani side rejects each and every time, for reasons that are horrific to the rest of us. They claim they have a legitimate right to use force – brutal, military force – against the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

We need to understand that there is no military solution to this and, I would say, to any conflict. Armenians have always believed that a solution has to be reached through peaceful negotiations and in a way that does not make things worse. This is why we have refrained from officially recognising the Republic of Artsakh, so as to allow the negotiations to take place and reach a peaceful solution. But Turkey and Azerbaijan seem to have a different understanding of what a solution is, and they push only a militaristic, aggressive and, in my view, genocidal agenda.

My appeal to Muslim and Arab leaders aims at asking them to use their influence and high prestige in the international arena to immediately stop the bloodshed and human suffering.

Together, we can stop this aggression, because we are proponents of peace, who reject war, violence and terrorism.

 

https://en.armradio.am/2020/10/26/armenian-president-turkey-risks-setting-the-whole-caucasus-ablaze/

[Yervant1]

Alaska Public

Oct 26 2020

In Anchorage, Armenians of Alaska rally to raise awareness about conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh

By Abbey Collins, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage

October 26, 2020

Around 75 people gathered in Midtown Anchorage Saturday, to speak out about violence against Armenians as tensions escalate in a longstanding conflict with Azerbaijan.

Fighting is ongoing in a conflict over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh.

Rita Osipyan of Wasilla was among those speaking out in Anchorage.

“We’re here to have a peaceful protest against the silence that’s been going on in this country and worldwide because of non-recognition of this Armenian territory we call Artsakh,” said Osipyan.

Roughly 75 people marched at an October 17 rally in Anchorage opposing the Azerbaijani violence against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a de facto independent state between Azerbaijan and Armenia. (Jeff Chen/Alaska Public Media)

The rally was organized by Armenians of Alaska. The organization wants to see the United States cut all military aid to Azerbaijan and Turkey, which is backing Azerbaijan. They also want to see the U.S. place political and economic sanctions on the two countries.

Yeva Sharp lived in Armenia until a few years ago, and says she’s worried about her friends and family back home.

“I left Armenia five years ago, we came to U.S. and I want to make sure my family, my bother’s family, my friends and other family members, they live and they sleep peacefully,” said Sharp.

Conflict in the region goes back decades, but recent clashes began at the end of September.

Jeff Chen contributed to this story.

https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/10/26/in-anchorage-armenians-of-alaska-rally-to-raise-awareness-about-conflict-in-nagorno-karabakh/

[Yervant1]

Public Radio of Armenia

Oct 26 2020

Azerbaijan will not see capitulation of Nagorno Karabakh: Armenian PM on another failed ceasefire

The Armenian side has been doing its best to ensure the US-brokered ceasefire is maintained, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said live on Fcebook.

“The Defense Army has shown restraint since morning, but at this moment we can state that the ceasefire has failed to be observed for a third time,” Pashinyan said.

“I talked to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last night and said that I was sure the ceasefire would be violated. I asked Secretary if the ceasefire is not respected, how are we going to find out which side violated it? Secondly, I asked what would be the consequences for the party breaching the ceasefire,” Pashinyan said.

He hopes official Washington will answer the questions today.

The Prime Minister stressed that the Presidents of Russia, United States and France are sincere in their efforts to help establish ceasefire. He added that the issue is especially important for the US, which is facing presidential elections in a week.

The Prime Minister said that while the Armenian side has been very flexible in this period, Azerbaijan has not shown any willingness to accept anything. “What Azerbaijan wants is capitulation of Nagorno Karabakh at least.”

The Prime Minister stressed that while the Armenian nation is ready for mutual concessions, even painful ones, Armenian people are in no event ready for capitulation.

“Therefore, the Armenian nation should find resources to struggle and protect its interests,” the Prime Minister stated.

https://en.armradio.am/2020/10/26/azerbaijan-will-not-see-capitulation-of-nagorno-karabakh-armenian-pm-on-another-failed-ceasefire/

[Yervant1]

The Defense post

Oct 26 2020

Armed Villagers Guard Strategic Gateway to Nagorno Karabakh

For more than a month, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in bitter fighting over the mountainous province that was seized by Armenian separatists in a 1990s war.

Staff Writer with AFP October 26, 2020

Wearing camouflage and holding Kalashnikov rifles, volunteer villagers patrol a winding river in a Nagorno Karabakh valley, defending a strategic area between the disputed region’s capital and Armenia.

Cannons are heard firing nearby at regular intervals as they too stand guard, covering the noisy gurgle of the Hakari river that flows between the wooded hills.

The valley leads to the Lachin corridor, a strategic point that links the ethnic Armenian region of Azerbaijan with Armenia proper.

For more than a month, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in bitter fighting over Nagorno Karabakh, a mountainous province that was seized by Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan in a 1990s war that left 30,000 people dead.

In the first days of the latest flare-up in fighting that erupted on September 27, Baku destroyed a bridge that goes over the Hakari river.

#UPDATE: First video showing what appears to be the first combat use of an Israeli-made Azerbaijani-launched LORA tactical ballistic missile targeting a bridge along the Berdzor-Goris highway across the Hakari river, according to reports pic.twitter.com/ekrsPOPaCt

— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) October 2, 2020

 

Since then, cars and trucks have to take a small diversion on a bumpy dirt road. Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno Karabakh, is just an hour away.

The valley descends parallel to the Armenian border, towards the southern front where battles rage between Armenian separatist fighters and Azerbaijani soldiers.

It’s in this direction that the cannons are firing, to stop the troops from Baku making any push towards the corridor.

‘Strategic Gateway’

“We’re in a village which serves as a strategic gateway to Artsakh, which was penetrated (by Azerbaijan) in the south. Their goal is to reach Lachin by coming through us,” said Andranik Chaushyan, the village mayor, using the Armenian name for Nagorno Karabakh.

He asks AFP journalists not to give the name of his village.

“They are near. They are trying to advance but they have not been able to do so because we are counter-attacking. Everything is under control,” said the 31-year-old.

In the south of the valley, residents recently fled their villages as Azerbaijani troops tried to pierce through.

“It is likely that they will pass through the valley rather than the mountains. It’s hard for them as they won’t have any vehicles. They will probably try do go through there. All (defense) positions must be filled,” he adds, sitting at a desk, three walkie-talkies in front of him.

In the 3,000-strong village that survives mainly on rearing cows and pigs, just a few women and several dozen voluntary fighters of all ages remain.

Some 50 small, one-story houses have recently been built there, all identical with tiled roofs and a garden.

The volunteers’ outfits vary, even if camouflage trousers appear to be the norm.

One wears black fingerless gloves and the magazines of his weapon sport a white Armenian cross.

As the sun goes down behind the mountain, the mayor and the head of the volunteer group bring bread and cheese made at the village to those on guard.

They start singing a song to the glory of their homeland, raising their arm in salute as a cannon fires, a flash of light briefly illuminating the trees nearby.

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2020/10/26/villagers-guard-lachin-nagorno-karabakh/