Day: September 25, 2023

On the sidelines of 78th United Nations General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar met the Armenian foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan in New York on Sunday, September 24, as the two leaders affirmed a strong bilateral partnership. The meeting comes amid thousands of Nagorno-Karabakhs’s ethnic Armenians who have started crossing over to Armenia after Azerbaijan’s military offensive. 

Indian External Affairs Minister Dr Jaishakar took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to announce New Delhi’s strong relationship with Armenia after meeting Mirzoyan. “On the sidelines of UNGA78, met with Ararat Mirzoyan FM of Armenia. Appreciate his sharing assessment of the current situation in the Caucasus. Affirmed our strong bilateral relationship,” said Jaishankar on X. 

On the sidelines of #UNGA78 , met with @AraratMirzoyan FM of Armenia.

Appreciate his sharing assessment of the current situation in the Caucasus. Affirmed our strong bilateral relationship. pic.twitter.com/T10QFK2RKg

— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) September 24, 2023

The Armenian foreign minister also informed that he discussed the security situation in South Caucasus, referring to the region comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. He said that during the meeting he asserted that ethnic cleansing needs to be prevented in the region. “On sidelines of #UNGA78 met w/my colleague, FM @DrSJaishankar. Discussed security situation in #SouthCaucasus & Azerbaijani aggression in #NagornoKarabakh. Stressed imperative for clear steps to restrain efforts to destabilize the region & prevent another ethnic cleansing,” said the Armenian Foreign Minister in a post on X. 

India’s growing ties with Armenia 

India and Armenia share a bilateral relationship, after New Delhi recognised the country in 1991. In recent times, New Delhi has been strengthening its relationship with Armenia as an attempt to look beyond its traditional allies like Russia and Iran in the region. India has been supplying weapons to Armenia, thus, strengthening its defence against Azerbaijan, with which it has been locked into a conflict in the Nogorno-Kharabakh region. 

In July this year, India exported the Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher System (MBRLS) Pinaka, designed and developed indigenously. Pinaka strengthens Armenia, given Azerbaijan’s constant use of drones. In addition to the Pinaka system, Armenia acquired four indigenous Swathi weapons-locating radars from India in 2020.

New Delhi-Armenia ties raises eyebrows 

However, India’s growing ties with Armenia have evoked strong reactions from Azerbaijan. In January 2023, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev had criticised India’s burgeoning military cooperation with Armenia calling it an unfriendly step. Further, Azerbaijan is a part of an informal arrangement with Pakistan and Turkey where all three vow to support each other. 

Jaishankar also held separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts from other countries including Mexico, Bosnia, Herzegovina. The Indian external Affairs Minister is on a nine-day visit, beginning from the UN General Assembly.  The minister is scheduled to address the General Debate from the UN General Assembly hall on Tuesday. He would also be hosting an event on Global south as well.

STEPANAKERT, Azerbaijan, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will meet Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday as ethnic Armenians fled the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh after a lightening military operation that has changed the contours of the South Caucasus.

The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, were forced into a ceasefire last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much-larger Azerbaijani military.

The leadership of the 120,000 Armenians who call Karabakh home told Reuters on Sunday that they did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan and that they would leave for Armenia because they feared persecution and ethnic cleansing.

As of 5 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Monday, more than 2,900 people from Nagorno-Karabakh had crossed into Armenia, the government of Armenia said as it rushed to prepare for thousands of refugees.

Erdogan will pay a one-day visit to Azerbaijan’s autonomous Nakhchivan exclave – a strip of Azeri territory nestled among Armenia, Iran and Turkey – to discuss with Aliyev the situation in the Karabakh region, the Turkish president’s office said.

“Bilateral relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan will be discussed, and views on current global and regional matters, particularly the latest developments in Karabakh, will be exchanged,” the presidency said.

They will attend a ceremony for a gas pipeline that will bring gas to Nakhchivan and inaugurate a newly modernised military installation in the exclave, the Turkish presidency said.

In the Karabakh capital, known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan, those with fuel started on Sunday night to drive down the Lachin corridor toward the border with Armenia, according to a Reuters reporter.

Reuters pictures showed dozens of cars driving out of the capital toward the corridor’s mountainous curves.

The Azerbaijani victory changes the delicate balance of power in the South Caucasus region, a patchwork of ethnicities crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines where Russia, the United States, Turkey and Iran are jostling for influence.

KARABAKH

Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh by Armenians, lies in an area that over centuries has come under the sway of Persians, Turks, Russians, Ottomans and Soviets.

It was claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917. In Soviet times it was designated an autonomous region within Azerbaijan.

As the Soviet Union crumbled, the Armenians there threw off nominal Azerbaijani control and captured neighbouring territory in what is now known as the First Karabakh War. From 1988-1994 about 30,000 people were killed and more than a million people, mostly Azerbaijanis, displaced.

Azerbaijan gained back swathes of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in a war in 2020.

Erdogan, who backed Azerbaijan with weaponry in the 2020 conflict, said last week he supported the aims of the Azerbaijan’s latest military operation but played no part in it.

Armenia says more than 200 people were killed and 400 wounded in last week’s Azeri operation. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is facing calls to resign from protesters in Yerevan, has blamed Russia for failing Armenia.

Pashinyan has warned that some unidentified forces were seeking to stoke a coup against him and has accused Russian media of engaging in an information war against him.

The United States has said it was deeply concerned by Azerbaijan’s military operation, which Baku launched on Sept. 19 after what it said were terrorist attacks on its civilians by Karabakh fighters.

On Sunday, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said it had confiscated more military equipment from Armenian separatists, including rockets, artillery shells, mines and ammunition.

Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh said the fighters had given up 1,200 weapons and 130,000 units of ammunition, and that 125 tonnes of food and 65 tonnes of fuel had been delivered.

Armenia called for an immediate deployment of a U.N. mission to monitor human rights and security in the region.

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