Arthur Khachikyan: Artsakh Under Blockade: Day 6 [EP185]

Show Notes

Discussion

Background

On Monday, December 12, a group of people in civilian clothes blocked the Shushi-Qarin Tak segment of the Lachin corridor for all traffic.

Although this is clearly instigated by the Azerbaijani government, the official pretense is that this group of so-called “eco-activists” was demanding to inspect the Kashen gold mine in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh, which employs 1800 people and is one of the larger tax-payers in Artsakh.

As a result, more than 120 thousand people are in a total blockade. For 2-3 days gas service was also disrupted, before being restored again. Thousands of Artsakhtsis who were visiting Armenia are now stranded, among them children. Food, medicine, fuel are all under rations.

The international response has been limited to the realm of announcements. The Russian peacekeepers, while under constant harassment by the Azerbaijanis, have so far maintained their cool and are trying to negotiate a withdrawal of the Azerbaijanis, however to no avail. Usage of force to open the corridor so far has not been viewed as an option by the peacekeepers.

Artsakh officials stranded in Yerevan are conducting sit-ins at various embassies, especially at the UN mission. The Armenian government appears to largely have taken an observer’s position. Meanwhile, today the UN Security Council is due to hold a closed hearing on the topic.

Why Now?

Arthur, as we have discussed both on Groong and 168, Azerbaijan’s long-term strategy is to cause enough inconvenience and harassment of the Artsakh population to cause them to leave their homes, and perhaps also to populate Artsakh with Azerbaijanis creating a more demographically favorable situation for Baku.

• The question for the current incident is: what has led to the current altercation at this point in time? What instigated Azerbaijan to begin blocking the Lachin corridor this week?

In addition to the “eco-activists”, video clips shared by Azeri media indicate that Azeri police and even special forces have now been deployed on the corridor. The initial environmental pretense has now been replaced by additional demands, including:

• Presence of Azerbaijani state bodies (customs, ministry of state protection, etc..) on the corridor to be stationed (in conjunction with Russian peacekeepers) at checkpoints
• Presence of Azerbaijani border guards on the border of Armenia on the Lachin corridor

None of these demands stem from the Nov. 9-10 agreement. Yesterday, we even heard calls from members of the Milli Mejlis that Russian peacekeepers must leave.

Question:

• Do you foresee development of events in such a manner that any of these demands are met?
• Do you believe that Armenia’s refusal to open the so-called “Zangezur” corridor (exactly based on Azerbaijan’s whims and conditions) is part of what Azerbaijan seeks to gain here?

Role of Russian Peacekeepers

While the ultimate goal of Azerbaijan is ridding Artsakh of Armenians, in the near and tactical terms there is a rational question of whether the current Azeri action is against Armenians or the Russians. Initially when the Azeri demonstrators began to agitate, they demanded to meet with Volkov. Now they’re talking about early termination of the Russian peacekeeping mission around Nagorno Karabakh.

Some analysts believe that the goal is to put pressure around the peacekeeping mission to cause an accidental flare up, an altercation, a use of force, to create a new front for Russia, in order to divide its attention and resources between Ukraine and the South Caucasus. Despite everything, the Russians have been very cool and collected in their response to the incident.

An Azerbaijani government pollster published the results of a poll indicating that more than 80% of Azerbaijanis would like the Russian peacekeepers to leave. This is interesting because the popularity of Russia is also waning in Yerevan, based on a recent Gallup International poll, where more than 59% of the respondents had a negative opinion of Russia’s role in the conflict.

• How would you evaluate the activity of Russian peacekeepers overall? Isn’t the fact that Azerbaijanis were able to sidestep the Russian peacekeepers and flood the area, even deploying military there, an indication of failure?
• Do you believe that the behavior of Russian peacekeepers may be influenced by decisions from Moscow, for instance as a response to Armenia’s vocal criticism of Russia and CSTO (even to the point of vetoing CSTO declarations in Yerevan)?
• Or, do you believe that the Azeri agitation is aimed at pressuring the Russians, and if so, to what end?
  • Are the Azeri actions in frustrated response to the diminished expectations for a so-called “peace deal” by year’s end?

The West

There’s a belief by Russian officials that the West’s intentions in Karabakh is to open a 2nd front and that the provocations on the Lachin corridor are part of this. Alternatively, if not a 2nd front, some forces in Armenia are seriously considering that Russia may be pressured to leave the region.

