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Day: September 12, 2023
He Hopes Azerbaijan Won’t Commit Ethnic Cleansing
President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Tuesday said there were no problems between he and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, but blamed the Armenian leader for the current Artsakh crisis.
Speaking at an economic forum in Vladivostok, Russia, Putin said confirmed that Pashinyan contacted him about the recent military build up along the Armenia and Azerbaijan border and Yerevan’s fears of renewed attacks against Armenia and Artsakh.
“He [Pashinyan] sent me a comprehensive letter… We are in contact with him. There are no problems with Armenia and Prime Minister Pashinyan. We are in constant contact with him,” Putin said.
However, he went to say that the actions taken by Pashinyan, especially Yerevan’s recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity that gave Baku sovereignty over Artsakh had placed the entire situation in a different light. Putin went on to suggest that Pashinyan nixed the issue of the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh, which was to be determined in future, by recognizing Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and referencing the 1991 Alma Ata Treaty.
“Armenia basically recognized Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Karabakh. And in their statement in Prague, they recorded it on paper,” Putin said.
“The leadership of Armenia has publicly announced this, considering the entire territory that existed before 1991 within Azerbaijan SSR and noting the square kilometers of the territory, which also includes the territory of Karabakh. This happened and it was not our decision,” the Russian president added.
Putin argued that after Pashinyan’s statements on the recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, Yerevan is looking to Moscow to resolve the humanitarian crisis.
“What can we say? There is nothing to say here if Armenia itself has recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” asserted Putin, saying that Yerevan is currently focusing on the crisis that has arisen since the 2020 war and not looking at the entirety of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
“The key aspect of the entire conflict was the status of Karabakh, and now that has been decided by Armenia itself. That’s the whole problem,” Putin said.
He said that Russia had proposed that Armenia would keep the entire Karabakh region, including Kelbajar and Lachin but claims that Armenia refused this proposal.
“We proposed our settlement options, this is a known fact,” Putin told the Eastern Economic Summit in Vladivostok on Tuesday.
“Armenia controlled seven regions, which it kept under its jurisdiction after the well-known Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict [of the 1990s]. We proposed to reach an agreement with Azerbaijan so that the two regions—Kelbajar and Lachin—as well as the entirety of Karabakh would actually remain under the jurisdiction of Armenia. But the leadership of Armenia did not agree to this—although we were trying to convince the leadership of Armenia for 10 or 15 years. Various options were floated, but in the end it all came down to this,” Putin explained.
The Russia president explained that Yerevan’s decisions have created situations that concern Moscow, especially the humanitarian crisis and the threat of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan.
“Of course, other issues have arise here, such as issues related to the humanitarian component and the mandate of our peacekeepers [in Nagorno-Karabakh]. The mandate is still in force, and the issues of that are humanitarian in nature, the prevention of ethnic cleansing, of course, have not gone away. I fully agree with this,” Putin acknowledged.
“I hope that the leadership of Azerbaijan is not interested in any kind of ethnic cleansing [in Nagorno-Karabakh] as they have always told us and continue to tell us,” Putin said, expressing hope that Baku is interested in resolving the situation.
“Now [Azerbaijani] President Aliyev tells me: ‘you know that Armenia has recognized Karabakh as ours, that the question of the status of Karabakh no longer exists, it has been resolved,” Putin added, saying that Yerevan’s approach has created new problems in the region.
A French humanitarian aid convoy is stuck at the entrance to the Lachin corridor last month.
Armenian-backed separatist leaders in Nagorno-Karabakh have said Azerbaijani authorities agreed to allow aid deliveries to the breakaway region through the Lachin Corridor from Armenian territory in an operation to be controlled by Russian peacekeeping troops and the Red Cross.
In return, Karabakh authorities agreed on September 9 to also allow Russian-provided aid to be delivered directly from Baku-controlled territory via the Agdam road, opening a transport link from Azerbaijan proper for the first time since Karabakh broke away from Baku in a war that ended three decades ago.
Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmat Haciyev confirmed to Reuters that the deal had been struck, adding that Azerbaijani checkpoints on the Lachin route would remain in place.
Haciyev, however, sought to clarify later on September 9 that “it is a separate deal and shouldn’t be confused with the suggestion on simultaneous opening of Agdam-Khankandi [Stepanakurt] and Lachin-Khankandi roads for [International Committee of the Red Cross] delivery.”
Food aid “by Russian Red Cross will go along the Agdam-Askaran road towards Khankandi in coordination with Azerbaijani Red Crescent,” Haciyev wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Baku has pressed for its Agdam route to be used for aid deliveries instead of the blocked Lachin Corridor from Armenian territory. Karabakh officials, however, have claimed it is an effort by Baku to control aid shipments and reestablish authority of the region away from ethnic Armenian leaders.
In recent comments, Haciyev said use of the road was an opportunity for the ethnic Armenians of Karabakh to “establish communication with other parts of Azerbaijan.”
Western leadders have expressed concerns about the blocking of the Lachin route over recent months, a move that has left ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh in desperate need of food, energy supplies, and other basic needs.
Baku denies it is blockading the region and offered the alternative Agdam route for aid transport.
