By Harut Sassounian,

Words have meanings and consequences as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan found out when he told a journalist last week that the powerful Russian Iskander missiles, supposedly fired by Armenia during the Artsakh War last November, “did not explode or exploded 10%.” This surprising statement was in response to an interview by previous President Serzh Sargsyan in which he asked why Pashinyan had not ordered the use of the Iskander missiles during the early part of the Artsakh War.

Several days after the Prime Minister’s highly controversial statement, his spokeswoman announced that Pashinyan “was not briefed correctly regarding the Russian missiles.” But it was too late. The damage was done.

No one could have predicted the chain of unexpected events that followed Pashinyan’s words questioning the merits of the Iskander missiles that Russia had exported exclusively to Armenia. A large number of Russian military experts and political leaders reacted very harshly to Pashinyan’s statement viewing it as disparaging of the prized missiles of Russia and the prestige of its defense industry.

However, the reaction within Armenia was no less devastating. When First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Tiran Khachatryan, a Lieutenant General, was asked to comment on Pashinyan’s statement about the Iskander missiles not exploding, he responded with a chuckle that it was not possible and not serious.

Upon hearing of this slight, Prime Minister Pashinyan immediately ordered the firing of the Deputy General Staff. His dismissal was endorsed by Pres. Armen Sarkissian, according to the process outlined in the constitution. The Prime Minister had surely overreacted to Khachatryan’s snub, particularly since Pashinyan himself had appointed him in June 2020 and awarded him the prestigious “National Hero” medal for his outstanding role during the Artsakh War.

In retaliation, dozens of top Armenian military leaders released a joint statement on Feb. 25, 2021, demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister and his government. The statement was signed by Onik Gasparyan, Chief of the General Staff and 40 other high-ranking military Officers, including 17 generals and Commanders of all five Army Corps. Later, several other military and police officials added their signatures.

The military’s statement expressed its “resolute protest” against the “short-sighted and baseless” dismissal of the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff “without taking into account the national and state interests of the Republic of Armenia, solely based on personal and pretentious sentiments.” The statement added that “in such difficult conditions for the country, such a decision is an anti-state and irresponsible step. The Prime Minister and his government are no longer able to make adequate decisions in this critical and fateful situation for the Armenian people. The Armed Forces, for a long time, patiently tolerated the ‘attacks’ by the incumbent authorities to discredit the Armed Forces, but everything has its limits…. The current authorities’ unproductive governing and the most serious errors exhibited in foreign policy have brought the country to the brink of collapse. Based on the created situation, the Armed Forces demand the resignation of the Prime Minister and the government….”

Pashinyan immediately announced on his Facebook page the firing of the Chief of the General Staff. The Prime Minister called the military’s statement “an attempted military coup,” urging his supporters to gather at the Republic Square where he joined them and marched in Yerevan streets holding a megaphone. This was a highly irresponsible act on the part of Pashinyan, venturing to the streets during what he described as an attempted military coup, which could have led to tragic consequences for the country had anyone harmed him.

After Pashinyan ordered the firing of Onig Gasparyan, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Pres. Sarkissian, having consulting all sides of the political spectrum, refused to sign the Prime Minister’s order, calling it unconstitutional. The Prime Minister then submitted a second dismissal request to the President. Should the President refuse to sign the order for a second time, then the issue will be submitted to the constitutional court for its final decision. It is curious as to why the President endorsed the Prime Minister’s earlier order to sack the First Deputy of the General Staff but refused to sign the order to dismiss the Chief of the General Staff. After all, the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff’s wrongdoing was simply chuckling at the Prime Minister’s statement about the Russian missiles, whereas his boss, the Chief of the General Staff, demanded the Prime Minister’s resignation.

In the meantime, the Armenian military took no further steps beyond its call for the resignation of the Prime Minister which the Prime Minister wrongly described as an attempted coup. However, the statement could be viewed as interference in political affairs which violates the constitution. It is clear that the military’s intent is having the Prime Minister resign without taking any military actions.

