Allison Quinn
Tue, September 19, 2023
Reuters
Azerbaijan carried out strikes on the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday as it announced the launch of an “anti-terror” operation, a move that threatens to trigger another war in the region.
The country’s Defense Ministry said it was using “high-precision weapons” to “incapacitate” Armenian-backed forces and target Armenian military positions in a push to force out “formations of Armenia’s armed forces.”
Footage purportedly filmed in Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh, which is called Khankendi by Azerbaijan, captured the sounds of loud shelling and artillery fire.
The Gravedigger Who Fears Digging His Own Son’s Grave in Nagorno-Karabakh
“At this moment, the capital Stepanakert and other cities and villages are under intensive fire,” an Armenia-based separatist group warned on social media, calling it a “large-scale military offensive.”
Officials in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, said civilians were free to leave the area via humanitarian corridors and insisted that “the civilian population and civilian infrastructure are not targets.”
Azerbaijan and Armenia have feuded for decades over Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has a predominantly ethnic Armenian population.
Attack Drones Dominating Tanks as Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict Showcases the Future of War
A bloody 2020 war between the two former Soviet rivals ended with Azerbaijan recapturing land of historical significance to Armenians. A Russian-brokered ceasefire deal to end that war did little to ease tensions in the region, with the two sides continuing to hurl allegations and periodic reports of shelling.
Armenia has said it does not have any armed forces in Karabakh, and on Tuesday said the “situation on the borders of the Republic of #Armenia is relatively stable.”
Azerbaijan launches military action in Karabakh 'to disarm' Armenians
Reuters
Updated Tue, September 19, 2023
Gunfire and explosions heard in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh
BAKU (Reuters) -Azerbaijan launched military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a step that could presage a new war in the volatile area but which Baku said was necessary to restore constitutional order and drive out Armenian military formations.
Karabakh is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory but part of it is run by breakaway ethnic Armenian authorities who say the area is their ancestral homeland. It has been at the centre of two wars - the latest in 2020 - since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
It was not clear whether Baku's actions would trigger a full-scale conflict dragging in neighbouring Armenia or be a more limited military operation. But there were already signs of political fallout in Yerevan where Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke of calls for a coup against him.
The fighting could alter the geopolitical balance in the South Caucasus region, which is crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines, and where Russia - distracted by its own war in Ukraine - is seeking to preserve its influence in the face of greater interest from Turkey, which backs Azerbaijan.
Loud and repeated shelling was audible from social media footage filmed in Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh, called Khankendi by Azerbaijan, on Tuesday.
The Karabakh separatist human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, said that two civilians had been killed and 11 people injured as a result of strikes by Azerbaijan's military. Reuters could not immediately verify his assertion.
In a statement announcing its operation, Azerbaijan's defence ministry spoke of its intention to "disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of Armenia’s armed forces from our territories, (and) neutralise their military infrastructure".
It said it was only targeting legitimate military targets using "high-precision weapons" and not civilians as part of what it called a drive to "restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan".
Civilians were free to leave by humanitarian corridors, it added, including one to Armenia, whose prime minister, Pashinyan, said the offer looked like another attempt by Baku to get ethnic Armenians to leave Karabakh as part of a campaign of what he called "ethnic cleansing", an accusation Baku denies.
Ethnic Armenian forces in Karabakh said Azerbaijani forces were trying to break through their defences after heavy shelling, but that they were holding the line for now.
Armenia, which had been holding peace talks with Azerbaijan, including on questions about Karabakh's future, condemned what it called Baku's "full-scale aggression" against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and accused Azerbaijan of shelling towns and villages.
"Driven by a sense of impunity, Azerbaijan has openly claimed responsibility for the aggression," Armenia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield assertions from either side.
APPEAL FOR HELP
Armenia, which says its armed forces are not in Karabakh and that the situation on its own border with Azerbaijan is stable, called on members of the U.N. Security Council to help and for Russian peacekeepers on the ground to intervene.
Russia, which brokered a fragile ceasefire after the war in 2020 which saw Azerbaijan recapture swathes of land in and around Karabakh that it had lost in an earlier conflict in the 1990s, called for all sides to stop fighting.
Russia is in touch with both Azerbaijan and Armenia and has urged negotiations to resolve the Karabakh conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, adding that Moscow considered ensuring civilian safety the most important issue.
