Lachin Blocked | Armenia-Azerbaijan Negotiations | Military Exercises | Syunik [EP182]

Show Notes

Show notes

Lachin Blockade - Humanitarian crisis looming

As we already covered last week, the Lachin corridor was effectively blocked for 3 hours. This week the staged environmentalist operation resumed and at the time of this recording the corridor has been blockaded for more than 30 hours. And earlier today Azerbaijan cut gas supplies. Now there is a transportation and energy blockade, no medicine or medical aid can get in, and there are reports that medical patients are not able to urgently go to Yerevan to seek medical care.

• What is the current situation and what is the longer game.

Continuing Armenian-Azerbaijani Negotiations

Capital Hopping

Last week we talked at length about the current state of the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. At this point, any expectations for a so-called “peace deal” by year-end are unlikely to come true.

Late in November, Ilham Aliyev pulled out of the Brussels summit, which was set for December 7th, this past week. Azerbaijan says he pulled out because of a new condition by Armenia for French president Emmanuel Macron’s participation in the negotiations, alongside Charles Michel, of the EU. Observers say that Macron has been involved from the start, and it is Aliyev who is advancing new conditions because he doesn’t like what he’s getting in Brussels, because while the EU slants pro-Azerbaijan, France is more of a balancing factor.

The Russians have been quick to say: Brussels is dead.

• “Is Brussels dead”?
• What will happen to the EU observer mission, whose term ends in December? On Friday we read news that the mission will wrap up on December 31.

A lot of observers thought that since the conflicts in Ukraine started, Russia no longer has the bandwidth to deal with the South Caucasus. But with a single summit in November, in Sochi, Putin has brought the negotiations back to Russia essentially.

• What are the fundamental factors that are swinging Armenia and Azerbaijan to come back to the table in Russia?
• Does this current re-involvement indicate that Russia has essentially adapted to the ongoing war in Ukraine and in a sense, this is now a new normal for them?

In the past couple of months, Pashinyan had been hinting that some form of international guarantees are needed for Armenia’s security, in order to sign a peace deal in the West. There were no responses from the EU or the US.

• What sort of security guarantees was Armenia seeking?
• What happened?

Draft Agreements

Armenia just confirmed that they’ve received the latest draft agreement from Azerbaijan, and are working to respond to it.

• What is the current back-and-forth of drafts primarily about?

This past week, Armen Grigoryan noted in the Armenian parliament that Armenia and Azerbaijan so far agree on basically one single thing: that they should have diplomatic relations, and that there are in fact no clear agreements on any other points.

• What do you make of this?

Nagorno-Karabakh

In another thread with Aliyev, he said that Azerbaijan is willing to talk with Karabakh but not with Ruben Vardanyan, whom he called a “Russian agent”. However, the Artsakh authorities have been in Moscow and France recently, meeting with officials in those countries.

• Given that Armenia seems to have politically abandoned Artsakh, Is Russia changing tactics to work bilaterally with Artsakh?
• What do you think that Ruben Vardanyan brings to the table as State Minister for Artsakh? What are the expectations of him?

Turkish-Azerbaijani Military Exercises

In the past two weeks Azerbaijan and Turkey held war games all along the Iranian border, in the regions of Astara, Imishli and Jabrayil (Jrakan). The nature of these military exercises indicates that they are pointedly aimed at Iran. Turkish defense minister Hulusi Akar, and many high-level Turkish military leaders traveled to Azerbaijan to attend the high profile drills named “Fraternal Fist”.

In October Iran’s military also held drills across the border and the situation remains tense. Obviously, they’re not happy with Azerbaijan, which is reportedly giving a foothold to Israel along the border with Iran, as part of its military alliance with it; and Azerbaijan has also been trying to stir ethnic tensions in Iran’s Azeri population.

For us, these drills indicate that the disagreements on the issue of Armenia’s borders have not died down. Iran is unambiguous about its red line that Armenia’s borders may not change.

• Where do you think this military “dialogue” between Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran is headed?
• Should Russia be concerned about the Turkish-Azerbaijani military alliance?

Travel Logs

• Hovik’s impressions of traveling around Syunik.
• Benyamin’s impressions of traveling around Syunik.
• Benyamin’s take-aways from discussions with international colleagues.

Wrap-up

We hope you found our Week in Review helpful. We invite your feedback and your suggestions, you can find us on most social media and podcast platforms. Thanks to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts.

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