Monday, May 29, 2023 Aliyev Again Threatens Armenia, Karabakh May 29, 2023 • Ruzanna Stepanian Azerbaijan - President Ilham Aliyev visits Lachin, May 28, 2023. Azerbaijan may be walking away from recent understandings reached with Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian suggested on Monday, reacting to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s latest threats of fresh military action against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Aliyev said on Sunday that apart from recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh Yerevan must also meet a number of other conditions set by Azerbaijan. That includes delimiting the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on Baku’s terms and opening a corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave, he said. “They must not forget that Armenian villages are visible from here,” he added during a visit to the border town of Lachin. Pashinian said the threat runs counter to the mutual recognition by the two South Caucasus states of each other’s territorial integrity which he and Aliyev reaffirmed at their May 14 meeting in Brussels. “I think that both Azerbaijan and our international partners should at least clarify whether that means a renunciation of the understandings reached in Brussels,” he told Armenian lawmakers. Armenian diplomats should “get an answer to this question from our partners,” he said. Pashinian provoked a storm of criticism in Armenia and Karabakh when he confirmed after the Brussels summit his readiness to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan through a peace treaty currently discussed by Baku and Yerevan. He said the treaty should call for an international framework of addressing “the rights and security” of Karabakh’s Armenian population. Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks in the National Assembly, May 29, 2023. Aliyev appeared to again rule out any such mechanism on Sunday, saying that the Karabakh Armenians must dissolve their government bodies and unconditionally accept Azerbaijani rule. “Everyone knows that we can carry out any [military] operation in that territory,” he warned. “That is why the [Karabakh] parliament must be dissolved, the element who calls himself the president [of Karabakh] must surrender and all ministers, deputies and other officials must resign. Only then can there be talk of amnesty.” Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, rejected the threats on Monday. A spokeswoman for Harutiunian said Aliyev’s demands also mean he “recognizes the legitimacy and importance of our institutions.” Aliyev already made clear in April that Baku will not hold any internationally mediated talks with Stepanakert. The Karabakh Armenians “will either live under Azerbaijani rule or leave” their homeland, he said. Two Karabakh lawmakers said Aliyev has doubled down on such threats because of the far-reaching concession to Baku made by Pashinian. Aliyev and Pashinian are scheduled to meet again on Thursday in Moldova’s capital Chisinau on the sidelines of a European summit. The Armenian premier insisted that the controversial peace treaty will not be signed during that meeting. Two Armenian Soldiers Captured By Azerbaijan May 29, 2023 • Artak Khulian • Susan Badalian Armenia - A purported photo of a military truck of two Armenian soldiers who were captureed by Azerbaijani forces late on May 26, 2023. Two Armenian soldiers were captured by Azerbaijani forces late on Friday in what Armenia’s Defense Ministry described at the weekend as a cross-border incursion. The ministry said that the soldiers, Harutiun Hovakimian and Karen Ghazarian, were ambushed and “kidnapped” after delivering water and food to Armenian army units guarding the border with Azerbaijan. It published photographs of their abandoned military truck found in a wooded area in in the southeastern Syunik province. The Azerbaijani side claimed that Hovakimian and Ghazarian were taken prisoner during a sabotage attack on an Azerbaijani army outpost. It was quick to bring a string of criminal charges, including “terrorism,” against the servicemen. The Defense Ministry in Yerevan rejected the claim as “disinformation.” It said the fact that an assault rifle belonging to one of the soldiers was found inside the truck only proves that they could not have carried out any armed attacks in Azerbaijani territory. Armenia -- The Shikahogh forest preserve in Syunik province, September 4, 2018. Hovakimian’s mother told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the 34-year-old contract soldier has for years been engaged in food supplies to troops manning Armenian border posts in Syunik’s Shikahogh forest reserve. “He always went back and forth through that road,” she said. “He knows the road very well and could not have deviated a single inch from it.” The Armenian government asked the European Court of Human Rights to order the Azerbaijani authorities to provide urgent information about the soldiers’ health and detention conditions. The Strasbourg court did not rule on the request as of Monday afternoon. Hovakimian and Ghazarian were captured more than a month after two Azerbaijani soldiers were detained in Armenia. Baku said they strayed into Armenian territory from the Nakhichevan exclave due to heavy fog and demanded their release. One of the Azerbaijani conscripts was charged with murdering a Syunik resident one day before his detention. The other was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison by an Armenian court on May 8. Pashinian Congratulates Turkey’s Erdogan On Election Win May 29, 2023 TURKEY - Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate near Taksim Mosque at the Taksim Square in Istanbul on the day of the presidential runoff vote in Istanbul, May 28, 2023. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian rushed to congratulate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on winning reelection in a weekend run-off vote. “Congratulations to President Erdogan on his re-election,” Pashinian tweeted on Sunday evening shortly after the release of official election results that showed Erdogan winning over 52 percent of the vote. “Looking forward to continuing working together towards full normalization of relations between our countries,” he wrote. Turkey has for decades made the opening of the border and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Armenia conditional on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal acceptable to Azerbaijan. Turkish leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed this precondition since the start of the normalization talks with Yerevan in January 2022. Tensions between the two neighboring states were reignited in late April after municipal authorities in Yerevan unveiled a monument dedicated to Armenians who had assassinated masterminds and perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. Czech Republic- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meet in Prague, October 6, 2022. The Turkish government strongly condemned the move and banned Armenian airlines from flying over Turkey to third countries. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu threatened last week “new measures” against Armenia if the monument is not removed soon. Pashinian described the erection of the monument as a “wrong decision” when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service earlier this month. He claimed that his government had nothing to do with it. During the presidential election campaign, Erdogan and his political allies repeatedly touted Turkey’s decisive military assistance to Azerbaijan provided during the 2020 war with Armenia. They accused Erdogan’s main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, of opposing Ankara’s political and military alliance with Baku. Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.