Armenia has accused Moscow of being too distracted by its own war in Ukraine to protect its own security and has accused Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh of failing to do their job.
Speaking inside Karabakh with artillery rumbling in the background, Ruben Vardanyan, a banker who was a top official in Karabakh's ethnic Armenian administration until February, appealed for Armenia to recognise Karabakh's self-declared independence from Azerbaijan.
He also called on the international community to impose sanctions on Baku.
"A really serious situation has unfolded here," Vardanyan said on Telegram. "Azerbaijan has started a full-scale military operation against 120,000 inhabitants, of which 30,000 are children, pregnant women and old people," he said.
The Armenian government held a security council meeting to discuss the situation as people gathered in the government district in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, to demand the authorities take action.
Baku announced its operation after complaining that six of its citizens had been killed by land mines in two separate incidents, something it blamed on "illegal Armenian armed groups." Armenia said the claims were false.
The escalation occurred a day after badly needed food and medicine was delivered to Karabakh along two roads simultaneously, a step that looked like it could help defuse mounting tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Until the last few days, Baku had imposed sweeping restrictions on the Lachin corridor - the only road linking Armenia with Karabakh - and had blocked aid on the grounds that the route was purportedly being used for arms smuggling.
Yerevan had said that Baku's actions had caused a humanitarian catastrophe, something Azerbaijan denied, and were illegal.
Armenia's foreign ministry had said on Monday that Azerbaijan's diplomatic stance looked like it was preparing the ground for some kind of military action.
(Reporting by ReutersWriting by Andrew OsbornEditing by)
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Azerbaijan strikes targets in Nagorno-Karabakh, launches military operation
Elsa Court
Tue, September 19, 2023
Azerbaijan has launched a military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh with the claimed "goal of restoring the constitutional order," the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan announced on Sept. 19.
Azerbaijan has called it "local anti-terrorist measures." Baku also claimed that Yerevan has been attacking Azerbaijan's soldiers and building additional fortifications in the region.
The news comes after Azerbaijan claimed on Sept. 18 that Armenian forces fired on Azerbaijani outposts on the border between the two countries.
There's no evidence backing these claims at this time.
Armenian Defense Ministry said that the claims do not correspond to reality.
In Stepanakert or Khankendi, the de-facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, air raid sounded and there are reports of gunfire and explosions.
Attacks on communications infrastructure have led to a lack of internet and telephone connectivity in the territory, Andranik Shirinyan, Armenia Representative to Freedom House, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized as Azerbaijan's territory under international law, but its population of 120,000 is predominantly Armenian.
The territory declared independence in 1991 with Yerevan's military support. Until 2020, Armenia de facto controlled Nagorno-Karabakh together with the surrounding regions.
In 2020, Azerbaijan launched a military operation establishing control over parts of Nagorno Karabakh.
In November 2020, Russia brokered an armistice between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Moscow sent forces to patrol the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
In 2022, Yerevan accused Russia of failing its peacekeeping mission when Moscow began withdrawing its troops in 2022 and allowed Azerbaijan blockade Nagorno-Karabakh, preventing basic supplies from reaching the population.
The U.S. and EU have called on Azerbaijan to end the blockade.
In February 2023, he International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in favor of Yerevan's appeal to lift the blockade Nagorno-Karabakh.
Baku denied imposing a blockade.
Commenting on the issue, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said that "Armenians living in the Karabakh must either accept Azerbaijani citizenship or look for another place to live."
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Why Armenia may be the next target for Russian aggression
Team Mighty
Mon, September 18, 2023
Armenian opposition supporters march with torches during an anti-Russian rally against Russia's policy in the Karabakh conflict and its military action in Ukraine, in Yerevan on November 9, 2022. (Photo by KAREN MINASYAN/AFP via Getty Images)
The small but mighty nation of Armenia is in an interesting geopolitical neighborhood. On its western border is Turkey, a NATO ally but longtime enemy. To its east is another enemy, Azerbaijan, with which Armenia just fought over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, claimed by both countries.
In the north is Georgia which is in a never ending war of words and spies (and sometimes actual wars) with Russia. Both Georgia and Armenia were part of the Soviet Union, but even when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, support for Russia in Armenia was high.
To Armenia south is Iran, which, for the moment, is friendly to Russia-aligned Armenia. But in late September 2023, Armenia will host the United States for a joint military exercise. The move is far more threatening to Russia, which hosts Russian military forces as part of its Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) membership. The exercises are the latest in a split between Russia and Armenia, which could permanently break their relations – or worse.
