Friday,
Armenia Says Azerbaijan Unblocks Key Road In Syunik
A Russian post in the Armenian village of Vorotan in the Syunik region near the
new border with Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan has unblocked a major Armenian highway in Syunik after keeping it
closed for all kinds of travel for nearly two days, citing an alleged stabbing
attack on its border-guard in the area.
Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) said on Friday evening that both
sections of the Goris-Kapan road, namely Shurnukh-Karmrakar and Goris-Vorotan
that were kept closed since late August 25 and August 26, respectively, were now
open again.
“The Goris-Kapan interstate road is open for all types of vehicles and for free
movement of citizens,” the NSS said, adding that Armenia’s border troops and
border-guards of the Russian Federal Security Service conducted negotiations
with the Azerbaijani side for the reopening of the road.
The NSS statement referred to no other details of the negotiations or any
conditions on which the road section may have been reopened.
The 21-kilometer section of the Goris-Kapan road became disputable between
Armenia and Azerbaijan after Baku regained control over much of Nagorno-Karabakh
and all Armenian-controlled districts around it as a result of last year’s
44-day war.
In December 2020, a month after Russia brokered a ceasefire deal to end the
armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, it also arranged with Yerevan and Baku that
Armenians will continue to use the stretch of the highway passing through
Azerbaijani-controlled territory under the supervision of Russian border-guards
until Armenia builds another alternative road for all types of transportation to
connect two parts of the mountainous region.
The highway is also vital for Armenian trade with Iran. Earlier on Friday the
Iranian embassy in Yerevan told the state-run Armenpress news agency that Tehran
hopes that the latest border crisis between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be
resolved peacefully and will not jeopardize commercial ties in the region.
During the morning session of the government Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian accused Azerbaijan of trying to discredit Armenia’s peace efforts by
closing the road, but expressed a hope that the situation will be resolved soon.
At the same time, he told his ministers to speed up their efforts on the
renovation of alternative roads in Syunik to ensure reliable connection between
communities and the regional center, state and interstate highways.
“This situation was not unexpected for us and in the meantime we have worked and
will continue to work to build new infrastructure. But the reopening of the road
in the Eyvazli and Chaizami sections can be a very good symbol of regional
stability,” the Armenian prime minister said, referring to the two closed
sections of the Goris-Kapan road.
Armenia’s Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan also addressed the situation in Syunik, saying
that problems with travel in the mountainous region had seriously affected life
of the local population, including their access to goods and medical services.
He said that trade between Armenia and Iran had also been hampered by the
situation.
Armenia Condemns Deadly Attacks At Kabul Airport
AFGHANISTAN -- Afghans lie on beds at a hospital after they were wounded in the
deadly attacks outside the airport in Kabul,
Armenia has condemned deadly bombings at Kabul International Airport in which 72
Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed on August 26.
In his message on Friday Armenian President Armen Sarkissian offered condolences
to the families and friends of the victims of the act of terrorism.
“We strongly condemn the act of terrorism at Kabul International Airport, which
killed many innocent civilians and soldiers. Armenia has always opposed any
terrorist act against humanity, especially the involvement of terrorists in
hostilities. In the fight against international terrorism, it is necessary to
unite forces to prevent such monstrous manifestations of intolerance and
contempt for universal values,” Sarkissian said, as quoted by his press office.
In his message the Armenian president also wished endurance and courage to the
victims’ families and relatives, and a speedy recovery to the injured.
The Kabul airport attacks came as U.S. forces were helping to evacuate people
desperate to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over this Central Asian
country earlier this month.
The Islamic State, a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the
attacks.
An Armenian peacekeeping contingent that was deployed in Afghanistan as part of
a NATO-led mission since 2010 ended its service and returned to Armenia in March
2021.
Iran Hopes For Peaceful Resolution Of Armenia-Azerbaijan Border Crisis
• Heghine Buniatian
An Iranian cargo truck bound for Yerevan stuck in the Syunik region of Armenia
due to an Armenian-Azerbaijani border crisis. .
Iran hopes that border disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, including the
latest one over a road section in the Armenian province of Syunik, will be
resolved in a peaceful atmosphere without jeopardizing commercial ties in the
region.
“We hope that the sides will resolve the latest disagreements in the Syunik
province’s border zones and especially the Kapan-Goris road section in a way
that the implementation of the goal of reopening of transportation routes and
unblocking won’t be disrupted,” the Iranian embassy in Yerevan told the
state-run Armenpress news agency on Friday.
“Unfortunately, in the past two days we are witnessing a disruption of transit
through this road as a result of the latest developments in the Syunik province,
which has caused problems not only for the normal life of Armenia’s civilian
population, but also a number of Iranian cargo vehicles carrying out shipments
from Iran to Armenia,” the embassy added.
It stressed that due to the existing difficult situation at the 21-kilometer
section of the road “it is required for the sides to make efforts within the
framework of goodwill principle in the direction of ensuring normal course of
communication and transit, until reaching an exact and concrete situation over
this matter.”
