RFE/RL Armenian Report – 09/28/2021

                                        Tuesday, 


Baku, Tehran Trade Barbs After Iran-Armenia Trade Disruption


IRAN -- Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces hold a military exercise involving 
ballistic missiles and drones in the country's central desert, January 15, 2021


Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has criticized Iran for holding military 
exercises near Azerbaijan’s borders after Baku began taxing Iranian trucks 
transporting goods to and from Armenia.

Azerbaijani police and customs set up on September 12 a checkpoint on the main 
highway connecting Armenia with Iran. A 21-kilometer section of the highway 
passes through Armenian-Azerbaijani border areas along Armenia’s southeastern 
Syunik province also bordering Iran. The Armenian government controversially 
ceded it to Azerbaijan following last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Azerbaijani roadblock caused significant disruptions in Iran’s cargo traffic 
with Armenia, with many Iranian drivers refusing or unable to pay a hefty “road 
tax” demanded by Azerbaijani officers. Two of them were arrested by Azerbaijani 
authorities two weeks ago for allegedly travelling to Nagorno-Karabakh without 
Baku’s permission.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry called for the immediate release of the drivers. 
Meanwhile, the Iranian military reportedly massed troops along the Azerbaijani 
border and began large-scale military exercises there last week.

Aliyev described the exercises as “very surprising” in an interview with the 
Turkish Anatolia news agency published on Monday.

“Every country can carry out any military drill on its own territory. It's their 
sovereign right … But why now and why on our border?” he said.

“Why weren't the drills held when the Armenians were in the Jabrail, Fizuli and 
Zangelan districts? Why is this being done after we liberated these lands after 
30 years of occupation?” he asked.

Aliyev expressed hope that Tehran will end its “emotional reactions to our 
legitimate steps.” He said that Baku set up the roadblock after Tehran ignored 
repeated warnings to stop Iranian trucks from shipping cargo to Karabakh. That 
was “disrespectful to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” he said.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, reacted to Aliyev’s 
remarks on Tuesday, saying that they are “surprising” given the “good relations” 
between the two states.

Khatibzadeh insisted that Iran has always respected Azerbaijan’s territorial 
integrity and that its war games are aimed at “protecting regional security.” 
The Islamic Republic “will not tolerate the Israeli regime’s presence near its 
borders,” he added, clearly alluding to Azerbaijan’s military ties with Israel.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian discussed the road crisis with 
his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts during separate meetings held in New 
York last week. According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Amir-Abdollahian told 
Azerbaijan’s Jeyhun Bayramov that “some third parties should not be allowed to 
affect” Azerbaijani-Iranian relations.

The friction between Azerbaijan and Iran was also highlighted by bitter verbal 
exchanges reported between members of their parliaments.

The Iranian ISNA news agency reported late last week that some Azerbaijani 
lawmakers have threatened to “remove Iran from the world map” and “raise Turkish 
flags in all parts of Iran.” It said Iranian parliamentarian have responded by 
“warning Baku of the dangers” of picking a fight with the Islamic Republic.



Ruling Party, Opposition Disagree On Karabakh War Probe

        • Gayane Saribekian

Armenia - A woman visits one of the graves of Armenian soldiers killed in the 
2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and buried in the Yerablur Military Pantheon in 
Yerevan, .


Parliamentary leaders of the ruling Civil Contract party and Armenia’s two 
leading opposition blocs have reached no agreement so far on practical 
modalities of investigating the causes and outcome of last year’s war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.

They both have pledged to launch parliamentary inquiries focusing on the 
Armenian government’s handling of the six-week war that resulted in sweeping 
Armenian territorial losses and at least 3,900 deaths.

Civil Contract’s Andranik Kocharian signaled the impending creation of a 
relevant parliament commission as the newly elected National Assembly began its 
work in early August. The commission has still not been set up.

Kocharian, who heads the parliament’s standing committee on defense and national 
security, on Tuesday declined to give any reasons for the apparent delay. “We 
are moving forward,” he said vaguely.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stated later in August that the ad hoc commission 
should comprise not only representatives of the parliamentary forces but also 
political parties that failed to win any seats in the current legislature as 
well as representatives of the families of Armenian soldiers killed or missing 
in action. He held a series of meetings with the leaders of several such parties 
this month.

The parliament statutes stipulate that only serving lawmakers can join such 
commissions. Reports in the Armenian press have said that the ruling party wants 
to amend the statutes accordingly.

Kocharian said that the authorities are now discussing “legal issues” relating 
to the work of the commission. He did not elaborate.

The idea of expanding the commission is rejected by the main opposition Hayastan 
alliance. One of its senior lawmakers, Artsvik Minasian, claimed on Tuesday that 
Pashinian simply wants to involve more of his political allies in the planned 
parliamentary inquiry to ensure that it covers up his mishandling of the war.

“They have said ... that the commission should be expanded, including through 
the involvement of representatives of extra-parliamentary political forces 
sympathetic to the authorities,” Minasian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

“It is evident that they are not interested in solving apparent crimes committed 
on their watch. They are interested in the opposite: to cover up, to withhold 
and not to solve,” he said.

Hayastan and other major opposition groups blame Pashinian for Armenia’s defeat 
in the war with Azerbaijan.

Minasian said that Hayastan will also press for the creation of a separate 
“fact-finding” body tasked with looking into the causes of the defeat. He said 
it should consist of an equal number of pro-government and opposition members as 
well as independent experts.