Armenia and Russia have retained close relations since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Armenia joined Russia in the Commonwealth of Independent States, and joined the economic military and mutual aid collaboration of the CSTO in 1997. But since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was elected to lead Armenia in 2018, the country has been slowly breaking away from Russia’s sphere of influence.
When fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out over the Nagorno-Karabakh region once again in 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t immediately intervene, cooling relations between the two even more. Pashinyan went further in September 2023.
“Moscow has been unable to deliver and is in the process of winding down its role in the wider South Caucasus region," Pashinyan said. "The Russian Federation cannot meet Armenia's security needs. This example should demonstrate to us that dependence on just one partner in security matters is a strategic mistake."
The Prime Minister’s words come after Armenia announced it sent the first lady of the country to deliver humanitarian aid to Ukraine. It has also begun to further distance itself from the Russia-led CSTO. The military drills are just Armenia’s latest effort at realigning itself with the West.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the drills are “cause for concern” and Moscow will “monitor the situation.”
Armenia now finds itself in a Ukraine-like situation. Tired of dealing with Russian hegemony, which has caused a lot of economic hardships in Armenia, the Armenian government is beginning to look further and further West toward the U.S. and EU.
But Russia has built up a lot of armed forces inside Armenia. Even worse, Russians fleeing the war in Ukraine have moved to Armenia in droves, meaning Moscow has the ability to hide its own people among the refugees there, a potential hidden “fifth column” like the tactic used to seize Crimea.
Enemies on three borders, a country potentially filled with pro-Russian sympathizers and an ever-worsening lack of external will to keep Armenia independent could mean Armenia loses its independence entirely. It could be one more former Soviet republic absorbed by Putin’s dream of rebuilding the USSR.
Blinken likely to get involved in Armenia-Azerbaijan diplomatic engagement -US official
Humeyra Pamuk
Tue, September 19, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken chairs U.N. Security Council meeting on famine, food insecurity
By Humeyra Pamuk
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States is engaging in diplomatic outreach after Azerbaijan launched "anti-terrorist activities" in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday, U.S. officials said, adding that the incident was particularly dangerous.
A senior U.S. State Department official said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was likely to get involved in the next 24 hours in the diplomatic engagement already under way on the tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Blinken discussed the situation and stated the need for de-escalation, Interfax reported, citing the Armenian government.
Azerbaijan launched military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a step that could presage a new war in the volatile area but which Baku said was necessary to restore constitutional order and drive out Armenian military formations.
A second senior State Department official said the incident overnight was "particularly egregious and particularly dangerous, so we'll obviously be in touch with all sides."
Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but part of it is run by breakaway ethnic Armenian authorities who say the area is their ancestral homeland. It has been at the center of two wars - the latest in 2020 - since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
This week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was able to make simultaneous aid deliveries via the Lachin corridor and a separate road linking Karabakh to the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam.
Despite that, tensions have risen sharply this month, with Armenia and Azerbaijan accusing each other of building up troops.
"It's concerning that this happened overnight, especially because we did see some progress yesterday with shipments moving through the Lachin corridor," the first official said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have already fought two wars over Karabakh in the three decades since the Soviet Union collapsed. Both had been part of the Soviet Union.
Analysts say successive rounds of talks, mediated variously by the European Union, the United States and Russia, have brought the two sides closer to a permanent peace treaty than they have been for years, but a final settlement remains elusive.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Howard Goller)
Key Democrat chafes at US response to Armenia-Azerbaijan crisis
Lydia McFarlane
Fri, September 15, 2023
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) expressed frustration Thursday with the Biden administration’s lack of urgency in addressing what the United States has described as a “rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation” in Nagorno-Karabakh, a hotly disputed region at the center of rising tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Menendez, while chairing of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the crisis, said he was “amazed” by the responses from Yuri Kim, the acting assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
“I have been doing this for 31 years. I am amazed sometimes at what the department comes before this committee and says,” he said at the end of the hearing.
The senator’s frustration centered on the administration’s application of Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act, which bans direct support to the Azerbaijani government. However, Kim listed various reasons that ban has been waived, mainly to bolster Azerbaijan’s anti-terror efforts and secure its border with Iran.
