RFE/RL Armenian Service – 07/31/2023

                                        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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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