Monday,
Turkey Backs Azeri Blockade Of Karabakh
Turkey - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan meets his Azerbaijani counterpart
Jeyhun Bayramov in Ankara, .
Turkey on Monday dismissed calls for the reopening of the Lachin corridor and
reiterated that the normalization of its relations with Armenia is conditional
on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord acceptable to Azerbaijan.
“The Lachin road is Azerbaijani territory and Azerbaijan can carry out any
action there,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was reported to say after
talks with his visiting Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov.
Fidan said that international criticism of the continuing blockage of the only
road connecting Karabakh to Armenia is therefore “unfair.”
The United States, the European Union, Russia as well as various international
organizations have repeatedly urged Azerbaijan to unblock the vital road. U.S.
Secretary of State Antony again did so in a weekend phone call with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev. Baku continues to dismiss such appeals.
Fidan also said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will agree to
normalize Turkish-Armenian relations only after Baku negotiates a desired peace
deal with Yerevan.
Meeting with Bayramov on Monday, Erdogan stressed the importance of an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty and the “immediate opening” of a “corridor”
that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia’s Syunik
province, which also borders Iran.
Armenian leaders have ruled out any extraterritorial land links for Nakhichevan.
Tehran is also strongly opposed to such a corridor, having repeatedly warned
against attempts to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and
transport links with Armenia. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
emphasized this stance when he met with Erdogan last year.
“Iran’s approach to this issue disappoints us and Azerbaijan,” Erdogan said in
June this year. “I want us to overcome that problem soon.”
Talks With Karabakh ‘Cancelled By Baku’
• Nane Sahakian
A view of an Azerbaijani checkpoint blocking traffic through Nagorno-Karabakh's
sole land link with Armenia, July 28, 2023.
Azerbaijan has cancelled Western-mediated talks with representatives of
Nagorno-Karabakh scheduled for Tuesday, an official in Stepanakert claimed on
Monday.
“A meeting between representatives of Artsakh and Azerbaijan was supposed to
take place in [Slovakia’s capital] Bratislava tomorrow, but Azerbaijan abandoned
that meeting the day before yesterday without an explanation,” said Tigran
Petrosian.
Petrosian said that the Azerbaijani side wants such talks to be held in Baku or
another Azerbaijani city, something which is unacceptable to Karabakh’s
leadership. Western mediators will visit Yerevan in the coming days to discuss
the issue with Karabakh officials, he added without elaborating. Baku did not
immediately react to the claims.
Other sources in Stepanakert told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service earlier that such a
meeting was originally planned in Bulgarian for the beginning of July and that
it did not take place because the sides did not agree on its agenda.
The authorities in Stepanakert maintain that the agenda must include Karabakh’s
right to self-determination. Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president,
complained in late June that Baku is only willing to discuss the
Armenian-populated region’s “integration” into Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev warned in late May that the Karabakh
Armenians must accept Azerbaijani rule or risk fresh military action. In
mid-June, Baku completely blocked relief supplies to Karabakh carried out by
Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The
tightening of the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor aggravated severe
shortages of food, medicine and other essential items in Karabakh.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken again called for an end to the blockade
in a weekend phone call with Aliyev.
“I spoke to Azerbaijani President Aliyev yesterday to express our deep concern
for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Blinken
tweeted on Sunday. ”The United States urges all sides to continue dialogue to
reach a durable peace agreement.”
Ex-Diplomat, Top Conductor Arrested Over ‘Large-Scale Fraud’
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Armen Smbatian (left) and Sergei Smbatian.
A former diplomat and his son running Armenia’s leading classical music
orchestra were arrested at the weekend on fraud charges denied by them.
The accusations stem from the privatization in 2012 of a 300-square-meter plot
of land in downtown Yerevan by a company allegedly controlled by Armen Smbatian,
a former Armenian ambassador to Israel and Russia, and Sergei Smbatian, the
artistic director and chief conductor of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra.
According to the Office of the Prosecutor-General, the company bought the land
for 170 million drams (now equivalent to $435,000) in return for a pledge to
build a cultural center there as well as a new concert hall and central heating
system for an adjacent music school. It constructed a 17-story office building
instead, causing the state almost 1 billion drams ($2.6 million) in “damage,”
the law-enforcement agency claimed in a statement.
A court in Yerevan promptly agreed to remand both men in pre-trial custody.
Their lawyer, Yervand Varosian, dismissed the “absurd” charges on Monday,
likening them to an “artistic work transcending all bounds of imagination.”
Varosian also argued that the Armenian statute of limitations for the crime
allegedly committed by the Smbatians has expired.
The prosecutors also implicated Hasmik Poghosian, a fugitive former culture
minister, in the alleged fraud. They said that Poghosian, who served as minister
from 2006-2016, gave the green light to the privatization deal despite being
aware of the Smbatians’ real intentions.
Poghosian has been on the run since being charged in late 2020 with abusing her
position to privatize a historic Yerevan building in a complex fraud scheme
allegedly facilitated by Armen Smbatian. The latter posted bail and avoided
arrest at the time.
A musician by education, Smbatian Sr. was the rector of Yerevan’s Komitas State
Conservatory from 1995-2002. He served as ambassador to Russia in the following
years.
Karabakh Captive’s Daughter Fears For His Life
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - Vera Khachatrian speaks to journalists outside the UN office in
Yerevan, July 31, ,2023.
A daughter of a seriously ill Nagorno-Karabakh resident arrested by Azerbaijani
authorities during his aborted evacuation to Armenia demanded his immediate
release on Monday, saying that she fears for his life.
“We have no information about his condition, we don’t known if he is alive or
not,” Vera Khachatrian told reporters as she picketed the Yerevan offices of the
United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Vagif Khachatrian, a 68-year-old resident of the Karabakh village of Patara, was
in the latest group of patients who were being escorted by the ICRC to Armenian
hospitals for treatment on Saturday. He was detained at an Azerbaijani
checkpoint in the Lachin corridor in what Karabakh’s leadership and the Armenian
government condemned as a gross violation of international law.
Azerbaijani authorities said Khachatrian was taken to Baku to stand trial on
charges of killing and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani residents in
December 1991, at the start of the first Armenian-Azerbaijani war. Karabakh
officials strongly deny the accusations.
The ICRC said on Sunday that its representatives in Baku visited Khachatrian in
Azerbaijani custody and enabled him to communicate with his family.
“My father has still not contacted us, that is false information. We have no
news except that he is in Baku,” countered Vera Khachatrian, who fled to Armenia
during the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
A spokeswoman for the ICRC office in Stepanakert suggested that the Red Cross
statement referred to an “oral message” sent by the Karabakh man to his loved
ones. “In this particular case, there was indeed no direct communication, but
something was passed on to the family,” said Eteri Musayelian.
Karen Grigorian, the chief cardiologist at a Stepanakert hospital who treated
Vagif Khachatrian, confirmed that the latter suffered from a serious heart
disease and needed urgent surgery in Yerevan. “He periodically had blackouts,”
Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Khachatrian is the first Karabakh patient arrested by the Azerbaijani
authorities during medical evacuations by the ICRC which began after Baku halted
last December commercial traffic through the only road connecting Karabakh to
Armenia. It is not yet clear whether the Red Cross will resume the evacuations
after his arrest.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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