Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Olesya Vartanyan is a senior analyst for the South Caucasus region for the International
00:04 Crisis Group.
00:05 She joins me now live from Tbilisi, Georgia.
00:08 Olesya, thanks for taking the time to speak to us.
00:10 Now, your work focuses on breakaway regions like Nagorno-Karabakh.
00:14 This is the second time the French foreign affairs minister is visiting the region.
00:19 What kind of support from France will she be bringing, do you think, to help the situation?
00:23 Well, French minister, she is coming from Kiev, that she visited Ukraine, and then she's
00:30 coming to Armenia that has just experienced with mass inflow of the people from Nagorno-Karabakh.
00:38 So we probably should expect her to raise some concerns about Russia's failure to protect
00:44 with people in Azerbaijan.
00:46 It's a peacekeeping mission that was deployed there, was standing by and watching how the
00:51 attack was taking place, and was not really helping the people who were trying to flee
00:56 the region.
00:57 There will be probably more and more questions and statements made about Russia's failure
01:03 in Nagorno-Karabakh that led to this catastrophic situation that your reporters saw on the ground
01:11 as well.
01:12 So, as you mentioned, the French foreign minister was in Ukraine just before this visit.
01:16 Russia has traditionally been an ally of Armenia.
01:20 How worried now do you think France is about Russia's influence in the region?
01:25 You know, there will be the meeting taking place between the Armenian and Azerbaijani
01:29 leaders at the upcoming EU summit, and the French president, he will be one of those
01:35 who will be mediating, who will be present at that meeting.
01:39 France is the one that has been traditionally very much involved in the topic, and probably
01:44 we should expect France to continue raising the issues about the longer-term stability
01:51 of the whole South Caucasus, but particularly about Armenia that feels so much vulnerable
01:56 and expects new attacks and new escalation at its own territory.
02:00 Yes, Catherine Colonna coming right before that meeting of European leaders that's going
02:05 to be taking place soon in Spain about Nagorno-Karabakh.
02:09 What do you think needs to come out of that meeting?
02:12 Well, we definitely need to see the continuation of the talks.
02:16 There should be some commitment from the Azerbaijani side that Azerbaijan will agree to continue
02:22 the peace talks with Armenia on good terms and also finding some solution to the standing
02:28 problems.
02:29 There will be also a need to hear about what will be happening to these people who came
02:33 to Armenia but who do reserve the right to return and also who believe that Nagorno-Karabakh
02:40 is their homeland.
02:42 So there definitely need to hear, first of all, some promise about the continuation of
02:49 the talks and the peace process, but also some promise for stability here in the region,
02:54 on the ground.
02:55 In the meantime, of course, almost all of these residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, we're
02:59 talking over 100,000 people, have fled the region.
03:02 What more do you know about their situation now in Armenia?
03:06 They are trying to settle.
03:07 There are many people who are trying to help them.
03:10 It will be a very difficult process, I should say, although with our ethnic Armenians coming
03:15 to Armenia, they are very different.
03:18 They have their own tradition, their own language.
03:21 It will be very long and difficult process to integrate them.
03:26 Some of the countries, including France, have already donated the funds.
03:29 There will be a need for more and also precise scrutiny of how this integration process will
03:35 be taking place.
03:37 But what's really very important is to keep the hope for these people that one day they
03:41 can go back home to Nagorno-Karabakh.
03:43 Well, Olesya, you've been studying this region for a very long time.
03:48 This surprise takeover came after decades of separatist struggle.
03:52 Do you really think there is a chance Nagorno-Karabakh will belong to the ethnic Armenians who left
03:57 it once again?
03:59 You know, this is not the issue of legalistic terms.
04:03 These people, they believe that this is where they belong and this is where they have been
04:07 living.
04:08 They have been living there for three decades since the beginning of this conflict, and
04:13 there was no international presence for a very long time.
04:16 They still continue living there.
04:17 There are some other places all around the world like this, but it's really very unfortunate
04:22 that in Nagorno-Karabakh there was no chance to keep these people on the ground and also
04:29 to prevent this military operation that we saw just days ago.
04:35 It's a failure that many, in fact, predicted and then saw coming, and it's really very
04:42 sad to see that there was no possibility to prevent it from happening.
04:48 The situation is relatively calm at the moment, but it could easily turn into a new escalation.
04:53 Just a quick word on the Armenian army.
04:55 Do you think that it's prepared to fight back?
04:58 It's, you know, right now all the eyes are, of course, at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border,
05:04 not Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone itself.
05:06 Again, people left Nagorno-Karabakh.
05:09 There is no one who will be fighting Azerbaijani forces there.
05:13 There are the problems at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, which stayed the deadly area since
05:18 the 2020 war for the last three years, which is actually the area where we have seen most
05:25 of the casualties.
05:26 In fact, the French minister, she visited that area just five months ago when she was
05:33 in the region last time, exactly because everyone understood that this is where Armenia is particularly
05:39 vulnerable, this is where this country will not be able to defend itself, and this is
05:45 probably where Azerbaijan could take over more territory.
05:50 We saw that it took Azerbaijani forces just several hours to take strategic control over
05:57 Nagorno-Karabakh.
05:58 It will be similar for Armenia if a new escalation is to start.
06:02 All right, Alessia.
06:03 Thanks so much for sharing your expertise with us.
06:05 Alessia Vartanian speaking to me there from Tbilisi in Georgia.
06:08 Thank you.