Turning to the unconstitutionality of the military’s statement, there are counter points to this argument. The military stated that they could no longer remain quiet while the country is on the brink of collapse. The national interest of Armenia has to be of paramount importance. After all, the military is the guardian of the nation’s security. Furthermore, Pashinyan and his supporters cannot all of a sudden claim to be defenders of the constitution, when they have been violating many of its provisions in the past three years. The Prime Minister has repeatedly pressured the courts and has stacked the Constitutional Court with his allies to get verdicts desired by the government. Pashinyan and his supporters similarly pressured Pres. Sarkissian to force him to sign the Prime Minister’s order. Ironically, the democratic principles endorsed by Pashinyan when coming to power have dissipated turning the country into a one-man rule, a dictatorship. Given the Prime Minister’s partisans’ overwhelming majority in Parliament, other voices have been mostly muzzled. All suggestions to form a government of competent experts have been ignored, leaving Pashinyan with a mediocre and incompetent cadre of officials and advisors.

Pashinyan’s only important attribute is that he is not corrupt — which is very positive, but that alone is not enough to lead the state through such turbulent waters. After all, Armenians are not looking for a saint, but a competent leader who can solve the country’s complex problems.

Furthermore, Pashinyan and his followers did not always practice what they are preaching now. Back in 2018, when there were widespread street protests by Pashinyan and his supporters, a large number of Armenian soldiers illegally left their barracks and marched with the demonstrators. Even though this was a violation of military rules and interference in politics, Pashinyan did not take any action against these soldiers. In a similar situation occurred in 1998, when Defense Minister Vazgen Sargsyan forced then President Levon Ter-Petrosyan to resign. No one complained that it was unconstitutional.

Shortly after this new crisis in Armenia, leaders in Azerbaijan and Turkey issued self-serving statements on the situation in Armenia. In my opinion, both of these countries, led by dictators, are in no position to comment on developments in Armenia, let alone give Armenians lectures about democracy. They should look at themselves in the mirror and keep their mouths shut.

Having suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of our enemies in the Artsakh War, Armenians cannot afford now to attack each other. We need to place the national interest above all else. Having lost most of Artsakh and thousands of soldiers, let’s not risk losing Armenia itself.

Pashinyan, the leader of the ‘Velvet Revolution,’ should not have told his followers last week that there will be no more ‘velvet’ which could be interpreted as a threat to anyone who disagrees with him. Should the military also adopt a no velvet approach, the outcome would be tragic for the entire Armenian nation. The best solution would be for the Prime Minister, having lost territories and thousands of soldiers, to resign by his own volition without facing any threats or protests. Otherwise, having demanded Pashinyan’s resignation, the military leaders may carry out their demand by force, to ensure that they themselves are not arrested. Such a group arrest would deprive Armenia of its entire military leadership. Months from now, under calmer conditions, new parliamentary elections should take place with a clean slate, hopefully excluding Pashinyan and the other former leaders. The people have the right to decide by a majority vote who their new leader should be.

The leadership of the Armed Forces of Armenia has issued the following statement:

“The leadership of the Armed Forces of Armenia reaffirms its assessment on the current situation and stresses that it remains unwavering, prudent and persistent, regardless of the attempts to entangle the Armed Forces in political processes.

Being composed of the sons of our nation and foreboding the threats posed to national security, the leadership of the Armed Forces considers the groundless allegations targeted at the Armed Forces and certain officials inadmissible and urges people to stop making those allegations.

The current situation shows that the leadership of the Armed Forces is only guided by state interest and only serves the people, governed by the norms of the Constitution and laws of the Republic of Armenia.”

Ahead of the scheduled big demonstration in Yerevan’s Republic Square, Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan issued a statement on Monday, expressing concern over an excessive use of administrative resources to gather together big crowds of people.