Earlier on September 9, EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell said on the social-media platform X that, in a call with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Ceyhun Bayramov, he “reiterated that the Lachin Corridor must be re-opened now. Other roads, such as Agdam, can be opened as part of the solution, but not an alternative.”
The announcement came hours after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, in calls with foreign leaders, offered to hold “urgent” talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to prevent another upsurge in violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and along the two countries’ borders.
The offer came as both sides traded accusations of “disinformation” and “provocations” in recent days and as Azerbaijani officials on September 9 accused Armenian forces of firing on their troops overnight, a claim Yerevan rejected.
Baku said the most recent firefight occurred in the north of Naxcivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan that borders Armenia, Turkey, and Iran. It did not say if there had been any casualties.
Persistent tensions between Yerevan and Baku have spiked in recent weeks, mainly over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region controlled by ethnic Armenians who have accused Azerbaijan of blockading the breakaway region.
The Armenian government has also accused Azerbaijan of massing troops along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the Karabakh “line of contact” in possible preparation for another large-scale military assault.
Pashinian made his offer of new talks with Aliyev in separate phone calls with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, his office said.
Pashinian “expressed readiness to hold urgent discussions with the president of Azerbaijan aimed at reducing the tensions,” a government statement on his call with Macron, which reportedly took place late on September 8.
The statement said Pashinian also reaffirmed his recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity made during October 2022 and May 2023 meetings with Aliyev attended by Macron.
A foreign-policy adviser to Aliyev told Reuters that Azerbaijan had not received a renewed offer of talks from Yerevan.
Meanwhile, three senior Azerbaijani officials on September 8 met with Baku-based foreign diplomats to accuse Armenia of stepping up “military provocations,” “imitating” peace talks, and continuing to foment “separatism” in Karabakh.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry denied the accusations.
With tensions rising, Armenia announced on September 6 that it would host a joint army exercise with the United States next week.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said the purpose of the September 11-20 Eagle Partner 2023 exercise was to prepare its forces to take part in international peacekeeping missions.
A U.S. military spokesperson said 85 U.S. soldiers and 175 Armenians would take part, according to Reuters.
That announcement came following remarks by Pashinian stating that his country’s policy of relying solely on Russia to guarantee its security was a strategic mistake, in light of what he said was Moscow’s efforts to wind down its role in the wider region.
Moscow responded angrily to the comments, summoning the Armenian ambassador for a protest over what it termed “unfriendly steps” taken by Yerevan.
Meanwhile on September 9, separatist lawmakers in Nagorno-Karabakh voted to elect Samvel Shahramanian, 44, as the new president of the region, an action condemned by Baku.
Georgia’s separatist-held region of Abkhazia has firmly rejected suggestions it could be annexed by Russia, insisting that its autonomy from Moscow is not up for discussion.
In a statement issued by the unrecognized South Caucasus state’s foreign ministry on Thursday, officials said that while it is “a steadfast ally of the Russian Federation,” its self-proclaimed statehood “is not a subject for debate.”
The comments come shortly after the deputy chairman of the Kremlin’s Security Council, former president Dmitry Medvedev, hinted that Moscow could seek to absorb the two Russian-backed breakaway regions of neighboring Georgia — Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“The idea of joining Russia is still popular. And it may well be implemented, if there are good reasons for it,” said Medvedev, who has been one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
However, despite the presence of thousands of Moscow’s troops deployed to Abkhazia in the wake of a series of wars with Georgian government forces — most recently in 2008 — officials in the capital said the suggestion amounted to nothing more than a sign of “intensifying geopolitical contest.”
Meanwhile, the secretary of Abkhazia’s security council, Sergey Shamba, went further, pointing out that there “are no political entities” in the region pushing for integration with Russia.
“We haven’t received any formal requests to join the Russian Federation, and I’m yet to identify any political faction within Abkhazia that envisions such a relationship dynamic with Russia,” he went on.
Home to around a quarter of a million people and with its own distinct language, Abkhazia has existed as a de facto independent state from Georgia since a brutal civil war which followed the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians were displaced from the region, which borders Russia, as part of a campaign by the separatists, who were frequently backed by elements of the Russian armed forces.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 12. We would like
to recall the UN Security Council resolutions, affirming the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and call for
their full respect, Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the
Secretary-General, said at a briefing, Trend reports.
He has made the remark, while commenting upon the so-called
“presidential elections” held by Armenian separatists in
Azerbaijan’s Karabakh on September 9, 2023.
“The Secretary General urges to intensify efforts towards the
long term normalization of relations for security and peace of the
region,” he added.
Earlier, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry called on the
international community to strongly condemn the so-called
“elections”.
As noted in the statement of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, the
holding of the so-called “elections” once again clearly shows that
Armenia and the puppet regime created by it, which has taken steps
to preserve the status quo and continue its occupation policy, are
not really interested in the peace process, on the contrary, have
taken the path of provocations and escalating the situation.
The US continues to work to resolve the situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, US State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said during a briefing on September 12, News.az reports.
“Secretary has been personally involved in this with multiple conversations just in the past week,” he said.
Miller went on to add that as a longer-term matter, the two countries need to come to an ultimate agreement.
He also touched upon the opening of the Aghdam-Khankendi route, through which food products from Russia passed today.