One week after the Azerbaijani Armed Forces invaded the Republic of Armenia on May 12, hundreds of Azerbaijani troops remain stationed in the sovereign territory of Armenia amid ongoing negotiations between the two countries and international demands for their immediate withdrawal.
On May 12, approximately 250 Azerbaijani soldiers advanced upon Lake Sev in the Syunik province and border sections of the Gegharkunik province. While the Office of the Prime Minister and the Armenian Ministry of Defense (MoD) uphold that no violent altercations had taken place along the border, Pashinyan has called the Azerbaijani military’s transgressions upon the international boundary of Armenia a “provocation” intended to ignite a “military conflict.” “Our position is that the situation must be resolved diplomatically and peacefully,” he asserted on Wednesday.
As of Wednesday morning, the situation along the borders remains unchanged, according to the MoD of Armenia. More units of the Armenian Armed Forces have been deployed in the past two days to prevent the Azerbaijani troops stationed in Syunik and Gegharkunik from carrying out any military operations.
Following failed negotiations in Syunik between Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian officials last week and over the weekend, Armenian and Azerbaijani officials were expected to meet once again on May 19. “We definitely want to resolve the situation peacefully and are ready to hold discussions in a calm manner,” Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan told reporters during his visit to Goris on Friday. “Having said that, we must be prepared for possible bad developments and also be ready to defend our sovereign territory.” The Wednesday meeting did not take place, because Azerbaijani representatives did not appear for the talks. The MoD reiterated that, in case negotiations fail to bring about a peaceful settlement within a reasonable time frame, the Armenian Armed Forces reserve the right to resolve the problem by means of force.
An informal meeting between Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) foreign ministers convened on Tuesday at the request of Armenia. The meeting follows a request from acting PM Nikol Pashinyan last week to the CSTO to invoke Article 2 of the Collective Security Treaty, which binds participating states to coordinate a collective response to threats to stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty of one of its members. The CSTO is a Russian-led military alliance that includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. On Friday, Pashinyan also appealed to the incumbent Chairperson of the CSTO Collective Security Council and the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon to activate the mechanism of emergency consultations and take measures against Azerbaijan’s actions.
During the Tuesday meeting, Russia offered to create a joint Armenian-Azerbaijani commission to delimit and demarcate the international boundary, in which Russia would participate as a mediator. “We are glad that the hot phase of the recent conflict is behind us,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has consistently understated the gravity of the crisis, advising on Monday that there is no need to “stir up emotions” over the dispute. “The main thing is that the countries have started work on delimitation and demarcation,” he expressed. While Pashinyan formally requested military support from Russia last week in line with their mutual defense treaties, Moscow has yet to comment publicly on the request.
Armenian Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan confirmed the Russian proposal during an interview with armenpress. He stressed that delimitation and demarcation cannot occur without the withdrawal of Azeri troops from sovereign Armenian territory.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday regarding Russian mediation of the demarcation of the international border. Both leaders “support settling the issue through political and diplomatic means alone,” according to the Kremlin. Putin also spoke with Pashinyan, and his office reported that they “agreed on the ways and methodology to resolve the situation,” without providing any further details on what that would entail.
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) insists that their violations of Armenia’s sovereign territory are “baseless.” On Thursday, the MoFA wrote that the border regions encroached on by Azerbaijani troops are “positions of our country.” It asserted that there has been “no state border between [Armenia and Azerbaijan]” since 1991. On Monday, the MoFA of Azerbaijan reiterated that it is “restoring its internationally recognized borders.” It advised Armenia to “accept the reality of the interstate border regime” and “work with the Azerbaijani side in a constructive way to solve the border issues through the bilateral channel.”
While the Azerbaijani military justified its troop movements on the basis of maps defining the international border, Pashinyan sustained that the maps of the 102nd Russian military base “unambiguously confirm [Armenian] statements about the coordinates of the border.” Pashinyan also rejected the possibility of a bilateral format to demarcate the international boundary since “Armenia and Azerbaijan have no relations with each other.”
During a phone call with the President of Kazakhstan on Monday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared that Armenia’s appeal to the CSTO is “nothing but an attempt to internationalize the issue” unnecessarily as there “have been no clashes on the border, the situation is stable, negotiations are underway.”