Highlighting the importance of democracy as an inalienable fundamental principle enshrined in the Constitution of Armenia, the Ombudsman called for democratic institutions’ active work to ensure respect for human rights “while promoting also solidarity”.

He also urged the National Assembly to exercise its function of maintaining checks and balances as a legislative body assigned to provide “institutional solutions” to the existing problems.

According to Tatoyan, recent observations by the staff of the Human Rights Defender’s Office reveal “a high level of intolerance and tension in the country”, with insults and hate speech being widespred in the social media and mutual accusations persisting “in the almost total absence sound or professional debates”.

Noting that the creation of a platform for public debates is essentially conducive to freedom of assembly, the Ombudsman highlights the state’s positive obligation to guarantee the security of participants.

“That’s our country’s international obligation,” Tatoyan said.

Source: tert.am

We have already announced that all community leaders will join the army and the people community by community. We see that the parade has started ․ PAP MP Mikael Melkumyan said this today in his speech during the rally of the “Homeland Salvation Movement”.

“But we must understand the seriousness of the moment, we must be vigilant, we must not allow conflicts with our other brothers who are lost, we must make sure that they join our gathering very quickly. “Do not get lost, it is time for the nation to be saved, the country is standing on the edge of the abyss, we must be able to straighten our spine,” he said.
Melkumyan stressed that the person holding the post of Prime Minister is isolated, he received the first blow from the army, he asked the other law enforcement agencies, who are their guarantors, the state or one person, he stressed that the employees of the law enforcement agencies should not to leave, but to join the people in their positions.

“We will not allow clashes, there is no other solution, so tomorrow, at 10 o’clock, a process must start at the NA plenary sitting, so that the sitting on the agenda of discussing the situation” invited by the PAP ” “We will be able to achieve a change of government in a constitutional way.”
Melkumyan stressed that they should mobilize their forces, as Pashinyan does not care about society, economy and social issues.
“Today, as a result of the fake economic revolution, foreign investment has decreased 11 times in 2020. This has never happened before. We have double-digit declines in exports, imports and trade. Where are we going to tolerate the Turkish-sponsored government? We have the last effort left, we all need to understand the seriousness of the moment. “In a few more days, we will celebrate the victory together here,” he said.

Tensions in Armenia have intensified since Prime Minister Pashinyan and the country’s military locked horns in the wake of a string of dismissals of top military officials ordered by Pashinyan. The military has now called for Pashinyan’s resignation, which the prime minister regards as “a coup attempt”.

Opposition supporters have broken into a government building in central Yerevan, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Monday.

The opposition staged a protest action in the lobby of the building, which reportedly hosts several ministeries.

They shouted anti-Pashinyan slogans and called on employees to take no part in the rallies in support of the prime minister.

After several minutes, the protesters left the building. A video of the public action was caught on camera and has since been uploaded on social media.

Armenia became mired in a political crisis after the military called for Pashinyan’s resignation last week in response to a string of dismissals in the military. The prime minister sacked top officials after the deputy army chief slammed Pashniyan’s comments about the alleged inefficiency of Russian-made Iskander systems during the Karabakh conflict. This prompted the military to call for Pashinyan to step down.

The protests also come amid a broader discontent of the opposition with the prime minister in the wake of a Russia-brokered ceasefire concluded in November that put an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Under the agreement, a number of Nagorno-Karabakh’s districts were ceded to Azerbaijan.

Chairman of the Tovmasyan Charity Foundation Artak Tovmasyan considers the country’s parliament as one of the main structures capable of settling the current situation in Armenia.

“We, as a newly created force – the third force, propose the parliament to nominate a new candidate for prime minister by 6pm tomorrow They must get together, pick a candidate and force the current government to resign. This will help resolve the existing problems, otherwise bigger clashes will take place, which is undesirable for our country,” Tovmasyan told reporters on Baghramyan Avenue in Yerevan on Monday.

He noted that lawmakers, being the people’s elected representatives, must discuss and solve the problems facing the country.

