Armenia
-
On occasion I have been asked to comment about events or affairs in countries that I know little about. I have always respectfully declined to talk about things I have not read about or studied from a historical perspective. We really should not comment on things we don’t know about. In recent years there has…
-
It is the anniversary this month of the complete liberation of Karabakh by the armed forces of Azerbaijan. Most of the regions of Azerbaijan taken by Armenian forces between 1991 and 1994 were reclaimed in November 2020 by the Azerbaijanis during, and as a result of, the 44 Day War. The rump of the former…
-
Two years ago, on 18 July 2022 Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU Commission, issued a Memorandum of Understanding statement in Baku, noting that because Russian gas supplies were “no longer reliable”, “The European Union has therefore decided to diversify away from Russia and to turn towards more reliable, trustworthy partners. And I…
-
James Sharp, former British Ambassador to Baku, was recently interviewed on Caliber, by Orkhan Amashov. The interview dealt with some similarities between the ‘Northern Ireland’ peace process/1998 Belfast, aka Good Friday Agreement, and the current, stalled Armenia-Azerbaijan peace negotiations. The focus of the interview was on the reluctance of Yerevan to meet Baku’s demand to…
-
Two significant events have occurred in the South Caucasus in recent weeks. Firstly, the West has thrown its weight behind Armenia’s breakaway from Russian hegemony. Secondly, the Russian peacekeepers, who took up positions in 2020, have begun withdrawing from the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh. Let us first acknowledge that Nikol Pashinyan has good reasons for…
-
The United States has taken nearly 6 months, and the deaths of around 35,000 people, to finally lift its veto for the first time against international attempts at the UN to stop the Zionist slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza. In all that time it has provided the intelligence, missiles and moral/diplomatic cover to facilitate…
-
Samantha Power recently tweeted: “Two months ago, Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh forced more than 100k people to leave their homes & move into neighboring Armenia. The U.S. continues to stand with the ethnic Armenians from NK. Today, the U.S. is announcing an additional $4 million to help these displaced people. We’re grateful for the…
-
The last few days have seen momentous events in the South Caucasus that few in the West, outside those in power who know, can understand. The last vestiges of the 30 year Armenian occupation of Azerbaijan has collapsed after a day of intense military effort, described as an anti-terrorist operation, was applied to it by…
-
At a recent press conference, an exasperated President Putin replied to criticism of Russia from Armenia: “Before the 2020 Karabakh War and since 1994, Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh & 7 other regions of Azerbaijan. All these years, we requested that Armenia return 5 regions back to Azerbaijan but keep Nagorno-Karabakh, plus 2 other regions (Lachin &…
-
The peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia proceeds slowly but in the right direction. After the latest instalment in Moscow, on 26 July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said “the path is not easy,” and summarised the current progress: “There are many complex and important issues to be resolved. The most sensitive of them was…
