Politico: Blinken warns Azerbaijan may invade Armenia
Blinken warned lawmakers Azerbaijan may invade Armenia in coming weeks
Eric Bazail-Eimil and Gabriel Gavin
Fri, October 13, 2023
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned a small group of lawmakers last week that his department is tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan could soon invade Armenia, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
The call indicates the depth of concern in the administration about Azerbaijan’s operations against a breakaway region in the west of the country and the possibility of the conflict spreading.
Azerbaijiani President Ilham Aliyev has previously called on Armenia to open a “corridor” along its southern border, linking mainland Azerbaijan to an exclave that borders Turkey and Iran. Aliyev has threatened to solve the issue “by force.”
In an Oct. 3 phone call, lawmakers pressed Blinken on possible measures against Aliyev in response to his country’s invasion of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September, the people said, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive call.
Blinken responded that the State Department was looking at avenues to hold Azerbaijan accountable and isn't planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku. He added that State saw a possibility that Azerbaijan would invade southern Armenia in the coming weeks.
Still, Blinken expressed confidence about ongoing diplomatic talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan to the Democratic lawmakers, among them Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Anna Eshoo of California, and Frank Pallone of New Jersey.
Two additional people confirmed that a briefing happened on the situation in
In a statement, the State Department declined to comment on the call, but emphasized the department’s commitment to “Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and resolving conflict through “direct talks.”
The decision to hold off on renewing the waiver is also telling. Every year since since 2002, the U.S. has issued the waiver, allowing it to sidestep a provision of the Freedom Support Act that bars the U.S. from providing military assistance to Azerbaijan in light of its ongoing territorial disputes with Armenia. The waiver lapsed in June and State had previously provided no explanation as to why it hadn't yet requested a renewal
Since the briefing, Pallone has said publicly that he’s worried Azerbaijan could invade soon. “Aliyev is moving forward with his objective to take Southern Armenia,” Pallone tweeted Wednesday, arguing that “his regime is emboldened after facing little consequences” for invading Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan’s military incursion into that region last month prompted more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh to flee. Local leaders capitulated as part of a Russia-brokered surrender and agreed to dissolve their three-decades-old unrecognized state. Azerbaijani forces have since detained more than a dozen ex-leaders.
In a Sept. 20 statement, Blinken said he was “deeply concerned by Azerbaijan’s military actions” and declared that “the use of force to resolve disputes is unacceptable.”
But Nagorno-Karabakh is not the only territorial dispute between the two Caucasus countries. Baku has proposed a route to the Nakhichevan exclave that would cut through Armenia’s southern Syunik region, known in Azerbaijani as Zangezur, and enable road traffic to bypass Iran.
Aliyev has said “we will be implementing the Zangezur Corridor, whether Armenia wants it or not.”
"In Armenia, this is perceived as territorial claims and a demand for an extraterritorial corridor,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Wednesday, in response to growing calls from Ankara and Baku to come to an agreement.
There have long been tensions at the border: In September 2022, Azerbaijan launched an assault across the border to capture strategic high ground in the east and south of Armenia. More recently, on Sept. 1 of this year, three Armenian servicemen were killed after Azerbaijan launched “retaliatory measures” in response to an alleged drone attack.
In an interview on Wednesday, Hikmet Hajiyev, Aliyev’s senior foreign policy adviser, denied Azerbaijan has any claims on Armenian territory. He said that the risk of conflict was low because “the last two weeks had been the calmest weeks in the history of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations — there are no longer soldiers in the trenches staring at one another” in the wake of actions in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Azerbaijan restored what legally, historically and morally was ours” with its self-described “anti-terror” campaign in the region, and has no intention of pushing into de jure Armenian areas, he added.
Eric Bazail-Eimil reported from Washington. Gabriel Gavin reported from Baku, Azerbaijan.
Armenia wants a UN court to impose measures aimed at protecting rights of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians
MIKE CORDER
Updated Thu, October 12, 2023
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Armenia urged the United Nations top court on Thursday to impose new interim orders on Azerbaijan to prevent what the leader of Armenia's legal team called the “ethnic cleansing” of the Nagorno-Karabakh region from becoming irreversible.
Armenia asked judges at the International Court of Justice for 10 “provisional measures” aimed at protecting the rights of ethnic Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region that Azerbaijan reclaimed last month following a swift military operation.
Azerbaijan’s legal team strenuously denied the allegations.
“Azerbaijan has not engaged and will not engage in ethnic cleansing or any form of attack on the civilian population of Karabakh,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov.
“The Armenian residents of Karabakh are citizens of Azerbaijan, and their human rights are protected and upheld on an equal basis with those of Azerbaijan's other citizens,” he added.
