Tensions in the Southern Caucasus

Armenia will hold snap elections on June 20 following an agreement between the prime minister and the leader of the biggest opposition bloc in parliament.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan suggested that the vote could finally provide a way out of the political crisis that has consumed Armenia since the loss in last year’s war with Azerbaijan. Since then, many Armenians and Armenian institutions have demanded that Pashinyan step down but he has held firm in his refusal.

Pashinyan announced the deal following a March 18 meeting with Gagik Tsarukyan, the head of the Prosperous Armenia party. The third party in parliament, Bright Armenia, had already agreed to the early elections. “During the meeting we stated that the best way out of the current internal political situation is early parliamentary elections,” Pashinyan wrote in a Facebook post.

Pashinyan and his allies had been arguing that there is “no public demand” for elections, but a recent poll from the U.S. NGO International Republican Institute found otherwise: 55 percent of respondents said they were in favor of snap elections. Of those, 57 percent said the elections should take place this spring. A further 13 percent said they should take place by summer.

Pashinyan had on occasion indicated an openness to holding snap elections, but the various sides were stuck on the details. A coalition of opposition parties, called the Homeland Salvation Movement and which has included the former ruling Republican Party along with Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia, has been organizing ongoing street protests demanding Pashinyan’s resignation. They also have been demanding that any elections take place under a caretaker government, not the current regime.

“Holding elections under Nikol Pashinyan or a proxy successor of his will lead to terrible consequences,” said Vazgen Manukyan, the Homeland Salvation Movement’s nominee as prime minister, at a March 15 rally. “The same government will be reproduced, Armenia will continue to be under external influences, and all the losses we suffered in the war will be legitimized.” He pointed out that no opposition party has ever gained power in Armenia through the ballot box.

Following Pashinyan’s announcement, Eduard Sharmazanov, a spokesperson for the Republican Party, reiterated opposition to snap elections until Pashinyan steps down. “I think he is bluffing,” Sharmazanov told reporters. “When he resigns then the Republican Party will discuss the possibility of participating.”

Even Pashinyan’s political mentor, former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, recently weighed in to oppose elections conducted by the current authorities.

“The prime minister and his political force, attempting to avoid responsibility for their disgraceful defeat, are guided not by concern for the consolidation of the state but solely by an obsession with maintaining power at all costs. If snap elections are organized by the ruling power, they will not shy away from the widespread use of administrative resources,” he said last month. “I am convinced that in that case we will witness the most disgraceful elections in the history of Armenia. And that could mean the end of Armenian statehood.”

Other opposition leaders said they would participate: Artur Vanetsyan, a former top security official under Pashinyan who then quit and began to openly oppose Pashinyan, said following the announcement that his new Homeland Party would participate.

And another former president, Robert Kocharyan – this one a Pashinyan foe – earlier said that he would contest early elections. “Yes, we will run, we will fight, and we will win,” Kocharyan told journalists at the end of January.

It’s not clear if the new vote will take place under electoral reforms that the ruling party has been discussing for nearly two years, but not yet adopted.

WASHINGTON — More than a century after the Ottoman Empire’s killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian civilians, President Biden is preparing to declare that the atrocities were an act of genocide, according to officials familiar with the internal debate. The action would signal that the American commitment to human rights outweighs the risk of further fraying the U.S. alliance with Turkey

Mr. Biden is expected to announce the symbolic designation on Saturday, the 106th anniversary of the beginning of what historians call a yearslong and systematic death march that the predecessors of modern Turkey started during World War I. He would be the first sitting American president to do so, although Ronald Reagan made a glancing reference to the Armenian genocide in a 1981 written statement about the Holocaust, and both the House and the Senate approved measures in 2019 to make its recognition a formal matter of U.S. foreign policy.

At least 29 other countries have taken similar steps — mostly in Europe and the Americas, but also Russia and Syria, Turkey’s political adversaries.

A U.S. official with knowledge of the administration’s discussions said Mr. Biden had decided to issue the declaration, and others across the government and in foreign embassies said it was widely expected.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, declined to comment on Wednesday except to note that the administration would have “more to say” on the topic on Saturday.

Foreign Minister Ara Aivazian of Armenia said in an interview on Wednesday that “the recognition by the United States will be a kind of moral beacon to many countries.”

“This is not about Armenia and Turkey,” Mr. Aivazian said. “This is about our obligation to recognize and condemn the past, present and future genocide.”

The designation and whether Mr. Biden would issue it have been seen as an early test of his administration’s dealings with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

The two men have had a somewhat testy relationship in the past, in contrast to the generally warm treatment Mr. Erdogan received from President Donald J. Trump, and the genocide declaration could prompt a backlash from Turkey that risks its cooperation in regional military conflicts or diplomatic efforts. Past American presidents have held back from the declaration for that very reason, and Mr. Biden could still change his mind about issuing it.

