“It is useless to discuss illusory solutions” – Armenian analyst on the situation in NK
Actions in Yerevan in support of NK Armenians
“Open the road of life”, “We are Artsakh”. Protests with such slogans were held in the morning in the capital of Armenia. Traffic was briefly blocked on some central streets of Yerevan. The participants demanded the unblocking of the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. They also informed passers-by about a simultaneous rally scheduled for July 25 in Yerevan and the capital of NK, offering to join it.
Protests also continued near the UN office in Yerevan and embassies. The protesters argued that if nothing is done, “the situation that has developed in Nagorno-Karabakh will reach Armenia.”
Meanwhile, the authorities of the unrecognized NKR called on Armenia to take steps so that the Russian peacekeepers receive an international mandate, hoping that in this case they will finally be able to act. However, according to political commentator Hakob Badalyan, “these are unrealistic expectations.” He believes that in order to get out of this situation, it is necessary to form or restore an international platform of “collective responsibility”. As an example, he recalls the format of the co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group.
Since December 12, 2022, the unrecognized NKR has been under blockade, the only road connecting it with the outside world blocked. For more than a month, the Armenians of NK have been living under a strict blockade. Since June 15, humanitarian supplies, medicines, and food have not been received here. The situation is getting worse every day. People stand in line for hours to buy bread, which is sold in limited quantities.
On Monday, Azerbaijan decided to once again allow the vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross to transport patients to Armenia. At the same time, information appeared in the Armenian media that Azerbaijan sent medical personnel to its post on the Khakari bridge. Baku presented a new condition: Azerbaijani doctors must examine patients transported to Armenia by the Red Cross.
“Transport the humanitarian cargo collected in Yerevan to NK”
The participants of the action turned to the UN office in Yerevan with this demand. For more than a week now people have been collecting food in front of the UN building, expecting that this international organization will take steps to transport the cargo to NK. Now the participants of the action have already addressed in writing to the management of the representative office:
“Given the difficult situation, we ask you to accept all the collected humanitarian cargo and urgently transport it from the Republic of Armenia to Artsakh through the Lachin corridor.”
So far, there has been no response to this request.
At some point, the protesters even blocked the entrances and exits of the UN building so that the representatives of the representative office “felt the blockade on themselves.”
Actions in Yerevan in support of NK Armenians
“Ambassador of the Russian Federation on vacation”
Margarita Karamyan, head of the Return to Dizak NGO, also took part in the action near the Russian embassy. She told reporters that a Russian embassy official urged the protesters to “write a letter and throw it in our box.” To the remark that “thousands of letters have already gone unanswered,” the embassy replied:
“No one can receive you, the Russian ambassador is on vacation.”
Karamyan is one of those residents of NK who, at the end of last week, tried to cross the Khakari bridge and return home. It was an action in response to Baku’s announcement that the road was open. However, the Russian peacekeepers did not allow them to cross the bridge, “categorically refused” to accompany the Armenians on their way home to their relatives.
“Now I consider it more than likely that the blockade was organized by the Russian side. For us, for the people who wanted to cross the Hakari bridge, it became clear that the road was blocked by Russia. And Azerbaijan is just a bloody tool in her hands, with the help of which the Armenians are forced to submit to their will,” she said.
“In case of powerful civil pressure, we can achieve results”
This is the opinion of Arman Vardanyan, a representative of protest organizers, which has been taking place near the UN office:
“The actions will continue until hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets and declare that they will not tolerate starving Armenians a few hundred kilometers away and the world turning a blind eye to a humanitarian catastrophe.
This is a unique phenomenon in itself, when civil society itself collects products and forces the most powerful, number one structure in the world, on which the world order rests, to realize its fundamental principles.”
According to Margarita Karamyan, who took part in the protest at the Russian Embassy, even if these actions do not give any practical results, they “at least wake up the inhabitants of Armenia.”
“They will understand that their compatriots are in a difficult situation. And if we sit quietly and do nothing, then the situation created in Artsakh will reach Armenia.”
For more than a week, protests have been held daily in Yerevan in front of the embassies of Russia, France, the United States, the EU, the Red Cross and the UN. The protesters are trying to draw the attention of international partners to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The demand to “endow Russian peacekeepers with an international mandate”
The appeal of the parliament of the unrecognized NKR to the Armenian authorities contains a demand to take urgent measures so that the Russian peacekeeping mission receives an international mandate. The document proposes to apply to the UN Security Council, the General Assembly “to maintain peace and security in the region”:
“The Russian peacekeeping contingent does not have an international mandate, which allows Azerbaijan to violate the tripartite statement (of November 9, 2020), as well as the norms and principles of international law, to continue actions that threaten security and stability in the region.”
A comment
Political commentator Hakob Badalyan says that waiting for Russia to be granted a peacekeeping mandate in the UN Security Council or hoping for another mission to replace the Russian peacekeeping mission is “equally unrealistic”:
“Another thing is that Armenia can turn to show that none of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council is ready to take practical steps to manage the situation constructively, that is, to overcome the blockade of Artsakh and form a balanced peace process.”
And yet, he believes that this demonstration of the inaction of international players will not change anything. He considers that it is more expedient to make every effort to ensure that a commission is sent to NK and the Lachin corridor to study the situation on the ground:
“This proposal of Yerevan, which has been voiced for months, has not received the approval of any specific actor. Because no one needs it. And what is happening around Artsakh today, maybe everyone needs to solve their various problems.”
According to Badalyan, in order to find a way out of the situation, it is more useful to recognize its “hopelessness” than to sit in front of the cameras and talk about imaginary, illusory ways out:
“We must direct our efforts towards the formation or restoration of an international “collective” platform of responsibility, as it was before, within the framework of the co-chairmanship of the Minsk Group.”
He explains this proposal by the fact that in the current “conditions of a world war” any one power center or pole cannot significantly change the situation.
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Actions in Yerevan in support of NK Armenians