Under the November 9 trilateral ceasefire agreement ending the 2020 Artsakh War, Azerbaijan gained control over a number of territories, including the districts Zangelan, Qubatlu and Kelbajar, that had previously served as a buffer zone between Armenia and Artsakh. The Office of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia has consistently called for the creation of a commission to oversee a normalized and comprehensive border demarcation process that takes into account lived realities on the ground. The absence of such a process has created uncertainty in Armenia’s borderlands, where local residents encounter Azerbaijani soldiers, signposts and national flags along their pastures and roads.
The Office of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia has recorded incidents of threats of violence against residents of border villages by Azerbaijani soldiers in the past week. In communities including Verishen in Syunik and Upper Shorja, Vardenis and Ayrk in Gegharkunik, Azerbaijani troops prohibit shepherds from grazing in their local pastures. Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan, who has presented these findings to the Commissioner of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, reiterated the need for the establishment of a demilitarized security zone around Syunik and Gegharkunik to prevent further human rights violations against the residents of border communities.
Azerbaijan also exhibits a history of restricting access to natural resources for the Armenian population and staging troop movements in order to gain control over such resources, especially water. For instance, in February Tatoyan reported that the Azerbaijani military deliberately changed the course of the Zvaraget tributary from the Meghri River, which provides drinking and irrigation water to the town of Meghri and nearby villages in Syunik, to Nakhichevan, through special engineering equipment, compromising access to water for local Armenian residents. According to Tatoyan, access to water reserves has already been threatened by the recent Azerbaijani invasion.
During a government meeting on Wednesday, Pashinyan asserted that Azerbaijan is attempting to disrupt the implementation of the November 9 agreement and the January 11 agreement through its “destructive” actions. The January 11 trilateral agreement between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia is meant to accomplish the ninth point of the ceasefire agreement which states that all regional economic and transport links will be opened to allow for the unimpeded movement of citizens, vehicles and goods between Azerbaijan and the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic through Armenia. The statement also provides Armenia with railway access to Iran through Nakhichevan and Russia through Azerbaijan.
Since January, Aliyev has drawn ire for threatening to use force to establish a corridor under Azerbaijani control through Syunik. On Wednesday, Pashinyan declared that while Armenia considers the opening of regional communications an “important economic priority,” Armenia “has never discussed and will not discuss anything under the logic of a ‘transport corridor’.”
Countries around the world have demanded the retreat of Azerbaijani troops from the sovereign territory of Armenia. On May 13, Pashinyan had a telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron at the initiative of the latter. Macron shared that he is considering taking the issue to the United Nations Security Council and that with a UN mandate France is also prepared to provide military support to international efforts to resolve the issue if necessary. Following the conversation, Macron posted on Facebook, “Azerbaijan’s armed forces have invaded Armenian territory. They must be immediately withdrawn. To the Armenian people, I once again say: France stands in solidarity and will remain so.”
During a press briefing with the US Department of State on May 14, spokesperson Jaline Porter called the movement of Azerbaijani troops “irresponsible” and “unnecessarily provocative,” insisting on their immediate withdrawal. On Monday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held separate phone calls with Pashinyan and Aliyev. Sullivan told Pashinyan that he would present Aliyev with the demand to withdraw troops from Armenian territory. After their conversations, Sullivan wrote that both leaders are committed to the “peaceful resolution of border tensions through dialogue.”
The US State Department issued Level 4 Travel Advisories on May 18 warning Americans not to travel to Armenia or Azerbaijan and to “exercise caution on roads near Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan.” “Be aware that some portions of the road may cross international boundaries without notice,” the Travel Advisory reads. The notice further advises against travel to the Artsakh region and surrounding areas due to “recent hostilities.”
A senior Iranian lawmaker also asserted on Monday that Iran is unequivocal and resolute in its support for the territorial integrity of Armenia. “It would be unacceptable for us if they took away a part of Armenian territory and changed our borders. That is, if we had a new neighbor,” Mojtaba Zonnour, head of the Commission of National-Security and Foreign-Policy in the Iranian Parliament, told reporters. “The existing borders must be fully protected and Iran’s border with Armenia must be preserved.”
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