“The authorities they elected have brought the country to this situation. That is why MPs, especially the pro-government lawmakers, must reach a solution to the problem,” Tovmasyan said.

He said the resignation of the current authorities and conduct of snap elections are key priorities for the country.  

Turkey and Iran on Sunday summoned each other’s ambassadors following an escalating row over Turkey’s presence in neighbouring Iraq, Ahval news outlet reported. 

The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s Ambassador to Ankara Muhammed Ferazmend, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, following Iran’s Ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi’s comments on Turkish presence in northern Iraq.

Iran responded by summoning Turkish ambassador to Tehran, Derya Örs, to the foreign ministry, Iranian news agency ISNA reported.

Mashed told Iraqi Kurdish outlet Rudaw on Saturday that Turkey should withdraw troops from Iraqi soil and respect borders, and that Tehran was strongly opposed to Turkish interventions in northern Iraq, as well as any other foreign presence in the country.

Iran “does not accept at all” any intervention or foreign military presence in Iraq, Masjedi said, “and therefore we believe Turks must return to their international position.”

Lindsey Snell·February 26, 2021,

Repurposed into a mercenary force by Erdogan’s Turkey, the remnants of Syria’s armed opposition were sent off to fight for Azerbaijan with promises of sweet paychecks. They met abuse, humiliation, and death instead.

In the first week of October 2020, Ahmad Hadad* and more than 20 other fighters from the Hamza Division faction of the so-called Syrian National Army stood in the middle of a mountain range in Azerbaijan near the Iranian border. They were lost.

After the Armenian army unleashed a bout of heavy bombardment on the mountains, the Azerbaijani soldiers who had been positioned behind the Syrians quickly fled, leaving the Syrians by themselves in unfamiliar terrain. An artillery shell landed near one of Hadad’s commanders, Muhammad Shaalan, killing him instantly.

Two of the youngest, strongest fighters in the group carried Shaalan’s body and made their way out of the mountains to look for their base. When the men became overwhelmed with fatigue, they dropped the body and let it roll down the mountain slopes to save them the effort.

Hours passed, and the Syrians realized they were no closer to finding the way back. Three fighters decided to sit with Shaalan’s body to wait for the others to return with help, knowing that if they didn’t, the body would likely be lost in the mountains forever.

After the other men left, the three who remained were met with a flurry of bullets from the south. Another Syrian National Army militant, Hussein Talha, was struck and killed. The two surviving men fled to the northeast until they reached a point where other Syrian fighters from the Hamza Division had gathered. 

“The situation was tense, with our commander coordinating with the Turks to find out why the Azerbaijanis had abandoned us,” Ahmad Hadad said. “They recovered the bodies and returned them to Syria. But things got worse for us. I mean, many more of us died in Azerbaijan.”

A flight to Baku

It was last July when men from the Syrian National Army (SNA), a collective of militant Syrian opposition factions supported and supervised by Turkey, learned that they might be deployed to Azerbaijan, a country few of them had even heard of. They were told they would be acting as border guards, and that the assignment would be easy and combat-free.

On September 22, 2020, a source from the Sultan Murad faction of the SNA sent me a photo of dozens of militants on a cargo plane. “They’re going to Baku,” he wrote. “Now. And more will follow.”

Five days later, Azerbaijan launched an offensive on the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a flashpoint of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It relied heavily on support from Turkey and the mercenary forces it drew from the ranks of the Syrian militants it had spent years supplying in a failed and disastrous bid to topple the government in Damascus.

The myth of the moderate Syrian opposition

Since the start of the Syrian war, Turkey has been the most aggressive state supporter of the Syrian armed opposition. Turkey hosted the first military operations room of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and was integral in facilitating support from Western and Gulf countries.

Turkey partnered with the United States and Saudi Arabia to create the train-and-equip program, an ill-fated venture which aimed to provide training and weapons to militants from so-called “moderate” opposition factions in Syria.