• Is this even fathomable? If the unexpected were to happen and suddenly the Russian peacekeepers were to leave, what do you think would happen?
• Are there any Western security mechanisms that could be triggered to ensure the safety of the Artsakh population?
• Even if The West were to really wish to help Artsakh, for example if France and Macron were to wish to help secure Artsakh’s safety, could they do anything?
  • Why or why not?
  • This past weekend we were talking with Benyamin Poghosyan on Groong, and he mentioned that while he was in Syunik, he had interactions with young people of whom perhaps 90% thought that Armenia should leave the CSTO, that Russia is not a friend, that the West would save Armenia, help arm it, etc. In a region like Syunik, where the border villages now live within shooting range of Azerbaijan’s armed forces, where do such fallacies come from?
  • Has Armenian not learned anything from 100 years ago?

Position of the Armenian government

Over the past month or so, Pashinyan has been emphasizing that Azerbaijan is preparing to commit Genocide against Artsakh. He, and his government have been quite vocal about this recently. Yet, when it came to the Parliament drafting a statement to condemn the current events in the Lachin corridor, the ruling party rejected the opposition’s demand to emphasize Artsakh’s right to self-determination. The ruling party said that those views were not part of the government’s foreign policy “toolbox”.

Critics argue that the Armenian government is largely acting as an observer. Many times, Yerevan has said that Nagorno-Karabakh is now the responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping mission. Most recently, Armenian authorities have been promoting the idea that authorities in Stepanakert and Baku should negotiate directly.

Questions:

• Is Pashinyan’s show then a boondoggle?

What else could it do that it is not doing? For instance:

• Can Armenia attempt to airlift aid, despite Azerbaijani threats to shoot down any aircraft flying to/from Stepanakert?
• Can Armenia withdraw from the “peace” negotiations?
• Recognize Artsakh’s independence?

What happened to the “Peace” deal?

All of this is happening in the context of ongoing negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on peace, which is apparently being exploited by world powers and viewed more as a competitive process rather than cooperation.

Unofficially, there are at least 4 different approaches and formats

• The Azerbaijani one
• The one mediated by Russia
• The one mediated by the US
• The one mediated by the EU

There’s very little reliable information about what is being discussed as part of these different processes other than the reverberations we hear in the press.

Questions:

• Whatever happened to the “peace” process?
• What, in your opinion, are the main points of contention now?

St. Petersburg

Recently, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson has not excluded the possibility that there will be a (Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan) trilateral meeting in St. Petersburg, during the next informal CIS summit?

• While formally Armenia has not confirmed this, what could be expected if the meeting does take place?

UN Security Council

Earlier this week foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan addressed the UN Security Council (UNSC), while security council chair Armen Grigorian has updated various European governments about the situation in the Lachin corridor. And we’re aware that today the UN Security council has scheduled a closed hearing on the issue at the initiative of France.

• Arthur, what does the Armenian government expect from the UNSC? Is there enough solidarity within the UNSC to take appropriate action?

“International Community”

A number of government representatives from Artsakh were also stranded in Yerevan due to the blockade. Since Wednesday, a number of them, including Artak Beglaryan (Artsakh deputy state minister and former HR ombudsman) as well as Gegham Stepanyan (acting HR ombudsman) are conducting a sit-in in front of the United Nations mission.

There were also protests in front of all 5 permanent UN Security Council nations. Protesters even demonstrated in front of the Chinese embassy.

Just yesterday, after 3 days of sit-ins, the local Armenia-based UN Resident Coordinator, Christine Weigand, held a meeting with Beglaryan and Stepanyan. This seems to be the first time - ever - that the UN rep has agreed to meet representatives of Artsakh. Their protocol so far has been that the Karabakh issue is outside of their mandate.

Questions:

• How important is this kind of activism? Is there any hope from the international community at this stage?

Meanwhile a number of Western countries, including US, France, UK, EU have called for the corridor to be re-opened, some of them explicitly condemning Azerbaijan.

• How effective do you think such calls can be?

By the way, yesterday Nikol Pashinyan met with the head of the British spy agency, MI-6, right here in Yerevan. Earlier in the week, Armen Grigoryan, (head of the national security council) visited London where he also met with Moore.

• What do you think was talked about in these meetings?

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