Tag Archives: Armenia

Pope to visit Armenia and Georgia

APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pope Francis will visit the South Caucasus twice this year, the Vatican said, firstly to Armenia on June 24-26 and then to Georgia and Azerbaijan on Sept. 30 – Oct. 2. This is important because Pope Francis is one of the most outspoken popes in modern times. His visit will give him an international stage to opine on the affairs of the South Caucasus.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Armenia and Azerbaijan hold shaky ceasefire over N-K

APRIL 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A fragile ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed forces continued to hold around Nagorno-Karabakh, although there were reports of sporadic fighting.

Armenia-backed forces said they lost 97 soldiers and militiamen in the worst fighting over the disputed region since a ceasefire was imposed in 1994.

Azerbaijan’s government has not disclosed a final tally, but dozens were reported killed during intense battles that started on April 2.

Both sides blame the other for starting the fighting. The international community has urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to sue for peace.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

‘Shells rained down on us,’ say people in N-K, Armenia-Azerbaijan disputed region

APRIL 15 2016, TALISH, Azerbaijan (The Conway Bulletin) — The shells began falling at 3am on April 2.

Vilen Petrosyan, head of the tiny hamlet of Talish in northeast Nagorno-Karabakh, a region disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia backed fighters, had gone to sleep late because the next day was his birthday.

He and relatives had prepared a cake and 12kg of meat for shish kebab. Guests and relatives were expected to join the celebrations from neighbouring villages.

But instead of a leisurely breakfast with gifts and compliments, Mr Petrosyan and his family were torn from their beds by the sound of artillery.

The 52-year old ran out on to his balcony to see shells ploughing into homes, a kindergarten and other buildings. “In ten minutes, the village shop was on fire,” he said in an interview with a Conway Bulletin correspondent. “Then ten minutes later, a tractor.”

Azeri troops crossed the frontline, locals said. The bodies of a couple in their late 60s and the man’s 92-year- old mother were later found in their home. Armenian residents said that

Azerbaijani soldiers had shot them dead and then sliced off their ears.

This was the start of four days of battles that killed several dozen people in the worst fighting since a 1994 ceasefire was imposed.

Since 1994, Armenia-backed fighters have controlled and run Nagorno- Karabakh, although it is still recognised by the international community as part of Azerbaijan.

The leadership of the unrecognised republic has argued that Azerbaijan started the violence, aiming to recapture lost land. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, said its military fired in response to an Armenian attack – and that a school, houses and factories were hit on its side.

A unit of pro-Armenia fighters eventually beat back the Azerbaijani fighters from Talish but people fled the village on the day of the shelling. Mr Petrosyan said he doesn’t know if all will return.

“There are 170 children in the village,” he said. “So many explosions, this is hard for them. We must get around a negotiating table with the Azeris and agree a real peace.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

ENA to upgrade Armenian power distribution system

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), the Armenian national grid, said it would invest 20b drams ($42m) into modernising the country’s power distribution system. The largest proportion of this cash will be spent on updating the metering system. Russia-based, but Armenian-owned, Tashir Group bought ENA last year from Russia’s Inter RAO. Electricity is a sensitive topic in Armenia. Last year, when ENA tried to increase prices, streets protests forced it to back down.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Armenia receives gas discount

APRIL 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A week after agreeing to a price cut for its gas exports to Kyrgyzstan, Russian state-owned Gazprom said it would give Armenia a similar discount for this year’s supplies.

Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller and Anatoly Yanovsky, Armenia’s deputy energy minister, signed the agreement after Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev visited Yerevan and discussed the price cut with President Serzh Sargsyan.

Gazprom agreed to give a 9% discount for the gas it pumps to Armenia, the same percentage discount as Kyrgyzstan, lowering the price to $150 per 1,000 cubic metres.

The long-awaited discount, importantly, fell short of Armenian officials’ expectations, having seen Gazprom’s prices to Europe fall by an average of 40% in the past 18 months.