In 2014 in Aleppo, I interviewed fighters from Harakat Hazm and Jaish al-Mujahideen, two FSA factions deemed “moderate” by the US government.

“There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim,” one Jaish al-Mujahideen militant in Aleppo told me. “We are all Muslims. We all have beards. We all pray. Your government says we are moderate, but you will not find a moderate fighter in all of [opposition-held] Syria.”

Shortly after the first FSA militants from the Harakat Hazm faction were trained and given weapons, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, fought and defeated them. Jabhat al-Nusra raided their weapons warehouses and stole their vehicles. Essentially, the train-and-equip program indirectly armed al-Qaeda.

Outside of the train-and-equip program, Turkey directly armed Jabhat al-Nusra. “I picked up weapons from the Syrian border three times in 2013 and 2014,” said Ziad Ibrahim*, a militant formerly from the Jaish al-Mujahideen faction of the FSA. “We would go to the border, meet a Turkish agent, and drive back to our headquarters with three cars’ full of equipment. Then, we would take a portion of the weapons Turkey gave us and leave them in a specified location. Jabhat al-Nusra would pick them up from that location.”

From the beginning of the war until 2016, Turkey’s border with Syria was virtually wide open for ISIS, al-Qaeda, and FSA militants to travel between the two countries. Ilyas Aydin, a Turkish ISIS leader now held prisoner by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a predominantly Kurdish, US-backed militia in northeastern Syria, said that he had meetings with Turkish national intelligence agents on the Turkish-Syrian border to discuss the passage of fighters and weapons.

“This isn’t about Islam,” Aydin said. “Erdogan doesn’t want an Islamic caliphate. He wants an Ottoman caliphate. For a time, ISIS was useful to him, because we controlled the areas of Syria along the border with Turkey. He wants Turkey to control the areas that we occupied.”

Only after ISIS was defeated in the parts of Syria bordering Turkey and replaced by the Kurdish SDF, Turkey constructed a border wall. 

“We were already mercenaries and thieves”

In December 2017, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) became the Syrian National Army (SNA), further unifying militant opposition factions under Turkish control. In January 2018, using factions from the newly named SNA, Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch on Afrin, a Kurdish-majority city in northwest Syria. 

In March 2018, after capturing and occupying Afrin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a speech highlighting the areas of Syria that Turkey planned to target next. “Next will be Manbij, Kobani, Ras al-Ain, Tel Abyad, Qamishli,” he said. In October 2019, Turkey and their SNA proxies attacked and captured Ras al-Ain and Tel Abyad. They are regularly attacking the Manbij area now.

“Afrin was when we started fighting just for Turkey,” said Mahmoud Azazi*, a Hamza Division militant who was in Azerbaijan for the duration of the war. “Afrin was fighters on their worst behavior. The [SNA] stole property and cars. They kidnapped Kurdish civilians and charged their families ransom. They killed civilians, and they raped women.”

“When Erdogan decided to send [SNA fighters] to Libya two years later, we were already mercenaries and thieves,” he added.

In December 2019, after Turkey signed an agreement with Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), SNA militants were flown to Libya to support the GNA’s fight against their rival, the Benghazi-based Libyan National Army. Before a ceasefire agreement took hold last June, SNA sources estimated that Turkey had sent more than 15,000 Syrian mercenaries to Tripoli and Misrata.

Before the ceasefire, the SNA militants in Libya reported being used by the GNA and Turkey as infantry forces in the most dangerous battle zones. As in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the mercenaries complained that they were lied to about the reason for their deployment to Libya. “They told us there would be minor combat,” one Sultan Murad militant said. “But now, our dead soldiers are lying in the streets.” 

It has been relatively easy to keep in touch with SNA militants throughout their time in Libya. They have sent pictures and videos from well-appointed villas in Tripoli, long abandoned by civilians who fled the clashes and militia oppression rampant in Western Libya.

