Wednesday, Azerbaijan Slams Armenia For ‘Unconstructive Approaches’ Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov (file photo). Armenia has shown unconstructive approaches in terms of the implementation of the terms of the Russian-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan’s top diplomat charged on Wednesday. Speaking at a joint press conference with his visiting Algerian counterpart in Baku, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said that Azerbaijan wants to have good relations with its neighbors. “The only right path to settle relations is to mutually respect the principle of the inviolability of each other’s borders, and we are moving forward based on that principle,” Bayramov said, as quoted by Azerbaijani media. In March, Azerbaijan presented Armenia with five elements which it wants to be at the heart of a peace treaty to be signed by the two South Caucasus nations that fought a bloody six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020. The elements include a mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity. The Armenian government, in principle, agreed to the elements, but said they should be complemented by other issues relating to the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the security of its population. Amid a fresh escalation of violence in the conflict zone on August 3 when at least two Armenians and one Azerbaijan soldier were killed, Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto ethnic Armenian authorities ordered the evacuation, by the end of August, of several Armenian-populated settlements along the Lachin corridor, which is protected by Russian peacekeepers under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire agreement. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian argued during a cabinet session on August 4 that the trilateral agreement requires Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to work out, before 2024, a joint “plan” for the construction of a new Armenia-Karabakh road. No such plan has been drawn up yet, he said. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said, however, that the three sides did agree on the “route” of the new corridor early this year and accused Yerevan of dragging out work on its Armenian sections. Eventually, the few remaining Armenian residents of the town of Lachin and Armenian families in the village of Aghavno have been ordered to leave their homes for good until August 25 as the area is due to be handed over to Azerbaijan’s control then. In his remarks made on August 9 Bayramov accused Armenia of dragging out the fulfilment of another term of the 2020 ceasefire concerning the unblocking of regional transport links. The Azerbaijan foreign minister again stressed that Armenia has still not opened road and railway links to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave that Baku calls the ‘Zangezur corridor’ implying the extraterritorial status to be given to the routes passing through Armenia’s southern Syunik province. Last week, the Armenian prime minister again implicitly rejected the corridor logic for the unblocking of regional transport routes, insisting that Armenia must maintain sovereignty over the transport routes in its territory. At the same time, he said that Azerbaijan is free to use any territory of Armenia, including Syunik, for transit purposes in accordance with Armenian legislation. Bayramov said yesterday that Azerbaijan will in any case get an alternative transport link to its western exclave, referring to the recently launched construction of a bridge over the river Arax, which is part of the infrastructure for such a connection via Iran. “Armenia is simply given a chance not to be left out of regional cooperation. If Yerevan fails to make the right decision, then it will damage its own interests,” the top Azerbaijani diplomat said, as quoted by Azerbaijan’s Turan news agency. Armenian Opposition Slams Government Over Karabakh Corridor ‘Deal’ • Sargis Harutyunyan A Russian peacekeeper stands guard on a road in the town of Lachin (file photo). Armenian opposition lawmakers have slammed the government for “again making deals behind the people’s back” after it was announced last week that Armenians will have to leave two settlements along the Lachin corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the coming weeks. “Here again we are dealing with agreements and verbal arrangements reached behind the people’s back, and the deadline [for the evacuation of villages] revealed to the public is just another evidence of this,” the Armenian parliament’s opposition Hayastan faction said in a statement. After the latest escalation of violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone on August 1-3 in which at least two Armenian and one Azerbaijani soldiers were killed authorities in the Armenian-populated region revealed arrangements made with Azerbaijan through Russian peacekeepers that Armenian residents of several settlements along the current Lachin corridor, including the town of Lachin and the village of Aghavno, will be required to leave their homes for good until August 25. The five-kilometer-wide corridor became Nagorno-Karabakh’s sole overland link to Armenia following the 2020 war. Armenian forces pulled out of the rest of the wider Lachin district under the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the six-week hostilities. The truce accord calls for the construction of a new Armenia-Karabakh highway that will bypass the town of Lachin and two Armenian-populated villages located within the current corridor protected by Russian peacekeeping troops. Construction work on a new road in the Lachin corridor Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership revealed early last week that Azerbaijan had demanded through the peacekeepers the quick closure of the existing corridor and suggested that the Armenian side use a bypass road which has yet to be constructed. Armenia’s government dismissed the demands as “not legitimate” amid renewed deadly fighting along the corridor in which Azerbaijan claimed to have captured several strategic heights. The Armenian side has not confirmed the loss of such heights yet. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian argued during a cabinet session on August 4 that the truce accord requires Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to work out before 2024 a joint “plan” for the construction of a new Armenia-Karabakh road. No such plan has been drawn up yet, he said. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said, however, that the three sides did agree on the “route” of the new corridor early this year and accused Yerevan of dragging out work on its Armenian sections. In its latest statement the opposition Hayastan parliamentary faction accused the current Armenian authorities of “serving the Turkish-Azerbaijani interests” in implementing a plan for the “exodus of Armenians” from Nagorno-Karabakh together with Ankara and Baku. Hayastan, a bloc whose leader outside of parliament is former President Robert Kocharian, a top Pashinian critic, called for “nationwide consolidation”, stressing that “stopping the spinning wheel of defeats is possible only by removing the current authorities.” Gegham Manukian Hayastan lawmaker Gegham Manukian claimed that the Pashinian government “consistently fulfills the points of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020 that are beneficial to Azerbaijan, while not taking any steps towards the release of Armenian prisoners of war mentioned in the same document.” “The authorities of Armenia have washed their hands of the Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – ed.] Republic, the Artsakh Armenians and Artsakh’s security. Even though under the government program presented to the National Assembly in 2021 as well as the election program of the [Pashinian-led] Civil Contract party the guarantor of the security of Artsakh Armenians is the Republic of Armenia, today Armenia is trying to completely put itself aside and leave Artsakh and Artsakh Armenians alone in this process,” Manukian said. Vahagn Aleksanian, a member of the ruling Civil Contract faction, dismissed Hayastan’s criticism, claiming that instead of criticizing Azerbaijan, the opposition faction “extends the Azerbaijani aggression to the Armenian political and media domains.” Vahagn Aleksanian “First, I am very surprised that the Hayastan faction has finally decided to speak about the existence of the Lachin corridor and the Azerbaijani aggression there, because I had the impression that they did not want to talk about it. It was especially surprising, considering the fact that the Lachin corridor, under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire, is under absolute control of Russian peacekeepers. The Hayastan faction, for some reason, did not talk about that,” Aleksanian said. “But generally the same pattern appears to be working with Azerbaijan and the Hayastan faction. Azerbaijan commits some kind of provocation, aggression, violates agreements, and after that the Hayastan faction, in its own style, starts accusing the Armenian authorities over the matter,” the pro-government lawmaker added. Armenia To Conduct Population Census in October • Naira Nalbandian People in a park in Yerevan, Armenia, July 2022. After twice postponing a decennial census of the population due to the coronavirus pandemic, Armenia will hold it this year, with questionnaires for the first time to be filled in electronically. According to the government, the third census of the population in the history of independent Armenia will be conducted from October 13 to October 22, with its results to be summarized within a year. Authorities plan to spend about 1.5 billion drams, or some $3.7 million, on the event that will include visits to households and other data collection. Armenia took its previous two population censuses in 2001 and 2011. It planned to conduct its third population census in 2020, but had to postpone it first until 2021 and then until 2022 because of the pandemic. Vardan Gevorkian, head of the population census department of Armenia’s Statistics Committee, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that a combined method will be used for the population census this time around. “We will use data from the state register with a 25-percent sample to be interviewed. Electronic questionnaires will be filled in with the use of tablets. This is new for us. If earlier paper questionnaires were filled in and census takers visited all households, now 25 percent of the sample will be made automatically, using a computer, in other words, it will concern every fourth household,” the official said. By law, answering questions during a population census in Armenia is mandatory. According to officials, people will be asked a total of 39 questions, including those about their marital status, education, occupation, health, housing conditions, the main sources of livelihood and so on. Among the questions will also be ones about the availability of a second citizenship and the place of permanent residence of absent family members. “If people answer questions correctly, we will get the correct results. Of course, there may be deviations, because we are using the combined method for the first time. There will be certain differences between the data in the administrative register and the data that we will actually obtain, which is due to the fact that the register keeps records of registered citizens, while we are going to deal with actual residents,” Gevorkian said. According to the 2011 population census, Armenia had a population of a little more than 3 million people, which was by some 200,000 people less than according to the results of the population census taken 10 years earlier. Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.