Day: December 13, 2023

YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—The European Union’s top official, Charles Michel, has said that the EU keeps “working very hard” to help Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement.

“We are determined on the EU side to work with the partners and with them to ensure that as soon as possible a peace treaty will be signed between both sides,” Michel told RFE/RL in an interview.

In that regard, the president of the EU’s decision-making Council was encouraged by last week’s Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement to exchange prisoners reached as a result of direct negotiations.

“I would like to say that if it was possible for Armenia and Azerbaijan to make some joint announcements a few days ago, this is partially because we help them,” he said. “We encourage them. We suggested some options and some ideas to bring them closer to each other on the topics that have been announced. And we are still working on additional steps to encourage a peace treaty, a normalization agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”

Michel was scheduled to host Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in October for further talks on the treaty. However, Aliyev cancelled the talks. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov likewise withdrew from a meeting with his Armenian counterpart slated for November 20 in Washington.

Michel declined to comment on Baku’s moves. “We are still working on a meeting that could take place in Brussels,” he said without giving potential dates.

Michel would also not say whether the EU or other world powers are ready to act as guarantors of Yerevan’s and Baku’s compliance with the would-be peace treaty. Nor did he clarify whether the treaty will likely make any reference to the rights and security of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population that fled to Armenia following Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive.

He pointedly declined to use the word “Karabakh,” referring instead to “this part of Azerbaijan” until recently populated by an ethnic minority.

“We think that they [Karabakh Armenians] should have the right to return or at least to be able to visit this part of Azerbaijan and their security and rights must be guaranteed and there are international standards in terms of protection of the minorities that must be respected in line with the constitution of Azerbaijan, which should be a framework to guarantee those protections of minorities,” he said.

Brussels is therefore trying to “convince the Azerbaijani authorities to demonstrate that … they want to protect the minorities and to guarantee that the international standards are respected,” added Michel.

Even before their mass exodus triggered by the Azerbaijani offensive, Karabakh’s leaders and ordinary residents made clear that they will not live under Azerbaijani rule. Only a few dozen Karabakh Armenians are believed to remain in the territory recaptured by Baku. More than 100,000 others fled their homes later in September.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention said Tuesday that it is deeply concerned by threats to the integrity of the Armenian Quarter in East Jerusalem.

“We call on the United States and other close allies of Israel to take it upon themselves to guarantee the Armenian community due process in this land dispute. The global Armenian community has already lost one important historical land this fall — Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), which was forcibly depopulated when Azerbaijan invaded, massacred Armenians, and terrorized almost the entire Armenian population into fleeing. The Armenian people cannot lose another,” said the Lemkin Institute in a statement.

The Armenian Quarter makes up about one-sixth of the city of Jerusalem. It is 1,600 years old, dating back to the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine. The first settlement of Armenians in Jerusalem predates even Constantine, with Armenians having settled in Jerusalem as early as the first century BCE when the Armenian Empire controlled nearby territories in Syria. Although the Armenian population in Jerusalem today is very small, the Armenian Quarter remains an important part of the Armenian Diaspora presence as the oldest remaining living diaspora of Armenians. The Quarter houses a diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

In July 2021, the Armenian Patriarchate signed an agreement to lease a significant plot of land (called the “Cow’s Garden”) to Australian developer Danny Rubenstein for 98 years at a low annual rent of a few hundred thousand dollars per year. Rubenstein planned to build a luxury hotel on the site, necessitating the destruction of many of the existing buildings.

The deal came as a shock to the local community, the greater Armenian Diaspora, and Palestinian authorities, the latter of which felt as if the deal encroached on their own sovereignty. It also raised eyebrows due to its asymmetric rewards.

In response to this opposition, the Patriarchate announced on November 1, 2023, that it would be canceling the deal. However, Danny Rubenstein’s company, XANA, has refused the Patriarchate’s cancellation. It has brought bulldozers to the site and is beginning construction in the Cow’s Garden area.

Local Armenians have responded to the destruction of Cow’s Garden with peaceful protests in the form of public gatherings and a sit-in where construction had begun.

Israeli police and civilians have met these protests with violence, using dogs and firearms to intimidate the peaceful protestors. Danny Rubenstein and George Warwar, Chairman and Director of XANA International, appear to be using force and intimidation to deter the Armenian community from attempting to protect its land.

The cultural heritage of the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem must be safeguarded from the developers and the armed settlers who are enabling them, ostensibly with the aim of creating a homogenized Jewish ethnostate in Palestinian territories.

“We stand with the Armenian community as they continue to resist the development of this land through peaceful demonstrations and by refusing to leave the premises. The Armenian community has already lost one significant historical community in Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh this year. It must not lose another,” said the Lemkin Institute.