Menendez argued that the U.S. was only helping the regime of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian President Ilham Aliyev, whom the senator blamed for a blockade that has cut off Karabakh in apparent violation of a 2020 truce between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“I have repeatedly expressed my deep opposition about waiving Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, allowing the United States to send assistance to his regime,” he said. “This clearly alters the balance of military power between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Aliyev’s favor. I think Azerbaijan’s actions over the past three years have vindicated my skepticism.”
Earlier this year, Azerbaijani troops began a blockade of the Lachin corridor, which has reportedly led to the starvation of indigenous Armenians in the semi-autonomous Nagorno-Karabakh.
The U.S. State Department released a statement Sept. 10 warning of the “urgent need” for humanitarian supplies in the region, but it avoided assigning direct blame.
“The United States is deeply concerned about the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh,” the statement reads. “We note that humanitarian supplies are positioned near both the Lachin and Aghdam routes, and we repeat our call for the immediate and simultaneous opening of both corridors to allow passage of desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the men, women, and children in Nagorno-Karabakh. We also urge leaders against taking any actions that raise tensions or distract from this goal. The use of force to resolve disputes is unacceptable.”
When Menendez asked Kim why Aliyev refused to open to corridor despite numerous promises to do so, Kim responded, “We can have that conversation in a different setting, sir.”
Menendez shook his head before saying, “What would be classified?”
“I’ll give you an unclassified answer: He won’t open the corridor because he is trying to subjugate these people by starvation or by the threat of starvation and subject them to his will,” the senator continued.
In renewing the Section 907 waiver, the Biden administration has argued that targeted U.S. assistance is not undermining broader efforts to broker lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, who fought a 44-day war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.
Yet the Armenian American community sees the extension of the waiver as a betrayal following Biden’s historic decision in 2021 to recognize, for the first time, the Armenian Genocide.
Menendez has been a consistent opponent of the waiver, and while the waiver is up for renewal, Menendez said he is doubtful the administration will change its stance.
Menendez delivered remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday urging the Biden administration to take immediate action in holding Aliyev accountable for the blockade, which has the characteristics of genocide, according to Article II of the U.N. Genocide Convention.
So far, there is one reported death amid severe food shortages in Nagorno-Karabakh, with many more expected to follow without immediate assistance. Kim noted that with U.S. pressure, one truck has made it through the blockade with humanitarian aid.
“One truck is not mercy,” Menendez said.
That truck was also Russian, which was cause for concern for members of the committee. Moscow mediated the 2020 ceasefire, but Kim said it was proving to be an unreliable broker.
Russia is Armenia’s sole provider of energy and has a military presence in the country. Kim said the crisis offered the U.S. an opportunity to rebalance Armenia’s geopolitical relationships in America’s favor, as Armenians become disillusioned with Russia as an ally amid the Ukraine war.
“[Armenians] are beginning to have second thoughts about having invited Russian troops onto their territory, relying on Russia as their sole source of energy, [and] hosting Russian military installations in their lands,” Kim said.
While Kim repeatedly reassured the committee that the State Department is working hard to reopen the corridor and avoid impending genocide, Menendez was unconvinced.
“I just hope you’ll tell the secretary [of State] on my behalf: I would hate to see this administration stand by and allow ethnic cleansing to take place on their watch and under their eye,” Menendez said.
Azerbaijani forces using Russian-style symbols are massing on the border of Armenia
James Kilner
Fri, September 15, 2023
The ∀ symbol on military vehicle of the Azerbaijani army, which is moving to the border with Armenia
Azerbaijan’s military is building up its forces near Armenia and has painted its vehicles with “war markings” similar to ones used by the Russian army before it invaded Ukraine.
Open-source intelligence shared with the Telegraph by The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) appears to back up Armenian claims that Azerbaijan is preparing for war.
Alongside intensified activity at Azerbaijani bases, CIR said that it had also detected an increase in flights between Azerbaijan and a military airfield in Israel, one of its allies, and opposing military manoeuvres by Iran, which is allied to Armenia.
“It is possible these are routine movements but analysis of other open-source data available may further indicate military build-up,” said Kyle Glen, a CIR investigator.
The Azerbaijani military symbols are an inverted “A” and stylised “F” and have been painted mainly on army infantry trucks and armoured personnel carriers.
Azerbaijan has not explained the symbols but the Russian military used “V” and “Z” symbols as battle group identifiers before it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and, as in Russia, Azerbaijani nationalists have also adopted these military markings as avatars and logos.