“Any decline in prices is positive, but in this case, a $15 drop cannot be considered a serious help to reducing the prime cost of Armenian goods,” Artsvik Minasyan, minister of economy, said.

Armenian officials had said they hoped to get a 12% discount.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Azerbaijan- Armenia fighting over N-K threatens Europe’s plans

APRIL 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – For Europe, the fierce fighting this week between Azerbaijani forces and Armenian-backed forces was a reminder that their plan to bring the South Caucasus firmly into its economic sphere is a risky one.

Eight years ago Russia and Georgia fought over the rebel region of South Ossetia. Now Azerbaijan and Armenia are close to all-out war over another sliver of land.

Wedged between these two scruffy, mountainous regions is the trade corridor that Europe relies on to transport goods to and from the Caspian Sea and Asia.

Theodoras Tsakiris, assistant professor for energy, geopolitics, and economics at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus told RFE/RL that two major pipelines pumping oil gas to Europe which lie just north of the conflict zone could be effected.

“A potential conflagration over Nagorno Karabakh is quite likely to affect both of these pipelines,” he said. “They are of critical significance primarily for Azerbaijan, then Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Europe and the global economy.”

European officials have avoided mentioning trade and gas exports from the South Caucasus in their comments on the fighting and have instead focused on calling for a full ceasefire but bureaucrats across Europe’s capitals will be troubled by the conflict.

Central to their plan is to build a network of pipelines stretching from the Caspian Sea across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey into Europe. Gas from this route, dubbed the Southern Gas Corridor, would start to compete with Russian supplies.

Sections of the pipeline, after all, run only 40km north of the frontlines in Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

EEU reschedules meeting due to Armenia-Azerbaijan fight in N-K

APRIL 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Eurasian Economic Union moved a meeting of its PMs scheduled for April 8 in Yerevan to Moscow because of fighting between Armenia-backed fighters and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Before the meeting was moved, Kazakh PM Karim Massimov had cancelled his trip to Armenia’s capital. The Moscow meeting will now be held on April 13.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Worst fighting erupts between Armenia and Azerbaijan over N-K

APRIL 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Serious fighting broke out between Azerbaijani forces and Armenian backed forces around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, smashing a tense ceasefire that had been in place for 22 years.

Casualty numbers were difficult to gauge but at least several dozen people were killed in the fighting, mainly soldiers. Video footage showed both sides firing rockets and pounding well dug-in positions with heavy artillery, as well as deploying tanks and helicopters.

Alarmed that the fighting could escalate, world leaders urged both sides to sue for peace.

From Washington, John Kerry, US secretary of state, said: “The United States condemns in the strongest terms the large-scale ceasefire violations along the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact, which have resulted in a number of reported casualties, including civilians.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched Dmitri Medevedev to talk to both Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in Yerevan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku.

As the Bulletin went to press a two-day-old ceasefire held, although there were reports of sporadic fighting.

When the Soviet Union fractured in the late 1980s and early 1990s, localised ethnic tension started to explode into pockets of fighting. Nagorno- Karabakh, a region that belonged to Azerbaijan was one of these region. It was populated mainly by ethnic Armenians who wanted to break away.

After years of fighting that killed 30,000 people the UN negotiated a ceasefire in 1994 that left Armenia- backed rebels running the region.

Thomas de Waal, one of the foremost commentators on the South Caucasus, wrote in the New York Times that the conflict could spread.

“A new all-out Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the stuff of nightmares. Given the sophisticated weaponry both sides now possess, tens of thousands of young men would most likely lose their lives,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Armenian CBank cuts rates

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Armenian Central Bank said it cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 8.25%, just over a month after the previous rate cut. The Bank said this is in line with the policy of easing the cost of borrowing and other monetary instruments. Economic activity in the country is shrinking and the Central Bank wants to boost it gradually by cutting rates.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kerry wants Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict resolution

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – US secretary of state John Kerry said he wanted to see “an ultimate resolution” on the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr Kerry was meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Washington when he made the comments. Just days earlier, Azerbaijan said two of its soldiers were killed in clashes with the Armenian army.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)