In a 24-hour campaign that began on Sept. 19, the Azerbaijan army routed the region’s undermanned and outgunned Armenian forces, forcing them to capitulate. The separatist government then agreed to disband itself by the end of the year. More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Nothing other than targeted and unequivocal provisional measures protecting the rights of ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will suffice to prevent the ethnic cleansing Azerbaijan is perpetrating from continuing and becoming irreversible,” the head of Armenia's legal team, Yeghishe Kirakosyan, told judges.
After six years of separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia.
Azerbaijan took back parts of the region in the south Caucasus Mountains during a six-week war in 2020, along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed earlier. Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory.
The world court is currently considering two cases focused on the deep-rooted tensions between the two countries. Armenia filed a case in 2021 accusing Azerbaijan of breaching an international convention aimed at preventing racial discrimination. A week later, Azerbaijan filed its own case, accusing Armenia of contravening the same convention.
The court has already issued so-called “provisional measure” rulings in both cases. The measures are intended to protect the rights of both nations and their nationals as their cases slowly progress through the world court.
Armenia on Thursday accused Azerbaijan of driving Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh even as the legal wrangling continues.
“It is still possible to change how this story unfolds," said Alison Macdonald, a lawyer for Armenia. "The ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh is happening as we speak. It must not be allowed to set in stone.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has said that the departure of Armenians was “their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation.”
Mammadov, Azerbaijan's deputy foreign minister, used the court hearing to outline commitments by Azerbaijan including a pledge to protect the rights of all residents in Karabakh regardless of nationality or ethnic origin and to provide food, medicines, fuel, electricity and other humanitarian aid.
He also said Azerbaijan was committed to protecting property in the region including the homes of people who left and not to destroy "registration, identity and or private property documents and records found in Karabakh.”
The court is likely to take weeks to issue a decision on Armenia's request.
Richard CARTER
Thu, October 12, 2023
The region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been disputed for decades
Foes Armenia and Azerbaijan crossed swords at the UN's top court Thursday, as Yerevan accused Baku of "ethnic cleansing" in Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking a furious response from the Azerbaijani side over the "unfounded" charges.
The clash at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) came only weeks after Azerbaijan's lightning offensive to take control of the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time in three decades.
The one-day operation sparked a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians, with the vast majority of the estimated 120,000 who had been living in the territory fleeing into Armenia.
"Despite comprising for millennia the great majority of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, almost no ethnic Armenians remain in Nagorno-Karabakh today," said Armenia's ICJ representative Yeghishe Kirakosyan.
"If this is not ethnic cleansing, I do not know what is."
Responding for Azerbaijan, representative Elnur Mammadov said Armenia had repeated its accusations of ethnic cleansing so often that the claims "have taken on a life of their own."
Dismissing the accusations as "unfounded" and "completely without merit", Mammadov said they "do not reflect the reality of what has actually been going on in Karabakh."
"Azerbaijan has not engaged and will not engage in ethnic cleansing or any form of attack on the civilian population of Karabakh," he said.
- 'Safe and expeditious return' -
The hearings concern Armenia's request to the ICJ to order Azerbaijan to "withdraw all military and law-enforcement personnel from all civilian establishments in Nagorno-Karabakh."
It has also called on the court to ensure Azerbaijan "refrain from taking any actions... having the effect of displacing the remaining ethnic Armenians... or preventing the safe and expeditious return" of refugees.
The ICJ rules on disputes between states, but while its decisions are legally binding, it has no power to enforce them.
"There is still time to prevent the forced displacement of ethnic Armenians from becoming irreversible and to protect the very few ethnic Armenians who remain in Nagorno-Karabakh," said Kirakosyan.
"You can still make a meaningful difference on the ground today," he told the judges.
Azerbaijan retorted that it was actually encouraging ethnic Armenians to return and would afford them safe passage.
"Azerbaijan not only guarantees a right to return, it genuinely hopes that Armenian residents will return, once they see that life in Karabakh can be different from the distorted images painted by Armenia," said Mammadov.
Mammadov set out a series of commitments from Azerbaijan, including protecting the property of those who have left and ensuring the security of those remaining.
Baku pledged to allow the "safe and prompt" return of residents and the "safe and unimpeded departure" of anyone wanting to leave.
Thursday's hearings at the Peace Palace in The Hague are the latest in a long-running legal battle between the two rivals.
Each country has accused the other of breaching a UN treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
The mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh was populated mainly by Armenians and became part of Azerbaijan under Soviet rule, in the years following the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917.
It unilaterally proclaimed its independence with the support of Armenia when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
In the wake of the operation in September, Armenian lawmakers approved a key step in joining another international court based in The Hague -- the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This infuriated its traditional ally Russia because the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin on allegations of abducting Ukrainian children during Moscow's war on Ukraine
AzerbaijanPresiding judge Joan Donoghue, center, opens preliminary hearings in a case in which Armenia is asking judges at the United Nations' top court to order Azerbaijan to protect the rights of ethnic Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region that was reclaimed last month by Azerbaijan, at the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023.
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