SNA fighters have spoken candidly about how they loot civilian homes and strip electrical wires for scrap metal, turning to the Libyan militants affiliated with the Government of National Accord to sell the items on their behalf.

In February 2020, Erdogan admitted that SNA militants had been sent to Libya. “Turkey is there with a training force,” he said. “And there are also people from the Syrian National Army.”

The difference in Turkey’s handling of the Syrian mercenaries in Azerbaijan was immediately apparent. On September 25, two days before Azerbaijan and Turkey started the war in Karabakh, Ahmad Khaled*, a Hamza Division militant in Idlib, fretted that he was unable to reach any of the Syrians deployed to Azerbaijan. “My brother, three of my cousins, many more people from my village… none of them have been on their phones since they left from Turkey,” he said. 

Shortly after the war began, Khaled finally received a series of frantic voice messages on WhatsApp from his brother in Azerbaijan. “They took our phones at first,” he said, heavy explosions audible in the background. “And now, the internet usually doesn’t work. They threw us into battle directly. They told us before we left that there would be no fighting, and we would just be guarding the border for the Azerbaijanis, but already five from our group have died from shelling. We don’t know where we are. We need to leave this place.”

In the first few days of the war, SNA militants leaked two videos that Twitter users were quickly able to geolocate to Nagorno-Karabakh. Mainstream media outlets began to publish reports about the Syrian mercenary presence. Officials from Russia, France, and the US indicated that they had evidence of Turkey sending the SNA militants to Azerbaijan. 

On October 11, a fighter from the Hamza Division filmed the corpses of Armenian fighters and posted the video on Facebook, where it quickly spread.

In an October 14 interview with France24, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev denied the presence of Syrian mercenaries in Nagorno-Karabakh. On the same day, Turkey’s Erdogan addressed the mercenary accusations in a speech. “It is said that we have sent Syrians fighters to Karabakh,” he said. “Syrians have jobs in their own land. They didn’t go there.”  

That evening, Ahmad Hadad, who was based in the same camp as the Hamza Division fighter who had posted the video, watched as Azerbaijani and Turkish intelligence pulled up in trucks. “They beat him. They kicked him. They did this in front of all of us, to instil fear,” Hadad said. “The Turks took this man away, and we haven’t heard from him since. They were very determined to stop information leaks from the Syrians in Karabakh.” 

As the war continued, contact with SNA fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh was increasingly scarce. SNA commanders regularly warned their men not to share any information from the front lines. On October 25, Fahim Issa, commander of the Sultan Murad faction, disseminated a voice recording to his men. “Do not take pictures!” he bellowed. “Do not send anything to anyone, or you will be arrested!”

The war in Nagorno-Karabakh ended on November 10, 2020 with a trilateral peace agreement between Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia. By the end of November, the SNA mercenaries had been returned to Syria.

As time has passed and the fear of arrest has waned, more of the SNA men have been willing to share accounts and photos from their time spent embedded with Azerbaijani forces. 

The Turkmen advantage

Syrian National Army sources say that Turkey sent an estimated 2,700 SNA militants to Azerbaijan. In a likely attempt to give the Turkish government deniability, mercenary logistics were handled by SADAT, a Turkish private defense contractor owned by Adnan Tanriverdi, President Erdogan’s former chief military counselor. (SADAT also handles the mercenary logistics for the thousands of SNA fighters Turkey has sent to Libya.)

Khaled Turkmani Abo Suleiman, a Turkman commander from the Sultan Murad faction, is believed to have acted as liaison between the SADAT and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The SNA militants in Nagorno-Karabakh primarily came from three factions: Sultan Murad, Sultan Suleiman Shah, and Hamza Division. Mahmoud Azazi says that around 500 of those sent were Syrian Turkmen, a Turkish minority concentrated mostly in northern Syria.

“There were five camps of mercenaries in Azerbaijan,” he said. “Hamza Division and Sultan Murad had two camps each, and Sultan Suleiman Shah had one. Each of the five camps had a Turkmen brigade.”