Another opposition party, Bright Armenia, already called for the creation of 
such body early this year. Pashinian’s political team rejected the idea.



U.S. Watchdog Deplores ‘Degradation Of Democratic Norms In Armenia’


Armenia - Former Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and senior members of his Civil 
Contract Party celebrate their election victory at a rally in Yerevan, June 21, 
2021.


U.S. democracy watchdog Freedom House criticized Armenian authorities on Tuesday 
for seeking to prosecute a person who allegedly insulted Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian on social media.

It urged the authorities to stop enforcing recently enacted amendments that 
criminalized defamation of government officials.

The amendments to the Armenian Criminal Code were passed by the country’s former 
parliament dominated by Pashinian’s loyalists during its final session held in 
late July.

They stipulate that “grave insults” directed at individuals because of their 
“public activities” will now be crimes punishable by fines ranging from 1 
million to 3 million drams ($2,000-$6,000) and a prison sentence of up to three 
months. Those individuals include state officials, politicians and other public 
figures.

The Armenian police reportedly opened last week the first criminal case under 
the new articles of the Criminal Code. A police spokesman said that they are now 
trying to identify the social media user who made an offensive comment under a 
photograph of Pashinian posted on the prime minister’s Facebook page. It is not 
clear whether investigators have already tracked down charged that person.

Freedom House expressed concern at the investigation. “This comes only two 
months after the Parliament passed amendments criminalizing ‘serious insults’ 
against government officials, and signifies a clear degradation of democratic 
norms in Armenia, including freedom of expression,” the Washington-based group 
said in a statement.

“We call on the Armenian authorities to immediately cease enforcement of this 
unconstitutional legislation criminalizing defamation,” added the statement.

The controversial amendments have also been condemned by the Armenian 
opposition. Opposition leaders claim that Pashinian himself has relied heavily 
on slander and “hate speech” since coming to power in 2018.

All forms of defamation had been decriminalized in Armenia in 2010 during then 
President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.

Government officials and pro-government lawmakers have denied trying to restrict 
freedom of expression. One of them said in July that penalties for defamation 
must be toughened now because verbal abuse in the country has become widespread, 
especially on social media.

Pashinian’s political team already sparked controversy in March this year when 
it pushed through the National Assembly a bill tripling maximum legal fines for 
defamation. Armenia’s leading media associations criticized the move, saying 
that it could be exploited by government officials and politicians to stifle 
press freedom.

Consequently, President Armen Sarkissian refused to sign the bill into law and 
asked the Constitutional Court to assess its conformity with the Armenian 
constitution.



PACE Urges Azerbaijan To Free Armenian Prisoners


FRANCE – A session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 
Strasbourg, April 25, 2017


The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) has called on Azerbaijan 
to set free “without further delay” all Armenian soldiers and civilians held by 
it one year after the outbreak of a war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In a resolution on “humanitarian consequences” of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict 
adopted late on Monday, the PACE also urged Armenia to provide Azerbaijan with 
more information about minefields in districts around Karabakh recaptured by 
Azerbaijani forces.

The wide-ranging resolution, opposed by virtually all Azerbaijani and Turkish 
members of the Strasbourg-based assembly, further says that both sides should 
investigate allegations of war crimes committed by them the during the six-week 
hostilities stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire accord last November.

The deal calls, among other things, for the unconditional release of all 
prisoners of war and civilian captives held by the parties. Dozens of Armenians 
remain in Azerbaijani captivity.

They include 48 soldiers taken prisoner when Azerbaijani troops seized in 
December the last Armenian-controlled portions of Karabakh’s southern Hadrut 
district. Baku says that they are not covered by the truce accord, a claim 
rejected by Yerevan.

The PACE expressed serious concern about their detention conditions as well as 
the fate of about 30 other Armenians “allegedly seen, filmed or photographed in 
captivity, with no indication as to their current whereabouts.”

“The Assembly is alarmed at allegations made by Armenia that these persons have 
been subjected to enforced disappearances and possibly killed,” it said, adding 
that the Azerbaijani authorities must shed light on their whereabouts and 
“release all remaining captives and return them to Armenia without further 
delay.”

Baku repatriated 30 other Armenian prisoners this summer in exchange for 
Armenian maps of about 200,000 landmines laid around Karabakh. The PACE 
resolution urges Yerevan to release “all mine maps in its possession.”

“The Assembly is concerned about the many allegations of crimes, war crimes and 
other wrongful acts leveled against both Armenia and Azerbaijan during the 
6-week war,” reads the resolution.

It points to a “substantial number of consistent allegations of inhuman and 
degrading treatment and torture of Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijanis, as 
well as a number of allegations of similar treatment of Azerbaijani prisoners of 
war by Armenians.” The two sides, it says, must “fully investigate the 
allegations and bring to justice anyone, including at command level, found to be 
responsible for crimes, war crimes or other wrongful acts.”

The PACE also stressed the need to help tens of thousands of Karabakh Armenian 
civilians displaced by the war, protect religious and historical monuments in 
the conflict zone and de-escalate tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani 
border. It called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to start demarcating the border and 
“examine the possibility of creating a demilitarized zone with the presence of a 
peacekeeping or military monitoring force.”

The head of the Armenian delegation at the PACE, Ruben Rubinian, was quick to 
welcome the resolution passed by 80 votes to 18, with 3 abstentions. In a long 
Facebook post, Rubinian listed its provisions, notably the call for the release 
of the Armenian prisoners, reflecting the Armenian authorities’ position.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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