Thursday,
Pashinian Accused Of Understating Number Of Armenian POWs
• Karlen Aslanian
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - Lawyer Siranush Sahakian.
An Armenian human rights lawyer on Thursday accused Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian of grossly understating the number of Armenian prisoners of war and
other captives still held by Azerbaijan.
Pashinian put the “confirmed” total number of captives at 39 when he spoke on
Wednesday about the Armenian government’s efforts to secure their release.
Siranush Sahakian, a lawyer representing Armenian POWs in the European Court of
Human Rights, said he is taking at face value the number of Armenian prisoners
acknowledged by Baku.
“Data and evidence possessed by our organization show that apart from these 39
prisoners the Azerbaijani armed forces also captured 80 other individuals who
now have a status of the forcibly disappeared,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service.
Sahakian charged that the Armenian government is effectively washing its hands
of the 80 detainees and reducing chances of their quick repatriation.
The evidence cited by the lawyer includes videos that were posted on social
media by Azerbaijani servicemen during the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. They
showed Armenian POWs who are not on Baku’s current list of captives.
Many of those POWs have been recognized by their family members. Among them is
Lyuba Mkrtchian, whose husband Yuri Poghosian went missing in Karabakh in
October 2020.
“I’m sure that my husband is in an Azerbaijani prison … I hope he comes back,”
Mkrtchian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Speaking in the parliament, Pashinian said that the fate of the 39 other
prisoners was high on the agenda of his latest meeting with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev held in Brussels on Sunday. He complained that Aliyev
keeps setting “additional conditions” for their release.
“Humanitarian issues must not be linked to political issues,” said Pashinian.
Baku released only one Armenian POW, Eduard Martirosov, as a result of the
Brussels summit. The 19-year-old conscript, who accidentally crossed the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border last month, was handed over to Russian peacekeepers
in Karabakh on Thursday.
Most of the 38 other Armenian prisoners have received lengthy prison sentences
in Azerbaijani trials condemned by Armenia as a travesty of justice. Yerevan
maintains that they are held in breach of a Russian-brokered agreement that
stopped the six-week war. Baku says the ceasefire agreement does not cover them
because they were captured after it took effect in November 2020.
Opposition Wants Parliament Declaration On Karabakh
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Karabakh flags on empty seats of opposition lawmakers boycotting a
session of the Armenian parliament, Yerevan, .
The two opposition blocs represented in Armenia’s parliament have demanded that
it officially speak out against any peace accord that would restore Azerbaijan’s
control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Leaders of the Hayastan and Pativ Unem blocs announced late on Wednesday plans
to push a relevant resolution through the National Assembly as they continued
daily demonstrations in Yerevan demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
resignation.
Hayastan’s Artsvik Minasian said on Thursday that they will try to force an
emergency session of the parliament for that purpose on June 3.
“The purpose of this statement is to clarify whether we are going to protect our
interests or serve the interests of the Turkish-Azerbaijani duo,” said Armen
Rustamian, another senior Hayastan parliamentarian. “If they [the parliament’s
pro-government majority] don’t accept this resolution it will mean that they
serve the interests of the Turkish-Azerbaijani duo.”
Lawmakers representing Pashinian’s Civil Contract party would not say whether
the parliamentary majority will back the resolution or at least agree to discuss
it on the parliament floor.
“Let them come [to the parliament] and we’ll figure out,” one of them, Artur
Hovannisian, told reporters.
Opposition lawmakers have been boycotting regular sessions of the National
Assembly since the start of the anti-government protests in Yerevan on May 1.
The protests began two weeks after Pashinian signaled his readiness to “lower
the bar” on Karabakh’s status acceptable to Armenia. Critics claim that he
pledged to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over the Armenian-populated
territory in ongoing peace talks mediated by the European Union.
Pashinian’s political allies deny such claims. But they have not publicly
clarified whether Yerevan will insist on the Karabakh Armenians’ right to
self-determination in planned negotiations on a peace treaty with Baku.
First Armenian Satellite Launched Into Space
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - A handout photo of Armenia's first satellite released by the Armenian
government on .
A first-ever Armenian satellite has been launched into space, Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian announced on Thursday.
Pashinian said that the apparently small satellite was carried into space by a
SpaceX rocket that blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida
on Wednesday.
“Photographs to be taken by the satellite will be used in Armenia for border
control, prevention and management of emergencies, environmental protection,
including climate change monitoring, urban development, road construction,
geology, and other purposes,” he told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
Pashinian said the satellite launch was the result of “cooperation” between the
state-run Armenian company Geocosmos and Satlantis, a Spanish firm that
specializes in the production of small satellites and cameras for them.
He did not reveal financial terms of the deal or technical parameters of the
satellite, photographs of which were released by the Armenian government’s press
office.
Armenia had first announced plans to launch its first commercial satellite after
holding talks with Russia’s Federal Space Agency in 2012. A year later, a senior
official from the country’s former government said Yerevan hopes to attract
private investments in the project worth as much as $250 million. The project
never materialized.
Pashinian did not explain why his administration opted for a different, more
small-scale space project and contracted Western, rather than Russian, companies
to implement it.
Armenia’s arch-foe Azerbaijan launched its first communication and observation
satellite into space in 2013. The Azerbaijani army reportedly used satellite
images for its offensive military operations carried out during the 2020 war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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