For the Armenian government, Azerbaijan’s intentions are clear.
“We are concerned that a new war could start, or at least a large-scale build-up of aggression,” said Vahan Kostanyan, Armenia’s deputy foreign minister.
Azerbaijan has previously denied this. Its foreign ministry did not respond to the Telegraph’s requests for comment.
Armenia claims it is possible that Azerbaijan is preparing for an invasion
The focus of the force build-up is the border area around Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous parcel of land roughly the size of Somerset that Azerbaijan and Armenia have disputed and fought over since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
In a five-week war in 2020, roughly 7,000 people were killed. Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in the war, using Turkish drones for the first time, before the Kremlin stepped in to impose a ceasefire.
But analysts said that with the Kremlin distracted by its invasion of Ukraine and Western influence limited in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is now looking to finish his lifetime ambition of driving all ethnic Armenians out of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“We’re at a dangerous point and we are only a couple of steps away from a new conflict,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank.
The war in Ukraine has also ripped up traditional alliances, fracturing the inherently unstable South Caucasus.
Armenia’s most important ally and business partner has been Russia and the Kremlin had been seen as a guarantor of Armenian independence. Under the 2020 peace deal that stopped the war, Russian soldiers were given a peacekeeping role and the Kremlin keeps one of its biggest overseas military bases outside Gyumri, Armenia’s second city.
But Armenia has accused the Kremlin of ignoring Azerbaijani aggression because it didn’t back its invasion of Ukraine and it has shifted its diplomatic focus towards the West. Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian prime minister, sent his wife to Kyiv this month with humanitarian aid and has hosted American soldiers for a military exercise, infuriating the Kremlin.
Mr de Waal said that Armenia’s diplomatic shift was understandable. “If Russia doesn’t protect you, what is the utility of the relationship?” he said.
If the war in Ukraine has been a disaster for Armenia’s relations with Russia, it has been a major boon for Azerbaijan, which has increased its gas supplies to Europe.
EU leaders have flown to Baku to shake hands with Mr Aliyev and have welcomed Azerbaijani diplomats in Brussels, making it far harder for them to constrain him. Azerbaijan has also rebuilt its damaged links with Russia, buying extra Russian gas to supplement its supplies to the EU.
Another major headache, analysts have said, is that any potential new war around Nagorno-Karabakh could have wider implications and make it more explosive than the 2020 war. As well as Israel, Turkey is an ally of Azerbaijan and Pakistan is an arms supplier. Armenia has developed an alliance with Iran, although it has insisted that this is not a military alliance, and it buys weapons from India.
Azerbaijan’s has painted its vehicles with 'war markings' similar to ones used by the Russian army
Pressure has been building around Nagorno-Karabakh over the past couple of years. There are regular deadly skirmishes along the border, but it is now firmly focused on a single stretch of road 20 miles long called the Lachin Corridor that links mainland Armenia with a mountain plateau.
Since December, Azerbaijan has blocked the Lachin corridor, first using civilian environmental protesters and then installing a blockade that stops even aid convoys from reaching the city of Stepanakert, all overseen by watching and impassive Russian soldiers.
Roughly 120,000 ethnic Armenians live on this mountain plateau, in and around Stepanakert, which is now cut off.
Luisine, who lives in Stepanakert, said that bread, meat and medical supplies are tightly rationed and that people have reverted to a form of mediaeval subsistence existence.
“There hasn’t been bread for three days,” she said by telephone. “When I walk through the streets I hear children begging their mothers for food and their mothers crying because they have no answers.”
Stepanakert’s stores are bare and there is no coffee, tea or tobacco. Farmers carry basic produce to market on foot or by donkey and cart.
When Luisine visited the town’s main market this week, she said that only fresh mulberries and mulberry juice were on sale. “It’s terrifying right now,” she said.
The Armenian government has accused Azerbaijan of “genocide”. Azerbaijan has said that it installed the roadblock to stop arms smuggling and has offered an alternative route to reach the town.
For Anjelika it is clear that another war is imminent. She said that Azerbaijan wants to drive her from her village, a few miles from Stepanakert, and her son has been drafted into the local ethnic Armenian army.
“Things are terrible. Very bad,” she said, insisting that she won’t leave. “There is nothing left, no butter, salt, cereals, vegetables or hygiene products. Nothing.”
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