Mustafa Kassab*, a former SNA commander, says that ethnic Turkmen in the SNA enjoy special status. “There is a clear distinction between us, the Syrian Arabs, and them, the Turkmen. We started calling them ‘the new Alawites.’ The way Alawites [a minority sect to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs] in the Assad regime were better off than anyone else in Syrian society, this is how the Turkmen are. Because, to Turkey, they are Turks. We’re just Arabs.” 

“It was never more clear than in Azerbaijan how Turkey values the Turkmen differently than us,” Mahmoud Azazi said. “The Arabs were in the most dangerous conditions. The Turkmen fighters were our translators, or they worked in the kitchen, or they guarded us to prevent us from leaving our camps. I don’t think a single Turkmen SNA fighter died in Azerbaijan.” 

The battles in Nagorno-Karabakh

A Sultan Murad militant recalled an especially brutal day in early October: “My cousins and I have fought in Syria this whole war, and we’ve never seen anything like this. We were lost. We had no idea about the terrain, and only a rough idea of where we should go. Most of us only had AK-47s. In one battle, 45 of us were on some small hills. One sniper killed eight men from Sultan Murad and two from Hamza Division. The snipers are like we see in movies.” 

The Sultan Murad militant said that Turkish military personnel were nowhere near the SNA in Karabakh. “I didn’t see anyone from the Turkish military after the plane ride to Azerbaijan,” he said. “Sometimes Azerbaijani soldiers were there, but they were standing 200 meters behind us.” 

A Sultan Suleiman Shah militant who was in Azerbaijan for almost two months said the Azerbaijani soldiers cruelly abused the Syrian mercenaries. “Honestly, we were more afraid of the Azerbaijanis than we were of the Armenians,” he said. “They would beat anyone from the SNA who was afraid to go to battle. They treated us like dogs.

“Things were so badly organized, especially in the beginning,” the Sultan Suleiman Shah fighter continued. “Some of the men recruited into the SNA to go to Azerbaijan had never really fought before. They were just desperate men, living in the camps in Syria. And the coordination between us and the Azerbaijani army was terrible.”

“More than once, SNA men were mistakenly hit by Azerbaijani artillery,” he continued. “One time, after the men were hit with artillery, the Azerbaijanis accidentally ran over them with an armored vehicle. Seven men died because of this.”

Mahmoud Azazi said that after two weeks of enduring heavy casualties, around 500 SNA militants simply refused to keep fighting. “They told the SNA leadership they wouldn’t raise their weapons against anyone, and they demanded to be returned to Syria. When the leadership refused to return them, they began to protest. They threatened to storm out of the camp and disappear into Azerbaijan, something they knew the Azerbaijanis were very afraid of. Eventually, they returned around 300 of the men to Syria. They arrested the 10 men they believed to be responsible.”

The brutal conditions and heavy losses did not deter the SNA mercenaries from replicating the bad behavior they engage in in Syria and Libya. “Whenever we were in an area with houses, the men looted whatever they could. They complained that it wasn’t like Libya. There wasn’t much of anything good enough to steal,” Mahmoud Azazi said.

“Some of the Syrians started stealing cows and sheep and selling them to Azerbaijani brokers,” he added. “But this was very disturbing to the Azerbaijani soldiers, and it made them nervous about what else the Syrians might do. So they made a rule that no Syrian was allowed to leave his camp, ever, unless he was going to a battle.”

The payment promised to SNA militants deployed to Azerbaijan was roughly $2000 per month. The same amount was promised to the mercenaries in Libya, though, according to more than 50 men who fought from December 2019 to present, none ever received more than $400 a month.

“The commanders told us when we returned to Syria that, if we kept quiet, we would quickly get what we were owed,” Azazi said. “And we learned that the commanders already got paid, and most of the Turkmen fighters did too.” 

