Armenian News Network / Groong

 

Groong: Week in Review

 

ANN/Groong

October 4, 2020

Table of Contents

 

Special Guest

Resident Panelists

Your Hosts

Introduction

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THE ONLY Topic This Week: The War!

No Headlines this week, sorry!

Wrap-up

Keywords

 

 

Special Guest

          Varuzhan Geghamyan - in Stepanakert!

Resident Panelists

          Asbed Kotchikian

          Marine Manucharyan

          Emil Sanamyan

Your Hosts

          Hovik Manucharyan

          Asbed Bedrossian

          Alen Zamanyan

Introduction

 

Hello, and welcome to Armenian News Network, Groong, Week in Review.

This episode of the podcast was fully devoted to the war in Artsakh. It was recorded on the morning of Saturday, Oct 3 Pacific time while one of our guests, Varuzhan Geghamyan was in Stepanakert as the city was undergoing constant bombardment.

Unfortunately, the air assault on Stepanakert and other civilian areas of Artsakh seems to have only intensified with more active use of cluster bombs, long-range missiles and suicide drones. As of early Monday morning (Pacific time) we have confirmed that Varuzhan is OK though he communicated that the situation is dangerous as the city is still under constant bombardment.

The use of cluster munitions, let alone targeting of civilian structures, is prohibited by international law and it seems that the dictator in Baku, Ilham Aliyev, is intent to level the city to the ground. As of this time, according to the Artsakh foreign ministry, 19 civilians have been killed, 80 wounded, and over 2700 property and civilian infrastructure has been damaged. We’re worried about the safety of Artsakh’s peaceful civilian population and urge you to raise awareness of this travesty among your non-Armenian friends and elected representatives.

 

We will rebuild!

 

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THE ONLY Topic This Week: The War!

For a week now, our focus here at Groong has been the war. What started in the early morning of Sunday 27th of September as an all out attack on the line of contact quickly escalated into a large scale war, with Azerbaijan attacking civilian targets in both Artsakh and in Armenia.

On October 3rd we published a conversation we had with Jirair Libaridian and Tom de Waal exploring the meta-analysis of the conflict which you may also find interesting. So check out Episode 19 for that recording.

Today we will discuss with our analysts from Armenia, Artsakh and the US some of the developments and the outlook around the ongoing war.

To talk about these issues, we have with us:

 

Varuzhan Geghamyan, who is assistant professor at Yerevan State University and teaches on Turkey’s modern history and the history of Azerbaijan.

 

Asbed Kotchikian, who is a senior lecturer of political science and international relations at Bentley University in Massachusetts.

 

Marine Manucharyan (no relation), president of the Civic Forum NGO. Her areas of focus include Artsakh, the Armenian Armed Forces, National Security and Foreign Policy.

 

And

 

Emil Sanamyan, a senior research fellow at USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies specializing in politics in the Caucasus, with a special focus on Azerbaijan.

 

Varuzhan

Life under fire in Stepanakert and other parts of Artsakh. How are people handling the militarized environment, what is daily life like for the past week?

Marine

Just days before the fighting she was planning to be in Artsakh to visit family. Impressions from Yerevan and Armenia?

 

Asbed Kotchikian

A brief synopsis of the discussion with Jirair Libaridian and Tom de Waal on this issue yesterday. What is driving Turkish activation toward the Caucasus? Does Turkey want to be directly involved in a conflict in Armenia?

Emil

What are the factors on the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides that will determine the duration and intensity of the war?  What are some potential scenarios on how this war can progress?

No Headlines this week, sorry!

Wrap-up

 

That concludes our program for This week’s Groong Week in Review. We hope it has helped your understanding of some of the issues from the previous week. We look forward to your feedback, and even your suggestions for issues to cover in greater depth. Contact us on our website, at groong.org, or on our Facebook PageANN - Groong”, or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News  Network.

 

 

Special thanks to Laura Osborn for providing the music for our podcast. I’m Hovik Manucharyan, and on behalf of everyone in this episode, I wish you a good week.

 

Thank you for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.

 

Keywords

Nagorno Karabakh, War, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran, Georgia, France

Additional: Cluster Bombs, humanitarian crisis