Thursday, July 27, 2023 Azerbaijan Blocks Armenian Aid Convoy To Karabakh July 27, 2023 Armenia - Trucks carrying food aid to Nagorno-Karabakh approach the Lachin corridor, July 26, 2023. Azerbaijan refused on Wednesday to allow a convoy of trucks to deliver emergency food aid provided by Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh through the Lachin corridor that has been blocked by Baku for more than seven months. The Armenian government announced on Tuesday that it will try to send 360 tons of flour, cooking oil, sugar and other basic foodstuffs to Karabakh to alleviate severe food shortages there caused by the blockade. Government officials expressed hope that Russian peacekeepers will escort the relief supplies to the Armenian-populated region. Nineteen Armenian trucks carrying them reached the entrance to the Lachin corridor late in the afternoon but remained stranded there in the following hours, with Baku refusing to let them though an Azerbaijani checkpoint controversially set up there in April. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry condemned the aid convoy as a “provocation” and “encroachment” on Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. A senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Yerevan should renounce “territorial claims” to his country and stop impeding the restoration of Azerbaijani control over Karabakh. The official, Hikmet Hajyev, said Karabakh should be supplied with basic necessities from Azerbaijan proper and the town of Aghdam in particular. “There is no other way!” tweeted Hajiyev. Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership has rejected the proposed Azerbaijani supply line. It maintains that Baku should comply with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that mandates unfettered commercial traffic through the only road connecting Karabakh to Armenia. Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian defended the attempted delivery of the humanitarian aid. “We cannot turn a blind eye to the situation that Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are currently facing,” Pashinian wrote in a late-night tweet. “The 360 tons of vitally important foodstuff sent to Nagorno-Karabakh is exclusively for humanitarian purposes.” The shortages of food, medicine, fuel and other essential items in Karabakh have worsened significantly since Baku completely blocked on June 15 relief supplies that were carried out by the Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said last week that Karabakh is “on the verge of starvation” and called for stronger international pressure on Baku. Yerevan Disputes Lavrov’s Claim July 27, 2023 • Artak Khulian Russia - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, Moscow, July 25, 2023. Official Yerevan has denied Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s implicit claim that he discussed with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts the possible return of ethnic Azerbaijanis who had fled Soviet Armenia in the late 1980s. Speaking after their trilateral meeting in Moscow held on Tuesday, Lavrov said they discussed “the problem of guaranteeing the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh in the context of ensuring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.” He said Yerevan “understands the need to convince the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh” to reach agreements with Baku stemming from international conventions on ethnic minorities. “The Azerbaijani side is ready to provide such guarantees on a mutual basis to persons living on its territory. The Armenians are ready to do the same regarding the application of all conventions to citizens living in the Republic of Armenia,” added Lavrov. Lavrov’s remarks were construed by Armenian observes as a linkage between the status of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population and the return of Armenia’s former Azerbaijani residents officially or unofficially demanded by Baku. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan rejected the linkage on Thursday. In written comments to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Mirzoyan said ensuring the rights and security of Karabakh’s “indigenous” residents is a “completely different” issue. “It cannot in any way be related to the topic of the rights of ‘citizens living’ in the Republic of Armenia’ provided for by international obligations and fully protected by the Republic of Armenia,” he said. Russia - The foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan meet in Moscow, July 25, 2023. “At the last trilateral meeting in Moscow, there was no discussion, let alone agreement, beyond this logic,” added Mirzoyan. An Armenian ambassador-at-large, Edmon Marukian, said late on Wednesday that Yerevan could discuss the sensitive issue only in conjunction with the fate of at least 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled Baku and other parts of Azerbaijan in 1988-1991. Tigran Grigorian, a Yerevan-based analyst, was unconvinced by these assurances. He said the language used by Lavrov marked another diplomatic setback for Armenia. “We are dealing with the incompetence of Armenian diplomacy,” Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. Baku has been pushing its demands through some loyal natives of Armenia who describe themselves as the leaders of “the community of Western Azerbaijan.” They claimed last week that their return to Armenia was on the agenda of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s July 15 meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian held in Brussels. Pashinian said on Tuesday that the fate of these Azerbaijanis cannot be linked to the issue of the Karabakh Armenians’ “rights and security.” “It is proportionate instead to the topic of the security and rights of Armenians from Baku, Sumgait, Gyanja or Nakhichevan,” he told reporters. EU Presses Azerbaijan To Lift Karabakh’s Blockade July 27, 2023 Belgium - European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks with the media as he arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, June 29, 2023. Azerbaijan must reopen the Lachin corridor, the European Union said on Wednesday night, expressing serious