While Turkey agrees that World War I-era fighting between the Muslim Ottomans and Christian Armenians resulted in widespread deaths, its leaders have resolutely rejected that the killing campaign that began in 1915 amounted to genocide.

Yet Turkish officials have been bracing for the genocide declaration ever since Mr. Biden committed to it during his presidential campaign, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned earlier this week that it would set back the already strained relationship between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

“Statements that have no legal binding will have no benefit, but they will harm ties,” Mr. Cavusoglu said in an interview with the Turkish broadcaster Haberturk. “If the United States wants to worsen ties, the decision is theirs.”

The legal definition of genocide was not accepted until 1946, and officials and experts said Mr. Biden’s declaration would not carry any tangible penalties beyond humiliating Turkey and tainting its history with an inevitable comparison to the Holocaust.

“We stand firmly against attempts to pretend that this intentional, organized effort to destroy the Armenian people was anything other than a genocide,” a bipartisan group of 38 senators wrote in a letter to Mr. Biden last month, urging him to make the declaration. “You have correctly stated that American diplomacy and foreign policy must be rooted in our values, including respect for universal rights. Those values require us to acknowledge the truth and do what we can to prevent future genocides and other crimes against humanity.”

Mr. Biden appears intent on showing that his commitment to human rights — a pillar of his administration’s foreign policy — is worth any setback.

The genocide declaration signals that the United States is “willing to take geostrategic hits for our values,” said James F. Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Turkey who served in senior national security posts for the three presidents immediately preceding Mr. Biden.

Mr. Jeffrey, now the Middle East chair at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, said there was little risk that Turkey would turn toward Russia, Iran or other American adversaries to replace its alliances with the West.

But, he said, Mr. Erdogan could easily try to stymie or delay specific policies to aggravate the Biden administration, particularly in Syria, where Turkey’s tenuous cease-fire with Russia has allowed for already-narrowing humanitarian access, and in the Black Sea, to which American warships must first pass through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles on support missions to Ukraine.

“It may be harder to get Erdogan to agree to specific policies,” Mr. Jeffrey said.

He also raised the prospect that Turkey could force meticulous reviews to slow non-NATO operations at Incirlik Air Base, a way station for American forces and equipment in the region. Or, Mr. Jeffrey said, Turkey could do something to provoke new sanctions or reimpose ones that have been suspended, like taking military action against Kurdish fighters allied with American forces against the Islamic State in northeast Syria.

Pentagon officials have also noted the value of Turkish forces remaining in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. and other coalition troops by Sept. 11; Kabul and Ankara have a longstanding relationship that will allow some troops to remain in Afghanistan after the NATO nations leave.

Tensions between Turkey and the United States flared in December, when the Trump administration imposed sanctions against Ankara for its purchase and then test of a Russian missile defense system that Western officials said could expose NATO’s security networks to Moscow. The sanctions were imposed in the final month of Mr. Trump’s presidency, three years after Turkey bought the missile system, and only after Congress required them as part of a military spending bill.

Mr. Trump had pointedly promised to help Armenia last fall during its war against Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, noting the politically influential Armenian diaspora in the United States. His administration took a more evenhanded approach in trying to broker a peace agreement alongside Russia and France and, ultimately, Armenia surrendered the disputed territory in the conflict with Azerbaijan, which was backed by Turkey.

In the Wednesday interview, Mr. Aivazian, Armenia’s foreign minister, seized on Turkey’s military role in the Nagorno-Karabakh war as an example of what he described as “a source of expanding instability” in the region and the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

He said the genocide designation would serve as a reminder to the rest of the world if malign values are not countered.

“I believe bringing dangerous states to the international order will make our world much more secure,” Mr. Aivazian said. “And we will be witnessing less tragedies, less human losses, once the United States will reaffirm its moral leadership in these turbulent times.”

ANKARA, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that Turkey and Armenia will mutually appoint special envoys to discuss steps to normalise ties, and added they will also restart charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan.

Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark peace accord in 2009 to restore ties and open their shared border after decades, but the deal was never ratified and ties have remained tense. During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict last year, Ankara supported Azerbaijan and accused Yerevan of occupying Azeri territories.

Speaking at his ministry's budget discussions in parliament, Cavusoglu said Turkey would coordinate steps to normalise ties with Armenia with Azerbaijan.

As the grinding war in Ukraine enters its second month, tensions flared in another former Soviet region, where Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in 2020, as Azerbaijani troops moved into territory patrolled by Russian peacekeepers, Moscow said in a statement on Saturday.

The Russian defense ministry said that the Azerbaijani forces had launched four drone strikes against the army of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed mountain enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but claims independence and is closely allied with Armenia.

The Azerbaijani forces installed a surveillance post, the Russian ministry said, adding that it had called for troops to be withdrawn from the area. The ministry said the events had occurred on Thursday and Friday.