“We are hopeful that in parallel to the ongoing negotiations over solving the
existing disputes regarding the use of the Kapan-Goris route, the improvement
and development works of alternative routes will swiftly take place, so that the
conditions return to normal both from the perspective of Armenia’s citizens and
our commercial relations with Armenia,” the Iranian embassy said.
Citing a stabbing attack against its border guard earlier this week, Azerbaijan
closed two sections of a key Armenian interstate highway that partly passes
through territory that Baku regained after last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia’s National Security Service said that negotiations with Azerbaijan with
the participation of the Russian side were underway to achieve the reopening of
the strategic road also used for vital trade with Iran.
On Friday, two days after Azerbaijan closed the road, Armenia’s Ombudsman Arman
Tatoyan said that problems with travel in Syunik had seriously affected life of
the local population, including their access to goods and medical services. He
said the situation also seriously limited trade between Armenia and Iran.
An RFE/RL Armenian Service correspondent on August 27 talked to one Iranian
truck driver stuck in Syunik who complained about the uncertain situation with
the road. The Iranian still said that he preferred waiting for the main road to
reopen than using an alternative dirt road that he said was difficult to drive.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian told his government earlier on Friday to
speed up efforts on the renovation of alternative roads in Syunik to ensure
reliable connection between communities and the regional center, state and
interstate highways.
Pashinian claimed that by closing the road in Syunik Azerbaijan sought to
discredit Armenia’s peace agenda for the region, but expressed a hope that the
situation will be resolved soon.
“Such a situation was not unexpected for us and in the meantime we have worked
and will continue to work to build new infrastructure. But the reopening of
roads in the Eyvazli and Chaizami sections can be a very good symbol of regional
stability,” Pashinian said.
Armenia To Reciprocate ‘Positive Signals’ From Turkey
A general view of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, against the backdrop of Mount
Ararat, which is located in the territory of modern-day Turkey
Armenia will evaluate positive signals coming from Turkey and will respond in
kind, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said at the start of his cabinet’s meeting
in Yerevan on Friday.
“There have been certain public positive signals from Turkey. We will evaluate
those signals and respond to those signals with a positive signal,” the Armenian
prime minister said.
During a meeting with foreign ambassadors accredited to Turkey earlier this week
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that if Armenia takes positive steps
to establish peace in the region, Turkey will respond adequately.
“After the recent Karabakh war, new opportunities have been created for progress
in that direction,” he said. “We have already stated that if Armenia responds
positively to these opportunities, we will take the necessary steps.”
Armenia and Turkey have no diplomatic relations. In 1993, Turkey reacted to the
war in Nagorno-Karabakh by closing its border with Armenia out of support for
its regional ally Azerbaijan.
Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian (L) and his Turkish counterpart
Ahmet Davutoglu sign protocols to normalize relations between Yerevan and Ankara
in a ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland, October 10, 2009.
In 2009, Yerevan and Ankara attempted to normalize their relations, signing
protocols to establish diplomatic relations and re-open the border. But the
protocols were never ratified, while the brief rapprochement came to a close in
the subsequent years.
Armenia has pursued international recognition of the 1915 mass killings and
deportations of over a million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide. Over two
dozen governments of the word recognize the Ottoman-era massacres of Armenians
as genocide today.
The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed resolutions in 2019
recognizing the Armenian genocide, as did U.S. President Joe Biden when he used
the word “genocide” in his April 24, 2021 speech on the occasion of the Armenian
Genocide Remembrance Day.
Turkey refuses to recognize that the Ottoman government pursued a policy of
exterminating Armenians, maintaining that hundreds of thousands of Turkish
Muslims and Armenian Christians died in intercommunal violence around the bloody
battlefields of World War I. Turkey also disputes Armenia’s count of the numbers
killed, putting it at 300,000.
Last year Armenia also accused Turkey of directly assisting Azerbaijan in its
war against ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh in September-November 2020.
Yerevan also accused Ankara of deploying terrorist fighters from Syria in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone during the 44-day conflict in which Azerbaijan
regained much of the former autonomous region’s territory as well as all seven
surrounding districts that had been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the
early 1990s.
Turkey has denied any involvement in the conflict, but has repeatedly voiced
support for Azerbaijan in its actions against Armenians.
Still during the war in October 2020 Armenia announced a temporary ban on the
import of Turkish goods beginning in 2021. It extended the ban for another six
months in July.
In its five-year action plan approved in the parliament this week the Armenian
government said, however, that it supports the establishment of relations with
Turkey without any preconditions.
Pashinian Raps Azerbaijan For ‘Discrediting’ Armenia’s Peace Agenda
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (archive photo)
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian believes Azerbaijan has closed a major
road that connects two parts of Armenia’s southern Syunik province in an attempt
to discredit Armenia’s peace agenda.
Speaking at a government session in Yerevan on Friday Pashinian observed that
Azerbaijani soldiers blocked sections of the Goris-Kapan that lie in the
territory currently controlled by Baku shortly after he presented a five-year
action plan of his government in the Armenian parliament pledging that Armenia
will do its part to usher in an “era of peace” in the region.
