Meeting up with Tom de Waal in Yerevan earlier this month, we joked that journalists should now avoid the cliché term “window of opportunity” when it comes to continuing peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Well, this news item from RFE/RL avoids the phrase, but once again refers to perhaps unrealistic hopes that a framework peace agreement can be signed before next year’s presidential election i.e within the next four months.

International mediators said they still hope to broker a framework peace accord on Nagorno-Karabakh before the presidential elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan as they began yet another round of regional shuttle diplomacy on Wednesday.

The chief U.S. Karabakh negotiator, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, insisted that the conflicting parties are “very close” to fully agreeing on the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group.

President Robert Kocharian said earlier this month that despite substantial progress made in Armenian-Azerbaijan peace talks, the conflict is unlikely to be resolved before the Armenian and Azerbaijani elections.

“Unlikely means less than 50 percent,” Bryza told RFE/RL before he and the Minsk Group’s French and Russian co-chairs went into talks with Kocharian and Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian. “It can mean 49 percent, 48 percent, which is maybe not much different than ‘likely.’”

[…]

“Whether the agreement comes before the elections or shortly after, we are, as we say in American English, in the ballpark and it’s time to put the ball in the net,” he said.

Baku and Yerevan are understood to have already accepted the main points of the Minsk Group’s existing peace plan. It calls for a gradual resolution of the conflict would enable Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population to decide the disputed region’s status in a referendum years after the liberation of surrounding Azerbaijani territories. Diplomatic sources privy to the negotiating process say the parties still disagree on practical modalities of the proposed referendum as well as the timetable for Armenian withdrawal from those territories.

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Reuters reports that Turkey has launched military strikes against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camps in Iraq. The brief incursion involved airstrikes and ground troops. Thirty-four Kurdish rebels are believed killed with no Turkish casualties. The military action comes as Turkey threatens a major incursion into Northern Iraq following the adoption of a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide in the U.S., and the deaths of 12 soldiers near the border on Sunday.

Turkish warplanes and troops have attacked Kurdish rebels inside Iraq and forces were being built up on the border, but Ankara was holding back from any major strike for now, military sources said on Wednesday.

News of the sorties, between Sunday and Tuesday evening in which Turkish warplanes flew 20 km (13 miles) into Iraq and some 300 ground troops advanced about 10 km, put Baghdad under greater pressure to act against PKK rebels operating from the north of its territory.

[…]

Turkey, which has NATO’s second biggest army, has deployed as many as 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, F-16 fighter jets and helicopter gunships, along the mountainous border in preparation for a possible large-scale strike.

[…]

“Further ‘hot pursuit’ raids into northern Iraq can be expected, though none have taken place so far today (Wednesday),” a military official said.

As conflict in Iraq continues to grab international headlines while the citizens of many countries with troops making up part of the U.S.-led coalition question their deployment, former Soviet and Eastern bloc republics seem more eager to send troops. In January, Armenia sent a fresh contingent of troops to Iraq despite criticism from the country’s ethnic Armenian population. Earlier this week, two ethnic Armenian women were killed by foreign security guards.

However, while the Armenian and Azerbaijani contingents in Iraq are reported to number 46 and 150 personnel respectively, the Georgian force numbers 2,000. Keen to prove itself and eventually join NATO, the Georgian contingent is now the subject of a New York Times photo story. The Travel Photographer has more.

The New York Times featured photographs of Georgian troops being sent to Kut, an area near Iran, in a recent slideshow. Its accompanying article tells us that at a time when other countries (such as Great Britain) are pulling troops out as fast as they can, Georgia has more than doubled its troop levels in Iraq to 2,000 soldiers.

What’s in it for Georgia, you ask? Ah, well…Georgia seeks NATO membership as a security guarantee against Russia, and by sending its troops to Iraq, its politicians hope that the United States will reciprocate by supporting Georgia’s membership. This is what is defined as realpolitik.

The NYT photo story, From the Caucasus to the Fertile Crescent, is here.

RFE/RL reports that the opposition Orinats Yerkir party has also joined government critics of a bill introduced by Raffi Hovannisian’s Heritage party which would officially recognize the independence of the self-declared Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, a mainly Armenian inhabited breakaway territory in neighboring Azerbaijan. I think nobody expected this bill to be taken seriously, and I’m afraid some concern does has to be raised as to why it was even suggested in the first place.

Raffi Hovannisian, the leader of the Zharangutyun Party, introduced on Tuesday a relevant draft law in the National Assembly and urged the pro-government majority there to promptly debate and pass it. Majority leaders, however, rejected the initiative, saying that it would only undermine international efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict.

Mher Shahgeldian, deputy chairman of Orinats Yerkir, made similar arguments as he presented his party’s position on the issue. “If it was possible to solve the problem by such acts, many countries with such national-liberation causes would have done so,” he said. “We advocate a pro-Armenian solution to the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh and believe that the conflict’s settlement within the framework of international structures more than corresponds to this principle.”

Parliament speaker Tigran Torosian and other majority leaders claimed on Tuesday that the Zharangutyun bill is a publicity stunt aimed at earning Hovannisian and his party more political points.