In January, the sister of a Sultan Murad militant said that she had yet to receive the compensation SNA officials promised for the death of her brother, who had been killed alongside a Sultan Murad commander in the second week of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“This is what the sultan, the Ottoman caliph, did to us,” said Azazi, in a derogatory reference to Turkish President Erdogan. “Who knows where we will be sent next. We hear Yemen. We hear Qatar. We are like a disposable force for Turkey to achieve their goals. We have battle experience. No one cares if we die.”

“Everyone in the SNA, even the most loyal to Turkey, knows that Turkey is not trying to help the Syrians,” he continued. “They are not supporting our revolution [against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad]. Because the revolution no longer exists. Turkey destroyed it, and now we are just fighting for Turkey’s interests. I swear to God, a growing segment of us here wish we could go back in time to how we lived before 2011, before the war. Because living with [Turkey’s] authority on our necks, this is worse than living under Assad.”

---

*Aliases used to protect the identities of SNA personnel, who would face arrest for speaking to a journalist.

Lindsey Snell

Lindsey Snell is a journalist covering conflict and crises in the Middle East and North Africa, especially Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Tunisia.

Source: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/26/syrian-rebels-nagorno-karabakh-turkey/

Following the Security Council meeting chaired by Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan Monday morning, a statement was issued by the Council, which, however, was later edited.

It was initially mentioned in the statement that, “According to the law, the discretion of the head of government [i.e., the PM] is on the basis of the proposal to appoint and dismiss the Chief of the General Staff of the RA [Republic of Armenia] Armed Forces (…). The RA President, being the most important institution monitoring the observance of the Constitution, is obliged to unequivocally show a corresponding approach.”

The newly edited version, however, states: “Recognizing that, in accordance with the Constitution, the President of the Republic, as the most important institution monitoring the observance of the Constitution, has a discretionary alternative power in the field of the armed forces—to appoint and dismiss the highest command staff of the armed forces and other troops.”

Also, the first version of this statement issued by the Security Council states that, “(…) the Security Council calls on the President of the Republic to grant the RA Prime Minister’s petition to dismiss the [serving] Chief of the General Staff and sign a corresponding decree.” 

But this is in the case when the Security Council has no right to call on the President. As a result, the official statement was edited again, and “calls on” was changed to “proposes.”

Paul Goble

   February 27 – Ruben Vardanyan, the former owner of the Troika Dialogue investment company, says that the current political crisis in Armenia may lead as many as 200,000 more Armenians to leave their homeland for life and work abroad and even more to think about doing so in the near future.

            If that happens, Armenia risks becoming something like a second Abkhazia, with an ever-weaker economy and a political system incapable of maintaining control of the situation without the intervention one way of another of an outside power, most likely Russia (rbc.ru/politics/26/02/2021/603911009a79478687048143).

            The only way to avoid this, Vardanyan suggests, is for the Armenian diaspora to take a more active role in the country rather than as now sitting and criticizing what is going on, especially in the wake of Yerevan’s defeat at the hands of Baku in the recent fighting over Qarabagh and the formerly Armenian-occupied buffer zone in Azerbaijan.

            Two Moscow experts on Armenia, Gevorg Migzayan of the Finance University and Mikhail Neyzhmakov of the Agency for Political Economic Communications, say that Vardanyan’s projections need to be taken seriously because he is a serious analyst but that there are more ways forward than he suggests (svpressa.ru/society/article/291089/).

            If Armenia continues to lose population at a high rate, some outside power will have to play a role to keep things from disintegrating, Migzayan says. But it is possible in his view that a group of technocrats could come to power in Yerevan, stabilizing the situation and limiting the outflow of Armenians.

            Neyzhmakov agrees, but he adds in addition that Abkhazia has proved relatively stable despite its small population and that Armenia may surprise everyone by proving to be more stable overall as well, even if it suffers from periodic outbursts of anti-government protests. Population size alone doesn’t drive politics, he suggests.