concern over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. “The European Union is deeply concerned about the serious humanitarian situation affecting the local population in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a statement. “The movement through the Lachin corridor remains obstructed for more than seven months, despite Orders by the International Court of Justice to reopen it.” “Medical supplies and essential goods are in short supply or have already run out, with dire consequences for the local population. It is incumbent on the Azerbaijani authorities to guarantee safety and freedom of movement along the Lachin corridor imminently and not to permit the crisis to escalate further,” added Borrell. Like the United States and Russia, the EU has repeatedly called for an end to the crippling blockade of Karabakh’s only land link with Armenia and the outside world. Borrell’s statement is the most strongly-worded of its appeals made to date. Azerbaijan rejected the statement on Thursday, saying that it is based on “the Armenian side’s false propaganda.” “Presenting legitimate actions of Azerbaijan as a closure of the Lachin road is fundamentally wrong,” said Aykhan Hajizade, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman. Nagorno-Karabakh - Empty shelves at a supermarket in Stepanakert, July 20, 2023. Hajizade insisted on a different, Azerbaijani-controlled supply route for Karabakh proposed by Baku and rejected by Karabakh’s leadership as a cynical ploy designed to facilitate the restoration of Azerbaijani control over the Armenian-populated region. Borrell stressed in this regard that while the EU “took note” of the Azerbaijani proposal it “should not be seen as an alternative to the reopening of the Lachin corridor.” The EU official made the appeal shortly after the Azerbaijani side refused to allow a convoy of 19 Armenian trucks carrying 360 tons of food aid for Karabakh residents to pass through a checkpoint which it controversially set up in the Lachin corridor in April. The trucks sent by the Armenian government remained stuck near the checkpoint on Thursday. EU monitors deployed along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan visited the area on Wednesday. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian condemned Baku’s refusal to let the aid convoy through. He said Yerevan still hopes it will be allowed to proceed to Stepanakert. The Azerbaijani authorities’ failure to do so would lend credence to “concerns about Baku's intention to commit genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinian added during a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. Armenia Reports Surge In Tax Revenue From Re-Exporters July 27, 2023 • Robert Zargarian Armenia -- The entrance to the State Revenue Committee headquarters in Yerevan, November 29, 2018. Taxes paid by Armenian companies importing cars, mobile phones and other consumer electronics increased drastically in the first half of this year, a further sign that they are taking advantage of Western economic sanctions against Russia. They are believed to be among local firms that have been re-exporting Western-manufactured goods to Russia since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Such trade operations explain why Armenia’s overall exports to Russia tripled last year and January-May 2023, translating into double-digit economic growth in the South Caucasus country. According to the State Revenue Committee (SRC), the largest network of mobile phone shops in Armenia paid 15.8 billion drams ($40 million) in taxes in the first half of 2023, or nearly as much as it did in the whole of 2022. As a result, the company running the network, Mobile Center, became the country’s sixth largest corporate taxpayer. Its tax contributions totaled only 4.4 billion drams in 2021. Vesta, a major electronics chain, is seventh in the first-half tax rankings released by the SRC this week. The tax and customs services collected 15.7 billion drams from it, or twice as much as in 2022. Suren Parsian, an economic analyst, said on Thursday that their extra revenue was generated not only by re-exports but also Russian consumers buying such goods during trips to Armenia. Armenian firms importing Western cars posted similarly sharp gains in their revenue. Avangard Motors, the local dealer of Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, paid 3.7 billion drams in first-half taxes, up from just 900 million drams in 2021. The tax contributions of the Toyota Yerevan car dealership likewise rose from 2.3 billion drams in 2021 to about 5 billion drams ($13 million) in January-June 2023. Both Mercedes-Benz and Toyota stopped directly supplying their cars to Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Armenia - Car carrier trailers line up near a customs terminal outside Gyumri, March 13, 2023 The SRC recorded last year a nearly six-fold increase in the number of mostly second-hand cars imported to Armenia. Its customs division struggled to cope with the rapid growth which has continued this year. The Armenian government has faced in recent months strong pressure from the United States and the European Union to curb the re-export of hi-tech goods and components which the Western powers say could be used by the Russian defense industry. The government announced in late May that Armenian exporters will now need government permission to deliver microchips, transformers, video cameras, antennas and other electronic equipment to Russia. James O’Brien, the sanctions coordinator at the U.S. State Department, visited Yerevan late last month to discuss the issue with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other Armenian officials. Pashinian said in May that despite its “strategic” relations with Russia, Armenia “cannot afford to be placed under Western sanctions.” “Therefore, in our relations with Russia we will act on a scale that allows us to avoid Western sanctions,” he said. So far Washington has blacklisted only on one functioning Armenian company for allegedly helping Russia evade the sanctions. The Yerevan-based company, Medisar, imported chemicals and laboratory equipment from the U.S. as well as the EU. 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.