Karabakh declared itself an independent state in 1991 shortly after breaking away from Azerbaijani rule but has since failed to win formal recognition by any country of the world, including Armenia. The current and former authorities in Yerevan have resisted domestic calls to recognize the dispute territory’s independence, saying that such a move would only have a symbolic significance and antagonize the international community.

15.2 km South of Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

Not one country in the world recognizes the existence of the self-declared Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, the mainly Armenian inhabited territory situated within Azerbaijan. Despite having its armed forces involved in the conflict, this also includes Armenia. Now, Raffi Hovannisian, founder and parliamentary leader of the opposition Heritage party, has introduced a bill in the National Assembly that would formally recognize the independence and existence of the second Armenian republic.

The Heritage Party’s parliamentary leader Raffi K. Hovannisian today introduced in the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia a law officially to recognize the Republic of Mountainous Karabagh (Artsakh). This first of Heritage’s legislative initiatives, once duly adopted, signed and entered into force, will bestow Armenia’s long-awaited de jure recognition upon the de facto sovereign state established pursuant to international and Soviet laws at Stepanakert in 1991.

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Itar Tass reports that the Russian and Armenian Foreign Ministries are taking very seriously the early Monday morning shooting of Russian army officer Dmitry Yermolov. That attack which appears to have occurred in Arinj, better known as being the home village of Gagik Tsarukian, seems very spontaneous and frighteningly unpredictable. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a story of seemingly random violence in Armenia.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin discussed the recent killing of a Russian officer on the Yerevan outskirts with his Armenian counterpart Gegam Garibdzhanian by phone on Tuesday.

“The Armenian diplomat said that the national government controls the investigation,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “An investigation team has been formed, and suspects are being questioned. The Armenian Foreign Ministry promised to inform Russia about the investigation progress.”

A Russian officer was killed on the Yerevan outskirts, the Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office said earlier in the day.

According to the prosecutors, assailants stopped a vehicle carrying five Russian servicemen in the village of Arindzh in the small morning hours of Monday. The servicemen were beaten and allowed to drive off. The assailants opened fire at the departing car and injured Lt. Dmitry Yermolov. He died on the way to hospital. Another passenger was hospitalized with a gunshot wound.

Two suspects were apprehended, and their hunting guns were seized, the prosecutors said.

15.2 km South of Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

As nationalist sentiments increase in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) has just published a timely look at military spending in all three South Caucasus republics. With the need to resolve frozen conflicts in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno Karabakh high on the agenda for an international communuity interested in peace and stability in this volatile region, the omens do not look good.

As this blog concentrates on Armenian issues first of all, increased military expenditure in Azerbaijan is of huge concern. This is particularly the case given that the military arsenal of Armenia’s foe in the long-standing conflict over Nagorno Karabakh should be constrained by international treaties and obligations.

Now there is talk of Azerbaijan pulling out of such constraints to accompany threats to take the disputed territory back by force.

Calls are increasing in Azerbaijan for a review of the country’s quotas under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. Otherwise, the voices say, Azerbaijan should withdraw from the agreement.

The demands have become louder after Russia’s recent announcement that it was suspending its participation in the CFE treaty, which sets limits on the amount of weaponry European countries can hold on their territories.

They coincide with a massive increase in Azerbaijan’s military budget which is worrying some observers, who say that it increases the likelihood of the resumption of war over Nagorny Karabakh, the territory left under Armenian control after the conflict of 1991-4.

[…]

In Azerbaijan itself, the possibility of the collapse of CFE is being broadly welcomed. “This move is positive for Azerbaijan: since we intend to build up our military capacities, Russia’s withdrawal unties our hands,” said political expert Ilgar Mamedov. “Now it’s important for our authorities not to make any concessions to those forces that will try to make us adhere to CFE limits.”

Many in Azerbaijan are displeased with the quotas set for Baku by the treaty, saying that they discriminate against the country in relation to its smaller neighbour and foe, Armenia.

The soaring growth of Azerbaijan’s military budget has been made possible by the country’s huge new oil revenues. The overall 2007 defence budget is 907 million manats (just over one billion US dollars). Military expenditure has increased by 27.9 per cent, in comparison to last year and now accounts for 16 per cent of the entire state budget.

Of the sum, 796 million manats will go to the defence ministry and 110 million manats to the recently formed defence industry ministry.

The Doctrine military research centre in Baku says that Azerbaijan’s military spending per capita, now 105 dollars a year, easily exceeds that of Armenia and Georgia, 70 and 65 dollars respectively.

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliev said on television that his country’s defence budget was now eight times larger than it was four years ago and that military expenditure was the number one spending priority. “This is because we live in a state of war and our territories are occupied,” he said. “The war is not over yet. There is only a ceasefire being observed.”

He said Azerbaijan’s military budget was now equal to the entire state budget of Armenia and would be further increased.

In recent weeks - following the latest failure of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to make a diplomatic breakthrough in talks on the Karabakh dispute last month - Azerbaijan leaders have been more aggressive in their rhetoric and more openly talking about going back to war with Armenia.

“In the military sense Azerbaijan is the strongest state in the region,” President Aliev told Azerbaijan’s Police Academy on July 2. “Armenia should understand that and voluntarily withdraw its forces from lands that do not belong to it. Then there will be no war.

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Although we’ve been here before, there appears to be significant optimism ahead of talks scheduled for 9 June between the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents in St. Petersburg. I’m told by an informed source that the OSCE Minsk Group are hopeful that some kind of document will be signed then although most observers are still quite skeptical that one will be. Anyway, the International Tribune has more.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have made substantial progress toward a settlement on control of a disputed territory, the chief U.S. mediator in the talks said.

After more than a decade of efforts by international mediators to broker a deal on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents are close to solving most remaining obstacles to an agreement on basic principles, according to Matthew Bryza, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state.

[…]

The two sides have agreed on the return of districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that are also under ethnic Armenian control.

Negotiators have agreed that a settlement would stipulate that a vote would be held in the future on the territory’s status, but they have not yet agreed on the timing of the poll or the details of who would be entitled to vote.

An international peacekeeping force would be present during the interim period before the vote, and a land corridor would be established from the territory to Armenia, open to ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Bryza praised the two sides for making progress on an issue that stirs passions within both countries.

“The leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan should be lauded for their courage in trying to bring stability and prosperity to their peoples,” he said.

Well, as I said, we’ve been here before and I think most people are doubtful that a breakthrough framework agreement will be signed, but let’s see. Some in Armenian circles oppose the deal and appear to prefer the perpetual state of hostilities between the two countries, but it’s unlikely that their position will influence matters. I think that once again it will all depend on Azerbaijan.

EurasiaNet carries an analysis on yesterday’s official appointment of Serzh Sarkisyan to the position of Prime Minister. Indeed, this new development might turn out to be one of the most significant factors in determining the outcome of the 12 May vote. Although his late predecessor Andranik Markarian might have been seen as a more neutral figure in the heavily polarized political field in Armenia, Sarkisyan has the ability to stir up many emotions which are usually negative.

Some observers have wondered whether the differences in the two men’s approaches could entail the Republican Party splitting into two wings. While Markarian was a Soviet-era dissident and member of a political party that called for Armenia’s independence from the Soviet Union, Sarkisian, educated as a philologist, worked for nine years as a functionary for the Komsomol, the Communist Party youth league.

Addressing this issue on April 3, party spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov denied the prospect, stating that the Republican Party does not intend to change its ideology or “strategy.” Tactics alone could be subject to change, the news agency Arminfo reported Sharmazanov as saying, without elaboration.

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For now, the most pressing task for Sarkisian will be to maintain the party’s standing in parliament, particularly against the increasingly popular pro-government Prosperous Armenia Party, a frontrunner in many opinion polls. Despite his influence, Sarkisian is far from among the most popular of public figures with ordinary Armenians. Sour memories persist of his statement that the “mentality of our people,” rather than wrongdoing by election officials, was the reason for rigged votes during the 2003 parliamentary elections. In recent months, however, he has pledged to ensure that the May elections will be free and fair.

The pledge, many analysts believe, could have been made with an eye to the future. His past as the head of military operations for the self-declared state of Nagorno Karabakh is seen as giving him particular status within the government elite’s so-called “Karabakh clan.” Armenian analysts and media discuss as a given the likelihood that he will run for president in 2008 once President Kocharian’s final term of office expires.

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I’ve just posted a new entry over the CRD/TI Armenia Election Monitor 2007 Blog on the increasing number of former and current military commanders that are now taking an interest in the May vote. The post also briefly touches upon the issue of multiple voting by soldiers that has always been a problem for elections in Armenia in the past.

One issue that remains as relevant today as it’s ever been is the role of the military in political life in Armenia. While still effectively in a state of hostilities with neighboring Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, the military does not play as much of a role in the internal life of the country as it does in some other countries.

However, many of its high-ranking officers are believed to control lucrative sectors of the economy or certain parts of the country and it’s no wonder that problems with soldiers voting during elections is a perennial feature of elections to date. The preliminary statement of the National Democratic Institute on the May 2003 parliamentary election gives just one example.

It’s especially interesting when you consider that the Defense Minister, Serzh Sarkisyan, ran on the proportional list of the Republican Party last time round, and is likely to do so again in May.

The full post is here.

Quick question for people. I was passing by the Constitutional Court this morning and noticed a group of about 5 soldiers with handguns standing on the corner outside. When I returned past 3 hours later, the soldiers were actually manning the security guard cabin outside the Constitutional Court.

Thing is, while this strikes me as improper in a country supposedly heading for democracy and certainly sends the wrong message when the military should not take a role in the internal life of the country, I can’t remember if it’s always been like this or is this a new development and if so, why? I hope that it’s not connected to the election.

If anyone knows anything please leave a comment. Everyone I’ve asked here can’t remember apart from one person who used to intern at the Court in 1999. There were no soldiers then — just normal police. Anyway, I’ll check again tomorrow to see if the situation is the same or if it was just a special day or some special occasion.

Even then, however, the military should not be involved, or maybe they always have been. Don’t know, to be honest.