“I hope that the situations with roads in Syunik will be settled as soon as
possible,” Pashinian said.
Azerbaijan established control over several sections of Armenia’s main
interstate highway that is also vital for connection with Iran when its forces
regained several districts around Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of a 44-day war
last fall.
In doing so Baku referred to Soviet-era maps showing administrative borders
between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The roads in questions had been controlled by Armenia since the break-up of the
Soviet Union and the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s that left
ethnic Armenians in control of large swaths of territory outside the former
autonomous region proper.
Last December Russia, which had brokered a ceasefire deal to end the armed
conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, also arranged with Yerevan and Baku that Armenians
will continue to use a 21-kilometer stretch of the highway that passes through
Azerbaijani-controlled territory under the supervision of Russian border-guards
until Armenia builds another alternative road for all types of transportation to
connect two parts of the mountainous region.
Pashinian stressed that with its actions these days Azerbaijan breaks the
December arrangements.
Pashinian again denied that Armenians had any relation to an alleged stabbing of
an Azerbaijani border-guard in the area on August 25 that Baku used as a pretext
for closing the road. The Armenian leader said Yerevan was ready for a joint
investigation of the incident with the participation of representatives of
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia.
“Such a situation was not unexpected for us and in the meantime we have worked
and will continue to work to build new infrastructure. But the reopening of
roads in the Eyvazli and Chaizami sections can be a very good symbol of regional
stability,” Pashinian said.
The Armenian prime minister instructed his cabinet to pursue road construction
work in Syunik, in particular, complete the reconstruction of the Tatev-Aghvani
road until the end of the year as well as work on other roads to ensure reliable
connection of communities with the regional center and state and interstate
highways.
Earlier on Friday, Armenia’s Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan said that problems with
travel in Syunik seriously affected life of the local population, including
their access to goods and medical services. He said the situation also seriously
limited trade between Armenia and Iran.
Azerbaijani Soldier Detained In Nagorno-Karabakh
INFOGRAPHIC: Nagorno-Karabakh after a Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement
Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have detained an Azerbaijani
soldier, whom Baku says escaped from a psychiatric clinic.
Prosecutors in Stepanakert said on August 26 that an Azerbaijani soldier
identified as Jamil Babayev was detained in an apartment in the town of
Martakert.
Babayev was charged with espionage, illegal border crossing, and threatening to
kill residents of the apartment he was detained in.
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said a probe had been launched against Babayev
after he allegedly left a psychiatric clinic in the Azerbaijani city of Ganca
without permission.
Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian-populated autonomous
oblast in Soviet Azerbaijan, declared independence from Baku in 1991,
establishing their control over the region and some surrounding districts in a
1992-94 war with Azerbaijani forces.
Azerbaijan regained control of parts of the territory and surrounding districts
as a result of a 44-day war last fall that ended with a Russian-brokered
ceasefire agreement signed between Yerevan and Baku.
Under the terms of the November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement around 2,000 Russian
peacekeepers were deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor
linking the Armenian-populated region with Armenia.
Ex-President Sarkisian Threatens To Sue Pro-Pashinian Tycoon For Defamation
• Artak Khulian
Civil Contract MP Khachatur Sukiasian
Former President Serzh Sarkisian has threatened to sue Khachatur Sukiasian, a
millionaire businessman and member of the pro-government Civil Contract faction
in parliament, over what his lawyers describe as defamation damaging his good
name.
Speaking in parliament on August 25, Sukiasian claimed that during his
presidency Sarkisian lost over $100 million in a casino in the German spa town
of Baden-Baden and that his debt to the casino was paid from taxpayer money.
Sarkisian’s lawyer Amram Makinian said that in court the former president will
demand that the pro-government lawmaker publicly refute his statement and offer
an apology.
Former Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian
Sarkisian already answered allegations about his gambling habits during the
recent election campaign in June. Reacting to such claims by Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian, he called it a lie, saying that his friends and other people in
his surroundings knew that he did not go to casinos and even avoided streets
where casinos were.
“They were talking nonsense about Baden-Baden, not realizing that there was a
casino in Baden in the 19th century, and it is more a museum than a casino
today. As for Monaco, I have not been to Monaco at all during the last 15 years,
and it is easy to check this,” the ex-president said.
Talking to media on Thursday, Sukiasian doubled down on his accusations and said
that he also had lawyers and was ready for litigation with Sarkisian.
Sukiasian said that in his remarks in parliament he even mentioned a lower
amount of money that was allegedly lost by the former president in a casino to
make it more provable. “I even know of a case when our state aircraft flew to
where there was a casino and money was taken out from here in sacks to pay [for
Sarkisian’s debt], because in casinos you can play and pay later,” he claimed.
Sukiasian, who has long been in business, also claimed that there was widespread
government corruption during the years of Sarkisian’s presidency and that
businesses had to pay money that never went to the state budget.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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