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    Categories: 2023

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 02/22/2023

                                        Wednesday, 


UN Court Rules Against Karabakh Road Blockade

        • Anush Mkrtchian

NETHERLANDS - General view of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The 
Hague, January 23, 2020.


The United Nations’ top court on Wednesday ordered Azerbaijan to restore 
“unimpeded” traffic through the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

Armenia asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take this and other 
“provisional measures” two weeks after Azerbaijani government-backed protesters 
blocked the road on December 12. Lawyers representing Azerbaijan’s government 
denied the closure of the Lachin corridor during court hearings in January.

The ICJ concluded that “connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia via the 
Lachin Corridor has been disrupted.”

“The information available to the Court indicates that the disruption on the 
Lachin Corridor has impeded the transfer of persons of Armenian national or 
ethnic origin hospitalized in Nagorno-Karabakh to medical facilities in Armenia 
for urgent medical care,” it said. “The evidence also indicates that there have 
been hindrances to the importation into Nagorno-Karabakh of essential goods, 
causing shortages of food, medicine and other life-saving medical supplies.”

The court based in The Hague pointed out that a Russian-brokered agreement that 
stopped the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh commits Azerbaijan to guaranteeing safe 
passage through the region’s sole land link with the outside world. It said Baku 
should therefore “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement 
of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.”

At the same time, the panel of 15 ICJ judges rejected Armenia’s request for a 
separate injunction against the disruption of Armenian electricity and gas 
supplies to Karabakh carried out through Azerbaijani territory.

“The Court considers that Armenia has not placed before it sufficient evidence 
that Azerbaijan is disrupting the supply of natural gas and other utilities to 
the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh,” it said.

The ICJ also threw out Azerbaijan’s request to make Armenia stop laying land 
mines in the Lachin corridor. Yerevan has repeatedly denied the Azerbaijani 
allegations, saying that they are a pretext for blocking the vital road.

The two warring nations have sought injunctions against each other as part of 
their mutual lawsuits brought before the UN court in 2021. The legal dispute 
could take years to resolve. Also, analysts believe that the ICJ judges have no 
real means of enforcing their interim orders.

Yeghishe Kirakosian, a lawyer representing the Armenian government in 
international tribunals, said Yerevan will keep ICJ posted about Baku’s 
compliance with its latest order.



Armenia Revives Major Gold Mining Project


Armenia - Gold mining facilities constructed by Lydian International company at 
Amulsar deposit, 18 May 2018.


The Armenian government and a Canadian-based company formally agreed on 
Wednesday to restart a multimillion-dollar gold mining project in Armenia that 
was disrupted by protesters shortly after the 2018 “velvet revolution.”

The country’s former government had granted the company, now called Lydian 
Canada Ventures, a license to develop a massive gold deposit at Amulsar in 2016. 
Lydian planned to start mining operations there in late 2018 and produce 210,000 
ounces of gold, worth $385 million at current international prices, annually.

However, those plans were put on hold after several dozen environmental 
protesters started blocking all roads leading to Amulsar in June 2018. They said 
that the project would wreak havoc on the environment.

Lydian dismissed those claims, saying that it would use modern technology that 
would prevent such damage.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian made conflicting statements about the Amulsar 
project. His administration did not revoke Lydian’s mining licenses. But it also 
refrained from using force to end the blockade.

The company, which claimed to have invested $370 million in the project before 
the blockade, filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada in late 2019 before 
being restructured. It is now owned by two U.S. and Canadian equity firms 
specializing in mining.

Armenia - Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian (center) shakes hands with 
representatives of Lydian Canada Ventures and the Eurasian Development Bank, 
.

Following the disastrous 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinian’s government 
signaled plans to revive the Amulsar project and started negotiating with Lydian 
for that purpose.

The talks resulted in the signing in Yerevan on Wednesday of a memorandum of 
understanding by Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian, Lydian board member Jeffrey 
Coach, and a senior executive of the Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Development Bank 
(EDB).

Kerobian said at the signing ceremony that the three sides aim to raise $250 
million for finishing the construction of mining and smelting facilities at 
Amulsar and installing other equipment there. In particular, he said, Lydian 
will borrow $100 million from the EDB and another $50 million from an unnamed 
Armenian bank.

Kerobian also announced that the U.S. and Canadian investors have granted the 
Armenian government a 12.5 percent stake in the project in return for its pledge 
to manage their risks.

“This is a very important project for us,” Kerobian told reporters.

Armenia -- Protesters block a road leading to Amulsar mine, July 2, 2018
“It is estimated that operations at Amulsar will increase Armenia’s GDP by 
approximately 1 percent … and we just cannot miss such an opportunity,” he said, 
adding that Lydian will be paying between 30 and 40 billion drams ($75-$100 
million) in various taxes each year.

“It’s an incredibly dynamic project for the economy of the country,” Coach said, 
for his part. “It will employ hundreds of Armenians.”

He also said that Amulsar will be “one of the most sophisticated operating mines 
in the world.”

“We will have complied with every environmental standard,” added the Lydian 
executive.

Neither man gave any dates for the planned start of open-pit mining at Amulsar. 
Nor did Kerobian clarify what the government will do if the mining site is again 
blocked by protesters. He said only that that the government “will do 
everything” to protect Lydian’s investments.

Mining has for decades been a key export-oriented sector of the Armenian 
economy. The country’s largest mining enterprise, the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum 
Combine (ZCMC), is also its leading corporate taxpayer.



Yerevan Opposes Azeri Checkpoint At Lachin Corridor


Armenia - Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan speaks during a news conference in 
Yerevan, .


The Armenian government denounced on Wednesday Azerbaijan’s apparent attempts to 
set up a permanent checkpoint on the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to 
Armenia which was blocked by Baku more than two months ago.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev admitted such a desire after his weekend 
talks in Munich with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian mediated by U.S. 
Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Aliyev said he suggested during the 
trilateral meeting that checkpoints be set up on that road as well as a would-be 
corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave.

“The idea of setting up checkpoints on Armenia’s border and at the starting 
point of the Lachin corridor was really floated [at Munich],” said Foreign 
Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. “But our response was explicit.”

“Our position was expressed shortly after the blockage of the Lachin corridor 
and it remains the same: regulations for the Lachin corridor were already 
negotiated and signed, including by the president of Azerbaijan … And 
renegotiating them under the threat of another use of force is unacceptable to 
us,” he told a joint news conference with Luxembourg’s visiting Foreign Minister 
Jean Asselborn.

Russian military vehicles roll along a road towards Nagorno-Karabakh, November 
13, 2020.

Mirzoyan referred to the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 war in 
Karabakh. The agreement placed the Lachin corridor under the control of Russian 
peacekeeping forces and committed Azerbaijan to guaranteeing safe passage 
through it.

Yerevan maintains that the continuing Azerbaijani blockade is a gross violation 
of this arrangement. Russia, the United States and the European Union have cited 
it in their repeated statements urging Baku to unblock Karabakh’s land link with 
Armenia and the outside world.

Speaking in Munich, Aliyev again defended Azerbaijani government-backed 
protesters blocking the Lachin corridor on ostensibly environmental grounds.

Mirzoyan said that in return for reopening the vital Karabakh road Baku hopes to 
force the Armenian side to agree to an extraterritorial corridor to Nakhichevan 
that would pass through Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province. He ruled out 
such a concession while reaffirming Yerevan’s readiness for conventional 
Armenian-Azerbaijani transport links.


Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS