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    Categories: 2023

RFE/RL Armenian Service – 08/25/2023

                                        Friday, 


Main Opposition Bloc Backs Yerevan Mayoral Candidate


Armenia - Opposition mayoral candidate Andranik Tevanian (left) greets 
supporters during a campaign rally in Yerevan, August 23, 2023.


The Hayastan alliance headed by former President Robert Kocharian on Friday 
endorsed another opposition group running in the upcoming municipal elections in 
Yerevan.

Hayastan had decided not join the mayoral race, with some of its representatives 
citing grave security challenges facing Armenia as well as Nagorno-Karabakh. 
Media reports attributed the de facto boycott to a lack of consensus within the 
alliance on its potential mayoral candidate.

Andranik Tevanian, a Hayastan parliamentarian, disagreed with the boycott, 
resigning from the National Assembly and setting up his own bloc called Mayr 
Hayastan (Mother Armenia) to run for Yerevan mayor. The bloc’s main campaign 
message is that an opposition victory in the elections scheduled for September 
17 would pave the way for regime change in the country.

Hayastan’s parliamentary group discussed the vote during a meeting chaired by 
Kocharian. In an ensuing statement, it said they decided to back Tevanian’s bloc 
in the polls. The statement did not specify whether Kocharian or other senior 
Hayastan figures will actively participate in the election campaign.

Kocharian has kept a low profile in recent months, raising questions about his 
political future. The 68-year-old ex-president’s politically active son Levon 
was present at Tevanian’s inaugural campaign rally held on Wednesday.

Other major mayoral candidates include Tigran Avinian, Yerevan’s deputy mayor 
representing the ruling Civil Contract party, former Mayor Hayk Marutian and 
former Labor Minister Mane Tandilian leading the opposition Aprelu Yerkir party. 
Avinian said on Thursday that Civil Contract expects to win a majority of seats 
in the city council that will appoint the next mayor of the Armenian capital.




Karabakh Leader Offers Russian-Mediated Talks With Azerbaijan


Nagorno-Karabakh - Gurgen Nersisian delivers a video address on Facebook, August 
25, 2023.

Russia should be asked to organize negotiations between representatives of the 
Azerbaijani government and Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership, a senior official in 
Stepanakert said on Friday.

“I believe that we should appeal to Russia, all actors taking an interest in the 
situation [in and around Karabakh] with a proposal to organize a meeting with 
Azerbaijan on the existing situation, security issues and the disastrous 
humanitarian situation in Artsakh,” Gurgen Nersisian, the Karabakh premier, said 
in a video message posted on Facebook.

“The results of that meeting should be presented to our public and appropriate 
decisions should be made afterwards,” added Nersisian.

Azerbaijani officials and Karabakh representatives were reportedly due to meet 
in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia in early July for talks organized by Western 
mediators. Karabakh sources said it was rescheduled for August 1 but then 
cancelled by the Azerbaijani side. Baku wants such negotiations to be held in 
Azerbaijani proper, according to them.

A spokeswoman for Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, confirmed last 
week that he accepted an Azerbaijani proposal to hold the meeting in the 
Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh on August 5. She said Stepanakert cancelled it for 
security reasons after Azerbaijani security forces arrested a seriously ill 
Karabakh resident as he was evacuated to Armenia through the Lachin corridor.

Nersisian said the talks should take place at the Karabakh headquarters of 
Russian peacekeepers or “in any other safe venue” because “nobody can guarantee 
the physical security of our citizens in Azerbaijan.” They must also be held 
“with the participation of a third party,” he said.

Baku maintains that the dialogue must focus on Karabakh’s “reintegration into 
Azerbaijan” rejected by Stepanakert. The Karabakh leadership says it must first 
and foremost address the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor which has 
caused severe shortages of food, medicine and energy in the Armenian-populated 
region. It has dismissed an alternative, Azerbaijani-controlled supply route 
proposed by the Azerbaijani side.

Nersisian charged that Baku’s key aim is to commit “genocide” or at least force 
the Karabakh Armenians to leave their homeland.

“Therefore, claims that making concessions in response to Azerbaijan’s demands 
could give us a breathing space are unserious,” he said. “They are baseless 
illusions. On the contrary, they would further complicate our situation.”




France Said To Seek UN Security Council Resolution On Karabakh

        • Astghik Bedevian

France - France's President Emmanuel Macron walks on the day of the annual 
Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris, July 14, 
2023.


France is reportedly planning to propose a UN Security Council resolution 
against Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade of the Lachin corridor and the 
resulting humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The French daily Le Figaro reported on Wednesday that the draft resolution which 
Paris is “preparing to submit” to the council is designed to help Karabakh’s 
ethnic Armenian population left “on the verge of starvation.” It gave few other 
details.

The French Embassy in Yerevan did not confirm or refute the report. It pointed 
to French President Emmanuel Macron’s interview with another French publication, 
Le Point, published earlier on Wednesday. Macron said that his government will 
keep pressing for the reopening of the Lachin corridor and the resumption of 
urgent relief supplies to Karabakh.

The Security Council discussed the worsening humanitarian crisis in Karabakh 
last week during an emergency meeting initiated by Armenia. Although most of its 
members, notably the United States, France and Russia, urged the lifting of the 
Azerbaijani blockade, the Council stopped short of adopting a relevant 
resolution or statement.

The U.S. on Wednesday denied claims that it is trying to prevent the key UN body 
from condemning the Azerbaijani blockade. “We have not seen a draft resolution,” 
the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan told the Armenpress news agency.

France, which is home to a sizable Armenian community, has been the most vocal 
international critic of the eight-month Azerbaijani blockade. Baku has 
repeatedly accused Macron and other French officials of siding with Armenia in 
the Karabakh conflict.

CCAF, a coalition of leading Armenian Diaspora organizations in France, 
announced on Thursday that the municipal administrations of Paris and several 
other French cities and districts have decided to send an aid convoy to 
Karabakh. It said their mayors, including Anne Hidalgo of Paris, will personally 
escort on August 30 ten trucks loaded with basic necessities to an Armenian 
border checkpoint adjacent to the starting point of the Lachin corridor and try 
to ensure their passage to Karabakh.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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