Azerbaijan went to war and emerged victorious over Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020, recapturing some of the territory it had lost during a war that followed the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s.

Russia did not take sides in that fight, but President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia brokered an agreement to end the conflict. He also sent about 2,000 peacekeeping troops to the area, demonstrating Russia’s role as a potent arbiter in the Caucasus region, which has been plagued by conflicts and volatility.

But with Mr. Putin preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, the most audacious foreign policy move of his 21-year tenure at the helm of Russia, foreign policy experts said other powers in the region might treat the situation as a window of opportunity.

Azerbaijan’s defense ministry disputed Moscow’s version of events. The ministry said in a statement that “illegal” Armenian armed units attempted an act of sabotage but had to retreat after “immediate measures” were applied.

The statement reiterated Azerbaijan’s commitment to a three-way deal it signed with Armenia and Russia in November 2020 to end the military conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region after more than a month of bloodshed.

Arayik Arutyunyan, the head of the Nagorno-Karabakh republic, said he had declared martial law, without mentioning Azerbaijan and specifying the reasons. In a meeting with military attachés, Levon Ayvazyan, an Armenian military official, accused Azerbaijan of violating previous agreements, saying that so far “negotiations have not yielded positive results.”

On Friday, Jalina Porter, deputy spokeswoman at the U.S. State Department, said that the United States was “deeply concerned about the movement of Azerbaijani troops in Nagorno-Karabakh.” In response, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said such an entity did not exist and that Azerbaijan “is on its sovereign territories.”

South Ossetia will hold a referendum to vote on whether to join Russia, the territory’s de facto leadership has said.

Coming amid another attempted land grab – the invasion of Ukraine – the move raised the specter of a possible further expansion of Russia’s borders to the south, into Georgia. But the fact that calls for joining Russia are regularly heard in South Ossetia, and that this one was made in the heat of an electoral campaign, also has given it the appearance of a possible campaign stunt.

“Unification with Russia is our strategic goal, our path, the hope of our people, and we will move on this path,” the territory’s de facto president Anatoliy Bibilov said in a March 30 televised address. “We will take the corresponding legal steps in the near future. The Republic of South Ossetia will be part of its historical homeland – Russia.”

Bibilov later clarified, to prominent Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyev, that the “legal steps” would amount to a referendum.

South Ossetian officials regularly call for the territory to be integrated into Russia. In 2016, Bibilov’s predecessor called for a referendum on the issue, but it never took place.

South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Georgia attempted to retake the territory militarily in 2008, and Russia invaded Georgia in response. Following that war Moscow formally recognized South Ossetia as independent and has since heavily financially and militarily backed it.

Officials said the referendum would take place following the elections for the territory’s de facto presidency, scheduled for April 10, in which Bibilov is facing stiff competition despite the fact that the central electoral commission has disqualified many of the strongest candidates. He has come under pressure for the unpopular deployment of some South Ossetian soldiers to fight for Russia in Ukraine.

A televised debate among the candidates took place the evening of March 30, but Bibilov bowed out, saying that he had to attend urgent discussions on the integration issue. “Right now consultations are taking place to make sure that the steps being taken to integrate into Russia are legally correct,” he said at the top of the debate.

While Moscow has typically blown off the calls from Tskhinvali to annex the territory, Russia’s strategic calculations have no doubt changed as a result of the war in Ukraine. And Bibilov’s call appeared to have gotten a positive reception in Moscow.

“I can’t express any opinion on integration and the referendum,” said Dmitriy Peskov, spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, on March 31. “We have not taken any legal or other actions in this area, but at the same time the issue here is the expression of the opinion of the people of South Ossetia, and we will treat it with respect.”

At another appearance on Russian state television, Bibilov  said that “the most important thing is that there are already consultations going on with our Russian colleagues.”

Russia typically uses its support of the breakaway territories as an instrument of leverage over Georgia, but Moscow appears to have few complaints with Tbilisi these days as Georgia has adopted a mostly passive stance toward the war in Ukraine. Russia’s envoy for Georgia, Grigoriy Karasin, on March 24 praised Tbilisi’s “balanced” reaction to the war and said that “it would not go unnoticed” in Russia.

Georgia, meanwhile, condemned Bibilov’s announcement. “It is unacceptable to discuss any referendums while Georgia’s territory is occupied by Russia,” Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said on March 31. “No referendum will have any legal force amid the occupation, especially against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of our citizens being expelled from their homes as a result of the ethnic cleansing and not being allowed to return.”

Tbilisi counts about 30,000 ethnic Georgians displaced from the wars in South Ossetia, on the same order as the current population of the territory.

The authorities in the other Georgian breakaway territory, Abkhazia, said they “welcomed” South Ossetia’s move but did not intend to follow suit.